Forever. Part 22

CHAPTER FORTY.

* GRACE *

The interminable day finally ended when Sam came home with a pizza and an uncertain smile. Over the pizza, Sam told me everything that Koenig had said. We sat cross-legged on the floor of his room, his desk lamp and Christmas lights turned on, the pizza box between us. The desk lamp was next to the one sloping wall by the roof, and the way the wall diverted the light made the room seem warm and cavelike. The CD player by Sam's bed was turned on, low, some smoky voice singing to a piano.

Sam described everything that had happened, making a little sweeping motion with his fingers across the floor with each one, as if unconsciously moving the last thing out of the way before he told me the next. Everything was a sort of a wreck, and I felt completely adrift, but I couldn't help but think how much I liked to look at him in this low yellow light. He was not as soft as when I'd first met him, not as young, but the angles of his face, his quick gestures, the way he sucked in his lower lip to think before going on - I was in love with all of it.

Sam asked me what I thought.

"Of?"

"All of it. What do we do?"

He was stunningly trusting of my ability to logic it all through. It was such a lot to take in - Koenig guessing the secret of the wolves, the idea of moving being plausible, the thought of trusting all our fates to someone we barely knew. How did we know that he would keep our secret?

"I need another piece of pizza to answer that," I said. "Didn't Cole want any?"

Sam said, "He told me he was fasting. I don't think I want to know why. He didn't seem unhappy."

I pulled the crust off a piece of pizza; Sam took what was left. I sighed. The idea of leaving Boundary Wood was a disheartening one. "I'm thinking it wouldn't have to be permanent. The wolves being on the peninsula, I mean. We could come up with a better idea later, after the hunt business had all died down."

"We have to get them out of the woods first." He closed the pizza box and traced the logo with a finger.

"Did Koenig say he'd help you get out of trouble? I mean, about me being missing? Obviously he knows you didn't kidnap and kill me," I said. "Does he have some way to get them off your back?"

"I don't know. He didn't say anything."

I tried to keep the frustration out of my voice; I wasn't really frustrated with him. "Don't you think that's kind of important?"

"I guess? The wolves have only got two weeks. I can worry about clearing my name afterward. I don't think the cops can find anything to pin on me," Sam said. But he wasn't looking at me.

"I thought the cops didn't suspect you anymore," I said. "I thought Koenig knew."

"Koenig knows. No one else. He can't just tell them I'm innocent."

"Sam!"

He shrugged, not meeting my gaze. "There's nothing I can do about it right now."

The thought of him being questioned in the police department was acutely painful. The idea that my parents might think him capable of hurting me was even worse. And the possibility that he could be tried for murder was unthinkable.

An idea presented itself.

"I have to tell my parents," I said. I thought about my conversation with Isabel earlier that day. "Or Rachel. Or someone. I have to let someone know that I'm alive. No dead Grace, no murder mystery."

"And your parents will be understanding," Sam said.

"I don't know what they'll be, Sam! But I'm not going to just let you - let you go to jail." I wadded my napkin and threw it at the pizza box angrily. We'd so narrowly avoided being pulled apart - it seemed appalling to think that after everything else, an entirely man-made, unscientific event might be what finally separated us. And there was Sam, looking guilty, as if he believed that he'd been responsible for my supposed death. "No matter how bad my parents are, that's worse."

Sam looked at me. "Do you trust them?"

"Sam, they're not going to try to kill me," I snapped.

I stopped and put my hands over my nose and mouth, my breath coming out in a rush.

Sam's face didn't change. The napkin he had been very carefully ripping apart stilled in his hands.

I covered my whole face now. I couldn't stand to look at him. "I'm sorry, Sam," I said. "I'm sorry." The thought of his face, unchanging, gaze steady and lupine - I felt tears trying to tease themselves out of my eyes.

I heard the floor creak as he stood up. I pulled my hands away from my face. "Please don't go," I whispered. "I'm sorry."

"I got you a present," Sam said. "I forgot it in the car. I'm going to go get it." He touched the top of my head as he went quietly out, shutting the door.

So I was still feeling like the most terrible person in the world when he gave me the dress. He was sitting on his knees in front of me like a penitent, watching my face carefully as I pulled it out. For some reason I thought, at first, that it would be skimpy underwear, and I felt relieved and disappointed, somehow, when it was a pretty summer dress instead. I couldn't seem to sort out my emotions lately.

I flattened the top out with my hand, smoothing the fabric, looking at the fine straps. It was a dress for a hot, carefree summer, which felt like a long time from now. I looked up at Sam and saw that he was biting the inside of his lip, watching my reaction.

"You're the nicest boy ever," I told him, feeling undeserving and terrible. "You didn't have to get me anything. I like thinking about you thinking about me when I'm not around." I reached out and put my hand on his cheek. He turned his face and kissed my palm; his lips inside my hand made something inside me squeeze. My voice was a little lower when I said, "Should I go try it on now?"

