by C. R. Jane
This would be okay, I reassured myself. My boss was terrible. But I could do this. This was a temporary situation.
For the next three hours, I worked straight, clearing every table, delivering meals so fast that I found myself waiting on Rae to plate up the dishes. As I stood behind the bar near the kitchen window, I took a sip from my bottled water, noticing Wilder watching me from across the table. He stood near the entrance as a small group of customers left the diner.
The hairs on my neck shifted with the way he stared at me. Shadows gathered under his eyes like it infuriated him just seeing me exist.
“Order’s up,” Rae called from the kitchen, and I turned as he slid two plates loaded down with steak and roasted vegetables.
What amazed me was that nearly every order tonight consisted of various cuts of meat with a side dish. Either there was a special on tonight on the steak dishes, or this town loved their meat.
I quickly delivered the meals and collected the empty glasses from the next table. Taking a moment, I slipped back into the bar and picked up three drinks on a tray for delivery. I delivered them to a booth where three guys maybe in their late twenties sat. They all greeted me with smiles.
That was a change.
Their faces looked familiar. Oh, they were at the bar last night I realized. I remembered them laughing at my comment about all the wolf decorations.
“Wilder didn’t tell us he had a new girl on board,” the dark-haired man said, while the other two stared at me with newfound interest, like they were seeing me for the first time. Leering was a better word for it actually. It made me uncomfortable, so I just smiled in response and walked away. As I left, one of them called out after me, “Fine ass. Why don’t you bend over for us?” All three of them howled with laughter.
I pretended I didn’t hear them, but dark memories sprung up in my head. Of Alistair’s pack members mocking me, harassing me, saying vulgar things.
I sunk into the shadows near the kitchen as the visions assaulted me. I tried to catch my breath…to stop my racing pulse as a panic attack threatened. I tried to remind myself I’d escaped.
Keep it together. Just keep it together.
When I glanced up, I caught Wilder’s eyes on me, his presence like a blanket, suffocating me, something unreadable in his gaze.
He started coming this way, and my stomach twisted on itself. Loud footfalls hit the wooden floorboards like thunder. He moved with sureness, with the gracefulness of a predator.
My breath rushed past my lips.
The kitchen bell rang like a salvation call, and it ripped me out of my frozen state. Not waiting for Wilder to reach me, I practically ran to the window and collected the next deliveries, shaking myself out of the dark moment.
Wilder shoved his way down a corridor adjacent to the kitchen door, where I assumed his office was, and I breathed easy. For the rest of the night, I worked my ass off, while steering clear of the leering men. I kept glancing up toward the corridor for any sign of Wilder, but he never made a show for the rest of my shift.
Eve kept to herself, doing her job, chatting and laughing with customers…even the three men at the booth.
I couldn’t help but feel like they all knew something I didn’t, like they weren’t exactly acting like themselves around me.
I wanted to believe it was all in my imagination.
But my gut instinct rarely steered me wrong.
5
Rune
The next morning, when I hit the dirt path, I pushed into a jog. I had to run. It didn’t feel like a choice ever since arriving here. It was like there was something inside of me calling to me…forcing me to. It intensified every day to the point of madness, compelling me to go, even with the wolf problem this town seemed to have. I couldn’t explain it, but my skin seemed to itch insanely with the compulsion to run.
I put it down to anxiety.
Sitting still gave me time to ponder over everything I’d been through, while running distracted me as I had to focus on breathing and not tripping. That had to be it.
Running also offered me the chance to explore the town on the sly. Something still felt off in Amarok, something I couldn’t put my finger on.
There was the way people stared at me, the way they were either rude and dismissive, or so obviously fake that it made my skin feel slimy.
What were they so cautious about? With my past…I was the least dangerous person in the world. Not that they would know that. But nothing about me exactly screamed threat.
I shook my head, wondering why I even cared about Amarok’s secrets. I’d be out of here soon enough.
I smiled then, thinking about the fact that I’d made one hundred dollars in tips last night at the diner, even after splitting my money with Eve. I’d almost cried when she handed me my share of the tips. It meant I could buy a little food, put some away to pay for my room at the inn, and then put the rest into my savings to pay off my car.
My footsteps pounded into the ground as I pushed myself, enjoying the wind in my hair, feeling better than I had in too long. It didn’t seem possible, but running already felt easier, like there was something in the air here that just invigorated my body.
Sunlight tinted the sky in numerous shades of blues and oranges and violets while the long grasses swayed. The whole location was beautiful.
I crossed the large wooden bridge, inhaling the crisp air, wishing once again that I hadn’t wasted so much of my life, that I would have left Alistair long ago.
I wished those things even as I still missed him.
I glanced over to the row of small homes alongside the bank on this side of the river. Two locals stood in their yard talking, their eyes on me. That was the other thing. Everyone here was such a gossip. It was like I was in middle school again. They all whispered about me…stared at me.
That kind of behavior definitely made a girl paranoid.
I could handle that though. I just kept reminding myself this was heaven compared to where I’d come from.
