Red (15 page)

“
I wouldn’t have thought so
before. I thought you were better here.”

“
I
am
better here.
Because of
her.
I’d slit my own wrists before I’d
deliberately cause her any kind of pain.”

This was the wrong thing to say.

Dad’s face shifted from stern to alarmed.
“You can’t be with her like that, Sawyer. You know that. She isn’t
like us.”

I could tell him about her. Clear this up,
avoid the lecture. Do something really radical and bring in an
adult to help me teach her. But it wasn’t my secret to tell. And
since when did I ever do things the easy way?

“
I know exactly what she
is. She’s a brilliant, amazing, lonely girl, who deserves better
than the likes of this hick town. I’m not crossing any lines, not
doing anything that would jeopardize her future.”

“
So long as we’re
clear.”

“
We’re clear.”

Dad nodded, as if satisfied with my
response. But I couldn’t leave it at that. I stepped toward him,
back into his line of sight so that he made eye contact again. “Now
make sure you’re clear on this. She’s been humiliated and
ostracized by her classmates since she moved here, with nobody to
protect or stand up for her. I am her friend, and I’m not walking
away and abandoning her because you think it’s best.”

I could see him considering responses,
rejecting them, trying to assess whether an alpha smackdown was
going to deter me from my path. Whether it was necessary. But I’d
framed it right. Protection was one of our highest priorities, one
that he and I both felt he’d failed at with Mom. Whether Elodie was
wolf or not, mine or not, he understood that need.

“
Be careful, son. This is a
dangerous path you’re walking.”

“
I’m fine. No one’s trying
to kill her. I just want to have her back if any of these assholes
from her school try to hassle her again.”

“
Fair enough.” His eyes
shifted back to green. “Now grab that pack. We’re headed out past
Kephart Prong today.”

I squelched irritation. Evidently my
punishment was going to be busywork for the day. Instead of
arguing, I schlepped to the supply closet and grabbed the pack.
Maybe by tonight I’d have figured out what to say to Elodie.

~*~

Elodie

Dad was gonna kill me. If he hadn’t called
out search parties already. The sky was fading from a wash of red
and orange to the purpling of night. Which meant it was really
freaking late. No trail guide would still be at work this late. And
that meant he was bound to have called the park looking for me. My
cover was gonna be blown, all because I’d stayed late to help
secure the station for the night because it was the first chance
I’d had to see Sawyer since the incident at Hansen’s this morning.
God, I was a moron.

I took one last glance at the research
station before climbing into my car. For all I knew it was the last
time I’d see Sawyer. Dad might put me under house arrest when I got
home. Sawyer was still in there with his dad working on the map and
the plan for tomorrow’s work. We’d both been kept busy today.
Separately. Maybe it was nothing and Dr. McGrath just wanted us to
work on different things, but I couldn’t help but feel like he
wholly disapproved of the idea of Sawyer taking more than a
friendly interest in me. I mean he’d been nothing but kind and
professional all day. Nothing had really changed in how he acted
toward me. But his manner with Sawyer was different. Gruffer.
Shorter. I wondered why. Did he think Sawyer was somehow bad for
me?

My car sputtered a bit when I cranked it,
but she caught and purred to life. Okay perhaps purred was
euphemistic. Whimpered maybe. I really needed Dad to get under the
hood and tinker. After he was done flaying me alive for lying to
him.

I wasn’t used to being out this late. Even
before Rich and Molly’s kidnapping, standard operating procedure in
our household meant that I was in before sunset, period. Not like
the chances of me wolfing out were greater after dark, but Dad
was
a single parent of a teenage daughter and, curse aside,
it was a reasonable precaution.

Shadows of trees and boulders stretched long
across the road into deeper pools of blackness. My headlights cut
through them, a narrow swath of light leading me home. There wasn’t
anybody else on the road. Which wasn’t a shock. There wasn’t much
on
this road other than park access, and everybody was gone
for the day.

My heart jolted as something jerked in the
beams. I jammed my foot down on the brakes, tires screeching as I
slid to a stop. But it was only a deer, wheeling away from the road
and back into the trees.

