by Holly Hook
"You're going to crap your pants?" Devyn asks.
"Get away from him!" I yell.
She backs away, grimacing. Noah snorts and Ellie brings her hand up to her face.
"What did you do?" Matt asks, real fear widening his eyes. He lurches forward and grabs his chest. "I feel like I'm dying, man!"
People stop all around us and stare. The music dies as the track ends. But a new one doesn't start. All movement in the gym stops as Matt falls to his knees, trembling.
"Get out of here!" I shout at everyone. "He...he has a weapon and he's going crazy!" It's the only thing I can think of. Cayden and I will have to fight him alone until the police arrive.
"I..." Matt struggles to speak and gags. "It hurts!"
"Someone call the ambulance," Mr. Gunther shouts.
Hands of pain seize my limbs, begging me to give in and let it be over. But Noah steps away from the wall with Ellie, and the two run at me, ready to pull me away from Matt. Cayden already crouches, ready to put himself between the new Savage Wolf and these innocent people.
I shake, trying to hold it back. My instinct wants Matt's blood. It grows by the second. Even all these witnesses won't scare it back for much longer.
Matt looks up at me, pupils wide. Then he glances at his leg. He pales as sweat runs down his temples. "Shit," he mutters as metallic adrenaline washes over me. "Oh, shit."
He's figured it out.
As if his terror has cracked the dam, Matt's flesh ripples.
People scream and a circle widens around him as the cracking and popping sounds follow. The whole room reeks of fear. People back towards the doors and many push open. The DJ jumps down from his platform and watches.
Matt's shift takes maybe a few seconds, but it seems like eternity as his shape compresses on itself, molding like clay, growing dirty blond fur, and jolting into new positions. His clothing tears as fur bursts out, hackles rise, and growls replace the pained grunts. The screams intensify as a stampede for the doors follows, and everyone darts to the doors that lead outside. Only a few people run through the other doors to the hallway. Bodies fall as panicked people trample each other, leaving our side of the gym empty. Another instinct rules here--panic.
"Get off me!"
"Let me through!"
"Stop pushing!"
And where's Noah? Ellie? Are they in the stampede?
"Let me fight him," Cayden shouts, removing his lab coat. He throws it down and watches as the new Wolf freezes, then sniffs, and then turns his gaze up at us.
He stands over ripped jeans and a tattered T-shirt. The new Savage Wolf is huge, bigger than any Wolf I've seen, and all muscle. Confusion fills his brown eyes at first and I almost feel sorry for Matt, but the instinct sweeps over me as I think of my friends and the panicked people crushing each other.
The new Wolf growls, peeling fur and flesh back from two rows of huge, horrifying teeth. The rotten wood stench fills the room.
Matt's mental transition hasn't taken long. He's a natural.
A new wave of screams and pleas for people to move follows. The logjam breaks and students thunder out the doors, scattering into the parking lot.
"Brie!" Noah calls from outside. The crowd's swept him out.
He won't have to see this.
Pain tightens around my limbs and I can't wait any longer. I'll fight beside Cayden, the way it's meant to be.
I give in to the pull and pain explodes.
As if my instinct can't wait to fight, the agony and the twisting world sweeps over me in a wave that's over in one second. I wiggle out of the witch dress, leaving it behind me.
Beside me, Cayden already stands as a black wolf, leaving jeans and a ripped shirt behind. Matt faces us, and he stands a whole head over me. He's bigger than Travon and the look in his eyes tells me he knows he has an advantage.
He's got his power back.
I leap at Matt, surprising him and locking jaws around his muscular neck. His arteries throb under his skin, strong and savage. Matt growls as I dig my teeth into flesh, drawing out a disgusting taste. Muscles tighten as he thrashes, bucking me off.
I fly into the wall Noah and Ellie stood beside moments before. The room tilts and now-empty cafeteria doors sweep into my view as Cayden growls and leaps. He lands on Matt's back, digging claws as the bigger Wolf snaps his jaws at my mate, trying anything he can to destroy Cayden. Revenge burns in his brown eyes.
