by C. D. Bell
Here she was kissing Cassian when Billy Lark had died right here, hours before. With his small body still lying somewhere nearby. With all of this going on, Cassian was telling her to think about her future, herself, to keep running. And now the cold had seeped through her hand up into her body. She felt like the part of her that had been enjoying kissing Cassian had gone into hiding. She pulled away.
“Are you okay?” he said.
“No,” she answered. “I’m not. I’m not okay with—” She took a step back. She pointed to the space that she had just opened up between them. “—this.”
“Did I say something wrong?” He looked concerned, but more than that, he looked confused. Nessa smiled wearily. All she’d wanted since the fall of ninth grade was for Cassian to be her boyfriend, and here the thing that she’d always believed most connected them was the thing she didn’t like. Had he never been told no before?
“A little boy is dead,” she said. “You’re telling me not to think about him, but I have to.” She didn’t explain the aspect of this statement that involved the wolves and her missing whatever message they’d been trying to send her about Billy, but she felt there was truth in her statement regardless.
“Nessa, I didn’t mean—”
“Cassian,” Nessa said. “You did mean it. And that’s okay. For you. But it’s just not—it’s just not me.” As she put her feelings into words, Nessa understood how true they were. “Whatever is going on between us, I don’t think I want it anymore.”
“Okay,” Cassian said. He held up his hands like he’d just touched something hot. “Totally get it. But I thought you were feeling it. You seemed like it.”
Nessa felt her face go hot. She had been feeling something.
“I’m not feeling it right now,” Nessa said. She tried to make it clear that she was sure. And as she made it clear, she felt increasingly that she was sure. She didn’t want Cassian. “I gotta go back to my mom.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Back inside, Nessa found Vivian in the kitchen making coffee while Cassian’s mom loaded the dishwasher. A few other women Nessa recognized were clustered at the small breakfast table, talking quietly.
“They’re going to come for the body a little later,” Mrs. Lark’s sister was saying. “Poor thing, we got her to let go finally. Hospice should be here soon.”
Nessa found herself suddenly feeling light-headed, like she was going to pass out.
Vivian took one look at her daughter and stood. “You,” she said to Nessa, “need to go home. After the race…did you eat?”
Nessa hadn’t really. She’d tried. Vivian took one of Cassian’s mother’s buttered rolls from the countertop and shoved some tuna salad into it, plopped the whole thing in a napkin. “Here,” she said. “Put that in your mouth.” She took Nessa by the elbow. “It’s been a long day,” Vivian said. “There are plenty of people here taking care of Ann and Will. It’s time for you to get some sleep.”
Although she couldn’t ignore what felt like a lead ball of sadness in her belly, Nessa was glad to head home. She changed into sweatpants and crawled under a fleece blanket on the sofa. Delphine was watching a House Hunters International marathon. Nessa felt tired in a way that traveled deep into her bones, but she didn’t want to get into bed. Scenes of the day looped over and over in her mind—running, the happy blur of winning, the sickening return to school to find out Billy was dead, and then being so close to the sound of Ann Lark crying, knowing his body was still in the house. Vivian was right. It had been a long day. Nessa slept.
But Nessa did not sleep well. In a dream, she saw Billy again. He was looking at her as she’d seen him in the exam room at the clinic, strapped to the examination table, looking up at Dr. Raab with blank eyes. Nessa could not tell if his expression was one of trust or fear.
Then she saw Nate in her dream. He was running in the woods, being chased by the aggressive wolves. Nessa saw the pink and black skin of their mouths, the saliva dripping off their teeth, their breath raspy but determined as they loped, almost lazily, after Nate. He was running as fast as he could, and he kept looking back, his face a mask of terror. Nessa wanted to scream at him that he was going to slow himself down if he kept looking to see who was behind him. It was bad running form.
