A few minutes later, he calls, “Youdone?”
I reach out as carefully as I can and yank the dress down while staying away from the mirror. Then I wait.
A minute passes.
“What the hell are you doing in there, girl?”
I thump against the wall and groan. Charlie’s chair scrapes the floor. His footsteps cross the trailer. I watch as my door opens.
“Are you—?” he begins.
He stops. He stares. A volley of profanity follows, ending with, “Who the hell let a dog in?—?”
I leap. He falls back, hands rising. I hit him square in the chest, and he drops with me on him. He opens his mouth to shout, but the sound comes in a garbled cry as I rip out his throat.
As Charlie dies, lifeblood soaking the floor, I throw back my head and howl. Annabelle’s door creaks open. Her footsteps slide across the office. She looks out the next door and sees Charlie, still twitching in death. Then she spots me.
Annabelle starts backing into the office. Our eyes meet. She swallows, uncertain. I back up and wave my muzzle, grunting for her to go.
As she stumbles forward, the door flies open. Annabelle squeaks. Mr. Blackrose sees me. Sees Charlie. His mouth opens. I lunge and take him down. Behind him, a brown wolf tears into the tent. It’s Zeke.
When I rip out Mr. Blackrose’s throat, Zeke grunts, acknowledging I’m okay. He glances at Annabelle, frozen behind me. Then he steps back, muzzle-waving her out of the trailer. She hesitates and then totters forward, staggering around us before racing out.
When Annabelle’s gone, I snarl, telling Zeke he can leave, but he searches the trailer to be sure it’s empty. The overprotective big brother, as always. When he returns, I nod toward Charlie, telling Zeke he can feed on the carnie, but he snorts and takes off to find his own dinner. I wait until he’s gone. Then I begin to eat.
WhenI go outside, I’m in human form. The others are mostly still wolves and still feeding. A few have shifted back and are dismantling the carnival. They come over to congratulate me, hug me, pat me on the back for a job well done. I staked out the carnival and set everything in motion. I had help, of course, like Reggie and Ray’s mom, who’d claimed Charlie picked her pocket to get them out of the trailer. But my parents let me handle the prep work, and my success raises my status to a full adult member of our pack.
After tonight, it’ll be another year or two before we feed on humans again. The rest of the time, we make do with deer and rabbits. That only keeps our instincts at bay for so long, though, and eventually, we must do this, or we risk losing control and slaughtering innocents.
Wehaveslaughtered some innocents tonight. My pack never sugarcoats that reality. But this is a choice we can live with. I can live with it even more than usual, thinking of the tapes and photographs stuffed in my bag for burning later.
Beyond the supermarket parking lot, the town is quiet and dark and still. Someone would have heard a scream or two. As efficient as we are, someone still screams. Yet tonight, the town keeps its curtains pulled and its ears plugged. Our pack founded this place, generations ago, and we have a silent bargain with the humans who’ve settled here. We keep them safe, and what happened here tonight means they are safe fromus, too, from our instincts.
Speaking of safe, Annabelle is gone. My parents explained her situation to the pack, and they gave me money andassurances no wolf would touch her. I see no sign of her now as I walk behind the trailers.
Dixie is there, whining uneasily. I remove her too-tight collar. Rust sticks the clasp, but I snap that as easily as I did the locks inside. Then I bend to look her in the eye, and rub her neck, and tell her she’s free if that’s what she wants. She can also come with me, but the choice is hers.
When I stand, she falls in beside me, so close she brushes my thighs as I walk, as if she fears being left behind. I head to where I left my bike. Reggie and Ray are there waiting, Ray licking a last bit of blood from his cheek before he turns on his Walkman.
As we set out, we pass our dads, driving the trucks that pull the carnival trailers. They wave and tell us to go straight home, and we promise we will.
We ride so fast that Reggie nearly collides with a figure stepping from behind a tree. His bike stops with a squeak, which he echoes in a grunting growl.
“Annabelle,” I say.
“It’s Annie,” she says, her voice quavering. “It was always Annie.”
I nod. “You can go home now. You’re safe. A bus comes through every morning.”
We don’t warn her not to tell what she saw. Who’d believe her if she did?
When she doesn’t move, Reggie glances at me, eager to be going, and Dixie whines, wanting to get away from this place.
“What if I don’t want to go?” Annabelle—Annie—asks, barely above a whisper. “What if I want to stay?”
“Your family?—”
“I ran away. That’s how he…” She trails off with a swallow. Then she meets my gaze. “Take me with you. I won’t be any trouble. I can do chores, work the fields, whatever you need. Just take me and…” A harder swallow, and her voice comes firmer asshe straightens. “Show me how to do what you did. How to be what you are. I want that.”
