Unleashed (18 page)

Cordelia’s entire demeanor changed. She lifted her chin and squared her shoulders, as if she was proud of what she was going to say. Then a cloud passed over her face, and she exhaled long and hard. She tucked her hair behind her ears and studied the table.

“Complicated. His name is Dominic—Dom. It’s a long-distance thing. He’s twenty-two. His dad got killed in a car accident and Dom’s, um, running the family business. He’s doing
great
. But our families … don’t get along.” She was using her apology voice again.

So Dom was not approved of. Older man, plus Katelyn thought about what Paulette had said about country people holding grudges. She folded her hands and leaned on them.

“So a
Romeo and Juliet
kind of long-distance thing. That’s romantic.” She tried to sound hopeful.

“Yeah, I guess.” Cordelia examined another piece of pepperoni at close range. Ate it. “Some days I hate him and I’m sure he feels the same. But there’s something else there, too. He likes me and I know it’s real, because he has too many reasons not to.”

“Wow, that
is
complicated,” Katelyn said. She had yet to have a relationship with a guy that was intense enough to generate mutual hatred. “So you’ve got one guy who might just want to jump your bones and one guy who is your grand and forbidden passion.” She tried to sound lightly mocking, not insulting, but she didn’t know Cordelia well enough to tell how the other girl was taking it.

Cordelia cleared her throat and smoothed her hair. “My dad would freak out if he knew, so
please
don’t mention it.”

“Your father?” Katelyn echoed. “Why would I?”

Cordelia shrugged. “What I mean is don’t say anything about boys at all if you ever meet him.” She made a face. “You know the type. No one’s good enough for his little girl.”

Katelyn grinned. Kimi’s dad was like that.

“So who’s hotter?” Katelyn asked.

“Dom, by miles.” She slid Katelyn a sly glance. “I’ll bet you thought all the boys around here would be missing a few teeth.” Katelyn flushed and Cordelia brightened. “Oh, my God, you
are
crushing on someone!”

“I’ll give you this. The guys around here are surprisingly good-looking.” It was as confessional as Katelyn was going to get. Cordelia could think what she wanted to.

After they had finished eating and cleaning up, they moved to the living room.

“I didn’t think this through too well,” Katelyn admitted as she perused her grandfather’s meager movie collection.

“That’s cool. We could play a game or something,” Cordelia said as she checked out his bookshelves.

“Or actually work on our history project,” Katelyn suggested. “Guess what I … read,” she finished awkwardly. “Forty years ago, a bunch of people died … um, violently, and then fifty years before
that
, the same thing happened.”

Cordelia wrinkled her nose. “In Wolf Springs?”

“It was the wild animals in the forest. Like they went crazy all of a sudden,” she went on.

“Wow.” Cordelia looked from the shelves to Katelyn. “Where’d you read that?”

“In one of those books,” she said faintly, hating to lie. “I was thinking we could switch to that. But maybe that’s too close to what happened to Haley,” she added, thinking of the confrontation in history class.

“Let’s stick with the mine,” Cordelia agreed. “Best to steer clear. Especially since you’re the new girl, you know?”

“Okay.” That made sense.

“I got a couple more books out of the town library,” Cordelia said. “They’re in my backpack. I haven’t really looked at them, but they seemed like they might have some info on the mine.”

“Cool.” Katelyn hadn’t expected Cordelia to go on a research trip. “Can I see them?”

“Later, okay? I never do homework on Friday night.” She gave Katelyn a look. “Let’s just blow it off for a little while longer, you know what I mean?”

Katelyn smiled and nodded and wandered over to the paintings on the wall. An animal head broke up the sequence and she shivered at the image in her mind of the dead deer in the road. And at the thought that her own grandfather shot and killed living things and wanted her to learn how to, too.

“Hey, check this out,” Cordelia said.

She was holding out a book with a stern-looking but attractive older man on the cover. He had silvery-gray hair and a trim gray beard, and he was wearing a polo shirt with a wolf head on it. The title of the book was huge and in a metallic red font.

