Scratch the Surface (Wolf Within)

by Amy Lee Burgess

  I gritted my teeth and resolutely opened the door. I tried to get behind the wheel but my knees locked rebelliously.

  “It looks like you can’t bend your knees,” he said after a moment. His voice was both ironic and kind, and I winced.

  “I can so,” I argued. Murphy waited. I took a deep breath, held it, counted to twenty three, exhaled before I passed out and tried to bend my knees again. No dice.

  “This is so fucking stupid,” I muttered.

  “Where do you want to go? I’ll drive you,” he offered.

  “You always drive me everywhere. I want to be the one to drive.”

  He waited again. He was very patient. My knees were completely uncooperative.

  “Oh, fuck.” I handed him the keys and all but ran away from the car. Damn thing. My knees worked fine walking away from the driver’s side.

  “You did try,” he said, coming closer to me. He gave me an encouraging smile. “It won’t be long now before you’re driving, Stanzie.”

  “Please don’t patronize me,” I whispered and his smile went away.

  “Where do you want to go?” he said after a moment.

  “I don’t know.” I shrugged. “I just want to get the hell away from here.”

  “Boston?” His laugh was wistful and so was my smile. “Let’s just drive,” he suggested. So we did.

  He drove through Hartford for a little bit but when he ended up on the highway, I abruptly knew where I wanted to go and gave him directions.

  * * * *

  The house was smaller than I remembered. They’d painted the shutters black, but they’d been Cape Cod blue when Grey, Elena and I had lived there.

  Murphy parked at the curb so that my side of the car had the best view of the house.

  The big bay window sparkled in the winter sunshine and I remembered Elena’s collection of glass cats. She’d put them all on the little shelves built into the panes of the window glass. They’d all been smashed to hell the day of the funeral. She’d spent her whole life collecting them—since she was five years old. Every birthday, every Christmas, people gave her glass cats.

  The wooden box Grey and I had given her when she’d bonded with us had been painted with calico cats. She’d squealed in delight when she’d seen it.

  She tried keeping real cats but they always ran away. Cats and wolves don’t generally mix.

  I sat in the car with one hand pressed to my mouth and stared, while Murphy waited behind the wheel, head bowed a little, allowing me my space and privacy.

  When I could talk again, I said, “The shutters used to be blue.”

  “Yeah,” said Murphy. “Things don’t stay the same, do they? After Sorcha died, I got an offer for our apartment and that’s when I decided to move to Belfast. The company who bought the apartment house wanted it for office space. Tore it all down and rebuilt it. Paddy tells me I wouldn’t even recognize it anymore. I can’t decide if this is a good thing or not.”

  “I hate change,” I whispered.

  “It happens anyway.” He switched on the ignition.

  I gave him directions back to the highway. There was one more place I wanted to visit.

  “I don’t think this a good idea,” Murphy told me when he realized where we were and why I wanted him to pull over on the off-ramp.

  There wasn’t a lot of traffic. More than there’d been that night, but there was never that much.

  I ignored him and got out of the car.

  The guard rail had long since been replaced. The new part gleamed in the winter sun. The small ravine below was a shining, pristine sheet of white tucked into the hill.

  During the accident, the Mustang had taken out several bushes and a tree. There had to be a blank spot where they’d been, at least where the tree had stood, but the snow covered everything and made it hard to tell.

  It was a deceptively peaceful place. I detected no psychic echoes of Grey’s dying agony or Elena’s last shriek of terror before her neck snapped.

  I looked and looked but could not find the exact spot the car had come to rest.

  If it hadn’t been so icy, I would have gone down the hill. I did try, but Murphy grabbed me.

  “I can’t find it. The place exactly,” I told him when he wouldn’t let go of my shoulder.

  “Maybe that’s a good thing.”

  I shrugged. I didn’t know for sure. “My cellphone was in my purse. My purse was in the back seat with...with Elena. After Grey died, I left him and went back to the car. I found my cellphone. It worked. Do you know who I called?”

  “Grandfather Tobias,” he guessed, his face very grim.

