This woman is the only person alive who would dare tell the Wolf to leave her alone. And she’s the only person alive I would actually listen to. I walk down the hall, giving her distance she probably doesn’t expect. I’m halfway to the stairs when I hear her door open behind me.
“Wait.”
I stop.
She stands there, arms wrapped around her stomach, eyes wet, cheeks flushed. She looks angry and lost and grateful all at once.
“I know you’re trying to help me,” she says. “I know I stumbled into something dangerous and you’re just trying to keep me from getting hurt. Or worse.”
I nod once.
“It doesn’t mean I’m not furious about how you did it,” she adds. “But I understand.”
“Good.”
She hesitates, then looks at the carpet. “Thank you. For offering your protection.”
The words come out grudgingly, but they come, and something warm settles low in my chest.
She lifts her head. “I have a job to do. An important one. When can I go back?”
“There’s no way of knowing,” I tell her honestly.
She stiffens. “What does that mean?”
“It means this won’t be solved overnight.”
“So… a week?”
“Probably not,” I admit.
“A month?”
“Maybe.”
She stares at me, panic swelling behind her eyes.
“I can’t miss the rest of the school year. I can’t. I have responsibilities. I have kids who need me. I have bills. I can’t just disappear.”
“You can if the alternative is being killed.”
Her breath catches sharply. “Don’t say that.”
“It’s the truth.”
She shakes her head rapidly, backing away as if the words physically hit her.
“You can’t do this to me!” she screams again. “You can’t rip my life apart because you think you know better.”
“I don’t think,” I say quietly. “I know.”
8
MOLLY
Iwake up three times that night, my heart pounding, unsure where I am until my eyes adjust to the soft glow of the skyline outside the window. The expanse of lights makes the huge room look even bigger, and the bigger it looks, the smaller I feel.
I miss the closet-sized bedroom in my tiny apartment where the heater always rattles, the pipes make weird noises, and my textbooks are stacked under the window because I don’t have a bookshelf. I miss my crooked thrift-store lamp and the ugly quilt I got at a yard sale, because it reminded me of something I might have wrapped around myself as a kid on a cold night.
