Authors: Kate Spofford
“Then it’s Plan B,” Mom says to Aunt
Jenny.
Aunt Jenny swallows and nods. “Plan B.” She
turns and steps outside without another word.
Plan B? When I left home last summer, Daniel
was our only plan. “What’s this Plan B?”
“
Who
is this Plan B,” Mom says. “Why
don’t you get unpacked and settle in? You must be exhausted.”
I look around the ten foot by ten foot hotel
room, crammed with a double bed and a cot. Unpacked? Settled in? No
thanks. “I’m going to take a shower.”
Under a tepid trickle of water I scrub at the
road dirt that has accumulated with the little sliver of soap left,
and wonder if my mother is completely out of her mind. Unpack? Did
she not notice how empty the backpack was? Wait a minute, let me
set this stolen library book up on the bookshelf and… oh yeah,
that’s all that was in there. I was wearing everything else,
because it’s colder than hell froze over outside. I’ve been gone
for eight months. Also, I’m starving.
I wrap a surprisingly fluffy towel around me
and wipe the condensation from the mirror. My face looks gaunt and
haunted and a little too much like Daniel’s for my liking. I
quickly comb my hair and leave the bathroom.
Mom’s lying on the bed watching a talk show,
braiding her long hair. She had laid some clothes out on the bed
for me–hers, not mine, but we are close enough in size if I ignore
the “mom jeans.” They’re flannel-lined and she’s left her oversized
fisherman’s sweater I used to steal from her all the time, so in
the end the toasty warmth, wrapped in her lavender scent, makes up
for the fact that none of my clothes are here.
“And why are we at this hotel?” I ask as I
get dressed and towel-dry my hair.
“Remy was concerned about our safety. He
thought we’d be better off here.”
She doesn’t understand what I mean, but I am
thrown off course by her answer.
I narrow my eyes. “Remy? Is Remy Plan B?”
“You’ll see.” Her eyes twinkle a bit, which
only puts me in a fouler mood.
“Funny how you’re trusting the safety of the
pack to some dude I’ve never met,” I huff, and head back into the
bathroom to hang my towel with military precision. Then I fold the
facecloth and arrange the toothbrushes in a row on the sink, and
make sure the part in my hair is straight. Just when I can’t find
anything else to clean, I hear the door to our room open and Aunt
Jen’s voice float in. A male voice accompanies her.
My fingers grip the porcelain countertop, my
eyes squeezed shut. I take a deep breath
strong musk aged oak and saltwater
voice deep and rooted, certain and
unyielding
Exhale and another deep breath–
The scent of the forest around my house
clings to him and tears spring to my eyes as a wave of nostalgia
for home hits me.
I haven’t been home yet. When I called Mom’s
cell from the train station in Wolf Point, she told me to meet her
at this motel, gave me the room number. I’d been expecting her to
drive down and pick me up. I ended up walking several blocks to the
motel, looking over my shoulder the whole way.
Mom doesn’t even smell like home anymore.
How long have she and Aunt Jenny been staying
here? How long ago did they meet this guy?
I knew I should have called to check in over
the past few months like Mom told me to.
With a third deep breath to clear my head, I
release the countertop and make my entrance into the hotel
room.
“Kayla, there you are,” Mom says.
I want to slap that stupid smile right off
her face. Then I see Remy.
Sebastian Vincent has met his match for
hotness. Instead of luscious dark hair, tousled blond locks, the
ends softly curling, frame his chiseled face. His eyes are the
palest blue I’ve ever seen. His shoulders strain the tight thermal
t-shirt he wears. He could be a model for Abercrombie. Or one of
those outdoorsy stores, since he looks more like a hiker than a
douchebag. Not my type, clearly, but for some reason I feel my body
heating up.
“Pleased to meet you finally. Your mother has
told me a lot about you,” he says–or something to that effect. My
brain’s gone fuzzy and I’m having a hard time thinking.
I blink at him.
Mom elbows me. “Kayla, don’t be rude. Say
hello.”
“Hello.” My voice sounds creaky and unused. I
clear my throat and attempt to smile.
“Well, let’s have some lunch, shall we?” Aunt
Jenny’s eyes look like someone shut out the lights.