  I squinted against the blinding sunlight and nodded. “He called the others, Vaughn, Peter and Jonathan. They left Callie and Nora behind. I waited for them to get here and went back and forth between Elena and Grey. Because I didn’t want them to be alone. I was talking to myself. Babbling really. Telling myself it was just a dream, a nightmare. But it wasn’t. They got here and they saw all the blood on me. It was Grey’s blood but they didn’t know that. Peter thought I was hurt and he ran to me. Jonathan saw Grey’s body and got sick in the bushes. Vaughn found Elena and started to cry. He kept saying, ‘no, no, no, not like this, no.’

  “Grandfather Tobias put me in Jonathan’s car and I lay down in the backseat. I don’t remember what happened then except I must have fallen asleep because when I opened my eyes I was at Callie’s house, in the driveway. Peter was shaking me awake and we went inside and told Callie and Nora that Grey and Elena were dead. They started screaming and crying and, oh, Murphy, it was a mess.”

  I stopped talking and looked down the hill again. I still couldn’t find the exact spot.

  “It’s over, Stanzie,” Murphy whispered. He tucked a lock of my hair behind one of my ears. “It’s the past. Don’t let it hurt you anymore. It wasn’t your fault and nobody blames you and you can let it go now.”

  “Can I?” I turned to look at him, at his familiar, attractive face. I wished I could touch him but I didn’t. “Someone else was in on it with Grandfather Tobias. I can’t let it go until I know who. Not just because Allerton wants to know, not just because the Great Pack needs to know, but because I do. I want to let go, Murphy, and I’m a lot better than I used to be. Look at me, I’m not even crying. Am I?” Amazed, I put a hand to my cheek. It came away dry.

  My mouth trembled. “Is that a good thing?”

  “It is.” He gave me a subdued smile. “Now come on, let’s go find someplace and have lunch.”

  “Is your wolf still awake?” I wondered and his subdued smile became an outright grin.

  “He is.”

  “Want to shift?”

  Chapter 20

  Run, run, run and run more. Friend chases me. I run faster! I want words but I want to run too! Friend chases me. Friend tries to catch me! Me run, fast, fast, fast! White stuff flies up in the air. Paws cold! Cold paws, but me warm. Me...I...I happy! I run! I run fast!

  * * * *

  Jesus, it was cold. I came back to myself in human form, naked and colder than midnight in February.

  Murphy was close by and swearing in Irish. Luckily, our clothes were in neatly folded piles right where we’d left them. The first thing Murphy’s wolf had taught mine was to remember where we left our clothes and to return there before shifting back. It was a simple, obvious thing, but it was something my wolf was notoriously awful at remembering.

  But she had remembered this time. Here was the clearing where we’d shifted near the lot where we’d left the car. It was so cold no Others were around. The parking lot was empty save for the Prelude. One good thing about shifting in the daytime in winter, when it was this cold—the Others stayed away.

  Grey, Elena and I had loved this small state park in Manchester and used it far more often than we’d gone to the Devil’s Hopyard. That was more for the whole pack, not our triad.

  Today seemed a day to go back to old haunts, and I was handling it relatively well. I knew it was because
Murphy was with me but I was still proud of myself.

  “Jaysus, goddamn, sonofabitch!” Murphy switched to English and half-ran, half-hopped to his clothes and began with his jeans. I swore too and stood on my coat so I could put on my socks. My nipples were so hard they hurt and my teeth chattered so loudly I could barely hear Murphy’s steady stream of inventive cursing.

  I did hear the crow. It sat in the top of a maple tree about ten yards away from us and it gave a sudden squawk that was just ahead of the shot.

  It was enough of a heads up for Murphy. I was slower than he was, trying to fasten my bra. I was struggling with the damn straps when the crow cried out its warning.

  The next thing I knew I was flat on the ground, snow crushing up into my mouth and nose as Murphy crawled on top of me and held me down, trying to cover every inch of me with his body.

  There were more shots then, enough so I realized what was happening and started to scream. Snow choked me and I bucked and struggled beneath Murphy, trying to get free so I could run but he held me down until he yelled, “Now!” He half dragged me to my feet and we ran like hell for the cover of the maple tree and the trees beyond that one. It was only thirty yards, maybe less, but it seemed a million miles to safety.