And then he bucks Cayden off, too.
Someone pulls the fire alarm. A shrill ringing fills the school.
In the distance, sirens wail.
Matthew faces me, growling again. Hackles rise as ruthless eyes land on me. He advances, one slow step at a time, and I know he's going to make my death slow and painful and he's going to do it in front of Cayden. I rise from the floor, steeling myself. He's ready for me to leap again. Matt might not have experience, but he has rage.
Cayden snaps at the Wolf's tail. Brie, run.
Matt yelps, turning and snapping at Cayden.
I won't.
Jumping onto Matt's back, I claw, drawing new red lines on Matt's back. But the monster doesn't seem to notice. He circles as Cayden backs away, keeping him distracted as blood seeps from his bite wound. The air smells of iron and death.
And Matt lunges, throwing me off and closing his jaw around Cayden's back leg.
Cayden yelps as I land on all fours. The sound raises the killer in me again and I run at Matt, ramming into his side and loosening his hold on Cayden. But Matt only slides back a few inches.
Brie, we have to go! Cayden's thoughts explode in my head.
Matt isn't like the other Savage Wolves.
He's worse. Already vile. Already strong and dominant. They chose the perfect weapon.
Matt backs away and levels his glare with me. There's no trace of human in his eyes and no kindness. The creature before me represents the worst parts of nature, the death and decay and the survival of the strongest. There is no mercy in those eyes and no room for the weak.
The monster opens his mouth and leaps at me before I can react.
I duck and slide as teeth snap shut on air. The wound on the back of his neck has already closed.
He's stronger than both of us.
Brie, we have to run! Cayden tilts his head to the door.
I can't let Cayden suffer another death.
So I fight every fiber of my being and run.
Cayden and I bolt together for the still-open doors of the gym. One slowly drifts shut. People shout outside as the sirens close in. The police. They can shoot Matt, but they won't do any good.
The two of us bolt through the narrowing doorway.
Then the door shuts behind us as a large shape crashes into it, shaking the handles and locks.
Matt's trapped in the gym. I turn, getting the tablecloth from the now-empty ticket table in my face for a second. On the other side of the latched doors, growls sound along with the scraping of claws. The doors buckle outward as the monster tries to get out. And we stand in the empty hall, surrounded by closed doors we can no longer operate.
He won't stay there long.
Cayden eyes me.
He's right. If any Wolf can bust open doors, it's Matt.
Car doors slam outside. Sirens peak. Matt will kill the officers. He'll murder others before he runs off into the woods to join the other Savages.
We need the pack, I think.
Only then can we take Matt down.
But we're trapped inside. Unless someone opens the doors--
"Police!" a man shouts, yanking open the outside doors.
I glimpse blue trousers as Cayden and I use the opening, leaving the officer to stare at the closed gym doors and the monster behind them. He draws his weapon.
We're leaving the man in danger, but without the pack, we can't hold back Matt.
The parking lot is red and blue flashing lights. People stand by cars, gawking. More screams rise as a group of girls spots us. I can't see Noah. Ellie.
But Devyn screams Matthew's name.
Cayden lifts his head and howls. The sound rises into the night, carried on the wind.
The gym doors burst open and the officer fires two rounds. More people scream as bullets thunk into flesh. Matt whimpers and stops, claws scraping linoleum, and snaps his jaws. The officer fires a third time, drawing another growl, as the stench of terror mixes with decay.
I run back to the school. The main doors lie open, propped by the officer, and Matt stands there, bleeding from three holes in his side as the officer backs away, trembling with his pistol raised. Radios crackle as more officers run toward us.
He could shoot me and Cayden, but if we don't act, Matt will kill them.
The Savage Wolf leaps at the officer, who screams and falls back, but Cayden and I leap at the same time, throwing Matt into the wall as he continues to bleed from his bullet wounds. But already the blood flow slows. The wounds will do nothing but make him hungrier.
