Authors: Naomi Clark
“
Come on,” Shannon said,
taking my hand and leading me downstairs. “We’re not getting
anything done here.”
Tina peered round the kitchen door as we
entered the hall. “Well?” Shannon shook her head. I just grunted.
Tina’s shoulders slumped. “I knew she wouldn’t say anything. Alpha
Humans will be bashing in our door and killing us in our sleep
before she says anything.”
“
Call the police,” Shannon
advised her as she opened the door. I ground my teeth at the
graffiti, the nasty paintwork dull in the dying afternoon light.
“It can’t hurt, Tina.”
It was her turn to grunt. “It can’t help
either.”
***
“We’re watching you.” Shannon said it as if tasting the words. She
frowned at me. “What do you think?”
We were stuck in traffic on the way home;
dusk falling around us, a solid line of cars in front of us. I
fiddled with the radio, trying to find something other than sports
to listen to. “I think Molly needs a good slap,” I muttered, not
meaning it.
“
What do you really think?”
Shannon asked, grabbing my hand to pry it away from the radio.
“Leave the news on.”
I leaned back in my seat, listening to the
news while I thought about my reply. The newsreader was droning on
about the weather in Scotland, her tone monotonous and dry. “I’m
scared for her,” I said finally. “What if Tina was right and it is
the same gang that went after Adam?”
“
It can’t be.”
“
It could be,
though.”
“
No.” Shannon shook her
head. “You said it yourself—it’s something to do with Silver Kiss.
Molly had to be getting hers from Sly. If she would just talk to
us…” She bit her lip in frustration. “We could get Eddie off our
backs.”
I nodded, trying not to picture Molly
bloodied and broken, like Adam. It was impossible. “I don’t know
what to do,” I confessed, misery crawling through me. Shannon shook
her head again. I suppose she didn’t know either.
We crept along in silence after that, the
traffic moving slowly through the city. In the growing dark, in the
hot, close interior of the car, I felt trapped. Caught between
loyalty to the Pack and fear for myself and my mate.
Needing to do something, I reached for the
radio again, just as the newsreader dropped a bombshell in her
robotic voice.
“…
to recap our top story,
the dead werewolf found yesterday morning in Moreland Park has been
identified as fifteen-year-old Seth Walters. A post-mortem showed
Walters died of internal injuries with large traces of narcotics in
his system. Police are keen to question—”
I flipped the radio off, blood rushing to my
face in a hot swell. “Shit.”
“
Oh God,” Shannon said.
“Poor kid.”
I pressed my hands to my face. There was no
reason to think it was the wolf I’d seen with Sly the first night
I’d met him. No reason in the world except the sick lurch in my gut
and the burning in my head. “I saw him,” I whispered.
Shannon slammed on the handbrake as we hit a
red light. “What?”
“
The night I saw Sly, I saw
that cub, I’m sure. I’m sure it was him.”
“
Did you know him? Had you
seen him before?”
“
No, but I’m sure. It was
Seth Walters.” I gripped my knees, digging my nails in through my
jeans to my flesh. “I just know it.”
“
Animal instinct?” There
was no bite in her voice, just concern. I looked up at
her.
“
We have to go back to
Molly.”
“
Ayla, you don’t know that
this kid is the same one you saw. And even if it is—”
“
Narcotics, Shannon. You
heard!” I pointed at the radio. “He was found with narcotics in his
system. We have to go back to Molly. She knows what’s going on and
we have to make her tell us.” My vision slipped, the world turning
sepia as my wolf clawed to the surface.
“
Okay,” Shannon said.
“Okay, calm down. We can’t go rushing in without the facts and
start bullying her. We’ll go home—”
“
No. We’re going back now.
Turn around.” I slapped my hand down on the dashboard hard enough
to rattle the rearview mirror. “Now, Shannon.”
She stared at me, wetting
her lips, eyes wide. I was scaring her. I couldn’t help it. I was
so
sure
. So sure
I’d seen Seth Walters that night and let him run off, Sly on his
tail, without giving him another thought. And now he was dead.
“Turn around,” I said again, closing my eyes and breathing deeply.
When I opened them again, color had returned and Shannon was
looking for a place to turn the car around.
