by Alexis Davie
“Thank you,” Zane said.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t be more help,” Sarah said.
“You’ve been more helpful than you know,” Zane said.
He ended the call before Sarah could ask him what he meant. He realized too late that he had made it sound like he suspected Cleo of the murder. He didn’t, of course, but her reaction to his news this morning was starting to make a little more sense now. She had panicked because she had realized she had been in the same area as a murderer. That it could have been her. And of course she hadn’t told Zane that in the moment because she didn’t want it to look like she was making this about her.
He tried to call her again, to tell her he understood and that he needed to talk to her, but again, his call went to voicemail. A little voice in the back of his head asked him if he really believed the fairy story he had written for himself just now. He ignored the voice.
The truth was, he no longer knew what to believe. He couldn’t work out why Cleo was lying to him or avoiding his calls. But he knew that if she had been spotted in the area, she had hidden it from him for some reason. And he needed to know what that reason was.
He pushed himself up off the bench with a newfound purpose and began making his way to Cleo’s house.
13
Cleo had been a quarter of the way through packing when she had heard the front door open and Annie call up the stairs to see if she was home. She almost didn’t respond, but she knew that would look suspicious if Annie came up the stairs and saw her room door was closed. Her door was only ever closed when she was home. And if she came into the room to investigate, she would see that Cleo was packing. To anyone else, it would look like the mess left over from trying to figure out what to wear for the day, but Annie knew Cleo well enough to know she didn’t have that conundrum. She just wore whatever she put her hand on first.
In the end, Cleo had called down that she was home and had come down the stairs. Annie had been brewing a pot of coffee and Cleo had sat down at the kitchen table, wondering how she could act normal. In the end, all she’d had to do was keep quiet, something she easily managed.
Annie had heard about Zane’s father and she chattered continuously about the murder, speculating on who it could be and why they had done it. Finally, she turned to Cleo.
“Have you spoken to Zane since it happened?” she asked.
“I…” Cleo started, not even sure if she was going to lie or tell Annie that she had spoken to Zane.
Before she got any further than that one uttered word, a loud knock sounded on the front door. Annie and Cleo exchanged glances. The knock sounded like the kind of knock the police made when they were going for a suspect in the crime dramas Cleo liked to watch. But why would the police be here? Even if Zane had worked out the truth, he wouldn’t involve the police. The pack would deal with her fate.
Cleo jumped to her feet and rushed through to the living room, followed by Annie who was firing questions at her which she ignored. She peered through a crack in the blinds. Zane stood on the doorstep.
“Fuck,” Cleo said. She moved quickly back from the window. “Annie, listen to me. That’s Zane at the door. Go answer it and tell him I’m not here.”
“What? Why?” Annie said.
“We had a fight. One I’m not ready to deal with yet, okay?” Cleo said.
She turned and bolted for the stairs before Annie could say anything else. Another knock sounded as Cleo exited the stairs and ran for her bedroom. She left the door ajar, wanting to hear what Zane had to say. If he told Annie what he suspected, that Cleo had murdered his father, would her sister cover for her? She hoped so. She heard Annie open the door.
“Cleo isn’t home,” she said.
“Look, Annie, I get that Cleo’s pissed at me. I have no idea what I’ve done, but I’m sure you’ve heard what’s happened and I need to talk to her. I think she might have some information about my father’s death. This isn’t about some argument she claims we’ve had.”
Shit. Zane knows me too well, Cleo thought. She cursed under her breath as she heard Annie telling Zane she was in her room. She should have told Annie the truth. She could feel tears threatening as she listened to Zane come up the stairs and along the hallway. She blinked them away and steeled herself for what was to come. She was obviously caught, and she would at least go down with dignity.
The door opened all the way and Zane stepped in, pushing the door closed behind him. Cleo stood with her back to the wall opposite the door.
“What are you doing here?” she asked, trying to play it casual.
“What am I doing here? You’re joking, right? What do you think I’m doing here? Believe it or not, Cleo, I’m actually taking time out from trying to figure out who killed my father to come here and find out why you’re ghosting me,” Zane said.
He sounded angry, but he didn’t sound cold, like he thought she had killed his father. Maybe he’s telling the truth, Cleo thought. Maybe he still doesn’t know and he really is just coming to see what’s wrong with me.
Her brain was running at double speed as she considered her options. She might still be able to pull off her escape plan.
“I’m sorry, Zane,” she said, her voice breaking slightly as she said his name. “But we can’t be together anymore and I would appreciate it if you left now.”
14
“Cleo,” Zane started, taking a step toward her.
She had nowhere to move to, her back already pressed against the wall, but Zane saw her trying to back up and it broke his heart to think that she might be afraid of him. He stopped advancing on Cleo.
“I don’t get it, Cleo. Why can’t we be together? We were happy. Better than happy. And then you just flipped out,” Zane said.
Cleo didn’t respond. She wouldn’t even look at Zane. Her eyes were focused on her feet. Zane felt as though the world had been pulled out from beneath him once more. He really hadn’t thought this day could get worse after the news he had woken up to, but somehow, it had.
