by SM Reine
She swallowed hard. “Deadly sure.”
“They’re on our territory,” Abel said.
Something about the way he growled territory struck a chord within her. She could feel the wolf press against the inside of her ribs.
“They need to die,” she whispered.
Abel grinned.
They didn’t talk as they walked back to the house. He stopped her from going inside with a hand on the door.
“We can’t do it yet. We’ve got to wait for the moon. Understand what I’m saying?”
“I understand.”
That was their family’s rule. They only hunted on the full and new moon and wouldn’t shoot anything that wasn’t four-legged and furry. It was supposed to prevent mistakes.
They stood outside for a few seconds too long. Time stretched awkwardly between them. She dropped her gaze first, staring at the toes of her boots.
“Seth’s making bullets,” she added.
He nodded. “Good.”
She went inside. Abel followed.
Rylie smiled like they had been talking about something funny, but murder wasn’t funny.
“Hey, I think I’m going to go…” Rylie began before trailing off. Gwyn’s back was turned. She gripped the phone against her ear. “What’s wrong?”
Her face was drawn into a grimace when she turned around. “That was Joseph calling. The farmer two miles down. He wanted us to know Isaiah Branson is dead.” Gwyn set the receiver down.
Rylie tried to look surprised. “Oh my God,” she said, and it sounded flat. She cleared her throat and tried again. “What happened?”
“Animal attack.” Gwyn braced herself against the table, brow furrowing with pain. “We should… I need to…” She pressed a hand against her forehead. Her lips were colorless.
Rylie reached for her. “Gwyn—”
She held up a hand, keeping her niece back. “I have pies in the freezer, and butternut squash soup. We’ll drop off some food. Shouldn’t have to cook when you’re in mourning.”
“I’ll drive,” Abel said.
She expected Gwyn to argue. After years of running her own little ranch, she was more likely to pull a shotgun on someone trying to baby her than agree to it.
But this time, she nodded.
“All right. Rylie, grab some food. I’ll meet you two at the truck in five minutes.”
Six
Mourning
They listened to the radio as they drove to the Branson farm. At first, the station played slow, boring Christmas music, which was like dripping acid into Rylie’s ears, but it was even worse when the local news took over.
“Efforts by rangers to curb the coyote population have doubled in response to animal attacks. Volunteer hunters will be on patrol to thin their numbers. If you would like to volunteer for—”
Rylie punched the power button.
“I ought to volunteer,” Gwyn said thoughtfully. “Get back at those coyotes for eating my chickens.”
“They were dumb birds anyway,” Rylie muttered. It hadn’t been a coyote that got into her coop.
Isaiah’s wife didn’t answer the door when they rang the bell. Gwyn and Rylie waited on the stoop, arms filled with frozen pies and bags of soup.
She had never been to the neighbor’s farm as a human before. It was surreal. The Branson house looked a lot like theirs—a squat brown thing with a chicken coop on the side and a horseshoe over the door. But they had no Christmas lights. Everything was dark with mourning.
Rylie glanced back at the truck, where Abel leaned against the tailgate. She didn’t want to be there. “Maybe they aren’t home.”
A moment later, the door opened. The kid who answered had red eyes and a blank expression. “Yeah?”
“Hello, Elijah,” Gwyn said. “Is your mama here?”
The shift in air brought powerful smells to Rylie’s nose. Cleaning fluid. Strange people. The salt of tears. Her sensitive ears perked up at the sounds of crying, and it made her hungry. All that weak, unsuspecting prey…
No, not prey. Just a grieving family.
Her human and wolf sides grappled with each other. It made her dizzy. “I’m not feeling good,” she whispered.
Gwyn nodded and shifted the rest of the pies into her arms. Elijah Branson let her inside, and Rylie backed off the doorstep, offering him a tight smile that he didn’t return. Of course not. His dad was dead.
She sat on the fence separating their garden from the fields. A bushy-tailed black cat darted past with its ears flattened to its skull. The wolf didn’t want to give chase this time. Rylie buried her face in her hands.