We step out onto the balcony and file down
the stairs to the parking lot. I can’t quite figure out where we’re
going to eat. The last time I checked, the Wolf Point Motor Lodge
did not have a restaurant. Then I realize that everyone is headed
across the street, to the diner. I follow like a lost bird.
Mom and Aunt Jenny quickly slide into one
side of a booth, leaving Remy and I to awkwardly sidestep each
other until I finally I get in and scoot all the way over to the
wall. The booth is too small for Remy’s biceps. His elbow keeps
hitting me.
“How’s the perimeter?” Mom asks after the
waitress has taken our drink order.
“The traps are untouched. I found no scent or
any signs of intrusion. For the time being we’re safe, but we
should consider moving base.”
“Are we in the military now or something?” I
ask.
“At least, Jen, if we are all in one house,
it would be easier to guard,” Remy says, ignoring me.
Aunt Jenny fiddles with her napkin. “But
Daniel–”
“Kayla said she couldn’t find Daniel,” Mom
says. “You need to accept the fact that he’s probably dead.”
Her words fall like a sledgehammer. When
tears well up in my aunt’s eyes I want to tell her the truth, but
would it hurt any less to know that her son was still alive and
didn’t want to help us? The stony set of my mother’s face makes it
clear to me that I should keep my mouth shut.
“If he tries to come home–”
Mom softens marginally. “He’s smart enough
that he’ll think to look at our house. Or, he can follow our scent
to the new location.”
“No,” Remy says. “If we move to a new base we
need to cover our tracks. No scent trail.”
Aunt Jenny makes a choking sound.
Mom snaps, “It’s been three years, Jenny.
Almost four. If he isn’t dead, he’s gone Rabid... Think about all
those murders. Frankly, he would be better off dead. You should
hope that he’s dead.”
“I would know if my son was dead!”
Aunt Jenny’s words silence the conversations
around us. For long moments no one speaks a word. Then our waitress
arrives with three ice waters and a Diet Coke for me.
Aunt Jen begins ripping apart her napkin.
I want to say, Your son is alive, but he left
me, and now he’s hurt…
I can’t.
The pain in my side returned sometime in the
past couple of hours, creeping up as Daniel regained consciousness.
It isn’t quite as sharp as on the train, but it’s worse than the
worst menstrual cramps I’ve ever had.
I’m not sure how my mom would react if she
knew I’d found Daniel and then lost him again. The pain in my
abdomen intensifies and I make fists under the table. Maybe the
pain is an ulcer and has nothing to do with Daniel, other than my
worries about whether he’s hurt and anger that he abandoned me.
“I vote for staying at our house. Daniel can
find us there.” I glare at the handsome stranger beside me. “And I
won’t have to leave all my stuff.”
Mom and Remy exchange a look, and continue
talking without taking my vote into account. I clench my fists and
say nothing and allow my mother and this strange wolf decide the
fate of our pack.
When the waitress brings out our food, the
hunger takes over and my grasp of their conversation is lost until
I shove the last crust of my sandwich into my mouth. Then my sense
of hearing returns. Mom and Remy have barely touched their meals,
too busy talking strategy. Aunt Jenny quietly pokes and slides her
food around the plate, looking on the verge of tears.
“…follow our scents. We need to use a
vehicle,” Remy is saying. “It’s really the only way to avoid their
spies.”
“Excuse me, but who’s this guy again?” I
demand.
“Don’t be rude, Kayla.” Mom glares daggers at
me.
Remy wipes his hands on his napkin. “It’s a
perfectly understandable question.” He turns to me and suddenly I’m
pierced by his pale, impenetrable gaze. “You may not have grown up
knowing about me, but I knew about you.”
Heat rises to my face.
“Your families, I mean,” he clarifies when he
sees my embarrassment, which only makes me more embarrassed,
especially since he shows no such mortification. “My
great-grandfather was Fallon Loupe.”
“Crazy Fallon Loupe?” I blurt out. Fallon
Loupe was my great-grandfather, and his claim to fame was going
insane one winter and trying to kill his whole family. Three of his
eight children escaped, never to be heard from again. Four died in
the massacre. “But I thought Gramma was the only survivor...” I
give Remy the side-eye. “Are you my uncle?”
Mom shakes her head slightly.
“My grandfather was Henri Loupe,” Remy
says.
