by Jae
Damn, he’s right. Greg beat the shit out of the jerk for trying to stab me. If the police find out about it, they’ll think Greg killed him. Danny clutched his temples. Pain hammered through his skull. He had trouble thinking, but one thought was clear in his mind: he had fucked things up, and he needed help. Rue will know what to do. In the past, he had detested her authority, the unrelenting certainty of her decisions, but now he longed for someone to tell him what to do.
“I’m going home,” he wrote and dropped the pad onto Greg’s lap. He didn’t care if he sounded like a baby crying for its mother. He no longer cared if Rue would ground him for life. Proving that he could make it without Rue until Paula returned was no longer important either. Yeah, Rue wasn’t the best parent. So what? Being with her still beat hanging out with people who killed each other for a handful of dollars. Maybe they could work things out, and he could convince her to give him another chance and not send him to boarding school.
Greg looked up from the message on his lap and shrugged as if to say, “Suit yourself.”
A sudden restlessness drove Danny to his feet. But he couldn’t just leave Greg behind in this hellhole. Greg had saved his life, so maybe he could do something for him in return. He waved his fingers at Greg and pointed at the hole leading to the subway tunnel.
Greg shook his head.
Hadn’t he understood? Danny bent and picked up the pad and pen. “Come with me,” he wrote in large letters. “Rue could find a place for you to stay.” Then he scratched out “Rue” and replaced it with “my mother.”
Greg read what he had written and gave him a disbelieving stare.
Shit. I shouldn’t have talked so badly about her all the time. Now he thinks she’s a monster. The last few days had put the fights between Rue and him into perspective. Rue wasn’t the only one to blame for their fucked-up relationship. He had been so full of anger that he hadn’t given her a chance to turn things around. “She’s not so bad,” he wrote. “Really.”
Greg vehemently shook his head. “That’s your world,” he wrote. “Mine is here. This is where I belong.”
Danny’s gaze trailed toward the man with the three overcoats. He couldn’t leave Greg with those crazy-looking guys.
Greg followed his gaze. He smiled and shook his head, then waved as if to say, “They’re harmless.”
“Are you sure?” Danny asked aloud, even though he knew he would stumble at the s.
Greg nodded and held out his palm. The light of the single lightbulb glinted off the key to the emergency exit. Greg scribbled again and turned the notepad to show Danny what he had written. “In case you change your mind.”
Danny wanted to sign “thank you,” but he knew Greg would misinterpret the sign as blowing him a kiss, so he bent, took the key, and handed Greg the only possession he had left—a silver lighter. “Thank you,” he said, using his voice. He crossed the dark room until he found the hole in the wall. Down on one knee, he half-turned and looked back.
Greg didn’t look like someone afraid to be left behind in a scary place. Maybe this really was Greg’s world.
After one last wave, Danny slithered through the hole on his belly and started to make his way back home.
* * *
A commercial semi-truck nearly backed over Danny.
At the last moment, Danny leaped to the side. He crashed into a streetlamp. Air rushed from his lungs, and a wave of heat raced through his body until his blood felt as if it were boiling.
The driver jumped from the truck. Wild-eyed, gesticulating and shouting the whole way, he stormed toward Danny.
Danny lifted his hands from his itchy forearms and pointed to his ears while he shook his head.
The man slowed his approach. He took off his baseball cap and forked his fingers through steel-gray hair. “You can’t hear?” He spoke slowly and, to Danny’s surprise, threw in a few signs here and there. At Danny’s questioning gaze, the man said, “I’ve got a deaf cousin.”
The heat in Danny’s limbs lessened. When he straightened, his gaze fell on the truck’s license plate. Virginia. Maybe this was his chance to go home. He could hitch another ride from there. He patted his pockets for his notepad. Damn. He had left it behind in the subway tunnel.
He pointed at the license plate, then mimed driving and gestured to the man and to himself.
The truck driver lifted one graying eyebrow. “You want to hitch a ride? Didn’t your parents teach you that hitchhiking is dangerous?”