***
Tina looked surprised to see us again, but didn’t say anything when
I barged past and ran up to Molly’s room, Shannon hot on my
heels.
“
Ayla, calm down!” She
grabbed the back of my jacket, jerking me to a halt on the landing.
“Do you really think Molly will talk to you when you’re like
this?”
She was right. I forced myself to stop for a
second and compose myself. Or I tried to. The landing was in
darkness, the only light coming from a street lamp outside, seeping
in through drawn curtains. In the darkness it was harder to think
human. Night was the wolf’s realm and she was panicked and
angry.
I swallowed it down, pushed her back and
knocked on Molly’s bedroom door. There was no answer, but I went in
anyway, flipping on the light. Molly hadn’t moved since we left
about an hour earlier. She was still curled up under her duvet,
face screwed up against the sudden invasion of light.
“
What?” she mumbled,
sitting up and rubbing her bleary eyes. “What d’you want
now?”
“
Did you know Seth
Walters?” I demanded, my wolf springing right back into my throat
again.
Shannon pushed in front of me, shooting me a
warning look. “Molly, we need your help,” she said, kneeling down
to get on eye level with the girl. “You’re the only person who can
help us.”
Molly had paled at Seth’s name,
unmistakably. I itched to leap in and demand answers, but I held
myself back, restraining myself with all the control I could
muster. Shannon was better at this than me. Much better.
Molly stared at the carpet, then the
ceiling. For a second I thought she’d just tell us to get lost and
I didn’t know if my nerves could take that.
“
Molly, you’re not in
trouble and you’re not in danger,” Shannon said. “Nobody’s going to
hurt you for talking to us.”
“
I know Seth,” she said,
tossing her hair. “So what?” Still trying for bravado.
“
Seth is dead,” I said
bluntly. I couldn’t help myself. Molly flinched again, thin
shoulders shaking.
“
No. No way.
No.”
Shannon reached for her, closing her hand
over Molly’s. “Molly, is it something to do with Silver Kiss? With
Sly?”
She flinched, telling us far more with that
single reaction than any words could have. Her lips trembled and
her eyes sparkled with tears.
Shannon brushed her cheek, sweeping lank
hair away from her face. “Tell us, sweetie,” she coaxed.
“
Oh God. Oh God, I didn’t
think I was going to get out,” Molly said. She sat up suddenly,
shoving the duvet aside. “I wasn’t going to say anything, coz I
just want to forget it all, yeah? But Seth… If Seth is dead…” She
trailed off, wiping her eyes and her nose on her pajama
sleeve.
I bit my tongue; not wanting to scare her
off now she was about to tell us what had happened. I just nodded,
hoping Tina wouldn’t barge in and send Molly back into silence.
“
Don’t be afraid to tell
us, Molly,” Shannon said when Molly didn’t say anything else.
“Anything you tell us is confidential—nobody else ever has to
know.”
“
No, but that’s the point.
If Seth is dead, other people have to know, don’t they? But I don’t
want Sly to know. That I told you, I mean,” Molly added, face
flushed with fear. “I don’t want him coming after me
again.”
“
Sly will never know we
spoke to you,” Shannon promised. “Go on, Molly. When you’re ready.”
She squeezed the girl’s hand and Molly squeezed back. A little too
hard judging from Shannon’s expression.
“
Well, it’s because of the
Silky, yeah?” Molly began in a rush, like she couldn’t stop the
words now she’d started. “I mean it’s good. I’m not lying, I’d kill
for some right now, except I don’t ever want any again because of
how much it messes you up. But I miss it. I really miss it. And
Sly’s the only one who sells the wolf cut, right? So we all have to
go to him and if he says he’s not giving us any, there’s nothing we
can do. And this one time, I was desperate, yeah? It’d been like
almost a week and I really, really needed some, so I found Sly and
I told him I’d do anything, pay anything, and he said…” She
stuttered, wiping tears from her eyes. Shannon shifted position to
wrap her arm around Molly, hugging her.
“
Take your time,” she
said.
“
I’m alright. I just …”
Molly shrugged, took a deep breath and started again. “So Sly says,
come with me and I’ll fix you up. So I go with him and he takes me
off to this place in the middle of nowhere and he says that’s where
all his supplies are and if I want some, I’ll have to do a job for
him.”
