Wolf Trap

by Linda Thomas-Sundstrom

  “Par-ker,” Chloe said as the smell of fresh gauze filled her nostrils. She would loathe that smell from now on.

  “Is that your name?” the doctor asked.

  “His.”

  “Are you married?”

  “No.”

  “Boyfriend?”

  Chloe hesitated on that one. “No.”

  “Who is Parker?”

  More smelly gauze. And sticky tape applied to her tender forehead.

  “Doctor,” she said, keeping the rest private, where those thoughts belonged. Keeping them close.

  “There’s no one here by that name. How did you get here? There’s no car outside.”

  A fresh recollection of being carried out of the hospital and into the night made Chloe stutter, “W-where…am I?”

  She clamped her teeth together again. The seismic pulses coming from her insides were getting stronger, not weaker. So much for the meds. She felt as though she had swallowed a small animal, still alive and kicking and wanting to get out. Perhaps, though, that feeling was just a metaphor for wanting out of wherever the hell she was. She was that small animal. Trapped.

  Breathing seemed impossible. There were no tubes clogging her throat, yet nothing got past. Her arms and legs had started to twitch. Claustrophobia closed in, further dimming her surroundings. She had to get out of wherever she was, get outside. Find him.

  “This is Fairview Hospital,” the doctor said, and after a pause added, “It looks as if you’ve recently visited another medical facility. I don’t think they would have released you without your clothes, so it would help if I knew how you got here. If you came here to get help for your injuries, this isn’t the right place. On the other hand, if you came here seeking solace for other reasons, we’ll do what we can for you tonight and call the proper authorities tomorrow.”

  Another pause, then, “Since your distress seems to be growing, I think you might need more medication, after all. Let’s get you downstairs where you’ll be more comfortable, shall we?”

  “No!”

  Did they listen to her protest? Had her cry even made it past her lips? For the second time that night, Chloe felt herself being lifted, this time by someone dowsed in aftershave.

  She opened her eyes, focused on the face above hers. Fleshy brown male face. Spiky brown hair. Brown expressionless eyes, not exactly unkind.

  This was not the man she wanted to see. Where had Parker Madison gone? Why had he left her alone?

  “Stop,” Chloe said, forming the word distinctly.

  “It’s all right,” the female soothed from behind. “You can decide what to do in the morning if you’re feeling up to it. You’ll be safe here until then.”

  Safe? She didn’t feel safe. She felt sick. Her stomach was turning over. She couldn’t get a handle on the shakes. The room spun around faster and faster…taking her with it.

  Parker returned the next night, morphed and anxious. He’d barely made it through the day knowing he couldn’t be near the girl, feeling guilty for having abandoned her. There was no way he could explain now. There had been two messages from Dr. James, which he’d had to ignore. He had dropped his she-wolf off on Fairview’s doorstep, wrapped in a blanket, anonymously. He had rung the bell! How could he have stood there, naked, holding her? If he’d been arrested, how would that help?

  How had Jenna James known his name, and where to place that call?

  He paced like a caged wolf along the chain-link fence bordering the gate to Fairview’s driveway, wondering which room his she-wolf might be in, and if he could climb up there. Moonlight followed him, highlighting the tracks he had already worn in the grass, adding to his agitation. What was happening to her inside Fairview? Had he been wrong to leave her there?

  He hated himself for taking part in any of this. In his defense, the only one he had at the moment, if any staff from Fairview had laid eyes on him as he was now, in this mountainous form, they’d have checked themselves into their own damn mental facility.

  He took a quick swipe at the air with his claws, listened hard, cocked his head and dropped to a low crouch. A growl bubbled up.

  He wasn’t alone.

  Hunkering down, tightening his imposing shoulders, Parker sniffed the air, turned slowly and crept with the stealth of his four-legged relatives toward the open gate.

  He sniffed again, searched the area, then abruptly stood.

  Wolf. No mistaking the scent this time.

  Apprehensive, and with an image of the pale wolf in his mind, Parker waited, leaning in the direction of the scent, every nerve fiber on alert. This was the kind of odor that had lured him to the Landau estate, which in turn had kicked off this whole series of events.

