Silver Moon (A Women of Wolf's Point Novel) (26 page)

That made her force her eyes open, blinking groggily in the moonlight. Erin and Molly were looking down at her and someone else was leaning over the side of the ditch. She wasn’t sure who the other person was, but it didn’t matter right now. She was back among friends.

Then Erin was pulling her up onto her shoulder and dragging her up to where Molly and the other person could pull her out. Becca blinked at the surprised looking guy on the road and realized that he was holding a fur-covered hand. It took a minute more to realize that it was attached to her arm. She staggered forward, pulling free of his grasp and collapsed against the side of the truck.

Molly and Erin came up out of the ditch, and Molly reached into her pocket and pulled out an energy bar. Wordlessly, she took the wrapper off and handed it over. Becca blinked at it, then at her hand. She tried to remember what her fingers looked like over the sudden fierce, animal growls coming from her stomach. She snatched the bar from Molly’s fingers and devoured it.

“Becca, are you ready to rejoin the human world? At least for the time being?” Erin was standing in front of her now, and the wolf wasn’t looking out of her eyes. Molly also looked human and as near as Becca’s addled senses could tell, the guy
was
human. She also recognized him as the library assistant from the meeting at Shelly’s.

Wouldn’t want to be the odd one out at the party,
she thought, trying to piece the words together from the fuzz in her brain. She closed her eyes and squeezed her hands into fists, wincing as her claws met her palms and tried to force herself back to human.

Deep, shuddering breaths later, she looked up. They were all still staring at her. Finally, Erin said, “It’s okay. Let’s get you to safety and see what a night’s sleep does. You drive, Carlos.” She nodded to the guy and tossed him the keys from her pocket.

Then she reached out for Becca’s arm in what looked like slow motion. “Lean on me. I’ll help you get into the truck.” Becca didn’t so much lean as slump. A distant, weary portion of her brain wondered what her feet looked like, but she couldn’t bring herself to look down. Instead she fell into the truck’s back seat, then scrambled over to make room for Erin.

Erin slid in carefully. “Can you talk?”

Becca stared at her in amazement. Of course, she could talk. Why wouldn’t she be able to talk? She reached up. Her furry hand met the fur of her elongated jawline, then followed it out to a wolf-human hybrid nose.
Oh.
She tried to form a “Yes.” It came out as a guttural hiss, swiftly followed by a whimper.

“Oh, hon, it’s okay.” Erin enveloped her in a careful, slow-moving hug. “They used that ‘cure’ of theirs on you, didn’t they?”

Becca nodded, trying to convey her misery with gestures. It was obvious that she wasn’t communicating much beside her mood. Molly leaned back and patted her knee while Erin rubbed her shoulders. Becca sat still and tried to think soothing nonwolfy thoughts. Her body still felt weird, though a bit more menopausal human weird, rather than wolf/human hybrid weird.

But the fur didn’t recede much. And they were getting closer to Wolf’s Point. Erin realized the problem before Becca had to try and signal her fears. “Hey Carlos, I don’t think we should head through town with Becca looking like this. Our luck, someone’s bound to notice and this’ll be hard to explain away. Let me call Pete and tell him that we found her.” Her phone beeped as Carlos pulled over.

Molly seemed to be dozing in her seat now and Becca envied her that. If she could only relax enough to sleep, she might go back to normal, whatever that was. Erin was talking to Pete on her phone, so she leaned back against the seat and closed her eyes, not really listening. It would all be okay. Now they just had to find Shelly.

Thinking about Shelly made her remember the vials. It was possible they’d used the other missing bottle on someone besides Shelly. Maybe there were more ex-wolves with them than she’d seen so far. Unless they were giving one of the ex-wolves multiple doses like they’d tried to do with her?

Erin clicked off the phone. “Pete says to bring her there. You up for a bit more driving?”

Carlos glanced back. “Sure. She doing any better?”

Erin gave Becca a long look, as if she was searching for improvements. Becca wasn’t too sure she saw any but guessed that she would say something optimistic anyway. “Yep, I think she’s starting to shake it off. But since we don’t know how long it will take, we better get her somewhere safe and quiet to finish recovering.”

Becca tried to smile at her, then thought the better of it. She reached out and very carefully squeezed Erin’s hand instead. It seemed to her as if Erin was reluctant to let go after she squeezed back, but there was no way Becca was leaving her hanging on to some mutant fur-covered mitt and she tugged free. At least she had somewhere to go tonight. It didn’t feel like a good time to be alone.

She let her thoughts drift a little and as Carlos headed up to Pete and Shelly’s place, she fell asleep.

At least she was steadier on her feet than she had been when she woke up at the trailer. The floor still seemed a little uneven as she picked up the clothes and made her way to the door, but nothing that might not really be there. Of course, finding Erin on the other side when she opened it was kind of startling. “Oh! Hi!” Becca could feel herself blushing though she wasn’t really sure why.

Erin smiled down at her, her expression suggesting relief as much as anything else Becca could read into it. “You’re doing better, I see. I realized I forgot to leave a towel and basic toiletries with the clothes.” She handed Becca a small armload of things that included a new toothbrush, still in its package. “We’ll be downstairs when you’re ready.”