Matt flies into the doorway of the gym, sliding past the cookie table and hitting the leg. The table topples onto him as Cayden closes his jaws on my shoulder blade, urging me to move. We've bought the officers time. The one on the hallway floor rises, keeping his pistol aimed at us. He doesn't know we're here to help him.
Cayden and I bolt into the night as he fires, missing.
And Matt growls, rising and following us.
We need that. We have to get him away from all these people.
The two of us sprint across the parking lot and to the woods. More radios crackle. People scream and duck into cars. My claws sink into pavement and then dirt. The entrance the woods waits. Matt growls behind us. We're his chosen prey and the biggest threat. He wants to kill us first, and then he's going to turn his terror on everyone else.
I dart through the doorway and into the woods, leaving the human world behind.
Only the wilds spread out now. We're on our turf.
Branches and underbrush crash behind us. He's coming.
And the Savage is catching up. I glance back to see Matt locking his eyes on me. He closes the distance foot by foot, and within a minute, he'll leap. And then he will kill.
Keep running.
Cayden's thoughts fill with pain. We know how this will end.
Matt leaps.
I can't let his nightmare come true.
Instinct tells me to stop. I do and roll back, letting Cayden run farther down the trail. Matt lands ahead of me, biting dirt, his belly exposed.
I dart at him as he looks around in confusion and slide under him. I bite into his soft flesh, drawing blood that flows around my mouth and crushing organs. Matt whimpers again, but it's different this time. He's suffering true pain. Arteries throb and skin tries to close around my teeth. But I dig harder as Matt struggles, trying to reach me. I can still fight him. Not with strength, but with cunning.
Underbrush crashes.
Something rams into Matt, tearing him from my grasp. He rolls to the side as another large blond wolf--Remo--throws his weight into the bigger Savage. The revolting taste of Savage blood fills my mouth as I roll to my feet. Remo and Matt turn into a tangle of fur, claws, and teeth as Cayden leaps into the fray, sinking teeth into Matt's leg. The bigger Savage Wolf thrashes, trying to free himself, until at last Remo flies back, sliding into a tree. But as he lands, another black Wolf, Everly, darts into our small clearing, snapping at Matt as he pulls his leg from Cayden's grasp.
Matt glares at us.
I read it in a heartbeat. He's relenting tonight, but he promises revenge.
And without another growl, the bigger Wolf turns and darts into the night, dripping blood.
Chapter Twenty-Five
After him, Cayden thinks.
The scent of Aunt May joins the others as we run after the new, injured Savage Wolf, but the farther we run into the trees, tracking his disgusting scent, the fainter the one of his blood gets. I delivered an injury that might have killed, but Matt is healing.
He's new and already powerful.
His already vile human nature and athletic state has made him a natural Savage Wolf.
Matt runs to the border of our territory as if aware of the protection it can give him. His own kind waits there to accept him. I pump my legs as fast as I can, with Cayden and I leading the others, but the sound of snapping twigs and the stench of Matt goes stale as the night deepens. He's not only strong, but fast.
Once we reach the border of our territory, which smells of Aunt May mixed with Cayden, we stop.
The woods beyond are dark. Menacing. Beyond this point, the reek of Savage Wolf dominates. Matt's scent mixes with the others. If we cross our territory line, all of them are free to attack us.
And we won't come out on top.
Cayden catches his breath. He's out.
We've driven Matt from our territory.
But his look returns to me. He won't stay gone forever.
In the distance, more sirens wail. We've left the high school in a state of confusion and panic.
Cayden sniffs me. You did well. He draws close to me, standing by my side, and for a moment, everything feels right.
Without us both, people would have died. My instinct was there to make the right decisions, and I didn't even think of that possibility.
As if warning Matt to never return, Cayden tilts his head back and howls.
And this time, I join in.
We might have drifted apart during the last week, but tonight, we're all together, and we will be at least until morning.
