by Elena Lawson
I glanced up from the table. “Hmmm? Oh. I guess so.”
“Why green?”
The question took me by surprise. “What?”
“Your hair. Why green?”
My hand unconsciously went up to finger a still-damp lock of it. “It’s not green,” I told him. “It’s turquoise. But I guess it’s a little faded.”
“Your hair was blonde before, right? Almost white if I remember right.”
I nodded.
“You’ve had it at least four colors since junior year. Why dye it at all? It was beautiful.”
I looked away, trying to hide a blush.
“I mean, it’s beautiful now, too. It’s beautiful no matter what you do with it,” he rushed to cover his mistake.
I smirked, realizing what he was doing. I was visibly freaking out, and he was trying to calm me down by distracting me. Dad used to do that, too. Ask me a bunch of random, meaningless questions when I started to freak out. My heart gave a sorrowful squeeze.
“My mom had light blond hair, too,” I blurted before I could stop myself. “My dad said that I looked like her and I…”
“Didn’t want to look like her?” He offered, the crease back between his brows.
I drew in a long breath. “I didn’t think he could stand it,” I whispered, my throat growing tight. Why did I just tell him that? I snapped my mouth shut and licked my dry lips, suddenly eager to change the subject back to more comfortable territory.
“So, it’s my turn,” I said before he could comment on what I told him about my mother. “How long were you watching me?”
This time, I didn’t avert my gaze. I didn’t want to give him the opportunity to lie to me. There was no way he could have known that I’d been out there for months unless he’d been keeping an eye on me. My skin bristled again at the thought that I was being watched.
Jared began picking at a chip in the top of his mug. “A while.”
“A while?” I prodded, unable to keep the ire from my voice. My blood was beginning to heat, chasing what remained of the anxiety from my veins. “How long is a while?”
The door crashed open at the other end of the kitchen. I whirled in my seat, gasping as I sloshed coffee all over the table.
Clay stormed into the cabin. His bulky arms were wrapped in thick corded veins. The tendons in his hands stood taut beneath the skin as he tightened his fists.
“Can I talk to you for a minute,” he growled at Jared, cutting me a scathing look, his face pinched as though he was holding back. “Alone?”
“Dude, come on—”
“Now.”
My heart was hammering beneath my breastbone again, and I reached for the napkin holder on the table and quickly began to wipe up the mess of coffee. I swallowed, wincing from the pain in my ankle as I stood to toss the sodden tissues into the trash. “I have to get to work,” I said absently, trying to settle my frayed nerves.
The guy made my body rigid with unease. He had this disquieting air about him, and when he entered a room, the atmosphere changed. Like he was a storm cloud threatening rain. Or the swell of the ocean when the winds change.
“Maybe you should take the night off?” Jared said, rising from the table.
I shook my head. Nope. Not a freaking chance I was staying there with Clay. He looked like he wanted to take a bite out of me—literally. And as beautiful as I’d always thought wolves were, I definitely didn’t relish the thought of becoming one. The thought brought with it about a million questions, and I wondered if I’d ever get the answers.
Did they have to shift during a full moon?
Did it hurt?
Could they control themselves?
Oh my god…
Are there other things in this world that I don’t know about?
My stomach roiled. “Uh…Jared, do you think my clothes are dry yet?”
I really needed to get out of here. I wanted the peace and solitude I could only find surrounded by shelves of books. Surrounded by thousands of stories with happily ever afters. With words that could whisk you away to another world—to make the one you’re living in bearable.
“Are those my sweats?”
My blood froze to ice in my veins. I glanced down at the sweats I had rolled at both ends hanging low on my hips. And then I glanced up into the murderous stare of Clayton Armstrong.
I shot a look at Jared that I hoped conveyed the depth of my furious accusation.
Jared shrugged. “All my sweats were dirty,” he said as though it were the simplest thing in the world. “I’ll go get your clothes, Allie.”
A tiny sound of protest rose up my throat as he left the room. As he left me alone with Clay.
The bastard.
“I—I’m sorry, I didn’t know they were y—”
“Save it,” he barked, pinching the bridge of his nose.
Much as I tried not to look, I couldn’t help but notice that he was still barely dressed. In low-hanging shorts and bare feet. His torso was huge—the muscle more defined than an airbrushed actor in a gladiator movie.
Intimidating as hell.
“I’m not staying,” I added when he continued to stand there stoic—purposefully not looking at me, but staring at a spot on the wall in the living area as though it were the most interesting spot in all the world. “You don’t have to fight with Jared. I—I won’t be anyone’s burden.”
His gaze dropped and some of the fury dimmed in his eyes. His jaw twitched as he ground his teeth together before he responded. “Do you have somewhere else to go?”
The question caught me by surprise and what he said earlier replayed in my head, making my own hands curl into fists.
“That’s not your problem,” I said, astonished at how level my voice came out. “This isn’t a shelter, after all…”
His head snapped up and I saw a flash of something beneath his haughty stare.
“Here it is,” Jared said, coming around the corner with an armful of clothing fresh from the dryer. He looked between Clay and I, pausing with a quirked brow. “What’d I miss?”
