The Wolf in His Arms (The Runes Trilogy) (5 page)

Collin
made his way in, stopping at the guard station. He entered a room with the
other boys, stripped off his clothes and personal items, which were bagged, and
changed into the white shirt and blue pants that were his wardrobe for his
stay. He was assigned a roommate, Tony, one of the young men who arrived with
him. After they were checked in, they were herded by guards into a small room,
what Collin guessed had once been a chapel. A man in a blue suit, white shirt,
and red tie stood at a podium in the front of the room. As Collin, Tony, and
the third new inmate, Mark, sat, the guards waited in the aisle, with their
arms folded over their chests.

“Welcome
to Cornerstone Boys Reformatory School.” The man at the podium smiled. But Collin
noted his smile was not warm. It was a wide smile, but not friendly. The man’s
dark hair was swept back against his head, without a single strand out of
place. His green eyes bore down on them keenly.

“I’m
Proctor Roth. I ensure that things run smoothly here at the school, that your
needs are met, and that you take the curriculum here seriously.” He walked
around the edge of the podium and stepped down from the raised stage and sat on
the top step, his feet on the step below. “We take your education and your
reform very seriously.

“Cornerstone
never takes any cases that we would consider, let me say, irredeemable. Every
student in here has committed some small offence, but is likely on his way to
ruin, throwing away talents that society will find useful.” He turned to
Collin. “You’re academically gifted as well as have a—shall we say
penchant?—for art.” He turned to Tony. “You’ve been in a number of
fights...you’ve never started them. But you’ve finished them. If you could just
channel your physical gifts, you could do amazing things.” He turned finally to
Mark. “Shop lifting.” He shook his finger and clucked his tongue. “We’ll help
you see the error of your ways.”

“Yeah,
well, what are my gifts?” Mark said belligerently.

Proctor
Roth smiled the same cold smile. “Your talents are less obvious. But useful.
And we’ll show you those here, too. As we say, ‘Arrive in shackles. Leave
unfettered.’” He stood and nodded to the guards. “You’re dismissed to your
rooms. You are to be at breakfast at 8:15 am and no later. Classes begin at 9
o’clock. There is no tardiness. No skipping classes. No being sick. And no
disrespect.” He smiled again, arching his eyebrow delicately. “Consequences
here are
severe
.”

Darrin
Nichols looked at his Omega wristwatch, a gift from his parents, before pulling
his tie up into a tight Windsor knot. “Jenna, come on, I’m gonna be late,” he
cursed silently under his breath. He walked back into Sable’s room to check in
on her. She was bouncing in the playpen, happily. He had already changed her
and fed her—two tasks he wasn’t planning. Normally, he would have left for work
twenty minutes ago.
Hell, I’m always the
first one in anyway.

After
twenty more minutes, he called work to let them know he would be late. He
stormed into the backyard, his steps crunching on icy snow on the deck.
Damn it, Jenna.

“Jenna!”
He called. Darrin frowned, and walked back into the house, pulling the sliding
glass door shut behind him. He made his way through the house to the front
door. On the front lawn, he glanced down the curving subdivision road in both
directions, not sure what he hoped to accomplish. With the sight of the empty
street, the first flutter of fear moved within his chest. He spun and hurried
back inside the house.

Darrin
snatched his keys and walked next door without his coat to knock of the
neighbor’s door. He didn’t know if the neighbor, a nurse with a rotating
schedule, was home. Luckily, she answered. “Hey, have you seen Jenna?” She
shook her head, her face pinched with an unspoken
why would I know where she is
. “She went for her run this morning
and she isn’t home yet,” he explained. “It’s not like her.”

“I’m
sure she’ll turn up.”

“I hate
to ask, but could you watch Sable—just for a few minutes—while I look for her.”

“Well,
I,”—she seemed to be searching for an excuse—“Sure. Just for a while. Want me
to come over?”

“Please.
She’s dressed and fed. I just can’t leave her alone...and if something’s
happened—well, I don’t want her with me.”

