He opened his wallet and plunked a twenty down on the counter before either of them had even ordered. He wanted it to be clear that he would pay, that this was his treat for her, and that he wouldn’t have to scrounge around for pennies either.
Sarah got the almond cherry swirl, but Sam just went for a basic chocolate. He was still, in that way, his father’s son. He didn’t want to waste money on some fancy flavor he didn’t like.
“Chocolate, huh?” she said.
Sam shrugged.
“You know you could have tasted some other flavors before you ordered. If you wanted to.”
“I know what I want,” he said. But he was found out. For a minute, he’d felt like he was taking some girl out on a first date, like it was a totally new start with a totally new Sam. But first real date or not, this girl already knew him; and she could tell he might have wanted to try another flavor if he’d known which one to try. There was something scary in being known, especially for a kid who’d moved every few months of his life.
But before Sam had time to think about it, Sarah said, “Here, taste this.” She held her spoon up to him and he hesitated.
“Taste it,” she growled at him, scooting closer and pushing the spoon toward him with a laugh.
He did. The almond was really good and the cherry might have been a nice fit with it, except that it tasted too fake and cough syrupy for Sam. “It’s alright,” he said.
“Yeah, that maraschino flavor isn’t working for me either. I got it,” she said with a bit of confession in her tone, “because they said it was the most popular flavor. Come on, let’s try some other flavors and get what we really want.”
There must have been forty flavors lined up in the tubs in front of them: Chipotle Honey Swig, Rum Raisin Rumble, Pistachio Cream…the list kept going. After trying at least ten flavors they each ordered another scoop of their favorite one. Double Almond Crunch for Sam and a surprisingly simple Vanilla Beany for Sarah.
When they left they were both shivering and laughing. Sarah kicked up the heat in her car. “Where should we go now?” she asked.
Sam had no idea.
“What about Zinnie?” Sarah asked. “Do you think she’s home?”
Sam cleared his throat. He’d been steering clear of mentioning Zinnie or anything else Sarah might think was weird. Cautiously, he said, “I don’t know, maybe. She’ll try to feed us more if she is and I’m stuffed. Besides we’ll have to crawl along the cold ground to get to her property, and—”
“Let’s go,” Sarah said, swinging out of the parking lot.
Zinnie was not home. The house was cold, dark, and abandoned. Sarah began shivering in earnest. Sam knew he could take her to his trailer and they could watch a movie or something, but he had a better idea. “I wonder if she’d mind if we lit a fire,” Sam said.
Sarah shrugged. “Probably not. But there’s no wood or matches and I don’t even know how to start a fire.”
Sam did. He’d spent several months living in an abandoned RV with no power. He could build a fire. And cook on one too. But he didn’t tell Sarah that. “Stay here,” he said.
He was back in a few minutes with twigs and a few logs that were stacked by the house. After he and his dad had left the old RV, he’d kept a match in his wallet as a good luck charm, hoping they’d never go back. The match was still there.
It was just a few minutes before a cheerful flame licked up the back of the fireplace.
“Nice,” Sarah said. “So you can navigate corn mazes, get bumped into honors physics, and build a fire. What other surprises have you got?”
That he’d been technically homeless more than once in his life, that until today he’d never once taken a girl out, that he could find a nickel in a packed parking lot.
That he’d broken into the mental hospital to make sure he himself was sane, that his father had hidden thousands of dollars in a hollow door to hide the fact that his family had been involved with some kind of werewolf mafia, that his mother had died because she’d kept her cancer a secret.
And then there was the charming little fact that he could shift shape under the full moon.
Nope. He couldn’t tell her anything more that he wanted her to know. “Zinnie,” he said, changing the subject. “You’ve never actually met her.”
“Not yet,” Sarah said.
“But you don’t think I’m a nut job?”
“You’re absolutely a nut job,” she said, sitting cross-legged in front of the fire. “But I let you bring me to abandoned buildings, so I guess it doesn’t concern me too much.”
“Your hair looks nice,” he said, sitting beside her, and then, “I went to the hospital again and used Zinnie’s code a different way. She’s real, in case you were wondering.”
“So you got in?” Sarah said.
“Yeah,” Sam said. “I did.”
“Code cracker,” she said. “Add that to the list.”
“It’s redundant,” he said. “The corn maze, physics—they’re all codes.”
She turned to him. “I kind of wish you’d just made the Zinnie thing up to lure me here. But you brought Ella and spooked yourselves. But you’re not”—she stopped—“you’re not interested in Ella, right. Like, at all? I mean, you wanted to see her today, and I kind of just happened to be there.”
“I did want to see her,” Sam said. “But I’m definitely not interested in her in that way. I actually think—this will sound a little crazy—I think we’re related. Cousins actually. So, yeah, no romantic interest.”
“Are you freakin’ kidding me?” Sarah said, turning sharply. “You think you’re cousins? How?”
Sam swallowed. He hadn’t really meant to bring it up. And how did he know? Because he’d found an old picture of his grandmother that his father had tried to hide. Because he had a dead aunt who had a daughter? Because his father had lied to him about it all? “Ancestry.com,” he said.
