Shiver Trilogy (Shiver, Linger, Forever) (25 page)

Sam had never been late before. He had always been waiting in the Bronco by the time I got out of class, so I’d never had to wonder where he might be or what to do while I waited.

But today I waited.

Today I waited until the students loaded onto the buses. I waited until the lingering students headed out to their cars and disappeared in ones and twos. I waited until the teachers emerged from the school and climbed into their cars. I thought about taking my homework out. I thought about the sun creeping down toward the tree line and I wondered how cold it was in the shade.

“Your ride late, Grace?” Mr. Rink asked kindly, on his way out. He had changed shirts since class and smelled vaguely like cologne.

I must’ve looked lost, sitting on the brick edge of the little mulched area in front of the school, hugging my backpack in my lap. “A little.”

“Do you need me to call someone?”

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the Bronco pull into the lot, and I allowed myself a long breath. I smiled at Mr. Rink. “Nope. They just showed up.”

“Good thing, too,” he said. “It’s supposed to get really cold later. Snow!”

“Yippee,” I said sourly, and he laughed and waved as he walked out to his car. I yanked my backpack onto my shoulder and hurried out to the Bronco. Pulling open the passenger-side door, I jumped in.

It was only a second after I’d shut the door that I realized that the smell was all wrong. I lifted my eyes to the driver and crossed my arms over my chest, trembling.

“Where’s Sam?”

“You mean the guy who’s supposed to be sitting here,” Jack said.

Even though I’d seen his eyes peering out of a wolf’s body, even though I’d heard Isabel say she’d seen him, even though we’d known he was alive for weeks, I wasn’t prepared for seeing Jack in the flesh. His curly black hair, longer than when I’d last seen him in the halls, his darting hazel eyes, his hands clinging to the steering wheel. Real. Alive. My heart kicked in my chest.

Jack’s eyes were on the road as he tore out of the parking lot. I imagined he thought I wouldn’t try to get away if the Bronco was moving, but he didn’t have to worry. I was fixed in place by the unknown: Where was Sam?

“Yes, I mean the guy who’s supposed to be sitting there.” My voice came out as a snarl. “Where is he?”

Jack glanced over at me; he was nervy, shaking. What was the word Sam had used to describe new wolves? Unstable? “I’m not trying to be the bad guy here, Grace. But I need answers, and soon, or I’m going to get bad really fast.”

“You’re driving like an idiot. If you don’t want to get pulled over by the cops, you’d better slow down. Where are we going?”

“I don’t know. You tell me. I want to know how to stop this and I want to know
now
because it’s getting worse.”

I didn’t know whether he meant it was getting worse as the weather got colder, or worse right this second. “I’m not telling you anything until you take me to wherever Sam is.” Jack didn’t answer. I said, “I’m not playing around. Where is he?”

Jack jerked his head toward me. “I don’t think you get it. I’m the one driving and I’m the one who knows where he is and I’m the one who can
rip your head off
if I change, so it seems to me you’re the one who ought to start pissing herself and telling me what I want to know.”

His hands were clamped on the steering wheel, bracing arms that were shuddering. God, he was going to change soon. I had to think of something to get him off the road.

“What do you want to know?”

“How to stop it. I know you know the cure. I know you were bitten.”

“Jack, I don’t know how to stop it. I can’t cure you.”

“Yeah, I thought you’d say that. That’s why I bit your stupid friend. Because if you won’t fight to cure me, I know you’ll do it for her. I just had to make sure she was really going to change.”

The staggering sense of it stole my breath; I could barely get my voice out. “You bit Olivia?”

“Are you an idiot? I just said that. So now you’d better start talking because I’m going to
ahh
.” Jack’s neck jerked, wrenching awkwardly. My wolf senses screamed
danger fear terror anger
at me, emotions rolling off him in waves.

I reached out and spun the heating dial up. I didn’t know how much of a difference it would make, but it couldn’t hurt.

“It’s the cold. The cold changes you to a wolf and the heat stops it.” I was talking quickly, trying to keep him from getting a word in, trying to keep him from getting any angrier. “It’s worse when you first get bitten. You change back and forth all the time, but it gets more stable. You get to be human for longer — you’ll get the whole summer —” Jack’s arms spasmed again, and the car fishtailed in the gravel of the shoulder before tracking back onto the road. “You can’t be driving right now! Please. I’m not going to run away or whatever — I want to help you, really I do. But you’ve got to take me to Sam.”

“Shut up.” Jack’s voice was part growl. “That bitch said she wanted to help me, too. I’m done with that. She told me you were bitten and that you didn’t change. I followed you. It was cold. You didn’t change. So what is it? Olivia said she didn’t know.”

