The house is full of smells of other people, and blood stinks up my shelter.
She wasn’t supposed to see me like this, but I had no choice. I wanted to tell her the truth.
Now she sits at the edge of the basement stairs. The door of my room won’t shut anymore, but I don’t want to hurt anyone. Never have. I stay down, lying on the floor, knowing I did the right thing, but waiting until my human form comes back so I can cry like I want to. I know I’ve lost her. Lost them both. But I saved them.
My brain is handling these whirlwinds of tortured thoughts better now that I’m almost at the point of changing.
Loretta leaves the top step. Comes halfway down. “Thank you, Jasper,” she whispers.
My head jerks up. Ears perk.
“You understand me?”
I can nod.
“Can you talk?”
I let out a grumbling noise.
“You saved us. And Matt... Well, I didn’t want him to die, but he lit the match on the dynamite, didn’t he?”
Another nod.
“The body and the truck are in some snowed-in part of the mountains. They’ll find him at some point. Days from now,probably. I’ll have to wait until then to take care of things, but that’s okay. You said you’d wait. I’ll wait, too.”
She doesn’t have to wait long. I know the second the sun pokes its crown above the horizon. My fur recedes. Bones shrink. The charley horse feeling comes back, but this is like the feeling of doing way too many crunches.
Naked and bloody, I stay sprawled down in the blankets, hiding myself as best I can.
But I don’t need to. Loretta races down the rest of the stairs now and into my arms. “Thank you, thank you, thank you,” she whispers, and then sobs on my bare chest.
I stroke my hand down her back, blood caked in the creases of my skin. That’s cheating, honestly. What good is fur if you can't use it to hide the evidence of your crimes?
I killed a human.
Loretta’s husband. Ari’s father.
“I’m so sorry,” I whisper. “I’m so sorry, Loretta. I wanted to stop him. I heard you screaming. I’ve never gotten out before, but you were calling for me, and I grabbed him—”
“He was going to drop Ari out the window if I didn’t come with him.”
Hot fury boils in me, and I can’t move. Can’t speak. I let out a snarl from low in my chest, an incredulous, grieving, enraged noise.
“Exactly,” Loretta smiles sadly. “You get it. So I’m not mad. I’m not scared. I’m only thankful. Oh, my God, I’m free! Andsothankful, on so many levels. Ari won’t ever have to go spend time with him. I won’t have to worry about him using her as a pawn to hurt me. I saw that he would totally do that tonight. She can still see his parents and his younger brother if they want to.”
“But... But I’m a monster. You know that? You understand that?”
She pulls back and looks at me—keeping her eyes aimed at my face and not down below, because she’s a lady. “I get that. Ardy is a pooka. Alban is a warlock. Alain is a... mechamagi? Something that sounds like a toy I had in kindergarten.”
I laugh at that one. “Please forgive me for not telling you the truth. I never lied—exactly. I just went along with parts of what was said.”
“I realized that. I’ve been up all night. Izzy and Ardy stayed here, but I couldn’t sleep. I missed you. I was worried about you, but everyone said I couldn’t come down.”
“I’m glad you didn’t. Isolation is important, so no accidental scratches or bites occur when I’m in wolf form. In human form, you can’t catch this. Children of mine will be like me—but more human than wolf when they turn. My grandfather was the one who was bitten. He passed it to my dad, and my dad to me. But I can think. I can walk on two legs. I just... It’s harder for me than it will be for my kids. But I won’t need more kids if you and Ari... Well. If I haven’t ruined it.”
“Ruined it?” Loretta shakes her head as if she can’t understand what I’ve said. “Baby, you’re a hero! The real deal, SupermanandClark Kent. Oh! Oh, speaking of that, you have to be at work in forty-five minutes, or people will get suspicious. Shower and get dressed, and I’m going to make the fastest batch of blueberry pancakes you ever saw. Oh! And I can drive to the store. And the library! He’s not following me. He’ll... He’ll never hurt us again.”
I nod and clasp her hands—wincing with her when I see they’re bandaged. “What—”