But then the wolves caught up to Nate. They began to lunge at him, snapping at his sides, knowing it wasn’t about the one hit that would bring him down but the series of them. It was just a matter of time. And Nate was screaming for her, screaming, “Nessa, help me!” but it wasn’t his voice, it was Ann Lark’s, and she was saying, “I can’t let him go. I can’t. He’s too young. He’s just too small.”
Nessa sat up with a start. It took her a moment to place herself, to sort out what was real in the dream and what was terror. To recognize the sounds she heard not as wolf growls but as the happy fervor of international house hunting successfully concluding yet again.
Delphine had been glued to the show. But she noticed Nessa’s open eyes and turned to talk to her instead. “Nessa?” Delphine said, pressing Mute on the remote control. “Are you okay?”
Nessa rubbed a hand over her eyes. Her entire body ached, the adrenaline of the day long gone, leaving behind the stiffness it had been keeping at bay. She’d pushed her muscles past where they had ever gone before, and now she was paying the price in pain.
“I’m fine,” she said. “Just need to take some ibuprofen or something.”
Gingerly, she swung her legs over the side of the sofa while Delphine turned the volume back on, switching over to Project Runway. Nessa felt weak, holding on to the wall as she made it to the bathroom, and her hand was shaking as she lifted the glass of water to her mouth, depositing two ibuprofen and swallowing fast.
Ibuprofen wasn’t going to cut it. She was craving something else. What was it? Some food? More sleep? As her mind unfogged, she remembered first the yeasty, fresh smell and then the association clicked.
Inside her room, she opened the sliding doors on her side of the closet. Chayton had given her stalks of rye that time he’d taken her out to the distillery on his motorcycle. She reached for the sachet she had made and hidden from her mom and sister.
Then, she hadn’t known. But now…just placing a hand on the brittle sheaf was energizing and settling.
Nessa checked her phone. There was nothing from Bree.
Bree had really loved Billy, and her family hadn’t gone over to the Larks’. Nessa wished Bree had been there instead of Cassian. She texted Bree:
How are you holding up?
When Bree didn’t answer, Nessa wrote one more text:
I’m going to try something with the rye. I need to understand what the wolves were trying to say.
No three dots of continued conversation appeared. Maybe Bree had gone to sleep.
Gathering a small bunch of dried rye, Nessa snuck first out of her room and then the house. The Kurlands lived in the last lot on the street and it backed right up to the woods. Nessa gave the yard a wide scan and intentionally avoided the line of sight from the window of her mother’s bedroom. Vivian was on the phone with Aunt Jane. Making her way to the cover of trees, Nessa registered that the sliver of a moon had risen.
Arranging the rye in a circle the way Chayton had done in the woods, Nessa stepped inside, expecting to feel calmer and more relaxed, the way she had before.
What she was not expecting was that she would transform into a wolf. Sure, Chayton had said she would learn how to do that eventually, but Nessa had assumed that was advanced shape-shifting. But here she was nevertheless, noticing the heaviness of her paws on the earth, feeling the strength and steadiness in her back, conscious of the position of her tail.
She felt electrified, all her fatigue replaced by a desire to run. As if the inside of the circle were carpeted in hot coals and she’d just stepped on them, she jumped out and started to sprint. Before she consciously registered what she was doing, she had made it far enough that she no longer recognized the land
marks near her house. But it didn’t matter—she wasn’t following landmarks. She was following trails of smells.
When Nessa reached the ridgeline above Billy’s house, she sat back on her haunches and howled, calling out in five different tones, which was a trick she’d picked up from one of the pack brothers. Nessa had understood instinctually that it made you seem more intimidating to wolves who might be within listening range, making it sound like you were part of a five-wolf pack. She had to find the other wolves and ask them what she was supposed to be doing, try harder to find out why they had picked her.
But they didn’t call out to her, and no wolves came.
