Page 39 of In the Light of the Moon
“It’s stopped. I’m just… I feel stuck.”
My teeth gnawed at my bottom lip, debating on asking, but ultimately deciding I had to, “Did it happen out here? Them hurting you?”
Her chest started rising and falling more rapidly, her nod stiff, and then she turned her body to where she’d been heading. There was just more trees, more brush, but I had a clear idea of what she was trying to convey to me.
“All right,” I managed to keep my own voice steady. “Okay. Would you mind taking me there, Kara? Or telling me how much further to go so that I can take a look?”
She gasped a few times, like the surprising tremors that came after a good, long cry, before rising to stand. She dusted off her butt and the back of her legs, as if dirt and debris clung to her body. They didn’t, of course, which made my heart crack for hereven more. It was too dark to see very clearly, but I noticed then the little cuts and bruises on the illusion of her arms and legs. I sucked my lips into my mouth, trying to stay as calm as possible for her while we continued toward where I expected to find her body.
When she finally came to a stop, though, I found nothing but a hair clip. Though I vaguely remembered her wearing it to class sometimes, it was hardly a corpse. She wrapped her arms around herself, and I stared down at the crunch of dead leaves and branches that covered part of the clearing we stood in. Was she buried here?
Before I could ask the question, Kara pointed to a cluster of detritus a few steps to the left of us. She kept her finger directed at that spot until I crept over, chest pounding at the knowledge that whatever I was going to find wouldn’t be good. And there was definitely no bringing her back.
I crouched down, but I didn’t need to pull out my phone’s flashlight to see the peek of white underneath the browns and black.
The bone was large and thick, though not as big as a femur. I reached out to pick it up but held myself back at the last moment. Curiosity and pull had to be ignored now. This was a crime scene.
My knee creaked when I stood, “Okay, Kara. Thank you for showing me. I’m going to call the police now. And then they’ll probably let your family know. I’ll stay out here to help them find you. Okay?”
She held herself again, looking so out of place and dressed for a warm, summer hike. She was looking down at the bone that I was fairly certain had scrapes of teeth from whatever scavenging animals had cleaned her flesh from it. “I want to see my sister.” I could hear the watery tears in her voice, and it made my own fall in sympathy. I didn’t have any sisters, no close family alivebesides Granna, but I knew that darkness of grief I heard in her tone.
“I’m sorry, Kara,” I said instead of holding her. I called the police station, informing them that I knew where the body of Kara Stanton was located. There was a stilted pause from the 911 operator, then they asked me a series of questions to determine where I was and what I saw. Knowing that I couldn’t explain that I was standing here with Kara’s ghost who’d led me to where she’d been killed, I explained that I recognized the blue hair clip as one she wore to class, and though I wasn’t certain, I believed that the accessory and bone were evidence enough to call.
While I waited for officers to arrive, I decided not to accost Kara with any more questions, and she didn’t offer anything else. Hopefully it was enough for me to bear witness to this for her. I’d want someone else to do the same for me.
Soon, the whoop of sirens sounded far in the distance, and I found myself running a nervous hand on the bark of a fallen tree. There was a cluster of oyster mushrooms thriving on the dying oak, and I ran the pad of my finger on an area of rippling gills. The pull in my chest tugged again, and I leaned my ear toward the fungus. What I didn’t expect, though, was to actually, finally, hear the whispers.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Orion
When I picked up the phone, happy to have a call from Sylvie distract me from the disastrous paper that I was reading, my heart dropped all the way into my stomach. Police sirens were blaring in the background, footsteps and frantic voices warring with the soft sound of hers. She found a dead body, she said. Could I let her grandmother know and then come pick her up at that the police station, she asked.
I wasn’t even sure I’d locked my front door when I raced out of my house. I burned through two cigarettes on the way, though everything in me wanted to get to Sylvie now. Her grandmother didn’t have a cell phone, and no one was answering the house phone, so I promised to stop by to see if her grandmother was home.
My knocking was met with a grimace that would have put my tail between my legs if I weren’t already vibrating with the agitating need to find and protect my Sylvie.
When I’d gritted an explanation to the witch, she shoved me back out of the door while grabbing her purse.
So, that’s how I found myself bursting into the police station with Sylvie’s grandmother. I was struggling to gather my words, animalistic needs and instincts crashing through my thoughts like turbulent waves. The bright lights and chatter and ringing phones were like clacking marbles in my brain and were only making me more agitated. It was almost all I could muster to not shift in front of all of these humans. Though, with the way Sylvie’s grandmother was doling cold commands and indignation at her granddaughter being driven to the station in the back of a cruiser like a criminal, I wasn’t the main one they should’ve feared.
“… when she’s done nothing but help youuselesspigs,” she somehow looked down upon everyone from her truly tiny stature. After enough people tried to placate us, they soon realized that we wouldn’t justsit in the lobby and wait a moment. I was all but snapping my teeth at any who approached us, and I felt the itch of my fangs and claws wanting to descend so that I could tear down all who separated me from my mate.
We were left to stand and pace under the harsh fluorescent lights, officers and staff watching us with wary eyes. I felt like the snapping wolf at the feet of a battle queen with how Sylvie’s grandmother’s glare made even the biggest and most heavily armed shrink and dart away from us.
“This is fucking ridiculous,” she muttered and looked up at me, “can’t you just rip them all apart?”
Her encouragement was not helping when I was trying to halt my fantasies about doing just that. I probably could do what she asked, but I would end up riddled with bullets before we even made it out of here. “Yes, but that wouldn’t help.” I had enough of my rational mind about me to know that, at least.
She huffed, “No, but it would make me feel better. When are you going to tell her, anyway?”
I looked away, trying to calm down. Did Sylvie even know about shifters? Would she see me any differently because of what I was?No, my heart said,she wouldn’t. But I had no good model for what our relationship would look like if she knew I wasn’t human. Seanstilldidn’t know about my mother, and they had been married for nearly twenty years. And Da didn’t seriously date any humans as far as I knew. Juno never revealed themself a Wolf to any of their trysts, but maybe I’d revisit the topic with them just to be sure.
“Orion.” My hackles raised, and I lunged forward. Sylvie’s grandmother’s hand was surprisingly strong when she held me back, and, for good measure, she gave me a zap that made me back down. Wasn’t she the one who was just asking me to kill everybody?
“You two are making quite the scene,” he mocked us, and I launched forward again. I grabbed the front of his shirt, bringing our faces just an inch from each other. The repellent on his scent was strong, and it made my territorial instinct surge even higher.
“You hold my mate here a minute longer, and I will fucking end you,” the growl was evident in my threat, and Graham growled back. If I hadn’t been caught in the riptide of my own rage, I would have startled at the admission that’d just slipped out.