My skin was burning from the blasting heater and the force of his emotion. Every time he said
Olivia
it was like a punch in the gut. “She
doesn’t
know. I was bitten, she was right. But I never changed, not even once. I don’t have a cure. I just didn’t change. I don’t know why, nobody knows why. Please —”

“Stop lying to me.”
It was hard to understand him now. “I want the truth
now
or you’re going to get hurt.”

I closed my eyes. I felt like I had lost my balance and the whole world was spinning away from me. There had to be something I could say to him that would make this better. I opened my eyes. “Fine. Okay. There’s a cure. But there’s not enough of it for everyone, so nobody wanted to tell you about it.” I winced as he smacked the steering wheel with dark-nailed fingers. My mind’s eye whirled away from the alien reality to an image of the nurse sliding the syringe with the rabies shot into Sam’s skin. “It’s a vaccination, sort of, it goes right in your veins. But it hurts. A lot. Are you sure you want it?”

“This hurts,”
snarled Jack.

“Fine. If I take you to where it is, will you tell me where Sam is?”

“Whatever! Tell me where to go. So help me God, if you’re lying, I’ll kill you.”

I gave him directions to Beck’s and prayed he’d make it that far. I retrieved my phone from my backpack.

The Bronco swerved as Jack’s attention focused on me. “What are you doing?”

“I’m calling Beck. He’s the guy with the cure. I have to tell him not to give the last of it away before we get there. Is that all right?”

“You seriously had better not be lying to me …”

“Look. This is the number I’m dialing. Not the police.” Beck’s number came back to me; I was better at numbers than words. It began to ring.
Pick up. Pick up. Let this be the right decision.

“Hello?”

I recognized the voice. “Hi. Beck, this is Grace.”

Grace? Sorry, your voice sounds familiar, “but I —”

I talked over the top of him. “Do you still have some of the stuff? The cure? Please tell me you didn’t use the last of it.”

Beck was silent.

I pretended like he’d answered. “Thank goodness. Look. Jack Culpeper has me in the car. He has Sam somewhere and he won’t tell me where he is unless he gets some of the cure. We’re, like, ten minutes away.”

Beck said, very softly, “Damn.”

For some reason, that made my chest shake; it took me a moment to realize it was a swallowed sob. “Yes. So will you be there?”

“Yes. Of course. Grace — you still there? Can he hear me?”

“No.”

“Be confident, okay? Try not to be afraid. Don’t look him in the eyes, but be assertive. We’ll be waiting at the house. Get him inside. I can’t come out or I’ll change and then we’re all screwed.”

“What’s he saying?” Jack demanded.

“He’s telling me what door you should come in when you get there. To get you in the fastest, so you won’t change. He can’t use the cure on you if you’re a wolf.”

“Good girl,” Beck said.

For some reason, Beck’s unexpected kindness was hard to bear — it made tears prick my eyes where Jack’s threats hadn’t.

“We’ll be there soon.” I snapped the phone shut and looked at Jack. Not right at his eyes, but at the side of his head. “Pull
straight into the driveway and they’ll have the front door unlocked.”

“How do I know I can trust you?”

I shrugged. “It’s like you said. You know where Sam is. Nothing’s going to happen to you, because we have to know where he is.”

Cold clung to my skin. Earthy darkness pressed against my eyes, so heavy that I blinked to clear it from my irises. When I did, I saw a dull white rectangle in front of me — the crack of a door. Without any other shapes to gauge by, I couldn’t tell if it was desperately close or horribly far away. Smells crowded around me, dusty, organic, chemical. My breathing was loud in my ears, so wherever I was had to be small. A tool shed? A crawl space?

Crap. It was
cold
. Not cold enough for me to change, not yet. But it would be soon. I was lying down — why was I lying down? I staggered to my feet and bit my lip, hard, to keep from gasping aloud. There was something wrong with my ankle. I tried it again, carefully, a fragile fawn on new legs, and it gave underneath me. I crashed sideways, arms wheeling, feeling for some kind of support. My palms raked across a legion of spiked instruments of torture hung on the walls. I had no idea what they were — cold, metallic, dirty.

For a moment I stayed on all fours, listening to my breathing, feeling blood well on my palms, and thinking about giving
up. I was so tired of fighting. It felt like I’d been fighting for weeks.

Finally, I pulled myself back up and limped to the door, arms stretched out in front of me to protect my unarmored body from more surprises. Icy air seeped in through the crack in the door. Trickled into my body like water. I reached for a handle, but there was nothing but ragged wood. A splinter stuck into my fingers and I swore, very quietly. Then I leaned my shoulder into the door and pushed, thinking,
Please open please if there’s any justice in this world.

Nothing.

I picked up my backpack. “This is it.”

