Part 36 (2/2)

I wanted to cry, but I just keep staring up there until the very last wolf had disappeared into the woods.

My phone buzzed on the seat beside me. A text from my father's cell phone.

get out of there I texted back.

when you do

CHAPTER SEVENTY-FOUR.

* SAM *

I s.h.i.+fted back to human with no ceremony. Like it wasn't a miracle. Just this: the sun on my back, the heat of the day, the werewolf running its course through my changeable veins, and then, Sam, the man.

I was at the lodge, and Koenig was waiting. Not remarking on my nakedness, he gave me a T-s.h.i.+rt and sweatpants from his car.

”There's a pump out back if you want to get cleaned up,” he said, though I couldn't be dirty. This skin I wore right now was freshly minted.

But I went around the back of the lodge, wondering at my stride, my hands, my slow human heartbeat. When the water started to spurt from the old metal pump, I realized my palms and knees were grubby from when I'd changed back.

I scrubbed my skin and put on the clothing and took a drink from the pump. By then, my thoughts were swirling back to me, and they were wild and swelling and uncertain. I had done it - I had led the pack here, I had s.h.i.+fted back to me, I had been a wolf and kept myself true, or if not all of myself, at least my heart.

It was impossible, but here I was, standing at the lodge, wearing my skin.

And then I saw Beck's death, and my breath was a s.h.i.+p pitching at sea, uneven and perilous.

I thought of Grace in the woods, both of us wolves. The feeling of running beside her, having what I'd dreamed of all of those years before I'd known her properly as a girl. Those hours spent as wolves together were exactly what I'd imagined they'd be, no words to get in the way. I'd wanted winters of that, but I knew now that we were destined, again, to spend those cold months apart. Happiness was a shard rammed in between my ribs.

And then there was Cole.

This impossible thing had only been made possible because of him. I closed my eyes.

Koenig found me beside the pump. ”Are you all right?”

I opened my eyes, slowly. ”Where are the others?”

”In the woods.”

I nodded. They were probably finding someplace they felt safe enough to rest.

Koenig crossed his arms. ”Good job.”

I looked into the woods. ”Thanks.”

”Sam, I know you don't want to think about this right now, but they'll come back for the bodies,” he told me. ”If you want to get th -”

”Grace will s.h.i.+ft soon,” I said. ”I want to wait for her.”

The truth was, I needed Grace. I couldn't go back there without her. And more than that, I needed to see her. I couldn't trust my wolf memories to know she was all right until I saw her.

Koenig didn't press me. We went into the lodge, and then he retrieved another set of clothing from his car and laid it outside of the lodge door like an offering. He returned with a styrofoam cup of convenience store coffee while drinking one of his own. It tasted awful, but I drank it, too grateful for the kindness to refuse.

Then I sat on one of the dusty chairs in our new home, my head in my hands, looking at the floor, sifting through my wolf memories. Remembering the last thing Cole had said to me: I'll see you on the other side.

And then there was a soft knock on the door, and it was Grace, dressed in a slightly too-large T-s.h.i.+rt and sweats. Everything I'd meant to say to her - We lost Cole. Beck's dead. You're alive - dissolved on my tongue.

”Thank you,” Grace said to Koenig.

”Saving people's lives,” Koenig said, ”is my job.”

Then she crossed to me and hugged me, hard, while I buried my face in her shoulder. Finally, she pulled away and sighed. ”Let's go get them.”

CHAPTER SEVENTY-FIVE.

* SAM *

In comparison to our journey that morning, it took no time at all to get back to the field where the helicopter had found us.

And there Beck was, his body a wreck. There were all kinds of internal parts lying outside of him that I'd never considered him having.

”Sam,” Grace said to me.

His body was so flat and thin looking now, like it had nothing left in it. And maybe it didn't. Maybe it had all been annihilated from the blast. Those pieces, though. That he had dragged with him before he died. I remembered the bird that Shelby had killed in our driveway.

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