by Reine, SM
“I thought you said the bullet passed through!”
He gestured for her to lean to the side, and he looked at the other side of her leg. “It did. You were lucky.”
Lucky. Funny choice of words. Rylie hugged a pillow to her chest, digging her fingernails into the stuffing. “How do we clean it?” she asked. She had broken bones since getting bitten over the summer, and they healed within minutes after a flush of heat. This burning kept getting worse instead of better.
“The back has closed. The front hasn’t.” Seth gripped her hand in his. “We can wait for the silver to pass through on its own. There isn’t much, or else you wouldn’t be walking at all.”
“How long?”
“Days. Maybe weeks.”
She groaned. “I have to go to school, Seth! And Gwyn can’t find out I got shot. She’ll go nuts!”
“I can pull the fragments out now,” he said.
Her eyes burned with tears. “I don’t know if I can do that.”
“I’ll be fast. Do you have tweezers?”
Rylie pointed to the vanity. Seth searched through her drawers until he came up with a pair of needle-point tweezers, which she had used to pluck her eyebrows until she realized her hair was too pale for anyone to tell if she had one eyebrow or two.
“Will it hurt?” she whispered.
“Yeah.” Seth pulled a lighter out of his pocket and flicked the igniter, holding the end of the tweezers in the flame. “Why don’t you stretch out?”
She felt like she was going to hyperventilate. She made herself focus on the white ceiling so she wouldn’t see what he was doing with the tweezers.
“Do you do this a lot?”
“You mean, fix people up?” he asked. “Yeah. Just last night, Abel and I…” He trailed off, hand resting on her leg. She could hear a roaring in her ears like the icy waterfalls on Gray Mountain.
“Last night? What happened last night?”
“You bit Abel.”
“What?”
Fire exploded all up and down her leg. Rylie mashed the pillow onto her face to smother the sounds of pain. It only lasted a moment, but when Seth withdrew the tweezers, it was burning even worse than before. Her whole body shook with sobs.
“You have to hold still, Rylie. There’s still something in there.”
“No, don’t—”
He inserted the tweezers into her injury again.
This time, she couldn’t smother her scream.
She flushed hot when he withdrew them. A wildfire of pain rolled up and down her body. Her thigh muscle shook. It was nothing like the other times she had super-healed a broken bone or scrape. Rylie felt nothing but pain. It blinded her to the world.
Seth climbed into bed and pulled her into his arms.
She wasn’t sure how long it took the pain to stop. It could have been a few seconds, or it could have been hours. But eventually, it did stop. Her leg gave another spasm and grew still.
Rylie sagged against him. She knew she must have looked totally gross, but she couldn’t make herself care.
“I don’t want to do this anymore,” she whispered.
“Hey,” he murmured against the top of her head. “I’ll help you. We’ll figure it out together.”
“I don’t want to die.”
“You’re not going to die. I promise.”
They sat together in silence for a few minutes as her pulse slowed and her breathing became normal again. He used the edge of the towel to wipe the blood off Rylie’s leg, and she saw that the injury had closed completely.
Seth helped her sit up. Rylie tugged her skirt down. Now that she wasn’t in pain, she was kind of embarrassed to have a boy in her room. It should have been a little exciting, too, but pulling a bullet out of her leg wasn’t exactly thrilling.
“Is Abel okay?” she asked.
“He’s alive.”
“What does biting him again mean? Will he be a werewolf now?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think anybody has ever resisted the change before, and then got bitten again.” He cleaned the blood off his hands with the towel. “He’s tough. He’ll be fine.”
“I’m so sorry,” she said.
“You don’t have to pretend to care. I know you hate him.”
“But I didn’t want to hurt him. If he starts to change again, I want to do something about it. I want to help him.”
“I don’t know if you can.” Seth stood up. “I should go see him. If he’s healed already, then it probably means he’ll change. If the bite is still open, then he should be safe.”
“What are we going to do about your family? They saw me. They know I’m here. I don’t know how we can make them leave me alone now.”
