The Hollowing (COYWOLF Series Book 2)

by Abby Tyson

  I've been seeing Jameson everywhere, she told herself. It's just another hallucination. There's no way he would be down here.

  But of all the places she'd seen him on this trip -- the New Jersey rest stop, Hazel's face in Virginia -- this was the one place that it actually made sense for him to be. He was an Alter. Berto was basically the head of the Alters.

  "It wasn't him. It wasn't him." She repeated it all the way to her cottage. When she parked, she was too afraid to get out of the car. She called her mom, who sounded calm and cheerful, and only after Chloe confirmed that she was in the cottage did Savi jump out of the car and run into the house.

  "Hi honey," Chloe called from the kitchen.

  Taking her shoes off, Savi did her best not to let her anxiety show. "Where's Dave?" she asked.

  "He called and said he's having an emergency session with one of the residents. He's not sure when he'll be back."

  Savi sat at the dinner table and watched her mom chop vegetables. "Did you see all the people by the road?"

  Chloe nodded grimly, sliding the chopped carrots off the cutting board and into the salad bowl. "Good thing they're leaving today. There's supposed to be a hurricane coming our way -- should reach us Friday."

  "Hurricane? I can't wait to get back to Massachusetts. The worst we ever get up there is a blizzard, and even then you get a day out of school."

  The two of them enjoyed a quiet dinner together, with Savi almost forgetting about Jameson as she tried to figure out the best way to tell her mom about Monty and Grandma Claudie, especially with Berto listening to everything they said. As they did the dishes, Savi at last worked up the nerve and asked, "Want to go for a walk with me?"

  "I'm pretty wiped," said Chloe, shaking off the last wet plate and placing it in the drying rack. She was about to say something else, when she caught Savi's pointed look. "But some fresh night air might do me some good before going to bed," she said.

  They both got their shoes on, but when they stepped out on the porch, Savi whispered, "Can we sit in the van?"

  "Is everything alright?" asked Chloe.

  "Yeah, I just want to talk privately."

  They both climbed in, cracking the windows enough to allow a breeze into the stuffy space, but not too much that any passerby would be able to easily hear them.

  "What's this about, sweetie?" asked her mom.

  "There's something I've been meaning to tell you about that weekend -- the weekend I first learned about werewolves. I've been struggling with whether telling you would be helpful, or if it would only screw everything up, but I think you need to know."

  "Do you remember George from the Beanie Beanie?" asked Savi.

  "I never met him," said her mom slowly, clearly not understanding the segue, "but I remember you talking about him."

  "Well, George turned out to be his middle name. His real name is Glenn George Solas." Savi watched as her mom searched her memory for the name.

  "Glenn... Solas." The front porch light of the cottage, as well as the brick road lampposts, brightened the interior of the van, making it too easy for Savi to see the alarm in her mom's eyes. "He was Monty's best friend."

  Feeling nauseous, Savi forced herself to keep talking. "He told me some stuff about Dad."

  Even in the pale light, Savi could see the color drain from her mom's face. "What did he tell you?" she asked in a trembling whisper.

  Watching her hands in her lap, she said, "He told me that Dad was a werewolf."

  Savi had imagined this conversation hundreds of times, and each time her mom had reacted differently -- sometimes sobbing, sometimes breaking a window, other times running away. Not in any of the scenarios had her mom simply sat there, staring at her expectantly, as if still waiting for the shocking news.

  "Is that it?" Chloe asked, fearfully searching Savi's eyes.

  "Well, no, but I think that's pretty huge, don't you?"

  Her mom hardly seemed to hear her. "What else did he tell you?"

  Too confused by her mom's reaction to continue, Savi asked, "Aren't you surprised? The man you loved, the man you had a child with, was a werewolf, and all you have to say is, 'What else?'"

  Sitting back in the seat, Chloe covered her face with her hands. At least this was more in line with what Savi had anticipated, but coming so late afterward, she wasn't sure how to interpret it. "Mom?"

