I turned to Chase, looking for backup. His face was set, his expression stony. I laced my fingers through his and looked him straight in the eye, folding myself into his mind, absorbing his objections and showing him my need to do this.
“We’re not using you as bait,” Lake said, pulling me reluctantly back into my own body. “And don’t you argue with me, Bryn, because if this guy didn’t already have his own little party going on in the woods, you would never agree to let me lure him into town by letting him know there was a female Were there.”
She was right, but we also didn’t have any other choices. The Rabid didn’t need females. He didn’t want them. But he was in the business of making werewolves and apparently had a way of identifying the kind of people who could survive the Change. People like me. Resilients.
Naming the knack and those who had it satisfied me, but it did nothing to distract me from the fact that if our Rabid was a psycho, the fact that the Resilient in question was the one who’d gotten away might be more enticing than any of us knew.
“He has a girl out there,” I said. “About our age. Her name is Madison, and she died when she was six years old. Not really, but that’s what her family thinks, and that’s when her life ended. She was six; I was four. As far as we know, mine was the only attack that was ever interrupted by other wolves. Some of the Rabid’s other victims might have ended up dead, and Callum’s pack found Chase after the fact, but I’m the only one who got away absolutely unscathed. He never even got the chance to attack me, and he really, really wanted to.”
No sense hiding from the Big Bad Wolf. I’ll always find you in the end.
But he hadn’t found me. Not in time. I knew Weres well enough to know that predators didn’t enjoy giving up their prey. If Callum hadn’t taken me into his pack, the Rabid probably would have come for me again. And again. And again, until he succeeded.
I said as much out loud, and my logic hung in the air.
Who better to play bait than the one who got away?
“I got away, too,” Chase said, bringing our joined hands to my stomach, like all of his problems could be solved by holding me tighter. “First when he attacked me, and later when we severed the hold he had on my mind.”
Chase was right. The Rabid would want him. Want to hurt him. Want to make him pay. An acidic, burning feeling flared inside of me at the idea of letting Chase play bait.
“Absolutely not.”
“God, Bryn! You are such a hypocrite. At least Chase isn’t human! At least he can protect himself. If this guy gets ahold of you—”
“Don’t throw my species in my face,” I said, facing Lake down. “How would you feel if your dad locked you up in a glass room somewhere because you were female, and male werewolves were always going to be bigger and physically stronger than you were? Maybe this Rabid would come if Chase was the bait, but he’d definitely come expecting a lot more of a fight than he would from little old human me.”
Support for my position came from the most unlikely ally. “Bryn’s right,” Devon said, his voice low and contemplative in a way that made me think his desire to Shift was strong but controlled. “Believe me when I say that I wish that she wasn’t, but girlie knows her business on this one. This guy is sick, and if he thinks Bryn is waiting for him in town with a little bow around her neck, he’s not going to be able to resist. Not even if he suspects it is a trap.”
Chase growled, and the sound seemed to jump from his throat to Lake’s. Neither one of them were happy with this plan, and the electricity in the air told me that we were about to be having a debate of a different kind. Once one of them Shifted, they all would, and then I’d be arguing with their wolves instead of people, and having seen the way Chase’s wolf thought of me, I doubted that would go down in favor of my plan.
Protect.
Protect.
Protect.
“Fine, I get it. You guys want to protect me. But what about the kids out there who Wilson hasn’t attacked yet? Who would we rather set him up against—me or them? Because if we don’t move quickly enough, if someone gets here and stops us, that’s what’s going to happen. At least I can fight back.”
Protect.
Protect.
Protect.
None of them were convinced—not even Devon, who’d spoken up on my behalf.
“I can fight back,” I said again, “and you guys can cover me. Lake brought a freaking munitions store with her. We’ve got every weapon imaginable. You guys stay just out of range, and as soon as he shows, you descend, and we pump him full of so much sterling that he’s puking silver.”
If they wanted to protect me, they could. They could be my backup; once we got Wilson into town, I’d even step back and leave the kill to someone else. But first, we had to get him into town, and this was our best chance to do it.
“How’s he going to know you’re there?” Lake asked finally. “We can’t exactly take out an ad.”
I glanced at Chase and thought of the way this Rabid had tracked us both, set us up, and moved in for the not-quite kill.
“How did he track us in the first place?” I asked, throwing out the rhetorical question. “Scent, genotype, Craigslist—I don’t care. Maybe he just has a knack for finding Resilients. And even if he doesn’t, at least one of those kids saw me in the woods. This guy’s a hunter, and I’d be very surprised if he didn’t already have my scent. He’ll come. But if we want to make doubly sure, I’d lay money on someone in town having his number.” As segregated as Ark Valley was, it still abided by the natural laws of small towns. Everyone had everyone’s phone number, if they had a phone. “I’ll go to the restaurant or the hardware store or wherever and ask whoever’s in charge to give Wilson a call, something along the lines of ‘There’s a girl here asking for you. She says her name is Bronwyn.’”
“That’ll do it,” Dev said. “Crankypants can’t possibly know that many Bronwyns.”
None of them were happy with the idea, but at this point, we didn’t have any other options. It hurt my ego to admit it, but I could do more to hurt the Rabid as bait than I ever would as a hunter. As long as he ended up dead, that was something I could live with. And as I looked at my friends and at Chase, one by one, they gave me their silent consent, even though I knew that if something happened to me and victory came at too high a cost, none of them could live with it.
“Look at the bright side, guys. He’s not going to kill me. Worse comes to worst, he’ll attack me, and I’ll Change.” The words hung in the air, but no one was comforted by my bravado. Not even me.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
“CAN I GET YOU ANOTHER CUP OF COFFEE?”
My cup was still three-quarters full, and the waitress hadn’t bothered to bring the pot back with her, so I recognized a fact-finding mission when I saw one. Towns like Ark Valley and Alpine Creek didn’t get many visitors, and I was well acquainted with the expression in the waitress’s eyes: a particular mix of boredom, curiosity, and suspicion. She hadn’t hesitated when I’d asked her to call “Mr. Wilson,” immediately replying “The one who lives in the woods?” and letting loose with a sound somewhere between a hmmm and a harrumph, I couldn’t tell which.
“I’m good, thanks,” I said. She waited for a moment and then gave me a look, one I’d seen before on a variety of other faces, telling me that I was different and editorializing on that fact. Out of habit, I held the woman’s gaze, and she made that same hybrid sound a second time. She wanted to look away and couldn’t seem to bring herself to do it. Finally, I let her go, decreasing the intensity of my stare without ever taking my eyes from her face. She looked down, and I turned my attention back to my coffee: too bitter for my taste and so rich in smell that I couldn’t keep from believing that maybe the next sip wouldn’t taste quite so bad.
“Suit yourself,” the waitress mumbled, and I could almost hear the admonition—you’re an odd one, aren’t you?—in her tone. “Mr. Wilson said to tell you he’s on his way.” The emphasis on the Rabid’s name told me that I wasn’t the only one this woman saw as an outsider, and not for the first time, I wondered why humans seemed to trust their eyes more than their instincts when their gut said something was off.