"No. I've been on the road awhile."
"That's what I thought."
He hadn't yet taken a sip of his coffee, but he wrapped a hand around the cup, clinging to it like he could draw out its warmth. He hunched over, gazing out at the world with uncertainty. He probably didn't realize how odd he looked, coming out of the cold without a coat. Werewolves didn't feel the cold as much.
Looking at the tabletop, he said, "I've never met another one. Not ever. But I could tell, as soon as I walked in here I could smell you and I knew. I almost walked right back out again."
"What, let a little old thing like me scare you off?" She'd meant it as a joke, but he flinched. She willed him to relax. His hand around the mug squeezed a little tighter. He set his fork down and pressed his fist to the table.
His voice was taut. "You seem so calm. How do you do it?" His gaze flickered up, and the look in them was stark. Desperate.
She froze, nerveless for a moment. Is that how she looked? Calm? She was exiled from her pack, driven from Denver by the alpha werewolves, and so was spending Christmas at a Waffle House in a desolate corner of the state and not with her family. She felt like she was on the verge of losing it. Without an anchor. She'd lost her anchor - but David had never had one.
"What about the one who turned you?"
"I was camping by myself, something . . . something attacked me. It looked like . . . I remember thinking, this is impossible, there aren't any wolves here. I knew something was wrong when I woke up, and I didn't have any wounds, no scars, and I didn't . . ."
He stopped, swallowed visibly, clamped his eyes shut. His breathing and heart rate quickened, and his scent spiked with fur and wild, wolf trembling just under his skin.
He didn't know how to control it at all, she realized. He hadn't had anyone to teach him. He'd been running as a wolf recently. Probably woke up with no idea where he was - no idea that it was Christmas, even.
Suddenly, her own situation didn't seem so bad.
"Breathe slowly," she whispered. "Think about pulling it in. Keep it together."
He rested his elbows on the table and ran his fingers through his hair. His hands were shaking. "I turn all the time. Not just on full moons. I can't stop it. Then I run, and I don't remember what happens. I know I hunt, kill whatever's out there - but I don't remember. I try to stay away from people, far away. But I just don't remember. I don't want to be like this, I don't - " His fingers tightened in his hair, his jaw clenched, teeth gritting. His wolf was right on the edge. Always right on the edge.
"Shh." She wanted to touch him, to steady him, but didn't dare. Anything might set him off. And wouldn't that be a Christmas to remember? Werewolf rampage in a Waffle House in southern Colorado . . . He might have done okay by Jimmy Stewart, but she'd like to see Clarence the angel fix that mess.
He looked at her. Square on this time. "How do you do it? What's your story?"
"I had a pack," she said. "They found me right after it happened to me. Like you, in the woods, attacked. But they took care of me. Told me what had happened, taught me how to deal with it."
"Does that happen?"
"Yeah, it does. There are probably more of us out there than you think. We keep quiet, stay hidden. At least, most of us do." And that was more story than she should probably go into at the moment.
"Where are they? Your pack."
Her smile turned wry. "I left. Or got kicked out. Depends on who you ask."
He looked crestfallen. The concept of a pack - the idea that he might not be alone - seemed to have heartened him. But that opportunity had once again become remote. "I didn't know. How was I supposed to know something like that was possible? I've been so alone."
What were the odds that his wandering brought him here, to her, perhaps the one werewolf in all the world who'd listen to his problems and want to help?
She said, "It doesn't have to be like that. You can control it. You can lead a normal life. Mostly normal, at least."
"How?" he said, teeth clenched, voice grating. Like she'd told him he could fly to the moon, or dig a hole and find a million dollars.
"You have to really want to."
Donning a smile that was more grimace, he glanced through the fogged window, to a graying, snowy parking lot. He spoke with sarcasm. "You make it sound so easy."
"I didn't say that. It's not easy. I spend a lot of time arguing with my inner wolf."
"So do I. I lose."
"Then you have to figure out how to start winning."
He chuckled. "You ever think about going into the self-help business?"
She almost asked him if he listened to the radio much, or watched TV recently. Obviously he hadn't, or he would have already said something about her talk radio show.
She smiled slyly at the tabletop. "The idea had occurred to me."
David seemed calmer. Once or twice, Kitty had been accused of talking too much. But she found that talking improved almost every situation. Talking could make a lone werewolf on the run feel a little less lonely.
Jane marched in from the kitchen, straight toward the TV. Frowning, she pressed a cell phone to her ear. "Okay," she said. "What channel?"
She pulled her stool under the TV again and stopped the tape. A cheerful Donna Reed cut off mid-sentence.
In place of the movie, Jane turned on a news station, turned up the volume, then moved away to watch.
A young news reporter was standing in a winter landscape, a windblown field in the foothills nearby, a few stray snowflakes drifting around her. She was lit with a harsh spotlight and speaking somberly.
". . . series of gruesome murders. The violence of these deaths has authorities concerned that the perpetrator may be using an attack dog of some kind. Police would not give us any further details. Authorities are asking residents to stay inside and lock their doors until the killer is apprehended."
Behind the woman, a crime scene was in full swing: three or four police cars, an ambulance, many people in uniforms moving purposefully, and what seemed like miles of yellow caution tape. The camera caught sight of a spatter of blood on the ground and a filled body bag before the scene cut away.
A male reporter in a studio repeated the warning - stay indoors - and a scroll at the bottom listed the information: five deaths within the space of an afternoon, violence indicating a highly disturbed, animalistic killer.
Jane folded her phone away, hurried to the door, and locked it. "That's just a few miles up the road from here. I hope nobody minds," she said, regarding her customers with a nervous smile. No one argued.