Once she was certain nobody was peeking, she quickly slipped out of her clothing, folded it neatly, and set it on the counter. Then she closed her eyes and silently urged her body to do its thing. This was it. She would shift now, and the change would grow on her. She cleared her mind and tried to think animal thoughts.
“You can do this,” she whispered to herself.
She knew her friends could hear her, but nobody laughed, and then she felt the air around her change. Her skin morphed from being soft and smooth to being covered in dark fur. She felt her bones change and her height adjusted. The entire process took only a few seconds, but in her mind, it seemed to last hours because Wolf could feel every part of herself changing.
Adjusting.
Evolving.
This is what being a wolf was like. As soon as she was in her animal form, she was immediately overwhelmed with different scents and emotions. Oh, she could smell pretty well as a human, but being in her wolf form was overwhelming to Natasha Wolf. She closed her eyes for just a second and tried to sort out the different things she was smelling.
There was Beast, who was excited and anxious and nervous. He smelled nervous. Why was he nervous? He put on such a tough-guy act and Wolf had always suspected that he was a total bully and a complete jerk. Could she have been wrong about him? Why was he smelling like he was scared of something?
Then there was Jessica. She smelled happy, excited, and a little bit anxious. Jessica had been really fun to get to know. She was interesting and smart. She was clever and she was always up for hanging out and having fun.
And finally, Wolf focused her scenting abilities on Red. He was the key here. Red was the one who had brought them on this little adventure, and he was the one who was going to guide them through it. He was going to lead them to his grandmother, whether he thought they could find her or not. She couldn’t have gone far, Wolf knew. In fact, she was probably hiding in plain sight. It was just a matter of finding her.
Once Wolf had finished sorting the scents of the people, she turned her nose to the kitchen. Something did smell wrong here. Something smelled...dark.
Evil.
There had been someone else here, she realized, although she wasn’t quite sure who it was. What could have happened here to Grandma? She hadn’t been killed or seriously hurt, Wolf knew. She definitely would have smelled that. Death had a very specific scent, and she was more than a little relieved to not find that smell here.
So, what was it?
What had happened?
She walked around the kitchen, sniffing and smelling. She could identify Grandmother’s scent. She thought it was from that morning. It was still pretty fresh. The other scent was fairly fresh, too, and it was a little bit familiar, but it wasn’t something she could pinpoint.
It smelled...angry.
Disappointed.
Frustrated.
And...tricky?
She wandered around for a few minutes, and then Wolf saw something on the floor in the corner of the room. She whined and pawed at the object, knowing exactly what it was, knowing exactly what it was they’d been missing.
Her friends rushed over and hurried to it.
“What is it?” Red asked. He squatted down beside Wolf and to her surprise, he actually pet her fur. He rubbed her back gently, softly, like she had done a wonderful job. No one had ever touched her in her wolf form before.
Ever.
She’d never been close enough for anyone to, but even if she’d been physically close to someone as a wolf, she wasn’t sure that she’d want them to pet her.
With Red, though, it didn’t seem like such a big deal.
It seemed...right.
Perfect.
It felt good.
He pet her for a second, and then he reached for the object she’d found.
“It’s some sort of cookie crumb,” he said. He lifted it to his nose and sniffed it. “Gingerbread, maybe?”
Jessica stilled, and Wolf realized her roommate understood exactly what was going on.
Beast noticed Jessica’s change in posture, too. She looked tense, all of a suddenly, and she stood up a little straighter.
“What is it?” He said. “You recognize it, don’t you?”
“Yeah,” Jessica said, swallowing hard. “It’s a gingerbread cookie.”
“Why is that a big deal?” Red asked. “Is it a clue?”
“Our roommate,” Jessica said.
“Belle?”
“No,” she shook her head. “The other one. Stacy. She’s been working on a new recipe.”
“What kind of recipe?” Red asked, but his anxiety levels were rising. Wolf could smell them. He knew what this meant. They all did.
“Gingerbread cookies,” Jessica finally said. “It’s for a competition for her class. She’s going to be in the bake-off tonight at school.”
“Why would she have been here?” Red asked her.
Jessica shook her head.
“She’s been really weird and private lately. In fact, she locked Wolf out of their shared bedroom a couple of times.”
It had been more than a couple, but Wolf wasn’t about to argue the point. Not at a time like this. There were too many questions running around in her head.
What had Stacy done?
That was, perhaps, the biggest question of all. Stacy had always been a good friend and a kind roommate, at least until recently. Then again, maybe Wolf hadn’t been the best judge of character. She’d spent so much time worrying about Codsworth and their class that she hadn’t always been as alert or as aware of her surroundings as she should have.
And now it appeared as though Stacy had done something.
It was obviously something bad.
“You think it was her,” Red said. Then he looked at Wolf. “You think it was her,” he whispered, and there were tears in his eyes. He loved his granny. That much was obvious. Wolf didn’t want to tell him. She didn’t want to be the one to admit that her crazy roommate had, apparently, stolen his grandmother away, but when she looked at Red, Wolf knew she could never lie.