“
Unleashing Your Inner Wolf
, by Jack Bronson? No way,” Katelyn said, bursting out with a laugh. “My
grandfather
has a copy?”

Cordelia made a face. “I know, right? It doesn’t look like it’s ever been opened, no crack in the spine at all,” she said. “Maybe he got it as a gift from someone.”

“But who? If they know Ed, it had to be a practical joke.”

Cordelia flipped it over. “Listen to what it says on the back. ‘Within the heart of every man is a wolf waiting to spring forth. The wolf is there and if you let it, the wolf will give you strength, power, ambition, and fearlessness. These are gifts and one should learn to harness them by getting in touch with the wolf within.’ ”

Katelyn thought of the executive on the plane and started laughing harder. She took the book from Cordelia and flipped through it. There were tons of passages in italics and words in big capital letters, like
POWER! FEROCITY! AGGRESSION!

“Yikers,” she said.

“They should try getting in touch with their inner human,” Cordelia said.

“I can hear them drumming from here,” Katelyn said. “I’m keeping this. I’m going to read it.”

“At my house, too. The drums must echo off the mountains. They make the animals freak out.”

Katelyn put the book down on the coffee table. “That’s what Trick said.” Too late, she realized she’d spoken his name aloud.

Cordelia grimaced. “You know what the problem with Trick is?”

Katelyn opened her mouth, but in the distance a wolf howled and she froze.

A moment later a loud, shrill scream rang through the mountains.

7

“W
hat’s that?” Katelyn whispered.

“I don’t know.” Cordelia had turned white, scaring Katelyn even more. “A cat?”

“A
cat
? Are you kidding?” Katelyn said.

They both stared at the door. “They can sound human when they’re fighting. Or scared,” Cordelia said.

“I’m calling 911.” Katelyn turned to bolt into the kitchen.

“Kat, this is the
country
,” Cordelia said. “Not sure we need to.”

“But that was a
scream
,” Katelyn argued.

“Maybe,” Cordelia said. Her voice was strained. “But it would take anyone at least an hour to get here. And we only have two cops.” Cordelia looked around. “Where’s your grandpa’s—there it is.”

Cordelia crossed the living room and hefted the rifle out of the rack on the wall. She cracked it open, examined it, and said, “Good. Loaded.” She snapped it shut.

“Oh, my God,” Katelyn said. “Cordelia …”

“It’s probably nothing.” Cordelia carried the rifle pointed toward the ceiling as she walked toward the door. “For all we know, it’s some drunk or one of those crazy businessmen trying to do a primal scream.”

Katelyn stood beside her, staring at the door. “But you just said it was a cat.”

“And I
stand
by cat,” Cordelia insisted. “But it
could
be something else.”

Someone in trouble. Someone like Haley
, Katelyn thought. Then there were Beau’s story and her grandfather’s note:
Keep the door locked
.

And the wolf. Could it be attacking someone else? Who knew what would have happened to her if Trick hadn’t shot at it?

“Get the door for me,” Cordelia said.

Resolutely, Katelyn turned the knob and pushed the door open. It was unbelievably dark outside. She couldn’t even make out the shapes of the trees.

“Hello?” Cordelia yelled. “Is anyone there?”

They stepped out on the porch. “We need a flashlight,” Cordelia said. “I’ve got a little one in my overnight bag. I’ll go get it. You take the gun.”

Cordelia passed it to Katelyn. The weight of it startled her. She fitted it against her sore shoulder. For just an instant she wished she could actually shoot. She decided in this situation she was willing to try again if she had to.

And if it attacked … Too late, she realized that what she should have done was give the rifle to Cordelia and go to look for the flashlight herself.

“Okay, I found it,” Cordelia said, returning.

A beam of light aimed past Katelyn and painted the trees. Cordelia handed her the flashlight and took the rifle.

Chills cascaded over her. She stared hard at the trees, imagining what might lurk there. There was another scream, high-pitched and scratchy. Thin and angry.