Danny answered with a lopsided grin. He rarely listened to anything Rue told him. Maybe he would start doing it in the future, but not now. First he needed to get home. With his nonthreatening scent and the laugh lines around his eyes, the guy seemed safe enough.
Rubbing the stubbles on his chin, the truck driver studied Danny. “You’re not sick, are you? You look a little disheveled.”
Danny shook his head, ignoring the increased pounding behind his temples.
“Doing drugs?”
“No!” Danny used his voice for emphasis. He didn’t want the man to think he was some kind of junkie just because he had lived on the streets for two days.
“Good. I don’t need any trouble. Get in.” The man gestured at the truck. “We’ll call your parents as soon as we’re on our way.”
When Danny opened the passenger door, a paper cup tumbled out. Coffee splashed over his sneakers and soaked his socks. He stepped up and waded through the crumpled fast-food wrappers on the floor. Packages of ketchup and mustard littered the passenger seat, and Danny carefully moved them out of the way before he sat. The smell of food reminded him how hungry he was, but the odor of stale coffee made him queasy. He swallowed and rubbed his stomach.
The man started the truck, backed up a bit, then pulled out onto the street.
As the truck’s cab began to warm, Danny peeled out of his jacket. He scratched his arms and realized that it was becoming a habit. Sweat pearled on his forehead.
The truck pulled to a sudden stop, increasing Danny’s dizziness. He looked up, expecting to see a red light.
Instead, the truck driver had pulled over. With the motor idling, he pointed at the door. “Get out!”
What? Danny was sure he had misunderstood. He stared at the man.
“Get out,” the man repeated.
Danny shook his head and clamped his fingers around the armrest. “W-why?”
“I want nothing to do with a junkie. I told you that.”
Danny stared. Junkie? He shook his head, then stopped and gripped his pounding skull.
“You think I’m dumb? You’re flushed, sweating, and scratching. That’s drug withdrawal. Out!”
When Danny didn’t move, the man leaned across him and opened the passenger door. “Get out, dammit!”
“But...” Danny paused. What could he say? He didn’t understand what was going on with him either. Defeated, he climbed down. His legs felt weird, as if they weren’t his own. He looked down, and for a moment, he expected to see the paws of a wolf. He blinked down at his dirty sneakers.
Geez, what’s going on?
The truck’s taillights blurred before his eyes as they disappeared in the distance.
Helplessly, Danny turned in a circle, lifted his head, and howled.
Chapter 36
“You go left. I’ll go right,” Kelsey said. She needed a moment alone to call her parents and ask about Little Franklin.
Rue, who had barely spoken since leaving the police station an hour ago, looked up. “Oh, no. I won’t let you go off alone.” A hint of her old fire sparked in her eyes.
“Rue…” Kelsey took a step closer. “I can understand that you don’t trust me, but if we don’t split up, it’ll take us forever to search the warehouses. We’re running out of time.”
Rubbing her lower lip with her knuckles, Rue stared at her. “All right,” she finally said. “But if you find the right warehouse, call me immediately.”
“I will.” Kelsey forced herself to meet and hold Rue�
�s gaze, knowing Rue would otherwise interpret her avoidance of eye contact as an attempt to lie. She needed Rue to trust her—at least until they found Danny. She didn’t allow herself to think further than that.
When Rue turned and strode away, Kelsey made her way to the first in a row of warehouses along the river. A ferry tooted its horn, and a sightseeing boat made its way downstream. It was midmorning now, but gray mist still lingered over the water. A burst of cold wind hit Kelsey, and she shivered. She hoped Danny was in a warm, safe place.
The first warehouse lay empty, thick iron bars barricading the entrance.
Alone for the first time, Kelsey pulled her cell phone from her pocket and dialed her parents’ number while she walked toward the next warehouse.
The more urgent finding Danny became, the louder the questions echoed through her mind. Her head told her that Danny couldn’t be her nephew, but her instincts said something else. She needed to put the doubts about who Danny was to rest.
The phone rang and rang.
Kelsey jogged a few steps, trying to get rid of her nervous energy. What should she say? No one in her pack ever talked about that night fourteen years ago. Every mention of it reopened old wounds, but now there was no way around it.