“I can’t believe you’re doing this to me today of all days,” Zane said.
Still Cleo didn’t respond. It was like she had said what she needed to say and that was it. Screw what he needed. Zane shook his head, trying to shake off the hurt, the confusion. Some of the pain started to turn to anger. Anger at Cleo for breaking him further, anger at himself for caring too much, and anger at whoever had ripped his family apart. He took a deep breath and squared his shoulders.
His wolf was stirring inside of him, feeding off his anger, ready to spring forth at any moment. With great effort, Zane pushed his wolf back down. He knew turning now would bring him some release from the anger, the pain. But he also knew he had a job to do, and his wolf wasn’t what he needed right now. What he needed right now was a clear head and some answers.
“Cleo. Cleo, look at me,” Zane urged.
His voice had lost the shaky quality. It came out strong and firm. Slowly, Cleo raised her head and met his eyes. He could see the pain in her eyes, the confusion. She looked panicked. Her eyes darted away from his, moving from the door to the bed and back again. She took in a deep, shaky breath and looked back at Zane.
“What were you doing on the beach last night, Cleo?” he demanded.
He realized instantly his words sounded like an accusation, but right now, he didn’t care. He just wanted answers, and if Cleo wouldn’t give him any answers as to what had suddenly gone wrong between them, then at least she could answer this.
Horror seized him for a moment. His heart went into a spasm and hurt like a fist had gripped it and squeezed it tightly. Had Cleo been at the beach meeting up with another guy behind his back? Was that who the stranger down there was? It would explain a lot about Cleo’s reaction.
“I wanted to be alone,” Cleo said quietly, choosing her words carefully.
“You were cheating on me, weren’t you?” Zane said.
“No,” Cleo said.
She looked him right in the eye as sh
e said it, and again, Zane saw the horror in her eyes. They were the eyes of someone who was trapped, someone who had no way out, and yet there was a truth to them when Cleo denied cheating on him.
“Tell me what happened at the beach, Cleo,” Zane said, his voice shaking with barely concealed anger.
“I can’t,” Cleo said. “Please, Zane… I just can’t.”
“Yes, you can,” Zane said. He took another step toward her, no longer caring if he scared her, just needing to touch her. He put his hand on her cheek, expecting her to shrink from his touch. Instead, she nuzzled into his hand and closed her eyes, tears running from beneath the closed lids. “You can tell me anything, Cleo.”
Cleo opened her eyes again and she looked directly into his. She took a deep breath and her shoulders slumped, like she had resigned herself to telling him the truth.
“I did it, Zane. I killed your father,” Cleo said. Her face crumpled as sobs wracked her body. “I’m so sorry.”
Zane pulled his hand from Cleo’s face and moved back from her. Anger seized him. His first instinct was to run, to run far away from Cleo and her damning truth. But he didn’t. Instead, he took a deep breath and forced himself to calm down. The more he tried to picture what Cleo was telling him, the less likely a scenario it seemed. Sweet, gentle Cleo—a murderer?
No, it just didn’t make sense. If she had done this, then it had to have been an accident.
“Tell me everything,” Zane said, sitting down on the side of Cleo’s bed. A bed they had shared together countless times.
Cleo shook her head frantically from side to side. She looked at him and her tear-stained face made Zane’s heart hurt. He wanted so badly to go to her and hold her, but he reminded himself this wasn’t the time for that. If she had indeed killed his father, he needed to know the full story, and then it would fall onto his shoulders to decide her fate.
“You can tell me here or I can have the pack bring you in for questioning, Cleo,” Zane said, his voice cold.
For a long time, Cleo stared straight ahead of her as though she had forgotten Zane was even in the room. He was sure she wasn’t going to talk and he was on the verge of calling Ronnie when Cleo started to speak. Her voice sounded far away, like she was recalling a story she had been told rather than recounting something she had lived through.
“I don’t know exactly why I did it. I don’t even know exactly what happened, but I’ll tell you what I know. I went to the beach alone last night. I sneaked out of the house after everyone else was asleep. I had decided I wanted to turn for the first time. You see, I had realized why I had always avoided turning.
“I’d made excuses before. Like I didn’t want an unfair advantage. I didn’t want to awaken a monster inside of me in case I couldn’t control it. I didn’t want to be a slave to the moon. And while all of those things were true on some level, that wasn’t my main concern. My main concern was the pack mentality. Like I would become a slave to the alpha just like every other wolf. I didn’t think I was strong enough to fight that pull, and I knew I didn’t want to be a clone. And so I didn’t turn.
“But last night, I felt strong enough to do it. To turn and resist the pull of the pack. Lately I’ve been feeling different. Stronger, more confident. I convinced myself I could do this. I told myself I could embrace being a wolf, but be a lone wolf. A member of a pack only in name. I told myself I would never blindly follow orders I didn’t agree with.”
Cleo finally looked at Zane.
“Is this making sense?” she asked.
Zane shrugged.
“I guess, yeah. But it doesn’t explain why you killed my father,” he said.