  There! Movement! Along the fence on the opposite side of Fairview’s front lawn something drew his attention. As whatever it was passed through a patch of unimpeded moonlight, Parker saw the outline of a beast. Not the pale-pelted version he might have expected, but a creature whose brown hide shone like bronze.

  It was a huge male, moving like a predator.

  The fur on the back of Parker’s neck rose. Baring his teeth in an automatic reaction, he watched the dreadful beast’s progress.

  Friend or foe?

  Just a minute more. I’ve waited this long.

  God, how I’ve waited.

  The big male moved in a graceful sweep of wolfish muscle and bone as it approached a second gate sitting open, on the far side of the circular driveway. As he walked, he stared intently up at the hospital’s brick facade. At the gate he stopped to transfer his gaze to a car parked by the steps.

  Four, Parker noted with trepidation. Four wolves now, counting the girl. Was that too many, or too few? This was the time to approach the brown wolf, reach out.

  Parker slipped forward several paces, then halted when he saw his target head through that open gate. A security light immediately snapped on, flooding the section of driveway where the beast stood. He hauled himself up as if he’d been zapped by an invisible electric fence, and cocked his head, considering the light. The low, almost tormented growl he issued caused Parker to growl, as well.

  Hearing Parker’s retort, the werewolf spun around with his massive muscles rippling. Parker felt the instant his gaze found him standing there, black as the night, but highlighted by the shower of moonlight.

  The brown wolf growled again menacingly as he advanced with a bound. After considering Parker for several seconds, he swiped a sharp claw across his chest, drawing a thin, dark line of blood. The scent of iron filled the air.

  Rocking on his feet, and with that smell in his nostrils, Parker mirrored the other werewolf’s gesture by tearing at his own chest. Was this some sort of species recognition, like male apes pounding on their chests to ward off competition?

  Competition for what?

  Daring to take his eyes off the brown werewolf, Parker glanced warily toward the hospital with a sudden buildup of bad thoughts. Had this other male ferreted out the girl he’d brought to Fairview, about to become a she-wolf? The girl he sincerely hoped was now safe and secure inside a werewolf-proof place?

  Damnation! Unexpectedly, Miami had become crowded with genetic anomalies. Suddenly, Parker, his body rigid with tension, found himself wondering how many others there might be, and how many people he knew might be living with secrets.

  Keeping his teeth bared in caution, Parker zeroed in on this new werewolf and waited for whatever might happen next. What did was yet another surprise. The gesture the brown man-wolf made with his great head and thickly muscled neck was universal for follow me. Then he turned, took a few purposeful strides and pivoted back to Parker, waiting for him to catch up.

  The night had gone from dubiously dreamlike to surreal. Time seemed to slow as Parker watched the wolf. His surroundings narrowed until the hospital and its grounds faded into a hazy, colorless swirl, with not Fairview, but the impressively large brown beast as its epicenter.

  Not just one wolf, were the words repeating in Parke
r’s head. Not just one, or even three, but four.

  With a boldness ingrained in his beast’s tweaked DNA sequencing, Parker accepted the challenge by striding forward. The brown werewolf gave a nod, then headed for the trees. Parker followed, needing those answers now more than ever, not wanting to be the last wolf standing. Because this newest revelation changed everything. Again.

  This moment was sure to be yet another turning point in his life. One of so very many.

  The sucker was fast, but Parker wasn’t about to lose him. Moonlight provided the impetus, the desire to push himself to the limits. His wolf body, like a well-oiled machine, allowed him to effortlessly cover ground in pursuit.

  For a while, as he raced through the dark and the moonlight, Parker felt curiously freed from the mounting stresses of harboring secrets. With the balmy air in his lungs, the wind in his hair and the sacred light from above making this possible, he wanted to shed the last vestiges of normalcy and bay at the moon. He wanted to give in to the wildness of communing with the night. The feeling was new and wickedly exciting.

  The big wolf eventually slowed, dropped onto his haunches and turned his head to await Parker’s arrival. So there they were, inches apart, face-to-face at last.