“Sure.
I understand,” she said, grabbing her coat. “I’m sure she’s okay. She probably
lost track of time.”

“I just
keep thinking she twisted an ankle and is limping home or something.”

As the
neighbor settled in with Sable, Darrin launched out the door toward the trail.
It occurred to him that he should have grabbed his bike—and changed—as mud
splattered onto his shoes from the melting snow. “Jenna!” He called down the
trail. No sign of her.

Darrin
breezed back into the house, calling, “I’m getting my bike,” as he passed. To
hell with my shoes and pants, he thought. He hit the garage door button as he
sat astride his bike. He tore from the garage and pedaled down the street to
the multipurpose trail. He followed it until it reached the state forest. He
skidded to a stop, gazing through the leafless trees down the trail. His assurance
that she was okay melted away, like the clumps of snow falling from branches
above him. He began pedaling again. The cold air whipped his face and seared his
lungs as he shot down the trail, calling her name. The return of silence ate
away at him.

Be okay. Be okay.
He prayed.

He
passed mile marker three and stopped.
How
far does she run? She couldn’t have gone any farther,
he decided. He turned
the bike around.

Then,
at the edge of the woods, he saw blood splattered on the leaves.

He
squeezed his brakes, almost flipping his bike, and slid down to an unbalanced stop.
He noticed the ground, the signs of a struggle. “GodnoGodnoplease,” he
whispered. He stepped off his bike, letting it fall. He walked toward the
blood, knowing that he shouldn’t, that it was a crime scene. But he thought
maybe someone had shot a deer off season, maybe it was deer blood.

A
startled, broken noise erupted from his mouth, not quite a cry or a groan, as
he pushed through the underbrush and saw the shredded figure of a woman. But
the face—
thank God, it’s not Jenna
.

The
woman’s chest rose slightly, and Darrin realized with dread, that she was still
alive.

Darrin
fished in his pocket for his cell phone and punched in 9-1-1. “I found a woman,”
he rambled before the operator said anything. “In the woods. On the trail. My
wife is missing.” He looked around, panic stinging his eyes with tears. His arm
dropped to his side, neglecting the phone and the voice asking him his
location. “Jenna!” He called.

He
stumbled back from the injured woman, his mind mad with questions. He fought
back the nightmare scenarios forming in his brain. Maybe Jenna never came this
way. Maybe Jenna is home. He suddenly remembered the phone. “Please hurry,” he
croaked. “My daughter’s with the neighbor.”

*
         
*
         
*
         
*

Only
minutes had passed since Rindy and her parents identified Rebecca, but the
moments were hazy, both sped up and slowed down into an incomprehensible mash
up. She stood in the lobby of the hospital; her parents stood behind her. But she
could not look at them. She wanted to be hugged, needed to be hugged but, at
the same time, could not be touched. Her skin ached.

Rebecca—found in the woods.
Rebecca—her skin raked by claws. Rebecca—would she live?
Feeling suffocated, Rindy
tugged at the scarf around her neck. She pulled it loose and pulled at her
collar. She could feel a tension building in her, like a tidal wave deep at
sea, scarcely a harbinger of the fury to come.

Rindy
turned to face her parents. Through her tear-blurred eyes, she saw her mother,
sprawled into a cheap, orange plastic chair. Her father, on his knees next to
the orange chair, clung to his wife as they both sobbed. “Mom, Dad,” Rindy
mouthed, the sound barely audible.

And
suddenly, the tidal wave crashed ashore—the guilt and anguish.
I should have been with Rebecca!
She
thought. Rindy staggered to the chair beside her mother. She draped her arms
over her mother and petted her head and face.
RebeccaRebeccaRebeccaRebecca!
Her sister’s name coursed through her
head, no longer seeming like a word.
Her
arms shook violently, and her chest heaved, struggling with the effort of
breathing.

