by Nancy Holder
“Are you okay?” she asked. She covered his face with quick kisses. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine. What about you?” He had werewolf healing powers. She didn’t. He touched her face. There was a scratch on her cheek, and leaves in her hair, but she looked relatively unscathed.
“I’m okay.” He picked some of the leaves out of her hair. “I got some scrapes on my legs but it’s nothing major.”
“I’m glad,” he said, and kissed her. “Hey, Allison,” he whispered in her ear. “I’m falling for you. Head over heels.”
She snickered. “Nice one,” she said. Then she picked a leaf off his arm, like they were two animals grooming each other. “Do you think we’re being punished for sneaking out when we’re grounded?”
“No. I think we’ll be punished if we’re caught,” he replied, grinning at her.
“Then let’s make a pact that we won’t be caught,” she said. She sat up very straight and held up her right hand. “I, Allison Argent, do solemnly swear not to get busted by my parents.”
“And I, Scott McCall, solemnly swear that, too.” He threaded his fingers through hers. She smiled at him.
And then she made her “uh-oh” face.
“I think I lost my phone.” She groaned. “My keys and my phone.”
“Maybe it fell down with us,” he suggested. “Unless it can defy gravity.”
“Or it got stuck on something,” she said uneasily. “I swear, Scott, are we in a Roadrunner cartoon?”
“Only if an anvil falls on our heads. Yikes, duck!” he cried, throwing his hands over his head.
She smiled gamely and gave him a teasing swat on his arm, but he could feel her dismay. Grinning, he looked downward and let his eyesight shift. This felt like a math problem, not his strong suit, but he was willing to give it a shot: if he were falling a hundred miles an hour down a twenty-thousand-foot drop, at a velocity of whatever, and he were a phone, where would he land?
Right there!
Her phone was a small red rectangle about ten feet away from them, lodged among dozens, if not hundreds, of tall, spindly bushes with white flowers and clumps of red berries.
It was too dark for him to have reasonably spotted it in normal life, so he kept pretending to inspect the ground. Allison was right beside him, glancing up and around.
“We can use my phone to call it,” Scott suggested, pulling out his phone. His charge was at 9 percent. “Let’s make this count. My battery is super low.”
She nodded and held her breath while he pressed in her number. Her phone trilled in the bushes. Her ringtone for him was Kids of 88. Nice.
“Yes!” she cried, hugging him. They both darted toward the bushes. Scott lunged for the phone, reaching out . . . and found he couldn’t seem to move his hand forward.
“What?” he said. “Allison?”
She darted past him and stared at the wall of greenery. “I don’t see it,” she said. “Call again, please.”
He was staring straight at it. It was about three layers of branches in. But as he put his hand forward, it was as if he touched some kind of invisible barrier.
What the heck?
“There,” he said, pointing. “See it?”
“Yes!” she cried. She pushed herself into the mass of leaves and branches and snagged her phone. “Yes, yes, yes!”
She whirled around and fought her way back through. Dancing a little, she hugged him. He soaked it up and hugged her back.
Then she pulled away so she could look at him. “Why couldn’t you get it?” she asked him. “Are you hurt?”
Now what do I say? he thought, studying the bushes. Were they some kind of wolfsbane? He tried again to move into them. It was exactly as if a force field prevented him.
She was waiting for his answer. Maybe he could pretend to be scared or have some kind of weird phobia.
About touching bushes?
“Um, yeah,” he said. He faked a limp forward, and then he sank to the ground. “Something’s wrong with my leg. I didn’t notice at first because . . . because of the adrenaline. But it’s hurting a lot.” He hated lying to her.
“Oh, no,” she said, falling down beside him. “Do you think you broke something?”
“No.” He didn’t want to upset her. “Just, um, a sprain. I’m sure it’ll be better soon. If I just rest a minute.”
“Okay.” She sat down beside him. “Wow, I totally didn’t notice that hill.” She laid her head on her knees and grinned weakly over at him. “But I was a little distracted.”
