Wolf Pack

by Bridget Essex

  For a second, I wonder if I really saw what I think I saw. No, there is no way I could have. Right? I take a deep breath, letting it blow out my nose. My mind is desperately grappling, trying to substitute something else over the image of the wolf. Something else that actually makes sense.

  It was a very long drive. I'm hyped up on caffeine. I'm really hungry. Don't people see things when they're starving? Yeah. That must be it. It must be.

  But still, I take another step forward , and I'm curling my fingers around the shower curtain again, bracing myself. I think about what Barbara said, about there being a wolf in the park. But a wolf in a state park in New York? It sounded crazy, unbelievable, when she told me that, with her narrowed gaze and that ridiculous smirk.

  But I have to believe my own eyes, don't I?

  I steel my nerves. I take a deep breath, and I hold it, and I pull the curtain back. I need to see if the wolf is real. If I made it up.

  I must have made it up.

  Because there isn't a wolf in the middle of the bathroom.

  I stare at what is lying on the concrete floor, though, and everything seems to speed up around me again, the air pouring out of me as I gasp, as I fumble with the knobs on the shower, my entire body quaking as I manage to turn the water off and race out of the shower, naked and not even caring.

  Because in the center of the bathroom floor, curled up into a tight ball, there is no wolf but a woman, just as naked as me.

  And she's bleeding. Badly.

  I almost slip on the concrete floor when I approach her, but I manage to catch myself from a complete fall, racing to a crouch beside the prone figure. I stare down, unsure of what to do as she curls up into a tighter ball, gasping herself.

  She has her face pressed into her knees, her arms wrapped tightly around her legs, her body curled inward, but I can still make out some significant details. Like the fact that her right shoulder, the one that's facing the ceiling of the bathroom, since she's lying on her side, has an enormous gash tearing it open, a gash so deep that... God. Is that a bit of bone I see, peeking through the layers of skin and muscle? Blood leaks down her side, coursing over her arm, over her chest, pooling onto the floor beneath her.

  Her long, wavy, brunette hair is obscuring her face, but I can tell—obviously—that she's a woman. I can see the curve of her breasts past her arms, can see the curve of her hips. But everything is moving too fast for me to compute what I'm seeing. I reach out to her, my hand pausing above her bare arm, not yet touching her, because I stop myself just in time. She's really hurt; I don't want to hurt her even further. I can't possibly tell what other injuries she's sustained.

  “Are you okay?” I ask her, breathless, realizing after I say it that it's the stupidest question in the universe. She's naked, bleeding, in the middle of a campground bathroom. She is very much not okay. Obviously.

  But when she lifts her head to glance up at me from her position on the floor, when her hair falls away from her face, I'm made breathless again, as if all the air has left my body.

  I stare at her, speechless.

  Her eyes are brown; they have to be brown. That's the only thing that makes any sort of sense to me. I've seen a million women with brown eyes, even brown eyes framed with such lovely lashes as she has. Brown eyes make sense.

  But the truth of the matter is that her eyes aren't brown.

  They're...golden. Like, pure gold, fine gold, the type of gold that you find in a jewelry store or in a museum, something precious. Her eyes are that bright, burnished gold, with flecks of amber sprinkled throughout to create a sense that an all-consuming fire is burning in her eyes.

  And she's aiming that fire directly into me, holding my gaze with such bright, fevered, fiery eyes that I'm rendered breathless.

  “You,” she growls, and her voice is low, husky, as deep as her eyes, as she stares up at me from the ground. “...shouldn't,” she manages, coughing a little as she curls further inward. “Be here,” she finishes, closing her eyes in pain as she presses her face again to her knees, her body clenched up into such a tight ball that I can see the muscles on her arms flexing as she draws her legs closer to her chest.

  “Can I... Can I help you?” I ask her in a hushed voice, my heart pounding in my throat as I stare down at the blood spilling out of the wound on her shoulder now that the muscle is tighter. “You need help,” I finally manage to tell her.

