Authors: Tammy Blackwell
My lips pulled back over my teeth, Wolf
Scout coming off the leash. “Yeah, I was letting myself turn into a
Smurf because I think I’m a badass. That has to be it. Has nothing
to do with the fact some asshole buried my clothes under a mountain
of other bags.”
Liam froze, and then, in a move I never
would have expected in a million year, he exposed his throat to
me.
“
I’m sorry,” he said. “I
endangered your life. I accept whatever recompense you demand.” And
then he sat there, unmoving.
“
Liam?”
He looked up at me, but didn’t change
positions.
“
Is this one of those
Shifter custom things I know nothing about?”
Still no movement, other than what could be
interpreted as an eye roll. “You’re supposed to punish me for
leaving you in a situation where you could have died thanks to my
idiocy.”
“
Oh.” I thought about that.
“What kind of punishment?”
“
One that matches the
crime.”
I started to laugh, but his face told me he
was serious. I didn’t want any kind of compensation. He forgot to
put my clothes where I could reach them. Big deal. My clothes and I
have a long history of amnesia. I’m forever forgetting to put them
in the laundry basket or take them out of the washing machine. But
I could tell Liam wasn’t going to let this go, and I couldn’t
really handle much more of this whole submission routine.
“
Well, then, Liam Cole, I
sentence you to one foot rub.” Because my feet were really cold,
and his hands were nice and warm. “Actually, make that two foot
rubs. Don’t leave out Lefty down there. She would be
sad.”
Not only did Liam rub the feeling back into
my feet, he also bundled them up in two pairs of those
super-expensive socks I bought from Spence’s shop. Then, he started
the task of cleaning out the chimney so he could start a fire. I
offered to help, but he shot me a don’t-be-stupid look, although I
don’t know if he was referring to my almost-hypothermia or his lack
of faith in my ability to clean out a chimney.
While Liam worked, I took a survey of the
cabin. It was a one room affair that probably covered no more than
200 square feet (or 61 meters, since we were in Canada). There was
very little in the way of furniture and most of it looked homemade
- the table, all four chairs, and the two large cabinets swallowing
the far wall. The only thing that appeared to be bought instead of
forged out of trees was the futon mattress sitting on the wooden
bed frame.
When Liam moved outside where he couldn’t
yell at me for wandering about on the cold wooden floors, I got up
and explored the inside of the cabinets. What I found there
reminded me of this crazy show I saw one time about people whose
hobby was to prepare for catastrophic events. Canned food was
stacked as tightly as possible in the space, along with a First Aid
kit, some blankets, a few knives, and several of those old oil
lamps one of my grandmothers collects. Stacked in between the
cabinets was several bottles of oil.
At first the amount of stuff in there seemed
overwhelming, but then I made the mistake of calculating things in
my head. It was October and already snow covered the ground. Most
likely, we wouldn’t be seeing grass until… when? April? May? Later
than that? I wasn’t up on my Canadian weather patterns. Even if we
went with the conservative idea of leaving in April, we would be
trapped here for more than six months. Thirty days times seven
months was 210 days. Was this enough food to last that long?
I instantly regretted ever
having read
Life As We Knew It.
I tried to drum down the panic by reminding
myself that several of the bags on the sled were filled with
nonperishable food. Heck, one small bag was stuffed full of candy
bars. We wouldn’t starve if we had like a hundred candy bars,
right?
God, I didn’t want to die of starvation.
The sound of something slamming to the
ground rescued me from my mini-meltdown. I spun around just in time
to see two squirrels race out of the fireplace and around the cabin
in a fury of movements. Being able to totally relate to their sense
of despair, I took pity on them and opened the door. It took a few
minutes, but they finally found their way outside.
“
There was a nest of
squirrels living in the chimney,” Liam said as the two streaked
past him towards freedom.
“
You don’t say.” I leaned
against the open door as he surveyed the mess sitting in the
fireplace. “Don’t suppose you have a broom?”
“
Look under the
bed.”
I did, and to my surprise, indeed found a
broom there. It was the old-fashioned made-by-hand kind that made
me want to etch “Nimbus 3000” onto the handle. Instead of handing
it over to Liam, I took on my good womanly role and did the
sweeping myself.
