Moon Dance

by V. J. Chambers

  Cole’s hands went under her knees, and he hoisted her into his arms.

  She didn’t fight him. She surrendered, let him carry her through the woods.

  She was numb with the horror of it.

  Cole was right. There was a stream. It was nearly four feet wide, water rushing down over smooth stones and leaves. The water was clear. Dana felt thirsty.

  He set her down. “Look, it’s going to be cold, but—”

  She threw herself into the water. It was freezing, but she didn’t care. Maybe the freezing water could be like a punishment, some way to make up for the horrible thing that she’d just done. She sucked down mouthfuls of water, drinking it in.

  Cole yanked her head up. “You’re not drowning yourself or something, are you?”

  Oh. The thought hadn’t even occurred to her. She felt a stab of guilt over that. Certainly, she probably deserved to die. But she didn’t want to. She wouldn’t have dreamed of killing herself. She shook her head. “No, of course not.”

  His surveyed her, thinking. “Okay. Well, stay here, all right? I’ll be back.”

  She ducked back under the cold water.

  Cole came back in several minutes, and he had clothes.

  She got out of the water, shivering, but clean. “Where did you get these?”

  “I took them from the campers,” he said. “Just put something on, okay?” His gaze skittered over her breasts, and then quickly away.

  She felt a tiny glow inside her. Cole still found her attractive, even though she hadn’t lost all the pregnancy weight, even though the skin of her belly had been stretched out and was never going to be as elastic as it had been.

  Then she scolded herself for feeling that. She began to shrug into the clothes that Cole had provided. She shouldn’t be thinking about whether or not he found her attractive. For one thing, it wasn’t fair to Avery, and for another thing, she’d just killed two people. How could she possibly be thinking about anything else?

  The fabric clung to her wet skin, and it was scant protection against the breeze. She shivered a little, hugging herself.

  Then she caught a scent. Fire.

  She looked at Cole. “Something’s burning.”

  “Yeah.” He gestured with his head.

  The two of them went back to the campsite. Cole had bundled up everything. The bodies, the tent, their gear, and it was all ablaze.

  “They had some gasoline with them. I guess they were using it to start the fire. Came in handy.”

  Dana wrinkled her nose at the smell of burning hair and flesh. “Why did you…?”

  “Your scent’s on everything,” he said. “My scent too. We’re barely a mile from the SF. What do you think would happen if some trackers found these bodies?”

  She bit her lip. She hadn’t gotten that far. She was still reeling. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t killed before in wolf form, but it was different this time. Before, there had always been someone else to blame. Either Cole had set her up to do it, or Jimmy had forced her to do it. This was the first time that she felt truly responsible. And if she was responsible, shouldn’t she suffer the consequences?

  “That’s right,” he said. “You’d be locked up, and so would I. And I just got a pardon, Dana. I don’t plan on going back.”

  She shook her head. “You shouldn’t have bothered. I’m turning myself in.”

  “No, you’re not.”

  “Don’t do that,” she said. “Don’t act like you know what I want to do better than I know myself. I killed these people. I’m dangerous. I need to be locked up.”

  “No, you don’t.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “Look, I’ll stay here to make sure the fire doesn’t go out, and that everything’s burned up. Then I’ll bury the evidence. There won’t be anything here to connect you to this. You need to go back home, forget this happened, and take care of your daughter.” He looked at her sidelong. “It was a girl, right?”

  Dana’s heart stopped. Did he care about the baby? Did he know that the baby was his?

  “Dana?”

  She licked her lips.

  “You want your child to grow up without a mother?”

  She took a shuddering breath. “I…”

  “Let me deal with this,” he said. “You get the hell out of here. Try not to think about it.”

  “But, Cole, I killed these people. They were out here camping, and I attacked them and I…” Images and sensations flooded back at her. The joy of leaping, the ecstasy of her teeth in flesh, the spurt of blood filling her mouth.

  “Why were they even out here?” he said. “Who camps next to the werewolf headquarters?”

  “There’s a campground out here somewhere. Actually, I think that’s part of the draw, being so close to the SF. It’s a rush or something. I don’t know.” She stared at the fire, at the bodies. The skin was turning black. Fat sizzled and popped in the heat. It should disgust her, but instead… it smelled appetizing. She turned away, running her hands through her wet hair. “I’ve always been able to control it. You told me once that the wolf wouldn’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

  His voice was quiet. “You must have gone too deep.”

  “What do you mean?” She still wasn’t looking at him.

  “Before, when I told you that, I’d never let myself get lost. Now… now I’ve tunneled deep down inside the wolf. I’ve gone weeks sometimes, months, not even shifting back to human. Sometimes, when I’m that far in, even being human seems like some kind of dream that I had. And then, the wolf is in complete control of me.”

  She turned back. That was why he looked so wild, then. He was more wolf than man now, and she could sense it about him. What was more, she liked it. It called to her. “Have you… killed humans?”

  “No,” he said. “But only because there weren’t any humans around.”

  “But you know so much about how to… get rid of the evidence.” She gestured towards the fire.

  “This?” He shrugged. “I’m improvising, Dana.”