Clay’s upper lip curled back in disgust before he stalked up the stairs, each of his heavy footfalls reverberating in my chest.
Jared passed me the bundle of still-warm clothes and gestured to the foot of the stairs. “They should be your size, but if they don’t fit, I can get another pair.”
A pair of simple black converse sneakers rested on the bottom stair. They looked like they were brand new. “I found one of your boots in the wreckage,” he continued. “But I couldn’t find the other one, so…”
“Did you buy those?”
Could he have left this morning while I was asleep to buy me shoes?
My shoulders tensed. That was…weird. Why would he do that? He doesn’t owe me anything.
We aren’t even friends.
“You can’t go anywhere without shoes,” he said with an awkward laugh, rubbing the back of his neck.
He was right. I’d been so pre-occupied with needing to change out of Clay’s sweats and get to work that I’d forgotten I didn’t have any shoes. How was I supposed to get to work? Walk through who knows how many miles of forest barefoot?
I swept the hair from my face and tucked it behind my ear, praying there was at least one hair elastic in my bag by the front door. “Um…thanks. I’ll pay you back for them.”
“You don’t—”
“I do. I’ll take some money out after work and bring it to school for you tomorrow.”
His brows lowered. “Tomorrow?”
My gaze unconsciously flicked to the stairs, where Clay had disappeared down the corridor, my throat going dry.
“He’ll come around, Allie,” Jared said in a silky soft voice that almost made me forget he was half beast. I shoved the image away, my mind still trying to rebel against it even though I’d seen with my own eyes. Dad always told me that if the truth was looking me dead in the eye that I should believe it. But he was talking about people and their true color
s…not men who could transform into wolves.
“Please tell me you’ll come back after your shift?”
I dropped my stare, digging my fingers into the denim of my torn jeans. “I have to go,” was my response before I brushed past Jared and up the stairs against my better judgment. I didn’t want to go anywhere near Clay, but the bathroom next to the room I slept in was the only safe place to change. The bedroom didn’t even have a lock on the door.
“Wait—” Jared said, stopping me with a hand on my arm. I shivered at the contact. The warmth of his skin and his hard calluses reminding me of wolfish paws.
He let go of me as though burned on contact. “At least let me drive you to work.”
I tightened my jaw but nodded. It would be hell walking on this ankle if I didn’t accept his offer, and I had no idea how far town was.
“And Allie,” he added when I took another step up the stairs.
I turned, finding him watching me closely with those amber eyes, his face slightly pale. “I need your word.” His adams apple bobbed in his throat. “I need your word that you won’t tell a soul what you saw.”
It was suddenly hard to breathe. Jared had phrased the words as a request, but by the loss of color in his face, and the hardness in his eyes, I knew it wasn’t a request at all. It was a demand. I shuddered to think what would happen to me if I didn’t meet it.
There was a reason I didn’t know these sort of things existed—that no one knew. Maybe they didn’t leave people like me alive to go blabbing? What was it Clay said? About someone named Ryland finding out…
Was he a wolf too?
I shook my head and held my breath, trying to stave off the rise of anxious thoughts.
“If you keep my secret, I’ll keep yours,” he added when I didn’t respond right away.
I tilted my head at him, unsure what he meant.
“I don’t think anyone else knows you live out in the woods…do they?”
Was that a threat?
I straightened my spine and lifted my chin. “I won’t tell.”
I turned on my heel and used the banister to help me limp the rest of the way to the top of my stairs, my blood chilling. As if I would tell anyone, anyway.
Who the hell would believe me?
5
Jared and I didn’t speak for most of the drive. He’d made a lame attempt at conversation during the long walk through the woods to where he parked his jeep in a small lot at the edge of a hiking trail, but my mind was elsewhere. And I needed to focus to keep my eyes from tearing at the pain in my sprained ankle. I had the walking stick from the night before, and luckily the shoes fit, but it still hurt to put weight on it.
I wanted to ask Jared why he didn’t have a proper driveway leading up to the cabin, but I could guess the reason. Couldn’t have visitors showing up when you could be caught morphing into a fucking oversized dog.
Jared pulled his Wrangler up to the front of the shop, putting it into park in one of the many empty spaces along the street. “Where will you go?” He asked, his hands gripping hard on the steering wheel.
I opened my mouth to say something but ended up closing it again. The truth was that I had no freaking idea where I was going to go, and I was a shit liar. I licked my dry lips and pulled the backpack from the back seat, slinging it over my shoulder as I stepped outside. “Thank you,” I told him, meaning it. I’d had the time to think on the drive into town and I realized that even though the hours since I awoke this afternoon had been some of the most fucked up I’d ever experienced, he’d still saved me.
Even if he had been watching me out in the woods.
Even if he was a wolf in human skin.
Without his help, I might be dead. “Thank you for saving my life,” I said earnestly.
His jaw tightened.
“Your secret is safe with me. I won’t ever tell.”
“Allie, I don’t—”
“Please,” I interrupted him, that panicky feeling rising again. “I need you to go now.”
Before he could answer, I closed the door to his Jeep and did my best to hurry into the shop, but I barely managed a waddle, cursing the entire way as my ankle protested.
