Authors: Tammy Blackwell
A fifth.
My heart stalled as my nose confirmed what
my ears already told me.
Liam was under attack.
I don’t know which happened first - my
starting to run or the wolves attacking - but in my head it was at
the exact same moment. I flew across the ground, ears and nose
trained on the fight Liam had no chance of winning. I don’t know
what I thought I would do, one girl in human form with a pointy
stick, but I knew I had to get there and help him, or he would die.
Liam was strong, his wolf one of the single most amazing creatures
I’ve ever seen, but even he couldn’t overcome five to one odds.
I was so attuned to Liam, I wasn’t paying
proper attention to where I was going. One second I was running at
top speed through the trees, the next my face was speeding towards
the ground.
No!
I knew something, or somethings, were going
to break when I hit the ground. I would be no use to Liam, and I
would most likely have to lie there until the next Change, if I
made it that long before the wolves smelled weakened prey.
It happened without conscious thought. After
all those Buddha-like attempts at mind over matter, it was instinct
that had me smacking the ground in the form of a human and raising
up as a wolf mere seconds later. Not having the time to marvel over
my bout of awesomeness, I shook off tattered clothes still clinging
to my body and started running at four times my human speed.
A battle was well underway when I arrived.
The wolves in the pack were huge, although none of them were quite
as big as Liam. They were all bigger than I was, but Wolf Scout
didn’t care. She jumped into the fray, which was now down to three
fully functional wolves and one injured wolf against the Shifter
she considered hers.
I had never really practiced fighting in
wolf form. Sure, Liam and I messed around and hunted, but never
were there any lessons on how to best take advantage of my opponent
or how to best employ my strengths. Human Scout took about half a
second to worry about that before Wolf Scout shut her up and let
instinct take over. I bit and ducked and lunged and jumped, not
because it was the way I was taught, but because it was the way I
was going to stay alive. I felt the teeth of others as they grabbed
onto me, but the pain didn’t stop me, and I was able to break their
hold before too much damage was done. In fact, I thought I was
doing a fairly marvelous job of taking on an entire wolf pack.
It was my overconfidence that kept me from
noticing the alpha of the pack had quit paying attention to Liam
and decided I needed to be dealt with. He slammed into my side,
catching me off-guard. I tried to dig my claws into the ground for
traction, but the melting snow left it too soft and muddy. He was
on me before I fully hit the ground. The last thing I saw before
his mouth clamped over my throat was Liam’s panicked grey eyes.
Chapter 21
The temperature at the lake was perfect, as
always.
“
What’s up, ketchup?” I
linked my arm with Alex’s and pulled him alongside me as I strolled
up the beach. “It’s been a while.”
His answer was a succinct “yes” that sounded
as flat as a nine year old girl’s chest.
That wasn’t right. Alex was always happy to
see me. It was the way this whole dream thing worked.
“
So, how is the afterlife
been treating you?” I asked, hoping to pull him out of his
funk.
“
Fine.”
No luck there. Maybe we needed a third party
to distract us.
“
Where is
Nicole?”
Alex nodded up ahead at the same moment a
little girl stepped out from behind a tree. Her hair was more red
than brown, but her grey eyes gave her away.
“
Oh wow,” I breathed. “Look
at you.”
She waited with her hand stretched out until
we got close enough for me to clasp it.
“
Hey, Scout,” she said, her
little hand tucked comfortably into mine.
“
Hey, you. What’s with the
girl suit?”
Her eyes flicked towards Alex’s. “I didn’t
want you to go away without ever getting to talk to you.”
“
Sweetie, I’m not going to
go away. I’ll always come back here to see you guys. It’s my very
favorite place to be.” I thought my words were of the reassuring
variety, but they just made Nicole frown harder. I glanced over my
shoulder and noticed Alex’s mood wasn’t faring any better. “I’m
missing something here, aren’t I?”
Alex took a deep breath through his nose.
“Maybe we should sit down,” he said, gesturing towards a patch of
grass.