In the bathroom, it took me several long minutes how to work out putting it on, though there was nothing complicated about it. I was unused to wearing dresses, and I felt like I had nothing on. I stood on the edge of the tub to look in the mirror, trying to imagine what had made Sam look at this dress and say Get that for Grace. Was it because he thought I would like it? Because he thought it was s.e.xy? Because he wanted to get me something and this happened to be the first thing? I wasn't sure why it made a difference whether he had asked a salesgirl what his girlfriend would like versus found it hanging on a hanger and imagined my body in it.

In the mirror, I thought I looked like a college girl, confident, pretty. Sure of what would show off her body to its best advantage. I smoothed the front of the dress; the skirt tickled and teased my legs. I could just see the curve of my b.r.e.a.s.t.s. Suddenly it seemed very urgent to go back to the room so that Sam could see me. It seemed very urgent to make him look at me and touch me.

But when I made it back to the room and slid in the doorway, I was abruptly self-conscious. Sam was sitting on the floor, leaning against his bed with his eyes closed, listening to the music, far away from this room, but he opened his eyes when I shut the door behind me. I made a face, twisted my hands behind my back.

"What do you think?" I asked.

He scrambled to his feet.

"Oh," he said.

I said, "The only thing is that I couldn't do the tie in the back myself."

Sam took a breath and stepped to me. I could feel my heart pounding, though I couldn't understand why it was. He picked up the ties where they attached to the side of the dress and put his arms behind me. But instead of tying them, he dropped the ties and pressed his hands up against my back, his hands hot through the thin cotton of the dress. It felt like there was nothing between his fingertips and my skin. His face rested on my neck. I could hear him breathing; each breath sounded measured, restrained.

I whispered, "You like it, then?"

Then, all of a sudden, we were kissing. It felt like such a long time since we'd kissed like this, like it was deadly serious - for a second, all I thought was, I just ate pizza, until I realized that Sam had, too. Sam slid his hands around to rest on my hips, wrinkling the fabric, erasing my doubt, his fingers tight with wanting. Just that, just the heat of his palms through the dress, holding my hips, was enough to make my insides twist fiercely. I was wound so tightly it hurt. A little sigh escaped from me.

"I can stop," he said, "if you're not ready."

"Don't," I said. "Don't stop."

So, kneeling on the bed, we kept kissing, and he kept touching, careful, like he had never touched me before. It was like he couldn't remember what shape I'd had before, and he was rediscovering it. He felt where my shoulder blades pressed against the fabric of the dress. Skimmed his palm along my shoulders. His fingers traced along the swell of my breast at the edge of the dress.

I closed my eyes. There were other things in the world that demanded our attention, but right now, all I could think of were my thighs and Sam's hands running up them under my skirt, pus.h.i.+ng the fabric up like summer clouds around me. When I opened my eyes, my hands pressed on top of Sam's hands, there were a hundred shadows beneath us. Every one of them was Sam or me, but it was impossible to tell which was which.

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE.

* COLE *

This new concoction felt like poison.

Sometime after midnight, I stepped outside. It was black as death on the other side of the back door, but I listened to make certain I was alone. My stomach was tight with hunger, a sensation at once painful and productive. Concrete proof that I was working. The fasting had made me jittery and watchful, a cruel sort of high. I lay my notebook with the details of my experiments on the step so that Sam would know where I'd gone if I didn't come back. The woods hissed at me. They didn't sleep even if everyone else did.

I rested the needle against the inside of my wrist and closed my eyes.

My heart was already kicking like a rabbit.

In the syringe, the liquid was colorless as spit and thin as a lie. In my veins, it was razors and sand, fire and mercury. A knife notched every vertebrae in my spine. I had exactly twenty-three seconds to wonder if I'd killed myself this time and eleven more to realize that I was hoping I hadn't. Three more after that to wish that I'd stayed in my bed. That left two to think holy s.h.i.+t.

I burst out of my human body, splitting my skin so fast that I felt it slough off my bones. My heart was exploding. Overhead, the stars wheeled and focused. I grabbed for the stair, the wall, the ground, anything that wasn't moving. My notebook skidded off the back step, my body plummeting to join it, and then I was running.

I'd found it. The mixture I was going to use to jerk Beck from his wolf body.

Even as a wolf, I was still healing, joints knitting back together, skin st.i.tching shut along my spine, cells reinventing themselves with every ma.s.sive stride I took. I was an incredible machine. This wolf body I wore was keeping me alive even as it dragged at and stole my human thoughts.

You're Cole St. Clair.

One of us had to be able to maintain our thoughts if we were going to move the wolves. Had to at least be able to remember enough to gather the wolves together, get them to one place. There had to be some way to convince a wolf brain to keep a simple goal.