Not to him.
Not then.
She nodded her head slowly, and a tear slid from Red’s eyes.
Chapter 10
“Don’t shift back,” I said to Wolf. I grabbed her clothing off the counter. “She can’t be far. I mean, Stacy was in our room when we got back. She stormed out, so chances are she’s with Grandma now. Wolf, we need your nose. Can you track Stacy?”
Wolf looked at Red, and for a second, I thought she was going to start crying, too. I wasn’t sure if wolves could cry, but if they could, well, it just might break my heart. She didn’t cry, though. Instead, she nodded, and headed toward the door. Red, Beast, and I followed her outside. Wolf sniffed around the exterior of the home for a minute. I knew that her eyes and her nose were both incredible. She could use them to find Stacy or Grandma: hopefully both.
She smelled for a few minutes, and then she looked over at us and tapped on the ground with her paw.
“That’s definitely the signal to follow her,” I said, and we did. We traipsed away from Red’s grandma’s house and deeper into the forest that surrounded the school. We walked quietly with Wolf leading the way. Soon, Wolf and Red were leading the search, and Beast and I were walking slightly behind them.
“She’s good,” he said.
“Yeah,” I agreed. “The best.”
“Did you know she was a shifter?”
“Not until recently.”
“Did it bother you?”
“What?”
“Finding out that she wasn’t what she said she was.”
“Well, she never told me she was human.”
“You know what I mean.”
I looked over at him and shook my head.
“What does it matter?”
“Oh,” he kicked a rock. “It matters.”
“Why?”
What had Beast gone through that he cared what someone was? Wolf was just W
olf to me. When I looked at her, I didn’t see her for being a shifter or a human or anything at all except for my friend. It bothered me a little that this was such a big deal to him. Then again, maybe I was the one who didn’t understand.
It was obvious that someone had hurt him: probably someone close to him. Wasn’t that the way these things always worked?
“It just does.”
“Stupid answer,” I said.
Then we kept walking. He didn’t say anything back. Wolf led the way and Red stayed very close to her side. He obviously wasn’t going to let her get too far ahead. He was clever enough to know that when she set her sights on something, she wasn’t the type of person to let it go.
Tenacious.
That’s what she was.
We went down a little path for awhile, but then we veered off. Red and Wolf seemed to know exactly where to go. Beast and I were a little slower, and a little clumsier, and at one point, I tripped on a tree stump and almost fell.
He caught me though, and I looked up at Beast in surprise. How come he could be so wild and untamed one minute, but gentle the next? How comes sometimes he was kind and sweet, but he was violent and uncouth the next?
“Are you okay?” He asked me.
His eyes searched mine, and I nodded.
“Yeah. I’m fine.”
I pushed away, but not too hard, and he looked really uncomfortable. We kept walking, and suddenly, Red and Wolf stopped. It looked like they’d found something. Wolf went behind a tree and I tossed her clothing to her. A second later, she emerged in her human form and was fully dressed.
“What is it?” Beast asked.
“Just look,” Red pointed.
“It’s the tower,” I said. It was the place Belle and Wolf had taken me recently. The tall, winding tower in the middle of nowhere that lurked just above the treetops. It was the one that had magical water inside somehow.
I still didn’t understand that.
I had been fascinated when they’d brought me. The first time I’d seen the tower, I had thought it held wonder and beauty. Now? Now, I just hoped that we weren’t too late to save Grandma from whatever fate she’d fallen victim to. If she was in the tower, then there was definitely trouble.
Oh Stacy, what have you done?
“What about it?” Beast whispered. “You think she’s in there?”
We were standing a reasonable distance from the tower and we were hidden behind some trees. None of us wanted to approach it. Who would? I mean, if Stacy was in there, and she’d gone a little crazy, then there was no fair reason we should get any closer to the building.
“I think we’re not going to know unless we check,” I said.
I took a deep breath, and then took a step forward, but I felt someone pulling me back.
Beast.
Beast was pulling me back.
He held onto my arm and yanked, bringing me to his side.
“Wait,” he said. “We need a plan.”
“She’s in there,” I said. “We all know it.”
“This isn’t as simple as saving Belle was,” Wolf points out. “We can’t just walk over to our teacher and ask her to save the day.”
I bristled a little. I mean, I kind of felt like I’d done more than ask a teacher for help when it came to saving Belle, but whatever. I knew what I’d done.
“I didn’t mean it like that,” she said.
“It’s okay.”
“Look, all I’m saying is that Stacy is obviously sneaky. We still don’t know why she wanted Red’s grandmother or what she’s doing with her here. It’s best to be careful, okay? We don’t want to play all of our cards at once.”
I knew she was right, so I nodded.
“Okay, then what do we do?”
“We should split up,” Red said. “Natasha and I will go first. You two can follow. If something goes wrong, you can fly in and save the day.”
“Sounds good,” I said.
“No pressure at all,” Beast muttered.
“Let’s go,” Wolf said.
