“How do you know?”
“Your father is the strongest natural projector I’ve ever known, and I’ve spent my life practicing and studying it. He could still beat me today if we battled for a body. And you have his gift.”
“How do you know? Does my sister have it, too?”
“I don’t know about your sister, but I know you do.”
I grip the edge of the bin so I won’t shake the answers out of her. “How do you know?” I ask again through clenched teeth.
“Because you’ve done it before.”
I pull back, my eyes widening. How does she know? And why don’t I know? Is that what happens when I have the nightmares, when I dream I’m someone else, something else? I’ve woken in a fog of pain, semi-conscious, and seen things. A deer’s feet, bound together with course rope. Was I inside a deer’s body, and my father tied me up so I wouldn’t run off somewhere and get lost? Can a person project without trying, without knowing?
“When?” I ask. “What did I project into?”
Mrs. Nguyen lies back in her bin and shifts on the onions as a scraping sounds in the tunnel. “Lots of things,” she says. “Your father can tell you all of them, if you need the list.”
“What?” I whisper, too loud, so loud Harmon must hear me. The scuff of his crippled gait sounds again in the dirt tunnel, his foot scrabbling against the walls and floor. The image of it still curdles my stomach, but not as much as what Mrs. Nguyen just said.
She puts a finger to her lips. “I’ll be back on the full moon,” she says in the softest whisper imaginable. Then she closes her eyes and gestures for me to close the lid.
I don’t want to. I want to scream at her, at all of them, for keeping me in the dark about everything. But from the stillness in her body, I can tell she’s already gone.
“Is she dead yet?” Harmon asks behind me, just as I’ve finished closing her in.
“No,” I say, my heart hammering so loudly I’m sure he can hear it with his wolf ear. Does he know she’s been here? Can he sense it? Is that why he snarled the first time she left, because he could feel her departure?
He’s looking at my strangely. Isn’t he? It’s hard to tell with his grotesque face. I can’t look at it too long. Especially now. I just want to be alone to think. But he’s always here.
“Hey, about the other day,” he says. “I was pretty hard on your father. I can see why you got defensive.”
“I didn’t.”
“I think it’s great that you were close to him when you were growing up. It sounds like you had a really great childhood.”
“Is that your attempt at an apology? Because it’s pretty lame.”
He smiles, and for a second, I think he’s going to make some snarky comeback. But my eyes slide away from his. They’re too far apart below that unnaturally sloping forehead, above the almost-human mouth. I swallow hard, my eyes fixed on the top of the ladder. Without a word, he moves towards his blanket, his human leg crouching under his mostly wolf body, lurching unevenly as he goes. “Maybe I was a little jealous,” he says, not looking at me.
I snort at that. “Why? Your father is basically the president around here. My dad is a botany professor who thinks it’s okay to wear socks with sandals.”
“What’s wrong with wearing socks and sandals?”
“If you don’t know, I can’t even answer that.”
“Well, maybe I don’t understand that one. But believe it or not, you don’t have the market cornered on cold parents. I do understand that.”
“Your dad is cold?” I remember Zechariah’s small, hard eyes, and the scars on Harmon’s chest his father left when he defied him. But then I remember watching from the window as Harmon dutifully walked with him, abandoning even his friends on his big coronation night, to help his injured father along.
“How do you know it’s not my mother?”
“You said cold parents. If it was your mom, too, wouldn’t you have said cold mothers?”
“Clever kitty,” he says, settling under the ladder.
“So,” I say after a minute. “What is your dad like? When he’s at home, I mean. Not when he’s being the president.”
Harmon shrugs his narrow wolf shoulders. “He’s a good Alpha. He’s done a lot of good for us, and tried to form alliances with some of the other people around here.”
“The shifters.”
“Everyone in Three Valleys. It’s hard with the shifters, because they don’t have a leader.” He glances at me and then away. “So they’re a bit lawless.”
“I know.”
He grimaces. “I’m sorry.”
“Not your fault.”