Cole St. Clair I tried to hold on to it. I wanted to hold on to it. What good was it, to make myself s.h.i.+ft, to conquer the wolf for just a few moments, when I didn't get to keep the triumph of it?

Cole There was nothing these woods had to say that I couldn't hear. The wind was screaming past my ears as I ran. My paws were sure over fallen branches and through brambles, toenails clicking when I scrambled across exposed rocks. The ground dropped out beneath me, dipping into a culvert, and I sailed over it. Halfway through the air, I realized I wasn't alone. Half a dozen bodies leaped with me, light shapes in the dark night. Their scents identified them, more specific than names. My pack. Surrounded by these other wolves, I was secure, certain, invincible. Teeth snapped by my ear, playful, and images flashed between us: The culvert growing to a ravine. The soft ground where a dusty rabbit warren waited to be dug up. The sky, black and endless above us.

Sam Roth's face.

I hesitated.

The images surged back and forth, harder to catch as most of the wolves left me behind. My thoughts were stretching larger to hold the concept of a name and a face. Sam Roth. I dropped to a walk, the image and the words held in my head until they had no a.s.sociation with each other. When one of the wolves doubled back to jostle against me, I snapped at it until it realized I was not up for a wrestle. The other wolf licked at my chin, confirming the dominance I already a.s.sumed. After a moment, I snapped at it again, just for some quiet. I padded back the way I had come, nose to the ground, ears p.r.i.c.ked. I scouted for something I couldn't quite understand.

Sam Roth.

I moved slowly through the dark woods, cautious. If nothing else, I hunted for an explanation for that image tossed to me: a human face.

My spine stung as my hackles rose, fast and inexplicable.

Then her body hit me.

The white she-wolf buried her teeth in my ruff as I staggered for my balance under her weight. She'd taken me by surprise and her grip wasn't great, so with a snarl, I shook her off. We circled each other. Her ears were p.r.i.c.ked, listening to my movement; the darkness masked me. Her white coat, on the other hand, stood out like a wound. Everything about her posture was aggressive. She didn't smell afraid, but she wasn't large. She would back down, and if she didn't, the fight wouldn't last long.

I underestimated her.

When she hit me the second time, her paws wrapped around my shoulders like an embrace, and her teeth found a hold beneath my jawbone. Her grip ground closer and surer to my windpipe. I let her push me onto my back so that I could kick her belly with my back legs. It only broke her hold for a moment. She was fast, efficient, fearless. She had my ear next, and I felt the heat exploding out of me before I felt the wetness of the blood. When I twisted away from her, it felt like my skin was shredding between her teeth. We charged up against each other, chest to chest. Seizing her throat, I crumpled skin and fur in my teeth, hanging on with all I was worth. She was out of my grip like she was water.

Now she had a hold on the side of my face, and her teeth sc.r.a.ped bone. She got a better grip, and this was the one that mattered.

My eye.

I scrambled backward, desperate, trying to dislodge her before she ruined my face, destroyed my eye. I had no pride. I whimpered and flattened my ears back, trying to submit, but she wasn't interested. There was a snarl rippling out of her that vibrated through my skull. My eye would explode with the sound if she didn't puncture it first.

Her teeth slid closer. My muscles were trembling. Bracing themselves already for the pain.

Suddenly she cried out and released me. I backed up, shaking my head, blood matting the side of my face, my ear still screaming pain. In front of me, the white wolf cowered submissively before a large gray wolf. A black wolf stood just behind him, ears p.r.i.c.ked with aggression. The pack had returned.

The gray wolf turned toward me, and behind him, I saw the white wolf's ears instantly lift from their position of surrender. Without his gaze on her, everything about her bristled with rebellion. Everything said I give up, for now, while you're watching. Her eyes were unflinching on me. It was a threat, I understood now. I was meant to take my place below her in the pack, or someday fight her again. Maybe the pack wouldn't be around then to stop her.

I wasn't ready to back down.

I stared back.

The gray wolf took a few steps to me, pa.s.sing me images of my torn face as he did. He nosed my ear cautiously. He was wary; I was smelling less and less of wolf and more and more of the thing I was when I wasn't a wolf. My strange body was working hard to heal my face and to pull me back into a human. It wasn't cold enough to keep me in this skin.

The white wolf stared at me.

I could feel that I didn't have long. My brain was stretching again.

Beside me, the gray wolf growled, and I jerked until I realized that it was directed at the she-wolf. He stepped away from me, still growling, and now, the black wolf was growling, too. The white wolf stepped back. One step, then another. They were leaving me.

A shudder twitched through my body, ending just under my eye, stinging. I was s.h.i.+fting. The gray wolf - Beck - snapped at the white wolf, pus.h.i.+ng her farther away from me.

They were saving me.

The white wolf met my gaze one last time. This time.