“That would be great. His bowl is in my backpack with a bag of kibble.”
Ducking back into the bathroom, I finished peeling off my clothes, wrinkling my nose at the overly ripe scent of fear and sweat. Donning my pink, fuzzy, leopard print pajama pants and a t-shirt that declared “All Your Base Are Belong To Us” I felt a little more like my normal self. I could almost believe that I would wake up at any minute and find that all this had just been a bad dream. I pinched myself to make sure.
Nope. Still in hell.
Scrunching up my dirty clothes up into a ball, I opened the door and promptly stopped as I took in the scene before me.
Holbrook was sprawled on the bed closest to the window, his hat resting beside him, and my giant cat perched on his chest, purring like a freight train as the FBI agent rubbed his chin.
“Looks like I’ve been replaced,” I said, leaning against the doorframe.
Blushing, Holbrook sat up quickly, dislodging Loki, who meowed to let us know that he was not pleased.
“Uh, hey,” he said, standing up and retrieving his hat.
“Hey,” I replied with a smile, crossing the room to sit on the bed, pulling my knees up to my chest.
I wanted Holbrook to join me, hoping to curl up in the comfort of his arms. Instead, he shifted from one foot to the other, running his fingers along the brim of his hat.
“I need to go check in with the team,” he said after a while, his eyes dropping to the floor. “Will you be okay?”
“Oh, yeah. No problem,” I replied, trying to hide my disappointment behind the ghost of a smile. “I’ll be fine.”
As the door closed behind him, I released the brave fa?ade I’d been trying to maintain since leaving the motel. I didn’t want to admit how much it had hurt to see the shadow of guilt on his face, or how eager he had seemed to get out of my room. It had taken more effort than I cared to admit to open up to him and let him see the hurt and broken parts of me stripped bare.
Guess that didn’t mean as much to him as it did to me.
I hated feeling like a spurned teenager, yet I couldn’t do anything to stop the emotions welling up to the surface, moistening my eyes and making me feel like a fool. I hadn’t let anyone get that close to me in years, and now I had to wonder if it had been a mistake. Wiping the back of my hand across my eyes, I flopped back on the mattress and stared up at the ceiling. Hurt and anger warred in my chest, burning hot and acidic.
“I sure know how to pick ‘em, huh?” I said aloud to my furry companion.
Like a bull in a china shop, Loki plowed into my side, rubbing his chin along my hand where it lay across my stomach. Grace was definitely not one of his strong suits.
“But you won’t leave me, will you buddy?” I asked, running my fingers along the length of his spine and down his slowly swishing tail.
He answered by leaping up onto my stomach, forcing the air out of my lungs with a loud “Oof!” Like I said, he’s not the most agile and dainty creature I’ve ever known. Still, he was the closest thing I had to a friend or family, and he hadn’t left me yet. Settling on my chest, tucking his paws underneath him, he began to purr, rumbling like a motor. I shouldn’t have been tired after sleeping the afternoon away as the wolf, but as I lay there scratching behind Loki’s ears, I felt sleep’s siren song calling out to me. Closing my eyes, I let the sound of Loki’s contentment wash over me, soothing my hurt feelings and lulling me into sleep.
***
I wasn’t sure what woke me, the sound of a car door slamming, or perhaps a truck back-firing. I still wasn’t used to being surrounded by humans; the various sounds of their comings and goings, and the pervasive stink of their existence, grating on my already strained nerves. I knew of weres who had chosen to live in urban areas, but I couldn’t fathom how they could bear to be inundated with the constant cacophony of mundanes scuttling about like a plague of locusts.
I opened my eyes to the patchy roof of my temporary shelter. Drawing a deep breath I let the crisp scent of the winter air slide over my tongue and fill my lungs until they felt fit to burst. It had been too long since I had smelled such pure air, tinged with the scent of pine. For too long my nose had been filled with the stink of piss, shit, and sweat. I’d never let them lock me away in a hole again.