  A weak sniffle sounded from behind her mom's hands, and Savi realized her mom was crying. Chloe reached for a tissue, and then took a ragged breath as she turned to Savi and said, "I know."

  Savi stared dumbfounded at her mom. "You know? What do you mean, you know? You know what? Not that he was a werewolf." Chloe nodded, her mouth contorting in her effort to keep from crying.

  Clinging to the door handle so tightly that her hand hurt, Savi asked, "How do you know? Who told you?"

  A single tear escaped from the corner of her mom's eye as she said, "Your father."

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Savi couldn't speak. She just stared at her mother, thinking of the agony she'd been putting herself through deciding whether to tell her about Monty's true nature. It had all been a colossal waste of time.

  "I'm going to tell you something you're not going to understand," said her mom, her voice becoming strangely calm, "and you will undoubtedly hate me for it. I hated myself because of it, for a long time."

  Folding and unfolding the tissue in her hand, she said, "A few weeks after I found out I was pregnant, Monty came over one afternoon and said he needed to show me something. I thought it was another baby gadget -- he'd already bought a swing chair, a mobile, and a set of baby monitors. He told me it was something important I needed to know, something that I couldn't marry him without knowing."

  Marry? They were going to get married? No one had ever given any hint that her parents had even considered getting married. She'd always thought Monty couldn't get away fast enough.

  "He brought me to a remote corner of October Mountain," continued her mom, "to an old hunting shack. He handed me a backpack with a flashlight, a compass, and a cell phone, and told me to stay in the shack, no matter what happened. He said it would be hard, but to watch him through the window. He said over and over, 'Don't come outside. For your safety and for the baby's safety, don't come outside.'"

  Chloe poked her finger through a hole in the tissue, clutching it in her fist. "I had no idea what was going on, but he assured me everything was fine, and that our love --" Her voice cracked, and she dabbed her eyes. "-- was strong enough to surmount any obstacle. So I got in the shack and closed the door and watched him through the dirty window. Then he started taking his clothes off."

  She let out a weak sobbing laugh. "I thought he was doing some sort of sexy striptease, although it was hardly above freezing. But a few minutes later, when the sun started to set, he bent over and started to move in a really odd way. I kept thinking it was a weird dance, until I realized his skin was starting to become lighter. Instead of brown skin, his body was covered in a weird orangey-brown blanket."

  Staring ahead, her mom lost herself in the memory. "I rubbed on the glass, thinking the grime was obscuring my view, but the strange color was still on him. He was shrinking too. His legs were skinnier, shorter, and he had... a tail. I had to get a better look, so I left the shack and ran towards him."

  Her mom bit her lip, setting her jaw in an effort to suppress the emotion that was trying to resurface. "I called out to him when I was about halfway across, and he turned and..." She shivered. "It was the most terrifying thing I've ever seen. It was Monty -- I could see his eyes and nose, but they were disappearing behind a mask of fur."

  Chloe let out a sob. "He shouted at me to get back inside, but it wasn't his voice. It was more of a growl, or a bark. He had fangs, and his body just kept shrinking in on itself.

  "Finally I had the sense to do as he said and ran back to the shack. When I turned around to slam the door, he was chasing after me." Chloe raised her voice in desperation and look
ed at Savi for the first time since she'd begun her story. "My fiancee was an animal, and he was chasing me, gnashing his fangs at me!"

  Lowering her eyes, she continued. "Needless to say, I was able to barricade myself until he left. I was petrified though, and stayed in there for hours, until I couldn't stand the cold any longer. I ran back to the car and raced home, alone."

  Savi was starting to understand where this story was headed, and she brought her knees up on the seat, hiding her face. She didn't want to hear, but she had to listen.

  "The next day, he came to the house." Her mom's voice was distant, emotionless. "I wouldn't see him. I told my mom that we'd had a fight and to send him away. So, being Grandma Claudie, she of course let him into my room. I started screaming at the sight of him. All I could see when I looked at him was the half-man half-wolf that had tried to kill me the night before." Chloe wiped at her eyes, although they were now dry. "I told him I never wanted to see him again."