It seemed stupid, somehow, for Beck’s house to look exactly the same as when Sam had brought me here to walk me to the golden wood, because the circumstances were so wildly different, but it did. The only difference was Beck’s hulking SUV in the driveway.

Jack was already pulling to the side of the road. He took the keys out of the ignition and looked at me, eyes wary. “Get out after I do.” I did as he said, waiting for him to come around and pull the door open. I slid out of the seat and he grabbed my arm tightly. His shoulders were thrust too far together and his mouth hung slightly open — I don’t think he even noticed. I guess I should’ve worried about him attacking me, but all I could think was
He’s going to change and we won’t know where Sam is until too late
.

I prayed Sam was somewhere warm, somewhere out of winter’s reach.

“Hurry up,” I said, tugging my arm against Jack’s grip, almost jogging toward the front door. “We don’t have any time.”

Jack tried the front door; it was unlocked, as promised, and he shoved me in first before slamming the door behind us. My nose caught a brief hint of rosemary in the air — someone had been cooking, and for some reason, I remembered Sam’s anecdote about cooking the steaks for Beck — and then I heard a shout and a snarl from behind me.

Both sounds came from Jack. This wasn’t the silent struggle of Sam trying to stay human that I’d seen before. This was violent, angry, loud. Jack’s lips tore into a snarl and then his face ripped into a muzzle, his skin changing color in an instant. He reached for me as if to hit me, but his hands buckled into paws, nails hard and dark. His skin bulged and shimmered for a moment before each radical change, like a placenta covering a terrifying, feral infant.

I stared at the shirt that hung around the wolf’s midsection. I couldn’t look away. It was the only detail that could convince my mind that this animal really had just been Jack.

This Jack was as angry as he had been in the car, but now his anger had no direction, no human control. His lips pulled back from his teeth and formed a snarl, but no sound appeared.

“Stand back!”

A man tore into the hall, surprisingly agile given his height, and ran directly at Jack. Jack, off guard, crouched down defensively, and the man landed on the wolf with all his weight.

“Get down!” snarled the man, and I flinched before I realized that he was talking to the wolf. “Stay down. This is
my
house. You are
nothing
here.” He had a hand around Jack’s muzzle and was shouting right into his face. Jack whistled through
his clenched jaw, and Beck forced his head to the ground. Beck’s eyes flitted up at me, and though he was holding a huge wolf to the ground with one hand, his voice was perfectly level. “Grace? Can you help?”

I’d been standing perfectly still, watching. “Yes.”

“Grab the edge of the rug he’s sitting on. We’re going to drag him to the bathroom. It’s —”

“I know where it is.”

“Good. Let’s go. I’ll try to help, but I have to keep my weight on him.”

Together, we pulled Jack down the hall and to the bathroom where I’d forced Sam into the bathtub. Beck, half on the rug and half off, got behind Jack and shoved him into the room, and I kicked the rest of the rug in after him. Beck leaped back and slammed the door, locking it. The doorknob had been reversed so that the lock was on the outside, making me wonder how often this sort of thing had happened before.

Beck heaved a deep breath, which seemed like an under-statement, and looked at me. “Are you all right? Did he bite you?”

I shook my head, miserable. “That doesn’t matter, anyway. How are we going to find Sam now?”

Beck jerked his head for me to follow him into the rosemary-scented kitchen. I did, looking up warily when I saw another person sitting on the counter. I wouldn’t have been able to describe him as anything other than
dark
if anyone had asked me later. He was just dark and still and silent, and smelled of wolf. He had new-looking scars on his hands; it had to be Paul. He didn’t say anything, and Beck didn’t say anything to him as Beck leaned against the counter and picked up a cell phone.

He punched in a number and put it on speakerphone. He looked at me. “How angry is he with me? Did he get rid of his cell phone?”

“I don’t think so. I didn’t know the number.”

Beck stared at the phone and we listened to it ring, small and distant.
Please pick up.
My heart was skipping uncontrollably. I leaned on the kitchen island and looked at Beck, at the square set of his shoulders, the square set of his jaw, the square line of eyebrows. Everything about him looked safe, honest, secure. I wanted to trust him. I wanted to believe that nothing bad could happen because Beck wasn’t panicking.

There was a crackle at the other end of the line.

“Sam?” Beck leaned close into the phone.

The voice was badly broken up. “Gr — t? … you?”

“It’s Beck. Where are you?”

“— ack. Grace … Jack to — … co.” The only thing I could understand was his distress. I wanted to be there, wherever he was.

“Grace is here,” Beck said. “It’s under control. Where are you? Are you safe?”

“Cold.”

The one word came through, terribly clear. I pushed off from the island. Standing still didn’t seem to be an option.

Beck’s voice was still even. “You aren’t coming through very well. Try again. Tell me where you are. Clearly as you can.”

