Page 65 of Raised By Wolves

He laughs. “Of course I’m joking. I’m dangerous, but I’m not insane.” Then he steps closer to me, and his voice gets softer. Flirtier. “I can make two trips if you need your brother as a chaperone.”

I can’t take it when he stands this near to me. I just want to pull him closer. I breathe in his scent of soap and leather.

I don’t know how this works.

I don’t know how to be a regular girl.

“I have to go,” I say abruptly. “Lacey’s still in the hospital and Holo and I—we’re supposed to help out at the diner.” Does it matter that it isn’t true? No. I madly motion my brother, who’s just coming out of school.Hurry!

“Okay,” Waylon says, looking disappointed. “I get it.”

He walks away, his shoulders hunched.

But he’s wrong. He doesn’t get it.

I’ve never felt this way before, and I’m scared.

CHAPTER 47

“LACEY MIGHT GET to come home today,” Holo tells me as we walk along the road into town. “This girl in Spanish class told me. Her mom works at the hospital.”

“That’s great,” I say absently. I’m still thinking about Waylon. Being around him makes me feel jittery. Vulnerable.

And if I know anything at all, it’s that being vulnerable is dangerous.

“Maybe we should make her a cake,” Holo muses. “Do you think she’d like chocolate or vanilla?”

“Maybe you shouldn’t have eaten the one she made,” I say.

“Probably chocolate,” he says, ignoring me.

I’m about to point out that we have no business baking when something big and heavy slams into me from behind. I go sprawling facedown on the road. My teeth smack together on the end of my tongue. My mouth fills with blood as my chin grinds into the asphalt. I can practically hear my skin rip open.

A foot presses down hard on my back.

Holo lands on the ground next to me. His chin splits open, too.

I don’t have to see our attackers to know who they are. And I’m going to seriously hurt them—that is, if I can get up.

“Do you like that, freak?” I can hear the smirk in Mac Hardy’s voice. “Being down in the dirt like an animal?”

I don’t think I can answer. All the air’s being pushed out of me. I meet Holo’s frightened gaze. It looks like he can’t breathe, either. I reach out and touch his arm. Gently. Comfortingly. Just for a second.

Don’t worry, it’s going to be okay.

Hardy digs his heel in harder. My back cracks.

“Isaid, ‘Do you like that?’”

I violently twist my body around and sit up in one fluid motion. Mac Hardy’s foot slides off and he stumbles sideways.

“Not really,” I gasp. By now I’m on my feet and crouching low, ready. I’ll let him make the first move.

But it’s Logan who goes for me first. Out of the corner of my eye I see him lunging, fist swinging hard and wide. I dodge him as Holo gets up from the road. Blood streams from his chin.

“You really shouldn’t have,” I say reproachfully.

“It’s rude,” Holo agrees, blotting blood with his T-shirt.

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