by Kait Nolan
“Are you the wolf I’ve been hearing all these years? Do you have a mate somewhere? A pack? The people I work with thought I was crazy for saying there were wolves in the park. But I know what I heard.”
Of course he didn’t actually respond to that. But as I talked some of the tension seemed to leak out of him, so I kept going. “You could have been hurt, you know. Knocking me out of the way like that. I don’t know why you did it, but thank you for saving me.”
The wolf inclined his head, as if in acknowledgement.
Tentatively, I held out my hand. Without hesitation, he took a stumbling step forward, dipping his head to nuzzle my palm.
“Oh! You were hurt!”
I scrambled stiffly to my knees, reaching toward him before my brain could telegraph that this was a bad idea. But the wolf held still, letting me examine him. Nothing seemed to be broken, but he whined a little when I felt my way down his right flank. My hand came away bloody.
“Looks like the truck clipped you,” I said. I don’t know why I kept talking, except that it seemed to keep him calm and make me feel less panicked. “You could use stitches.”
He looked at me steadily, intelligently. Surely he wasn’t understanding what I was saying? His gaze stayed on me as I made it to my feet. Would he follow me?
“I could clean you up at least. Disinfect the wound. Which is stupid because you’ll never follow me all the way home.”
And how was I going to get home anyway? Obviously the roads weren’t safe. Whoever was driving that truck had tried to hit me. Deliberately. I still needed to think about what that meant. But first I had to get home where it was safe. I guessed it was time to test out my nighttime navigation skills.
Feeling like an idiot, I patted my leg. “C’mon. Come with me.”
I retrieved my pack and took a few steps. The wolf followed. It went on that way for a couple of long miles. I’d go a few feet, then check to make sure he was following. He had to be someone’s pet, I decided. No way would an actual wild animal freaking follow me home. I kept up a steady stream of inane chatter the whole way. The wolf patiently limped after me. Maybe I could get in and grab the first aid supplies and slip back out before Dad noticed. Sure. And maybe pigs would fly. I was so dead.
But the house was dark when we broke the tree line. I slumped with relief. I didn’t know where he was, but I’d worry about it later. For now, I owed my rescuer some first aid. My brain was too addled to think about how that was going to work just yet, so I kept moving forward, doing the next thing, as if he were a person.
I opened the back door. “Wait here,” I called.
The first aid kit was in the bathroom. There was no way to know how much time I had, so I needed to be fast. I raced through the house, slapping on lights as I went. When I ran back into the kitchen I found the wolf slumped on the floor next to the kitchen table, blood dripping out on the tile. He didn’t even lift his head when I came in.
“Oh, God, no.” Was he dead? Passed out? I started to lunge forward, then checked myself. Possible wild animal. Wounded. Don’t be an idiot.
I approached him slowly. He was still breathing. When I laid a hand on his shoulder, he peeled open one eye and looked at me as if to say, Do what you have to.
I flipped open the first aid kit on the kitchen table. Because it was Dad’s it covered practically every eventuality other than field surgery. Which meant that there were actually sutures. I didn’t really think we’d get that far, but maybe I could at least disinfect the wound and get some antibiotic ointment in it before the wolf ran off again. Not that he seemed like he’d be running anywhere any time soon.
“Okay, easy now.” I knelt to examine the flank. It was steadily leaking blood, staining his fur, the floor. “Easy.” With one eye on his head and those teeth, I dabbed carefully with a clean cloth, trying to see how bad it was. The three inch gash did need stitches, but it didn’t look like any major arteries had been cut.
“I’m going to disinfect this now. It’s going to sting.” I crouched, armed with the bottle of hydrogen peroxide, prepared to spring back if he lunged. I tipped the bottle, splashing peroxide into the wound.
The wolf didn’t make a sound and didn’t make any effort to attack. I eased forward and flushed the wound some more. There was an awful mess on the floor as the blood and peroxide poured down. Thank God for tile. When the disinfectant no longer bubbled, I pressed a towel against the wound to staunch the flow of blood. The wolf turned his head to look at me.
“I know it hurts, I’m sorry. But I have to get it to stop bleeding.”
I held his eyes and thought of Sawyer, of the first time we’d met when he’d used his t-shirt to stop the bleeding of my wrist. The bit of t-shirt was still in my pocket.
“I think it’s starting to clot,” I said.
Beneath my hands the wolf began to tremble.
“Shhh,” I murmured. “I’ll be done in just a bit.”
The bleeding had slowed to a trickle, but as soon as he moved, it was going to start bleeding freely again. I was not so insane as to push my luck by trying to stitch up the gash. Even domesticated animals were put under for that kind of procedure. But I had to do something. Maybe I could get him to hold still long enough that I could put on some butterfly strips? They wouldn’t hold long but maybe long enough.
“Okay, look. I’ve got to do something to close up this wound,” I told the wolf.
Before I could present his options—as if he was going to answer me one way or the other—headlights swept over the wall in the living room.
“Oh shit! Oh shit, my dad’s home!”
There was no possible way I could explain why I had a wolf bleeding in the kitchen.