“Tell Grace … call I — bel … in … shed some … re. I heard … ago.”

I came back to the counter, leaned over the island. “You want me to call Isabel. You’re in a shed on their property? She’s there?”

“— es.” Sam’s voice was emphatic. “Grace?”

“What?”

“— ove you.”

“Don’t say that,” I said. “We’re getting you out.”

“Hur —”

He hung up.

Beck’s eyes flicked to me, and in them, I could see all the concern that his voice didn’t reveal. “Who’s Isabel?”

“Jack’s sister.” It seemed to take too long to pull off my backpack and get my cell phone out of one of the pockets. “Sam must be trapped somewhere on their property. In a shed, or something. If I get Isabel on the phone, maybe she can find him. If not, I’m going now.”

Paul looked at the window, at the dying sun, and I knew he was thinking that I didn’t have enough time to get to the Culpepers’ before the temperature dropped. No point thinking about that. I found Isabel’s number from when she’d called me before and hit
SEND
.

It rang twice. “Yeah.”

“Isabel, it’s Grace.”

“I’m not an idiot. I saw your number.”

I wanted to reach through the phone and strangle her. “Isabel, Jack’s locked up Sam somewhere near your house.” I cut off the beginning of her question. “I don’t know why. But Sam’s going to change if it gets much colder, and wherever he is, he’s trapped. Please tell me you’re at your house.”

“Yeah. I just got here. I’m in the house. I didn’t hear any commotion or anything.”

“Do you have a shed or something?”

Isabel made an irritated noise. “We have six outbuildings.”

“He has to be in one of them. He called from inside a shed. If the sun gets down behind the trees, it’s going to get cold in, like, two seconds.”

“I get it!” snapped Isabel. There were rustling sounds. “I’m getting my coat on. I’m going outside. Can you hear me? Now I’m outside. I’m freezing my ass off for you. I’m walking across the yard. I’m walking across the part of the grass my dog used to pee on before my damned brother
ate her
.”

Paul smiled faintly.

“Can you hurry it up?” I demanded.

“I’m jogging to the first shed. I’m calling his name. Sam! Sam! Are you in there? I don’t hear anything. If he’s turned into a wolf in one of these sheds and I let him out and he rips my face off, I’m having my family sue you.”

I heard a dim, faint crack. “Hell. This door is stuck.” Another crack. “Sam? Wolf-boy? You in here? Nothing in the lawn mower shed. Where is Jack, anyway, if he did this?”

“Here. He’s fine for now. Do you hear anything?”

“I doubt he’s really fine. He’s seriously screwed up, Grace. In the head, I mean. And no, I’d tell you if I heard something. I’m going to the next one.”

Paul rested the back of his hand on the glass of the window over the sink and winced. He was right. It was getting too cold.

“Call Sam back,” I begged Beck. “Tell him to shout so she can hear him.”

Beck picked up his phone, punched a button, and held it to his ear.

Isabel sounded a little out of breath. “I’m at the next one. Sam! You in there? Dude?” There was a nearly inaudible squeak as the door opened. A pause. “Unless he’s turned into a bicycle, he’s not in here, either.”

“How many more of them are there?” I wanted to be there at the Culpepers’ instead of Isabel. I’d be faster than she was. I’d be screaming my lungs out to find him.

“I told you. Four more. Only two more close. The others are way out in the field behind the house. They’re barns.”

“He has to be in one of the close ones. He said it was a shed.” I looked at Beck, who had his phone up to his ear still. He looked back at me, shook his head. No answer.
Sam, why aren’t you picking up?

“I’m at the garden shed. Sam! Sam, it’s Isabel, if you’re a wolf in there, don’t rip my face off.” I could hear her breathing into the phone. “The door’s stuck like the other one. I’m kicking it with my expensive shoe and it’s pissing me off.”

Beck slammed his phone down on the counter and turned away from Paul and me. He linked his arms behind his head. The motion was so
Sam
that it pierced me.

“I’ve got it open. It stinks. There’s crap every where. There’s nothing — oh.” She broke off, and her breathing came through the phone, heavier than before.

“What?
What?
”

“Wait a sec — shut up — I’m taking my coat off. He’s here, okay? Sam. Sam, look at me. Sam, I said, look at me, you bastard, you’re not turning into a wolf right now. Don’t you dare do this to her.”

I sank slowly down beside the counter, cupping the phone against my head. Paul’s face didn’t change; he just watched me, still, quiet, dark, wolf.

I heard a smacking sound and a softly breathed swearword, then wind roaring across the speaker. “I’m getting him inside. Thank God my parents aren’t home tonight. I’ll call you in a few minutes. I need both my hands now.”

The phone went silent in my hands. I looked up at Paul, who was still watching me, wondering what I should say to him, but I felt like he already knew.