Unleashed (9 page)

But what does she have against Trick?

Katelyn spent her lunch buying her gym clothes and getting some more of her textbooks. After lunch was art.

She walked into a small room crammed with wooden tables coated with splashes of paint and was hit by the smell of turpentine and newsprint. Paintings and collages hung all over the walls, and framed prints of famous pieces by Monet, Picasso, and Chagall sat on wooden stools against a chalkboard. Rain spattered a large picture window, where a girl wearing a gray Timberwolf sweatshirt stood facing Katelyn. The girl smiled at her and walked away, giving Katelyn a clear view of the senior parking lot.

Trick was outside, standing with a man who was wearing a suit and holding an umbrella. Or rather, the man was standing and Trick was pacing, bareheaded, flailing his arms. He was too far away for her to see his face, but it was obvious that he was angry.

“Oh, my God,” a girl with chestnut curls cried as she sailed into the room. “Someone slashed Trick’s tires!”

“What?” the girl in the sweatshirt squeaked. “
Again
?”

By the time she was heading home that afternoon, the sun was setting. It had taken a while to straighten everything out with Trick’s car and to get replacement tires. He tried to joke about it, but she knew if it had happened to her, she’d be pissed and scared. And she’d seen him in the parking lot and seen how angry he was. She tried to ask him about it—who’d done it, and whether it had anything to do with the court trouble—but like Cordelia, he deflected her questions.

“So this is life on the wild side,” she said, feeling bad for him.

“Oh, yeah. It doesn’t get much wilder.” He rolled his eyes, but it was clear by his clenched jaw that the lightheartedness was a front.

“I’m sorry about your car and everything.”

He shook his head and glanced toward the sky. “I’m more worried about getting you home before dark.”

She knew now why that was. Haley—Trick’s … what? his girlfriend?—had been wandering around in the forest by herself when she’d been killed. Katelyn had assumed it had been an animal, but what had Beau been implying in history class? With a shiver, Katelyn thought of the scratching at the door.

She followed Trick’s gaze. “I hate to tell you this, but we’re not going to make it.”

He gripped the wheel tight. “I know.”

“It’s cool, though. You called my grandfather and told him we were going to be late.” It was true; she had heard Trick make the phone call. She was grateful, because she’d realized she hadn’t bothered putting Ed’s number in her iPhone.

“Unfortunately, it’s not cool,” she heard him mumble.

“I’m sure he understands,” Katelyn said. “I mean, you didn’t
plan
to have your tires slashed.”

“Oh, yeah, he understands,” Trick said, biting the words off.

The road twisted and wound and she watched as trees streaked by, the last light of the sun making them glow. Then it was gone and the trees became shadows, leaning toward the car, branches occasionally illuminated by Trick’s headlights. They didn’t look nearly as friendly as during the day. She felt like she was in the Snow White ride at Disneyland and at any moment the trees would come to life and try to grab her. Kimi always said Katelyn went for drama.

The road narrowed to one lane and she wondered what cars did when they arrived at those stretches from opposite directions. Then again, there probably weren’t enough cars that came this way for it to be a real problem.

She continued to stare outside as she waited for her eyes to adjust. But even after a couple of minutes, she still couldn’t see anything not directly illuminated by the headlights. The darkness was complete, impenetrable.
We’re all alone
, she realized. There were no other cars, no house lights, nothing. There were just the road, the tree branches that stretched for them as they went by, and them.

She shivered.
What if something happens to the new tires? What if the car breaks down?
Fear began to creep into her mind as she strained even harder to penetrate the darkness around her. Maybe it made sense to be so cautious. She glanced at Trick and wrapped her arms around herself, wishing she could laugh off how silly she was being.

Suddenly, as they rounded a tight turn, she saw Trick’s face change. She caught a glimpse of something in the middle of the road; then he was shouting and swerving. The car fishtailed and Katelyn screamed and braced herself against the dashboard.

And as soon as it had started, it was over. They came to a skidding halt.

“Don’t look, Kat,” Trick ordered.

Of course she looked; just inches from the front bumper, a deer was sprawled across the road, its eyes frozen, blank, dead, and wide in terror.
Dead!
She looked away, her stomach tightening, and thought of the heads on her grandfather’s wall.
Someone must have hit it
.

Still, she heard herself ask, “What happened to it?”

Trick didn’t say anything.

The deer’s body blocked the road; the closely spaced trees on either side made it impossible to go around. Exhaling raggedly, she turned to Trick and saw the muscles in his jaw working. He glanced up at the pitch-black sky and muttered under his breath.

“What?” she asked.

“Stay here.”

“Why, where are you going?” she asked. Panic flooded her. What if he disappeared into the woods and didn’t come back? What if he left her?

He didn’t look at her as he pulled the emergency brake and put the Mustang in neutral. “I’m going to drag the deer off the road. Stay in the car and don’t come out for anything. The woods aren’t safe at night. Lots of animals and crazies running around.”

“
Crazies
?” she echoed. What was
that
supposed to mean?

In the distance, she could hear the sound of drums beginning to beat. Was that what he meant? The wolf retreat? The executive on the plane had been a lot of things—crazy maybe, but homicidal seemed like a leap. She dug her fingernails into her palms, trying to focus on the sensation, trying to make herself calm down.

Trick turned to look at her and there was fear in his eyes. Her heartbeat picked up. “Okay, I’ll stay in the car.”

“Good.” He nodded as if to himself. “This will just take a minute.”

