Chapter 32

I grab Randall’s arm and drag him into Grocery Mart to hide. Too-bright fluorescent lights hurt my eyes, and the cheery blue-red-and-yellow bunting decorating the store doesn’t look real. We jog past two women talking across their shopping carts, then disappear into an aisle with shelves stocked to the ceiling with pet food.

“There’s got to be a back exit,” I say.

“Brock.” Randall shakes free from my grip. “We’re maybe ten minutes away from the rest of the pack. We shouldn’t split up.”

“Yeah, but if we lead Royle to the werepuppies, he’s going to shoot them on sight.” My voice shakes with rage. “I’d rather kill the bastard first.”

His eyes shine with a mix of sadness and pride. “Let’s get these police off our tail.”

Together, we stride to the end of the aisle and lope along the back wall, trying not to move fast enough to be suspicious. I look down the aisles as we pass, meeting the eyes of a clerk, a baby in a shopping cart, a man in uniform—

I freeze, a classic deer-in-the-headlights, while Randall strides onward.

Deputy Collins. He freezes, too. I’m bigger than him, for sure. He must recognize us because he looks scared shitless. I raise one hand as high as my head, slowly, to show him I’m not some mindless beast.

He frowns and reaches for his belt—the gun at his belt.

“Brock!”

Randall tackles me and slams me to the floor behind a pyramid of oranges. A gunshot cracks, deafeningly close—then screaming—then something sticky rains down on me. I look up at a burst orange, leaking juice and pulp.

“Everybody out of the store!” Collins shouts.

I’m shaking with fear and rage, my spine bending on the verge of wolf. Randall pins me to the floor and stares me in the eye.

“Do not fight him,” he growls. “Do you understand?”

I stare at him, my skin clammy, my head foggy. He wrenches me to my feet and half-drags, half-hauls me out of there.

“Stop, or I’ll shoot!” Collins shouts, like he didn’t already.

Of course, me and Randall keep running. We dodge behind a display of toilet paper, and the deputy’s boots rap closer on the tiles. Randall shoves the display, and individually wrapped rolls avalanche onto Collins.

It would be funny, if I weren’t so pissed.

My muscles burn with the effort of holding back the beast. I pant against the pain and let Randall lead me onward, away from the deputy and the desire to tear out the asshole’s throat for even daring to shoot at me.

“There’s nowhere to run,” Collins says. “You’re surrounded.”

Fuck that shit. Randall must be thinking the same thing because he lunges down an aisle at a dead sprint. Collins darts after him, stops, and raises his gun between two hands. In my head, I see Randall falling, bleeding.

I lumber after Collins like a hunchback, my skeleton reshaping, my hair thickening into a gray pelt. A snarl rumbles from my throat. Collins whirls on me, his eyes glassy and wide. I must look like a monster.

“Don’t move!” His voice quavers, but he holds his gun steady.

“Get out of our way,” I rasp.

Collins wrinkles his forehead. “Put down your weapons—don’t turn into a wolf!”

I laugh a barking laugh. “You have no fucking clue what you’re doing.”

Behind him, Randall creeps nearer, claws curving from his fingertips. I try not to stare and give him away. I teeter on the brink of wolf.

“Turn back,” Collins tells me. “Turn back to human, and lie down on the floor. Do it!”

Randall steals close enough to touch Collins. He raises his glinting claws above his head, then slices the air and hits Collins, who crumples under the blow. The gun skitters onto the floor, and Randall kicks it under a shelf.

“Let’s go,” he tells me. “But not like that.”

I nod, then look at myself. I’m still half-beast, the seams of my clothing strained, my skin shaggy with silver fur. I try to breathe deeper, but it sounds raspy and shallow inside my misshapen rib cage. Fear weakens my legs.

“Can’t.” I cough. “Can’t change.”

“You have to,” Randall says. “You have to choose: wolf or human.”

But what if I can’t change back?

I swallow hard and shut my eyes, willing myself to relax into a body. The change ripples through me, and I stagger forward. My eyes snap open; I’m now entirely wolf. I glance around at the shreds of my clothing on the floor. Great.

Randall winces. “Okay, I kind of hoped it would be human. But whatever. Let’s move!”

He jogs toward the doors and I follow him, my claws clicking on the tiles. The smells of the grocery store overwhelm me: onions moldering pungently in a heap, plasticky baby diapers, a pickle jar leaking sharp vinegar on the shelf beside me, the warm bitterness of coffee, cold cuts mellowing in the freezer. Scattered throughout the store, a few customers stand unmoving, shocked and gawking.

A drooly little toddler in a shopping cart seat reaches for me. “Doggy!”

“No,” murmurs the toddler’s mom. “Werewolf.”

This is completely and utterly bat-shit insane. I don’t belong in this mundane place, in this piece of everydayness. I hold my head low and tuck my tail between my legs, as if I can skulk beneath the bright fluorescent and not be seen. The automatic doors swish open and I trot through into the night, feeling all the more ridiculous. Outside, cops scuttle around the gas station and the baby-blue pickup like hornets on jam.

“This way,” Randall whispers.

We slide alongside the windows of the Grocery Mart and hurry down an alley, across the street, and into a park full of whispering cottonwoods. The spicy-sweet perfume of their sap tingles in my nose and snags a memory of the trees beside the river in Klikamuks. For a fragment of a minute, it fills me with wistfulness. I wish I were running for the light-footed joy of it, not fleeing heavy with dread.

A low whistle, like someone calling a dog. I swivel my ears toward the sound.

Grady walks out from behind a tree, dressed entirely in camouflage. He looks like a solider who got lost in the jungle for a few months.

“Over here!” he whispers.

Randall jogs to him. “The cops are on our tail. I tried to warn the rest of the—”

“We know,” Grady says. “Winema sent me after you guys.”

What, to rescue us? I snort, and Grady glances at me.

“Hot damn! Is this the bloodborn? For a sec I thought you were—”

“Grady,” Randall says, “where is Winema?”

He shrugs. “Around here, somewhere.”

“She shouldn’t be. There are a shit-ton more cops than there were originally. We’ve got to get out of here before they follow us.”

I turn around and point my nose the way we came. I don’t smell any strangers.

“Understood.” Grady crouches. “Let’s move.”

Quickly, Randall shucks off his clothes, silver fur already hiding his skin. He changes fast, the wolf breaking free in one convulsion. Grady sheds his ratty camouflage and transforms into a rangy gray wolf.

We zigzag through the park, hiding behind bushes and benches. Why aren’t we just sprinting straight into the hills? Hunched behind a statue of a guy on a horse, I growl softly and nip at Grady’s heels. Move faster! He glances at Randall, who nods. Grady bolts across the field. A gunshot cracks the night and I hunker low, my ears flattened against my skull. Grady swerves, and another gunshot flings dust into the air where he was standing a moment before. He lunges to the left, toward some shrubbery, and—

A third gunshot.

Grady yelps and thuds on the ground. Blood spurts from the wound in his neck, soaking his fur. He struggles to stand, then falls into a puddle of his own blood. He twists his head to look at us. Within seconds his eyes dull, unseeing.

I hear a high whine. I realize it’s coming from me.

I’ve never seen anyone die before. Not Chris, not even Mom.