The growl to my left wipes my smile away. My brain barely has time to process what I’m seeing as I glance in that direction. A bloody, drooling, enraged two hundred fifty pound werewolf descending upon us mid-air, claws first.
Will.
Before I can react, there’s a strong thrust against my chest. I blink and I’m suddenly rolling sideways the opposite direction from the wolf. After the third rotation my heads whacks against a tree, ending my journey. A torrent of misery jolts from that already tender spot on my cranium. I roll onto my back and stare up at the spots dancing with the stars above in time to the grunting and snarling. I could lie here…ow. Something hard collides with my hand. I look left toward the source of the new pain, the shotgun Oliver tossed, but all pain is forgotten in an instant. No. Four feet away Will has Oliver’s forearm in his powerful jaws, the only thing keeping the feral wolf from going for the jugular. No. I try to push Will with my mind but all that happens are more spots and pain induced nausea. No. Too much. Too…there’s a sickening crack as Oliver’s bones finally break. They didn’t…they should have already if…oh God. It wasn’t her before. It was…oh, God. No. No, no, no, no…
Will’s toying with him. Making it last. Making it hurt. Torturing my best friend. I just lie here for a second hoping the darkness will take me. Damn it. Oliver whimpers again. Why won’t it take me? I can’t do this. Not this. Anything but this. Will growls. But it was always going to come down to this, wasn’t it? Always. Okay. My hand seizes the shotgun. Okay.
“Will, get away from him,” I say, drawing the gun to my chest.
He doesn’t listen. He never listens.
“I said…get away from him,” I demand, somehow finding the strength to sit up. Nothing. The wolf finally acknowledges me when I cock the shotgun. “Get away from him. Now.”
Those green eyes narrow at me as his lips curl back to bare his bloody fangs, a low warning growl beginning. “Will…please,” I whisper. He digs a claw deeper into Oliver’s chest as a warning. Oliver contorts in agony. Okay. I point the shotgun at him. “I’m begging you. Don’t. Don’t make me do this. If you are in there, if you love me, don’t make me do this. Don’t make me do this. Please.”
We stare at one another for seconds, eons, not moving or even blinking. He’s in there. My Will is in there. He is. He’d never do this to me. Never. He loves me. He’s coming back to me, and we’ll leave this horrible place behind us. We’ll live happily ever after just like he promised. He’ll keep his promise, or I’ll have to keep mine. “Please.”
Those lips stretch back further, and his cold eyes leave mine as his head jerks back toward Oliver.
Okay.
The shotgun bucks in my arms, practically knocking me backwards as it does Will. As a burst of blood blossoms from the man I love’s hip, he rolls off Oliver. I cock the gun again. It’s done. It’s done. It… Will recovers within a second, turning the full force of his hatred my direction. Without a second thought, he leaps over Oliver, flying toward me claws first. No hesitation, just like I promised him. No hesitation.
I pull the trigger.
At this range, the full force of the concentrated buckshot hits its target. Half his head, from snout to neck, vanishes in an explosion of bone and brain. The force knocks him back the way he came. Away from me. Away from his executioner. He lands on the other side of Oliver. Dead before he touches the dirt.
Okay. Okay. Okay.
Good-bye.
There are no tears. There’s no pain. No sadness. No relief. No guilt. There is nothing as I crawl over to my best friend to keep him alive, literally opening a vein, and watching as the monster morphs back into the man I loved. Who I swore I would save from himself. The man I planned to spend the rest of my life with. Fall asleep beside every night. Have children with. The man who brought hope into my lost life. All gone. Never was. There is nothing left inside me but a black hole where my soul should be. He takes that with him as well. He’s welcome to it. Only one thing left to do then. I close my eyes and let the void finally swallow me whole.
Fuck it.
Chapter Eighteen
Remains
We buried William R. Price with honor three days later in the small cemetery behind the mansion where ten other F.R.E.A.K.S. rest in peace. Like them, and all the other agents who’ve lost their lives in service to others, his picture will adorn every FBI field office across the world. I was worried there would be objections to bestowing these honors to him, but not a person raised a word of protest. One bad deed does not blot out the million good ones. It never should. Chandler and Jason folded an American flag in the traditional triangle and presented it to me, the former, his best friend, with tears in his eyes. Nancy’s sobs carried on thought the entire service and even George blotted his eyes when Jason’s wife Vivian sang “Amazing Grace.” My own remained dry. I haven’t cried once.