“I should have protected you,” he growls. “That’s why I followed you that night. I didn’t want them to capture you. But they did, anyway, and I ended up like this.” He holds up his hands, his lip curling in disgust at the sight of his own body.
I swallow hard, my chest tight. “I’m sorry,” I whisper.
“It’s fine,” he snaps. “My father was a great leader. Everyone says so. So now you know all about him.”
“But…?”
His voice softens. “One day, when I have kids, I hope they say the same about me. But I also hope they say I’m a great dad.”
“Like my dad and your dad combined,” I say, smiling tentatively at him from where I’m leaning against the wooden bins.
He doesn’t return my smile. “Stella…I meant what I said. I want you to be part of the pack. I wouldn’t let them lock you in the attic again. You’d be one of us.”
“That’s…nice.” A twinge of guilt goes through me when I remember Mrs. Nguyen’s words. I won’t be here much longer. But he doesn’t have to know that. She also said he was a liar, that everything he said was a lie. So I can’t trust his word, anyway. And if he’s lying to me, why shouldn’t I do the same?
“Do you know what it means to be part of the pack?” Harmon asks.
Instead of returning to my spot, I move closer to him and lean on one of the support poles, a peeled tree trunk of some sort. “Kind of.”
“It’s more than just words,” he says. “When a wolf makes a promise, when I tell you you’ll be part of any pack I lead, I mean it. We take our word very seriously.”
His moon-pale eyes are intense, almost glowing out of the dimness again. I wish I’d sat near the window. The light outside has faded, but I’m sure he can see the lies on me, can smell the scheming. That’s why he’s saying all this.
“Okay.”
“A wolf must have full loyalty to the pack. That’s why, the other day, I defended your mother. She’s part of the pack, which means she’s…she’s a part of me. We have to put the pack first, always. That’s why I’ll never be Alpha if I can’t transition.” He glances at the window, his eyes searching the deepening blue of the sky, as if searching for the moon that will soon tell his fate.
“I respect that,” I say. “But I’m not a wolf, Harmon. I’m not part of your pack. You should understand that. My loyalty is to my father, not your pack. No matter what he’s done, no matter what he didn’t tell me, he’s my father. Nothing will ever erase that.”
“That’s fair,” he says. “I won’t force you to join our pack. But when I’m Alpha, and I officially invite you, you’ll have to choose whether to stay or leave. You can’t stay and not join. We all work together. That’s pack life.”
I pick at a hangnail on my thumb. It seems too much of a coincidence for him to say all this now. He must have heard me talking to Mrs. Nguyen, and now he’s testing me. And what if she doesn’t come back on the full moon? What if something happens, and she’s trapped in her other body? I’ll be stuck here. Harmon will transition, and then he’ll be back to normal. Injured, but an injured human. He’ll be able to lead his pack. And I’ll be stuck here forever.
But if I tell him yes now, he’ll take me with him. If what he’s saying is true, he’ll have to save me. No wolf left behind. All for one, one for all. If I agree, pretend I want to join him, he’ll
get me out. It’s not as good as Mrs. Nguyen’s offer, but it’s a backup plan. I’m not a wolf. My promise doesn’t mean anything. All it means is that I’ve hitched myself to a more desirable bargaining chip. Whatever they trade for Harmon, they’ll have to throw me in, too.
I push away from the pole and stand straight like a soldier about to salute. “Okay,” I say. “I’m in.”
10
The next day, we sit at the table in the little room, with a deck of cards spread out in a jumble in front of us. Harmon has been suspiciously nice since I agreed to be an honorary member of his wolf cult.
“I have three questions for you,” Harmon says, a smile tugging at his dark lips. It seems unfair that boys always get naturally dark lips and long lashes. Girls, on the other hand…well, let’s just say that now that I don’t wear makeup, it would be very difficult to tell that I have eyelashes at all. At least I don’t have half a wolf’s head.
“Okay,” I say. “Shoot.”
“One, do you have any queens.”