She wondered what to do next. Nessa looked down the slope toward Billy’s house. There were fewer cars than before, but the Larks still had many visitors. Nessa wondered if Mrs. Lark had been coaxed away from Billy’s body, if the hospice workers had come to take it away. With a rumble in her belly, she remembered the seven-layer bars and then quickly transitioned in her memory to the platter of cold cuts, particularly the roast beef. As a human, she might have chided herself for thinking about food, but wolves never pretended they were above their hunger.
Remembering how she and the submissive wolf had been picked to look inside Billy’s windows, Nessa was seized by a desire to see him again—to know if Ann Lark was okay, to see if Billy’s body was still there.
Headlights coming down the road caught Nessa’s attention, and she saw that a white van was approaching on the long, lonely road leading to Billy’s house. As it turned the corner into Billy’s driveway, Nessa started to run, realizing this might be the van coming to take Billy to the hospital in Saginaw.
She approached the side of the barn and, sticking to the shadows where she and Cassian had been standing just a few hours before, she had a view of the front door.
What looked like two paramedics were knocking and were quickly allowed in. Nessa scooted around the side of the house to Billy’s room, where she saw that they were already moving quickly to complete the job they’d come to do. One was unrolling the stiff rubber of a child-sized black body bag and pulling down its heavy, institutional zipper, while the other must have been arranging Billy’s body in such a way that his legs and arms were organized inside the bag.
Nessa couldn’t see much of anything at all, not Billy’s body itself—just the shape of a foot under a blanket and a hand that slipped out of the paramedic’s grasp before he tucked it into the bag.
When Billy’s hand slipped, Nessa gasped. Or at least she thought she gasped. The noise she heard herself make was a yip, and then she dropped down, watching from the shadows as Mrs. Lark turned quickly, her pretty eyes narrowed. You could tell she’d been crying and now, looking out the window, she shivered.
Nessa knew why. Mrs. Lark was remembering when she’d seen the wolf looking in her window. Nessa, the wolf.
Mrs. Lark bit her lip and wiped at her eyes. Nessa guessed that remembering the wolf hadn’t so much frightened Mrs. Lark as reminded her that the last time she’d heard one, she’d had a child, and now she had none.
The paramedics unfolded a light aluminum stretcher, expanding it on the bed next to Billy and then gently sliding the body bag on top of it. Taking the ends, they lifted it and carried it away.
Poor Billy, Nessa thought for the hundredth time.
Without consciously making a decision, she started loping after the van, sticking to the shadows of the fields, hanging back about twenty or thirty feet. She figured she’d stick with it as long as the end of the road, where it would turn left to head toward Interstate 75.
But the van didn’t turn left. It turned right, and started to pick up speed.
This made no sense, Nessa realized. There was nothing in the direction the van was heading in. Where were they taking Billy?
She’d thought she was running at an all-out sprint but managed to increase her pace. She did not like what was happening here, but she could not even guess what it all meant.
Wolves can run faster than humans but not as fast as cars, and Nessa grew tired. She kept going anyway, somehow convinced it was important that she stick with Billy’s body. Nessa’s side struck a low branch that she’d been running too fast to see. It knocked her over, and she rolled a few times before righting herself into a crouch. She stopped, trying to get her bearings, checking to make sure she wasn’t injured.
The tumble turned her completely around, and by the time she spotted the van again, it was so far down the road that she knew she would never catch it. She was going to have to let it go, and she panted, feeling her chest burning, her ribs heaving, her tongue lolling out of her mouth.
Then, the van stopped and turned right again. Nessa had a sharp, bad feeling. The van was taking the turn off toward the old Dutch Chem plant. Why on earth was it headed there? It wasn’t a road it was turning on to. More like a two-mile-long driveway.
So Ann Lark was right. Something about the continuing health study was fishy. Paravida was involved in Billy’s death. Something was very wrong.