And familiar. It sounded just like one of the tomcats that had screeched in anger behind her house in California.

Her whole body sagged in relief.

“Oh, God,” Cordelia whispered. She stopped and rooted her feet to the ground. She brought the rifle up to her shoulder.

“Wait,” Katelyn said, surprised. “That
was
a cat.”

Cordelia didn’t respond. She kept the rifle planted against her shoulder, stock-still. Then she said, “Are you sure?”

“Pretty sure. We had a lot of feral cats around our neighborhood. Because of the beach. All the food.” She took a breath and scanned a wider area with the flashlight. A low-lying tree limb shook, sending a scattering of autumn leaves to the ground.

“Is anyone out there? Are you okay?” Katelyn called, feeling a little braver.

Then a shape burst from the base of the tree and raced away into the night. It moved too fast for her to focus on it, but it was the right size for a cat.

“There! Did you see that?” Katelyn pointed.

“No.”

“It
was
a cat. Or a squirrel or something.”

“Screeching squirrels. Cool.” Cordelia lowered the rifle and wiped her forehead.

Somewhere far off the wolf howled again. At least, Katelyn was pretty sure it was a wolf and not a man pretending to be one.

They stared at each other, whirled around, and darted back inside the cabin. Katelyn slammed the door, locked it, and jumped away from it. As Cordelia began to put the rifle back, Katelyn waved the flashlight in protest, shaking her head.

“That was a wolf,” she said. “A real, live wolf. Shouldn’t we call about
that
?”

Cordelia looked amused. “We’re safe, Kat. Wolves can’t come in unless you invite them.”

“What?”

“Oh, my God! I’m
teasing.
” Cordelia laughed and then stopped and took a close look at Katelyn. “You
do
know about real live animals, right? Not just Hollywood cartoons and purse dogs?”

“Sure,” Katelyn said, although she wasn’t going to admit that the extent of her live-animal experience was with other people’s pets and on a few trips to the L.A. Zoo.

Cordelia finished setting the rifle back on its rack and made a show of cleaning her hands of the whole business. Katelyn clicked off the flashlight and sat down in the middle of the floor.

“Are you okay?” Cordelia asked, face filling with concern as she sat down, too.

Katelyn closed her eyes. She needed to talk about it. She didn’t want to, but she needed to. “No. This huge wolf jumped on Trick’s car the first day he brought me home from school,” Katelyn said. “It tried to claw its way through the roof.”

“Wow.” Cordelia looked surprised. “I haven’t seen a wolf in years.”

“It was terrifying. Trick shot at it and scared it off. I could hear a second one growling, but I didn’t see it.”

“It’s those lunatics at that seminar-thing. If I were a wolf, I’d go bite something, too.” She mimicked Katelyn’s toothy grimace and made a chomping noise.

Katelyn hadn’t gotten to a place where she could joke about it. “There was a dead deer on the road. Trick dragged it away.”

“So the wolf thought you were stealing its dinner. No wonder it growled at you.”

“And there’s a wolf out there now.”

Cordelia sighed and moved Katelyn’s hair out of her eyes. She gave her a quick hug. “This is the wilderness, Kat. You’re going to have to get used to it.”

She’s right. Get a grip
, she told herself. It was time to change the topic. “So, you really don’t want to work on our history project.”

Cordelia shook her head. “It’s Friday night, live from Wolf Springs,” she joked.

“Well, my grandfather has a pathetic movie selection, but why not watch one?”

“Okay.” Cordelia grinned. “Let’s pick the worst movie, make some popcorn, and laugh at it.”

Let it go
, Katelyn told herself. She forced some brightness into her voice.

“Sounds like a plan. I’ll get the popcorn if you pick a movie.”

“On it,” Cordelia said cheerfully. She got to her feet and offered Katelyn a hand.

Katelyn took it. She made it into the kitchen, where she sagged against the counter and struggled to compose herself. She tried to shake the feeling that somewhere in the darkness something terrible was happening.

In the distance, the wolf howled again.