The bells inside the door jingled as I entered, the familiar sweet, musky scent of paper and ink greeted me like a warm embrace, and I felt my nerves calm. I didn’t turn around as I heard the Jeep’s engine purr back to life as Jared pulled back out onto the road.
Jacqueline squinted up from the front counter, her small glasses perched low on the tip of her nose. “Oh, Allie. You made it. I wasn’t sure if...” she trailed off, and something registered in her eyes. “Is everything alright?”
She eyes me from bottom to top, taking in the torn jeans and the limp. Jared managed to rescue several clothing articles from Dad’s hunting blind, so I at least had a clean sweater over my tattered tank top. But I knew I looked half dead. Much as I tried to avoid it, I’d seen my reflection in the mirror at Jared’s cabin.
“Sprained my ankle,” I said with an impish grin. “Hurts like hell, but I’m fine.”
“Oh,” she said, pushing back her graying dark auburn hair from her face as she came around the counter. “What happened? If you would prefer to take the night off and keep it elevat—”
“No,” I blurted, reeling myself back in. “No, I—I want to work. It’s not even that bad.”
She seemed to consider and then nodded. “Alright. Just don’t overdo it. I haven’t gotten around to scanning in today’s deliveries, if you want to do that, I’ll get them on the shelves in the morning.”
“Okay,” I replied, knowing full well that I would get all the deliveries scanned in and shelved before I left tonight. I needed this job, and I wasn’t about to shirk any of my duties, sprained ankle or not. The book shop wasn’t just my only source of income. There was an apartment above it. Occupied, but only until December.
Then, when the guy moved out, I was hoping Jacqueline would let me rent it. It was what I’d been saving for. I’d have first month’s rent and a deposit ready to go. Who better to rent the space than your only employee, right? I hadn’t asked her yet, but only because I wanted to have the deposit ready to give her when I did.
And now, after losing almost everything last night, that might take longer than I had planned. I sighed.
“Is everything alright?” she asked, leaning over the counter to pull her purse and jacket from the coat rack.
“Huh?” I blinked. “Oh. Yeah. Just a little tired.”
“The coffee in the back room is still pretty fresh.”
“Thanks, Jacqueline.”
“Oh!” Jacqueline exclaimed, pulling a folded slip of paper from her purse. “I almost forgot. Devin was here earlier. Around the time your shift normally starts. I told him you were going to be a bit late and he said he couldn’t wait.”
She held the note out to me.
“He left this for you. Said he was worried your phone wasn’t working.”
She lifted a brow when I didn’t immediately move to take it but made no further comment. Jacqueline knew my phone was working just fine. I’d sent her a message that I’d be a bit late today just a few hours ago.
I gritted my teeth as I limped the three steps between us and gingerly took the paper from her slender fingers with a tight smile. “Thanks.”
“Right,” she said, snapping back into motion. She tugged on her coat and belted it in the front. “Well, I’ve got about a million errands to run. Take it easy on that ankle, hey?”
“I will.”
“Good.”
I crumpled the note in my fist as the door shut behind her, the sound of the bells loud in the quiet shop. I chucked the balled-up note onto the desk and slumped into the tall stool behind the counter as the bells jingled again, signaling the entry of the first customers of the evening.
I pressed my palms into my eyes and yawned. It was going to be a very long night.
I finished scanning the new stock into the system and had
it all shelved and the entire store dusted and swept before seven, as usual. It was simple work, and even with a bum ankle, it wasn’t so hard.
But I’d almost hoped the work would take me longer tonight, now I had two hours to sit here and contemplate my bleak existence. I should’ve been using the time to think about where the hell I was going to stay tonight. Or, you know, until December when the guy upstairs hopefully moved out.
Sighing heavily, I continued going through the fall catalog from Random House. It was my job to keep the young adult section up to date on all the newest releases, and I took that responsibility very seriously. It showed in the surgency of teen clientele the store had gained since I started here last year.
Unconsciously, my gaze slipped to the crumpled note atop Jacqueline’s desk behind the main counter. I clenched my jaw, trying to distract myself with options for places to stay.
I could go back to the blind in the woods. Jared said it was destroyed, but how destroyed was destroyed? Was it salvageable? If I brought a tarp and some duct tape, could I make it work?
My heart ached for the last place I had that reminded me of him. After the house sold and my aunt and uncle boxed up all his things, all I had left was that one photo and the old blind. Now I had neither.
My chest ached.
What else? I asked myself, trying to distract from the pain. Where else could you go?
Not Viv’s or Layla’s. Then you’d have to explain that you’ve been lying to them for months. I was just glad that Layla had to watch her younger brothers and sisters on Thursdays—and Viv always went to visit her Nona at the senior’s home. Otherwise, they’d both be here demanding answers I didn’t know how to give. I groaned, dropping my head into my hands.
This was all getting so out of hand.
My gaze flitted back to the paper on the desk and before I could change my mind, I leaned over and snatched it up, huffing before I uncrumpled the page and flattened it against the counter with my palm.
Allie, I’m sorry for what happened. Please stop ignoring me. You know it wasn’t really me. I wasn’t myself. You know me. You know I’d never hurt you. I love you.