Her dad was dead, too. He had a heart attack while she was at summer camp, horrible and sudden and completely natural. The doctor used to say he ate too many fatty foods. They talked about eventual heart surgery once or twice, but nobody thought it was urgent. They didn’t expect it to be fatal so soon.
Becoming a werewolf and working on Gwyn’s ranch was the best distraction she could have hoped for. If she was looking forward to the next moon, she couldn’t think about how her dad wouldn’t be at graduation, help her pick a college, or walk down the aisle when she got married.
But Isaiah Branson’s kids were a lot younger than Rylie. What were they supposed to do without their father?
She scrubbed her hand over her eyes, trying to make herself stop crying so she could go inside. But it wouldn’t stop. Once she started thinking about her dad, it was like falling into a deep black pit with no surface.
Abel pushed off the truck and headed toward her.
The thought of having to talk to him was too much. Rylie jumped over the fence and headed toward the fields, taking deep breaths to steady herself. Every time she sucked in a breath, it caught in her throat and made her shoulders jerk.
“Hey!”
Not now, Rylie thought, silently cursing Abel with the kind of words that would have made Gwyn smack her.
He came up and clapped a hand on her shoulder. She managed to squeeze out one word between sobs: “What?”
Abel gave an impatient huff. “Stop crying.”
Even Rylie’s responding growl was weak. “Shut up,” she said instead.
“Yeah. I’m terrified.”
Her face heated and her chin trembled. She turned around so she wouldn’t have to see him.
Rylie thought he might go away if she ignored him, but he didn’t take the hint. He waited. After a few minutes of awkwardly staring at the corn until her eyes dried, she faced him.
“What do you want?”
“You should know Branson’s not the only one who died,” Abel said. His eyes glowed with anticipation. “Some guy named Gates was killed, too. The neighbors are talking about it.”
She wiped her runny nose on her sleeve. She wouldn’t have done it in front of Seth, but she didn’t care if Abel thought she was gross. “Gates. I don’t know that name.”
“He’s a librarian who lives in Turner’s Crossing fifty miles north of here. The cops said he took his dog out to use the bathroom and got attacked. Both of them dragged off and killed.”
“Fifty miles? That’s too far for the same killer.”
“So you think there’s two things ripping out throats and leaving the bodies intact? Really? Are you that stupid?”
She thought of Bekah and Levi. Even though she hadn’t seen the brother yet, she was starting to form a mental image involving lots of body hair, glistening fangs, and dripping blood. “There could be two, but I would have thought they hunted together.”
“Maybe they’re really fast. We’ll have fun with that.”
“I don’t think Seth wants me to hunt them,” she said.
“He’s naïve. Territory disputes between werewolves get bad fast. You’ll hunt them all right, no matter what my white knight of a brother thinks. All I’ve got to do is follow you and pull the trigger.”
Rylie shivered. “Who’s the gun going to be pointing at when you start shooting?”
Abel started
back toward the truck. When he passed her, he leaned down to whisper in her ear.
“The big bad wolf.”
Abel’s classic Chevy Chevelle was like their family history on four wheels. He had bought it for his sixteenth birthday using money he scraped together doing odd jobs, and it immediately became home away from home.
The upholstery on the back of the passenger’s seat had patches to cover claw marks from the werewolf they killed in Grand Rapids. The trunk was dented from the time they abducted a woman mid-transformation and took her into the woods to finish her off. There were cigarette burns from Seth’s brief rebellious smoking phase (which ended when Abel smacked him so hard that his eyeballs almost flew from his skull), and there was even a gun safe installed underneath the back seats.
But now they had an actual home, and the car was getting a break. “Home” might have been three hundred fifty square feet in an old motel, but it was theirs—and it was starting to develop its own history.