  Again, she opens her eyes. Again, she lifts up her face from the floor, turning that burning, golden gaze onto me. Her full lips are curled up into a grimace, and her eyes are narrowed as she winces, as she shakes her head tiredly.

  “Please go,” she tells me softly, her voice low, a growl. “You could get hurt,” she says, and then she hisses in pain, reaching up, curling her fingers over the wound as she moans. “Please,” she growls again, and she pushes herself to a sitting position, her arms crossed in front of her, her one hand gripping the edges of her wound so that they press together as she gasps out loud from the pain. She stops, then, her mouth open as she practically pants, staring at me with pain-filled eyes, her gaze burning like a fever.

  “You aren't safe here,” she murmurs to me, enunciating each word with a growling precision as she leans forward a little, as she holds my gaze with her unnatural golden eyes. And then, across the space between us, she takes her hand, the hand not covered in blood, the hand not closed tightly over the wound in her shoulder—and she reaches out to me.

  I'm so shocked that I remain perfectly still. Her fingers are feather-light on my cheek as she brushes aside one of the strands of wet hair that's dripping on my face, my shoulders. She smooths the pads of her fingers delicately over my skin—even as her hand shakes, even as she gasps from the pain of her wound.

  She presses her hot skin against mine, and she keeps her hand there, her palm gently cupping my face. She holds my gaze unwaveringly.

  “I will not,” she growls, her eyes sparking, “see another person get hurt by her,” she tells me, gasping now as she forces out the words, her voice guttural. “You. Must. Leave.”

  “Someone... Someone hurt you?” I ask her, not understanding. I'm feeling a million things at the moment, a million emotions vying for supremacy inside of me, but here's the one that came up instantly, burning through me just as brightly as fire:

  Longing. Longing so intense, so immediate, so fierce, that I'm made breathless by it, as breathless as if I've fallen onto my back, as if every last bit of air has been knocked out of me.

  Something awakened when the woman reached out to touch me. There's something in her touch that ignites me, burning deep inside of me. Something that opens, unfurling, like the woman uncurling from the tight ball of pain on the concrete floor. Yes. Unfurling is the best word for what happened inside of my heart just now.

  But...but...I would be the first one to point out that now is not the time for this sort of thing. Really, Abby? You're going to go all doe-eyed for a woman who's lying in front of you, probably bleeding to death? But I can't help the immediate reaction, this visceral reaction, that I have to her reaching out to touch my face, the deep reaction that I have to her bright, golden eyes pinning me in place, the reaction that I have to the electric heat of her skin against mine.

  I have never, in all of my life, felt that sort of connection to anyone. It's... Well, it's genuinely unnerving, how quickly those feelings rear up inside of me, how quickly I am attracted to this woman, this woman who is bleeding in front of me. So I do my absolute best to push all of that desire down, shoving it away as the woman in front of me gasps again, curling her fingers tighter over the wound in her shoulder. She crumples forward, and her fingers leave my face, because she can no longer hold herself up by the strength of her core. She curves forward elegantly, in so much obvious pain that the sight guts me.

  She's bleeding to death in front of me, and I don't even know her name.

  “I need to get you some help,” I whisper, standing, shaking like I've just seen a ghost. But I h
aven't seen a ghost; I saw a wolf (that obviously wasn't there. Obviously. Yeah, I'm going to go with that), and then I saw a woman wounded, bleeding, needing my help.

  So I stand, and I rush over to the bench, throwing on my old jeans and fleece jacket over my bare shoulders, zipping it up with trembling hands. They're shaking so hard, in fact, that it takes me a few tries to grasp the zipper and pull it up and over my abdomen and breasts. I grab my phone out of my purse, slide the screen to unlock it and dial in the number that you hope you never have to call: 911.

  I hold the phone up to my ear, but because Allegany State Park is absolutely notorious for bad signals, the phone call doesn't go through. There's no phone reception here in the bathroom. I stare down at my cell, dumbstruck. Why wouldn't it work now? When I seriously need it most? I know that cell service is completely reliable in the park, but this woman is going to die.

