Wilson wasn’t just odd. He was a psychopath, and he wasn’t human. And there I was, playing bait. I steadied my hands on the coffee cup and let the smell of java stave off the shard of fear that wanted to jab into my stomach and my side and the oldest, most instinctual part of my brain.
Did you guys get that? I asked silently, sending the thought out to the others in the hopes of keeping them from noticing the slight acceleration in my heartbeat. The Rabid’s on his way.
From the edges of town, Devon, Lake, and Chase replied in the affirmative. It was killing them to hold off, to leave me in this two-bit restaurant alone, but our target might not come if he knew I had backup, so they had to stay far enough away that he wouldn’t sense them until it was too late. Once the Rabid got here, I’d stall. Devon, Lake, and Chase would get into position, and then I’d let Wilson lead me outside. He’d feel them coming, but we were banking on the fact that once he saw me, once I was so close to being in his grasp, he wouldn’t be able to just walk away.
Protect.
Protect.
Protect.
My pack, as small as it was, wanted to come. They wanted to come now. Their wolves were fighting for control, gnashing their teeth, tearing their way to the surface.
Calm. Down, I told them, and with my words, they settled. Waiting. Soon, they would attack.
I sat there for five minutes, ten, fifteen, and two cups of coffee, before a man with brown hair and kind brown eyes slid into the booth across from me. In the corners of my mind, I felt Chase, Devon, and Lake release, sprinting toward us.
Five minutes.
I just had to stall for five minutes.
“You were looking for me, little one?”
I recognized his voice from Chase’s dreams—Change. Change back. Change. Change back—and it disturbed me that he’d called me “little one,” the same endearment Callum had used the night he’d saved me from this man’s jaws. It disturbed me even more that up close, Wilson didn’t look like a monster. He looked like a man, the monstrous features in my dreams—teeth smeared with blood, sparkling eyes—melding into something almost run-of-the-mill in person. He could have been Callum or Chase or the one I’d once called “Daddy.” He could have been Casey, installing a nanny cam in the twins’ bedroom.
The monster under my bed, the wolf stalking my nightmares, the person who’d changed the course of my entire life in one night—he looked human, and he wasn’t supposed to.
“You hurt me,” I said. This wasn’t how I’d planned to stall, but I was struggling to remember that this was part of a plan at all.
“Hurting you was never my intention,” the man said. “I wanted to give you something. A gift.” He paused. “I would have taken care of you.”
Teeth ripping into Daddy’s throat. Someone laughing. “Come out, come out, wherever you are. The Big Bad Wolf always wins in the end.”
“Liar.”
I’d been in his head. I’d seen Madison through his eyes, felt his satisfaction in the way that children looked covered in blood, and I knew, just by looking at him, that this was a man who had killed long before he’d discovered the key to making new wolves. Maybe his attack on my family hadn’t been his first. Maybe there had been others, and by nothing more than coincidence, one of them had lived. Maybe he’d never planned on anyone surviving, but once someone had, he’d realized that he could have his cake and eat it, too. Kill people and then use them, from that day on, as his personal guard. He could feed his taste for blood and set himself up as king of his own mountain.
I didn’t want to understand him as well as I did. I didn’t want to be sitting at this table with him. I didn’t want him looking at me.
“Why did you want me to come here?” the man asked.
I’d had a story prepared, one that might have distracted him from the senses that would tell him my friends were getting closer and closer to us. That they were almost in position.
Two more minutes, Bryn. Two minutes, and then we’re there. Get him outside of the restaurant, and then get clear.
“I’ve been looking for you because I want you dead,” I said, staring into my coffee. Might as well give him a taste of the truth. “For what you did to me. And Chase.”
“Ah, yes, Chase. Rather ironic name, don’t you think?”
He was trying to be funny. He was trying to seem human. But he didn’t mind that I hated him. I think he liked it.
“Why Chase?” I asked him. “Why me? Why us?”
I knew the answer, but I wanted to hear it from his lips.
Instead, he smiled. “I’ll tell you at home.”
Home.
The word’s meaning permeated my mind. This man had come to town to bring me back with him.
“I could scream,” I told him. “You wouldn’t want to ruin your reputation in town, would you? If they saw you abduct me, it might bring the police out to the woods.”
“Ah, but if you screamed, little Bryn, then you’d attract an audience, and that would make it so much harder for your little friends to get their sights on me.”
Now, Bryn.
They were ready. They were in position. And he knew it.
“Shall we go outside?” the man asked.
In that moment, I had a choice. If I chose to stay here, I’d be safe, but somehow, I knew that he’d find a way around our plan. A back exit, a human shield, something that would let him waltz off and rob us of the only opportunity we would have to do this right.
So I went with him. He put his arm around my shoulder, and like a caring father, he led me out of the restaurant, leaving the waitress hmm-harrumphing in our wake.
Outside, his grip on me tightened, but I immediately dropped out of his grasp and to the ground, rolling away from him.
A shot rang out, but somehow, Wilson—no, Prancer; he didn’t scare me—feinted to one side, and it barely grazed his shoulder. He dropped down next to me, grabbed my arm, and made a run for it.
I twisted my wrists, and the blades popped out and into his side, causing him to let go of my arm. I pulled them down and out and drove my fist toward his chin.
Bryn, get out of the way. We can’t get a clear shot. You wounded him, now get clear.
He caught my wrist and twisted it, and by some spiteful coincidence, he did it in the exact motion that drew in my claws. I went in with my other hand, and managed to drag my claws against his chest before—having learned how effective it was with my first wrist—he disarmed that one as well.
Now he had both of my wrists, still and immobilized. I jerked backward, trying to give the others a clear shot at him, and silver bullets rained down upon him: some hitting and some not. He pulled me tightly against him, using me as a shield against the gunfire and against the stares of people beginning to stick their heads out of nearby windows.
“Fight,” the Rabid whispered, directly into my ear, his voice high-pitched and giddy, his cadence bordering on musical. “Fight, fight, fight, and everything goes red. …”
His fingers dug into my neck, and they must have hit some kind of nerve, because the next instant—for only the second time in my life—I lost consciousness.
Only this time, I had no guarantees that I’d still be human when I woke up.
Back in Dead Man’s Creek, floating, only this time, the water was red, and the sky was blank, not a single star in sight.
I wasn’t supposed to be here.
The sense was vague, and I couldn’t remember what had happened or why I had come here before, but as I sank down into the red depths and breathed through them, the taste of blood filled my mouth.
Not my mouth. Someone else’s—moving and yelling. Chase’s. Then Devon’s. Then Lake’s. One by one, I flashed into their minds and bodies, hopping from one to the other, until I exploded into all three of them at once.
Distance attacks weren’t working. Wilson had the body—me—held too tightly, and they couldn’t get in a shot. Lake cast her gun aside and grabbed a knife. If the long game wasn’t working, they’d bring this up close and personal.
But he was moving too quickly. Running faster than even they could. Chase roared and leaped off the perch from which he’d been shooting, his body changing from man to wolf in a second.