  Something inside of Savi cracked. She'd always thought she was broken, but never before had she felt... shattered.

  "He came back three more times," her mom continued, "and every time I told him to leave and never come back. I said so many nasty things to him. After the third time, he did as I asked. He left."

  Savi's world stopped. Everything around her was suddenly petrified, as if the stone that she carried around inside of her had exploded, encasing the world, and she alone still had a beating heart -- a beating, bleeding, broken heart. When her mom spoke again, every word was a sharp, painful pinprick in her exposed and defenseless soul.

  "After a few months, as the pregnancy started to feel real, I regretted it. I called his work, but no one had heard from him. I called Glenn, and he said Monty had been staying with him, but hadn't seen him since before spring break. I even tried tracking down his parents, but that was a dead end. I'd lost him."

  Slowly shredding the tissue she was holding, Chloe said, "I know I should have told you. At first, obviously you were too young, and as the years went by, I started to doubt that I had really seen it at all. I thought maybe I'd gone mad that night and imagined the whole thing. I never told another living soul about it, until the night before you came here, when I told Dave."

  Dave knows??

  "But the reality is," continued her mom, "regardless of whether I was afraid for myself or afraid for you -- regardless of the reason, I sent him away. I am --" Her voice broke, and she took one ragged breath before regaining her empty, flat tone. "I am the reason you didn't have a father."

  The pain inside Savi was almost unbearable. It spread like fire through her veins, seeking an outlet, demanding release. She knew her mom wanted her to say something, but if she opened her mouth, Savi was certain she would scream so loud and for so long that it would shake the earth off its orbit.

  "You asked so many questions about him." Chloe started speaking faster, eyeing Savi warily all the while, as if she could see the countdown to the explosion. "At first it was too painful to talk about him, and then I got paranoid and started thinking you somehow suspected what had happened -- which was of course a crazy thing to think of a four-year-old. Then I started perceiving your questions as a sign that you didn't think I was a good enough parent, that I wasn't enough for you. I know now it was my own guilt and --"

  "You weren't."

  Her mom's breath caught. "What?" she gasped.

  Savi stared at her mom as if she'd never seen her before, as if she was seeing for the first time who her mother really was: an ugly, inhuman creature who fed on attention and fear. Monty may have been a werewolf, but her mother was the true beast.

  "Dave pointed out to me that I'm a bad communicator and keep everyone at arm's length," said Savi. "Now I understand why: I inherited it from you. Who else could withhold nearly everything about my own father from me for eighteen years?"

  Her mom cringed, recoiling from Savi as she let her outrage take hold. "I begged, I pleaded for you to tell me about him, but all you did was run away. I was a little girl who needed to know that her father loved her, but all you gave me were crumbs that made me think I wasn't important enough for him to love. You were selfish and silent, so that's what I am now."

  The mask of calm that Chloe had worn fell away. Tears gushed down her cheeks as she tried to speak. "I was young... I did the best I could."

  "It wasn't enough!" Savi shrieked. "I found out more about my dad from strangers than I ever did from you. But you probably know all of that already too. Did you know that he was altered when he was eleven? By Glenn? Did you know that after he left you he mated with another werewolf named Ebony? Yeah -- remember her? The one who sent sadistic Amber after me? And did --"

  "Stop, please" begged her mom, holding up her hand.

  But Savi couldn't stop. She was no longer in control. Her mouth was once again acting on its own, and this time she did nothing to fight it.

  "Did you know that he saw me take my first steps in Lenox?" Something tickled her cheeks, and Savi realized she was crying. "He found out where we lived and snuck behind the fence and watched me walk for the first time."

  "Stop, Savi!" her mom cried.

  "Did you know that he's dead?" she shouted. "That he died five years ago, in agony, hardly an hour from our house, at the same place where I was tortured and --"

  Chloe screamed at the top of her lungs, her hands on her ears, "Savannah! Stop!"

  A knocking on the window startled both of them. Second stood outside the van. "Are you two alright in there?" she asked.