Becca watched her walk away in bemusement. She really did think of just about everything. It made for interesting thoughts while Becca showered. She had to admit, it was getting easier to get used to Erin being in her life. It took her a moment to realize that she was running her fingers over her lips and remembering their kiss. She jerked her hand away and went back to vigorous scrubbing.

The hot water had almost run out by the time she turned it off, the water trickling its way down to a mellow warmth from the steaming heat she’d started with. It was time to get out and face the music. Or at least the other wolves and Shelly’s family, which amounted to the same thing. Whatever she decided to do about her feelings for Erin, they could wait for a little bit longer.

That thought was uppermost as she came down the stairs into Pete and Shelly’s front room. A ring of faces peered up at her, making her start and pause momentarily. It hadn’t occurred to her that she’d have an audience for breakfast. But then, it was probably easier than trying to talk to everyone individually. Maybe.

Pete walked in from the kitchen as she got to the last step and plunked a big pot of coffee down on the dining room table. There were a few platters of food, most of them half-full of what looked like different kinds of meat. Becca’s mouth watered the way that it never seemed to for, say, broccoli these days.

Erin cleared her throat. “After you’ve grabbed some coffee and some food, Becca, I’d like you to tell us what you can about the Nesters.” She turned back to the group sitting on the two sofas and said something that didn’t register with Becca. The grogginess that she’d been feeling the last few days seemed to be lingering.

Instead of listening, she took stock of who was in the living room, almost like she hadn’t seen them before: Molly, Pete, Mrs. Hui (one of these days she was going to have to ask what her first name was, once she worked up the nerve), Gladys, Carlos and two or three more folks whose names she couldn’t remember or never knew.

She wondered where Lizzie and Adelía were and why Gladys was there. It was hard to picture her tactless and taciturn neighbor as a leader in the Pack. But so it went; at least she was reliable. She realized that she was being a little mean. The thought made her feel even guiltier and she glanced around for Kira to make her apologies for kicking her out of her room.

Erin beckoned her over, breaking into her thoughts. Becca chugged half a cup of coffee, grabbed a plate of food and took the empty seat between the couches that they’d left for her. Everyone looked expectantly at her.
They think I know where Shelly is.
The thought was like a punch to the gut, especially when she saw the hopeful look on Pete’s face.

She made herself look away as she started talking. “I’m guessing you know that Oya took me with her to see the ‘proof’ of the Nesters’ cure. So I drove her up to their camp outside town, somewhere in the foothills. I think I can find it again, though I don’t know for certain. She also said there were other camps, though that might have been a lie.”

Becca paused and grabbed a bite of sausage. She kept talking, even though her mouth was full.
So much for my manners.
“I made sure to rub my hands against some of the rocks and trees on the way in. I was hoping that would be enough to mark the trail.” She glanced around, relieved to see some approving nods. It might be a help, if she couldn’t remember the exact route.

She took them back through everything that had happened up to Leroy injecting her, including the drunken hunters. Carlos shifted a little and she realized where she’d seen him before. “That was you!” He blushed a little and looked at his feet as she caught his hand. “Thank you for trying. It wasn’t your fault they dosed me anyway. Did you come back for the gunfight yesterday?”

Carlos smiled a little warily. “It wasn’t exactly a gunfight. A couple of us were checking out the area because we were going to go back at midnight to try to get you out. The trigger-happy Nester assholes started firing at us, so we fired a few shots back. Then they got distracted by some kind of explosion on their side and we got out of there.”

Erin made an impatient face at the interruption and Becca hurried to continue with her story. “The bad part is that I never saw Shelly. I couldn’t get them to tell me where they were holding her either. I’m so sorry, Pete.” He rubbed one large hand over his eyes and Becca wanted to sink into the carpet.

She’d wanted to be a hero this time, she realized that now. Or at least to be the one helping her friends out instead of the other way around for a change. But more importantly, she wanted this part to be over with, for Shelly and Pete to be back at the store and her to be working and everything back more or less the way it had been.

Instead, Erin was hugging Pete and everyone was looking everywhere but at each other. Finally, Mrs. Hui broke the silence, “Do you think they were holding her somewhere nearby? You said you thought there were fewer of them than we feared.”

Becca rubbed her chin in thought. “I’m not sure. I know there seemed to be more of them when we attacked the camp than there were around the trailer. But if they have a second camp somewhere else, the rest of them could have been there. I wish I knew more!” She slammed her fist against her knee as the sense of frustration overwhelmed her.

“Whoa!” Molly jumped back, staring at Becca’s hand. Becca couldn’t help but notice that she put her arm up in front of Carlos, like she was protecting him.

“Becca!” Erin’s voice barked across the room, her tone as full alpha as Becca had ever heard it. “Get that under control.”

Becca stared at the fur-covered hand on her knee like she was trying to bend spoons with her mind or something. She could feel tears welling up, then running down her face, and she rubbed her eyes angrily with her other hand. How was she supposed to stop this? Now she felt silly as well as out of control.

Erin cleared her throat and looked away. “All right. We need to figure out where Shelly is. Some of us will need to go looking for the camp where they held Becca. Maybe we can find a clue on where their other camp is. Do you think you can get the aftereffects under control in a few hours?” She leaned forward, her eyes holding Becca’s once more. “I wouldn’t ask this of you if we had other options.”