He pulled her back in. His hands on her. His lips on her neck. But the roar returned too, louder than bombs. Something unfolded its wet limbs in that hidden corner of her heart.
She pushed him back. He blinked, eyes sobering up fast. “What is it?”
“I can’t.”
“It’s okay.”
“No. It isn’t.”
“Easy.” He pulled her back in. “Lara, ease up.”
Her hand still gripped round his neck. He winced and she pulled her hand away. There was blood on her nails.
Her fingernails had elongated, turned coarse. Her heart banging faster and faster. The change had been triggered.
“Lara, what’s wrong?”
“John…get out.”
TWENTY-TWO
GABBY WAS a holy terror on the road. Having nearly rear-ended two other cars and sideswiped the mirror on a parked car, Gabby drove on obliviously, fiddling with the radio and chatting away. Amy sat in the passenger seat, wondering who in their right mind gave her friend a passing grade on the driving test.
“If you want, I can come inside with you,” Gabby said. “Your dad probably won’t yell too much if I’m there too.”
“That’s okay. I’m just gonna grab a few things and blow.” Amy suddenly bolted back in the seat. “Gabby, STOP!”
“What?”
“The stop sign!”
Gabby focused her attention on the road just as the red sign blurred past. She hit the brakes and the nose dipped and bounced, coming to a stop in the middle of the intersection. Gabby checked for other cars then hit the gas. “All clear. So you didn’t get grounded or anything? How is that possible?”
“Don’t know,” Amy shrugged. “He seemed distracted or something. Whatever. But he ran me outta there so fast I forgot half my clothes. Slow down.”
“You’re lucky.” Gabby turned into the Gallagher’s driveway, almost colliding into the parked Cherokee. Gabby squinted at the truck’s mangled bumper, the rear window covered over with plastic sheeting. “What happened to your old man’s ride?”
“Said he had an accident.” Amy opened the door, tripping the dome light. “Hang tight. I’ll be two seconds.”
Gabby watched her friend run up the porch steps and disappear inside the house.
The dog was barking and Lara was shaking bad. Not a shiver but a quake so deep her hands were vibrating. Gallagher wrapped his arms around her, trying to hold her still. “Breathe through it,” he urged. “Ride it out.”
Her eyes flicked up. A warm amber glowing around the iris. Not good. He gripped her tighter, like that would do anything. “Lara, what do I do?”
She was losing color fast, her face and hands a cold shade of pale. What if he knocked her out? Just cold-cocked her into next week? It was harder than it looked, punching someone into unconsciousness. And what if it made the wolf come on faster?
“The knife.” Her voice had altered. “Get the knife.”
He bolted for the foyer, where her parka hung from a hook. Slapping the pockets until he felt its shape. He dug it out and unsheathed the gleaming blade.
“Dad?”
Amy stood in the open door.
Gallagher froze. Knife in hand, gaping stupidly at his daughter. “Amy...what are you doing here?”
Her face set hard, expecting a fight. “I came to get some stuff. What are you doing with a knife?”
“Honey, you can’t be here.”
“I know. Gabby’s outside, waiting to drive me home.”
Her dad came at her, pushing her back out the door. He was out of breath and sweat beaded his face. “Not now. Go back home. Now!”
A loud racket was banging around from deep inside the house. The dog barking its head off. Amy planted her feet, refusing to go. “What is going on? Why is the dog going crazy?”
Another sound. At first Amy wasn’t even sure it was a voice but it called out again. A woman’s voice, calling out her dad’s name.
He sprinted for the living room. Who the hell was this woman in her house? And why was she screaming? Amy marched through the kitchen and turned the corner into the family room. She stopped dead, not comprehending what she was looking at.
There was a woman thrashing around on the floor. She was thin and she was shaking like a junkie. She was wearing Amy’s clothes. Her father was on his knees, holding the woman down. Pinning her flat with one arm, clutching the knife in the other hand. Like he was going to stab her.
Oh God, he was going to kill her.
The dog barked and barked.
“Dad, stop!” Amy grabbed his wrist.