  She hugged herself again. She had killed people. Killed them. Why didn’t she seem to be able to actually come to terms with that? Why didn’t she hate herself?

  “Go ahead,” he said softly. “Get out of here. I’ll take care of this.”

  She looked at the burning bodies and then back at Cole. This was all too much for her. She knew that she should protest his involvement. She knew that she should march back into headquarters, declare her guilt, and let them lock her up somewhere. She was a werewolf murderer. A menace. A danger to the populace. But she wasn’t going to do that, and she knew it. She simply nodded at him. Once. “Thank you,” she said softly.

  And she left.

  * * *

  When Dana got back to her apartment, she sent Sherry home, and she put Piper to bed. The little girl seemed subdued as Dana tucked her in.

  “Mommy?” she asked, and there was a crease in her forehead.

  “What, sweetie?”

  “Is something bad happening?”

  “Why would you say that?”

  “You made Daddy mad today.”

  Dana sighed. That was how Piper saw it, did she? It was incredible the way the girl hero-worshiped her father. If Avery said something, Piper took it as gospel. Dana didn’t know if it was because of a normal little girl relationship with her father, or if there was something of the wolf bond in all of it. Avery was Piper’s alpha, after all. Dana was an alpha to the little girl too, but the relationship between them was different.

  Piper wouldn’t begin shifting into a werewolf until sometime after puberty, but that didn’t mean she didn’t still have wolf instincts coursing through her tiny body.

  Dana tucked the covers snugly under Piper’s chin. “Well, Daddy made me mad too.”

  “Why?”

  “That’s not important,” said Dana. “What’s important is that you understand that we can get mad at each other, but we still love each other. And we both love you so, so much.”

  Piper smiled.
“How much?”

  Dana stretched out her arms as far as they would go. “This much.”

  Piper giggled. “You love Daddy that much too?”

  “Yes.” Dana kissed Piper’s forehead. “Now go to sleep.” She got up from the bed.

  “Mommy?”

  “Mmm hmm?”

  “I love you too.”

  Dana’s chest felt tight. She went back and kissed Piper again.

  When she left the little girl’s room, she started to cry. How had she let herself get so out of control out there? How had she managed to kill people?

  It was too awful. The two campers hadn’t deserved it. They were young, practically still kids. They had been out for fun together. Probably romance. And now they were gone.

  Somewhere out there, they both had mothers, mothers who would never see them again, never kiss them, never hold them, never hear their children say that they loved them.

  Dana had taken those campers away from their mothers.

  She imagined Piper being killed by a rampaging wolf—the wrong place in the wrong time.

  The despair that flooded her made her feel ill.

  She curled up on the couch in the living room and gave in to her sobs, crying with abandon.

  But she didn’t cry for very long. As much as she wanted to feel the guilt of this, to despise herself for what she’d done, she didn’t seem to be able to muster it. When she thought about it, she kept remembering how joyous it had been for the wolf. The wolf had gloried in the hunt and the kill. The meat.

  And that was still her sharpest emotion when she thought about it.

  She was ashamed, but she wasn’t ashamed enough.

  She stayed awake, waiting for Avery to come home, debating on whether or not to tell him. She didn’t think that Avery would want her locked up. He’d probably agree with the idea of covering the incident up and not telling anyone about it. But she was positive that Avery would demand she didn’t go running in wolf form anymore.

  Part of her thought that she should stop doing it as well.

  But she couldn’t.

  She wouldn’t.

  Shifting into the wolf and running was the best part of her life. If she lost that, she felt like she’d lose her own soul, and she didn’t think she wanted to be alive if her existence was nothing more than cleaning up after Piper and cooking meals. Running as the wolf was the one thing that belonged to her, and she wasn’t going to give it up.

  That meant she couldn’t tell Avery about it, and she couldn’t get him to comfort her.

  And it meant that the only person who did know was Cole Randall.

  So, now she and Cole had a secret together.

  She felt like she’d already betrayed Avery.

  But she didn’t know what else to do. She couldn’t surrender herself over to Avery. Not completely. She needed some part of her being that belonged to her and her alone. The wolf was that. She wasn’t going to give it up.

  She sat up waiting for him just the same. Maybe she couldn’t tell him what happened, but she could still try to speak to him about the rest of the evening. They’d had such a doozy of conflict that night. Maybe, now that they’d both had time to cool down, they could sort through it together.

  But Avery didn’t come home.

  The hours ticked by, and she waited. He never showed up. She still didn’t have her cell phone, so she called him from the land line. He didn’t pick up. She listened to his recorded voice telling her to leave a message, and she wondered if she should say something.

  When she couldn’t think of anything, she hung up.

  And then she went to bed.

  She slept fitfully, dreaming of being the wolf, of killing and running and eating. And blood.

  In the morning, she was awakened by the sound of drawers opening.

  She sat up in bed to see Avery frantically digging through his clothes.

  “Avery, where were you last night?”

  He yanked out a shirt. “Sorry. I needed some time to be alone. I mostly drove around. I might have had a few beers.”

  “Well, do you feel better now? Can we talk?”

