“Zoey?”
He’s in front of me, dressed again, hands reaching.I flinch away, stumbling to the side.
“Did you put psychedelic mushrooms in my lunch?”My voice is a desperate rasp.“Am I tripping?”
Warner lets his arms drop and slowly shakes his head.“I know this is a lot.But we need to keep walking.I don’t think the lion will come back, but I can’t be sure.”
Walking is such a normal thing.
Can I really do something so ordinary?With him?
Numbly, I nod, then push myself to take a few unsteady steps.
His hand stretches toward me again, but I move away, into the middle of the road.
“Y-you walk there.”I gesture to the side of the road he’s standing on with my hand that’s holding the bear spray.Then, I shuffle across the middle line, claiming the opposite side before trudging forward.
“Zoey …”
I ignore him, trying hard to concentrate, all the while too scared of what this new world is.
Men turning into wolves?That’s fiction.Fantasy.Something from a strange dream.
A dream.
That must be it.I fell asleep at some point, and this is a twisted story my mind has made up.
In a dream, I don’t need bear spray, so I let the canister drop from my slack fingers.I use my free hand to pull up a sleeve and pinch my arm.
I don’t wake up.
No matter how much it stings.
Next, I try pinching the meaty part of my thigh, digging my nails in with a bruising grip.
But I don’t blink and find myself in the bedroom of Grandma Minnie’s cabin.
I’m still dragging sore feet through dead leaves on the shoulder of an empty back road with a wolf-man’s eyes burning into the side of my head.
Everything about this dream seem so solid.So real.I’m fully entrenched in it.
My reeling mind reasons that a simple pinch won’t wake me up.I need something as painfully real as this nightmare to shake me out of it.If I want this confusing world to disappear, I have to shock myself.
The handle of Warner’s knife has grown warm in my palm.The blade shines as clear as a mirror as I raise it, setting the well-sharpened edge against the skin of my exposed forearm.
23
WARNER
The smellof blood hits my nose the same moment I hear her gasp.
Less than a second, and I’m at her side, staring in horror at the deep cut on the back of her forearm.My knife drips a delicate crimson stream, seeming to enjoy what it stole from her.
“What happened?”I press my bare hand against the wound, desperate to keep any more of her from leaking out.
Zoey stares up at me with wild, confused eyes.“Why can’t I wake up?”
The desperate words are their own kind of blade stabbing deep into my chest.