Trick slammed the door as he got out, and she watched, on edge, as he crossed into the beams from the headlights. He grabbed two of the deer’s legs and began pulling for all he was worth. She was actually glad he’d told her to stay in the car, because there was no way she wanted to help him.

Slowly the deer inched off the road and Katelyn turned her head, not wanting to see the lifeless eyes again. But then she was staring into the blackness that pressed up against the sides of the car, and that was worse.

She looked back and the deer was gone. And so was Trick.

She sat, blinking for a moment, scanning the trees for his shape. The drumming began to pick up, and her heart thumped faster. Every horror movie she’d seen started like this. She’d get killed by an ax-wielding wolfman executive, and Trick would come back and find her body right before he was chopped down, too.

“Haley was out
alone
,” she whispered, desperate to hear the sound of a voice in the quiet and the dark, even if it was her own. Another thought flashed through her mind. What if whoever had slashed Trick’s tires had dumped the deer on the road to get him out of the car? So that
he
was alone? What if out there in the dark he was being beaten … or worse?
He
was being killed by the murderer first. And when that was done, she’d be next.

Stop being an idiot. The deer wasn’t left there to stop us
.

Finally she couldn’t stand it and rolled the window down. “Trick?” she called.

Only the sounds of the woods and the incessant drumming reached her.

“Trick, this isn’t funny!” she shouted.

Nothing.

Chills shot down her spine.

Maybe he was hurt or lost and needed help. Yet even if she could find her way back to the school or to her grandfather’s through the darkness without crashing the car on one of the hairpin turns, she’d never be able to say on what part of the road she’d left him.

He had told her to stay in the car, but for how long? What was she supposed to do? The engine was still running and she tried to crane her neck over to see how much gas there was, suddenly worried that they would run out. The gauge showed more than half a tank left, and she sighed in relief.

This is ridiculous
!

She took a deep breath and then opened her car door and climbed out.

“Trick! Don’t make me come after you!”

She scanned the area, but aside from the stand of menacing trees illuminated by Trick’s high beams, she still couldn’t see anything. The light pouring from inside the Mustang wasn’t helping, and after a moment’s hesitation, she closed the door, turned away from the wash of the headlights, and took a step forward. Cold crept into her bones and she felt as though someone were whispering to her. She couldn’t hear it, exactly; she could only sense it. Her earlier fear that the scary-looking Snow White trees would come alive returned in full force and this time she couldn’t shake it off.

The wind moaned through the branches and they began to creak. Something reached out and plucked at her shirt and she screamed and jumped backward, slamming her elbow into the car door. Katelyn hissed sharply at the pain even as she reached for the door handle, yanked it open, and threw herself inside, slamming the door behind her. She twisted around and examined her arm by the light of the instrument panel. Her sleeve was ripped and a jagged scratch was already oozing blood onto it. A tree branch tapped at the glass next to her and she forced herself to take several deep breaths.

The trees are not coming alive. They’re just really close to the car
.

She tried to still herself so she could listen.
Those stupid drums; if they’d just shut up—

Crash!
Something landed on the hood of the car and she screamed. Two piercing blue eyes were staring at her through the windshield. There was a growl, deep and low and menacing.

The creature shifted and its entire face came into view—silvery gray, enormous. It was a huge wolf with blood dripping from its fangs. It growled again.

It began to scratch at the glass, trying to get at her, and she screamed louder than she’d ever screamed in her life. The creature bounded onto the roof of the car and began to paw at it hard enough to make the car shake while it growled.

The window!

She reached to roll up the open window before the wolf got to it, but before she could, a hand shot through it and grabbed her shirt.

She beat at the hand, but it only tightened its grip on her. Then she heard three words whispered low and fierce: “Gun under seat.”

She gasped—realizing it was Trick—and flailed beneath her seat until her fingers closed against cold metal. Then she heard a second growl rumbling beneath the first.

“Trick, Trick,” she rasped, trying to warn him that there were two wolves. She couldn’t make herself speak loudly enough for him to hear. “
Trick
.”

Shaking, she pulled the handgun out and shoved it through the window toward him, horrified at the very way it felt in her hand.

Trick fired a shot into the air and her ears rang. The wolf jumped off the hood and she heard more growling. It turned to look at her, illuminated in the high beams, foam mixing with the blood around its muzzle. Then the beast leaped toward where Trick was crouched next to her door. He yelled and fired off another shot.

The wolf let out a high-pitched yip. Then it turned and disappeared into the woods. Seconds later Trick was in the car, out of breath and looking every bit as terrified as she felt. He grabbed her head and turned her face to look into her eyes.

“Are you all right?”

She managed to nod, still stunned from what had just happened.

“Did it hurt you?”

“N-no. But there was another one. There were two,” she said.

“Okay,” he said. He let go of her and then looked down at her arm. He swore.

“What is it?” she asked, panic flaring through her again.

“You’re bleeding. I thought you said it didn’t hurt you!”

“It didn’t. I got scratched by a branch.”

He slumped into his seat and closed his eyes for a moment. He took a deep breath and then asked, “You got out of the car, didn’t you?”

“Yes,” she admitted, wincing. She didn’t want him to yell anymore.

“Then you got lucky.” He stared hard at her, reaching out his fingers, almost touching the back of her hand but pulling away at the last instant. “Kat, please, please, don’t ever do that again.”

She licked her lips. “What was that thing?”

“Wolf.”

She could still hear the drumming in the distance. She had seen wolves at the zoo before, but none of them had been that huge or vicious-acting.

“It looked like a monster.” Katelyn searched for the words to express what she was thinking. “I … I thought wolves didn’t attack people in real life. Maybe it thought I was stealing its dinner.”