“Me, too. Are you okay?” he asked worriedly. She seemed okay.
“I’m fine,” she insisted. “But I’m worried about you. If you can’t walk, how are we going to get out of here?”
“You can carry me,” he suggested.
“Right.”
“Sure. Over your shoulder. You could totally do it.”
“Well, I’d need a machete to cut down all those bushes first,” she said, laughing. “But once you’re feeling up to it—if you’re feeling up to it—we might be able to work our way through them.”
“Sure,” he said, realizing he was going to have to make sure he didn’t feel up to it. Unless he could figure why he couldn’t do it now. There was so much about being a werewolf that he didn’t know. Okay, he hardly knew anything. If Derek were here . . .
Derek, he thought. I can text him and ask him. But Derek didn’t have a cell phone. Argh, Derek. You complicate my life on so many levels.
“All this to find Jackson,” Allison muttered. “He’d better be awfully grateful.”
“Yeah,” he said noncommittally. He wondered if going through all this for the sake of a guy who didn’t like him marked him as an idiot, or a wuss, or worse.
“This was so nice of you,” she went on. “Think what would have happened if Lydia and I had come out here, and my aunt had called her house. If she hadn’t been there to answer the landline . . .” She mimicked slicing her throat.
He cocked his head. “What would have happened?”
She moved her shoulders, and her features darkened. “I don’t actually know. I’ve always been pretty close to my folks, you know? Because we move so much. This is the first time I’ve really had friends . . . or a boyfriend.” She wrinkled her nose at him as if testing out the word.
“We’re very friendly here in Beacon Hills,” he told her, grinning back at her. Loving hearing the word boyfriend on her lips, referring to him. Then he bent over and kissed her, and she slid her arms around his neck.
“So I see. But anyway, to answer your question, this is a new subject for my family and me. Me being in trouble. And . . . us not being as close,” she added faintly. She frowned and got a faraway look on her face. “Things are . . . different.”
Don’t I know it. He was used to keeping things from his mom, though. He didn’t like to worry her, and it felt weird going to her with questions about . . . well, anything. He and Stiles had kind of raised each other.
“Lydia and Jackson are probably making up,” she murmured.
“Making out,” he said, and lowered his head toward her.
“Wait. How’s your ankle?” she asked him.
“It doesn’t matter. I don’t kiss with my ankle.” He tried to remember if he’d actually said that it was his ankle that was bothering him. He didn’t know what to do.
“I’m sure it’ll get better in a few minutes,” he said. “It’s just in shock.” He made a look of mock concern. “I hope it doesn’t sue me.”
Her smile didn’t reach past her eyes. She was worried about him. That was so cool.
“Maybe I could look at it,” she said. She moved her shoulder. “I don’t know first aid, but you do. You made a splint for that dog I hit. You could tell me what to do.” She gestured to the bushes. “We have plenty of wood to make a splint.”
His mind was racing. He wondered what would happen if he had her make a splint from one of the bushes. Maybe it would work like when Derek had burned the No
rthern Blue Monkshood and then pushed it into the bullet hole in his arm. Used the poison to cure the poison. But were the bushes poison?
He looked over his shoulder at the hill they’d just fallen down. Hill was definitely the wrong term. It was a freakin’ cliff, rising nearly straight up. Grateful Allison hadn’t gotten severely injured, he doubted they’d be able to get back up it without rock-climbing equipment.
“Let’s make sure your phone works,” he said, partly to distract her. “Why don’t you check in with Lydia?”
As she nodded and initiated the call, he shifted his vision and scanned the area around them. To his consternation, he realized that the bushes were growing in a semicircle around the cliff, with no breaks. There were only two ways to get out—up the cliff, or through the bushes.
“Call failed,” she reported. “But we might get better reception somewhere else.” She looked at the bushes. “That stuff is so thick,” she murmured. Then she looked back at him. “Are you feeling any better?”