  “I’m late for work, Dana.” He snatched a pair of pants out of the drawer. “We’ll talk later, okay?”

  He swept out of the room, and he was gone.

  She felt deflated. He was avoiding her.

  But she didn’t have much time to think about it, because Piper was awake soon, scampering through the house and yelling about how today she wanted to pretend to be an airplane.

  Dana dragged herself out of bed. She was groggy because she’d sat up so late the night before waiting for Avery. She settled on something easy for breakfast and made instant oatmeal for Piper.

  When she served it to her daughter, Piper wrinkled up her nose and declared it gross.

  Dana told her that it wasn’t gross, and that she liked it very much.

  She fought with Piper until the little girl ate about five bites—each one a struggle. After that, she decided to give up and let Piper go back to being an airplane. Piper scampered away, spread her arms, and began running all through the living room, making whirring noises.

  “Watch the lamps, little airplane,” Dana called after her.

  “I not a little airplane. I a big airplane,” Piper replied.

  Of course.

  By the time Dana had breakfast cleared up, Piper was done being an airplane anyway. She was now playing with blocks on the floor, which was a relief, because it was less likely that she’d destroy the world.

  What Dana really wanted was a nap.

  Instead, the phone rang.

  “Hello?”

  “Dana?” It was Cole.

  Her heart picked up. “Yes, it’s me.”

  “Can we meet somewhere to talk?” he asked.

  “You’re still around? I would have thought you’d take off last night. I mean, you’ve been pardoned, right?” Then she had another thought. “Or did something go wrong with the… with the campers?”

  “No, that’s fine,” said Cole. “Don’t think about that anymore. I’m still around because I told King I’d come talk to her about finding Enoch and the others. But I wanted to talk to you before I did. I’d need your help, and I think you should understand what I’d be asking you to do before I go to see her.”

  “You were serious about that.” It wasn’t a question. She was turning the thought over instead. Cole had changed, hadn’t he? He’d never had any interest in helping others before, but now he was different. She remembered the way he’d helped the children from Hunter’s Moon Farm, and she knew she’d seen this in him before.

  “I might be serious about it,” he said. “I can’t do it without you. So, can you meet me?”

  “I…” She peered down at Piper, who was building a tall block tower. “I can’t leave my daughter.”

  “Oh, right. Of course.” He paused. “Well, then can I come to you?”

  “Here? To my apartment?”

  “If that’s where you are, then yes.”

  She hesitated. If Avery knew that Cole had been here, he’d probably lose his mind. On the other hand, it seemed like Cole’s crazy scheme to catch Enoch might actually become a reality, and, if that was the case, having Cole in the apartment was surely the lesser of two evils. “All right. I guess so.”

  She told him where she was and how to get in. She and Avery had an apartment on the ground floor of headquarters now, and that meant they had a back door and a porch that was accessible from outside. Cole wouldn’t have to bother with going into the offices. Then she hung up the phone.

  She stood in the middle of the living room, checking to see that everything was fairly clean. Piper’s blocks were everywhere, but beyond that, the day was too early for things to have gotten messy. No, the apartment looked okay.

  Then she realized she was still in her pajamas.

  She darted back to her bedroom to get dressed.

  She wanted to take more time putting on clothes, but she
didn’t have it, so she ended up throwing on jeans and a t-shirt. Nothing glamorous, but at least her clothes weren’t stained.

  She went back into the hallway. “Pipers?”

  “What?” Piper sounded annoyed at having been interrupted.

  “We’re having a visitor, and I want you to—”

  “Visitor?” Piper rushed down the hallway, really excited. “Who, who, who?”

  “No one you know,” said Dana. Just your biological father. “Anyway, he wants to talk to Mommy, so don’t expect him to play with you or anything.”

  Piper jumped up and down. She began saying, “Visitor, visitor,” over and over in a sing-song voice.

  Knock-knock.

  Dana jumped. Her heart stuttered in her chest. And then she went back the hall to the back door to let Cole into the house.

  He’d shaved. His long beard was gone and so was his mane of untamed hair. He’d cut that too—buzzed it close to his head with clippers, from the looks of it. He looked more like himself, but with all of his face uncovered, she could see that there were more lines on his face. He was older. She’d known Cole since high school, and she could still see the teenage boy in him. But now he was more mature, and there was something compelling about that as well.

  Piper raced forward. “Hi, visitor!” She ran right up to him and stopped short, peering up at his face.

  Cole knelt down so that he was eye level with her. “Hi. I’m Cole.” He offered her his hand. “What’s your name?”

  Piper just stared at his proffered hand. “Piper.”

  “That’s a pretty name,” he said. “Pretty name for a pretty little girl.”

  Piper smiled. She started to chew on her fingernail. “I’m making a tower.”

  “With blocks,” Dana explained.

  “That sounds fun.” He cocked his head to one side, taking the toddler in.

  “Yeah.” Piper was staring at him too.

  “Um,” said Dana. “Pipers, why don’t you head back to the living room, and we’ll be right behind you.”

  Neither of them moved.

  “Cole,” Dana said.

  He looked up at her. His brow was furrowed.

  Then Piper took off back down the hallway.