Molten silver was stuck to the grout between tiles. There was gun grease on the faucets. Seth’s corner was stacked with text books, school papers, binders, and anatomy posters. Even that horrible perfume Rylie used lingered on their cheap furniture.
All those things added up. When Seth came in the front door after a visit to the library, it made something inside of him unwind. Nothing else made him relax like that except the Chevelle.
After Seth loaded magazines with his newly-cast and greased silver bullets, he tossed them into a black bag he kept under his futon and shoved everything out of the way. He wouldn’t be able to focus on studying until the apartment was clean, and he needed to ace his anatomy finals.
But where to start? Seth stared at the binders and folders strewn across his floor and felt a sense of helplessness. He’d never worked on a deadline. He hadn’t been graded before, either.
So he pushed those aside and focused on what he did know how to do.
“Maps,” he muttered, unloading his backpack. He had visited the library while Rylie was in therapy. “Books. Articles… crime reports… school records.” Four neat stacks on his bed.
He hung the map on the wall over his futon. It had been copied out of a local history book, which depicted the local area in minute detail. It hadn’t been easy to find. Most maps didn’t even dignify their little town with a dot on a road.
Seth jammed a single pin into the wall.
Levi and Bekah Riese’s house. There was no better place to get started.
Doubt filled him as he stared at the pin. He reached into his pocket to wrap his fist around the werewolf fang he used to wear as an earring and pressed his thumb against the razor-sharp tip until it stung. He was careful not to break the skin. Seth didn’t want to find out if a dead werewolf could transfer the curse.
The hunt that earned him that fang was unforgettable. He tracked the werewolf for six months. It was a homeless guy who moved around a lot. Crazy. Deranged.
When Seth finally planted a bullet in his furry skull, he had never been so satisfied. And killing something—someone—who murdered so many people should have been satisfying… shouldn’t it?
But now Seth imagined every werewolf looking like Rylie, and he wondered what would have happened to her if he hadn’t been there to help when she first changed. Would she have gone crazy, too?
Everything had been so much easier when he knew werewolves were the bad guy.
He abandoned his research on the bed. His mother, Eleanor, would have been disappointed. Once she started the process of tracking down her “prey,” she didn’t stop until she finished. But Seth never could have lived up to her expectations.
Seth found himself leaving the apartment and walking toward the Riese house anyway. It wasn’t far. They had bought a little brick house on the edge of town with a white picket fence.
He stood on the sidewalk outside and watched the windows for movement. It didn’t look like anybody was home yet.
What would he do if someone came out? Follow them? Hunt them? Did he have any right to do it? He was still holding the fang earring.
The back of his skull itched. He turned around to find that Bekah Riese had snuck up behind him.
Shock washed through him. He had a kind of sixth sense for werewolves, and they shouldn’t have been able to sneak up on him. But Bekah barely registered. Werewolf-lite.
“You’re a kopis, aren’t you?” Bekah asked casually, as though they had been in the middle of a conversation. “One of those hunter things? My dad told me all about you guys.”
Never talk to them when they’re human, or they’ll trick you. You’ll get confused and sympathetic. That was what his mom always said.
She was probably right. Last time he talked to a werewolf, he ended up dating her.
Seth hadn’t brought a gun, so he felt strangely exposed outside their house. He took his hands from his pockets and clenched them into fists, prepared for a fight.
Her gold eyes flicked to his hands and then back to his face. Her mouth turned down at the corners. She looked worried or scared. Maybe both.
She took a deep breath, visibly bracing herself.
“I saw you take copies of our school records off the secretary’s desk while he was talking to someone. You’re studying us, aren’t you? We’ve been studying you, too. You, your brother, and Rylie. What would a hunter want with a werewolf?”
“None of your business,” he said.
“Please don’t hurt her.”
Seth almost dropped his guard. That was a funny request, coming from a murderer. “I would never hurt Rylie.”
“We’re going to help her. That’s why we came here, so we’re keeping an eye on her.” She clutched her necklace in both hands. “If anything happens to Rylie…” She straightened herself, pushing her shoulders back. “You and Abel will answer for it.”
