Laura's Wolf (Werewolf Marines) (2 page)

“Does your left arm hurt?” asked the doctor.

“Yeah. I think I overdid it with the push-ups. I guess I pulled a muscle.”

“Let me take your pulse.” Dr. White switched the black box to his left hand and came closer. “Give me your wrist.”

Roy held out his hand. As Dr. White reached out for it, Roy grabbed the doctor’s right wrist and slammed the side of his hand into the doctor’s left wrist. The black box flew across the room and hit the wall with a loud crack.

Before the doctor could yell, Roy jerked him forward and punched him in the jaw. Dr. White dropped as if he’d been zapped by his own little black box. Roy caught him and heaved him on to the bed.

He hastily pulled off the doctor’s shoes, pants, and white coat, then kicked off his own slippers and scrambled out of his hospital-issue thin cotton pants. He yanked on the doctor’s shoes and buttoned his white coat over Roy’s own shirt. The pants were too short and the shoes were painfully tight. But he was lucky that Dr. White was a big guy too, or Roy wouldn’t have been able to get into them at all.

He put on the stethoscope and took the ID card out of Dr. White’s back pocket, then picked up the black box. It was cracked and probably useless, but at least he could carry it as a prop.

Try to look confident and doctor-like, he strode out of the room. The bright lights jabbed needles of pain into his eyes and straight through his skull; he was forced to walk with his face lowered and his eyes half-closed. The sickening chemical smell of the air was stronger in the corridor, but beneath it, he could smell a light, fresh scent: outside. He followed it down the corridors, using Dr. White’s ID to get through the locked doors.

He passed a few hurrying people in scrubs. Roy’s heart hammered, but they didn’t give him a second glance. His headache went from bad to excruciating, threatening to become disabling. But the scent of outside was getting stronger. It smelled like hope.

He waved Dr. White’s ID through another sensor. It took him three tries, his hands were shaking so badly. Then door slid open, and Roy came face-to-face with a pair of security guards.

The men were armed with both black boxes and dart guns, like you’d use to tranquilize a wild animal. That went a long way to confirm what they knew or guessed about Roy.

Forcing himself not to hurry, he started to walk past.

“Hey!” One guard tried to grab his arm.

Roy punched him in the stomach, doubling him over, and snatched his dart gun. In one smooth movement, he swung around and slammed the gun’s butt into the second guard’s shoulder. The man dropped his dart gun with a cry of pain. But before Roy could stop him, he hit a red button on the wall.

Brilliant lights began to flash. A siren went off. Pain exploded in Roy’s head. His knees banged into the floor, the dart gun falling from his hand.

Clenching his jaw, Roy forced himself to his feet. He couldn’t get his eyes to open. He staggered, dizzy and blind, barely able to think through the agony. He felt like he was about to pass out. Even if he managed to stay conscious, he couldn’t fight. One way or another, he’d be captured and dragged back to his cell.

He only had one chance left: to transform into a wolf.

He’d sworn that he wouldn’t try it here. He didn’t know if it would help. He didn’t even know if it was possible. He’d only become a wolf once before, in Afghanistan.

A captured Marine has a duty to escape
.
Whatever they do to me—whatever I’ve become—I’m still a Marine.

In his mind, a wolf howled.

He’d done it before. He could do it again. Roy had been avoiding the memory, but now he sought it, trying to recall every detail.

Tearing pain in my chest. Blood in my mouth.
DJ’s fingers digging into my shoulders. His hoarse voice shouting my name. DJ’s face and the sky and the wrecked helicopter in the distance, all fading out. Hot sand under my back.

And then…

Hot sun on my fur. Four paws scrabbling in the sand. Scents everywhere, rich and distinct: me and DJ and blood and sand and weeds and metal and oil and…

Roy reached inside himself, searching for the part of him that was wild and free and would rather die than be caged.

He found his wolf.

The overwhelming dizziness eased. The sirens and flashing lights were still agonizing, but his wolf body was that crucial bit stronger, better equipped to cope with pain. He was lower to the ground, in a world without colors, but with scents as bright and clear as neon lights.

