chapter SEVENTEEN
• GRACE •
I couldn’t outrun a wolf.
Neither of us could see very well in the dark, but Shelby had a wolf’s sense of smell and a wolf’s sense of hearing. I had bare feet tangled in thorns and blunt nails too short for attack and lungs that couldn’t seem to get enough air. I felt powerless in this stormy wood. All I could think about was my memories of teeth in my collarbone, hot breath on my face, snow leaching my blood away from me.
Thunder cracked again, leaving behind the painfully fast crashing of my heart.
Panic wouldn’t help.
Calm down, Grace.
I stumbled between lightning flashes, reaching out in front of me. Partially to spare myself from running into something, and partially in hopes of finding a tree with low enough branches to climb. That was the only advantage I had over Shelby — my fingers. But every tree here was either a skinny pine or a massive oak — no branches for twenty or fifty feet.
And behind me, somewhere: Shelby.
Shelby knew I’d seen her and so now she didn’t take care to be quiet. Though she couldn’t see any better than me in the darkness, I could hear her still tracking toward me in between lightning flashes, guided by her sense of smell and hearing.
I was more scared when I didn’t hear her than when I did.
Lightning flickered. I thought I saw —
I froze, silent, waiting. I held my breath. My hair was plastered to my face and shoulders; a single wet strand was stuck to the corner of my mouth. It was easier to hold my breath than to resist the temptation to brush away that little bit of hair. Standing still, all I could think of were the small miseries: My feet hurt. The rain stung on my mud-smeared legs. I must have cut myself on unseen thorns. My stomach felt utterly empty.
I tried not to think about Shelby. I tried to concentrate on keeping my eyes locked on where I thought I’d seen my key to safety, so that when the lightning came again, I’d be able to map out a path.
Lightning flickered again, and this time I saw for certain what I thought I’d glimpsed earlier. Just barely, but it was there: the black outline of the shed where the pack kept supplies. It was several dozen yards to my right, above me, as if on a ridge. If I could make it there, I could slam that door in Shelby’s face.
The forest went black and then thunder split the quiet. It was so loud that all other sound seemed to be sucked out of the world for a few seconds afterward.
In that noiseless dark, I bolted, hands in front of me, trying to stay true to the path to the shed. I heard Shelby behind me, close, snapping a branch as she jumped toward me. I felt more than heard her closeness. Her fur brushed my hand. I scrambled away and then
I
was
falling
my hands grasped air
endless black
falling
I didn’t realize that I was crying out until all my breath was stolen and the sound was cut off. I hit something frigid and solid and my lungs emptied all at once. I only had a moment to realize that what I’d hit was water before I got a mouthful of it.
There was no up or down, just blackness. Just water coating my mouth and skin. It was so cold. So cold. Color exploded in front of my eyes, just a symptom in this blackness. My brain crying for air.
I clawed my way to the surface and gasped. My mouth was full of gritty, liquid mud. I felt it oozing down my cheeks from my hair.
Thunder grumbled above me, the sound seeming to come from far away; I felt like I was in the middle of the earth. Shivering almost too much to stand, I stretched my legs out and felt for the bottom. There — when I stood, the water came to the tip of my chin. It was freezing cold and filthy, but at least I could keep my head above water without tiring. My shoulders shook with involuntary tremors. I was so cold.
Then, standing in that frigid water, I felt it. A slow, slow path of nausea that started in my stomach and crawled up my throat. The cold. It was pulling at me, telling my body to shift.
But I couldn’t shift. As a wolf, I’d have to swim to keep my head above water. And I couldn’t swim forever.
Maybe I could climb out. I half swam, half stumbled through the icy water, reaching out. There must be a way out of this. My hands jammed into a craggy dirt wall that was perfectly vertical, stretching up higher than I could reach. My stomach twisted inside me.
No, I told myself. No, you’re not shifting, not now.
I made my way around the wall, feeling for a possible escape. The sides stretched up and away from me, endless. I tried to get purchase in them, but my fingers wouldn’t dig into the packed dirt, and the roots gave way under my weight, sending me back into the mud. My skin trembled, both from cold and the impending shift. I sucked in my frozen lower lip to try to steady it.
I could cry for help, but no one would hear me.
But what else could I do? The fact was this: If I turned into a wolf, I’d die. I could only swim for so long. All of a sudden, it seemed like a horrifying way to die, all alone, in a body that no one would ever recognize.
The cold pulled at me, flowed into my veins, unlocking the disease inside me. No, no, no. But I couldn’t resist it anymore; I could feel the pulse in my fingers pounding as the skin bubbled into another shape.
The water sloshed around me as my body began to tear itself apart.
I screamed Sam’s name into the darkness until I couldn’t remember how to speak.