Hitchhikers (Wolf Point #1)

-45-

"How's that sandwich?"

My mouth is too full to answer. I bob my head up and down and tear another bite before I've swallowed.

We're sitting on a fire escape in a dark alley, away from the streetlights and the chances of a police car patrolling the area for kids out past curfew. The fire escape is near the exhaust pipe from a 24-hour laundromat, which means warm, damp air billows around us in clouds. While I'm warm now, I know once we leave the cloud the dampness will turn to ice and I'll be even colder than before. It doesn't make me eat any slower, but since we managed to steal a foot-long sandwich from the convenience store, I still have plenty of sandwich left.

"We really need to think about getting back on the road," Kayla says.

I swallow without chewing enough and have to swallow a few more times to get the lump of food down my throat. "Once I'm done we can get going." I tear off another chunk, this time chewing a few more times.

"Really?"

Through the mouthful I ask, "Yeah. What else were we gonna do here?"

"By here you mean... in town?"

"Yeah. What did you mean?"

She sighs and looks toward the street through the steam. "I meant we need to leave East Bumfuck, Nebraska, and get home."

"Oh." I stare down at my sandwich. I'm kinda not hungry all of a sudden.

Kayla sighs again, more disgusted this time. "Look, I get it. You're all freaked out about the werewolf thing. It's perfectly understandable. But..."

"But what?"

"Ever since you left, and the other packs started harassing us, all my mom and your mom talk about is how great you are. How you're going to save us all. So I track you down, expecting to find some great warrior, and all I come up with is some self-centered kid who doesn't know how to take care of himself, never mind use his God-given powers to help anyone else." Kayla sighs one final time and gets up and disappears on the other side of the steam.

Now I'm really not hungry. But I know better than to throw away good food. I wrap the rest of the sandwich and put it in my pocket. All the time I hear her voice in my head

some self-centered kid ... doesn't know how to take care of himself

When I walk through the cloud, I feel wetness on my face. I tell myself it's the condensation and I wipe it away before it freezes to my cheeks.

* * *

The dark and cold press in on us. We huddle inside our layers and scarves, and the darkness cuts us off from everything around. It's worse walking back, not only because I'm damp from the condensation but also because we're facing into the wind. My eyes are narrowed so much that most of the time I'm walking they're closed, and I find my way by the sound of Kayla crunching through snow ahead of me and the odd assortment of scents from her second hand clothes.

The wind changes direction slightly so it's scouring the right side of my face instead of dead on, and that's when alarm bells start ringing in my head.

I can smell them.

They're close.

nausea

I double over, my muscles singing with tension.

(Daniel, stay with me)

Gagging, sour bile filling my mouth.

(Do you smell that?)

(Yes)

I double over further, my vision blurring

dizzy

Blinking furiously to keep the sudden sweat out of my eyes, to try to see.

(Take off your clothes)

I'm not sure I can even move, my fingers feel strangely short and unbendable. Hands, Kayla's hands, her breath hot and sweet in my face, fumble with the zippers.

A low whining fills the air, and I realize it's me.

It's only a matter of time before the

blackness 

(stay with me, dammit, stay here with me)

Everything is darker. I rip my shoulders free of the jacket and the vest. It all feels uncomfortably small in my shoulders and too big in my waist. My pants fall to the ground while Kayla is still trying to unbutton my shirt.

The world is fading in and out and that smell is filling my nostrils, every time I inhale I see red and black and a new wave of nausea rolls over me. I'm growling and whining because I can't make any words come out of my mouth, and the fur on the back of my neck is stiff like an extension of my tense muscles.

(I have fur on the back of my neck and my mouth feels weird, too big and crowded)

blackness pulsing

(stay with me, just a few seconds)

Finally Kayla gives up on the buttons, the backs of her hands covered in butterscotch colored hair. She grips my shirt and rips it off.

I don't want to look down and I can't anyway. I fall to the ground, bracing myself up in the snow with my bare hands

(why don't I feel cold?)

The blackness is crowding around the edges of my vision. I try to focus on my hands, but they're moving. Growing, curling, hair sprouting.

This is everything I never allowed myself to see. All those times I killed people, this is what happened. My arms straighten out involuntarily and my joints seem to turn backwards.

Beside me, Kayla's clothes drop to the ground.

(They're nearly here, now Daniel NOW)

The scent hits me. Eight wolves. My brain takes a sudden backseat to the darkness.

(Daniel control your wolf)

I'm racing, paws flying over the snow, which has crusted over enough in the subzero temperatures to hold my weight. I can smell them in front of me, blood and sweat and fear and for a moment I'm not sure I'm going stay here instead of slipping back into that pit of blackness. There are fewer of them now but it's a little harder to tell, the scents are everywhere. The scent of death.

(Kayla!)

I slow down. The minute I think about how my human body might have slowed down, leaning back and digging in my heels, my wolf body slips on the icy snow and slides.

scrabble claw tumble stop

It's a weird feeling, to have arms and legs that don't move like they should. My brain can't wrap itself around that.

(Don't think)

I lift my head and

sniff listen

for Kayla. She's there. Cleaning up. Blood pricks my nose,

tangy copper death

I have to get back to help her. Her blood is mixed in there, although I can feel her heartbeat connected with mine, beating like we are one. Her heart is beating, strong and sure. My legs, however, don't want to cooperate with me.

(Don't think about it. Just go. Just pick your destination and go.)

I focus on Kayla and sure enough, my body figures out how to move itself. Faster and faster until I can see her, caramel fur against the white darkness.

Then faster still, until I am by her side.