“Sometimes animals get sick,” I said carefully. “It makes them act mean.”
“The other dogs scared it away,” Thea said with certainty. “The pack protected us.”
Pack. There was that word again. But she was right, those coordinated howls, the way the rabid wolf had fled, it all pointed to one conclusion: we’d been saved by something that hunted in a pack and could terrify a creature that size.
I thought about the wolf that had attacked my shop five years ago. Mangy gray fur. Foam at the mouth. Too large to be natural. Exactly matching today’s attacker.
Coincidence, had to be coincidence. Rabies lasted in wild populations, made animals grow weird. It definitely didn’t mean anything supernatural was happening in Pine Valley, definitely didn’t mean the town’s paranoia about beasts was justified.
My shoulder throbbed with each heartbeat. Heat radiated from the wounds despite the bandages. Fever was setting in already, which wasn’t good.
“Movie time?” I suggested, needing distraction for them while I figured out what the hell to do.
They helped me to the couch, my little caretakers fetching blankets and stuffed animals. The TV was already on from earlier, paused on some nature documentary. I hit play without looking, just needing background noise.
Of course it was about wolves. Not regular wolves either, but werewolf mythology, complete with dramatic reenactments and ominous music.
“The were-wolf in there protects people,” Thea said with drowsy certainty as she curled against my good side. “Just like the ones in the woods.”
“No, baby. This is just a movie, it’s not real. And the ones in the woods aren’t werewolves,” I said automatically. “Just... big dogs. Wild dogs.”
But even as I said it, I knew I was lying to them and to myself, because those coordinated howls and the way they’d hunted showed intelligence and strategy, not random animal behavior. Maybe truly a pack of clever wolves?
The fever was getting worse. I could feel it burning through me, spreading too fast to be normal. The bite throbbed with each heartbeat, sending waves of wrong through my system.
“Just a wild animal,” I whispered, more to myself than the twins. “Just a big animal. Maybe mutated from pollution. Not supernatural. Not werewolves. No such thing.”
Because if werewolves were real, if the beasts Pine Valley feared weren’t those beasts that had attacked me twice but something worse, then what did that make my children? What did that make the man who’d fathered them and vanished, the one that had healed way too fast? What did that make me now, with wolf saliva mixing with my blood?
“Mama?” Rowan’s worried voice cut through my spiral. “You feel hot.”
“Just tired, baby.” I pulled both twins against me, ignoring the screaming protest from my shoulder. “Everything’s going to be okay.”
Another lie. Nothing was okay, nothing had been okay for a long time. I’d just been too desperate for normal to see it.
Outside, a long, mournful howl carried a message I couldn’t understand but felt in my bones. And I was burning up from the inside out, my body fighting a war I didn’t understand against an infection that shouldn’t be spreading this fast.
15
— • —
Lina
A day passed in a fever haze that made reality feel negotiable. I’d called Mika to tell her I had stomach flu, which was easier than explaining “hey, remember that beast attack everyone’s paranoid about? Yeah, one of them made me its chew toy.” She’d wanted to bring soup. Vivi had threatened to show up with her grandmother’s cure-all tea that smelled like fermented gym socks. I’d convinced them both to stay away, claiming I was violently contagious.
The truth was uglier. The bite wound had gone from bad to catastrophic. Angry red infection spread outward from the puncture marks in dark veins that looked like someone had drawn on me with a sharpie while I slept. Except this artwork came with bonus features: fever that wouldn’t break, vision that kept shifting into too-bright colors, and hearing so acute I couldtell when Mrs. Kelly was arguing with her husband three houses down.
“Mama needs more water,” Rowan announced from his post beside my bed. He hadn’t left my side except for bathroom breaks, curled against me even when the fever made me radiate heat. Every time I shifted, he’d make these soft whimpering sounds that broke my heart.
“I’ll get it!” Thea scrambled off the bed where she’d been arranging her stuffed animal army. She’d decided the solution to my illness was clearly a protective fort of plush toys. Mr. Unicorn was stationed by my head, apparently the commanding officer of this cotton-filled militia.
I tried to sit up and immediately regretted existing. The room spun in lazy circles that made my stomach revolt. “I’m okay, babies. Just resting.”
“You shake when you sleep,” Rowan informed me solemnly. “And you make hurt sounds.”
Fantastic. Nothing quite screams “responsible parent” more than traumatizing your kids with your fever dreams. I’d been having vivid nightmares about running through forests, about hunting and being hunted, about gray eyes that watched from the darkness.
Because that’s what this was, wasn’t it? Not a normal infection. Not a regular fever. My body was changing, fighting a war I didn’t understand with weapons I didn’t know I had. The bite burned constantly now, sending pulses of wrong through my system with each heartbeat.