  Don't ask me how I know that. It's not like I've ever seen a dying woman before. But there's something about the way that she looked at me, with those feverish, bright eyes, that convinced me that there was something very, very wrong. I don't know what she's talking about: she said, “I will not see another person get hurt by her.” I have no idea what that could possibly mean, but my mind is already jumping to all sorts of terrible conclusions. Maybe this woman was kidnapped, and she just escaped from her kidnapper? Why is she naked? None of this makes any sense.

  I groan in frustration as I toss my phone back into my purse, turning to look back at the woman, who is now on all fours, folding forward as she moans with pain.

  “I'm sorry,” I tell her, rummaging around in my pack with shaking hands. I grab out the robe that I was going to wear in the cabin after the shower (yeah, I may be one of the only people who brings a robe on a camping trip, but I wanted to be comfortable on my vacation, dammit!), and I bring it over to her, hovering back, unsure as she glances up at me.

  “Um...here...” I tell her, offering it to her. She glances up at me with those same burning, bright eyes, and she nods once, grunting as she pushes off the floor with her hands, pushing herself up to a kneeling position on the concrete, her shoulders bowing forward, her head lowered as she grits her teeth, staring down and taking short, panting breaths.

  “Thank you,” she finally growls to me, reaching up and taking the robe from my hands. The robe falls to the floor as she grips it tightly with white-knuckled fingers, her fist sinking to the ground as she presses against it, letting out a low grunt of pain. Then she rises a little, gingerly slinging the robe over her good shoulder, and then gasping out again as she draws the fabric up and over her wound. She cries out as she slides her right arm into the arm hole, and then she draws the robe closed in front of her with shaking hands, tying the terrycloth sash with stiff fingers.

  She places one hand on the ground again, palm flat against the cool concrete, and she lifts her right knee. For a long moment, she crouches in this position, like she's down on one knee before me, her head bent, her shining brown hair falling over her shoulders, the curve of her neck visible beneath the curls... I gulp down air and try not to stare at her, but then she leans forward, gasping, and in one slow, stiff motion, she pushes herself up to a standing position.

  But she's not ready to stand yet; she's either lost too much blood, or she's hurt far worse than I can see, because as she stands there, wavering, she begins to fold forward.

  “Oh, my gosh,” I manage, darting toward her as she sags, about to fall back onto the concrete floor in an uncontrolled dive. I grab her, throwing an arm around her waist, drawing my other hand up to grip her left hand. It looks like we're about to start tangoing, really, as she falls against me, pillowing her head on my shoulder.

  “I just... I just need a minute,” she growls out softly, and her breath is hot on my ear as she closes her eyes, sagging, her long, dark lashes fluttering against her pale cheeks. And I'm left holding her up.

  She's taller than me, that much is obvious, even though she can't exactly stand upright right now of her own volition, and she's curvy and muscular, so she's also heavier than me. It's all I can do to hold her in place, but I manage, gripping her around her waist now, holding tightly to her.

  I'm highly aware in this moment of so many things at once, and some of these things I shouldn't even be thinking about, but I can't help it. Because I notice, acutely, how her curving breasts are pressing against me through the robe, how the silky curves of her hips grind against mine as she gasps out, how her wound is leaking blood onto my fleece jacket, actually dripping down my shoulder, the blood running over the waterproof fleece fabric to drip, drip down onto the concrete floor.

  I grimace, wrapping my arms tighter around her waist as she starts to slip. Okay, think, Abby! First things first. I've got to get her to my car. And from there...I guess to the hospital? I can't call an ambulance, and by the time I do get a signal... I don't know. It might be too late for her.

  I've got to get her to the hospital now.

  I do some quick math in my head as I grip her tightly, her long, curving body resting completely against mine. The closest hospital is Olean General. I remember this because of that one time when I was ten, and we were camping here for the summer, and my cousin, Brett, dared me to climb the tallest of the Thunder Rocks in the park, and I unfortunately fell off (it would have been my greatest climb to date!) and broke my wrist. My mother drove me, cursing all the way, to the hospital. But even though Olean is “close” in relative terms, it's still forty minutes away. Maybe even more, because of how far into the park we are.

