Linger

Isabel looked at Cole again, and then at Grace a little longer, and then she pointed a finger at me. With a gritted smile, she said, “Can I have a moment with you? In the kitchen?”

Grace lifted her head dully and frowned at Isabel, but she moved off me so that I could follow Isabel to the kitchen.

I had barely crossed over the threshold when Isabel said, voice biting, “I told you that the wolves were around our house and that my father was not a fan. What were you waiting for?”

My eyebrows raised at the accusation. “What? What your father did today? I was supposed to prevent that?”

“You’re in charge. They’re your wolves now. You can’t just sit there.”

“I didn’t really think your father was going to go out—”

Isabel interrupted me. “Everyone knows my dad will shoot at anything that can’t shoot back. I expected you to do something!”

“I don’t know what I would do to keep the wolves from the property. They go around the lake because the hunting’s good there. I really didn’t think your trigger-happy father would blatantly flout hunting and firearms laws to prove his point.” My voice came out accusing, which I knew wasn’t fair.

Isabel laughed; it sounded like a bark, short and humorless. “You, of all people, ought to know what he is capable of, for God’s sake. In the meantime, how long are you going to pretend there’s nothing wrong with Grace?”

I blinked at her.

“Don’t give me those lamb eyes. You’re sitting there with her, and she looks like a cancer patient or something. I mean, she looks awful. And she smells just like that dead wolf. So what’s going on?”

I winced. “I don’t know, Isabel,” I said. My voice sounded tired, even to me. “We went to the clinic today. Nothing.”

“Well, then, take her to the hospital!”

“What do you think they’ll do at a hospital? Maybe, maybe they’ll do blood work on her. What do you think they’ll find? I’m guessing ‘werewolf’ won’t show up on most panels, and there isn’t a diagnosis for ‘smells like a sick wolf.’” I didn’t mean to sound so angry; I wasn’t angry at Isabel—I was angry at me.

“So you’re just going to—what? Wait for something bad to happen?”

“What am I supposed to do? Take her into the hospital and demand they fix a problem that hasn’t really appeared yet? That isn’t in their Merck Manual? You don’t think that I’ve been worrying about this all day? All week? Don’t you think it’s killing me to not know what’s happening? It’s not like we can be sure. There’s no—no precedent. There’s never been anyone like Grace. I’m stabbing in the dark here, Isabel!”

Isabel glared at me; I noticed her eyes were a little red behind her dark eye makeup. “Think. Be proactive instead of reactive. You ought to be looking at what killed that first wolf instead of just staring at Grace with moon eyes. And what were you thinking, letting her stay over here? Her parents have left me voicemails that could cook bacon. What happens if they find out where you live and show up here while Cole’s shifting? That would be a great conversation starter. And speaking of Cole—do you know who he is? What the hell are you doing, Sam? What the hell are you waiting for?”

I turned away from her, linking my hands behind my head. “God, Isabel. What do you want from me? What do you want?”

“I want you to grow up,” she snapped. “What did you think, that you could just work in that bookstore forever and live in a dream world with Grace? Beck’s gone. You’re Beck now. Start acting like an adult, or you’re going to lose everything. Do you think my dad is really going to stop with just one? ‘Cause I can tell you right now, he’s not done. And what do you think is going to happen when people come after Cole? When whatever happened to that wolf happens to Grace? Were you really at a recording studio yesterday? Unreal.”

I turned back around to face her. Her hands were fists stuffed in her armpits, her jaw was set. I wanted to ask her if she was doing this because Jack died and she couldn’t stand to see it happen to someone else. Or if she was doing it because I had lived and Jack hadn’t. Or was it because she was a part of us now, inextricably tied to me and Grace and Cole and the rest?

Ultimately, it didn’t really matter why she was here, or why she was saying what she was saying. Because I knew she was right.

• COLE •

I looked up when I heard the raised voices in the kitchen; Grace and I exchanged looks. She got up and came to sit across from me at the table, holding a glass of water and a few pills in her hand. She swallowed the pills and set the glass down. The entire process seemed to take a lot of effort, but I didn’t say anything, because she hadn’t. She had dark smudges under her eyes and her cheeks were bright red with a rising temperature. She looked exhausted.

In the other room, Sam’s and Isabel’s voices were raised. I felt the tension in the air, stretched between all of us tight as wires.

“I can’t believe this is happening,” I said.

Grace asked, “Cole? Do you know what will happen when people find out you’re here? Do you mind me asking?” The way she asked it was completely frank and simple. No judgment about my famous face.

I shook my head. “I don’t know. My family won’t care. They gave up on me a long time ago. But the media will care.” I thought about those girls snapping photos of me on their cell phones. “The media will love it. It would be a lot of attention for Mercy Falls.”