He turned and snapped at her to let go. The look on his face. Amy had never seen her dad so scared. She let go. He turned back to the quaking woman. “Where do I cut? Lara, look at me! Where do I cut?”
Amy felt her jaw fall open. This wasn’t real. It didn’t make any sense but the more she stared at the strange woman, the more it gelled into reality. Lara Mendes. Back from the dead. Even though Amy still couldn’t get a good look at her face through the tangled hair, she knew it was Lara.
How?
Lara lifted her shirt. Amy’s shirt. Exposing her stomach. “Here.” Her voice sounded so strange. “Cut it deep.”
Gallagher pressed the blade onto the pale flesh of belly and sliced across. Blood welled up under the knife’s edge.
“Dad, stop!” Amy felt her own hands shaking, needing to do something but not having a clue as to what was going on. The whole world had gone crazy. “You’ll kill her!”
The quaking didn’t stop. He snapped at Amy to back off and cut again, drawing more blood. Another shudder and the woman stilled. Gallagher brushed the damp hair from her eyes and Amy studied the woman’s face. It was Lara Mendes, but it wasn’t either. Her face so unnaturally white the skin was veined with blue. The eyes were yellow and iridescent as bulbs. And her teeth were all wrong. She had fangs. Jesuschrist, she had long sharp fangs.
Amy dropped to her knees. That crazy story her dad had told her. It was true. But that was crazy. This, right here on her living room floor, this was crazy. She couldn’t stop staring at Lara’s face and those weird yellow eyes rose.
Gabby.
Gabby was waiting outside. Amy staggered up and ran back through the house, almost tripping down the porch steps.
Gabby lowered her window. “Is everything okay?”
“Yeah. I’m gonna stay. Bye.”
“What’s wrong? You’re white as a ghost. Is it that bad?”
“It’s fine. Go home. I’ll call you tomorrow.”
“Hold on... Amy!” Gabby hollered but Amy ran back into the house. “Crazy frakking family,” she said and backed out of the driveway.
Rushing back into the room, all Amy saw was the blood. On the floor and on her dad’s hands. Lara thrashed and jerked, covered in it. She had never seen so much blood before, not in one place. The room swayed and Amy felt her knees jelly again. Don’t pass out, she told herself. Not now.
“Amy!” Her dad’s voice snapped her alert. He jostled against the spasms. “Amy. Hold her legs!”
Amy couldn’t move, too busy trying to keep the floor from flip-flopping.
“Amy! Help me hold her down!”
Like always, his bark snapped her out of it. She rushed in and sat on Lara’s legs, pinning them flat. Her dad leaned down hard onto Lara’s chest. She was crazed, gnashing and popping her teeth like a rabid animal. He lowered the blade into the open wound.
“Dad, don’t. You’re going to kill her.”
“It’s okay. Cross your fingers and pray this works.”
Amy fought the urge to pull his hand away. “Why are you doing that?”
Lara’s thrashing subsided a little as the blade bit into her flesh. Almost incrementally, the more the blade cut, the more her frenzy burned off.
Her dad looked up at her. “Got to my office, get the handcuffs from my desk. Second drawer down. Then run upstairs. There’s a gun on my nightstand. The eagle. Get that too.”
&
nbsp; “The big gun? Why?” Amy balked at the thought. “You can’t shoot her.”
“Just go!”
She ran, colliding into walls as she sprinted through the mud room to his office. The dog chased her. Rifling the drawer, she pulled up the cuffs and ran for the stairs. The big handgun on the nightstand, heavy and lethal in her hand. Hammering down the steps, back to the living room. “Here.”
Her dad caught the bracelets and spun one cuff around Lara’s wrist. Yanking her arm flat across the floor, he snapped the second cuff around the leg of the old radiator. The second he let up off of her, Lara roared and clawed at him but was jerked back, wrist taught against the chain.
Amy passed the gun to him. He double-checked the safety and kept the barrel trained on the floor and then backed away.
Lara thrashed and chomped and pulled against the restraint with rabid ferocity. A wolf in a leg-trap. “Is that…” Amy stammered. “Is it really her?”
“Fraid so.” He was still catching his breath.