  This woman, this stranger, is bleeding out on me. What if she dies before we even get there?

  She's hardly conscious, but she makes a guttural sound now, like the sound a wild animal would make when it's in pain. She lifts her head up from my shoulder, her brow furrowed, her eyes bright with torment.

  “What are you doing?” she mutters, gazing at me, her mouth open, her lips wet as she pants against me. I swallow a little, take a deep breath.

  “Um...my phone isn't working right now,” I tell her miserably, “and you're very hurt. I'm sorry. My phone can't call 911, but I can keep trying—but I thought I'd try to drive you to the hospital. You're very hurt,” I repeat, muttering the words as she closes her bright golden eyes tightly.

  She pushes against me, but it's a weak push. She shakes her head vehemently, her eyes burning even brighter as she opens them, as she pins me to the spot with the power of her gaze. “No,” she tells me, the word hushed but forceful. “I can't go to the hospital. I just... I really can't,” she says, and she's pushing out the words so fast now, breathless as she gasps in pain. “Just... You've been kind,” she says, holding my gaze as she grips my shoulders tightly with her fingers, using them to help her stand up straight. “But I have to go. Someone...” She trails off, shaking her head, as if trying to clear cobwebs from her mind. “Someone is expecting me,” she tells me, glancing backward at the door, her hair falling over her good shoulder with a soft shushing sound. Everything sounds too loud in the stillness of the bathroom now, as I hold her, as her fingers curl around my shoulders.

  I can hear her breathing. I can practically hear her heart beating.

  “You have a serious injury,” I tell her then, and she takes a step back from me, no longer touching me but hardly standing up on her own. She can't support herself yet, and she stumbles a little as she takes that first step. She's about to fall to the concrete again, but I'm gasping, leaping forward, gripping her around the waist in a second. She was about to fall to her knees very hard before I caught her, my arms wrapping around her body tightly, like a lover might hold someone.

  But she's holding me close, too, as she draws her arms around my shoulders then, gazing into my eyes with her face so close that her nose actually brushes against mine. Her mouth is so very, very close to mine. She gazes at me, her eyes intense and burning, the scent of her rising around me—of forest pine and rich earth and a million fallen leaves... She smells wild, I real
ize. As wild as the wood.

  I realize, then, in this moment, how very close she is...and how easy it would be to kiss her.

  For that hot, searing second, I let myself think about that, let myself imagine exactly what that might be like...but then the shame rises in me, instantaneous and painful. Shame that I would even have that thought as this poor woman bleeds against me. She needs my help, and here I am thinking of kissing her, even as the blood leaks out of her shoulder, pouring over my fleece jacket... God, I really need to get my head on straight.

  The problem is that everything changes too quickly in me, and in that moment, I really don't even know if I'm coming or going—because that shame I just felt, that red, hot shame that pulsed through me because I dared think about this woman's kiss... Well, that shame rushes out of me in a heartbeat, evaporating like it was never there.

  It is, instead, replaced with something vastly different.

  Because this woman, this perfect stranger who I didn't know more than a handful of moments ago, leans forward. She erases the distance between us. Her nose brushes past mine, and then she places her feverishly hot, full mouth against my cheek.

  My heart thunders through me, and I can feel my blood beating loudly, rushing through every vein of my body as she kisses my skin, her cheek pressed against my own, her mouth kissing me softly, hotly, every bit of attention I have zeroed in on that single inch of skin.

  She lingers for a long moment before she leans forward a little more, and her mouth is at my ear. “You have been kind,” she repeats, whispering the words, her breath hot against me. I blush brightly. I can feel her lips against my earlobe, and it's so sensual, so soft and smooth, this motion, like we were lovers once, like we could be lovers again... This degree of intimacy is not reserved for someone you've just met.

  But she draws me to her, and something is tightening around my heart, squeezing it as she squeezes me gently.

  I turn to her because I must turn to her, because I am drawn to her in a way I don't understand.