I whirled around, intending to find somewhere to hide him, but the wolf was nowhere in sight. I raced around the island, peeked into the laundry room. No wolf. Then I spotted the open back door. I ran across to shut it, peering into the yard. The wolf was simply gone, the only signs of his ever having been here the pile of bloody rags on the floor.
Chapter 8
Elodie
Outside the truck door slammed shut and I turned to face the mess in the kitchen. Panicked, I dumped a towel on the floor to sop up the mess in a hurry and gathered up the other bloody cloths, racing to toss them into the washer. I came back for the towel, hurriedly swiping the floor and turning off the big overhead light, leaving only the light over the kitchen table where the First Aid kit was spread out. Maybe he wouldn’t notice the floor in the shadows.
No time, no time. I got the towel and chucked it after the others in the washer and managed to collapse in a chair as the front door opened. In a spurt of inspiration, I doused a cotton ball with peroxide and was dabbing my own injuries with a shaking hand by the time Dad came into the kitchen.
“Where the hell have you—” He broke off and took one jerking step toward me before his EMT training kicked in and he stopped to assess me. “Are you okay?” Beneath the level, professional voice, I could hear the effort it took him to control himself.
“Bruises and scrapes mostly,” I said. Like him I tried to keep my voice matter of fact, but it trembled.
Dad dragged out the next chair and took the peroxide from me, grabbing some fresh cotton. “What happened?” I winced as he gently daubed my upper arm. Evidently I’d lost a good section of skin there, probably on my landing. I hadn’t even noticed it until now.
“My car broke down on the way home from work.”
“Broke down or wrecked?” he asked skeptically, looking over the rest of me.
I glared at him. “If I’d wrecked it, I would have said so. No, it broke down. Just kaput. Since I didn’t have any means of calling anybody, I left it locked with the emergency flashers on and started walking home. Then someone nearly ran me over.”
“What?” Dad’s voice chilled, and I recognized the Scary Quiet tone.
“Someone in a truck or SUV nearly ran me over.”
“On purpose?” he demanded.
“The driver was probably drunk. I dove off the side of the road and got banged up. The truck kept going. It might not even have seen me.” Total, bald-faced lie. The driver had to have seen me.
“Did you get a license plate? Make and model of the vehicle?”
“I hit a tree, so I didn’t get anything.”
“We’ll make a report anyway. Where did you hit the tree? Does anything feel broken?”
“My back. No, I don’t think anything’s broken.”
“Let me see.”
I swiveled around so he could lift my shirt and check out the damage. Dad swore viciously, and I knew then it must look pretty bad.
“We’re taking you to the hospital.” He was already up, grabbing his keys.
“Dad that’s completely unnecessary. Really. It’s just bruising. Seriously, I walked all the way home from the site. If something was seriously wrong, I wouldn’t have been able to do that. It’s just bruised. I’ll be sore for a few days.”
He grunted. “We’ll let it go until tomorrow, then reassess. Where’s your car?”
I told him where I’d left it.
“I’ll call for a tow. Finish cleaning up.”
I’d familiarized myself with all my visible scrapes and bruises by the time he came back. I was afraid of what I was going to see when I undressed and checked my back in the mirror.
“I’m gonna meet Jim up at the car. Will you be okay here for a little while?”
It was such an uncharacteristic thing for him to ask. Multiple sarcastic replies sprang to mind, but instead I said, “Yeah. I’ll be fine. I think I’m gonna go up and have a bath. Clean up. Then take some aspirin and go to bed early.”
“I’ll check in when I get back.”
Not until he’d walked out the door, cranked the truck and pulled out of the driveway did I budge from the table. Now that the adrenaline rush was wearing off, the pain was coming back, and along with it a vicious headache, so I moved a lot slower as I finished cleaning the floor properly and packing up the First Aid kit. Once I was satisfied that all traces of the wolf were gone, I dumped some detergent and Oxiclean into the washer and started the load. I thought about adding what I was wearing to the mix, but I wasn’t even sure yet if it was salvageable.
Upstairs I stripped out of my clothes and swiveled in front of the bathroom mirror.
“Holy shit.”
The deep purple bruise ran in a diagonal stripe from my right shoulder down to my hip. It was nearly five inches across in places. It was a miracle my spine hadn’t been broken on impact. The skin of my back was abraded from the bark of the tree, and my t-shirt was ripped in several spots. Not salvageable then. I was missing the top layer of skin from much of my right arm and leg, as if I’d skidded along the ground. Maybe I had. Maybe that’s what had slowed my impact enough to save me. I couldn’t remember.
I stepped into the shower to wash off the ground in dirt as best I could. The immediate sting of water and soap made me grit my teeth and whimper, but it cleared my head enough to think again.
Someone had tried to run me down. Deliberately. He’d sped up and changed lanes. But he hadn’t made it. Despite the relatively short distance between us, he hadn’t actually hit me. I didn’t know what kind of truck it was, but an engine that big should have been able to make up the distance. So why hadn’t he? Sure, part of it was that the wolf had knocked me out of the way, but I should never have been able to make it to the end of the pass in the first place. So if the driver hadn’t intended to kill me, what purpose would nearly running me down serve? Some kind of sick joke? Let’s terrify the lone walker for kicks. Or maybe . . . maybe it had been more personal. Maybe it was to see exactly how fast I could go.