Her
father, trying to comfort her mother, suddenly staggered and fell, clutching
his chest. “Dad!” She yelled, knowing what was happening. And suddenly her mind
closed in, like a tunnel, as she focused on her father. Medical staff swept in,
shoving her and her wailing mother aside as they worked feverishly to help her
father. She could no longer see her mother as her eyes locked on her father and
his swollen, purplish face; she could no longer hear anything but his labored
gasps for air.

Lucy
pulled her Subaru into the parking lot and squeezed into a spot. She arrived at
the gym fifteen minutes early for her yoga class. Afterward, she had her
taekwondo class. Filling her days with routine kept her sane. She also felt
that the steadier she could keep her mind and body, the more she could control
the beast. She had no idea if it was true, but until Jared found some sort of
cure, it was all she could do. Lucy slung her yoga mat over her shoulder and
shut the car door. She looked up at the nearly full moon and shook her head
with a grimace.

“In a
good mood per usual,” Mitch said, as he strode up behind her. He had on his
normal white tank top and jogging pants.

Lucy
took a deep breath. She hated the sarcastic snarl in his voice. “I’ve had a
long day,” she replied without waiting for him.

He
caught up with her easily, his long strides simply covering more space in fewer
steps. He reached for the door to open it, but Lucy grabbed the handle first.
“See you later,” she said as she brushed past him. Lucy headed straight to the
yoga classroom and laid out her mat, sitting and taking deep, relaxing breaths
as the class filled in. She heard someone sit beside her but didn’t open her
eyes.

“I’m
sitting in tonight.”

She
recognized Mitch’s baritone voice without opening her eyes. She assumed he was
talking to her, but she didn’t really care. She took another deep breath as she
stretched.

“Flexibility
is key to success in taekwondo. I appreciate the metaphysical aspect to
meditation. But the flexibility, focus on the core, that’s where it’s at.”

Lucy
popped one eye open but didn’t turn her head. “Are you talking to me?”

“Apparently
I was talking to myself.”

“Apparently.”
She closed her eye.

He snorted
a short laugh and said nothing else.

The
instructor arrived moments later, and Mitch chatted with his colleague before
she began the intermediate level class. Lucy followed the routine, completing
the stretches with competence, if not finesse. She swore she heard Mitch
chuckle under his breath as she fumbled her balance on a couple of stretches,
but she refused to let him get to her.

Lucy
reflected on her first class taught by Mitch. His boastful demeanor, his
assurance that everyone
wanted
to
talk to him drove her insane. She didn’t want to talk to him, she wanted
to learn
from him. She didn’t need to
know his rotten life story. She had considered switching instructors, but he
was effective and thorough, and she needed to learn quickly.

As the yoga
class ended, Lucy waited for Mitch to clear out before rolling up her mat and
taking it to her car. Back inside the gym, she hovered outside the classroom
until Mitch’s taekwondo class was about to begin to avoid another conversation
with him.

Mitch
led the class like he was speaking from the pulpit, showing the students a few
new stances. He came over to Lucy. He looked down at her, standing nearly a
foot taller than she. “Feet further apart. You’ll be too easy to knock off
balance.

“Farther,”
Lucy said, unable to help herself.

“What?”

She
winced. “Farther apart.” She smiled. “You said further. You meant farther.”

Mitch
turned from her. “Class, Lucy has just volunteered to be my sparring partner as
we practice the new moves.”

“No I
didn’t,” she said.

Mitch
smiled. “I think you meant, ‘Yes, I did.’” He waved her over to the mats. “I’m
not gonna hurt you. We’re all friends here.” He nodded with his head. “Come on.
This is a good opportunity. I usually pair you with Marie because you guys are
a similar size. But an attacker can be a big guy like me.” He hit his broad chest
to drive home the point. “And trust me, with practice you can take him down.”
He added a wink. “Not me, of course. But other guys.”

Lucy
nodded her head resolutely and approached him. She took the attention stance, and
then the walking stance, with one foot ahead of the other.