“Doesn’t it?” Cleo challenged him. “Your father was the pack alpha. The person I was most afraid of brainwashing me. Doesn’t it make a certain kind of sense that if I saw him, some of that fear could turn to anger? That maybe I could lash out and take away the perceived threat?”
“It sounds like you’re not really sure why you did it,” Zane pointed out.
Cleo sighed loudly and came to sit down on the bed beside Zane. She turned sideways so she could look at him and he automatically matched her position, although right now, he wasn’t sure it was a good idea to have such little distance between them.
“I’m not sure why I did it. That’s just the most likely theory. I’m not even sure how or when I did it. I know that makes no sense, so let me just talk you through what happened.”
She looked at Zane pleadingly and although he had a hundred questions, he nodded for her to go on. It was better to get the story the long, hard way than to question her and have her clam up.
“I went to our cave. Your cave,” Cleo said with a shy smile that lit Zane up inside even now. “I started to turn and it hurt like hell. I blacked out from it. When I woke back up, more than three hours had passed and I was covered head to foot in blood. At first I thought I must have injured myself, but I wasn’t cut. There wasn’t a mark on me. I had no idea what had happened. I was going to talk to you about it actually, but then you told me about your father. And it was obvious, wasn’t it? I killed him.”
Cleo’s voice dissolved and tears ran down her face. Zane felt relief flooding through his body in waves. It was all going to be okay.
15
Cleo felt strange after her confession. She was relieved in some ways to have just told the truth and gotten the weight of this story off her mind. She was also terrified of what would happen to her. She thought if it had been anyone but Zane’s father she had killed, that maybe Zane would have helped her to escape her fate, but she knew under these circumstances, he would haul her before the pack without a second thought. And that was the fate she deserved.
She felt lighter in some ways, having gotten this off her chest, and heavier in others, the weight of dread pressing down on her.
Zane was staring at her, like he didn’t quite know what to make of her. She thought he was probably trying to control his wolf, to stop it from springing out and attacking her there and then.
“Zane, please say something,” she said cautiously, knowing she had no right to ask anything of him in that moment.
Zane shook his head slightly, as though shaking himself out of a daze. He looked down into his lap for a moment and Cleo braced herself, telling herself whatever was coming, she deserved it and that she would take whatever he threw at her. She felt shock move through her body when Zane looked up at her and she saw he was smiling. He reached out and pulled Cleo into his arms, hugging her to him, half laughing and, she thought, half crying. She didn’t know what to do or how to interpret this surprising reaction, but the feel of Zane’s arms around her somehow comforted her, even when she suspected it was a goodbye. She wrapped her arms around him and held him tightly for a long moment.
Finally, Zane loosened his grip on Cleo and leaned back. He was still holding her, but now they were eye to eye. Cleo hardly dared to look at him, but after everything she had done to him, she knew he deserved that much and she forced herself to maintain eye contact with him.
“Cleo, you didn’t kill anyone,” Zane said. “Least of all my father.”
“Huh?” Cleo said stupidly.
Out of all the scenarios that played through her head in surprising detail in such a short time, this hadn’t been one of them and it threw Cleo so completely that it left her momentarily mute.
“You didn’t kill anyone,” Zane repeated.
“I… I don’t understand. Didn’t you hear what I said, Zane? I was covered in blood. And I blanked out the memory because I was so horrified by what I had done,” Cleo said.
The irony of the fact that she would have given anything for Zane to give her a way out of this and now she was trying to convince him she was a killer wasn’t lost on her.
Zane smiled at her and shook his head.
“It was your blood, Cleo,” he said slowly.
“But…” she started.
“Where are your clothes?” Zane asked, cutting her off.
/> “In the dumpster round the back of the house,” Cleo said. “I was planning on burning them tonight.”
“Come on,” Zane said. He stood up and held his hand out to Cleo. She frowned but she took his hand and allowed him to lead her out of her bedroom. “I swear I’ll explain everything, but first, you have to know for yourself that blood is your own, otherwise you’re never going to believe me when I tell you what really happened.”
Cleo let Zane lead her downstairs and through to the kitchen. Annie was sitting at the kitchen table, sipping a cup of coffee.
“I guess you two made up, then,” she said.
“I guess we did,” Zane agreed.
He squeezed Cleo’s hand and for a moment, she allowed herself to believe that everything was going to be okay between them.
“What’s going on?” Annie asked as they headed for the back door.
Zane glanced at Cleo, who gave a barely perceptible shake of her head.
“Sorry, Annie, it’s official pack business and it’s on a need-to-know basis only,” Zane said.
Annie looked ready to argue with Zane, but he opened the back door and led Cleo outside before she could say anything. Zane led Cleo to the dumpsters. She had followed him willingly up until this point, but now she hung back, afraid that the illusion of her and Zane being okay again would be over once he lifted the lid and saw the blood for himself.
“It’s okay,” Zane reassured her. “All you’re going to do is sniff your clothes.”
“But why?” Cleo asked.
“Although you’ve held your wolf at bay for so long, she’s always been in you, Cleo. She’s spent years picking up scents and storing them away. Trust me, now that she’s awake, she will recognize the scent of the blood and you will know for sure who the blood belongs to,” Zane said.