Moon Dance (26 page)

Patton hesitated.

“
Let us take you to the
place where his camp is,” said Dana. “Cole, we could find our way
back, couldn’t we?”

Cole sighed. “They’ve
probably cleared out by now. Enoch likes to stay on the move. He
wouldn’t be there anymore.”

“
But the women,” said Dana.
“They were in that basement. Maybe they’re still there.”

Cole shook his head. “No.
They wouldn’t be.”

Dana dragged her hands over
her face. They couldn’t prove where they’d been, could they? But
she’d never expected to be in a position in which she’d have to
prove it.

Patton spread her hands.
“I’m going to be honest with you, Ms. Gray. I’ve looked over your
past with Mr. Randall. It seems as though whenever he’s involved,
you’re more prone to violent incidents, incidents in which your
wolf rages out of control. Here’s what I think happened. I think
you met back up with him, and then you killed those missing campers
back in Pennsylvania.”

“
What?” Dana’s stomach
turned over. How could this woman know that?

“
It’s only a theory,” said
Patton. “The bodies haven’t been found. At any rate, after that had
been done, I think you wanted to run. I think you knew that this
would be the last straw for your career. You used the attack out
west to manipulate King into pardoning Randall, and then the two of
you ran off. But there was another incident, wasn’t there? Because
when you’re with him, you can’t control yourself. Maybe he makes
you do it, even. Maybe it’s that wolf bond you talk about. Maybe he
makes you kill for him. I don’t know. I do know that you’re
responsible for the deaths of two men out here.”

Dana was shaking her head.
She felt angry and frightened all at the same time. How could this
woman be saying these things? “It was self defense.”

“
By your own admission, you
shifted into a wolf with the intention of killing those men. Is
that not true?”

“
I had to. They were going
to kill me. I thought they’d already killed Cole.”

“
That’s murder, Ms. Gray.
You’re a murderer. And werewolf murderers never go free. So, you’re
going to be locked up here for the rest of your life.”

Dana felt alternately warm
all over, then ice cold. “Well, okay, fine. Maybe I do deserve
that.” Patton was sort of right about the campers, after all, and
that was inexcusable. “But you have to believe us about Enoch,
because he’s not going to stop.”

“
Ms. Gray—”

“
No, she’s right,”
said Cole. “He’s on a mission. He wants to rid the world of the SF.
He thinks that your organization is oppressive, and that wolves
need to be free to prey on whatever they choose to prey on,
including humans. I know this, because it used to be
my
mission. That’s why I
tried to create a pack years ago.”

Patton looked at him. “But
now you’ve changed?”

“
Yeah, I have.”

“
What changed
you?”

“
I told you. Dana and I have
really great sex.”

Patton rolled her eyes.
“You’re toying with me. You’re both toying with me.”

“
No,” said Dana. “No, Enoch
is a serious threat. You have to pay attention—”

“
I’m going to make sure the
two of you never get out. You are going to be locked up forever,”
said Patton.

Cole massaged the bridge of
his nose. “Yeah, I’ve never heard that one before.”

But Dana felt horrified.
“What about my daughter? Who’s going to find my
daughter?”

“
Frankly, you should have
thought of that before you abandoned your child for Cole Randall,”
said Patton.

* * *

They locked Dana and Cole
both up after that
—each in separate cells.
And then Dana was alone.

Her cell was tiny, and there
was nothing there to do. They brought her food once a day, but
never more often. She tried to get Lenny to speak to her a few
times, but he wouldn’t. She tried to find out what was happening as
a result of the attacks, but she couldn’t get any
information.

Instead, every day was a long stretch
of intense loneliness and sheer boredom.

Dana felt tortured by her
thoughts.

She went back and forth.

This was her fault. She’d
brought this all on herself.

This wasn’t fair. She’d had
to kill those men to save herself. She and Cole weren’t lying. She
didn’t deserve to be locked up.

By the fifth day, she
started talking to herself. She didn’t have anyone else to speak
to, and she was losing her mind with boredom. She’d never realized
how long a day could be, how the hours could stretch into nothing
when she was alone with nothing to do. It was torture, worse that
any pain she’d ever felt, worse than the wolf bond, worse than
Cole’s claws in her belly.

By the tenth day, she was fairly
certain that she was going crazy.

She was hearing things. Sounds outside
the cell. Yells and screams.

It was her own brain playing
tricks on her, making the noises she felt deep down but was keeping
inside. But if she kept hearing them, she was going to have trouble
stopping herself. Then she’d really be a raving lunatic, screaming
away at herself in her cell all alone.

She couldn’t believe it only
took ten days to get this bad. She couldn’t believe that she hadn’t
been able to squelch this, to keep her sanity.

Rocking on the floor, her
arms wrapped around her knees, she thought of Piper, and she wished
like hell she could have done something different.

I never should have left
you, baby
, she thought.
I never should have left you.

The door to her cell opened.

What? She stood up.

Cole was standing there. His
jumpsuit was unzipped and there was blood on his face. He had the
beginnings of a beard again—but nothing quite as long as it had
been before. Blood was clinging to the hair on his chin. He was
grinning. His teeth were red. “Come on, Dana. We’re
leaving.”

She stumbled forward. Was
she hallucinating now? Had she gone
that
crazy?

But she was able to walk into the
hallway.

And she saw that they were all dead.
Lenny, Jim, and the woman who sometimes brought her
food.

