Chapter 33

Sirens grow louder. Through the trees lining the lane, cop-car lights flash brokenly. Randall woofs, then points his muzzle ahead. There’s only one way to go. He leaps out from behind the statue at a dead run.

Gunshots rattle from the darkness, but Randall’s too fast for that—he’s already streaking through the night like a comet. I don’t know if I can keep up, though I have to. Heart hammering, I sprint after him through a fresh hail of bullets. They don’t touch me—I’m going too damn fast—but shit, they got Grady.

Randall skitters down an alley, and I follow him. At the end of the alley, past the weedy outskirts of town, the wild night calls to us. Randall bolts for the chance; I’m only a hair behind him. We’re almost out of the alley and into the clear when a car screeches to stop right in front of our noses, tires smoking on the asphalt.

Not just any car. The red convertible.

“Get in,” Jessie says, “but try not to get any blood on the seats if you’re bleeding.”

Isabella holds a back door open. Me and Randall lunge inside. Cyn, sitting shotgun, twists back to stare at us with huge, dark eyes.

“Where’s Grady?” Jessie says. “Is he—?”

Randall nods.

“Jessie,” Isabella says, her voice tight. “Go!”

A cop stands in the alley, his legs braced in a firing stance, and raises a gun.

“Hold on,” Jessie says, and then she guns it.

Wind whistles through my fur and I flatten my ears. Another gunshot, but it sounds miles away. Jessie peels out of there, zooming past the outskirts of town, leaving the cops literally in our dust. She doesn’t hit the highway straightaway but takes a crazy twisting path on a network of roads through the fields. We hit a gravel road, the wheels spitting pebbles, dirt rising in a choking cloud that makes us all cough. Finally, we see the highway again. Our speed levels out to a cruise, the wind whipping past, my eyes watering.

Cyn twists back again, her eyes looking straight into mine. “Who…?”

I shrink down in the seat, trying really hard not to look so huge and bristly and wolfish, but yeah, that’s impossible.

“Randall, honey.” Isabella eyes us both. “And his bloodborn.”

With a woof, Randall nods.

Cyn’s eyebrows go so high they disappear beneath her bangs. We’re running from the cops at about ninety miles an hour, I almost got shot, and now just happens to be when she first sees me as a wolf.

Could things get any more ridiculous?

“Brock.” A smile creeps across Cyn’s face. “This is so… strange.”

I snort. Exactly what I was thinking.

“Can you change back?” she says.

I nod, then shake my head, because then of course I’d be buck naked.

“Not in my car!” Jessie says.

Randall makes a soft growl and rests his nose against Jessie’s headrest.

“All right, all right,” she says. “Stop breathing down my neck.”

The tires squeal as Jessie hits the brakes and swerves off onto the shoulder of the road. The low rumble of the engine undercuts the rustling of wind in a nearby cornfield. Isabella opens the door and hops out to let me and Randall past. He trots away from the road, shakes as if flinging water from his fur, then starts to transform.

I look away and prowl deeper into the cornfield. I don’t want Cyn to see me change.

“Don’t go too far,” Randall calls after me, his voice still hoarse and growly.

But once I start walking, I don’t want to stop. Out here, my nose full of the grassy sweetness of ripening corn, I can imagine I’m back in Klikamuks, just going on a nighttime walk. Down in the valley, fog overflows from the river and spills over the sleeping fields. The thick wet air tickles my throat, scented with river mud, wet grass, ripening corn, and the roast beef of a recent dinner trickling from a window.

I can’t ever go back to that, can I? I’m Other now.

Cyn walks through the rows of corn, a bundle in her arms. Great. Now I have an audience. “There you are,” she says.

I give her a look, but she isn’t going away.

“They’re waiting,” she says. “Unless…”

Unless what? Does she think I can run away with her like this? I can’t pretend like I was never bitten. Cyn’s just going to have to graduate high school and move away to college and keep on living a normal life without me. Anger chokes my throat. I close my eyes, as if that gives me more control over the dark.

“Brock, are you going to change back or not?”

Well, shit. There’s no point in pretending anymore. She’s already seen Brock the Beast.

With a sigh, I flip myself inside-out, my fur shrinking to bare skin, my paws reshaping into toes and fingers digging into soft earth. Human again, I open my eyes, climb to my feet, and dust off my hands.

I’m not looking at Cyn. She’s got to be totally disgusted right now.

“Brock?” she says.

I can hear a million questions in the way her voice rises at the end. “Yeah,” I say, “I’m okay. I got shot at, I almost got us arrested, and I keep changing into a wolf whenever I get angry. But other than all that, really, I’m okay.”

I’m still not looking at Cyn, but she marches up to me. “You’re not.”

I shrug, my eyes on what she’s carrying. “Hope those are clothes for me.”

“Yes.” She shoves them into my arms. “Brock, look at me.”

I do what she says, not hiding how pissed I am.

“Your eyes!” She takes a step back, the expression on her face resetting itself. “Sorry, I was just surprised… they’re yellow.”

“Yeah?” I laugh. “What did you expect?”

A smile crooks the corner of her mouth. “You don’t look bad with yellow eyes. Kind of sexy.” She cups my face in her hands.

A heat other than anger spreads through me. I’m more than aware that I’m naked, and she’s standing so close to me with this burning curiosity in her eyes. We lean together, slowly, and I kiss her. When she kisses me back, twisting her fingers in my hair, a moan escapes me. I wish we didn’t have to be out here in the middle of a cornfield with cops on our tail, and a pack of werewolves waiting… if only the muddy ground were a soft bed, then I’d let her devour me the way I know she wants to.

But no. That’s never going to happen now. I’m infected.

“Cyn.” I withdraw from her. “I can’t.”

Her eyes flare, and I can see the hurt on her face. “What’s wrong?”

“I’m trying to move forward, like you said, but—” My voice breaks. “But I know this is impossible. I can’t be with you.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m not the guy you want!” The words explode from me. “I’m a gick, okay?”

“Don’t—”

“You wanted me to change, and I have. This is who I am now. I’m a werewolf. I’m never going to be able to go home with you, Cyn.”

She stares at me with bright eyes. “You don’t know that.”

“How can I go back to Klikamuks? When they all know what I am, they’ll hate me.”

“Not everybody hates werewolves, Brock.”

“The ones who do are enough.” I dump the clothes onto the ground, grab a pair of jeans and start pulling them on. “Don’t ask me how we’re supposed to escape the cops and clear our names and live happily ever after.”

“Happily ever after?” Randall strides closer. “For starters, get your asses moving.”

“Sorry,” Cyn says, her jaw clenched. “We’re moving.”

She stalks back to the road, and I have no choice but to follow.