“
What kind of job?” I
asked, stomach churning. I couldn’t think of many jobs an adult
wolf might have for a fourteen-year-old cub.
Molly dropped her gaze, cheeks blazing red.
“I don’t want Mum to know,” she whispered, staring at a pile of
t-shirts in the corner. “I don’t ever want Mum to know.”
“
Molly,” Shannon said
gently, taking her hand again. “Did he—”
Molly’s head shot up again. “What, rape me?”
she asked. Shannon and I both jumped at the word. Hearing Molly say
it so bluntly was just so wrong. “No, he never did that.” She
looked down again. “He made us fight.”
“
He made you fight,” I
repeated slowly. “For drugs?” I thought of Oscar and his
hair-trigger temper, so quickly switching between pleading with me
and attacking me.
“
Yeah. He’d get us all high
on Silky and then make us fight. People came and watched, you know,
betting on it.” Molly ran her nails up and down her arms as if she
could scratch away the memory. “I was one of the smallest, so I
never won.”
“
Betting.” Cold fury filled
Shannon’s voice. “He was taking bets on werewolf fights? My
God.”
“
How many others were
there?” I asked Molly, levering myself to my feet so I could pace
the room. Fury filled me too, but molten and scorching. Suddenly
Eddie’s plan seemed perfectly reasonable. Death might actually be
too good for Sly. “Just kids, or adults too?”
Molly scrubbed her arm across her face. “I
dunno, I only ever saw other kids, like Seth. I wasn’t there long
and Sly didn’t use me much.”
“
How did you get away?” My
mind whirred, sliding it all together. The first time I’d seen Sly,
he must have been taking Seth to his den for this. Must have been
cultivating Oscar, withholding the drugs to get him as desperate as
Molly had been.
“
Sly dumped me,” Molly
replied. “He said…they said I was no good, coz I couldn’t fight as
well as the boys and they weren’t making enough money off me, so
Sly beat me up and dumped me. I think he was going to kill me, but
I made out I was more hurt than I really was and he just left
me.”
He’d probably thought the cold would finish
her off. It nearly had.
“
And who’s they?” Shannon
asked. “He had accomplices?”
“
Humans. Dunno who. Didn’t
pay much attention. I was high most of the time and out of it the
rest.”
Alpha
Humans
. Shannon and I exchanged looks. I
hated knowing Eddie was right. “You did the right thing, Molly,
telling us all this,” I said. “And we won’t say anything to Tina—if
you promise you’ll tell her.”
“
I don’t know if I can.
She’ll never let me out of the house again.” She sniffed and looked
to me. “What… What did they do to Seth?”
I wasn’t sure I should tell her. All my
anger had drained away as she talked. But she was a wolf, tougher
than she looked too, given all she’d been through. And maybe
knowing would kill any lingering need for Silver Kiss. “Internal
injuries,” I said. “I guess he lost a fight.”
Molly sobbed and buried her face in her
pillows. Shannon stroked her hair and tucked her in, folding the
duvet around her before motioning to me to leave.
In the hall outside Molly’s bedroom, Shannon
slumped against the wall with a heavy sigh. “Werewolf baiting. That
was not what I expected.”
“
It’s barbaric!” I growled,
wanting to punch something. “Absolutely barbaric.” I paced the
small hallway, the wolf inside me enraged, pushing the human part
of me down and away.
“
I’m calling Moira,” she
said. “The Pack has to call the police in now, they can’t—” She
broke off, staring at me with sudden alarm. “Ayla…”
I stopped pacing to look at her. The world
had faded to sepia, like an old photo, so I knew before Shannon
said it that my eyes had changed.
“
You’ve gone all wolfy on
me again,” she said softly, reaching for my hand. “Pull it back,
baby.”
I blinked, trying to shake off the wolf’s
influence. “I can’t help it. I just… I can’t believe it.” I closed
my eyes and counted to ten slowly, curling and uncurling my fingers
in a futile effort to calm myself. “Call Eddie,” I told Shannon.
“He needs to know.” I opened my eyes, relieved to see color seep
back into the world.