A patch of grass I had never seen
before.
Here’s the thing about my little piece of
paradise by the lake - the scenery never changed. We stayed on the
same stretch of beach. Always. We would walk for hours and hours,
and always see the same fifty feet or so. It just kept looping over
and over. At this point I knew every square inch of land, and this
patch of grass was not part of it.
“
Where are we?” I asked.
“How did we get here?”
And then I remembered how I got there. I
remembered the growls and fur, the teeth and blood. I remembered my
throat being torn out.
My knees went rubbery, dumping me onto the
ground.
“
I’m dead.” Oh God. I
thought I was ready for this moment, but I was wrong. “I
died.”
A little hand touched my cheek. When I
raised my head, it was to meet Nicole’s calculating gaze. She had
her head cocked to one side, her eyes narrowed in
concentration.
“
Not yet,” she said.
“Close, but not quite there.”
“
I thought it would be the
Alphas. I thought I would die for a cause, for something
important.” My eyes stung, and I blinked back the tears threatening
to fall. “I was going to be a martyr, but ended up being just a
random victim.”
Nicole continued her intense assessment,
which was quickly becoming unsettling. Alex, however, didn’t leave
me to wallow in my misery alone. His arms wrapped around me in a
strong embrace as his warm lips pressed against my temple.
At least there was one upside to this being
dead thing.
“
I get to stay here with
you now, right?”
Alex leaned back so I could see his face.
There was no hint of a smile on his lips, the graveness from before
still etched in every line of his face. “Maybe. There are rules to
the afterlife, but mostly we get to choose for ourselves.”
Oh good. Cryptic Alex was back. “What kind
of choices?”
“
Lots,” he shrugged. “Right
now your most pressing one is whether or not to stay.”
I felt a bit like I was being ripped in two.
Here was comfortable. Here was safe and warm. Here was where Alex
was. But there was so much I still wanted to do in life. I wanted
to travel around, visit foreign lands and all that. I wanted to go
to college, learn stuff, and make a few bad decisions, like getting
a tattoo.
I wanted to see the Alphas overthrown.
And then there were all the people I would
leave behind. Angel. Jase. My parents. Talley. Charlie. Liam…
“
Liam!” My shout was so
abrupt and loud Nicole jumped back in shock. “Alex, Liam was there.
He was fighting, and he was hurt.” I looked around, half expecting
to see him walking up the shore to join us. “I don’t know if he’s
okay.” I grabbed onto Alex’s arm, my fingernails biting into his
skin. “Do you know? Do you know if he’s okay?”
If it was possible, Alex looked even
grimmer.
“
Alex, damn it, is Liam
okay?”
“
No.”
It was a good thing I was sitting.
Otherwise, I would have collapsed. It felt as if everything inside
of me had vanished, leaving a brittle shell, ready to crumble in
upon itself.
“
What’s happened to him?”
The image in my head kept flipping from a broken and battered Wolf
Liam to a broken and battered Human Liam. It occurred to me he
might be more than injured, but I quickly dismissed the idea. If
Liam was dead, he would be with us. With me. “Alex, please.
Please
. You have to tell
me.”
He slid his knuckles along my jaw. “He needs
you.”
“
So, that’s my choice? I
can die and stay here with you, or live and go back to
Liam?”
A stiff, slow nod.
“
I have to go.” I forced
the words out of my mouth, and even though I put all my strength
into it, they were little more than a whisper.
“
I know.”
“
I won’t get to come back
here again, will I?”
He replied with a small, heavyhearted shake
of his head.
I had said goodbye to him so many times
before, but it never got any easier. This time there was no melding
of mouths or wracking sobs. As I clung onto him, my arms latched so
tightly he would probably have bruises, I actually felt all the
emotions battering through my heart instead of the numb emptiness
which had accompanied his death. Maybe it was because this time the
leaving was my choice, or maybe it was because I was filled with
resolve and purpose. Whatever it was, my heart ached at the
knowledge I would never see him again, but I was able to appreciate
and be grateful for the time we had been given together.