“Go fish.”
He draws a card from the pool on the table and smiles. “Two, if you had a loaded gun right now, would you shoot someone?”
“Wow, that’s an abrupt change of subject.”
“Would you?”
“No. Do you have any sevens?”
“Go fish. What if it would get you out of here?”
I pick up a card and make a set of fours on the table in front of me. Now I know where the line of questioning is going, so I have to tread carefully. Harmon has been getting himself stronger, learning to balance on his deformed body, pushing himself to work out and gain muscle. It’s not for nothing. He’s been thinking of escape plans, too. Of course he has. Maybe that’s the reason behind his offer yesterday. He needs to know I’m going to work for it, too, that we’re a team.
“Depends on who I had to shoot,” I say with a smile.
“Would it matter?”
I shrug. “I guess not.”
“What if you had to shoot me? Or what if you got out? Would you want revenge on your mother for keeping you locked up?”
“No,” I say, frowning at my hand. “Ask me.”
“Do you have any twos?”
I hand over a pair.
“What about the people up there?” he asks, his eyes flicking up towards the ceiling.
“If I had to shoot someone to get out, and they were trying to keep me in…yeah, I probably would shoot them. But I’m not going to on a shooting rampage once I get out, trying to kill them all. I’m not a psycho, Harmon. I don’t want to kill anyone. Even if I had to shoot someone to get away, I wouldn’t try to kill them.”
“Hm. Your turn.”
“Was that the wrong answer?”
“No,” he says evenly. “What do you need, kitty cat?”
“Ummm….aces.”
“Go fish. Ready for the third question?”
I pick up another seven, my third. “Okay.”
He stares at me until I look up from my cards. Then he leans forward, his paw-hands on the edge of the table. “What does pizza taste like?”
I laugh before I can stop myself. Harmon’s eyes stay trained on me, those pale blue circles intent and curious. “Wait, you’re serious? You’ve never had pizza?”
“No. What’s it like?”
I sigh and lean back in my plush seat. “Like a slice of reality,” I say. “Cheesy and salty and…fun. It’s not even about the taste. It’s about staying up until midnight with your best friend waiting for delivery on Saturday night. It’s about eating in the dark with your hands, sitting on the living room floor wrapped in a sleeping bag, watching a scary movie. Laughing about the awkward—or cute—delivery boy when he leaves. It’s about…life. You know?”
For a second, I forgot where I was, who I was talking to. He’s watching me speak, a strange expression on his face.
“What?” I ask, suddenly embarrassed.
“Do you have any sevens?” he asks with a wicked grin, showing off his sharp teeth.
“You suck,” I tell him, handing over my three sevens. He makes a set on the table.
Suddenly, a whiff of something catches my attention. It’s not pizza. It’s roses. My eyes fly to the window above the table, the one at ground level. It’s small, probably too small for my hips to squeeze through. But it’s open, slanting inwards at a forty-five-degree angle. It felt different in the room today, like spring had somehow crept in. More light, more air, more hope. I thought it was Harmon’s cheerful demeanor. Now I know. Someone opened the window for us.
Harmon is still watching me intently. For just a second, he’s a hungry dog, following his master’s every move with his eyes, waiting for food.
“Did you open that?” I ask.
“Maybe.”
“How’d you reach it?”
His eyes flick to my chair.
“What’s out there?”
“Want me to lift you up to see?”
I hesitate a long moment. “You can’t lift me. You’ll hurt yourself.”
“I can lift you.”
“No, it’s fine. It doesn’t matter. It will just make it worse that we’re stuck in here. Besides, the window isn’t big enough to climb out.” Not for a human. I remember Mrs. Nguyen’s promise. She will come back, and we’ll escape as something else. A mouse could slip out of there in a second. Even a cat could fit through.
“I can lift you,” Harmon says again.
“You should save your strength. When’s the full moon?”
“Tomorrow,” he says, glowering at his cards as if he’d like to murder them.
