Chapter 28

Rumbling. Dirty old smell in my nose. I snort, then blink. A car, a man at the wheel.

I fade out again.

When I fade back, it’s cold. My legs feel numb. I shudder, and sharpness bites into my skin. With a groan, I pry open my eyelids and discover I’ve been trussed up with barbed wire, my legs tied together in one big knot.

Still a wolf.

Sheriff Royle stands watching me, his eyes dark and unreadable. “Collins!” he yells.

“Yes, sir?” Collins jogs up with a flashlight.

“This cur’s ready for questioning.” Royle pulls on thick leather gloves. “Shine the light.”

And then I see he’s carrying a cattle prod.

A whine escapes my muzzled mouth. Oh, God, they don’t know who I am. They don’t know that I’m one of the people they’re supposed to be saving. And how the fuck do they plan on questioning me when I can’t talk?

Royle stares down at me. “You run with the Bitterroot Pack.” It isn’t a question.

I shake my head, ignoring how the barbed wire cuts into me.

Royle’s eyes narrow. “That’s a lie.” He touches the cattle prod to my ribs.

Electricity jolts through me, stiffening all my muscles, singing my fur. I’m growling, but no sound comes out. Royle removes the cattle prod, and I collapse against the barbed wire. Pain blooms inside me like a widening stain.

“Where is the rest of your pack?” Royle says.

I clench my teeth and struggle not to whimper like a kicked puppy. Please, God, let the next electric shock change me back into a human so I can explain all of this to them—the cattle prod touches my nose. My muscles strain, blazing with pain, then go limp. A high whine leaves my throat. I smell burning flesh.

“Change back now,” Royle says, “and tell us what we want to know.”

I stare at him, trying to plead with my eyes, to show him that I’m human inside.

“I’m about to tell you something important.” Royle’s voice drops to a low murmur, like water rising in a river about to overflow its banks. “I don’t give a shit what anybody else thinks about you. There might be some high-and-mighty lawyers out there who think we should treat gicks nice, but they wouldn’t know a gick if it bit them.” He doesn’t even laugh at his own joke. “That’s a terrible, dangerous kind of ignorance. Those people have never seen a little boy watch his blue-ribbon calf get eaten before his eyes, never seen a dead man with his face gnawed off, all in the name of gick rights.” He hisses the words.

My stomach twists at how awfully familiar his words sound.

“This”—Royle raises the cattle prod—“is my kind of gick rights.”

I shut my eyes.

“Sir,” Collins says. “I—” A muffled thud.

My eyes spring open in time to see Randall standing over Collins’s crumpled body with my dad’s shotgun in his hands. The flashlight that Collins dropped lies on the ground, shining crazy, crooked light on the scene.

“Get your hands off my bloodborn.”

Royle springs to his feet, the cattle prod held aloft. “Don’t move!”

Randall shoulders the shotgun. “I don’t think you’re in a position to give orders, you fucked-up piece of worthless shit.”

“Collins?” Royle calls to his deputy, who doesn’t move. He reaches for his radio.

“Drop it,” Randall says, his eyes smoldering. “Or you’ll get a pretty obvious obituary.”

The radio falls from Royle’s hand and clunks on the ground.

“And the cattle prod.” Randall jerks his head. “Throw it away.”

Royle looks like he’d rather eat a pile of shit with a spoon, but he tosses the cattle prod into the trees. “You’re all going to be brought to justice.”

“You call this justice?” Randall’s eyes burn hotter. He nods at me. “Cut that wire.”

Royle reaches for his back pocket, and Randall lunges about three feet forward, pressing the double-barreled shotgun right between the sheriff’s eyes. A growl rumbles from Randall’s chest, and he trembles with barely restrained rage.

“I’d love an excuse to be trigger happy,” Randall whispers.

A croak comes out of Royle’s mouth. He swallows and tries again. “Wire cutters.”

“Slowly.”

I’m amazed Royle’s fingers don’t tremble as he fishes a pair of wire cutters out of his pocket. He falls to his knees beside me and starts snipping the barbed wire, yanking it loose. Blood trickles from slashes in my skin.

As soon as he’s finished, I stagger to my feet. My legs feel wobbly.

“You all right, Brock?” Randall says.

I lower my head in a nod, then wonder how he knows it’s me, as a wolf.

“How far away is the rest of your pack?” Royle says, a dumb, sly look on his face.

“Nowhere where you’ll ever find them.” Randall looks down the barrel of the shotgun. “Now get.”

Royle licks his dry lips, his face pale. “You’re a wanted man, Randall Lowell.”

“And I never want to cross paths with you again.”