“I don’t know.” Seth ran a hand over his hair. “I just… I don’t know.”
He left, and she waited until he snuck out the back door to try to stand up again. Even though her leg felt better, she was still weak. Seth had left the tweezers and a couple pebble-sized bits of silver on the floor. It was hard to believe something so small could have caused so much pain.
Wobbling out to the kitchen, Rylie found leftovers from the last couple of dinners. The fridge was packed full of steaks and roasts and ribs. She knew Gwyn would probably make breakfast later, but she couldn’t wait to eat. Her body demanded food.
Rylie pulled an entire rack of ribs out of the refrigerator and heated it up in the microwave while she tore into a cold steak. Her body revolted at the taste of it. She wanted something warm and fresh, and the image of a rabbit flashed through her mind. She ignored it.
Someone knocked at the door. Rylie paused mid-bite, slowly chewing what she had in her mouth.
Who would visit so early on the weekend? Nobody who came to the house knocked. The ranch hands—even Abel—knew they were welcome to walk in and out as freely as family.
The knocking repeated, and Rylie set her steak on the counter to limp into the living room. Maybe Gwyn locked herself out.
She found a statuesque woman standing on the other side of the door. She had the same strong nose and dark eyes as Seth, so Rylie immediately recognized her as his mom. What had he called her? Eleanor?
“What do you…?” Rylie started to ask.
Eleanor lashed out and grabbed a fistful of Rylie’s hair in her fist, yanking her onto the step.
Shrieking, Rylie clawed at the hand with her fingernails, but she lost balance and fell to her knees. Eleanor dragged her through the dirt screaming.
“Gwyn! Help me!”
“Shut your mouth,” Eleanor said, tossing Rylie against the motorcycle and backhanding her. Her head snapped to the side. The taste of iron flooded her mouth.
The wolf was always quiet after a moon, and the silver only made it worse. It was exhausted. Rylie had no strength.
She tried to dodge Eleanor’s next blow, but it connected with her jaw as she tried to get to her feet. She fell to the ground again. Rylie opened her mouth to yell and the older woman clapped her hand over her mouth.
It was then that her eyes fell on the black ropes at Eleanor’s belt. Panic swelled inside of her.
The adrenaline stirred the wolf, giving her a small burst of strength. Rylie ripped out of her grip and shoved her hard enough to send her flying.
Leaping to her feet, she bolted down the hill.
Her first instinct was to run to Gwyneth, who had a shotgun, but she knew just as quickly that she couldn’t do it. Her aunt had no problem shooting coyotes, but she would hesitate to shoot a person. Eleanor wouldn’t think twice before pulling her own trigger.
She couldn’t let Gwyn get killed.
Eleanor was getting to her feet. Those ropes looked like death waiting to happen.
Rylie’s bare feet slapped against the dirt as the motorcycle growled to life behind her. It blasted in a circle and blocked her route down the road, kicking gravel into her face.
She tried to run the other way, but Eleanor zoomed past her, and she snatched at Rylie’s hair again. Sh
e threw herself to the ground and felt a fistful of hair rip from her scalp. Rylie cried out and scrambled to her knees.
If she could just get into the bushes by the side of the road—
The motorcycle roared toward her. She rolled onto her side and felt the tire blow past her head.
When she sat up, she saw Eleanor wheeling around for another pass. Scrambling to her feet, Rylie leaped over the split rail fence and bolted across the pasture as fast as she could. Her leg throbbed with silver poisoning.
The motorcycle raced down the path between fields.
Cutting across the fields, Rylie took the shortest route she knew toward town. Terror blinded her. The world blurred. She had never moved so fast in her life.
All Rylie could think was I need Seth over and over. She didn’t know what else to do.
Something struck her in the back and bowled her over. She hit the dirt face first. All of her breath rushed out of her lungs, and she gasped, gripping her chest.
Eleanor stopped the motorcycle and jumped down. Rylie tried to crawl away, but the older woman pinned her down and wrapped the ropes around her wrists. “Stop!” Rylie wheezed. “Wait—what are—”
“Don’t talk to me.”