She took Red’s hand and led him toward the tower. They stepped quietly, almost silently, as they approached. I wondered what she was going to do. She’d probably use her scenting abilities to figure out exactly where his Grandma was. The inside of the tower was filled with water, right? At least, the bottom few floors were.
But there were at least six stories in the tower.
Maybe the upper-floors didn’t have the water.
Maybe they were hiding up there.
We watched, carefully, as Wolf and Red made their way up to the first window and peered in. She looked over at us and shook her head. I thought that was going to be it, but she grabbed some vines and started climbing up.
“Well,” Beast said. “This just got interesting.”
Chapter 11
Clinging to vines wasn’t as easy as it looked, Wolf thought. If she could start the day over again, she definitely would have made different choices. She wouldn’t have trusted Stacy, for starters. She wouldn’t have shied away from her feelings, for another. She wanted to talk to Red. She wanted to tell him that no matter what happened, she liked him.
She’d liked him for a long time.
But he knew that, didn’t he?
Didn’t he know that she had developed feelings for him?
He’d always been kind to her. That was true, and now she knew that he’d noticed her even when she hadn’t really believed that he had.
But she kept her mouth shut because right now, her feelings about him didn’t matter nearly as much as her ability to get to the top of this tower and save Red’s granny.
Stacy was up there, Wolf knew.
She was up in the tower.
Wolf could see the places on the vines where someone had climbed. There were small tears and a few broken vines. Stones crumbled from the tower, but Wolf had come too far to back down now. She was going to keep going, no matter what. She was going to find out where her friend had gone.
Then she was going to stop her from whatever she was trying to do.
Wolf was quiet as she moved. She climbed first and Red was below her. He was trying to keep up, but he wasn’t a wolf, and he hadn’t climbed up here before. At least, not as far as she knew.
By the time she reached the highest window, she was sweaty and tired.
But they were only getting started.
Wolf climbed up on the ledge beside the window and peered in. She could see Stacy before she could hear her. Apparently, there was some sort of audio dampening spell on the tower because Stacy was absolutely screaming.
And she was screaming at Red’s grandma.
Grandma was sitting in a chair in the center of the room and Stacy was walking around her. She was yelling, but Wolf couldn’t make out the words. Grandma looked okay, but she wasn’t awake. She was asleep.
“How could she sleep through that?” Red whispered.
“She’s under a spell,” Wolf whispered.
“Some kind of sleeping spell,” Red agreed.
He reached out and took Wolf’s hand. He squeezed it.
“Thank you,” he whispered.
She just nodded. They weren’t out of the woods yet. If anything, the real problems were just beginning. Wolf peeked in the window again. Stacy seemed to be quite familiar with the tower. She had obviously made herself pretty comfortable inside. She was throwing books and kicking things. There was a cauldron and there were cooking supplies.
What was she trying to do?
Furthermore, how had she gotten Grandma up to the top floor of the tower?
There was a chance she had transported her through the watery interior. The magical water had a lot of incredible properties. They could have swum up to the top floor and then emerged just as dry as when they’d entered.
But maybe Stacy has levitated Grandma.
Wolf didn’t know.
She felt tricked, and abused, and embarrassed. She hadn’t known what a powerful witch Stacy really was
. She hadn’t known she was more than just a student feeling stressed or anxious.
She hadn’t understood that Stacy wasn’t studying: she was being manipulative. Now, as Wolf looked in the tower window at her friend, she knew that everything she’d known about the girl was a lie.
And try as she might, she couldn’t stop herself.
Wolf threw herself through the open window and tumbled inside.
Red followed.
Stacy spun around and dropped the book she was holding. She glared at Wolf, narrowing her eyes.
“What are you doing here?” She asked.
“I could ask you the same question.”
“Then ask it.”
Wolf paused. Really? That was it? That was her villainous response?
“Uh, what are you doing here?”
“What does it look like I’m doing here?”
Wolf was getting a headache. If this was the level of banter she was going to be able to expect from Stacy, then she’d do well to find someone else to spar with.
“It looks like you stole my grandma,” Red said.
“Grandma-napping isn’t a thing,” Stacy pointed out.
“You abducted her.”
Stacy just shrugged.
“Why?” Wolf asked. “That’s what we want to know, Stacy.”
“First off, if you’re going to come into my sanctuary and attack me with,” Stacy looked at Wolf and jerked her head toward Red. “Whatever he is, then at least have the decency to ask if I want a bite.”
She licked her lips.
Wolf bristled.
What?
What was she talking about?
Was Stacy suggesting...
Was she...
Was she coming on to Red?
But Red was hers.
Oh, not really.
It wasn’t like she owned him or anything, but she...well, she cared deeply for him. A lot. Probably more than she should have. Only hours ago, they’d shared their first kiss, and now? Well, now she was going to do whatever it took to save the guy’s nice old granny. And judging by the sheer malice in Stacy’s face, Wolf would venture to guess that they’d literally arrived just in time.
Any longer, and who knew what the crazy lady might have done?
“You stay away from him,” Wolf said.
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