Hot Blooded (Wolf Springs Chronicles #2) (17 page)

“Okay. Go on back to class, Mike,” Mr. Hastings said to him.

Mike pushed back his chair furiously, and the coach dismissed him with a smile aimed at Katelyn.

“Kat,” he said, “have a seat.”

As she and Mike crossed paths, he flashed her a look of pure, undying hatred. He mirrored exactly how she felt.

Bring it
, she thought.
I’ll gut you
.

But she couldn’t let them know she was thinking like that, so she ignored him and took the chair he’d vacated.

“Now let’s talk about this gymnastics equipment the Sokolovs want to donate to the school,” the coach said, pushing away from the wall. “Which, I must say, Trick, is very generous of your folks.”

“And well-timed,” the principal said dryly, leaning his elbows forward on his desk.

Trick just smiled pleasantly; Katelyn gaped open-mouthed at him while he kept his attention on the principal. She could tell Trick knew she was staring at him and a little smile played over his face.

“Well, Katelyn here’s a world-class gymnast,” Trick said. “Did you hear tell of that? Professional level, and my folks have some connections in that world. They said they didn’t want all that talent to go to waste.”

“Well, that’s mighty fine. You could start a team,” Coach Ambrose said to Katelyn.

She felt a rush of excitement at the base of her spine that nearly took off the top of her head. Yes! It would be like home. Training other people had always helped her stay on top of her game. She’d already had hours and hours of teaching classes, and she was good at it. She’d have a place among her schoolmates. And it would be something that was hers.

Then she checked her enthusiasm. Maybe the Fenners would object. After all, Cordelia had had to quit cheerleading because of Mr. Fenner, she reminded herself. And Jesse. But Katelyn didn’t live with them so school was her business, not theirs. Screw them. She wouldn’t let them take this away from her.

“Sounds great,” she told the coach. Trick looked pleased.

“What sort of budget were your folks thinking about?” the principal asked Trick, practically salivating. Good gymnastics equipment could be pricey.

“We’ll sit down after school and figure out what to order,” Trick replied. “Unless you’re too busy today, Katelyn.” He focused his sea-green eyes on her and raised a brow.

She heard the challenge in his voice. She knew very well he was testing to see if she’d blow him off in favor of Justin. For gymnastics equipment, yes, she could be bought.

“Sounds completely great,” she repeated, looking steadily at him, and his slow smile appeared. She couldn’t help but smile back. It actually was completely great.

“The coach and I will talk,” Mr. Hastings said, nodding at Coach Ambrose. “We’ll confer about what kind of setup the gym can accommodate. We’ll be sure to thank your family properly, Trick.” He reached out a hand. Trick rose and clasped it, and they shook. Then Trick shook hands with the coach.

This is so cool
, Katelyn thought.

As she and Trick pushed back their chairs, she wished she could ask the principal what Cordelia’s family had told him about her absence. And if he’d gotten any news about Mr. Henderson.

Yes, the gym equipment was cool, but she couldn’t forget that there were a few things in Wolf Springs that were definitely not cool. Including her.

10

U have to come over after school
, Justin texted Katelyn as she sat in art class. The class was making ceramic story pots, 3D interpretations of a favorite work in another medium. Katelyn was busily sculpting her own little figurine in a red leotard perched on a Mexican cloud swing. Paulette smiled over at Katelyn as she worked on her version of
Where the Wild Things Are
. Katelyn wondered if Paulette knew the wild things were in houses and art classes as well as the forest.

She texted Justin back.
Can’t today. OK? Don’t feel good
. Then she grimaced as if she could see him lose his mind at her mutinous disrespect.
That time
.

?
he wrote back.

“C’mon, connect the dots, Justin,” she muttered under her breath. “Please.”

“Is that Cordelia?” Paulette asked, not concerned, just being snoopy. Paulette was on record as disliking Cordelia intensely. Paulette had warned new-girl Kat McBride that Cordelia was a two-faced, mean snake, someone best shunned.

It’s
that
time
, Katelyn finally texted back, flushing.

Got it
, Justin said. Good that you stay away.
CU in a couple days
.