She twisted the black ropes all the way up Rylie’s arms. Eleanor knotted them and dragged her to the motorcycle. The weeds tore at Rylie’s dress.
Twisting around, she tried to kick herself free.
“Let me go!” she cried. Eleanor sat on the motorcycle again and wrapped the other end of the rope around the handle. Her foot kicked off the brake. “No!”
Her arms nearly ripped out of her sockets when the bike leaped forward. Her shoulders screamed. Fire burned on the side of her body as dirt scraped up her side. Eleanor didn’t drive fast—she didn’t mean to kill Rylie. But it burned even worse than the silver.
Rylie thrashed, but the ropes were too tight. She couldn’t get free.
The world shot past her at ten miles an hour.
Her body bumped over a rock. A cut split open on her shoulder.
The dirt scraped her skin raw even as the healing fever swept over her. She was injured and healed over and over again while Eleanor drove toward town, cutting through gaps in the fence to skip from pasture to pasture.
Rylie screamed until her throat felt like it was hamburger meat. Eleanor glanced at her.
“I told you to shut up,” she snapped, turning the handle of the motorcycle.
Her head smashed into a rock.
Rylie’s screams cut off. Everything went gray and fuzzy.
She wasn’t sure how long Eleanor dragged her behind the motorcycle. Her aunt owned a lot of land between their house and town. It felt like they went on for miles, but she knew that Eleanor had to reach the perimeter of the ranch soon. She had to.
The motorcycle finally stopped, and Rylie lay facedown on the ground shivering. The grains of dirt looked like boulders in her hazy vision.
Eleanor’s footsteps moved toward the fence. She heard the creaking of the gate.
It was her only chance.
Pushing herself forward to make the rope slack, Rylie ripped her arms apart and buried her fingernails into the rope. It frayed and snapped.
“Hey!” Eleanor shouted.
Rylie was free of the motorcycle, but she couldn’t get her arms apart. She swung her fists together and struck Eleanor in the face, sending her the ground.
She didn’t wait to see if she had hit hard enough.
Vaulting over the fence, Rylie stumbled onto a farm and stripped the ropes from her arms. They weren’t far from town.
She dodged into the cornfields, ears perked for the sound of a motorcycle engine, and stuck to the back of the fields so the farmer wouldn’t see her. A lot of corn had already been picked. It didn’t leave her much coverage.
Bursting through a wall of corn, Rylie leaped back in time to avoid a yellow harvester.
She could see the road. She was almost there.
And Eleanor’s motorcycle came roaring around the corner.
Rylie darted across the street. A hand stretched through the air, reaching for her back, but she ducked just in time to miss the swipe.
She climbed a chain link fence and dropped to the other side. Eleanor buzzed past.
Since she had never come into town from the wrong side of the strip mall before, Rylie was disoriented. Where was Seth’s trailer park? She didn’t have time to figure it out. Eleanor was coming around to the other side.
A group of women in blue jeans dropped their shopping bags when Rylie flew past them. There was a restaurant across the parking lot, and someone she knew was standing in front of it. He was wearing his normal polo shirt and smoking something that didn’t look quite like a cigarette.
“Tate!” Rylie cried. “Help me!”
He blinked at her. “What?”
Tate focused over her shoulder and saw the motorcycle roaring through the parking lot. It was like a splash of cold water. He grabbed her and dove into the alley between the restaurant and the shopping center.
“Run!” she shrieked.
But there was nowhere to go at the end. Eleanor maneuvered the motorcycle in front of the alley and leaped off.
The only way out was a dark door tagged with graffiti. Tate threw it open and they dove inside, slamming it shut behind them. Eleanor’s fists pounded on the door and the knob rattled, and then it went silent.
They were in a dark restaurant storeroom. Rylie’s back was pressed against a box of napkins. She realized Tate was staring at her, his eyes reflecting the light from the kitchen, and she glanced down. Her entire body was covered in blood and mud.