“Seriously,” she said. “You’re into that too?”
“Well, my dad was showing me my mother’s, um, family line.”
“Your mom, huh? They divorced?”
“Um, no, she died when I was little. Cancer. They didn’t catch it early. And then she went fast.”
“I’m sorry,” Sarah said, looking straight ahead—the fire reflecting off her hair like sunset.
“Me too,” Sam said. “But…but I found Ella’s picture. Well, sort of,” he said, thinking of the picture of his young grandmother who looked just like Ella. “I mean, on Ancestry.” Sam paused. “Look. Could we not talk about this?”
“Yeah,” she said. “Sure.”
“And…and don’t tell her, okay. I want to.”
“I bet,” she said, then more softly. “Cousins. Cool.”
“What about you?” he said. “I don’t know much about you.”
She laughed. “Only child. Two dogs. Dentist mother. Accountant father. Seriously, Sam, as hard as I try not to be, I’m hopelessly boring.”
“Sounds wonderful,” he said, and then without thinking, picked up a piece of her hair and twisted it around his fingers.
“Sam,” she said, but before he could reply, she’d put a hand to his neck and pulled him to her. Their lips met in a hard press. It was easy. Kissing her was easy.
She pulled back, but kept her face close to his. “You’re a scaredy cat, Sam.”
He wanted to say, No, I’m not. And then, I know. But he found that he couldn’t say anything.
She moved her face an inch closer so that their mouths were almost touching again, and then she squinted slightly into Sam’s eyes, her face tipped up to him.
He pushed a section of hair away from her face, and touched her neck.
She smiled, the light from the flames golden on her skin, her eyes closing like flower petals at night.
He leaned down, touching his lips to hers, softly, in pieces—taking one part of her mouth at a time—gently, top to bottom. Then he pressed his lips full against hers.
He wrapped h
is arms around her back and pulled her as close as possible. He could have stayed there forever, but after a minute Sarah pulled back slightly, looking into the dark of his eyes. She touched his cheek, his hair, pressed at his sideburns with her thumbs. “I was hoping you had it in you,” she said, smiling.
He kissed her again—her mouth so soft, sweet.
“Yeah,” he said, pulling back. “I definitely had it in me. It’s just…codes are so much easier to figure out. I’m sorry I made you kiss me first.”
“You didn’t make me,” she said, kissing him quick again, then laughing. “It did take you super forever though.”
“I’ll make up for lost time,” he said, leaning down—kissing her forehead, then cheek.
And then there was a quick flash of light and a cracking sound.
Sam opened his eyes. “Was that thunder?” he asked.
“I don’t think so,” she said. “It was different.”
What it was was a gun—right outside the window. It cracked again. “Whoever you are, you better come out,” a low, harsh voice shouted.
“Come on,” Sam whispered. “Hurry.”
They crawled out the back and through the licorice post. They ran all the way to Sarah’s car near Sam’s house. When they got there, Sarah burst out laughing. “And that, sir, is why you don’t go onto some rich guy’s property to make out. He’ll call the cops on you. Although I still think I’d choose that over my mother peering at us out the window, which is what would have happened if we’d been at my house.”
Sam blushed at the thought—hot from his neck to his hair. He found it all so disconcerting. It was good to know Dr. Price wasn’t standing at a window with a pair of binoculars. But getting chased from Zinnie’s house by some guy with a gun—it was bizarre.
It was not, however, disconcerting enough to stop Sam from leaning down one more time and kissing Sarah.
It was late. He knew it. He opened her car door for her and then he watched her drive off, all the way until he couldn’t see her taillights anymore.
His dad had gotten one thing right—the hunger was the worst part. But kind of the best part too.
When Zinnie opened her eyes the Alpha was there, as she’d known he would be. He enjoyed watching her suffer. He enjoyed watching her suffer while taking especial care to erase any physical pain she might have had. It was an odd, but perfect cruelty. When physical suffering was eliminated, it opened you up to experience other types of pain. Degradation, submission, shame, indignity—those were Napper’s specialties.
Quietly, he adjusted her IV, then checked her vitals before placing a bowl of warm soup next to the bed.
“There now, we’re almost done. Soon this ugly business will all be over.”
“It will just be beginning,” Zinnie said.
“Well, your part in it will be ended. Then you can rest.” Napper smiled. “And you won’t even have to be burned at the stake. Or any such gruesomeness. Look at you—a simple needle in your arm like a regular old woman.”
“I will never be regular.”
“We shall see.” He adjusted the drip for the IV. She knew that it contained several pain medications as well as something strange—something of Napper’s own creation. A new drug made just for her, and one that would sap the immortality from her, make her merely human. As a mere human, she did not have much longer to live.
She bit her lip, inviting pain.
Gently, he pushed the soup toward her. “You know one of my men made it onto your little property last night. We’ve never been able to do that before. A boy and girl were in the house. I sent a wolf to keep his eye on the girl.” He paused, smiling at Zinnie’s face. “I should also tell you the chimney was cracked—a deep line straight through. It won’t be long now before it crumbles.”
