“It’s okay,” he says.
Jordy shouts, “Dammit, Joaninha. Nothing happened!”
I want to believe him. Believe he would never throw what we have away, but I know what I saw, and I refuse to let him make a fool out of me. How long has this been going on? Did he ever stop seeing her? Has he been fooling around with her behind my back this entire time?
“Drive Jae.”
“Are you sure? If you need to talk to him—”
“Just drive!”
His face is tight with worry, but he nods and puts the car in reverse, backing out of Meiying’s driveway.
“Jo, please—” Jordy’s voice cracks.
I can’t look at him. Not when it feels like my entire world is crashing down around me. They say when you lose the one you love, your heart breaks. But it isn’t only my heart that hurts. My chest aches, my breaths are ragged and shallow. I didn’t realize just how much I cared about him before, but the weight of my feelings slam into me like a Mac truck and I feel like I’m going to have a panic attack if I have to look at him even a second longer.
Is this what he wanted? To hurt me? To see me fall apart? To own my heart and then throw it away?
Jordy chases us out of the driveway, panic written all over his face. “Don’t do this! It’s a misunderstanding. A fucking misunderstanding,” he shouts. But I’m done listening.
I watch him in the passenger mirror as he strips out of his clothes before dropping to his knees. “What is he—?”
Jae checks the rearview mirror and curses. “Fuck. He’s shifting. He’s going to chase us down.”
I gasp. I haven’t seen Jordy’s wolf before and—oh my god. It’s huge. He’shuge! The wolf launches himself forward, his strides quickly closing the distance between him and Jae’s car.
Jae peels down the street, his foot heavy on the gas. “Fuck.”
“Can we outrun him?” I mean, a car should be faster than a wolf. Right?
Judging by his white-knuckled grip, Jae isn’t so sure.
“If I use magic on him are you going to hold it against me?”
I open my mouth to answer. Close it. I uh, I don’t know. “Are you going to hurt him?” Do I want him to get hurt?
“No. It’ll agitate his wolf senses. Slow him down and make us harder to track.”
I chew on my bottom lip but nod when I see just how close Jordy is. There’s less than a car length between us now. “Okay.”
Without skipping a beat, Jae opens the center console and pulls out a palm-sized blood-red stone and a small velvet pouch. He hands me both items, shifts into sixth gear, and then takes them back.
Opening the pouch with one hand, he dips his fingers inside, the tips coming out coated in a fine lavender powder. He makes sure the powder coats every finger before clutching the stone in one hand, the other still gripping the steering wheel.
“You’re going to feel a heavy pressure. Don’t freak out.”
I swallow hard. “Got it.”
“Lupus ad caecum. Natura meum.”A weight presses down on my chest, the air dry in the confined space. Jae’s words are melodic, the cadence of his voice rising with each word he speaks. I gasp, clutching at my chest. I feel myself pressing back against the leather seat, my body trying to escape the invisible weight. The pressure builds to an unbearable level.“Lupus perderet.”I try to tell Jae to stop.I can’t take it, but neither can I speak.“Ad parvum tempus!”The pressure bursts like a bubble being popped and I can breathe again.
Jae acts like nothing happened and places the stone and pouch back in the center console, dusting his fingers on his jeans.
I turn around, looking for any sign of Jordy’s wolf, but the road is empty save for a few other cars.
“Is he okay?” I ask.
“Yeah. It’s wolfsbane. He’ll be sneezing for a while, trying to get the scent out of his nose, but by the time he does, we’ll be long gone. He won’t be able to track us by scent in the car and he won’t know which way we’ve turned.”