  The strangeness of this meeting was something Parker figured he’d never get over. This werewolf appeared to be startlingly similar to himself in every way, but still, there were noticeable differences, just as in the simple allotment of two eyes, a nose and a mouth, there were differences in people.

  It might have been irrational to feel a kinship with another monster, but he did. This guy shared his plight. A man resided somewhere inside that huge body. Who was it? What did he do for a living when not running wild in the night? Were there others?

  The wolf beside him was silent, yet so intent that Parker almost expected him to speak through those elongated jaws. Intelligent eyes outlined in gold fixed him with a serious expression. The spell was broken when an echoing noise interrupted their little bonding session. Gunfire, it sounded like. Two rounds in succession, and fairly close. A contemporary, modern-day call of the wild.

  The brown Were leaped to his feet, snarling as he acknowledged the noise. Parker caught the fever and snarled back. As insane as it might have been, he and this wolf had connected through those vicious vocalizations. They were on the same wavelength.

  Trouble lay ahead, and they were going that way.

  Chapter 13

  “I’ve given her two sedatives and she’s still shaking,” the female voice remarked, sounding faint and faraway. Chloe’s head continued to spin, and her heart beat way too fast, like an accelerator pedal stuck to the floorboard of a car in neutral.

  “She can’t handle any more. I won’t chance it,” the woman continued. “I’d like to change those bandages she’s pulled loose before she hurts herself. Can you hold her?”

  A male baritone replied, “Sure thing, Dr. James. Will we need a jacket?”

  They were speaking as if Chloe wasn’t there. As if she were unconscious. She forced her eyes open and saw the grim expression of the doctor above her.

  The woman had a lovely face, surrounded by auburn hair, pulled back in a clip. Her big eyes were framed by dark lashes, and her skin was perfectly smooth, an unblemished, unwrinkled ivory. The lips that parted to formulate her next words were full and unglossed. Not pretty, was Chloe’s immediate assessment. She was too beautiful, too perfect, to be considered merely pretty. Had to be smart, too, to be a doctor.

  “Hello,” Dr. James said. “Can you hear me?”

  Chloe blinked once. That’s what people did in the movies to signify a yes. She didn’t trust herself to speak, afraid of screaming.

  “Do you understand what I’m saying?” The doctor’s penetrating eyes seemed to bore into her.

  Chloe blinked again, slowly. The pain seemed to trace the edges of her body now, as if she’d been outlined in black ink.

  “You’re at Fairview Hospital,” Dr. James explained, starting over. “You’ve been having seizures, so we’ve sedated you. The seizures might be related to your head wound. Do you remember getting that wound?”

  “Yes.” Chloe hadn’t screamed, after all, though the urge to do so made it dangerously possible.

  “Were you attacked?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’ve been treated. I see the stitches. Did whoever sewed you up let you go? Did you find your own way here?”

  Chloe tried to shake her head, and a bolt of fire sliced through her, inciting reactionary movement from every muscle. Her arms, head and legs moved independently of her brain. She tightened as many pieces of herself as she could, and shrieked with the effort.

  The doctor’s voice registered deep concern. “You’re about to seize again. Can you tell me your name? At least that much?”

  Chloe wanted to comply. She tried to say her name, but her chattering teeth and side-to-side head movements seemed to be addling her thought processes. She felt nauseous.

  “Stay with me,” the doctor said. “Try to focus. Stay with me.”

  That request was impossible. Chloe’s body was thrashing so violently that she had to close her eyes for fear they’d fall out of their sockets. She didn’t want to close them. Doing so meant slipping back into darkness.

  “Keep her in the ward?” the baritone asked, applying pressure to Chloe’s shoulders with his big hands.

  “For now. We might need restraints, but God, I hope not. That last sedative should kick in soon.”

  “Do you know what this is, Doctor?”

  Yes, Chloe seconded. Tell me what’s happening!

  “She’s in shock. She’s had some sort of trauma that’s being kept inside. It’s in there festering, physically and mentally. Problem is, we have to placate the body before we can deal with the mind. We have to try to keep her comfortable until she can speak.”

