Unleashed (31 page)

“I’ll go home after school to get what I need,” Cordelia said. “Tell your grandfather you invited me to your house for dinner. We’ll talk after.”

“And you’ll tell me the truth,” Katelyn said, allowing herself to hope.

“I will.” Cordelia swallowed hard. “But you can’t tell anyone what I tell you. You have to swear.”

“I promise,” Katelyn said firmly. It was the hardest lie she’d ever told, but she really needed to know what was going on.

Cordelia still looked uncertain. But finally she nodded. “Deal.”

Because of the rain, Katelyn ate lunch inside. The school had a huge, dreary cavern of a space that was used as a lunchroom—though no one ate there unless it was raining. She’d been there a few times but hadn’t really noticed the murals painted on the walls. From floor to ceiling they were covered with faded images of wolves. She felt a sudden urge to destroy the art, attack it as she had been attacked.

She forced herself to look away. She didn’t see Cordelia, but as she searched for an empty seat, Trick rose from a table of people and came over to her. He was carrying a cup of ramen, but something he was eating smelled like pine needles. Or maybe it was something he was wearing.

“Hi,” she said wanly. She welcomed his company—he always had a way of making her smile—but she didn’t want him to ask her anything.

“Come on,” he said, guiding her past all the tables to a stairwell on the other side of the room. He sat down on the top step. “You’ve been staggering around all morning like you’ve lost your best friend.”

She smiled, trying to brush off the comment. Then, as she looked at him, the strange telescoping thing happened again. Her field of vision was taken up with nothing but Trick’s eyes, set widely apart on either side of his arched nose and fringed by heavy lashes. Green, with gold flecks, and tiny bits of deep blue she’d never noticed before.

Then the image vanished and she was looking at Trick’s entire angular face again—taut with concern and … something else. Was he
angry
?

She swayed a little on the step. “What are you eating?” she asked as casually as possible to cover it. “It smells like a Christmas tree.”

“Just ramen,” he said. He regarded her closely. “What’s going on with you?”

“I want to go over to Sam’s after school today,” she said suddenly. Cordelia wouldn’t be over for at least a couple of hours. It would be the perfect time to find out exactly what Sam had been hinting at during her party. “To say goodbye. She’s leaving, you know. Would you mind waiting half an hour to take me home afterwards?”

“I didn’t know you two were close.” He shrugged. “Sure. I can take you there if you need a ride.”

“No,” she said quickly. “I mean, I don’t need a ride there. She’s like what, three blocks from here?”

“Trickster,” called a guy in emo clothes—black, black, and more black, plus black-dyed hair. Kohl around the eyes, lots of piercings. “Your turn.”

“We’re playing Go,” Trick told Katelyn. “You know it? Like Japanese chess.”

“No. Go play Go.” She was trying hard to sound nonchalant. “I’ll come back over here and meet you in the lot after I say goodbye to Sam.”

He nodded and stood to leave but looked at her for a moment as if he was going to say something else. Instead, he turned and made his way back to his table. Despite everything, her eyes followed him, fixing on his broad shoulders. She didn’t want to sit at the table, but she sort of wished he’d stayed with her in the stairwell. Maybe he didn’t want to be just her friend, but he was the closest thing she had to one.

Then she saw Beau standing at the doorway to the room. He was looking straight at her. She half stood, pointing to herself and then the door, and he gave her a little nod and disappeared.

She walked into the hallway, where he was waiting for her. His hands were in his pockets and his shoulders were hunched. They hadn’t spoken since Becky had died.

“Hey,” she said. “What’s up?”

He made a face. “Well, as you may have expected, after Becky died, my grandma went pretty ballistic. ‘It’s happening. More will die,’ that kind of stuff.” He sounded as if he was trying to make light, but his voice was low and dead serious.

Katelyn nodded.

“Then about two this morning she just started screaming. She said there was a monster in her window.”

“A
monster
?” Katelyn repeated. “Like what? Like a … an animal, maybe?”
A wolf?
She thought the words but didn’t say them, waiting to see if Beau said them first.

“All she said was that it was huge. She just carried on something terrible. We couldn’t get her to calm down. And then …” He cleared his throat and looked down. “Then she had a stroke. They took her down to Bentonville. She’s in intensive care.”

“Oh, my God.” Shocked, she gave him a quick hug. “Beau. I’m so sorry.”

“I think you met her in Babette’s,” he went on. “You were with Cordelia.”

She remembered the old lady with the big black-feathered hat. She had warned Katelyn and Cordelia to go home, where it was safe. Katelyn should have listened to her.

“Is there anything I can do?” she asked him.

He exhaled. “I don’t know. I just wanted to tell you.”

She nodded. “I’m so sorry. Were you going to eat your lunch in there?” she asked, gesturing with her head to the lunch room.

“No. I was just looking for you.” His cheeks reddened. “So … I’ll see you later.”

“Okay. Thanks for letting me know,” she said. She gave him another quick hug. He smiled shyly at her, then turned and trudged down the hall toward Mrs. Walker’s office.

The rain had stopped, but the wind hadn’t. It picked up the leaves and blew them across the road as Katelyn stood in front of Sam’s house. She almost turned around and left. But she didn’t really have that choice, did she? If Cordelia bailed on her, Sam might be the only person who could give her answers, and she’d be gone in another day or two. Her heart thumping, she pressed the doorbell, and it was Sam herself who answered. Her face was drawn, but when she saw Katelyn, she brightened up a little.