“I’ll explain later,” Rylie wheezed. “She’s going to go around front.”
“There’s another door out back. That way!”
They ran through the kitchen. A portly woman in an apron gave them a brief look before going back to tossing her pizza dough. Rylie had to wonder what kind of things Tate did that meant nobody bat an eye at him running through their restaurant like he was being chased by a tiger.
At that moment, she didn’t really care. They burst out of the security gate to find Tate’s old BMW backed up to the restaurant. Rylie threw herself in the passenger’s seat as he started the engine. It reeked so strongly of marijuana that she felt like she had jumped into a bong.
“Where should I go?” he asked.
Eleanor rounded the side of the building.
“I don’t care! Just go! Go!”
He gunned it. They peeled out of the parking lot. Rylie twisted around to watch the street receding behind them.
“That was nuts,” Tate said, giggling madly. “Cool. So cool. I knew you were going to be awesome when I saw you.” He tore down the streets, weaving crazily between the lanes and hopping on the curb every time he turned a corner.
There was no motorcycle behind them. They had lost her.
“She wants to kill me,” Rylie said.
“No way.”
“Seriously.”
Tate started laughing harder. She would have been annoyed if the shock of it didn’t suddenly sink in. Every inch of Rylie shook, and she bowed her head against her knees as she dug her fingernails into her shoulders.
Eleanor tried to kill her.
Twice.
Her body had already healed from getting dragged through the fields, but the memory of it haunted her. She kept seeing the grass dragging past her head and feeling the rash of the dirt scraping a long line down her body.
She gave a hiccupping sob. Before Rylie became a werewolf, she hadn’t even broken a bone before. Now she was getting shot and beaten and she had no idea how to handle it.
Tate noticed Rylie starting to cry, and he got the wild look of a cornered animal. “Whoa, don’t do that. You mean it? She’s really trying to kill you?”
“You think I would joke about that?” Rylie snapped.
“Who was that bitch? She looked like a freaking Terminator.”
“I don’
t want to talk about it.”
“All right, all right, don’t freak out. There’s no panic in the Tate Zone. We’re cool here. Deep breaths.”
Being told to take deep breaths only made her angrier, but the shock overwhelmed everything else. “Fine,” Rylie ground out between her teeth. “We’re cool.”
“Is your face okay?”
“My face?”
She pulled down the visor to look in the mirror. Blood caked the entire right side of her face from hairline to jaw. It looked like she should have been skinned, but it was smooth and uninjured underneath.
Rylie couldn’t feel surprised or horrified. She couldn’t feel anything at all.
Her hands shook as she pushed the visor up again.
“I hit my head when I was running.”
“You need a doctor?” he asked.
“No.”
“Cool. You can hide out at my folks’ place,” he said. “The whole basement is the Tate Zone. They never go down there, and you can chill as long as you want.”
“You don’t think I should call the cops or something?”
“No! No. Don’t do that. Those pigs aren’t good for anything,” he said.
He probably had a point. Rylie didn’t think they were out to get her—although they might have been out to get Tate, considering his hobbies—but she didn’t think they could help her with a supernatural problem. Would they even believe her if she said she was a werewolf with a hunter chasing her down?
The worst part was that Rylie wasn’t sure who they would side with if they did believe her.
As adrenaline faded, exhaustion took its place. She seldom slept on her nights as a werewolf. Rylie almost passed out in Tate’s BMW before they reached his house.
Like most people, he lived a few miles out of town, but his community was in a gated development on an artificial lake. He keyed in the code and drove up to a huge house with a circular driveway, well-manicured lawn, and topiaries.
“Is this where you live?” Rylie asked. She hadn’t known there were any rich people in her farming community.
“Yeah. Boring, huh?”
He pulled into a garage beneath the house, and Rylie got out on trembling legs. The “Tate Zone” turned out to be more like a roomy apartment beneath his parent’s house than a basement, which looked into their immaculate yard with huge windows.