  A bullet zinged by my head, so close I felt the heat. It buzzed in my ear like a wasp and I screamed and ducked, losing my balance. Murphy had my hand and if not for him I would have gone down, but he held me up and dragged me into the woods.

  “Run, just run, keep running,” he urged. In human form he could outrun me, but he didn’t leave me. He kept behind me, trying to shield me from the bullets in case the person with the gun chased us.

  But there were no more bullets once we reached the sanctuary of the woods.

  We ran until we couldn’t breathe and eventually had to stop, bending double to catch our breath, wheezing, coughing and choking. I was coated with a cold sweat and so scared my brain felt like it was bouncing around inside my skull as if it had been shot out of a pinball machine.

  Murphy fell to his knees, gasping, and that’s when I smelled blood. His.

  “Oh, fuck.” I turned to him in horror. Bright scarlet drops of blood stained the forest floor and the clumps of snow that had dropped through the canopy of bare black branches.

  “I’m all right,” he told me, holding himself as he bent double, trying to breathe.

  “Where did you get shot? How bad is it?” I crawled across the ground to get to him.

  “Stanzie, it just a graze. My arm.” He held his right arm out to show me.

  A thin, bloody slash zigzagged down his forearm. He was right. It was just a flesh wound. It was bleeding like a bitch though and I grabbed his hands with mine. Our fingers clutched as we stared at each other.

  His brown eyes were glazed with both pain and fear, and I could barely see past the tears in mine. This was my fault. I had planted a seed and it had borne poison fruit.

  “We have to get out of here,” Murphy told me in a quiet, calm tone even though his chest heaved and his eyes were wild. “Okay, Stanzie? We need to get to the car and get the hell out of here.”

  “The car?” I moaned. “What if whoever has the gun is waiting in the parking lot?”

  “I don’t have my coat and neither do you. It’s nearly sunset and it’s going to go below freezing.” His gaze took in my shivering form. I only had on underwear and a pair of wet socks. “We can’t stay out here.”

  “Jesus Christ, let me think. Let me think. I know this place, Murphy. If you let me think I can maybe figure a way out that doesn’t mean the parking lot. There are houses nearby. We can go to one and call Allerton. We can’t go to the parking lot, can’t you understand that?”

  “Calm down, Stanz,” he said gently, squeezing my hands with his. We were both kneeling in a combination of pine needles, mud and snow. My kneecaps were frozen and he was still bleeding.

  We were so absorbed with each other and with fear that we didn’t hear the person approaching us from behind until he was nearly upon us and then it was too late to run.

  “Liam!” The voice was familiar and had an English accent. Murphy reacted immediately and launched himself at the speaker.

  He and Colin Hunter went down hard—a tangle of arms and legs. I leaped to my feet and found a fallen branch. I had this insane idea I was going to brain Colin with it, but Murphy kept getting in the way. Also, I listened to Colin who, in between swearing and punching, was screaming at Murphy that he was trying to help, damn it, help.

  Murphy either wasn’t listening or didn’t believe him.

  “I have no gun! I haven’t got a gun, it wasn’t me!” Colin shouted as he and Murphy thrashed in the pine needles and snow.

  What if Colin wasn’t lying? Someone else with a gun could be out there and while Murphy and Colin Hunter rolled around on the ground like schoolyard bullies beating the crap out of each other, they were perfect targets. I was an even better one. I shouted at Murphy, trying to get him to stop fighting but he didn’t listen to me either. I considered braining him with the branch because by this time I believed Colin Hunter and the sun was sinking and I was getting cold and very scared. But I couldn’t bring myself to really do it and cast the branch down in disgust.

  Murphy wrestled his way on top of Colin, who was only defending himself and not trying to land punches. That, apparently, registered at last with Murphy, who sat astride him and aimed a fist at his face but did not follow through.

  “Liam, goddamnit,” snarled Colin. “Listen to me, you bastard. I’m not the one who shot at you. I swear!”