* * * * *
When the sun rises, the hold my animal side keeps on me loosens. It's a strange feeling, like I've almost forgotten my human side during the night of running through the woods, patrolling, eyeing the people of Breck from a distance, and hunting deer. But as soon as the moon tucks itself under the horizon and the sun's rays peek through the trees, I stop beside Cayden, remembering that I have another life to return to. Noah and Ellie will worry about me.
And it will be without Matt.
Aunt May looks at me with her bright blue eyes and nods. We need to return home. And I don't miss the stern look in them. It's Monday. A school day.
She still expects me to go.
With one final touch of the nose, Cayden eyes me with warmth, apology, and pain. But the agony in his eyes has dulled. By chasing out Matthew, we've done good, and we both know there are no doubts about that.
The Lowes bound through the trees to their house. Aunt May and I run to ours. We make it to the back deck before reverting back to our human forms, and Aunt May, being prepared, has draped two blankets over the railing. We grab them and she fishes a key out from under the stone frog in the back flower garden, unlocking the way.
We both pour into the house, shivering. "Brie, let me make breakfast," Aunt May says. "I need some coffee. How about you?"
I hold back a laugh. We just finished shifting back after a night of running around as wolves, and she's talking about coffee.
"Coffee sounds great." Strength still runs through my limbs, but not as much as before. While my senses are still heightened in human form, they're not as much as they are in wolf form.
Out there, Matt might be lying in the woods, naked and surrounded by other people like him. The Savages planned to use him all along.
And a part of me knew it.
I'm fully Noble. And relieved. I can't wait to tell Cayden about how Matthew wet his pants.
Aunt May makes coffee and I rush up to my room, where I left my cell phone. After the hospital, I didn't dare take it to the dance, knowing what would go down.
I'm okay, I text Noah without reading all his worried messages. I'm alive. And then I do the same thing for Ellie. Realizing I need an explanation for why the police must have found my witch dress and Cayden's lab coat in the gym, I add, if you want the story, you have to meet me at Teeyah's tonight.
Olivia knows more about me than my friends do. It's not right, but I can't just admit the truth to Noah and Ellie. I'll n
eed a good story, but I have all day to create one.
Maybe someday, I'll tell them, but not yet. Maybe one day Breck will be safe and they won't be in danger. But my friends also deserve to know and be part of my life.
Noah texts back. Did Matt actually shift into a wolf?
Oh.
Maybe they're ready for the truth.
A second text arrives. How did you get out of there?
I'll talk about it later.
We have a long conversation ahead of us.
"Brie," Aunt May says from downstairs. "I called the school and they say they're open. Nobody was found hurt last night and the police don't know what happened."
I go downstairs to find her sipping coffee. "Do you think Matthew will try to come back? He doesn't know the rules."
She nods. "He might."
"Then we need to be ready for him," I say. "All of us."
I hear Cayden's footsteps right before his scent wafts through the open kitchen window. He knocks on the door and I answer.
This morning, he's put on baggy jeans and a black T-shirt that matches his dark hair. He must have gone home, turned back, and dressed to come right back out and see me.
"Mind if I walk you to school?" he asks.
"I would love that," I say. "Just so you know, people realize we were the last ones out of the gym, and some of them saw Matt shifting. Noah did." I still have to tell him about Olivia, but after what happened with Matt, that won't be so bad. Disaster has already fallen on Breck. "People know three wolves ran out of the school."
Cayden nods. "We need to make up a story on the way to school, but it's early and a long walk. The two of us will get crowded when we get there. Everly and Remo will meet us before we go inside. They'll be our bodyguards."
"Good idea," I say. No one saw Cayden and I shifting, did they?
No one except for one person.
My enemy.
We walk, this time on two legs.
“So,” I say. “The story. I know I did some reckless stuff.”
“Actually, I forgot to tell you something.”
“Which is?”
Cayden turns the corner of his mouth up into a smile. “As my mate, you have more say in the pack than everyone but me. Almost as much as I do.”