Page 61 of Wolf Forgotten

"You're awfully quiet." Sara turned her head to look at me from the front seat. "I thought you wanted to get out."

Shit.I needed to pretend better so they didn't grow suspicious. "I am. Just didn't expect to have babysitters is all."

Manny laughed. "I'm surprised he let you come. He must really be worried about the new wolf being at the house."

"He's a person, not just a wolf." I met his eyes in the rearview mirror. "How many times has Cole been locked in his basement?"

Manny went back to watching the highway, his shoulders stiff. "He hasn't."

"Well, maybe he needs to be so he can see what it's like." I crossed my arms over my chest. "It's not pleasant to wake up confused in a fucking cage."

"I agree with that. But..." Sara sighed. "When I was fifteen, my mom and I got in a car accident—that's how I lost my leg—and she lost her life. Eli didn't take it well."

A pang went through my chest at the thought of Eli suffering. "He was locked up?"

She nodded. "For about a week. I wasn't there to witness it, but Cole said Eli's wolf took over. He would have run off if they hadn't locked him up."

"What does that accomplish? Letting your wolf take over?" Maybe it was the same thing for me, except opposite.

"Makes the emotional pain easier to deal with. But with me, I couldn't shift to my wolf for the longest time. There's three different types of trauma with us. The wolf only, the human only, or a combination. An imbalance of that can make one overpower the other."

"What kind of trauma did I experience to go twenty-six years without shifting?" I frowned out the window as Manny pulled off the highway and drove into the city.

It wasn't a city like Los Angeles or New York, but a hundred thousand people, when you were used to less than ten thousand, was a big difference. There was one mall, and that was where we were going.

"Sometimes people haven't been able to shift to their wolves after a traumatic event happened that really shook their wolf up. It took me three years. You were abandoned, so maybe that has something to do with it." Sara had a point, but babies also didn't have memories or understand things, so I didn't see how that could be it.

"Does the brain even recognize those kinds of things so soon after being born?"

Sara shrugged. "I sometimes think I remember what it feels like to be in the womb."

Manny laughed, and Sara punched his arm as he pulled into a parking structure. "Ow, that really fucking hurt."

For being a beta, Manny wasn't that tough.

* * *

I puton a good show of being interested in shopping. Manny was getting bored and instead of waiting inside the stores while Sara and I tried clothes on, he waited just outside with his eyes glued to his phone.

"Sara, I'm done. I'll be right outside, okay?" I had pretended to try on clothes for an adequate amount of time. From the other three stores we'd been in, she took twice as long as me. Ample time for an escape.

"Sounds good." She grunted, and I knew she was in the middle of trying on some jeans I'd talked her into trying.

I'd already requested an Uber and had five minutes to get outside.

Leaving the dressing room, I took my items to the front counter where one employee was working on folding shirts. "Excuse me, my friend Sara would like a size ten in every color in that style of jean you have. She really likes that one pair."

"I'm so glad she liked them! I'll get those for her right now. Are you ready to check out? I can call someone up here to ring you up." It was a smaller shop, and another woman was near the front of the store putting away merchandise.

"Oh, no. I'm still going to browse a bit and wait for my friend."

After a quick glance to the front of the store to ensure Manny wasn't looking, I hurried to the entry where there was a sign that said, "Employees Only." As soon as I was in the small hallway that led to the back of the store, I ran for the exit at the back.

Time was of the essence. They wouldn't look at the tracking on my phone right away, so I had time to get my Uber and be on my way.

Exiting the back of the store, I was in a long hallway with doors to a lot of other shops. I rushed down the hall to the door that would spit me out near the bathrooms.

The thing was, I probably could have told Cole about the contact I'd found the day before, but this was personal and I didn't need someone right next to me to meet with a social worker.

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