A man was raising a dart gun. Roy instinctively jumped to avoid the dart, his ears swiveling to catch the hiss and thwack as it buried itself in the wall behind him. He leaped at the man and slammed him down. The dart gun skittered across the floor.

He could smell the sharpness of the guard’s fear. It would be so easy to bend his head and rip out his enemy’s throat…

The fresh scent of open air was ahead of him. Roy released his prey and bounded ahead, racing through the closing door.

Freedom!

He was outside. It was night. People were shouting and running toward him.

An electric fence let out a low crackle and a smell of ozone. Roy tore toward it. He had no idea if he could jump high enough to clear it, but he’d rather die than be locked up forever. And now that he’d revealed what he was, they’d never let him go.

A dart hissed past his ear as he gathered his strength and leaped as high as he could. He cleared the fence and landed hard on the other side.

The shock of impact, in that unfamiliar body, sent him tumbling head over paws. When he finally fetched up in a heap, darts were hitting the ground all around him.

Lucky I rolled
, he thought.

He gathered himself and leaped forward again. This time he landed smoothly. A forest was before him, dark and welcoming. He raced through it until all sounds and scents of pursuit were gone, and then he kept on running for the sheer joy of it.

In his wolf’s body, in this natural environment without electric lights or chemical smells or crowds of humans, he finally felt at ease. For the first time since he’d been wounded, his body was working as it should, strong and swift and without pain. Even as simple a movement as his paws striking the earth was a pleasure. It felt so much better to be a wolf than it did to be a human.

That thought gave him pause. What if he liked being a wolf so much that he stopped wanting to be a man?

He reached into himself, remembering the weight of his rucksack on his back, joking with his buddies, firing his SAW…

Roy stumbled, off-balance on two feet, and grabbed at a tree to stop from falling. He took a deep breath, focused on the rough texture of the bark under his fingers, and settled into his man’s body.

To his relief, the doctor’s clothes had come with him. To his greater relief, the moonlight didn’t hurt his eyes. The sounds and smells of the forest were distinct and noticeable, but not overwhelming. If he’d only been allowed into a natural environment earlier, he could have saved himself a whole lot of misery.

Remembering the tumble he’d taken, he checked himself for injuries. His knees and shoulders were bruised, and he’d strained his left wrist: nothing serious. Roy walked on, setting a brisk pace and taking care not to leave a trail.

For the first time, he examined the forest with a man’s mind, recognizing the landscape of huge gray boulders and enormously tall trees with corrugated, cinnamon-colored bark. He’d only been to northern California once, years ago, but he’d never forgotten the redwoods.

He wasn’t concerned about being alone in the wilderness with no supplies or weapons. He’d roughed it before. Weapons could be improvised, and food could be hunted or gathered.

The scents of rich earth and moss rose up with every footstep. Owls hooted, crickets chirped, and small animals rustled in the bushes. The moist dirt underfoot told him that water wouldn’t be a problem. He didn’t even need to make traps—as a wolf, he ought to be able to catch rabbits, maybe a deer.

His biggest concern, apart from pursuit, was the temperature. His breath condensed in puffs of mist, and the boulders were patched with frost. He didn’t feel cold, but that was probably because he’d exerted himself enough to work up a sweat. But as a wolf, he had a thick fur coat. If it got too cold, he’d change. He’d never heard of wolves getting hypothermia.

Wilderness survival was easy. But figuring out what he should do once he was out of the woods was much more complicated. It could have been months since his helicopter had been shot down. What did his team think had happened to him?

Even if they’re all still in-country, they’d never be okay with not hearing from me at all,
Roy thought.
They probably got told that I’m dead or MIA
.

He hated to think how DJ must feel about that. It would just about kill Roy if he thought he’d done everything he’d could to save DJ and then learned that he’d died in the hospital, alone.

But now that Roy had revealed what he was, his captors would be after him for sure. They could have his entire unit’s phones and email tapped, waiting for Roy to contact one of them. He couldn’t risk getting in touch with anyone he knew until he learned more. He needed to find some safe place to lay low.

An odd feeling tugged at his mind, an inexplicable urge:
That way.