Finally, her father’s voice answered.
Kelsey’s heartbeat sped up, but then she realized it was just the voicemail of her family’s phone.
She blew out a breath. “Mom, Dad, it’s me. Kelsey. I need to talk to you. I’ll call again later.” She pressed the end button and stared at the display without really seeing it. Now she would need to work up the courage to call her parents again.
The fluttering of plastic in the wind made her look up. A yellow crime-scene tape flapped at the entrance of the warehouse before her.
The fading peanut scent drifting in the breeze answered at least one of her many questions. Danny had been here.
She texted Griffin and Jorie with a quick update, then lifted her cell phone to her ear and called Rue.
* * *
“Let’s go in,” Rue said as soon as she reached the abandoned warehouse.
Instincts made Kelsey hesitate. The yellow crime-scene tape was the human equivalent of a territorial marker, telling her to stay away from someone else’s territory.
Rue obviously had no such compunctions. She stepped past Kelsey and opened the creaky metal door. Sunlight filtered through broken, soot-stained windows, painting patterns on bare concrete.
“We better hurry,” Kelsey whispered. “If we get caught...”
“And here I thought wolves were fearless creatures,” Rue said. The grin she threw over her shoulder seemed forced. She entered the warehouse and stepped over empty beer bottles.
Kelsey followed her past a stack of crates. “Just the crazy ones. Fear keeps us from doing dangerous things.”
“Not Danny,” Rue said. “If he had any sense at all, he would have returned home as soon as he found out Paula was in Bangkok. But no, he’s running around New York without a cent in his pocket. And now a murderer is on the loose, but Danny is still too proud to call me.”
“Maybe he takes after his mother,” Kelsey murmured.
Rue turned. She looked as if she didn’t know whether to be flattered or insulted. “Oh, yeah?”
Kelsey glanced away. Her gaze fell onto an old mattress. Swallowing, she walked over.
Together, they stared down at the large bloodstains on the mattress. Droplets of dried blood covered the oil-smeared floor in a three-foot radius. The sight of it made Kelsey’s stomach roil. “It’s not Danny’s,” she said, trying to soothe Rue and get a grip on the constant itching of her skin.
“Is that what you’re hoping or...?”
Kelsey tapped her nose. “No. I know. The blood smells like that of a human.”
“Oh.” Rue stared at her for a few moments before she blew out a shaky breath. “Still. Just knowing that Danny might have been here...” She made a sweeping motion that included the broken windows, the graffiti-marred walls, and the soot-stained ceiling above a barrel in the corner.
“There’s no might have been about it,” Kelsey said, relieved that she could finally tell Rue the truth. “Danny was here.” Even beneath the stink of blood, stale beer, and unwashed bodies, Danny’s peanut scent clung to a rickety couch.
“You can smell that?” Rue gripped Kelsey’s arm and dug her fingers in almost painfully. “Can you follow his scent trail?”
Kelsey sighed. “In my human form, I’ll probably lose him after a block or two. There are just too many interfering smells in this city.”
“What if you shift?” Rue asked.
“Too dangerous, Rue. Humans can be stupid, but not that stupid.”
When Rue opened her mouth, probably about to protest, Kelsey quickly lifted her hands. “No offense. I just meant that humans often don’t trust their instincts. But not even humans will mistake a grown wolf for a dog. Not in broad daylight. Someone would call Animal Control or the police as soon as we leave the warehouse.”
Rue’s gaze flicked around, and Kelsey could see her process the information. Something was going on behind those blue eyes. “What about inside the warehouse?” Rue asked.
“How would that help us find Danny?”
“Maybe not find him, but at least we would know more about what’s going on with him,” Rue said. “I once saw a documentary about a dog who could diagnose cancer just by sniffing the patient. Can you do something like that too? Find out if Danny is hurt?”
Kelsey sighed. Humans and their television. “Probably. Under the right conditions, I can smell if Danny is hurt, exhausted, or well-rested and what kind of mood he’s in.”