The breath whooshed out of me in relief.

Then the car died.

I patted the dash, as if it was an animal
that needed soothing from the encounter. “It’s okay, baby. It was
just a deer. It wasn’t hurt. I didn’t wreck. You weren’t hurt. This
is not a problem.”

I turned the key. The engine sputtered and
coughed. Nothing. I cranked it again. Cough. Sputter. Wheeze. Die.
It occurred to me the fourth time I tried that I might be flooding
the engine. Could you do that with an automatic? It didn’t matter,
really. Either way, the car apparently wasn’t going to start.

“
Shit.”

I turned on my emergency flashers.

I was halfway home. I could chance walking
back to the lab, but Sawyer and his dad would probably be finished
and gone by the time I got there. Probably the best thing to do
would be to head for home. At least it would give me a valid excuse
for being late. And if I was lucky, somebody I knew would drive by
and could maybe give me a lift.

This was one of those occasions I
really
thought Dad should rethink his no cell phone policy.
I’d never fought it before because, really, who would I call? It’s
not like I had friends. But the prospect of hiking home in the dark
was so not thrilling me. Maybe I’d start a campaign for one of
those pre-paid burner phones.

I climbed out of the car, grabbed my day
pack, and locked the door.

For about two seconds I considered hiking
cross country. I could shave off a mile probably. But though I knew
practically every inch of the park in the daylight, I wasn’t
comfortable trekking through at night. I hadn’t forgotten our
encounter with the bear, and predators aside, even an almost
werewolf was subject to sprained ankles or broken bones as a result
of a fall. So road it was.

I hugged the left shoulder, keeping as much
out of the road as possible. I’d see and hear any oncoming traffic
well enough in advance to get out of the way. To the right there
was no shoulder for the most part, just sheer walls of rock of
varying heights where the mountain had been blasted to make way for
the roadbed.

Now that the sun was down, the oppressive
heat of the day had waned. It was actually almost pleasant to be
outside under the stars. Except for the mosquitoes. Tipping my head
back, I peered up at the swatch of sky visible through the trees
where the road cut through. Now that I’d walked far enough that my
headlights had disappeared, I could see hundreds of pinpricks of
light in the black. It’s one of my favorite things about living in
a podunk town. No city lights to drown out the night sky.

Dad and I used to have a telescope when I
was younger, and we made stargazing a big thing. He taught me all
the constellations, let me stay up late for those rare astronomical
events. Since we’d come here, the telescope had stayed packed in
its crate and the only star related stuff we’d done was
navigational. I could find my way around without a map or compass.
In theory.

My dad. Always about the practical.

It hadn’t seemed worth the hurt to mention
the fact that getting lost hadn’t been why Mom died.

A distant rumble separated itself from the
noisy song of crickets and buzz of cicadas. An engine. I tipped my
head, listening. Was it coming this way? Hard to tell. The new
super sensitive hearing seemed to be coming and going, and I really
had no idea of the range. I could be hearing a car on another road
entirely.

I stopped walking to listen again, turning
around to face the direction I’d come from. It occurred to me that
the mobility of canine ears would be much more convenient for
locating the direction of sounds. Not that I really wanted to
sprout a pair, but I could just see the utility of that particular
trait.

The vehicle was definitely getting closer. I
could hear the rise and fall of sound as it rounded the switchbacks
coming down the mountain. Great. Maybe it would be someone I knew
or at least someone Dad knew. Maybe it would even be Sawyer or his
dad. They had to come this way to get home.

I thought of Rich and Molly as I turned back
toward home and started walking again. What if whoever kidnapped
them had been someone who they knew? They hadn’t seen his face, but
it might’ve been. It was coming from behind me, from the direction
of the park. There were a few other things on this road than the
park, but I found myself picking up the pace. A prickle of unease
skated up my spine. Okay maybe I wouldn’t take a ride from anybody.
It was only about a mile and a half to Hansen’s and from there
another mile and a half home. Me and the mosquitoes would be fine
that far.

