Just not the Erin she had come to know over the past few months. This Erin was a wolf in human form, her body moving in hunting mode. Every muscle was stretched tight and her face seemed to be transforming into her wolf’s snout even though it was still broad daylight. She looked at Becca from the silver eyes of a nearly wild thing, the accountant so far in the background it looked like she wasn’t coming up to the surface again.
Becca walked up to her, moving slowly with her hands held out in front of her, fingers open to show they were empty. She managed to stop herself from holding one to Erin’s nose to sniff. Instead she reached for her friend’s arm. “Erin? Come over here and sit for a minute.” She towed Erin into the store and nudged her onto the stool behind the counter. “Are you with me?”
Erin looked at her, her expression still alien. Then she shook her head like it would rattle her thoughts into place. The wolf slipped away, bit by bit. “Oh God, Becca, I’m sorry! I lose my way sometimes, especially when I get freaked out.” She leaned her face into her hands, long fingers buried in her short-cropped hair.
Becca couldn’t see her face. “Hey, Erin. Look up, please.” Erin threw her head back like a startled horse, the whites of her eyes showing all around the pupil. The fully human pupil. Becca relaxed a little. “Okay, honey, okay. Just sit down on the stool and take a deep breath. I don’t know what to do either, except tear the place apart looking for her. We can get the posse together at the meeting.” She rubbed Erin’s shoulder, gingerly at first, then with greater ease as she felt the other woman’s tight muscles relax a tiny bit.
“The tear-the-place-apart plan has been going forward all day and will keep going tonight, with another big round of it coming after the meeting. I was wondering if you could tell me something. Did Sara—Oya—tell you anything more about that cure of hers? Like if she had a lab or someplace they were making it?”
Becca flushed. The number, Oya’s number, was still in the pocket of the shirt that she worn yesterday. It was like Erin knew it was there, somehow. Which would mean that she knew, or at least suspected, that Becca had been thinking about the cure, real or otherwise. She gave Erin a suspicious glance but the other woman’s expression didn’t tell her anything. Maybe she meant the question just the way it sounded.
“She didn’t say anything about a lab, but she did give me her number. I think she was hoping I’d call up and want to get turned into a Nester.” Becca scuffed at the mat with her shoe and studied the floor like it had answers. It took her a moment to grasp the implications of what she’d just said. What if she did what Oya was hoping for? The Nesters might tell her what they’d done with Shelly. If she was very convincing, they might tell her before anything worse happened.
She gave Erin a long, steady stare. “But I could do that, couldn’t I? You want me to call her and say I want the cure, don’t you?”
Erin’s face lit up. “Do you think she’d go for it? If you can get close to them, maybe find out where their real base is, then we can…” Her voice trailed off. “What the hell am I saying? This is much too dangerous. I should call myself. Can you give me that number?” She straightened up and set her jaw.
“Whoa there, Nellie. I can do this. Oya already thinks she’s got an in with me, that I’m vulnerable to her b.s. She’ll believe me if I call and tell her this is what I think I want. She might already know or at least suspect that you’ve taken over for Shelly for the time being. It’d be way more dangerous for you to try it.” Becca could feel herself becoming convinced. It had to be her and she could, no, had to do this.
Pete walked in from the back room. Erin met his anxious stare and shook her head. “Nothing yet, Pete. But we’ve got a plan. A couple of plans, even. We’ll get them in motion and I promise I’ll check in with you later on tonight.” She uncoiled from the stool and went over to rest one hand on his shoulder. “We’re going to get her back.”
Becca could feel her insides twist when she saw the sudden wild hope on his face. What if they couldn’t? They did have some kind of last resort though. What was it that Shelly had said at the meeting, something about turning the valley’s magic against intruders? It sounded like someone would die trying if they had to go that route. If they could even figure out how to do it to begin with.
But she wasn’t going to be the one to bring it up, not here and not now. That would only happen if she failed and she wasn’t going to. Instead, she stood up. “Looks like I need make a phone call. Can you manage here, Pete?”
Chapter 21
~
Becca questioned her part in the plan all the way back to her place. She wasn’t ready to be a double agent. What if she really did get cured and forgot all about Shelly and the Pack and everything else? Or worse, she joined the Nesters and tried to hunt her former friends down? If it could happen to Oya, it could happen to her.
But if she didn’t do this, no one else would be able to. She knew that with bone-deep certainty. Oya thought she was the weak link and if that was going to help Shelly, she could go right on thinking that. All Becca had to do was to remember who she was and why she was doing what she was doing. That would have to be enough to keep her grounded.
When she got home, the mail had already come. She tossed it on the table on her way through the house. She’d look at it later; right now, she had something more important to do. She took the stairs at a dead run. Her shirt was hanging on the back of the closet door, Oya’s card still visible in the pocket. She pulled it out and went downstairs to find her cell phone.
Closing her eyes for a moment, she looked for that uncertain, scared Becca who’d talked to Oya outside the store. That was someone who’d think being cured might be their best option. She just needed to sound uncertain enough to make the Nester believe that she could be persuaded.