Dr. Patricia Renee Winsted, Ph.D. the most prolific supernatural serial killer in American history, eventually succumbed to her wounds that night. In all the commotion we all forgot to remove her from that tree for several hours and even then she was impossible to pull off. They burned her where she perished. No grave for her. The only people left to mourn her are her son, who was apprehended with no resistance, and Jamal Greene. Team Beta captured the lone remaining wolf after the third tranq took effect. Both men will spend the rest of their hopefully short lives alone in an 8X12 cell deep underground, never to see or smell a flower of feel a gentle breeze on their faces again. They deserve a hell of a lot worse, but when does deserve ever factor into life?
I discovered all this after the fact. Oliver took a lot of blood, so I woke in the hospital. Again. Three pints of blood and five new stitches later, I busted out of the hospital and busted into mobile command. Even with five pints of blood and a hundred stitches himself, he was still so fragile. The worst of his wounds were red and oozing, and per Dr. Neill he was in and out of consciousness. I came when he was out. A good thing too because I couldn’t give him more than a glance. The moment I set eyes on him my throat seized, my stomach dropped, and my heart went so wild I feared I’d have a heart attack. I was right back in that forest with the gun bucking in my hands as Will…
I just turned and walked back out. I don’t think I can ever look at him again. So I haven’t. When he woke and asked for me, I never returned Carl’s call. I just continued cleaning up my mess. Cataloguing, uncovering more bodies, anything the others didn’t want to do until Oliver was stable enough to bring back to Kansas, and we all flew home. His coffin kept Will’s company this morning. I brought them both home.
My job is done.
I zip up my suitcase just as there’s a knock on my bedroom door. Vivian, a willowy redhead with a great singing voice and backbone of steel if she’s married to Jason, stands in the hallway. Like me, she’s changed out of her funeral attire into jeans and a sweater. “Hey. Five minute warning. Adam’s already loading the car. I thought you might need help with your bags.”
“I guess I do. I can get one of the suitcases, but—”
“Oh, I’ve got them,” Vivian says, stepping in. Her eyes scan the rest of the room, especially the boxes scattered around. “So just the suitcases?”
“Um, yeah. They’ll, uh, send the rest later.”
“Oh. Okay.”
It was decided that due to my actions in Crawford I be suspended without pay for three months. I took the reprimand without a word of protest or defense. If I were George, I would have sent me to the Facility with what’s left of the Winsted gang. I didn’t even want to come back to the mansion. If it weren’t for the funeral, I would have caught the first flight from North Carolina to San Diego with just the clothes on my back. Wish I had. When we landed this morning I walked into my bedroom and the bed was still unmade from when Will and I…well, I ripped those damn sheets off and started packing. Still had the boxes from when I came. I haven’t called April or Nana but know they’ll welcome me back with open arm
s. Maybe then I’ll be able to cry. At least I don’t have to spend the night in that bed. Or be here when the sun sets and he…my flight leaves in two hours. I’m ready.
Vivian lifts the handles of my suitcases and smiles at me. “Five minutes, okay? I love my husband but patience is not one of his virtues.”
“I’ll be right down.”
With another smile, Vivian nods and rolls my bags out, leaving me alone once more. I take one last pass around this room. My dream room. Powder pink walls, bay windows, pink silk couch, canopy bed, all the latest gadgets. My sanctuary. Where I’ve spent so many hours watching old movies, reading, just talking and laughing with my friends. Where I first met Will. Where I planned our future. Where he told me he loved me. There’s nothing here for me now. I grab my purse and walk out without looking back. Just one more thing to pack before I go.