I passed into one of the long, stone
corridors with rock rising up on either side. It made me feel
hemmed in. Trapped. I didn’t like closed spaces of any kind, so I
broke into a jog. The sooner I came out the other side, the better.
Maybe the driver of the approaching vehicle would think I was just
out for a run and drive on by. Yeah, just out for a little
nighttime exercise. With a backpack. On a random, dark, mountain
road. Well, if they stopped to ask if I needed help, I’d just say I
was fine. I kept my pace steady and unconcerned. Just jogging
here.

Headlights cut through the dark as the car
entered the pass, and as soon as they struck me, I froze like some
kind of moronic deer, then turned around. Stupid, stupid! My night
vision was blown. The car got closer. Surely the driver had seen
me. Just in case, I edged over well into the oncoming lane, out of
the way so the vehicle could pass.

I lifted a hand to shield my eyes from the
glare, but I couldn’t see squat except that it was some kind of
truck or SUV. And it wasn’t slowing. In fact, the engine revved.
What the hell? It wasn’t that much of a straight away. What lunatic
would be speeding up on a mountain road at night? When a pedestrian
was in the road? Was he drunk?

The car
switched lanes
and started to
barrel toward me.

Oh shit.
Oh shit.
Oh shit!

I started to run, my pack bouncing against
my back as my legs pumped, propelling me down the road. Needed
speed. Needed distance. Needed to get to the end of the pass so I
could dive off the road and into the trees.

Behind me the engine revved again, a rising
whine as the driver pushed the truck even faster, eating up the
meager distance between us even as my lungs burned and screamed for
air. Thirty feet. Twenty. Fifteen. I tried to push faster, harder,
but it wasn’t enough. I wasn’t gonna make it.

In a moment of startling clarity, I was
grateful I wouldn’t have to pull the trigger myself, that the curse
would be ended with me, and that my death wouldn’t be tainted by
the stain of suicide.

Then it hit me, and I was flying through the
air, pain a bright blossoming in my ribs. The impact didn’t come
from the expected direction. I had just enough time to register
that fact before I crashed back to the ground, rolling, sliding in
sticks and leaves and rocks, until I slammed, back first, into a
tree. Everything exploded into a burst of white.

~*~

Elodie

Being dead was not at all what I’d expected.
Instead of the proverbial white light and warmth, after that
initial flash everything went dark and cold. Agonizing. It occurred
to me then that maybe werewolves go to hell, and I had skipped
right on by the pearly gates.

Well damn, that sucked.

Something moved beside me. I heard it shift,
heaving a great weight to its feet and making the leaves crackle.
That startled me enough to suck in a breath and try to pry my eyes
open.

Wait, a breath? Did you need to breathe in
the afterlife? Maybe old habits died hard. But no, once my lungs
got a taste of oxygen, they started heaving to suck in more. I was
still working on the eyes, but they really were not wanting to
cooperate.

The thing took a step toward me. Then
another. I could feel my heart racing in my chest. That was another
weird thing. Why was my heart beating? Surely I didn’t need that in
hell. But maybe it was to feel the full impact of the paralyzing
terror as you were eaten alive. I had visions of great, scary hell
beasts a la Buffy, only less campy and more terrifying. That really
didn’t help with the eye opening agenda.

Oh God. Oh God it was coming. I’d totally
missed the pain of being broken in half by that truck, so this
thing was here to make sure I paid my dues. It came closer, and
closer, and I couldn’t get my eyes to freaking open, couldn’t move
because my body refused to frigging obey the frantic commands of my
brain, and this thing was going to—

—
whine at me.

Wha—?

The rabid hamster that was apparently
running my brain simply stopped on its little wheel. Then the thing
snuffled me with a cold, wet nose, whining more as it seemed to
check out my face and shoulders before finally nudging at my cheek.
I managed to crack an eye open.

It wasn’t a hellhound crouched over me, but
it was a dog. A really freaking
big
one that seemed very
insistent that I wake up. Because apparently I was not, in fact,
dead.