“
How are your feet?” he
asked while gathering some wood from a pile stacked just outside
the cabin door.
“
All pins-and-needles.
That’s good right? No feeling is bad; pain is good?”
Liam shrugged. “Sounds good to me.”
It took us the better part of two hours to
get the fire going. We stopped just long enough to eat a few sticks
of beef jerky and a can of applesauce to restore some of the
calories we lost during the Change, although not nearly enough.
Normally I gorge after a Change, eating at least 5,000 calories for
breakfast alone, but knowing how little food we actually had, I
rationed myself.
“
Whose cabin is this?” I
asked later as Liam took inventory of the firewood stacked against
the wall.
“
Mine,” he said as he
examined a piece of kindling. “My dad built most of the outside,
but Alex and I finished it a few years ago.”
“
You did all this?” I
looked around, taking in everything with new eyes. “Impressive,” I
said, and meant it. The cabin wasn’t big, but it kept out the wind
and snow. The furniture wasn’t pretty, but it was functional and
sturdy. If Jase and I attempted to build a cabin and furnish it
there would have been nothing to show for our efforts other than a
couple of trees chopped down in the middle of the forest. Actually,
that’s probably overly optimistic. If Jase and I managed to chop
down a single tree it would have been a miracle.
“
Alex is the one who
figured out how to make it all work. I just put it together,” he
said as if building a cabin and piecing together furniture without
the assistance of the home improvement professionals at Lowe’s was
a menial task.
Once we both thoroughly examined the inside
of the cabin, we began unloading the sled. By the time we had
everything inside and arranged in something that could pass as
order, it was getting dark. After a dinner of cold beans and tuna,
I found myself yawning on a regular basis.
And that is when I realized there was only
one bed.
“
So… ummm… it’s… ummm…
bedtime for Scout,” I said in fashion which in no way hid my
discomfort.
Liam rubbed the top of his head. “Yeah,
there’s some blankets and stuff.” Which I already knew because I
moved them from the cabinet to sit on top of the bed during our
efforts to get all the food we brought with us in the cabinet.
I got up and walked over to my bag. “I guess
I’ll put on my pajamas now.” My intention had been to go change in
the outhouse - yes, we had an old-fashioned outhouse - but I wasn’t
looking forward to it. At all. Not only did it not have plumbing,
it was completely without heat. Or lights. And was a really long
way away from the cabin.
Thankfully, Liam saved me. “I’ll just…” He
jerked a thumb towards the door. I nodded a little too
enthusiastically, eager to have some privacy, space, and warmth
while I stripped.
I assumed Liam was going to the bathroom or
some such thing when he left, but when I heard a scratch at the
door later I realized what he had done.
“
Hey, you,” I said, opening
the door for the wolf. “Do I need to go get his clothes?” Liam
disappeared back around the corner for a moment, and when he came
back there was a carefully tied bundle of clothes in his
mouth.
I gave the wolf another can of food and
brushed the snow and dirt out of his fur before we crawled in bed,
me beneath the covers and him curled up on top, his head resting on
the pillow beside mine. I thought it would take a long time for me
to get used to his breathing right next to my ear, but it was mere
moments before exhaustion overtook me, and I slid headlong into a
dreamless sleep.
***
I woke up the next morning, fully rested and
completely toasty. My nose was buried in the wolf’s warm neck, my
fingers wrapped in his fur. “You’re like a heating pad,” I
muttered, only half-awake. “A nice, fuzzy heating pad. Or maybe an
electric blanket.” His nose came around and bumped my forehead, and
I let out a tiny yelp. “Okay, so not all of you is nice and
warm.”
Liam’s eyes shone with laughter as he stood
up and leapt off the bed. He grabbed his clothes bundle, trotted
over to the door, and waited impatiently for me to open it.
“
Grow some opposable
thumbs,” I said from the bed. “I like these blankets and have no
intention of leaving them until I absolutely have to.” I was
already starting to get cold without him. I couldn’t be sure, since
we didn’t have a thermostat, but I thought the temperature had
dropped significantly in the past twenty-four hours.