Lara jerked and flailed against the bracelets.
“I can’t look,” Amy said. “It’s freaking me out.”
“Go in the other room.”
Good advice but Amy couldn’t tear her eyes away. The thing chained to the radiator was in no way Lara Mendes. It coiled and jerked. Popping sounds emanated from it. Amy watched the woman’s hands morph, the knuckles buckle and pop under the skin.
She looked at her dad. “Can’t you do something? She’s in pain.”
“I don’t know what else to do.”
Fresh blood spattered onto the carpet. The open wound on Lara’s belly ran and spilled. Amy ran to get a handful of towels and then approached the thrashing figure on the floor.
“No. Stay away from her.”
“She’s going to bleed to death!”
Amy felt herself shoved aside. Gallagher bore down fast and cracked the butt of the gun across Lara’s temple.
A fresh dribble of blood. Lara Mendes’s eyes rolled over white and her body went limp.
Amy jolted forward, pulling back the woman’s eyelids with her thumb. Oh shit. Did he just kill her? The woman’s head flopped loose in Amy’s hands, lifeless as a sock-puppet.
Amy sat at the kitchen table, eyes blasted from what she had seen. Trying to make sense of it. The husky brushed her knee and she startled. She looked into its blue eyes and hesitated before scratching its ears. It was just a dog, not the thing she had seen in the other room. Still, something seismic had shifted in the world and nothing felt solid anymore.
Gallagher came back from the living room, pitched the bloodied towels into the sink and washed his hands.
It was a moment before Amy found her voice. “Is she all right?”
“She’s out cold.”
“Yeah but is she...” Amy groped for a word, “...normal?”
“Yes.” He dried his hands on a towel and looked at his daughter. “You okay?”
Her eyes looked raw, her expression blank. He knew that look, having seen it in the mirror months ago. A stupid, gap-mouthed expression of trying to make sense of the impossible.
When Amy spoke, her voice was hushed. Sharing a secret. “I didn’t believe you. When you told me about Lara. I’m sorry.”
“Who would?”
“I can’t believe she’s still alive. How did you find her?”
He outlined the events as briefly as possible. About how Lara had been on the run all this time, hiding, moving on. He left out any mention of the man Lara had called Grissom. Or the other wolf, the incident at the roadside. When he finished, Amy stared down at the table and didn’t speak.
He got up and turned the kettle on. “Do you want some tea?”
“This is crazy,” Amy said slowly. She had yet to shake the thousand-yard stare. “I mean, werewolves? How can they exist and no one knows?”
“I don’t know, sweetheart. I guess they know how to hide.”
Amy turned her head towards the living room. “And Lara. On the run all this time. Alone. She must have been so scared.”
“She’s tough.”
The clocked ticked on. Amy looked up at her father. “What do we do now?”
Gallagher came to the table. Folded his hand over hers. “We help her. Hide her. Protect her from herself if we have to. Beyond that, I don’t know yet.”
Amy’s eyes darted around the room, slowly turning things over in her head. “What if she changes? I mean, all the way, totally wolfs out?”
“If it comes to that, if she, or it, turns on us? We protect ourselves.” He crossed to the counter and laid the big handgun on the table. He thumbed the latch and slid the magazine out. “These rounds have silver loads. They’ll do the job.”
She took up the magazine and inspected the first cartridge. “You can’t…”
“Don’t rule out anything.”
“I still don’t like this gun.”
“But you know how to handle it.”
She clunked it down onto the table and looked at him. “Is this why you taught me how to shoot?”
“I used to think I knew what was out there. On the street, the bad people. I was wrong.” His eyes drifted down to the weapon between them. “I needed you to be prepared.”
TWENTY-THREE
AMY ROLLED OVER and bumped her nose on something hard. The laptop lay where her pillow should be. The light was on and she was still in her clothes. The laptop was open but the screen was dark. Next to it was a notebook and a pen, pages of scribbled notes.