  “Maybe restraints would help to keep her hands away from her face?”

  “No. Not unless it’s absolutely necessary. We’ll wait to see if that sedative works. I don’t want to cause her any more discomfort than she’s already experiencing. I don’t want her to think we’re part of the problem. I think she…I’m afraid she might be…”

  “Yeah, Dr. James?”

  “Well, I’ll stay with her awhile. Can you can start the rounds, Jim?”

  “Whatever you say,” the baritone agreed.

  Chloe swore—aside from all of what was happening to her, and with her eyes closed—that she felt Jim leave the room.

  “Can you hear me?”

  Chloe came to again slowly, with no idea where she was. Her first realization was that her pain seemed to have diminished. That in itself seemed a miracle.

  She was able to lie still and to breathe through her nose. She also knew she was being stared at by someone waiting for a question to be answered.

  “Yes,” she said, wading back to the question itself. “I hear you.”

  “How do you feel?”

  “Ill.” She hadn’t wanted to admit that, but did anyway.

  “We’ve reached a limit on the medication,” the voice explained. “I’m using hypnosis to get you to relax, and to provide a brief respite from the pain, which seems to be getting worse. Do you know where you are?”

  “Hospital.”

  “Can you tell me your name?”

  “Chloe.”

  “Chloe what? What’s your last name?”

  “Tyler.” She heard a ticking noise in the periphery, as if they were sitting next to a clock. It had a calming effect. This woman’s questions didn’t.

  “Where do you live, Chloe Tyler?”

  “Used to be the desert. Phoenix. Now, by the water.”

  “Here in Miami?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you live alone?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you bring yourself here? It’s an important question, Chloe, so please answer.”

  “Parker brought me.”

  “He is the d
octor you mentioned earlier.”

  “Did I mention him earlier?”

  “Chloe, listen to my voice, please, and answer this question. Where is he? Where’s the man who brought you here?”

  Was the ticking somewhere in the room or inside her head? Hard to tell.

  “He’s not at the other hospital, so where might I find him?” the doctor asked.

  An answer formulated that Chloe would not say. She would never do so. If everything he had told her was the truth, in any way, shape, form or parallel universe, her delectable doctor would probably be running through the dark out there, playing werewolf. But then everybody had a flaw or two, right? Chloe’s was a massive stubborn streak, plus moments of outright rebellion. Hadn’t her parents always warned her about those traits? Did her behavior even matter now that her folks were gone?

  “Why did he bring you here without speaking to me?” the doctor asked.

  “He couldn’t speak.”

  “Why not?”

  “Moon,” Chloe said, wondering why she had, again feeling compelled by the nature of the questions and the tone of the doctor’s voice to answer correctly. Then there was that darn ticking. She felt her heart adapt to the tempo.

  “Moon?” the doctor repeated, her voice changing slightly, enough for Chloe to gain a foothold on that old rebelliousness. She would not say another word. Would not.

  “What about the moon?” The doctor had returned to her former tone in such a way as to absolutely require Chloe to answer the question.

  She felt her mouth opening, heard herself say, “Werewolf,” her resoluteness slipping as quickly as that. “He is a werewolf.”

  Although a silence fell, the room wasn’t completely quiet. Chloe’s uneven breathing sounded to her like a chugging freight train.

  The doctor said, “Did he make that wound on your arm?”

  “No.” Chloe squirmed, wanting to run away from that particular answer. No going that deep.

  “Who did? Who did this to you?”

  She clammed up tight, didn’t want to think about her arm, but seemed unable to resist the images flashing in front of her, sketched in paint and ink by the doctor’s voice. The nasty men were there, near Landau’s wall. They had caught her, thrown her to the ground, kicked her in the ribs, punched her in the face. But they hadn’t finished the damage. They had merely warmed her up for someone else, a monster who had appeared so quickly, she hadn’t registered his approach. Like a shadow, he’d come on. A nightmare. A man with no face, just…just all that pale hair shielding his features. An evil presence that brought overwhelming pain and suffering.