“Okay, that’s embarrassing,” she muttered to herself. She typed in
KK.
And good to know that w. girls get a break once a month
. She didn’t dare type out the full word “werewolf,” but figured he’d get the point.

She said to Paulette, “It’s not Cordelia.”

Paulette nodded and added a blob of clay to the side of her pot. “I wonder what happened to Mr. Henderson,” she said in a low voice. “I can’t believe he’s gone.”

“Not gone,” Katelyn said, and then she stopped. Because what did she know?

“He must have family,” Paulette went on. “I wouldn’t be surprised if they don’t show up here, asking questions. I’d be going crazy.”

“I know,” Katelyn murmured, feeling guilty even though she’d done nothing to Mr. Henderson. Werewolves didn’t hurt people. Didn’t attack them.

But someone attacked me
.

“This isn’t turning out the way I wanted,” she blurted suddenly. She reached out a hand toward the figure.

“Kat, leave it be. It’s really sweet,” Paulette protested. “Besides, if you start over now, you won’t finish in time.”

Katelyn sighed and looked out the window at the parking lot; rain was pouring down at a sharp angle, pushed by the wind, the sky hung low, and overhead lightning crackled. She stared at Trick’s Mustang and reminded herself that a good thing had happened today. An awesome thing. But she was near tears.

Werewolf hormones
, she reminded herself.
Get a grip
.

She smiled at Paulette. “You’re right.” She gave the figure a little push, and Paulette smiled back.

That afternoon, after school, Trick was waiting for her at her locker. She was tired from monitoring herself and he lifted a brow as she got out a few books and shut the locker door.

“Hey?” he said.

“I’m fine,” she said. “I mean, hi.”

They began to walk toward the lot, which was shimmering with rain puddles. He reached in his backpack and held out something wrapped in a gray cloth. As she touched it, she had a strange sensation in her mouth, as if she was chewing aluminum foil. Unwrapping it, she saw it was a knife — by the looks of it, the silver knife she’d left behind at the Inner Wolf Center.

“I went back last night, after we got home,” he said. “It was bugging me. Wasn’t it bugging you?”

“Yes. It was bugging me.” She touched the handle. The metal gave off a tangy, burning odor. She remembered how positive Justin had been that the trap she’d fallen into was silver. Now she knew why. Her senses must have been duller back then. “Maybe if we told my grandfather we found it
off
the property.” She hesitated. “But I don’t want to get you in trouble.”

“Tell you what. If the police don’t get anywhere, I’ll fess up. How about a week?”

“Oh.” Saying anything felt intense and confining. But a week would give her time to think it through. “Okay, yes.”

“Good.” He hefted his backpack over one shoulder. “Let’s go to Cowffeine to talk about the equipment. They have free wifi. We can drive over together and I won’t keep you long.”

“And you won’t beat anybody up.”

“No, ma’am.” He tipped an imaginary cowboy hat.

They drove down Main Street in his Mustang, Katelyn wistfully admiring the Christmas decorations hanging from the lampposts — candy canes and jingle bells — and the holly wreaths on the doors of the Victorian buildings. Wind buffeted the finery. Nearly all the leaves on the trees were gone, and it began to rain again.

“Looks like an early snow this year,” Trick said as he peered through the windshield. “Your pappy’s laid in lots of supplies, yes?”

“Yes,” she said faintly. A little less than three weeks until the next full moon. Surely it wouldn’t snow before then. She’d have to figure out a way to justify staying out all night.

“Don’t be scared,” he said. “Getting snowed in is kind of fun.”

“If you don’t live in the middle of the forest.”

“You and the doc can come stay with us if you want. We’ve got lots of room.”

“Oh.” She turned to look at him. “Thank you.”

“No big,” he replied, but he looked happy.

They drove past Babette’s. Mr. Henderson’s missing person’s notice was taped beside the one commemorating the two girls who had died, Haley and Becky. Katelyn thought about what Paulette had said, about loved ones going crazy with worry.

Thinking of that, she checked her cell phone as she climbed out of the Mustang. There was nothing from Cordelia or Dom. But there was one from Justin.

Hope you feel better
.

“Whoa,” she said aloud. That was unexpected, the sequel. Trick raised a questioning brow. “Sorry. It’s nothing.”

