Crap. It was cold. Not cold enough for me to change, not yet. But it would be soon. I was lying down—why was I lying down? I staggered to my feet and bit my lip, hard, to keep from gasping aloud. There was something wrong with my ankle. I tried it again, carefully, a fragile fawn on new legs, and it gave underneath me. I crashed sideways, arms wheeling, feeling for some kind of support. My palms raked across a legion of spiked instruments of torture hung on the walls. I had no idea what they were—cold, metallic, dirty.
For a moment I stayed on all fours, listening to my breathing, feeling blood well on my palms, and thinking about giving up. I was so tired of fighting. It felt like I’d been fighting for weeks.
Finally, I pulled myself back up and limped to the door, arms stretched out in front of me to protect my unarmored body from more surprises. Icy air seeped in through the crack in the door. Trickled into my body like water. I reached for a handle, but there was nothing but ragged wood. A splinter stuck into my fingers and I swore, very quietly. Then I leaned my shoulder into the door and pushed, thinking, Please open please if there’s any justice in this world.
Nothing.
CHAPTER FIFTY • GRACE
39°F
I picked up my backpack. “This is it.”
It seemed stupid, somehow, for Beck’s house to look exactly the same as when Sam had brought me here to walk me to the golden wood, because the circumstances were so wildly different, but it did. The only difference was Beck’s hulking SUV in the driveway.
Jack was already pulling to the side of the road. He took the keys out of the ignition and looked at me, eyes wary. “Get out after I do.” I did as he said, waiting for him to come around and pull the door open. I slid out of the seat and he grabbed my arm tightly. His shoulders were thrust too far together and his mouth hung slightly open—I don’t think he even noticed. I guess I should’ve worried about him attacking me, but all I could think was He’s going to change and we won’t know where Sam is until too late.
I prayed Sam was somewhere warm, somewhere out of winter’s reach.
“Hurry up,” I said, tugging my arm against Jack’s grip, almost jogging toward the front door. “We don’t have any time.”
Jack tried the front door; it was unlocked, as promised, and he shoved me in first before slamming the door behind us. My nose caught a brief hint of rosemary in the air—someone had been cooking, and for some reason, I remembered Sam’s anecdote about cooking the steaks for Beck—and then I heard a shout and a snarl from behind me.
Both sounds came from Jack. This wasn’t the silent struggle of Sam trying to stay human that I’d seen before. This was violent, angry, loud. Jack’s lips tore into a snarl and then his face ripped into a muzzle, his skin changing color in an instant. He reached for me as if to hit me, but his hands buckled into paws, nails hard and dark. His skin bulged and shimmered for a moment before each radical change, like a placenta covering a terrifying, feral infant.
I stared at the shirt that hung around the wolf’s midsection. I couldn’t look away. It was the only detail that could convince my mind that this animal really had just been Jack.
This Jack was as angry as he had been in the car, but now his anger had no direction, no human control. His lips pulled back from his teeth and formed a snarl, but no sound appeared.
“Stand back!”
A man tore into the hall, surprisingly agile given his height, and ran directly at Jack. Jack, off guard, crouched down defensively, and the man landed on the wolf with all his weight.
“Get down!” snarled the man, and I flinched before I realized that he was talking to the wolf. “Stay down. This is my house. You are nothing here.” He had a hand around Jack’s muzzle and was shouting right into his face. Jack whistled through his clenched jaw, and Beck forced his head to the ground. Beck’s eyes flitted up at me, and though he was holding a huge wolf to the ground with one hand, his voice was perfectly level. “Grace? Can you help?”
I’d been standing perfectly still, watching. “Yes.”
“Grab the edge of the rug he’s sitting on. We’re going to drag him to the bathroom. It’s—”
“I know where it is.”
“Good. Let’s go. I’ll try to help, but I have to keep my weight on him.”
Together, we pulled Jack down the hall and to the bathroom where I’d forced Sam into the bathtub. Beck, half on the rug and half off, got behind Jack and shoved him into the room, and I kicked the rest of the rug in after him. Beck leaped back and slammed the door, locking it. The doorknob had been reversed so that the lock was on the outside, making me wonder how often this sort of thing had happened before.
Beck heaved a deep breath, which seemed like an understatement, and looked at me. “Are you all right? Did he bite you?”
I shook my head, miserable. “That doesn’t matter, anyway. How are we going to find Sam now?”
Beck jerked his head for me to follow him into the rosemary-scented kitchen. I did, looking up warily when I saw another person sitting on the counter. I wouldn’t have been able to describe him as anything other than dark if anyone had asked me later. He was just dark and still and silent, and smelled of wolf. He had new-looking scars on his hands; it had to be Paul. He didn’t say anything, and Beck didn’t say anything to him as Beck leaned against the counter and picked up a cell phone.
He punched in a number and put it on speakerphone. He looked at me. “How angry is he with me? Did he get rid of his cell phone?”
“I don’t think so. I didn’t know the number.”
Beck stared at the phone and we listened to it ring, small and distant. Please pick up. My heart was skipping uncontrollably. I leaned on the kitchen island and looked at Beck, at the square set of his shoulders, the square set of his jaw, the square line of eyebrows. Everything about him looked safe, honest, secure. I wanted to trust him. I wanted to believe that nothing bad could happen because Beck wasn’t panicking.
There was a crackle at the other end of the line.
“Sam?” Beck leaned close into the phone.
The voice was badly broken up. “Gr—t?…you?”
“It’s Beck. Where are you?”
“—ack. Grace…Jack to—…co.” The only thing I could understand was his distress. I wanted to be there, wherever he was.