Now he looked afraid. Just for a second, and then it was gone, lost in the self-assured set of his chin. “What are you talking about?”
“You think you’ve found a cure. Why would you think that?”
“Okay, dude. Who are you?”
I really didn’t like him. I didn’t know why; I just felt it in my gut and I really didn’t like him. If I hadn’t thought he was a danger to Grace and Olivia and Isabel, I would’ve said the hell with him and left him there. Still, my dislike made it easier to confront him. It made it easier to play the role of the guy who had all the answers. “Someone like you. Someone who got bitten.” He looked about to protest, and I held up my hand to stop him. “If you’re thinking you’re going to say something like ‘You’ve got the wrong guy,’ don’t bother. I’ve seen you as a wolf. So just tell me why you think you’ve found a way to stop it.”
“Why should I trust you?”
“Because, unlike your father, I don’t stuff animals and put them in my foyer. And because I don’t really want you showing up at the school and on people’s doorsteps and exposing the pack. We’re just trying to survive with the crappy lot we’ve been given. We don’t need some smarmy rich punk like you revealing us to the rest of the world, so they can come after us with pitchforks.”
Jack growled. It was a little too close to animal for my taste, and my thought was confirmed when I saw him shiver slightly. He was still so unstable—he could change at any time. “I don’t have to worry about it anymore. I’m getting a cure, so you can get the hell away from here and leave me alone.” He backed away from the island, toward the counter behind him.
I jumped down from my counter. “Jack, there is no cure.”
“You’re wrong,” he snapped. “There’s another wolf that was cured.”
He was edging toward the knife block. I should’ve run for the door, but his words froze me. “What?”
“Yeah, it took me all this time, but I figured it out. There’s a girl who was bitten and got cured, at school. Grace. I know she knows the cure. And she’s about to tell me in a hurry.”
My world reeled. “Stay away from her.”
Jack grinned at me, or maybe it was a grimace. His hand was on the counter, feeling backward toward the knives, and his nostrils flared, taking in the faint odor of wolf that the cold had brought to my skin. He said, “Why? Don’t you want to know, too? Or has she already cured you?”
“There is no cure. She doesn’t know anything.” I hated how much my voice revealed; my feelings for Grace felt dangerously transparent.
“You don’t know that, man,” Jack said. He reached for a knife, but his hand was shaking too much to grasp the handle on the first try. “Now get out of here.”
But I didn’t move. I couldn’t think of anything worse than him confronting Grace about a cure. Him trembling, unstable, violent; and her, unable to give him the answers he was looking for.
Jack managed to grab a handle and pulled out a wicked-looking knife, the edge serrated and reflecting the black and white of the kitchen in a dozen different directions. He was shaking so badly that he could barely hold the blade toward me. “I asked you to get out.”
My instincts urged me to leap on him like I would on one of the wolves, growl over his neck and make him submit. To make him promise to stay away from her. But that wasn’t how it worked when you were a human, not when your adversary was so much stronger. I approached him, eyes on his eyes instead of on the knife, and tried a different tactic. “Jack. Please. She doesn’t have the answer, but I can make this easier for you.”
“Get away from me.” Jack took a step toward me, then back, before stumbling to one knee. The knife fell onto the tile; I winced before it landed, but its landing was surprisingly muffled. Jack made almost no sound at all when he followed the knife to the floor. His fingers were claws, curling and uncurling on the black-and-white squares. He was saying something, but it was unintelligible. Lyrics formed in my head. They were supposed to be for him, but they were really about me. World of words lost on the living / I take my place with the walking dead / Robbed of my voice I’m always giving / thousands of words to this nameless dread.
I crouched next to him, pushing the knife away from his body so that he wouldn’t hurt himself on it. There was no point asking him anything now. I sighed and listened to him groan, wail, scream. We were equals now, me and Jack. For all his privilege and nice hair and confident shoulders, he was no better than me.
Jack whimpered.
“You should be happy,” I told the panting wolf. “You didn’t throw up this time.”
Jack regarded me for a long moment with unblinking hazel eyes before leaping up and bolting for the door.
I wanted to just leave, but I didn’t have any choice. Any possibility of leaving him behind had disappeared as soon as he’d said Grace’s name.
I jumped after him. We scrambled through the house, his nails slipping on the hardwood floor and my shoes squeaking behind him. I pelted into the hall of grinning animals close behind him; the stench of their dead skins filled my nostrils. Jack had two advantages: He knew the house and he was a wolf. I was betting on him using the well-known surroundings to hide instead of relying on his unfamiliar animal strength.
I bet wrong.
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT • GRACE
49°F
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.”