A werewolf should be able to outrun a car.
I wanted to dismiss the thought immediately but forced myself to think it through.
My car had been running totally fine until this evening. I’d been away from the lab all day. Somebody could have messed with it, fixed it so that I’d break down on the way home. Which would mean that someone knew my schedule, my route. I’d been on edge for weeks now, feeling like someone was watching me, following me. I’d been sure I was just crazy. But just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean no one’s after you.
And just because you get attacked doesn’t necessarily mean you’re the target. What if Rich’s kidnapping hadn’t really been about him at all? That whole scene had just been bizarre. Awful, but so apparently random. If he’d fallen prey to some true nut job, wouldn’t the guy have killed him? Why trap him and leave him there with all the animal blood and gore unless you knew something else was supposed to be out there? Something for which such a set up should be the perfect bait. I was later than all my predecessors in my change. If I’d already shifted, almost certainly I would have been compromised and revealed myself.
Maybe there was no pattern. Maybe independently it all meant nothing. But taken together I couldn’t help but consider the possibility—what if a hunter had found me?
The thought made me go cold, despite the scalding water.
According to the journals, there hadn’t been a hunter involved in three generations. But what if the hunters hadn’t actually disappeared or lost track of us? What if they’d just gotten smarter and more subtle about how they went about the whole process? I mean, they’d have to, right? Forensics had gotten way better over the last several decades. They’d have to be a lot more careful about killing to avoid getting caught.
But how the hell could he have tracked me down? Everything about our lives since we got the letter had been about staying below the radar. We changed our names. We moved. I gave up friends, hobbies, a life. I avoided the internet. I did nothing to draw attention. The entire point was to avoid being found. Had all this hell been for nothing?
I was changing anyway. I’d long ago resigned myself to the fact that if it happened, I would have the strength to take myself out of the equation before I could hurt someone. To end the line with me, so no one else had to go through the nightmare. I’d just always thought it would be on my terms, my schedule.
I snapped the towel off the rack.
Damn if I was going to let a hunter decide it for me.
If this was all some kind of game intended to draw me out and verify that I was a werewolf, the hunter was going to be sorely disappointed. So far I hadn’t reacted the way he expected. Surely that bought me some time.
But time for what? To wait around for the next attempt on my life? That was hardly practical. It could come at any time, in any form. What if the next time I wasn’t alone? Who else might be endangered just by being near me? Dad? Sawyer? The thought of either of them being hurt made me nauseous. I wasn’t willing to risk anyone’s life but my own.
As I looked in the mirror I noticed with fascinated horror that the abrasions on my arm were already half healed. The change was coming. Sooner or later, the hunter would hit upon something that would confirm his suspicions. And he would try to kill me for real.
Now was not the time to stay passive and quiet.
I had to leave.
The contingency plan was in place. Had been for months. I just hadn’t honestly expected to have to use it. Certainly it’s not what Dad would expect me to do with all the training he’d put me through. For him, I think that was more about vicariously saving Mom or something. We never talked about it. He’d be pissed if he knew I’d been squirreling supplies away for this long. But he taught me to be prepared for anything. He couldn’t be mad that I’d taken him seriously.
I’d need a day or two to put things in place. Figure out how to tell Dad. Or not. No matter what we’d prepared for, I didn’t think he was actually ready to let me go. So maybe a letter explaining things would be better. Otherwise he’d try to stop me. Or come with me. And the whole point of this was to draw
the hunter away from him. It was my turn to protect him.
I had to say goodbye to Sawyer. There was an ache under my breastbone at the thought. He’d become so important to me so fast. We were just friends—I’d known that’s all we could ever be. But after this morning, I’d let myself entertain the idea that we could be more. That just made the whole thing worse, probably for both of us. He wouldn’t understand. He’d think he scared me off with what he’d said. What he didn’t know was how lucky I was to have had him in my life. Even if it was just for a few weeks, he made me feel normal for the first time in four years. But I had to go. I couldn’t possibly put him in a position to lose someone else, even just a friend, the way he’d lost his mother.
There was a soft knock on my door. “Ellie?”
Dad stuck his head in. I could just make out his outline silhouetted by the hall light.
“Yeah?”
“We got your car. I had it towed to the garage. Jim’s gonna take a look at it tomorrow, figure out what went wrong.”
“Okay. Thanks.”
He hesitated. “Are you okay?”
No, I was most definitely not okay. No amount of training could prepare me for what I was going to do. But it would give me a fighting chance, and that was more than my ancestors got. I had to make the most of it.
“I’m fine, Dad. I’ll see you in the morning.”
~*~
Elodie
“Bleach?” Sheriff Beasley’s caterpillar eyebrows lifted, creating a whole different set of wrinkles in his weathered face.
“Yes, sir,” said Jim. “See, it accelerates the rust process in the gas tank, and in an older car like hers, it added to years of normal wear, so that the rust particles gunk up the engine and make it stop. The engine’s probably toast, and the gas tank will definitely have to be replaced.”
