I put my plate on the counter next to him and say, “It feels like you hate me.”
“Well,” he says as he grabs the plate, runs it beneath the hot water. “I don’t.”
Three words. He gave me three sort of positive words.
That has to be enough for now, I guess, so I say, “Let’s go patrol.”
He nods.
Well, I don’t.
That’s what he said. Usually when people hang on to three little words, those words are “I love you,” but for me it’s “Well, I don’t.” That’s pretty sad, even I know it, but as I get dressed to go outside, I still hold on to those words like they are some magic lifeline to happiness.
We have to replow the driveway first because of the snow that keeps trucking down, but once that is done we drive out toward the high school and the YMCA to hunt. Neither of us talks as we pass the First Baptist Church, which is currently a trailer because the real church burned down in the summer and they still have to rebuild. It’s hard to rebuild a church when people keep vanishing. We sludge past the self-storage place that has a big barbed-wire fence around it, past the Bedford Falls Minimart where they make the super-good butter rolls, the gas pumps where a state trooper is filling up his cruiser, all the little houses sided with aluminum and clapboard. Windows squared with light brighten up the night and the snowy scene. The world is quiet. Most people are too afraid to leave their homes after dark now. There used to be a curfew for everyone under eighteen, but things have gotten so bad that hardly anybody is around to break it.
Nick doesn’t say anything as I park my grandmother’s truck in the school lot. We’ll head down the railroad tracks and into the forest, which is where we’ve found the biggest clusters. Frank’s pixies must be living back there or something. Tonight, Astley and Becca, and another all-pixie team of Amelie and Garret, will be hunting in town. They are stealthier, less likely to be seen than me and a giant wolf, which is why I’ve assigned us the woods. It made sense before, but right now it just makes me feel lonelier to face all these trees and the snow-closed sky.
Nick turns wolf the moment he steps out of the truck. I pick up his clothes and put them on the seat before locking up. He takes off down the tracks and I follow. He always has to be alpha and tonight I’m too sad and stressed to really mind like I normally would.
I’m barely out of the truck when I sense something. It’s a smell that I don’t recognize—rotting flesh, but that’s not it. There is vanilla mixed in. I stand still, completely creeped out. This is something different, something powerful. I survey around me, slowly turning three hundred and sixty degrees. The sensation that I’m being watched makes me hold my breath. I get back to my original position. The smell dissipates and I lope down the track after Nick, catching up pretty quickly.
It’s dark and cloudy and snow is booming down out of the sky like it’s on some sort of world-freezing mission. I can still feel that something, somehow, is not right tonight, even though the rotting smell is gone.
“Please let it be a wimpy pixie,” I mutter. “One that’s easy to fight.”
My muscles rigid up while the wolf next to me pricks his ears, lifts his head, and growls. I reach out to touch his neck, to feel the fur bristle, but he moves away from my touch like he has over and over again these last few days. Something in my heart cinches up. Truth is, this is the only form where he’ll get even slightly close to me.
It’s been half a week since I rescued this wolf/man from Valhalla, half a week since he lost his memory of what I did there to save him, almost a week since I turned from human to pixie. Just one week and my heart has been broken over and over again. My heart must hate me, because I swear it would almost be easier to die than to have to face Nick blowing me off again, turning away.
No, not tonight. I’m not about to wallow in oh-my-boyfriend-doesn’t-love-me-anymore self-pity tonight. And I’m not about to die either. I’ve already hesitated too much, distracted by Nick. I’m off my game.
I put my gloved hand on my knife, pull it out from the sheath thingy that’s attached to the belt on my jeans, and press my back into the tree, waiting, breathing as shallowly as possible.
Nick doesn’t move either. He waits in wolf silence. Dawn is still hours away. The closest road is about a mile behind us. It’s just us and the woods. It would be the perfect time to make Nick listen. When he’s wolf, he can’t talk, but he still understands.
No, I will not be distracted.
I will focus. Nick paws the ground once, but doesn’t leave his spot.
The fear of loneliness is eremophobia.
I will not be eremophobic.
My thoughts and mind will be still.
Still.
Still …
“Nick,” I start. “I know that you are mad at me because I’m a pixie and that makes you think—”
He growls. It’s soft and low at first. I glare at him, will him to be silent and just listen to me, but he’s either not psychic or he doesn’t pay attention, most likely both. I squat down, tap him on the flank.
“Hey. I know you don’t want to hear this, but I need you to listen.”
His eye flits toward me to see what I want. I raise a finger to my lips and then point at him to be silent. He growls again and that’s when I realize that he’s not growling because he’s trying to ignore me and make me shut up, which would be totally rude. He’s growling because he senses something.
I groan. I’ve lost my focus. Again.
“What is it?” I whisper far too quietly for human ears, but I know Nick can hear me. “How many?”
Suddenly, I can sense it again too. Something heavy moves through the woods behind us. There’s a rasping noise to the footsteps, almost like the sound of paper on fire. Nick’s body tenses. Then to our left is another noise. Something else creeps through the trees. I sniff, trying to smell something, but all I know is that it’s not pixie or human or a wild animal or what I smelled before in the parking lot. I stand again, step forward as gently as I can on the snow. The air smells of burning and frost and snow-wet dog, balsam and spruce. Fire. I think that’s what it is. Whatever is coming behind us smells of fire.
Nick and I turn simultaneously. I peer around the tree. An orange glow creeps closer. It smells of death, burning, anger. It takes the shape of a man, a man twice the size of a normal man. He marches in a straight line right toward us. His sword burns with flame and he holds it in one hand as he walks. He’s getting close, maybe thirty feet away from us.