He waits and it dawns on me.
“One of the Missing?”
He nods.
My mind races to connect the dots. “So there
are others out there? More pack? Can we call on them for
reinforcements?” Suddenly I realize that I’ve been leaning closer
and closer to Remy, and sit back. “Sorry.”
“It’s all right.” His eyes are too intense,
like he’s looking into my soul. “I understand why you might get
excited, but the others… they’re not exactly willing to join
us.”
“They’re all insane,” Mom supplies.
“Oh.”
After lunch, after much debate that left Aunt
Jenny begging us not to leave until Daniel returns, Mom pulls Remy
aside. “I’ll convince her,” she tells him, as though we can’t hear
her. We have wolf hearing, after all.
“I’ll just head up to the new place and keep
fortifying,” Remy says, and swings through the open window of his
Jeep. Really? He couldn’t have opened the door like a normal
person? I sigh. Remy gives a salute before driving away.
We walk back to the hotel in silence. I can
practically hear my mother scheming ways to get Aunt Jenny to
conform to her plans, but it’s just a light unintelligible buzz in
my head. Mom learned long ago to hide her thoughts from me. Aunt
Jenny, too, but she’s too distressed.
Daniel my Daniel come home I just need to hug
you kiss you be your mother again my beautiful boy
With my own mental shields up, I wonder if
there was a possible way to assure Aunt Jenny that Daniel is still
alive without telling her all the other stuff.
Mom barely needs her mental shields, the way
she sits down on the bed and gives Aunt Jenny that “I’m concerned”
look. That one like she gave me almost a year ago.
“Kayla, you know I care about you. But I need
you to do this. You have the mate bond with Daniel. You can find
him. And you’ll be safer away from here.”
Now she says, “Jenny, JenJen, come sit down.”
She pats the bed beside her.
Aunt Jenny knows the look as well as I do,
and she’s not fooled. She puts her purse down on the dresser and
fusses with the things in it like she’s looking for something.
“Jen, come on! We have to think about our own
safety. If Danny is still alive he’s fine on his own. Right,
Kayla?”
Why is she bringing me into this?
“Speaking of which, Kayla, what did you think
of Remy?”
She pats the still-empty place beside and I
reluctantly sit down. She puts her arm around me.
“Where did you find him?” I ask.
“He came to us… Come on, Kayla! He’s hot,
isn’t he?”
I stare at her. “Doesn’t it seem a little
strange that he somehow knew about our situation, but never thought
to step in until only a couple of months ago?”
She shook her head. “Kayla, here’s the deal.
We have limited options. Remy is our option. Our only option, since
you couldn’t seem to find Daniel.” Her gaze followed Aunt Jenny as
she went into the bathroom. She leaned in and murmured, “You really
didn’t find him?”
“No.” The lie tastes bitter in my mouth. I
imagine she can hear it.
“And the mate-bond? Could you hear him at
all? Feel him?”
“No.”
“Then the Bonding didn’t work…” She raises an
eyebrow suggestively.
I look away. Shit. I shouldn’t have lied. I
knew I’d get caught sooner or later.
The Bonding. Werewolf marriage, basically. A
blood oath between two people.
It was after our first night at a hotel. Mom,
Aunt Jenny, and I had gone there right after the incident, driven
an hour to someplace big and bright and impersonal, where no one
would know us. Where the lights would be on and there were several
locks on the door.
Mom and Aunt Jenny had been talking for
hours. My whole body had been exhausted, but I couldn’t sleep. Kept
jumping at little noises, sure he would found us somehow. And I
could hear their voices, no matter how quietly they spoke.
“Kayla, put this on.” Mom said this in her
normal voice, like she knew I hadn’t actually been sleeping. I
rolled over. She was holding a slip of white fabric in her
outstretched hand.
“No,” I’d told her.
“Kayla Marie, I will not ask you again.”
“But Mom…”
“Now.”
I took the white dress and went into the
bathroom to change. I’d worn it two years ago, on my thirteenth
birthday. Back then it had been loose and flowy. Now it was
slightly too small, and you could see right through it.
“What’s going on?” I asked when I came
out.
They sat me down then, and explained about
the Bonding. When two wolves were bonded, they could share thoughts
and even feel each other’s pain.