Their bodies were strewn
over the floor—bloody and ripped.

“
What did you do?” said
Dana.

“
Well,” Cole, slinging an
arm over her shoulder, “I waited until I was stronger, and then
waited for the right moment, and that moment happened
today.”

She would have shook off his
touch, but she was so glad of any kind of human contact that she
let him keep his arm around her.

“
When Mabel over there was
sliding my food in, her arm came into the cell. And I grabbed it.
And then I started breaking her fingers until she opened the door.
She yelled for help, of course, but that just meant that it was
easier for me to get at them. I shifted, and then I killed them.
And now we go.”

She peered down at Lenny’s
body. He lay on his side. His neck was ripped and shredded. There
was blood spattered against the wall behind him. Dana was struck by
his lifelessness. He’d been alive the last time she’d seen him,
walking around and talking. But now he was dead, and whatever spark
that had existed in him was extinguished. Cole had stolen that from
Lenny. Lenny was dead. Over. Ended. Done.

Why was it so easy to do
that to human bodies? Why were they so fragile and
vulnerable?

She shut her eyes. “I liked
Lenny. He was decent to you. He saved your life.”

Cole zipped up his jumpsuit.
“Well, that was his mistake.”

She shoved him. “You’re
awful.”

He raised his eyebrows.
“Seriously? I just got us free, Dana.”

She put her hands over her mouth. It
was all too horrible.

His arm was around her
again. “Let’s go.”

She let him lead her. They
made their way out of the prison. When they got outside, it was
raining. The sky was gray overhead, spitting angry raindrops down
on their heads.

Cole took her by the arm and tugged her
through the rain.

There were cars parked
behind the building. Cole had taken keys off of the bodies. He
matched the keys to one of the cars and threw her inside. He
climbed in after her and shut the door.

The rain pelted the roof—a
haphazard drum beat.

Cole started the car. “I was
a little worried that Patton and her goons might still be here, but
they seem to have jumped ship. Good thing, too. I might not have
been able to handle all of them at once.”

Dana looked at him. He was still
covered in blood.

Cole began to back the car
up. “I heard you in your cell, you know. Talking to
yourself.”

“
You heard me?”

“
I tried to talk to you, but
you wouldn’t key in with your wolf hearing.”

Right. She’d forgotten she
could do that.

“
Dana.” Cole’s voice
lowered. “You were losing it. I could hear you losing it. I
couldn’t let that happen to you.”

She tugged on her seatbelt. She felt
numb.

“
You’re just not good at
it,” he said. “When I was a kid, Jimmy used to lock me up in those
punishment rooms. I figured how to deal with the loneliness and the
boredom. But you… you were cracking.”

She didn’t say
anything.

“
Look, you don’t belong in a
place like this. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

Her throat felt tight. “I
killed those campers, Cole.”

“
I told you not to think
about that anymore.”

“
It’s my fault that Avery
died.”

“
It isn’t your fault,” he
said. “Don’t blame yourself for this shit. Let it go.”

“
Oh, is that what you do?
Let everything go?”

“
No, not really. It doesn’t
bother me like it bothers you. I have to work to feel bothered by
it.”

“
Shut up, Cole.” She gritted
her teeth. “You disgust me.”

Cole glared at her. The
blood on his face made him look like a monster. “I’m never going to
figure out how to please you, am I?”

CHAPTER
FIFTEEN

Cole drove. The only sound was the slap
of the windshield wipers flicking away the rain. Sometimes, he
thought Dana was the most confusing being on the entire
planet.

She wasn’t speaking to
him.

He tried to talk to her
about where they should go, but she was mute. So, he was driving
aimlessly, sticking to back roads, driving through the country. It
was better than being in the cell, but not by much, honestly, if
Dana wasn’t talking to him.

They were out in the middle
of nowhere. It had been nearly an hour since Cole had seen a house
or a sign of civilization. Everything was woods and fields and
rain. The car’d had a full tank of gas when he took it, but it
wouldn’t last forever. They needed fuel, and they needed money
too.

“
Stop the car,” said Dana
suddenly.

“
What?” he said.

“
Stop the car. I want to get
out.”

“
No,” he said. “I’m not
letting you out here. There’s nothing here. Where are you going to
go?”

“
I don’t know. I just don’t
want to be near you.”

He rolled his eyes. “Come
on, Dana, you and I both know that’s not true.”

“
Isn’t it?” She reached over
and grabbed onto the steering wheel.

The car skittered across the
road.

Cole slammed on the brakes.
“Jesus, what are you doing?”

She threw the door open and leaped out
of the car. She went running off into the rain.

“
Fuck.” Cole pulled the car
onto the meager shoulder and went after her. “Dana!”

She was running, but she
wasn’t going so fast that he couldn’t catch up. He sprinted. “Dana,
wait!” He picked up the pace even more.

And then he caught up to
her.

He tackled her, and they both went down
on the slick, wet grass.

She struggled beneath him.
“Let go of me, Cole.”

“
No.” He turned her over,
pinning her to the ground. “What the hell?”

“
You ruined my life,” she
spit at him.

The rain had soaked her. Her hair was
sopping wet, and the jumpsuit she wore clung to her
body.

Cole suddenly realized that their
bodies were very close.

“
If it weren’t for you, none
of this would have happened. I lost everything, Cole. I lost my
job, my husband, my daughter. I have nothing. And we’re fucking
fugitives now, you asshole. I can’t get any of it back.”