Liam didn’t really care about my distaste
for facing the cold, if his impatient growl was anything to go by.
I tried to ignore it, but when the whining started up, I gave in. I
made sure to call him a few choice names and wish for unmentionable
body parts to get frostbite as I let him out.
My first few days as a Canadian were
exhausting. The cabin had survived without anyone tending to it for
years better than one could have reasonably hoped, but there were
still lots of repairs to be done. Liam and I climbed on the roof to
remove a limb and fix the damage underneath. We worked on sealing
off all the cracks where air could get in. There was an ax hanging
next to the fireplace, and Liam and I used it to chop down a
tree.
Have you ever chopped down something with an
ax? Not fun. I now have serious doubts regarding George Washington
and his cherry tree.
Every night, Liam went outside and Changed
before bed. Every morning, I woke up cuddled into the wolf’s
warmth. It was nice, but it couldn’t continue.
“
You can’t keep doing
this,” I said on the fifth night when Liam made his way outside
after sundown. “We don’t have enough food to fuel your Change every
night.” He just stood there with his hand on the door. “You’re not
getting enough calories even now. There’s no way you can do this
all winter.”
He came back into the cabin and grabbed the
extra blanket I hadn’t felt a need to use yet from beside the bed.
It wasn’t until he began folding it into a long rectangle that I
realized his intention.
“
You’re not sleeping on the
floor.” The look he gave me made color rush to my cheeks. “Good
grief, Liam. I’m not going to molest you. Just get in the freaking
bed.” I plopped back onto my pillow and then turned quickly to face
the wall. There are very rare times when I get so embarrassed I
cry, and if this was going to be one of them, I didn’t want Liam to
see my tears. It would only serve to piss me off, which often
brings even more tears.
Sometimes being a girl is all sorts of
awesome.
I thought he was going to be stubborn and
sleep on the floor anyway. If he did, I decided, I wasn’t going to
feel sorry for him or guilty. And I wasn’t going to take turns. I
didn’t have any problems sharing a bed, so I wasn’t going to give
it up.
I was about to share this realization when I
felt the covers pull back and Liam slip into the bed.
***
The next morning started just as every other
morning in Canada. I woke up slowly, my back slightly chilled, but
the rest of me kept warm by the fur I had clutched in my
fingers.
Except it wasn’t fur.
I pried my eyes apart slowly and then had to
tilt my head at an equally sluggish pace since my face was smashed
against Liam’s very human chest. With an exceptional amount of
care, I unbent each individual finger, letting go of the sweatshirt
Liam wore to bed. It took me no less than five minutes to fully
disentangle myself from Liam, although even when I was finished his
arm was still nestled underneath my waist. I wasn’t quite sure how
to move away without waking him up, and waking him up was the
absolute last thing I wanted to do. I couldn’t handle the horror on
his face when he realized how I had cozied up to him in the night.
My own horror was quite enough, thank you very much.
I weighed all the options and finally
decided to just roll out of bed as quickly as possible. With any
luck, I would be out and away from the bed before Liam woke up
enough to figure out who had been where.
I counted to three and then made a leap for
the floor. And find the floor I did. With my face.
“
Scout?” Liam asked, his
voice rough with sleep.
“
I’m okay.” Nothing wounded
but my pride. “Blanket reached out and grabbed my foot.”
“
Beware the blankets,” he
intoned like a bad horror movie. I peeked up over the side of the
bed to make sure he hadn’t been spirited away by sprites and a
Changeling left in his place, but he was already back
asleep.
Chapter 18
Life in the cabin quickly took on a routine.
Every morning Liam would head out to chop wood. It’s truly amazing
how much you need to heat a small space, and it’s especially
difficult to keep up with the demand when you’re using an ax as
opposed to a heavy duty chainsaw. Sometimes I helped with the
chopping, but not for very long. I normally would say anything a
boy can do, I can do better, but chopping wood is an exception to
that rule. Especially when the boy in question is Liam
I-may-actually-be-a-descendant-of-Paul-Bunyan Cole.