“Is that Penn Riggsdale?” I force the words. They’re explosive and my voice comes out scratchy and high-pitched in a way I don’t recognize.
Lex crawls closer. He sticks his head out, too, and right, I forgot, he actually has a flashlight, a red Maglite. He pulls it from his jacket and switches it on. The beam cuts across the meadow. We both see the back of a guy walking away from us. We make out Vans. A suede jacket. Skinny jeans. A head full of dark curls. The guy isn’t walking toward the trail that leads back to campus. He’s heading in the opposite direction. Out of Eden and past the caves. Toward the trail that leads to the summit.
“That’s him,” Lex confirms.
Penn doesn’t notice the flashlight. It’s not strong enough. Or he’s not sober enough. He turns and calls out something to his group of pretentious friends. There’s a row of laughter. The sound is jarring and cruel. Penn jogs a few steps, like he’s eager, too eager, and ducks out of the hollow. Out of my sight.
My body tenses like a hunting dog on point.
“Jordan,” I say.
Lex looks at me. “Who?”
I repeat her name. Same tone. Same urgency. Like a chant.
Or a prayer.
“That’s the girl you came up with? The new one?”
I snap, “Where is she?”
“I don’t know. She was over by the fire—”
“No, where is she now?”
His eyes widen. “What? You think Riggsdale’s going to do something to her?”
I bolt.
Lex calls after me, but his efforts are a lost cause. My legs pump hard. My feet are sure-footed. I am damn fast.
Jordan.
chapter
twenty-six
antimatter
Outside, night happened. Black sky and white stars and a giant moon.
Inside, chaos happened. The wolves were gone.
I roamed through the cabin, up and down hallways, wrapped in towels and crying. I didn’t know where I’d been or how I’d gotten here, but I was looking for someone, anyone. I craved closeness. I padded from room to room, calling out for Keith. Nobody answered. Nobody stirred. A ribbon of fear stitched through my sternum. Was anyone actually here? Had I been abandoned?
I snuck upstairs, still crying. I longed for my dog with an ache that almost broke me.
I knocked on the first door I found. No answer. I turned the knob and stepped in.
This room had shades, not curtains, and they were drawn. Fingers of weak moonlight squeezed through to touch the hardwood floor, but I couldn’t make out anything other than a figure sleeping beneath the sheets on a pullout bed. I tiptoed as close as I could. I listened to the soft, rhythmic breathing. It did not sound familiar.
I crept closer and the sleeping figure rolled over, lifting its head. My eyes adjusted to the darkness. It was Anna. She said nothing. She didn’t ask why I was there. She didn’t ask why I was crying. She pulled the sheet back and beckoned me to her. I crawled into her bed and she wrapped a blanket around me. I shivered, trying to get warm. She closed her eyes, rolled away from me, and went back to sleep. My bare feet were clean, I realized, which meant everything about the wolves had been a dream, but Anna’s hair was matted with sticks and dirt, which meant maybe it hadn’t.
I shifted and whimpered, so confused. I tried remembering everything I could about the wolves, to hold on to them. The image of the beasts and the memory of their touch, with all their power and brute strength, flooded over me. I still felt it. That power. Inside of me. Like a great wolfish flame that sparked and burned, molten hot, at the very core of my being. It’s who I was. My nature. I knew it to be true.
I remembered their roughness, too, the nipping and the fear, but Anna’s words about my grandmother came back to me.
Love doesn’t always look nice.
So I sighed deeply.
And suddenly, I understood everything. Everything.
I knew what the moon had tried to tell me in the woods.
I was not broken.
I was savage.
*
The girls took me to Crater Lake the following afternoon. Keith wouldn’t talk to anyone when he woke up that morning, so he didn’t come with us.
I felt bold and lay on my back in our grandfather’s sailboat while it remained tied to the dock. The sun beat down crisp, bare, and the blue sky stretched forever, perfectly clear. My ears filled with the jackhammer beat of a woodpecker and the urgent buzz of racing Jet Skis.
A smattering of campsites ringed the lake, and the area swarmed with summer crowds, the inescapable scent of lighter fluid and bug spray. Beside the marina sat a public beach. It’s where Phoebe walked along the rocky shore, swinging a green plastic bucket in one hand and an ancient fishing net in the other, searching for crawdads.