I ran at a leisurely pace on the track alongside the road. The sun beat on my shoulders, and birds chirped in the trees. Perfection. I made a conscious effort to keep my eyes out, considering the wolf I’d crossed paths with. I wasn’t going to go into the woods today but remain close to town, following the curve of the road along the wood’s edge.
A sudden and repetitive engine groan grew louder, and I edged farther off the road, twisting around to see who was driving this way.
A black Jeep cruised forward and seemed to slow upon approaching me.
I squinted to get a view of who was driving, but the dark windows and low afternoon sun made that close to impossible.
My initial instinct was to back away quickly from whoever approached me, but that made me look super paranoid, right?
I paused my run, my breath speeding up as the vehicle stopped on the road alongside me. The window slid down, and the first thing I saw were those green eyes that had haunted my dreams since I first saw them. Of course those eyes came with the usual twisted snarl on his lips.
Wilder.
Fuck. What now? After his behavior at the diner yesterday, I vowed to keep as much distance between us as possible…ignoring the fact that certain parts of my body felt differently about his anger than the rest of me did.
I shouldn’t feel this blend of foreboding and arousal when we crossed paths, but he managed to bring them out in me. I added that to the mental list I was keeping of all the reasons I hated myself.
Pushing some hair out of my face, I nervously smiled and glanced around, taking note no one else was around.
“Is something wrong?” I asked, my heart pounding against my chest.
With one hand gripping the steering wheel, his knuckles white from how hard he held it, he studied me. I ignored the voice in my head that told me to bolt out of there. If I intended to stay in town and work at his diner, then I had to find a way to find peace between us…and I really needed to stop cowering in fear every tim
e he was around.
The way he looked at me right now though…with dark heat behind his gaze…it did something to me. His gaze slowly perused my form, going from my tight leggings up to my tank top until it felt like he’d caressed every inch of my body. Butterflies burst inside my stomach, beating their wings, and my gaze kept brushing over his strong forearm from where he had his sleeve rolled up to his elbow. I shouldn’t let my mind wander there, but his muscles flexed as I stared transfixed, and all of a sudden, I foolishly was imagining myself in his arms. My breath heightened as I pictured him over me, under me…in me.
Just as quickly as the thoughts came, I shook them away because seriously…what the fuck was wrong with me? Of all people, I shouldn’t be picturing anything with Wilder and I. Something must be seriously broken inside me that I had a fascination with assholes.
“You’re out here alone,” he barked, stating the obvious.
My hackles rose at his tone, the lust I’d felt rapidly dissipating. My response slipped past my lips. “Exactly, I’m out here alone, not in the woods. Is there a problem?”
“I would have thought Jim or Carrie, or even Licia would have warned you about being alone so close to the woods.” He didn’t look happy in the slightest, and for the life of me, I couldn’t work him out. One minute, he wanted to fire me, the next, he sounded like he might care about something happening to me. That couldn’t be right.
“You need to trust me on this,” he continued, one of his thick eyebrows arching.
Trust? I hated that word. I’d learned early on that when people used it, it meant you should run, as quickly and as far away from them as you could. Just hearing the word made my pulse race with frustration and suspicion.
Wilder was adept at twisting my insides. He seemed to enjoy hanging me out to dry seemingly without a care in the world. In fact, I got the feeling he enjoyed making me suffer.
“It almost sounds like you care,” I answered, sarcastically. “But I’m not afraid of wild animals, at least not during the day. Is there something else I should be worried about?”
He hadn’t stopped staring at me, hell, I wasn’t even sure that he’d blinked since pulling up. A flare of worry wormed through my gut that I’d chewed off more than I could handle. I got the impression Wilder was so much more than he appeared. There was an air of danger choking the air around him that had all my senses on high alert.
What if he fired me again for talking back to him just now? I mean, that was stupid, but I wouldn’t put it past him.
“If this is your attempt to scare me out of town, you should know, monsters and urban legends don’t scare me,” I murmured when he didn’t respond. It was true, I knew that the monsters you should be scared of weren’t the ones that your mother told you about at night. The ones you needed to be scared of were the ones your mother willingly pushed you towards, the ones hiding in plain sight.
I let my gaze slide over to his broad chest. My gaze seemed to make his breaths speed up. I stiffened, suddenly imagining him getting out of the car and forcing me to get in with him to take me back into town. That would be something he’d do.
“There are far worse things than monsters out here. You should be careful when you stumble into someone else’s backyard, Rune.”
With those foreboding words, he hit a button on his door, and the window slid back up, stealing him from my sight. Not a second passed, and he drove down the road, disappearing around the bend of the road that took him into the actual woods.
I fought the anger he awoke in me. “Who the hell do you think you are?” I called out to no one except the woods surrounding me. It suddenly felt like a million eyes were watching me, and I shivered standing there, hating that he’d shattered the little bit of peace I’d managed to grab for myself this afternoon.
Fuck him.
I kept staring in the direction he drove, as if daring him to turn around so I could actually tell him everything I thought about him. Sighing at my stupidity, I shook my head and started running again. No matter what he threw at me, I was better off in this town. I’d adapt and ignore him.
I swung around and started running back closer to town and away from wherever he’d been heading. I made my way quickly…well, as much as my lungs would allow, when the crunch of twigs echoed from the woods behind me as if the universe had decided to prove Wilder right about being out here alone.