“How’s Kimi?” he asked, as if he assumed that was who she was talking to.

“Good. Great,” she told him, and she felt a tightness in her chest as she imagined the beach and L.A. with Trick in it. Just a few days ago, she’d actually begun to dream that Wolf Springs would become a distant memory.

“We’ll get you a bunch of cool equipment,” he said as they went into the coffee house. There was a large display of Discover Your Inner Wolf merchandise, and beyond that a place to order coffees and pastries, and some wooden tables. “You probably know the best websites to order from. We —
Shit
,” he murmured under his breath.

Katelyn looked in his direction. Jack Bronson was coming out of the restroom.

She stopped dead and Trick murmured, “It’s okay.”

“How have you been?” Bronson asked Katelyn as he walked up to her. His voice was way too friendly. “Katelyn McBride, isn’t it?”

She cleared her throat. “Yes. Fine. Thanks.”

“No more trouble?” he persisted, and she felt Trick jerk.

Smooth
, she thought.

“It’s all good,” she said tightly.

“Good, good.” He patted the shelf holding the display of his books, some T-shirts, and coffee cups. “Would you like a copy of my book?”

“We have one, thanks.”

“Your grandfather and you.” He said it almost as if he were making a joke. “Well, good. I hope you like it.” He smiled at her a beat too long, and then at Trick very cursorily, and walked out the front door.

“Yikes,” Trick said.
“Trouble?”

“Two of his guys tried to hit on Cordelia and me,” she said. “He stopped them.”

“Whoa.” Trick looked out the door, then at the books. “And yet you never mentioned it.”

“Was I supposed to?” she asked, flaring. Then she softened. “I’m sorry. I’m short-tempered. I — I didn’t get enough sleep last night.”

“Then we’ll get you something to wake you up,” he said. “Caffeine is always my first drug of choice.”

~

The gym equipment was ordered. Among the amazing haul: uneven bars, parallel bars, a vault, a balance beam, a trapeze, and a cloud swing. Trick put it on a black credit card, which meant either that there was no limit or the sky was the limit: a few kids at Samohi had been given black credit cards — and, usually, chauffeurs, if so.

Katelyn’s reprieve from the Fenners ended two afternoons later when Justin told her to drive over to the house to resume her training. She went immediately after school, telling Trick only that she was busy. Which he did not like.

When she got out of the car, Mr. Fenner came over from the house and stared at her car so long she was afraid he had forgotten she was coming over. He growled deep in his throat and pulled back his lips.

“How many bodies does this make, six? It has to end,” he told her.

Katelyn stared at him in shock. There were only two dead people that she knew of. Possibly three if Mr. Henderson was truly gone.

“Excuse me?” she asked.

Lee Fenner looked at her. “I may be only eighteen, but I’m not stupid. I can see what’s happening. Someone has to put an end to it.”

Katelyn’s heart began to pound as she realized he was having one of his episodes, reliving something from when he was about her age. Her mind instantly flashed to everything Beau and her had heard about the rash of killings forty or fifty years earlier. Was six a rash?

“Do you know who’s doing it?” she asked, hoping that her voice didn’t shake.

He stared at her for a long minute, and the hair on the back of her neck stood up. Then he turned without another word and went back into the house, slamming the door so hard the windows rattled.

Justin ambled toward her from the yard, looking from the front porch to Katelyn and back again. “You okay?”

“Yeah, he um, startled me. He was baring his teeth.”

“Don’t let it throw you when he makes wolf gestures in human form,” Justin said. He lowered his voice. “It’s a symptom of his . . . condition. Our pups are taught from the cradle to cut out that kind of nonsense.”

“Oh,” she said quietly, thinking of how she had started growling when she and Trick had snuck into the Inner Wolf Center.

“It’s never happened to you, has it?” he asked, studying her.

“No,” she replied, trying to sound earnest, crossing her fingers that he couldn’t hear her heartbeat speed up. But of course he could. Of course he would know. The only question was, would he let it go?

“Hmm,” he said. He walked into the trees and she followed. The darkness and gloom descended. “Soon we’re going to work on focusing your hearing, your vision and your sense of smell.”

“Soon, but not today?”

“No, today, we’re going to see just how strong you are,” he said with a smirk.