Page 85 of Black Hollow: Awakening

“That’s a great idea, Will,” Liam said sarcastically. “The trouble is, a werewolf doesn’t have very many places to hide things. Pulling a shirt and pants out of my ass would be impressive, I’ll admit, but I’m afraid mine isn’t quite that spacious.”

“That’s not what I meant! But you could hide them somewhere in the forest, right?”

“And I do. At the place where I transform. Miles away, where it’s closest to my house. You can understand that was out of my way. I figured it was better to warn you, since you’ve had enough excitement lately, and it would have been hard for me to do that in my other form.”

“Thank God for that,” Will whispered with genuine gratitude. If he had seen some oversized beast in front of him, he probably would have started running for his life. “Don’t do that to me, okay? I mean, I’m curious what you look like after you transform, but if you want to show me, warn me first. Like a month in advance.”

Liam chuckled.

“Sure.”

A loud howl echoed from the distance. Will felt a wave of discomfort.

“I have to go,” Liam stated. “Bye, Will.”

“Bye.”

Liam ran deeper into the woods. Will headed in the opposite direction, looking back at Liam. For a moment, he was tempted to turn back and see Liam mid-transformation, but he decided that would be an invasion of privacy.

Ha. An invasion of privacy. Coming from the guy he had just been staring at in his full naked glory. Good God.

By the time Will reached Norma’s house, he had already forgotten about his suspicions regarding the demon. They sat down in the living room with hot tea.

“Did you find out anything?”

“Yeah. When you told me about that dude, I couldn’t place him, but when I typed the name into a search engine and saw the picture, I remembered immediately,” Norma replied, pouring a scandalous amount of sugar into her cup. “It was a big deal. For about two months.”

“Why only for two months?”

“Let’s start with the fact that his disappearance probably had nothing to do with anything paranormal. Certainly nothing that was reported to the Agency. I also asked a few lone wolves in the area and didn’t hear anything specific. I know that after your crazy experiences, it’s probably hard for you to believe, but sometimes people just disappear without the involvement of freaks. Anyway, after two months, the guy’s father, who lives in Bromwich, said that his son had visited him. That he was fine, that he had run away from his mother, didn’t want to see her anymore, and wouldn’t report to the police. The mother insisted that it wasn’t true, that he would never have behaved like that, but it was her word against the father’s, so it’s hard to say who was telling the truth. In any case, no evidence was found that could indicate third-party involvement, and in the end, the police leaned toward the interpretation that Bradley left of his own free will.”

“With twenty dollars in his pocket?” Will muttered skeptically.

“Well, that was the mother’s version, which lost credibility when it turned out she had a history of psychiatric treatment. For a short time, she was even a suspect. I wanted to talk to her personally, but she died less than a year ago. Some kind of accident.”

“I see.”

He hadn’t really learned anything new. Maybe that was for the better. If it turned out that something paranormal had happened to Bradley, he wouldn’t have known what to do.

“I had no idea he was Oscar’s ex.”

“Mhm. Oscar doesn’t seem to think he left on his own.”

“Maybe he doesn’t want to accept it. Though it’s a shitty thing to do, right? To leave without explaining anything to your boyfriend, sentencing him to guesswork and worry. Seriously, can’t people just break up with each other anymore?”

Will looked at her and laughed involuntarily.

“You don’t have a problem with that.”

“You know it,” Norma confirmed proudly. “So… where did you two leave things? Because I hope it wasn’t at reminiscing about an ex?”

“Actually, it was exactly that. He said he’s afraid to get involved and doesn’t think it would work out between us. That he’s unlucky.”

“Damn. He probably blames himself in some way.”

“Yeah…”

“God, what a topic,” Norma groaned in dismay. “Maybe we should go out somewhere, huh? We could wander around the mall, go see a movie… I don’t have any plans today, and I think you could use a distraction.”