“
I will miss you every
single day for the rest of my life, however long that may
be.”
His arms tightened around me. “You better
make sure it’s a long, long time.”
“
I did love you,” I
confessed into his chest. “I still do.”
“
And I have always and will
always love you.” He finally loosened his grip on me. When he
pulled back to meet my eyes I could see a hint of dimples
underneath the tears. “But you’re going to keep doing the living
thing, and I’m not.” A kiss against my brow. “You’ve got a big
heart, Scout. Don’t be stingy with it.”
Speaking of stingy… I pulled his face to
mine and gave him a real kiss. “Goodbye, Alex Cole.”
“
Goodbye, Scout
Donovan.”
“
Bye, Scout,” came the
small voice from around my hip. I knelt down and gathered her in my
arms.
“
I’m going to fight for
you, kid,” I said to the girl who should have been given the same
choice, the choice to go back and make things right. “I’m going to
make sure no more little girls have to come here too
soon.”
“
We’ve been waiting a long
time for you,” she said.
“
I won’t let you down.” It
was a promise; one I had every intention of keeping.
“
Okay,” I said standing up.
“Tell me how to go home.”
Alex’s smile was genuine, and I was glad
since it would be the last time I saw him. “All you have to do is
Change.”
At first I was confused, but then I was
staring up at him from a completely different angle. The pain came
about the same time the smell of blood hit my nose. I reached down
deep inside of myself, and began the process of making myself human
once more.
Chapter 22
The transformation from Wolf Scout to Human
Scout was long and arduous. There was no way to mark the time, but
I know I laid there for what seemed like an eternity, feeling my
body knit itself back together. Bones cracked. Skin ripped. Muscles
tore. It was the same song and dance as any other Change, but the
intensity had a whole new beat. It was like going from the Foxtrot
to the Salsa. When I finally came through it - human, alive, and
whole - I sent a silent prayer up to God, thanking him for the
miracle. And then, because He was obviously pleased with my
consideration, He let me pass out.
I didn’t fully wake up again until I was in
the bed, under a mountain of covers, but there was a hazy
recollection of being carried in a pair of strong, familiar
arms.
“
Do you ever get tired of
that?” I asked, although my mouth felt like it was full of
glue.
Liam’s face slowly came into focus. “Scout?
Are you okay?”
“
How many times have you
carried my unconscious body now? Three times? Four?” Talk about
your Damsel in Distress routine. I had it down pat. “It’s got to
get old after a while.”
He sat down beside me on the bed, his hands
sliding along my face and neck. “What I’m tired of is you almost
getting dead. I swear, I’m going to lock you in a padded room if
you don’t stop all this stupid, life-threatening crap.”
“
Irony, thy name is Liam,”
I said, sitting up. As the covers started to slide down I realized
I wasn’t wearing clothes. Luckily, Liam was on top the situation,
grabbing the sheet so my boobs stayed under wraps, although I
suppose it was kind of pointless since he had to have seen them
while he was carrying me back. Still, I was grateful for his quick
hands. It’s one thing to be exposed when you’re unconscious, and
something completely different and more embarrassing to be aware
someone can see you naked.
I took over the burden of holding up the
sheet, which allowed Liam to start waving a finger in front of my
face in slow motion.
“
Ummm… Whatcha
doin’?”
“
Testing for brain damage.”
His finger glided to the top of my nose and then pulled back. “Quit
looking at me like that and follow my finger with your
eyes.”
To anyone else, including
me a few months ago, his voice and abrupt manner would reek of
annoyance and anger, but I knew better. Just as I had learned to
read the tiny quirks of his face, I was now an expert in the
various gruff tones Liam used on a daily basis. This one didn’t
say, “
I can’t believe you’re such an idiot
and have inconvenienced me so,”
as much
as,
“You scared me to death you stupid,
stupid girl.”
Maybe a minor difference, but
an important one.