“Hey.” She opened the door wide, to reveal stacks of brown cardboard cartons.

“I heard you were leaving,” Katelyn said.

Sam nodded, and the warmth left her eyes. She turned around and padded into the house, indicating that Katelyn should follow her.

“My parents are splitting up,” Sam said dully as she looked at all the cartons.

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” Katelyn said, but found she was actually relieved. At least it was a normal reason.

Sam shrugged. “It wasn’t a surprise. My mom has never liked it here. She got a job offer in Little Rock and decided to take it. My dad’s moving back to Oklahoma. I’ll see him over Christmas.”

Katelyn nodded. She felt bad about wanting to bring up Becky’s death, but it was now or never and she couldn’t think of any subtle way to do it.

“Um, I’m really sorry about all of it, really. And I hope I don’t sound cold. But you said something at the party about the way Becky died.…”

“Right.” Sam nodded, then turned and walked into the kitchen. Katelyn trailed after her. “Want a soda?”

“Sure.” Resting her hands on the white breakfast bar, Katelyn spotted a big pile of newspaper clippings and something that looked like a weathered piece of parchment folded on top.

Sam got them both cans of soda and gestured for Katelyn to sit at the bar.

“My mom works at the clinic, you know? And she heard the doctor talking on the clinic phone—the police took Becky there first, before they went to Bentonville—and he was saying her injuries didn’t add up and he had never seen anything like it in his life.”

Katelyn swallowed hard. “Like how?”

“I don’t know.” Sam ran her fingers through her hair. “He also said she’d been moved. There was some kind of evidence that she was sneaking into the Inner Wolf Center. My mom couldn’t make it out.”

“So are the police investigating the Wolf Center?” Katelyn asked.

Sam puffed air out of her cheeks. “I don’t know. Wolf Springs is such a bizarre place. People are so secretive about the weirdest stuff. Everything is about your family. If your great-grandparents didn’t grow up here, forget about ever being accepted.”

Katelyn remembered how Cordelia had told her she’d quit cheerleading because of her family.

“They’ll act nice, right to your face,” Sam said. “But if you weren’t born here, you’ll always be an outsider. I’m glad we’re leaving. I just wish”—her voice trailed off—“my parents weren’t getting divorced.”

“That sucks,” Katelyn said sincerely, and gave her a quick hug, just as she had Beau. The bad news just kept coming in Wolf Springs.

“Thanks.” Sam flashed her a weak smile. Then she pointed to the pile of clippings. “Those are old newspaper articles about Wolf Springs. My mom found them in this cool box. She wants to keep the box. She’s going to see if the historical society wants the clippings.”

Katelyn picked up the folded parchment and opened it. It was a pen-and-ink landscape. In the foreground was the rough sketch of a three-dimensional heart shape, very craggy. Maybe a boulder. Trees stood in the middle ground, and in the background, a waterfall cascaded down the face of a mountain. Something tugged at the back of her mind, but she couldn’t put her finger on it.

“Could I take these home to look through them?” Katelyn asked. “They’d be great for my history project.”

Sam slid off her bar stool. “Sure. If I know my mom, she’ll wind up tossing them in the trash. She’s got a little too much going on to worry about the historical society. Just promise me you’ll give them back if she asks for them, okay?”

“Of course.” Katelyn felt a surge of triumph as Sam put the papers into a plastic bag, and Katelyn loaded it into her backpack. She gave Sam her cell phone number and her grandfather’s landline, in case Sam’s mom wanted the papers back. Then Sam walked her to the door and gave her a quick hug.

“Be careful, okay?” Sam said. “This town has always given me the creeps. Don’t trust anybody.” She smiled faintly. “Except Trick. He’s a good guy.”

“You’ll miss him,” Katelyn said.

“Trick’s made of awesome.” Her smile turned sly. “And he likes you. If I had it going on with Trick, I might actually want to stay here.
You’re
here. Go for it.”

“Maybe I will,” Katelyn said, forcing herself to smile back.

But she had far more on her mind than guys and history projects. As she walked back to the lot, her thoughts turned to Cordelia. Sam hadn’t had much to tell her, but hopefully Cordelia would. Someone needed to start filling in the blanks.

Trick was leaning against his Mustang, waiting for her, but as she neared, she saw his upper lip was split, and there was a bruise on his cheekbone.

“Trick, what happened?” she cried, rushing up to him.

“Doesn’t matter,” he said. “The other guy’s dead.”

13

“H
a,” she said mockingly. “How hysterically funny. Who was it? Was it Mike?”

He jerked slightly and she figured she had hit the mark. Her fear flared into anger and she hoped Mike looked worse than Trick by a mile.

“Did you get to say your goodbyes to Sam?” he asked.

“That’s all you have to say about the fight?”

“The fight’s not your business. How was Sam?”

Before she could respond, he opened the door to the Mustang and let her in. She could tell he was pissed off. Not at her, but at Mike, or whoever had done this. It helped her calm down even though she wasn’t happy that he wasn’t going to tell her about it.

Once inside, Trick cranked up “Sympathy for the Devil” and like some demonic charioteer, he drove through the town and up through the tunnel of trees. Everything was lost in a blur. His expression was clouded, guarded, and he barely said a word when he let her out at her grandfather’s.

Then his Mustang blew back into the woods like a phantom jet, leaving her alone on the porch. She went inside and greeted Ed, asked him if Cordelia could come for dinner, left a message on Cordelia’s cell to confirm, then went upstairs “to study.” In reality, she checked her leg and her shoulder again, finding them still unblemished.