Page 140 of Her Wolf

Not Enough Glasses

Zachary wasn’t in the doorway anymore when she trudged back up the beach. Twilight had already settled on the island; the sky was a dark purple, a handful of streaky gray clouds the only decoration in an otherwise pristine sky.

She left wet, sandy footprints on the hall floor when she went inside.

Cora followed the smell of cigarettes to the living area. Zachary crouched at the heart of a large stone fireplace, building a fire. She watched him for a few seconds.

“Can I use your bathroom?” she asked quietly. Her voice shuddered, but that was from the coldness seeping into her bones.

The ocean had been ice cold. The breeze that had picked up on her way from the shore to the beach house, even colder.

“You don’t have to ask.” Zachary didn’t look up. “But leave it in the condition you found it.”

She clenched her jaw, and trudged down to the bedroom.

There was a strange smell inside the room, like the stuff they used to clean hospital floors with. It made her nose wrinkle. The room looked the same as it had all day. Neat. Bed made. Window open a slit so the cool breeze could toy with the lace curtain.

She opened one of the closets. It was full of Zachary’s clothes. The next one had women’s clothes inside.

Not hers.

Not the right size, either.

A shiver trickled down her spine, along with a drip of icy water.

Whose were they?

Cora pulled out a pair of sweatpants and a long sleeved t-shirt. She glanced at the underwear, but the thought that they might belong to someone else freaked her out too much for her to be able to wear them.

She had to get dry. Then she could formulate some kind of plan to kill Zachary. The shower took long to warm up. As she waited, she stared at herself in the mirror and rubbed at a streak of face paint in her hairline.

Zachary had washed her face sometime in the past day. Judging from the lack of sweat she smelled on herself, he might have washed her too.

Goosebumps broke out over her skin, and she had to force bile down her throat.

She was about to strip and step into the shower when she heard Zachary’s voice. Immediately freezing, Cora strained to make out what he was saying. Slowly turning off the faucet, she crept closer to the living area, wincing every time her deliberately slow steps creaked a floor board.

“…another day or…leaving anytime…make…that…dropping off supplies.”

Cora’s breath hitched in her throat. She stopped moving, stopped breathing, tried to flatten herself against the hallway. Icy water trickled down her neck, making her shiver violently.

Zachary was moving closer.

“No, that’s not what I said. No more supplies.”

He walked past her, less than a yard away, a bulky phone with an aerial pressed to his ear.

A satellite phone.

Her pulse raced.

Zachary turned and headed into the kitchen.

“I will call you in two days. Until then, no one is to come through under any circumstances. Understood?”

Two days? No supplies?

Her fingertips trembled, and she hurriedly squeezed her hands into fists. Then she crept over the boards, trying her best to get closer in case his voice dipped again.

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