Isabel looked at Cole again, and then at Grace a little longer, and then she pointed a finger at me. With a gritted smile, she said, “Can I have a moment with you? In the kitchen?”
Grace lifted her head dully and frowned at Isabel, but she moved off me so that I could follow Isabel to the kitchen.
I had barely crossed over the threshold when Isabel said, voice biting, “I told you that the wolves were around our house and that my father was not a fan. What were you waiting for?”
My eyebrows raised at the accusation. “What? What your father did today? I was supposed to prevent that?”
“You’re in charge. They’re your wolves now. You can’t just sit there.”
“I didn’t really think your father was going to go out—”
Isabel interrupted me. “Everyone knows my dad will shoot at anything that can’t shoot back. I expected you to do something!”
“I don’t know what I would do to keep the wolves from the property. They go around the lake because the hunting’s good there. I really didn’t think your trigger-happy father would blatantly flout hunting and firearms laws to prove his point.” My voice came out accusing, which I knew wasn’t fair.
Isabel laughed; it sounded like a bark, short and humorless. “You, of all people, ought to know what he is capable of, for God’s sake. In the meantime, how long are you going to pretend there’s nothing wrong with Grace?”
I blinked at her.
“Don’t give me those lamb eyes. You’re sitting there with her, and she looks like a cancer patient or something. I mean, she looks awful. And she smells just like that dead wolf. So what’s going on?”
I winced. “I don’t know, Isabel,” I said. My voice sounded tired, even to me. “We went to the clinic today. Nothing.”
“Well, then, take her to the hospital!”
“What do you think they’ll do at a hospital? Maybe, maybe they’ll do blood work on her. What do you think they’ll find? I’m guessing ‘werewolf’ won’t show up on most panels, and there isn’t a diagnosis for ‘smells like a sick wolf.’” I didn’t mean to sound so angry; I wasn’t angry at Isabel—I was angry at me.
“So you’re just going to—what? Wait for something bad to happen?”
“What am I supposed to do? Take her into the hospital and demand they fix a problem that hasn’t really appeared yet? That isn’t in their Merck Manual? You don’t think that I’ve been worrying about this all day? All week? Don’t you think it’s killing me to not know what’s happening? It’s not like we can be sure. There’s no—no precedent. There’s never been anyone like Grace. I’m stabbing in the dark here, Isabel!”
Isabel glared at me; I noticed her eyes were a little red behind her dark eye makeup. “Think. Be proactive instead of reactive. You ought to be looking at what killed that first wolf instead of just staring at Grace with moon eyes. And what were you thinking, letting her stay over here? Her parents have left me voicemails that could cook bacon. What happens if they find out where you live and show up here while Cole’s shifting? That would be a great conversation starter. And speaking of Cole—do you know who he is? What the hell are you doing, Sam? What the hell are you waiting for?”
I turned away from her, linking my hands behind my head. “God, Isabel. What do you want from me? What do you want?”
“I want you to grow up,” she snapped. “What did you think, that you could just work in that bookstore forever and live in a dream world with Grace? Beck’s gone. You’re Beck now. Start acting like an adult, or you’re going to lose everything. Do you think my dad is really going to stop with just one? ‘Cause I can tell you right now, he’s not done. And what do you think is going to happen when people come after Cole? When whatever happened to that wolf happens to Grace? Were you really at a recording studio yesterday? Unreal.”
I turned back around to face her. Her hands were fists stuffed in her armpits, her jaw was set. I wanted to ask her if she was doing this because Jack died and she couldn’t stand to see it happen to someone else. Or if she was doing it because I had lived and Jack hadn’t. Or was it because she was a part of us now, inextricably tied to me and Grace and Cole and the rest?
Ultimately, it didn’t really matter why she was here, or why she was saying what she was saying. Because I knew she was right.
• COLE •
I looked up when I heard the raised voices in the kitchen; Grace and I exchanged looks. She got up and came to sit across from me at the table, holding a glass of water and a few pills in her hand. She swallowed the pills and set the glass down. The entire process seemed to take a lot of effort, but I didn’t say anything, because she hadn’t. She had dark smudges under her eyes and her cheeks were bright red with a rising temperature. She looked exhausted.
In the other room, Sam’s and Isabel’s voices were raised. I felt the tension in the air, stretched between all of us tight as wires.
“I can’t believe this is happening,” I said.
Grace asked, “Cole? Do you know what will happen when people find out you’re here? Do you mind me asking?” The way she asked it was completely frank and simple. No judgment about my famous face.
I shook my head. “I don’t know. My family won’t care. They gave up on me a long time ago. But the media will care.” I thought about those girls snapping photos of me on their cell phones. “The media will love it. It would be a lot of attention for Mercy Falls.”
Grace exhaled and laid a hand on her stomach, carefully, like she was afraid of crushing her skin. Had she looked like that earlier?
Grace asked, “Do you want to be found?”
I raised an eyebrow at her.
“Ah,” she said. She considered this. “I guess Beck thought you would be a wolf more.”
“Beck thought I was going to kill myself,” I said. “I don’t think he thought about it any more than that. He was trying to save me.”