I peered over my shoulder, but there was no one there, just the sunlight pouring through the canopy of trees. A strange silence fell over the landscape though. No birds. No wind.
Just me and my breath quickening. I dug my hand into my pocket and pulled out the small mace I’d had in there. I’d purchased it in town right before my run…just in case of those wild animals I claimed not to be afraid of.
I gripped it, my hand shaking.
“Please don’t let Wilder be right,” I whispered.
I leapt back into a run and made my way closer to town, well aware that running wasn’t a good thing when it came to predators. But I wasn’t about to lay down and pretend to be dead either.
The crunch came again, closer that time, and I twisted my head in the direction of the woods farther across the road, swearing I’d just seen a shadow flitter amid the trees.
No, I must have imagined it.
My heart raced, and the hairs on my arms lifted. I choked on the trepidation curling inside my chest, but I kept going, pushing one leg in front of the other, refusing to freeze over. I could just picture it now, Wilder coming to the hospital after I was attacked and singing his I told you song.
No thank you.
It was probably just a squirrel, or a bunny… Lots of things lived in the forest. It was at times like these that I wished I possessed any of my wolf senses and wolf abilities. Not many things dared to stand up to wolves.
I kept checking over my shoulder as I ran when a snarl rolled from up ahead of me.
I swung my head back to the road, my hand with the mace raised, ready to use. The town lay up ahead, but my attention fell on a figure on the ground at the side of the road.
My heart catapulted right into my throat.
Powdery white and gray fur fluttered in the light breeze on the wolf lying on its side.
The animal half-whimpered, half-snarled, its head lifting as if attempting to pull itself up. Then it collapsed back down. The cries it made broke my heart. I loved all animals, and I couldn’t stand by to see any of them harmed, even an apex-predator.
I moved closer with short steps, trying to make enough sound to grab its attention and avoid spooking it further.
Its large head swiveled in my direction once again with haunted looking pale blue eyes that I’d never be able to forget. They were almost human-like, seeming to implore me for help. The animal kept looking into the woods and back at me as if trying to tell me something, but when I scanned the area, I saw nothing.
“What happened to you?” I stepped closer, hugging myself, my muscles tense, ready for me to bolt at a moment’s notice should the animal leap to its feet. Except the closer I got, the clearer the issue came to light.
It sported a huge gaping wound across its back leg, blood dripping into the fur and onto the ground. The closer I looked, the worse the injury appeared, and I was certain I could see down to bone.
“Oh, crap. That really looks really bad. What bit you?” I gasped and terror traveled up my spine that something really was roaming these woods. What kind of creature could take a bite like that out of a wolf? Standing about five feet away, I noticed the trail of blood leading right into the woods from where the wolf must have dragged itself out here. Why would a wild animal come to the road?
The wild look in its eyes touched me in a way I never expected, and I knew exactly what I had to do.
“I’ll be right back, I promise I won’t leave you out here.” I felt stupid talking out loud like it could understand me, but it was helping me to stay at least a little bit calm as my mind raced with what to do.
Those big eyes remained on me, and I cringed each time I looked at his back leg and how badly it had been mangled. It was terrifying to think about what could have done that. Another wolf maybe?
Wilder’s words swirled in my mind.
I took one last look at the poor wolf, then back into the woods. If something really was watching us, would the wolf even be here by the time I returned with help?
I turned and ran faster than I thought possible, my skin crawling, never once looking back.
I darted over the bridge and pushed myself up toward the main road flanked by stores. I remember spotting a doctor’s office a few days ago. I somehow doubted a town this small would have a veterinary, so a normal doc would have to do.
The blinds on the doctor’s office window were shut, but I tried the door anyway, breathing a sigh of relief when it opened. I hurried inside as I tucked my mace back into my pocket. I was breathing so heavily, I drew everyone’s attention. For all they knew, I might have come in here suffering from a heart attack with how much I was huffing and puffing.
White. That was all I saw at first. White walls, reception counter, chairs, and even the television playing on mute was white.
“Are you all right?” the receptionist asked, wide eyed as if I’d startled her. She struggled up from her seat, and I had the random thought that her white scrubs probably weren’t smart in a doctor’s office.
An older woman sitting on the row of chairs against the window stared at me with disdain. I did a double take to ensure I was seeing right. Under her gaze, I felt like a bug under a microscope. She held onto a wide-brimmed yellow hat and was crushing the brim like she was anxious.
I drew in rushed breaths, trying to calm them as I stumbled toward the counter. “I-I’m f-fine.” Gasping for air, I kept going. “I think I just ran a mile in five minutes.”
Laughter came from the woman in the waiting chair. “Oh dear, you are very out of shape if you’re barely catching your breath from just one mile.”
I stiffened, but couldn’t argue with her. I was out of shape, but a five-minute mile would be hard for anyone, lady, I thought indignantly. She wore a floral dress past her knees and had to be in her late fifties with her short, wavy hairstyle. I bet she couldn’t make that run in five minutes. Even if she was on the thinner side. She watched me with a scowl, and I put it down to her being in the hating the newcomer camp.