It smells like him in here. His musk. His aftershave. Clothes are strewn around on the floor and chair. In the hamper. Pictures of his parents, his wife sit on his dresser. Nothing’s been touched. It’s just waiting for his return. I considered staying longer to pack everything up. Make sure it’s not just thrown out like trash. That what remains of a good man’s life is treated with respect. But in the end it’s just stuff. None of it really matters. Except the reason for my invasion. I find the wedding ring in the desk exactly where I first saw it. He loved her until the end, I have no doubt about that. She died and he was reborn, but the love never changed. That should never be forgotten. Love should never be forgotten. It hurts, but I manage to remove my necklace and thread the ring on the chain beside the compass before fastening it again. That’s what I’m taking with me. The best of them.
I hate good-byes. All the tears, the fake promises to keep in touch, I don’t have the stomach for them anymore. Probably why I didn’t tell anyone but George I was leaving. They’re as they should be, off in their own worlds. Nancy and Carl at the movies, our three agents getting shitfaced at No Exit, Andrew in his bedroom with a book on tape, George in the parlor reminiscing with some straggler F.R.E.A.K.S. here for the funeral. I managed to get through that event somehow. All the condolences from strangers, the stories of Will’s bravery, the praise of his leadership, I said all the right words, smiled sadly, and thanked them. I was the perfect almost widow. So much so everyone understood when I excused myself to “rest” upstairs. No one bothered me since. Or now. I walk down the hallway, the stairs, through the mansion unmolested to my final destination.
This room, this beautiful room, my most favorite place in the world, how I’ll miss you. Thousands of books two stories high, thousands of portals to other worlds. Centuries of stories of love and hate and heroics. Some of my happiest memories are of me sitting by the window curled up on that couch with the sun or moon shining through the two-story bay windows. But no memory tops the first. Because this is where I first saw him, standing where I am now in the doorway. The most beautiful man I’ll ever set eyes on. Not that I knew that then. Then I just thought he was pretty. Shallow. Narcissistic. Cruel. Not much else. How wrong I was. And God how I’ll miss him. My dark angel. All or nothing. He’ll find the note in my bedroom when he rises with those very words inside. I spent the entire flight home from North Carolina staring at a blank sheet of paper trying to find the right words, but none came except those. Because they’re all I need. “Good-bye.”
I turn away and slowly trod toward the front door. George and Jason step out of the parlor and shake hands as I pass by. I glance at the old man, the same one who sat by my bedside a year ago with promises of control. Of home. Belonging. Another man of his word. He delivered on every one. He’s earned the slow, reverent nod I give him. I’m just not sure I deserve the one he bestows upon me. I’ll take it though, with pride, as I walk out that door.
One year ago, almost to the day, I saw a little boy about to die. I had a split second to decide: risk my life for his or do nothing. And in that split second, with my decision to act, I changed the course of my whole life in ways I never could have imagined. I’ve seen and done things I never knew possible. Things that have challenged me, changed me. The same frightened girl who arrived here isn’t leaving. The girl who hid from life, who hid from her own voice, from what she was capable of, who was sweet, optimistic, full of hope, is gone. The one who believed in happily ever after. Who thought if she fought hard enough, if she earned it, love could conquer all. But as I climb into that car, as the mansion fades from view, I honestly don’t know who she’s been replaced with. Because if I had to do it all over again, knowing all I do now, seeing all that I have, I can’t safely say I’d run toward that boy again. The cost has been too great. Will wasn’t the only one who died in those cold, dark woods. What remained of that girl died the moment I decided to pull that trigger. She wasn’t strong enough to look into the abyss. It swallowed her whole and spit back nothing but a husk. I’m what remains.
And nothing good has ever been spawned from that hopeless place where angels dare never tread.
About The Author
Jennifer Harlow spent her restless childhood fighting with her three brothers and scaring the heck out of herself with horror movies and books. She grew up to earn a degree at the University of Virginia which she put to use as a radio DJ, crisis hotline volunteer, bookseller, lab assistant, wedding coordinator, and government investigator. Currently she calls Northern Virginia home but that restless itch is ever present. In her free time, she continues to scare the beejepers out of herself watching scary movies and opening her credit card bills. She is the author of the Amazon best-selling F.R.E.A.K.S. Squad, Midnight Magic Mystery series, and The Galilee Falls Trilogy. For the soundtrack to her books and other goodies visit her at www.jenniferharlowbooks.com
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High Moon (A F.R.E.A.K.S. Squad Investigation Book 4) Page 27