“She doesn’t need help from your type.”
Her head tilted as she studied him. “Oh no. You don’t know yet… do you?”
He backed toward the road to keep her in his sight.
“Know what?”
Bekah smiled. It was small and nervous, but definitely a smile. “You’ll find out soon.” She paused before adding, “You won’t believe me, but I’m sorry. Really.”
Seth kept edging backward. He didn’t turn around until he got to the corner of the sidewalk.
When he glanced over his shoulder, Bekah was still in the yard, still waiting and watching him with sparkling yellow eyes.
He went around the corner and she disappeared from sight.
Seven
Just Like Wolves
Rylie insisted on cooking dinner for Gwyn that night. She felt miserable from crying too much, but her aunt looked even worse. “You need the iron,” Rylie announced as she carried steak into the living room.
Gwyn gave her a shrewd look. “You’re six kinds of helpful all of a sudden. Maybe I need to get a cold more often.”
“Cooking is my chore. I’m not being weird or anything.”
“I’ve got a bug, babe. Don’t start carving my tombstone yet. I’ll be better after dinner and sleep, and you can go back to being a useless teenager again.”
“It’s a deal,” she said with a forced smile.
Rylie hovered in the kitchen while Gwyn ate, watching silently through the doorway. Her aunt had a coughing fit and had to set down the fork to catch her breath.
How long had that chest cold been hanging around? Maybe it wasn’t a cold at all. She had an appointment with her doctor at the end of the month, but Rylie wished it was sooner.
She did the dishes before collapsing in bed, totally tired and completely unable to sleep. The night after a moon, she usually blacked out for at least twelve hours. But her mind wouldn’t shut up. She kept imagining Gwyn dead in the fields with Isaiah Branson’s injuries.
Rylie held up her hand, watching the light on her ceiling through her fingers.
She had grown claws when she smelled Bekah in class. What would have happ
ened if she hadn’t stopped it? Would the rest of her body have changed, too?
Just because she hadn’t done it before didn’t mean it was impossible. Bekah did it. The thought of changing at will held no temptation for her. She didn’t like transforming on the moons, so why would she do it willingly at other times?
But it wasn’t painful or bloody for Bekah, was it?
Rylie buried her face into her pillow with a groan. “Stop thinking,” she mumbled.
It was too late to banish the mental image of seeing Bekah trot away in wolf form. No blood. No screaming.
That kind of control wasn’t exactly a cure, but it was almost as good.
Something tapped outside.
She went rigid. It was rhythmic and sharp, like metal drumming against glass.
Rylie got out of bed and peeked through the curtains. Abel’s ugly, twisted face stared at her from the other side. “What is wrong with you?” she hissed, opening the window a crack.
“Are you sleeping?”
“It’s night and this is my bedroom! What do you think I’m doing?” It occurred to her that she was wearing pajamas, and she folded her arms over her chest as she tried not to blush.
“Come on, let’s go hunting,” he said.
“Now?”
Abel grunted. “Yes, now. Hurry up.”
He vanished. Rylie gaped at the spot he had been standing. “No,” she said, even though he was gone. “This is stupid. I’m not doing it.”
She found herself pulling a pair of Gwyn’s jeans over her shorts anyway. By the time she added a jacket, gloves, and hat, she was sweltering and eager to get outside.
Abel waited by the truck. It must have been a million degrees below freezing, but he didn’t have a jacket. He looked exhilarated and out of breath, and Rylie could see how handsome he might have been with his scars hidden by shadow.
He snorted when he saw her. “Nice. You look like a marshmallow.”
“You look like you’re going to die of hypothermia.” Rylie wrinkled her nose. “Where’s Seth?”
“Probably doing homework or being virtuous or something. I don’t know, what am I? His babysitter?” He blew a breath out of his lips, and it fogged the air around him. “Forget Seth. How do you think you’re going to run dressed like that?”