Chapter 47
Sam woke with a jerk remembering that he’d left a fire burning in an old house. He ran to Zinnie’s. When he got to the grounds, he wasn’t sure what he expected to see—charred walls, ashen trees, nothing maybe.
What he saw was the same old empty house, dusty and abandoned, but when he looked up, the chimney had completely collapsed. Sam banged through the front door. Dust from the collapse was thick, but otherwise the house was as it had been the night before, except for one thing. When Sam looked into the small kitchen, the stove was blackened and broken—a deep, dark gash up its side.
He had been there. He had left a fire. A fire burning in an old house with an old chimney.
He stood for a minute worrying, and then he heard the wolves in the distance—a long howling that raised the hair on his neck.
They were coming his way.
Zinnie had told him to use the back door—that that would protect him. And Sam had always felt perfectly safe with that promise, even when the house was empty. Somehow, though, he didn’t anymore.
He ran for the licorice post, scurrying through as the wolves came around the corner, running in a pack after a small, frightened animal.
“Gabby,” Sam called. The tiny cat bolted from the wolves through the narrow slits of the fence. Sam and the cat ran for Sam’s house as the wolves growled through the cast iron bars.
Sam’s dad didn’t even bother to turn around when Sam brought the cat in and opened a can of tuna.
“Her tail’s gone again,” Sam’s father said, looking out the window and listening to the wolves.
“You know the cat?” Sam said, surprised, but not.
“She dislikes me,” his father said.
Sam shook his head. “And if you know the cat...”
“Yes,” his father cut in. “The old woman.” He didn’t look at Sam. “I know of her.”
“Well, since you know so much, maybe you know that part of Zinnie’s house is gone too?”
His dad turned sharply. “What?” he said.
“The house—the chimney’s collapsed.” Sam was startled by his father’s sudden reaction; it brought back his guilt. “I…” he said. “I’m worried I burned it down.”
“How could you have done that?” his father asked, voice rising.
“I was there last night,” Sam said. “With Sarah. I started a fire. To keep us warm. And then some guy chased us out. But I forgot about the fire. Do you think I burned it down?”
“No,” his father said. He was gathering objects—cans of food, a few dishes—setting these things on the table as though grouping them.
“What are you doing?”
“Whether you burned it down or not, if the house is crumbling, we have to leave.” His dad took out a duffel bag, threw in the cans, two plates, a handful of silverware.
“No,” Sam said. “No.”
“She,” his dad said, “she was a barrier of protection. If the house is going, we have to go.”
“What?” Sam asked.
“The house,” his father replied. “The house and the old woman are connected—each strengthening the other, each weakening when the other is weak.”
“Then Zinnie is in danger?”
“If the house is crumbling, yes.” His father paused. “And if she is at risk, then so are we.”
“We have to get her out,” Sam said. “We have to help her.”
“She’s stronger than we are, son. If they can hurt her, they’ll kill us.” He paused. “We’re going.”
“No,” Sam repeated, unaware that his voice had begun to rise. “No. You can go, but I won’t. I’ll move in with Ella or Sarah’s parents. I’ll report you to CPS or the mental institution. I’ll do whatever I have to do to stay.”
His father whirled toward him as though he was going to start yelling, but instead he whispered, “Then fix the house.” He turned away. “And fix it quickly.”
“What?” Sam said.
“It won’t need much, but the walls must stay standing, and the chimney. And the stove.”
“The stove is cracked,” Sam said.
“That will have to be fixed too,” his father replied.
“That’s not possible
,” Sam said.
“Isn’t it?” his father asked. “Then we go.”
Sam looked at him. “Help me,” he said. “Help me build it back.”
“I can’t,” his father said.
“Won’t.”
“Can’t.” His father paused. “Well, not in the building of it. They’d smell me—the wolves.” He looked down. “But I can get you some supplies. And then you can use that physics class for something besides a gold star on your college application.”
It seemed impossible, to fix a house as old as that one—reinforce the walls, rebuild the chimney. Sam chewed on his cheek, trying to think. He’d always dreamed of building a playhouse. He’d even written the plans when he was younger, then carried them from new home to new home. He still had them.
But something bothered him that his dad had said. “Why won’t the wolves smell me?” he asked.
“Because you’re a half breed, and you’re young. If they do smell you, it won’t be as strong. Just,” his father said, pausing. “Just don’t eat any meat. And keep your distance from them.”
Sam wondered if he’d kept enough distance when they’d been chasing Gabby.
“You don’t eat meat,” Sam said. “Why would they smell you?”
“Because I am from a very long, very pure line of shifters. If I get into their territory without Zinnie as a protection, they’ll smell me no matter what I’ve eaten.”
Sam nodded. He went to his room, got the plans for his playhouse, and laid them out for his father. “We can reinforce the walls with a few planks in triangle shapes, like this,” he said. “And I’ll have to learn how to brick the chimney. The good news is that it’s not high up. But the stove…”
“The stove will be tricky to repair,” his father said, picking up a pencil and starting to sketch. “But I think you can do it with a little welding equipment from your school.” He paused to consider the drawing, and then, as though startled, he looked up. “You and Sarah were both in the house?”
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