Finding new energy in her revulsion at the thought of Billy being manhandled one last time, Nessa caught up to the van while the driver was checking in at the guard booth. For years the booth had stood empty, and anyone who wanted to had been able to drive around the old Dutch Chem campus without permission. But since Paravida had bought the company out of bankruptcy court, the plant’s guard booth had been rebuilt and was staffed by a uniformed security officer now. Nessa got close enough to see that the driver of the van was showing the security officer some paperwork.
Nessa peered at the guard from her distance, and the sharp feeling came on stronger as she recognized him: Pasty Pete Packer from school! What on earth…?
This must be his second job, his moonlight shift for Paravida. Recognition of his face cleared up nothing in Nessa’s mind. Pete scanned the driver’s paper carefully, spoke into a walkie-talkie, then pressed a button that lifted the electronic arm that had been blocking access to Paravida Road. The van’s brake lights flashed a few times as the driver prepared to accelerate, and then the van was whooshing forward on the asphalt that Paravida had paid a lot of money to install at the facility. It was a strange investment in an empty building.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Paravida’s chain-link fence was electrified, but it stopped several hundred feet in from the road.
This will be easy, Nessa thought, walking with her tail held high, feeling smart and unstoppable.
But then she smelled the tracks of an aggressive wolf. Uh-oh. If one of them were hanging out in this area, that was a danger.
Then she smelled another one.
And a third.
She knew she should turn back, look for the pack, get help. But she didn’t. She just couldn’t leave Billy Lark all alone.
Maybe she would get lucky. Maybe the hostile wolves were hunting. Or better, digesting a recent kill. Or prowling around, going on the warpath somewhere far off. They would eventually discover that Nessa had been there. She knew her paws would secrete a scent pattern, letting the aggressive wolves know exactly who had been here. She would deal with the repercussions later.
Then she saw lights up ahead and recognized the freshly paved parking lot lit by enough fluorescents for a nighttime baseball game. She breathed a sigh of relief. Whatever manmade challenges she was going to encounter at the plant couldn’t be half as terrifying as those killer wolves.
Unfortunately, she soon realized there was no way for her to get anywhere near the building. The incomplete fence at the entrance was an illusion. Here were two more fences, about six feet apart. Both were electrified and topped by double coils of barbed wire. Unlike the outermost line of fencing, these contained the full perimeter of the facility.
The more Nessa looked at it, the more it resembled a prison. Why did a pharmaceutical plant require guard towers? And all those lights?
Nessa contented herself with circling the grounds, scoping out the exits and entrances, looking for inf
ormation, trying to determine where Billy’s body would be headed.
The building had small high windows, and the doors were closed and, Nessa presumed, locked. The parking lot was illuminated, but mostly empty, even though spots had been lined and numbered as if a corps of workers were expected to arrive the next morning.
Given the emptiness of the lot, it wasn’t hard to find the van, parked near what looked like a loading bay for trucks. Staying in shadow as much as possible, regretting not for the first time that she was a white wolf, a fact that caused her to nearly glow in the dark, Nessa got as close to the loading dock as she could, sat down on her haunches, and waited to see if there was anything she could hear.
There was nothing. She stood and padded silently toward another spot to see if she could hear better there. She heard a sucking and swishing sound and saw that the double swinging doors had been opened, slapping against each other as the swinging motion of their opening slowed.
Who had opened them? Nessa tried to focus on the loading dock, but it was too far away for her to see much in the shadows. Then she located the smell of a cigarette. It must have just been lit because she first smelled butane from the lighter.
On top of that, there was a smell that must have just wafted out of the doors the smoker had opened. It smelled like Dr. Morgan’s but also like the biology labs at school. Frog dissection. It was the smell of formaldehyde. Nessa was getting closer.
She waited, listening to the sound of the smoker closing his lips down on the cigarette—a soft smacking sound. She heard the clinking of metal instruments in a different location. That sound was fainter and came from inside. Eventually the smoker finished the cigarette and went back indoors. Now there was the sound of low voices and more clinking. Nessa was now sure they were metal instruments on metal trays. She strained to hear.