There were plenty of times I wanted to be right. But recognizing the instinct that had stuck with me since first seeing Harmony in the hall—that identified her as a werewolf—recognizing it and realizing it was right was not what I wanted.
“You will not take meee…,” she roared, rushing me.
I swung my key through the lock but didn’t quite connect with the magnetic strip—someone might have anticipated the problems that could arise by giving a girl who struggled with hotel swipe keys a similar system to get in and out of rooms housing the insane.…
She swung around at me and we circled each other until I was again with my back to the door. I thumped my knuckles against it, kicked it with my heel … slid the card again just as the door opened and she charged, grabbing the lanyard, bowling me over and into the hall, where she tried to strangle me.
“Help!” I shouted at the mountainous men who were supposed to be protecting me. I broke her grip on the lanyard and shrugged out of it to give her one less way to kill me.
Out of the corner of my eye I saw my guards turn to each other.
“Not time for a conference!” Our hands locked, we rolled, and I gained the advantage.
I heard a pop. Her eyes glowed. And her teeth lengthened.
“Oh, crap!”
My sentiment was echoed by the nurse.
“Separate them!”
My guards finally moved, peeling us apart as easily as a kid separated sections of string cheese. I grabbed the arm of the closest guard and wrapped it in front of me like a shield. Pressed as close as I was to Gigantor, my pulse thumped so loudly in my skull I couldn’t even hear his huge heart beat.
Barely ten feet ahead of me, the woman twisted and howled in midair, gnashing sharp teeth and swinging her arms wildly, restrained by Thing One. Or was it Thing Two? Crap. There was so much to figure out.
Like: Why is there a werewolf in Thing Whichever’s grip?
The nurse pulled out a syringe and jabbed the woman, depressing the plunger with one quick push.
The red faded from her eyes, the first pop echoed by a second sickly sound as joints refit into more human sockets and her teeth returned to normal. She hung suspended by my other guard’s fist, strangely like Pietr had in his show of passive resistance.
Stomach twisting at the comparison, I heard the nurse say, “Take her back down to room seven. I’ll treat her there.”
My breathing only steadied when Thing Whatever disappeared down the hall and the nurse again turned her attention to me. I stepped away from the remaining guard, glaring at the nurse. “A: Did you see her? That’s not normal.”
“Of course not. She had a fit.”
“A f—” My brain rioted.
I needed to think before opening my mouth and challenging her with the truth: A werewolf tried to kill me in a place I was supposedly sent to for the improvement of my mental health. So not good for the successful completion of my therapy.
Quaking, I tamped down my anger. “B: I thought the patients were out of their rooms.”
“Sorry about that.”
My jaw swung open, loose. Sorry?
“She must have been brought back early for problem behavior.”
“No sh—” Think. “No kidding.”
“No one signed her back in,” she justified herself.
I blinked at her.
“Heads will roll for this.”
“Mine almost did.”
“Sometimes a situation seems more dangerous in the heat of the moment than it really is.” She set a hand on my shoulder. “Come on, let’s get you back to your room.”
I shook out of her grip. “Fine. Don’t bother me until my father comes to visit.”
“I can arrange that.”
When my door closed behind me, I curled onto my bed, hugging my knees to my chest. She was a werewolf, wasn’t she? Could I have imagined the way her eyes flashed … and her teeth and claws … Was there an oborot living only a wing away in Pecan Place?
Wrapping my arms more tightly around myself, I totally understood why some patients spent most of their time at Pecan Place seated, muttering and rocking.
Jessie
The tap on my window made me jump out of bed. Face masked in the gathering gloom, his eyes bright, Pietr stood outside my room.
Remembering the camera in the corner, I walked to the window. Slowly. As if my reason for going was nothing more than simple curiosity.
His eyes brightened at my approach and something in my stomach did somersaults in reply.
Face-to-face, he opened his mouth and breathed out a single syllable, fogging the glass between us. I didn’t need to hear what he’d said. I read it in his eyes and across his lips.
Jess.
Closing my eyes, I tried to hold tight to the memory of how it sounded when he said it. There was a quality to even that simple syllable that couldn’t be duplicated by anyone else.
My eyes opened, wet. With the back of a trembling hand I wiped at them and steadied myself. I couldn’t touch him and he couldn’t hold me. But he was here when he could have been so many other places.
His eyebrows lifted, eyes so much more than sad.
I shook my head, smiled bravely, and reached a hand out, stroking the glass like I’d trail my fingers across the strong line of his jaw. His eyes fluttered shut, and he leaned his cheek to the glass as if he could feel me through it. He pulled back suddenly, eyes flashing as the red that heralded the wolf inside rimmed his irises. He took a deep breath and fogged the entire window.
On it he wrote backward in awkward, tilting letters:
I’ll get you out.
He cleared the words away with a sweep of his hand, nodding for approval. Grinning at the challenge.
I shook my head no. As much as the weird stuff going on inside Pecan Place had shaken me, I was okay. Besides, being on the inside might help me figure out what was going on. And Pietr, well, he needed to focus on other things. I’d be okay. As long as I was careful.
Things One and Two might not be the same guards who beat him bloody—him, a nearly indestructible werewolf—but they seemed their equals.
He mouthed my name again, drawing it out with an imploring look.
No. I shook my head. He had to know I wanted to be with him, but the idea of him facing off with Dr. Jones’s gigantic guards … the idea of him getting hurt or … I swallowed hard.
Or worse.
My freedom at his expense was too high a price to accept. I shook my head once more, so hard I had to push the hair out of my eyes when I finished.