Then she dialed the number from the card. “Hello?” she said to the first beep, then realized that she was talking to voicemail. “Hi. This is Becca Thornton. I’ve been thinking about what you said, about what you’re offering. You were right: I do miss being normal. I…I guess I’d like to hear more.” She left her number and hung up.
It seemed like an instant later that her phone chirped at her. Her heart thudded as she recognized the number. “Hello, Becca. I’m glad you called.” Oya’s tone was full of righteous power, joy even. It was the voice of someone who knew she held all the cards and was looking forward to winning.
It set Becca’s back up right away and she had to choke back a few choice comments. At least it wasn’t the voice of a woman who’d question her timing, calling right after Shelly’s disappearance. Though maybe the Nester didn’t think she knew about that yet. Or maybe she was deluded enough to think that it didn’t matter.
“I still don’t know what to think about all this. I don’t know if I can trust you. I mean, I know I don’t want to be a monster but maybe you’re only trying to trick me. Maybe your stuff doesn’t really do anything.” Becca sounded whiny and wishy-washy even to her own ears. Good, now don’t overplay it.
“There’s no trick, Becca. We can make you better, make you normal just like you used to be.”
However normal that was. Becca kept that thought to herself. “Well, I want proof. Right now, I’ve just got you and your boytoy telling me you used to be like me. You have to show me something that I can believe.” She crossed her fingers, hoping this sounded right. It needed to be if she was going to find anything out about Shelly.
There was a moment of silence on the other end, like the Nester leader was thinking about what to do next. “All right, Becca. I can think of something you might believe. Are you at the store?”
“No. No, I had a headache this morning and called in sick. I’ll meet you at Millie’s. But just you, no one else.” Hopefully, Oya wasn’t wondering why she didn’t invite her and her crew over for lunch or something.
“Be there in an hour.” Oya clicked off and Becca’s whole body sagged in temporary relief. She’d done the first part. But this was just the beg
inning; she had to be careful not to get too confident.
She left a message for Erin. “She’s agreed to meet with me at Millie’s in an hour. I don’t know if you’re planning on watching the place or not, but I’m going to try and find out what I can from talking to her. I’ll also see if she’ll take me to the rest of them. I’ll leave my cell on so that Lizzie can track it or whatever it is they do with these things. Wish me luck.” She hung up and went upstairs to change, her nerves jangling.
What did a werewolf secret agent wear anyway? Whatever it was, it didn’t jump out at her from her usual outfits. She finally went with subdued and quiet, something that would make her blend in: beige shirt and blue jeans. A long-sleeved denim shirt completed her ensemble.
She studied herself in the mirror. Her face was still too tense, too much like she wasn’t sleeping enough. But a few moments with her makeup supply and she looked a bit less haggard, so that was something. She added small gold hoop earrings and ran a comb through her hair to try and get her unruly curls under control. Then she gave herself another quick scrutiny and shrugged. She’d done what she could.
She decided to drive to Millie’s since there was no point in looking hurried or nervous by showing up out of breath. It also occurred to her that she might need her car. She wondered what she was going to say, how she should sound to make Oya believe in her change of heart.
Almost every time the woman saw her, she was angry or wounded or turning back from being a wolf. Come to think of it, it was hard to imagine why the Nester leader thought she was vulnerable to persuasion. She must be sending out some confused vibes, visible only to wolf senses or something along those lines.
But perhaps starting out by asking that question was the way to go. She filed the thought away as she pulled up in Millie’s parking lot. As she’d hoped, the place was crowded but not too crowded.
She walked in and grabbed a table for two in a deserted corner. If Oya brought one of her thugs, he could just stand. For the first time, it occurred to her to wonder why all the Nesters she’d seen were guys except for Oya. Not that the woman seemed to be out to develop an empowering sisterhood of ex-wolves or anything but you’d think there’d be at least one other woman in the group.
She didn’t have long to ponder. Oya came through the door like she owned the place. Becca couldn’t see anyone waiting outside for her, but then, that didn’t mean there weren’t any Nesters out there. She tried not to think about Shelly as Oya sat down; it would too easy to get angry. Instead she and Oya faced each other like wary cats.
Finally, Becca spoke first, “Well, here we are again.”
Oya smiled. “It looks like things have changed quite a bit since then. But then, I knew it would. So what happened to make you reconsider?”
“And what’s always made you think I might be open to it? It’s not the most flattering thing anyone’s ever thought about me, that I’m a pushover.” Becca made herself not shout, not reach across the table to throttle this woman who was holding them all in her power.
“You’re the one I see most often. But apart from that, you’re a regular normal woman. Not like some of these fools who grew up here and thinks that growing fur and fangs once a month is part of their birthright.” The waitress interrupted her and took their orders. Becca couldn’t help but notice that Oya still liked her meat rare, whatever her current feelings about the wolves.
She tried to weigh what she knew so far. Oya resented the wolves and thought she was on a mission of some sort, that much was clear. Now how did she get to more? “I heard that you grew up here, maybe used to be one of those fools yourself.” She made her words a challenge. “So what made you break away? For that matter, what brought you back?”