Grace exhaled and laid a hand on her stomach, carefully, like she was afraid of crushing her skin. Had she looked like that earlier?

Grace asked, “Do you want to be found?”

I raised an eyebrow at her.

“Ah,” she said. She considered this. “I guess Beck thought you would be a wolf more.”

“Beck thought I was going to kill myself,” I said. “I don’t think he thought about it any more than that. He was trying to save me.”

In the other room, Sam said something inaudible. Isabel said, “I know you and Grace talk about everything else, so why not that?”

Just then, when she said that, the way she said it, like the knowledge was painful, made it seem like Isabel had a crush on Sam. The possibility of that gave me a weird, numb feeling.

Grace just looked at me. She had to have heard it. But she kept her reaction to herself.

Isabel and Sam came into the living room then, Sam looking hangdog, Isabel looking frustrated. Sam came over behind Grace’s chair and slid a hand onto her neck. It was a simple gesture that didn’t say possession so much as connection. Isabel’s eyes were on that hand, the same way I guess mine were.

I closed my eyes and opened them again. In between, I saw Victor. And I just couldn’t do it anymore—be conscious.

“I’m going to bed,” I said.

Isabel and Sam stared at each other again, a silent argument still waging, and then Isabel said, “I’m leaving. Grace? Rachel said you were staying at my place. I told them you were, too, but I know they didn’t believe me. Are you really staying here tonight?”

Grace just reached up and held Sam’s wrist.

“So it comes down to me being the voice of reason,” Isabel snapped. “How ironic. The unlistened-to voice of reason.”

She stormed out. I waited a second, and then I followed her out into the black night, catching up with her by the door of her white SUV, the night air cold enough to burn the back of my throat.

“What?” she said. “Just, what, Cole?”

I guess I was still raw from hearing her voice when she talked to Sam. “Why are you doing that to him?”

“To Sam? He needs it. Nobody else is telling him.” She stood there, furious, and now that I’d seen her crying on her bed, it was easy to see that the same emotions were chewing her up inside right now, only she never let them out.

“And who’s telling you?” I asked.

Isabel just looked at me. “Believe me, I do it to myself all the time.”

“I believe you,” I said.

For a second, she looked like she was going to cry again, and then she got into the driver’s seat and jerked the door shut behind her. She didn’t look at me as she reversed out of the driveway. I stood in the driveway, gazing after where she’d gone, the cold wind tugging at me without enough force to change me.

Everything was ruined, and everything was wrong, and not being able to shift should’ve been the end of the world. But instead, for once, it was okay.

CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

• SAM •

Here we were again, always saying good-bye.

Grace lay on my bed, flat on her back, knees up. Her T-shirt had pulled up just a little, revealing a few inches of her pale belly. Her blond hair was spread out on one side of her head as if she were flying through the air or floating in the water. I stood by the light switch, looking at her and just…wanting.

“Don’t turn it off yet,” Grace said, her voice a little strange. “Just come sit with me for a little bit. I don’t want to sleep yet.”

I turned off the light, anyway—in the sudden darkness, Grace made an annoyed noise—and then I leaned down to hit a switch, turning on a string of Christmas lights stapled around the ceiling. They sparkled through the strange shapes made by the slowly spinning birds, and cast moving shadows, like firelight, across Grace’s face. Her noise of annoyance changed to one of wonder.

“It’s like…” she started, but didn’t finish.

I joined her on the bed, sitting cross-legged next to her instead of lying down. “Like what?” I asked, running the back of my fingers across her stomach.

“Mmmm,” said Grace, half closing her eyes.

“Like what?” I asked again.

“Like looking at the stars,” she said. “With a giant flock of birds flying past.”

I sighed.

“Sam, I really want to buy a red coffeepot, if they exist,” Grace said.

“I’ll find you one,” I said, and laid my hand flat on her belly; her skin was shockingly hot against my hand. Isabel had told me to ask Grace how she felt. To not wait for her to tell me, because she wouldn’t until it was too late. Because she didn’t want to hurt me.

“Grace?” I said, removing my hand, scared.

Her eyes drifted from the birds spiraling slowly above us to my face. She caught my hand and moved it so that our hands cupped around each other, her fingertips on my lifeline and mine on hers. “What?” When she spoke, her breath smelled both copper and medicinal; blood and acetaminophen.

I knew I should ask her what was happening, but I wanted just one more minute of peace. One more moment before we faced the truth. So I asked a question that I knew, now, had no correct answer. A question that belonged to a different couple, with a different future. “When we’re married, can we go to the ocean? I’ve never been.”

“When we’re married,” she said, and it didn’t sound like a lie, though her voice was soft and sad, “we can go to all the oceans. Just to say that we did.”