“Worse,” he said, lying. He needed some time to figure out what to do. They were scared, but Allison wasn’t hurt. They weren’t in imminent danger of getting found out, and except for the intense fear factor, being here with her was pretty sweet.
He handed her his phone. “We don’t have a lot of chances to call on my cell,” he reminded her. “We have to make them count. I’ve got the reception but you’ve got the power. Maybe we should try texting somebody. I’ll try Stiles.”
“Okay.” She nodded. She leaned over his shoulder and he realized that he wouldn’t be able to tell Stiles everything. He’d have to try to speak in code. So he wrote: We r stuck here, bottom of cliff. Then he took a picture of the bushes and attached it to his text. As an afterthought he snapped a picture of the cliff and sent that as well. Then he realized he had Where’s My Phone on his phone, too, and of course Stiles knew his user name and password: Allison and Allison. If his battery didn’t die, and Stiles got the texts, he’d realize where they were, and see that they were in trouble.
• • •
Hunter Gramm really did have a gun.
But Jackson Whittemore was not about to become a victim.
There was no way Gramm was going to fire a weapon out in the open. There might not be anyone in the lot itself, but there were other people in the preserve, and someone was bound to hear.
Cassie, he thought. Then, Wait. His mind racing, he reviewed their conversations. Could she have been in on it? Luring him here for this guy?
Right now, that didn’t matter.
He took off running toward his car, yanking out his keys as he did so. His heart was pumping and his mind was racing. Get to the car, get to the car. His body, used to sprinting, sucked up the adrenaline and he put on the turbo. His brain, used to defining and achieving goals, spun game plays of him peeling out in the Porsche and calling the police.
Footfalls clattered on the blacktop behind him. Gramm hadn’t shot at him, just like he’d expected.
There it was, his Porsche. He got ready to jump in—
—just as another guy in a ski mask popped up from behind it like a jack-in-the-box. He, too, was brandishing a gun.
“Stop right there,” he ordered Jackson.
Jackson still would have run, or fought, or yelled, or something, except that Gramm had caught up with him and pressed a gun into his back.
“There’s a silencer on this thing,” Gramm told Jackson. “Like on TV, you know what I’m talking about? And I won’t hesitate to use it.”
The other guy came from around the Porsche. He moved swiftly, glancing toward the preserve, aiming his gun at Jackson the entire time. Masked.
“Good timing,” Gramm said to the second guy. To Jackson, he said, “Let’s go.”
Jackson bolted. The second guy ran forward and hit him in the face with something hard. Already exhausted before he’d tried to escape, Jackson lost his footing and went down on one knee. Then he looked up at the two masked guys as they trained their weapons down on him.
“We don’t want to hurt you,” Gramm said. “Now open your mouth.”
Jackson glowered at them both. He was feeling woozy, but he still fought as the other guy stuffed a rag into his mouth, then tied it in place with another rag.
“Hands behind your back,” Gramm said.
If I do that I’m a dead man, Jackson thought, not moving a muscle.
The second guy grunted and grabbed one of his arms. Jackson felt something tight clamp around his wrist. Handcuffs. Then the guy pushed his other arm behind Jackson’s back and put on the handcuff. When they snapped in place with a click, Jackson flashed with panic.
Someone will come, he told himself. This is a public place.
Then something hard came down on the back of his head, and everything went black.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Beacon Hills
Six Years Ago
It was Friday, Ms. Argent’s fifth day on the job, and after the first day—when she had swum beside him—Derek had caught himself waiting for her to do it again. But she hadn’t moved from the lifeguard perch all week, hadn’t even spoken to him. She’d just watched him like a hawk, gaze trained on him, as he’d stroked through the water. One by one the other swimmers had left, and he’d remained behind, torn between disappointment that she hadn’t done it again, and complete and utter relief that she was staying away from him.
He told himself that he was swimming as long as he always did because the Wolf Moon was coming, and Josh would be training right now, too, getting ready for the challenge. He knew humans had their power plays inside families, but they were nothing compared to those of a werewolf pack. Privileges and status revolved around successful challenges.