After saying goodnight to her dad and ensuring that Lara was comfortable on the sofa, Amy had gone to bed too wound up to sleep. So she did the one thing that always made her sleepy: homework. Firing up the laptop, she had spent the night researching monsters. Werewolves, lycanthropes, wolfsbane, silver weapons, full moons and ancient curses. Dutifully taking notes, she had hoped to find some consistency within the tangled web of folklore and pop culture, something she could use. There was little consistency among the sources, no consensus on what constituted a werewolf or how to cure someone afflicted with it. Was it supernatural or biological? Curse or disease?
She must have fallen asleep taking notes. She closed the laptop and lowered it to the floor. Rooting through a drawer for some clean pajamas, she heard the dog whining downstairs.
Creeping downstairs, she sidled to the living room to check on Lara. The sofa was empty, the blanket in a heap on the floor. The dog whined, nosing the bottom of the front door. Lara’s heavy parka was gone from the hook in the hallway. Her boots too.
No.
She hurried to the front door and flung it open to a cold blast of air. The dog ran out.
Lara Mendes sat on the front stoop, pulling her boots on. She turned and looked up at Amy and then bent back to tighten the boots.
The porch was frigid against Amy’s bare feet. “Lara? Are you all right?”
“I have to go.”
“Go where?” Amy folded her arms against the cold. “Please, don’t. What’s Dad gonna say?”
Lara stood, looked at Amy and then looked away. “I’m sorry you had to see that.”
“It doesn’t matter. Come back inside.”
The muscles under Lara’s cheek clenched and her eyes hardened, clamping down what was roiling up under the surface. “I could have hurt you tonight. Your dad. I couldn’t live with that.” She turned and staggered down to the walk.
Amy snatched the woman’s arm. “No. Not after all this. I thought you were dead, you can’t just disappear now.”
“I can’t. I’m sorry.”
“No. Do you know how long he searched for you? Don’t do this to him, Lara. Not after all this.” She shuddered, buffeted by the cold wind. “It would kill him.”
Lara wavered, her resolve vaporizing as fast as her breath on the air.
Amy linked her arm around Lara’s and coaxed the woman back up the porch. “Come on. Before I freeze out here.”
Back inside, Amy helped her ease out of her parka. “Does it hur
t?” she asked, making a slicing motion across her stomach. “The cut?”
“It’s okay. But my head is killing me. What did your dad hit me with?”
“Gun butt.” Amy rooted through the cupboard over the sink for a bottle of aspirin. Shook a couple out and poured a glass of water. “Here.”
Lara accepted the pills. “Go back to bed, Amy. Get some sleep.”
Amy cocked an eyebrow, wary of being hoodwinked. “Promise me you won’t run?”
Lara crossed her heart. “Scouts honor. To be honest, I don’t think I could make it past the driveway right now.”
“Okay.” Amy bit her lip, stalling. Something on her mind. “Lara, I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“I gave up on you. I thought you were gone. Like for good.”
“You were meant to.” She averted the girl’s eyes. “I’m the one who should be sorry. For putting you through that.”
“It was awful. The weeks went by without a sign or clue or anything. I gave up.” She shivered, looking down at her feet. “But Dad never gave up. He kept looking and looking. I told him to stop. To accept that you were gone and to move on. I’m sorry.”
Lara looked at this young girl trying so hard to be strong. She had never considered the havoc she wreaked with her vanishing act. Ripples on a pond or dominoes falling in order, there were consequences. How to reconcile that?
She scrambled her brain for some way to explain but got cut short by the girl’s embrace. “I’m glad you’re back,” the girl said.
Lara squeezed the girl and then shooed her off to bed, promising twice to not flee before morning. She watched Amy go up the stairs and then went back to the sofa. Admonished herself to get some sleep.
For once, she was grateful that her tear ducts didn’t work anymore.
“Werewolves are universal. From the ancient Greeks to Native North Americans, Asia, Europe, every culture seems to have some form of lycanthropy. But the similarity ends there. In some cultures, it’s a curse given by a witch, or it’s a gift from a shaman. Some people believed the werewolf was actually your soul, let loose to destroy your own kind.” Amy paged through her notes. “Weird, huh?”
Bad Wolf Chronicles, Books 1-3 Page 41