Randall fires the shotgun not two inches from Royle’s head. Amazingly, no shot peppers his face. When Randall racks the shotgun, Royle rises from his cringing crouch and scrabbles away. I wouldn’t be surprised if he pissed himself.

“Brock,” Randall says, watching the sheriff flee into the night. “Let’s go.”

I trot over to him, my head held low, trembling all over. I must look like a dog who just came back from surgery at the vet.

“Can you change back yet?” Randall says.

I shake my head.

He sighs, then kills Collins’s flashlight and beckons for me to follow.

Sure enough, the blue pickup idles on the road. Randall opens the door for me and I jump inside, feeling way too big and clumsy. My paws scrabble on the seat and I almost fall onto the pavement, but he helps me in.

Questions swirl in my head, dulled by the throb of pain, but I still can’t speak.

Randall releases the brake and rumbles out of Pray, Montana, at more than sixty miles an hour. The truck bumps and creaks over the gravel road. I wince at my aching muscles and curl as best as I can on the bench seat.

Randall says nothing as he drives south in the thick of the night.

I want to change back; I’m tired of this. A small whine rises from my chest.

“You hurt bad?” Randall sounds gruff.

I shake my head. Despite the pain, the barbed-wire scratches have already closed up, already healing. One of the perks. The thought of Cyn makes me want to howl. No. I don’t want her to see me like this. A wolf.

“You actually did it.” Randall says more softly.

Does that mean he doesn’t have to kill me, maybe?

“I guessed you would be a silver wolf. Jessie owes me fifty bucks.”

I squint at him. Seriously?

“I’ll help you to change back,” he says, “in a minute.”

With a sigh, I rest my muzzle on the dashboard.

~

Standing in the darkness, staring down at my huge wolf paws, I feel like a fool.

“All you have to do is let go,” Randall says, for maybe the tenth time.

All I really want to do is keel over. I shut my eyes and blow out my breath. Human. I’m hoping and praying for it to work.

“Brock, no. You’re trying too hard again.”

I open my eyes to see Randall pacing. He keeps glancing back to the road, like the police could be here any minute. I have to do this fast.

Maybe I’m broken. Am I hopeless? Am I doomed to fail?

Get your shit together. If you fail at this, you’re dead meat.

I suck in air, then blow it out slowly. I’m stronger than this. If the old Brock is beyond repair, then I need to be a new Brock now. Even if it means throwing away everything I used to believe just to survive in this fucked-up world.

Why? Because I won’t let the nightmares win.

With a shuddering sigh, I unclench my muscles and feel the fever overtake me. Transformation ripples through my body, a wave through water, and my wolfskin disappears. I crouch, naked, trembling… and human.

That was it.

As soon as I stopped cringing, waiting for the pain to hit me, it happened. Painless. Easy.

Chris, convulsing on the bed. Fur bristling from his skin. A tail wriggling from his spine, claws curving from his fingertips, teeth erupting into fangs, yellow eyes rolling back. His body tearing apart from the inside out. Blood. Silence.

Was that really how it ended for Chris? Maybe he didn’t die that way. Or didn’t have to.

“So, bloodborn,” Randall says, trying far too hard to sound happy. “You good?”

“Shut up.”

I don’t want him to see the tears on my face. How weak I am.

Randall’s voice hardens. “What?”

You bit us. You changed everything. Left Chris in a hospital that stank of sickness and death, withering on a bed while the werewolf disease ate him from the inside out. Left me afraid I would kill myself.

“Why couldn’t he do it?” I say to the moon. Why did he break instead of bend?

“Who?”

I shake my head, staring at the dark. “It shouldn’t have happened. He shouldn’t be dead.”

Now Randall knows who I mean; I can see it on his face. He crouches before me but says nothing. What can he possibly say?

“Why did you have to bite him? Why did we have to be so stupid?” My throat constricts.

He lowers his head. “A lot of things shouldn’t have happened.”

I keep crying. There isn’t anything I can do about it. I can’t stop people from being stupid, can’t stop them from dying. All I can do is give my life everything I’ve got, because I could be nothing in an instant.

And then I’m quiet, and there is nothing else to do.

I stare at the ground, at myself sitting in the sagebrush. Dirt streaks my skin. It’s very dark out here, for a human.

“I feel fucking stupid,” I mutter.

Randall touches my shoulder, gingerly, as if afraid I might bite. “You okay now?”

“Besides feeling fucking stupid? Yeah.”

“Come on.” Randall holds out his hand. “Let’s find you some clothes.”

I meet the eyes of the one who bit me, then climb to my feet.