That way
didn’t look any different from any other way. But if he’d learned one thing in his years as a Marine, it was that funny little feelings were worth paying attention to.

Funny little feelings could mean that you’d noticed tiny clues, without even noticing that you’d noticed them, that meant that there was a bomb in the road, or that the innocent-looking civilian wasn’t innocent and wasn’t a civilian, or that the wild-eyed man trying to charge the roadblock
was
an innocent civilian who was trying to get help for his sick wife.

He’d travel faster as a wolf. And with no supplies of any kind, he’d probably sleep safer and enjoy eating raw rabbit more as a wolf, too.

Roy found his wolf.
And loped off through the redwoods, heading
that way.

Chapter Two: Laura

Escape from LA

Laura Kaplan drove out of Los Angeles on a broiling hot day. Traffic was jammed all the way through the hills, which were covered in dry weeds and looked ready to spontaneously combust. The top half of a roadside sign read “Fire Danger Today Is,” with the bottom half turned to read “EXTREME.”

She looked out at the sky, which was brown with smog behind her and a brilliant, cloudless blue ahead of her, and muttered, “Hasn’t anyone told you it’s January?” The weather ignored her.

Laura cranked the air conditioning as high as it would go and turned up the music, singing along softly, trying not to think about why she was leaving. Trying not to think about the bank. Trying not to think about the blood that had soaked into the new white carpet that she and her co-workers had been so careful not to spill their coffee on. Trying not to think about the man she’d killed…

It’s like the elephant in the corner,
she thought.
I left Los Angeles so I could stop thinking about what happened, but every time I remember that I’m leaving, I remember
why
I’m leaving…

A sign read, “Last gas for 50 miles.” She took the exit and pulled up at the station. When she got out, the heat hit her like a boiling tidal wave. Sweat beaded up on her forehead, her blouse began to cling to her back, and her pantyhose stuck to her legs.

She fled to the gas station bathroom and stripped off her pantyhose, then checked herself in the fly-specked mirror. Out of habit, she’d dressed as if she was going to work at the bank: black pumps, gray skirt, blue blouse, gray jacket, everything doing its job of minimizing her curves (as much as was possible) and making her look respectable and ordinary (as much as was possible).

“What’s the point?” she said aloud. “I’ll never—”

Another woman came in and gave her an odd look.

“I’ll never get over how hot it is in these hills,” Laura finished smoothly, her practiced instincts kicking in to deflect suspicion.

“That’s for sure,” the woman agreed with a chuckle. Then, to Laura’s dismay, her face creased into a quizzical expression. “You look familiar. I’ve seen you on TV, haven’t I?”

Laura’s heart nearly stopped, but those same instincts continued working, concealing her guilt and dismay.

“Yes, I do commercials. Maybe you’ve seen me in the detergent ads?” Laura put on an extra-cheery, sing-song voice. “‘Gets your clothes clean as a whistle—Super Fresh is super-best!’”

The woman laughed. “That must be it.”

“Have a nice day. And, seriously: Super Fresh really is super-best. Give it a try.” Laura crammed her pantyhose into her purse and fled the bathroom before the woman could wonder why she’d never seen “Super Fresh” detergent.

She knew what she could have said—“It’s only in select stores,” or “It’s new,” or any other one of the hundred plausible excuses that came to mind—but she didn’t want to con the woman any more. She was done with that life. She’d gone straight.

More than that, the last time she’d conned someone…

The image popped into her mind, as vivid as if it was projected on to the windshield: bright red blood soaking into the new white carpet.

Stop thinking of that,
she told herself fiercely.

Laura drove on, trying not to think.

Five hours later, she reached the twisty mountain roads that led to the Yosemite wilderness. Redwood trees shadowed the road, tall as telephone poles, and what she could see of the sky had turned an ominous gray. Not smog-gray: storm-gray.

Laura frowned at the sky, calculating how much faster she could drive without risking an accident. The narrow road consisted of nothing but hairpin curves, with no guardrails and cliffs that dropped away for a thousand feet. But she didn’t want to get caught on those blind curves if snow or rain started falling, either. She stepped on the gas.