“Oh. Sorry. I didn’t know it was so soon.”
“Well, it is.”
“Can we just play?”
He starts to arrange his cards, but he only has one mostly human hand, with the addition of fur, and one that’s almost entirely a paw. His cards suddenly tumble from his hand, cascading across the table and fluttering to the floor. With a snarl of frustration, he tries to get up, but he’s off balance, trying to stand on two legs when he still walks on four. He tumbles from the chair and lands on the floor with a thud. Without missing a beat, he rolls to his feet, dragging his human leg behind him as he lurches into the tunnel, cursing a blue streak the whole way. I hear him reach the basement room, scream with fury, and snap something wooden.
I’m pretty sure it was my broom. At least he waited until my ankle was better before destroying my crutch.
I go to the bookshelf and take down an old copy of The Great Gatsby. It’s a nice book, with a leather binding and gold foil printing on the ridged spine. For a second, I let myself indulge in the memory of watching the movie for the tenth time with Emmy. Then I settle into one of the soft chairs, put my feet up, and start reading. I barely even hear Harmon tearing around in the next room, throwing things and cursing.
11
All the next day, Harmon is quiet and moody. He paces the basement like a caged animal, lurching along, his human leg crouched under his body, looking obscenely naked compared to the rest of his fur-covered body. When he finally goes into the other room, I’m relieved. I nap, then return to the sitting room to read more of the book. The window is open again, the scent of roses on the fresh spring air.
Finally, in the evening, the door in the other room scrapes open. I’ve seen our captor a handful of times now—one of them. I know there are more, because I hear their footsteps overhead, the muffled voices as they talk and eat and live their free lives. The woman who feeds us is nondescript and middle aged. She always opens the door a crack and peers through, then, when she sees no one on the ladder, thrusts a basket through and closes the door. Sometimes, if we’re sleeping, she lowers it down to us. But usually she leaves it at the top, now that I’m well enough to climb up and get it.
Tonight, I find the basket on the top rung of the ladder when I come through the tunnel. A familiar scent drifts down as I climb the ladder. But it can’t be. Since I’ve been here, I’ve eaten soup, beans,
casseroles. It’s pretty much the same fare I ate at my mother’s but better. Sometimes a lot better—homemade bread with butter and honey, beef jerky, cookies. But as excited as I am to carry the warm basket down the ladder, unease creeps along my spine.
“Harmon,” I call, ducking into the tunnel. “Harmon?”
I emerge into the room and set the basket on the table and peek inside to make sure. “Harmon!”
He steps in from the bedroom, looking a little winded. He must have been working out again, preparing for tonight.
“You’re not going to believe this,” I say, opening the basket and peeling back the cloth lining.
He peers inside.
“It’s pizza.”
“I see that.”
“Oh,” I say, a little let down. “I thought you didn’t know what pizza was.”
“I know what it is,” he says. “I’ve just never had it.”
He keeps staring into the basket, and I wonder if he’s having the same apprehension I am. “It’s not delivery,” I say. “But it looks pretty good. Probably a frozen one from the store, but not one of the super cheap dollar pizzas. This is a good one.”
“What’s delivery?”
“You know, when they bring you a pizza.”
“Looks to me like it was delivered.”
“No, I mean from the pizza place,” I say, holding back my laughter. He’s so innocent and naïve in some ways, it’s kind of cute. But I don’t want him to think I’m laughing at him.
“What’s the pizza place? The place that makes them?”
“Exactly,” I say. “Well, a lot of places. And they drive to your house and bring you a pizza.”
“Why?”
This time I do laugh. “So you can eat it, silly.”
“Like a neighborly visit,” he says, smiling. “Where you bring some food and have dinner together.”
“No,” I say, stifling more laughter. “They don’t eat with you. They bring a pizza, and you pay for it, and they leave.”
“That sounds strange,” he says, but to my relief, he doesn’t seem offended. Instead, he clambers up into the chair he always takes, on the far side of the table. I sit on the side towards our room.
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