Oya’s eyes flashed for a moment, then she seemed to remember where she was and who she was talking to. She smiled, almost like she meant it. “Yes, I did grow up here. That means that I’ve seen firsthand what it means to have monsters running your town. I told you what they did to my family, but I can understand that when you’re still one of them, that can be hard to believe. If I hadn’t lived through it, I never would have believed it either.”
You can say that again. Becca stopped the words before they could get past her lips, and went with her second choice, “You came back for revenge then? Is that it?”
Oya gave her an enigmatic smirk and tapped her finger on her chin.
This wasn’t getting much out of the Nester, so it was time to try a different approach. She looked down at the table and rubbed her cheeks with her hands. It wasn’t too hard to remember how scared she’d felt changing the first time. “I don’t know what to believe. Changing is horrible…horrible. I never know what I’m going to do next or even remember most of what I did the last time. It’s like being two different people or something.”
Oya’s breath hissed through her teeth and when Becca looked back up, the other looked sympathetic, kindly even. It was hard to reconcile her expression with what Becca already knew of her. Right now, she looked positively saintly.
She reached out and covered one of Becca’s hands with her own. “I’ve been in the same place you’re in now. Back then, there was no one to help me. I had to gather allies and find a cure on my own. This time, you’ve got me.”
Indeed. Becca forced her mouth to tremble, just a bit. Tears would be too much, even if she could summon them. She knew that instinctively. Instead she settled for squeezing Oya’s hand back, then pulling her hand away. She took a deep breath and rubbed her eyes like she was pulling herself together. Then she looked up at Oya. “I want to see your proof before this goes any further. I have to know that you can really make me better.”
Oya gave her a sidelong glance, then nodded. “Okay. You’ll need to come with me to see what you want to see though. Are you ready to do that now?”
Becca nodded just as the waitress arrived with their burgers. They ate them quickly and silently. Becca put money down for her tab, then after a moment, picked up Oya’s as well. “After what you’re willing to do for me, this is the least I can do.” She smiled across the table, managing not to flinch as Oya’s expression shifted to suspicious, then blank. Had she done something wrong? It was hard to tell.
They left Millie’s together and walked toward the parking lot. Before Oya could open the door to the familiar white van, Becca jerked her head. “My car. I’m not ready to get in that thing yet.” After a minute, Oya followed her over and got in. Becca took a deep breath. “Okay. So where am I going?”
“Head out to the highway. I’ll give you more directions once we get there.”
Becca pulled out, hoping that Erin was somewhere nearby and following. She was startled to see the white van pull out immediately after them. It followed them out to the highway but turned right when Oya gestured to her to turn left.
In the mirror, she could see another car follow the van. She wondered if it was someone from the Pack and her stomach churned with anxiety. It was lonely out here without back-up. She glanced at Oya. Her passenger looked more relaxed than she had back at the diner. Time to try again.
“So you said you left to find a cure, but not why you came back. Once you found what you were looking for, why return?”
Oya studied her for a moment, then looked back outside. “If you found a cure for an illness, a cure that might save people from hurting others, wouldn’t you want to share it? I’m from here, Becca. I cared about this town growing up. Once I knew that the cure worked, I couldn’t just abandon them.”
Which would make more sense if you didn’t seem to be trying to kill us most of the time. Becca frowned like she was turning over Oya’s words in her mind. “I guess I can understand that. But you went about it all wrong, attacking us like that. I bet a lot of us would have been willing to listen to you if you’d just come down to the Women’s Club and talked to us.”
“Really?” Oya laughed. “I don’t think so, Becca. Wolf’s Point hasn’t changed that much. The wolves who killed my parents, t
hey’re still around. As is the sheriff who looked the other way.”
This time, Becca let her astonishment show. The sheriff didn’t know about the wolves. So why did Oya think he was covering anything up? She wondered how to ask without sounding too incredulous.
“Turn here,” Oya gestured at a side road.
Becca turned the car with another glance in her mirror. Nothing back there that she could see. She was on her own. It was an empty, scary feeling. “Where are we going, anyway?”
All she could see up this way were a couple of scattered houses, and something that looked like a farm off in the distance on the lower slopes. They were going up the mountains from Wolf’s Point into a part of the valley that she didn’t know at all. She looked around, hoping to find enough landmarks that she could find the place again.
It seemed that her efforts hadn’t gone unnoticed. “This is just a temporary base where we’ve been doing some of our work. We’ll move out of here in a few days to a better spot.” Oya jerked her head. “Pull over here. We’ll need to walk the rest of the way.”
Becca pulled into a mowed patch at the end of a dirt road. “Road” didn’t really quite describe the overgrown trail in front of them. There was no way her car was going up there and it didn’t look like the white van would have made it either. She wondered how they got in and out. Maybe there was another entrance somewhere else.
Once she got out of the car, she reluctantly followed Oya up the trail. The Nester leader didn’t look back. It was as if she just expected that Becca would keep on following her wherever she went. Becca thought about tossing a pebble at her back just for the fun of it, then realized that she was onto something that might be helpful later. She pretended to stumble and trip, catching herself with her hands and making sure to rub her palm on the rock in front of her.
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