  “How do you even know somebody shot at us if you weren’t the one doing the shooting, gobshite!” Murphy’s Irish accent was thick enough to make me crinkle my brow in confusion, trying to translate, but Colin had no trouble.

  “I was sitting in the car park waiting for you two to shift back when I heard the shots. I ran like hell but all I found was your blood and a lot of confused footprints. I think they were yours and Constance’s. I don’t know who shot at you, and at this point, I don’t friggin’ care. Let’s get out of here.”

  “How the hell did you come to be sitting in the car park, you lying sack of shit?” Murphy looked as though he wanted to spit in Colin’s face, but he didn’t.

  The setting sun pierced down through the tops of the pine trees and into our eyes and all three of us squinted in protest. I became acutely aware that I had no coat. No jeans or sweater either. Just in the time they’d been fighting it had dropped five or six degrees.

  “I was curious when you two sat outside my house staring. I called Allerton and he told me to follow you,” Colin explained and Murphy glared at him.

  “Your house?” he said. “Your house?”

  “He and Devon must be renting it now,” I said in a strange voice. It was weird enough to think of other people living there, but other people in Riverglow? It was almost too much.

  “Allerton told you to follow us?” Murphy’s eyes narrowed.

  “You know he’s working for him, Murphy,” I said softly, reminding him of something we already knew, and Murphy grimaced.

  “I want to be one of his Advisors too,” confessed Colin.

  “Fuck,” muttered Murphy. He held Colin down with one hand and searched his pockets with the other. He came up empty. No gun. “You could have ditched it, you bastard. This proves next to nothing.”

  “Smell my hands. If I’d fired a gun, you’d smell the residue.” Colin offered both his hands and Murphy sniffed them. By his expression I knew he didn’t smell anything.

  “You could have worn gloves and ditched them, ye fecker,” he muttered.

  “Call Allerton. Ask him if I’m not working for him. Auditioning for the role of Advisor. Like you and Constance must have done at some point,” Hunter suggested.

  Murphy’s lips twitched. He knew Colin was fishing for information and he’d be damned if he’d give him any.

  “I know all about the conspiracy,” Colin said. “All
erton told me about it. I know Grandfather Mick was the one who set Sorcha up, not you. Not that I ever really believed you did it. I was just so pissed off at the time.”

  Murphy did spit then, but not directly at Colin. He got to his feet and stalked away as if he couldn’t bear to be close to him one second longer.

  “You were more interested in being Alpha of Mac Tire than you were of being Sorcha’s bond mate,” he accused. “Don’t think I didn’t fucking know that, Hunter.”

  Colin bowed his head. “Why didn’t you tell Sorcha that if you’re so sure it’s the truth?”

  “Nobody told Sorcha anything she didn’t want to hear. Besides, she wouldn’t have given a shit. She wanted you. She was going to have you. We were a lot alike, Sorcha and I, at least in that respect.”

  Colin didn’t say anything for a moment. “I was that close to being Alpha of Mac Tire. That close.” He held his thumb a half inch away from his index finger and laughed a little. “I did like Sorcha, Liam, but you’re right. If she hadn’t been Alpha of the pack, I would have walked away.”

  Murphy stood very still, half shadowed by the creeping winter’s dusk, but I could still see the sorrow on his face. “I wasn’t standing in the way, Colin. You didn’t need to give me such grief just because she died.”

  “I know that now,” said Colin. There was just the faintest trace of remorse on his face. “Hell, I knew it then but I was so angry.”

  “And now you want to be Allerton’s Advisor and I’m still the one standing in your way,” said Murphy. “Bites, doesn’t it?”

  Colin shrugged. “Hell, I consider it payback. I’m not your enemy, Liam.”

  “No, of course not, if I can help you. Not if you can use me to piggyback your way up into position.” Murphy flashed him a sardonic grin.

  “Look, let’s get out of here. Constance is freezing. I think we should take my car.”

  They exchanged knowing looks and I was confused.

  “Car bomb,” said Murphy when he saw my expression.

  “Are you serious?” I gaped at him. “Nobody in Riverglow knows how to make a car bomb, Murphy. This isn’t Belfast. It’s Connecticut. Nobody makes car bombs here.”