  "No!" shouted Savi. "Go away!"

  Although taken aback by Savi's response, Second held her sympathetic smile. "I'm afraid that's not possible. Mr. Almeida is requesting your presence."

  "I don't care!" screamed Savi. "I'm not going anywhere."

  "He requests that both of you come," said Second.

  "Can't it wait?" asked Chloe, between sobs.

  "Unfortunately no." Second opened the driver's side door and waited for Chloe to pull herself together and climb down. Savi remained in the van. Second started to go around to her side, but Chloe moved to block her way.

  "I'll get her," she growled.

  "Don't touch me!" Savi snapped, jumping out of the van.

  They walked in silence to Berto's office. When Second opened the door, his voice was clear and strong as he spoke to someone on the phone.

  "...hoping my schedule clears up and I can visit in person next month to get a better sense of what you need."

  He waved them in with a smile. "Yes, Your Highness, thank you. Good bye."

  "Good evening, ladies. I hope my invitation hasn't inconvenienced you." He leaned back, putting his glossy shoes up on his desk. "Before I get to the heart of it, I was wondering if either of you have any questions for me."

  Savi stared at the floor, hardly listening, making a mental checklist of the things she would bring with her to Glenn's. There was no way she was staying in the same house as her mom.

  "No?" asked Berto, when neither spoke. "I find that surprising." He reached back and picked up his remote. "You know, I've never been very good at keeping secrets. Although for some reason, people are often hell-bent on knowing them. So," he aimed it at the TV, "I let people find what they're looking for."

  A faint click behind her indicated the screen was on, but it was her mom's gasp that made Savi turn around. On the TV was a video of her, in this office. At first she thought it was a live feed, but then her virtual self snuck across the room, sat at Berto's desk, and started searching his computer.

  That's why there was no password. Amber was right: I am an idiot.

  "Of course, you have to limit the amount of information," said Berto. "Can't have any one person knowing too much."

  Savi couldn't watch. She stared at the lion's head on the wall, its lifeless eyes still managing to seem afraid.

  "You brought this on yourself," said her mom, "threatening us, imprisoning us, keeping us in the dark. Let us go; we won't tell anyone your secret
s."

  Berto shrugged. "Tell whoever you'd like. You'll be hard pressed to find anyone who will actually believe them."

  He went back around his desk and brought out his bag of treats for the silver wolf. "But that's not the real reason I brought you here. There's something else you need to see -- something more important." He tossed a biscuit to the wolf, then clicked on his computer.

  The video screen changed to what appeared to be a body camera. It showed a team of about half a dozen armed guards in the back of a van. The back doors opened, and Savi's heart dropped as she recognized the door to Ren and Glenn's motel room. The guard with the camera followed the others as the first two guards burst the door open and started firing dart guns at everyone.

  By the time the camera guard made it in the room, Glenn was already lying on the floor with three darts sticking out of his body, and Ren was fighting a losing battle with three guards and six darts. Within minutes, the guards were carrying them out on stretchers. The guard turned to show Lila being loaded into another vehicle.

  Before the guard hopped into the van, someone behind him said, "Hey, thanks for the heads up, man."

  The camera turned back to show a guard shaking the hand of a dazed but smiling Baxter.

  "Just doin' my job," he said. The screen went black.

  "Is that Baxter?" asked Chloe. "What's he doing here?"

  "That footage was taken this afternoon," said Berto. "Mr. Reilly contacted me a few days ago and notified me that your compatriots were planning a raid on my facility. While I was tempted to let it play out for curiosity's sake, I ultimately decided to curtail the effort, for the sake of my team."

  I was wrong.

  The room began closing in on her. The animal heads and stuffed carcasses seemed too large for the space, they were going to fall on her, bury her alive.

  Baxter couldn't be trusted. I was wrong.

  She ran for the door and jerked it open to find two guards waiting in the hallway.

  "Are we done here?" demanded Chloe, moving toward Savi and putting a hand on her shoulder. Savi shrugged it off.