Rue’s glacier blue eyes zeroed in on Kelsey. “Can you do that with me too? Sense my moods and emotions?”
Kelsey hesitated. Ten years as a Saru and a lifetime of hiding the Wrasa’s existence were hard to overcome. But if she wanted to save Danny, she needed to work with Rue and share whatever information was necessary. “Under the right conditions,” she repeated. Most often, she didn’t need her nose for that. Unlike Kelsey, Rue was outspoken and blunt. She went after what she wanted without hiding or lying. “But with all these olfactory distractions around,” she pointed at the beer bottles, the bloody mattress, and pools of oily substances on the floor, “I’d need to be in my wolf form.”
“Then shift,” Rue said. “I need to know if Danny’s okay. Maybe your nose will tell you something that gives us a clue about where Danny has been or where he’s going. You should at least try.”
“Rue...” A gust of wind blew through the broken window and brushed along Kelsey’s itching skin. “That’s not a good idea.”
Rue narrowed her eyes at her. “You’ve got a better one? We agreed to work together to find Danny, and that means using all our resources—including your wolf senses.”
“You don’t understand.”
“Damn right.” Rue’s jaw muscles bunched. “I don’t. I thought we were both committed to doing whatever it takes to help Danny.”
The forcefulness of Rue’s will hit Kelsey like a tidal wave, and she backed away a step. “This place is not a safe environment to shift. It reeks of violence, fear, and death. If I shift, there’s no telling what my wolf form will do.”
“You think you’ll run amok or something?” A shudder she couldn’t quite hide ran through Rue.
“No, not that. But when I shift, I’m a wolf, not a human with a pelt. As a wolf, I react on instinct. Without a pack or an alpha around, I probably won’t feel safe enough to sniff out what happened to Danny. Survival instincts will kick in. Most likely, I’ll try to run and hide in a safe den.”
Rue shrugged. “That’s a chance I’m willing to take. The door’s closed, and even a wolf can’t jump that high.” She pointed at the broken window. “There’s nowhere to go.”
That was what worried Kelsey. A threatened wolf with nowhere to go might panic and bite. “What if I lash out and bite you?”
R
ue touched Kelsey’s chin until Kelsey lifted her head and looked at Rue. “Like I just said. That’s a chance I’m willing to take. My gut tells me you won’t hurt me.”
Kelsey’s gut told her the same thing, but she was reluctant to trust it. “See? Danny does take after you. You’re too fearless for your own good.”
“Come on,” Rue said. “Let’s do this before someone discovers us here.”
“Can you—?”
“Yeah, yeah, I know. Turn around,” Rue said, a hint of roughness in her voice giving away her nervousness.
When Rue turned around, Kelsey kicked off her shoes and stripped off her jacket, pants, shirt, and underwear. Cold air brushed against her skin, and she sucked in a breath. She tried not to think about the unidentified substances covering the concrete beneath her bare feet.
“What?” Rue started to turn.
“Don’t turn around. I’m fine. It’s just cold in here.”
The last thing Kelsey heard was Rue muttering “prude,” then she focused on the mental image of her wolf form, and the pain of the transformation washed away her humanoid consciousness.
* * *
Dozens of sounds and smells flooded her senses, overwhelming her for a few moments and leaving her disoriented. One smell drowned out all others—the foul stench of death. The metallic odor of fear drifted around it.
Danger!
This place wasn’t safe. She ducked into one corner and, lifting her muzzle, sniffed the cool air. Her nose told her that she was the only wolf around. No pack member was near to protect her.
The fur along her back bristled. She raced to the other end of the room but encountered another solid wall. No escape. Clamping her tail tightly against her belly, she ducked low and whined.
Another scent caught her attention.
Human!
It wasn’t just the fading stink of unwashed human bodies. A human was here, right now.
Her first impulse was to run, but a strange sense of familiarity stopped her. She knew this human. The woman’s scent triggered images of safety, not danger. Still, her instincts told her to be careful. With her head ducked and her ears laid back, she watched the woman come closer. She observed every movement and studied the human’s posture, watching for any hints of hostility.