As well as around failures.
He swam lap after lap beneath her scrutiny. Then, just as he did one last flip-kick and headed for the stairs in the shallow end, he felt the vibration of her approach in the water.
And then she was swimming alongside him. He couldn’t believe it. He didn’t know what else to do except to keep swimming. What was he supposed to do? She was probably used to really cool guys. He spun a fantasy of her life before she’d moved to Beacon Hills: living in a big mansion in Sacramento, maybe, or a wicked cool condo. Maybe she’d been an Olympic swimmer and gotten injured or something tragic. He thought about all those human, adult things that he hadn’t done, that she obviously had—get a job, have a car. Just . . . leave.
I can’t do that, he thought. I have my pack.
He’d always been taught that being a werewolf was a gift. Not everyone in his family was so lucky. He had nieces and a couple of cousins who were ordinary; and his old great-uncle was completely human and had never consented to the Bite. What would Ms. Argent think if she knew? Would she think it was cool, or would she turn away from him in horror?
It doesn’t matter, he thought. I can’t tell her.
They swam together, synchronized, and when they hit the five-foot mark, she took his hand and put her feet on the bottom. He stopped, too.
They faced each other.
And she smiled at him, much more shyly than he would have expected. She looked down, then peered up at him through her lashes.
“What you must think of me,” she murmured.
His heart was pounding so hard he was sure that she could hear it. He had no idea what to say her, and he also had no idea how to get out of the pool without embarrassing himself.
Except . . . he didn’t want to get out of the pool. He wanted to kiss her.
“There’s something about you,” she whispered. “I’ve been thinking about you all week. I tried to stay away. I mean, you’re a student and I’m . . . well, I’m not a teacher. But I’m close. To being a teacher.”
She swirled her fingers in the water. “And this isn’t really my style, you know? I don’t come on to men like this.”
Men. She thought of him as a man. He licked his lips, completely tongue-tied.
“I wish you’d say
something,” she murmured. “I’m kind of dying about now. I’m sorry if I misread your intentions. I won’t bother you again.”
His intentions? Misread them? He was baffled. But then he thought about all the looks he had thrown her way. How he’d glanced up at the lifeguard tower every time he’d made a turn to head down the lane. Maybe he had been sending out signals.
“I—I don’t want you to get in trouble,” he blurted, then flushed because that sounded so wimpy.
Her smile was so sweet. “I don’t want to get you in trouble, either,” she said. “With the school administration or your girlfriend . . .” She trailed off.
“I don’t have a girlfriend,” he said.
Her cheeks went pink and she smiled, gazing down again. “Oh. I just assumed . . . you being so handsome and all.”
His knees almost buckled. He didn’t date girls. He had cultivated his status as a loner on purpose, because it made his life easier. But now, facing her, nothing in him wanted to be alone. Sure, Laura’s friends flirted with him and told her to tell him that they thought he was hot. But they were girls. Ms. Argent was a woman.
“Look,” she said. “I—This is happening in such an awkward way. I don’t mean to crowd you. I’m just . . . well, I’m drawn to you, and I can’t really explain it.” She smoothed her wet hair away from her face, and he found the gesture very sexy. “But I don’t want you to think I’m just after . . . well, you know.”
“I—okay,” he stammered. “So, um . . . what . . . ?”
“Do you want to go for coffee?” she asked. He was aware that she was still holding his hand. She caught her breath and let go of it, crossing her arms over her chest. “We could just talk,” she suggested. “I’m new here and maybe you could just show me around a little.” She raised her brows, looking hopeful and uncertain. I know we’d have to be careful. Outsiders might not understand.”
“Yeah,” he said. What he didn’t know how to explain to her was that he had never taken a girl anywhere in Beacon Hills. He wasn’t even sure where to go for coffee. They couldn’t go to the Beaconburger—it was far too public—and that was pretty much the only place he knew of that even served coffee.