Page 26 of Ravaged Wolf
It would be easy to let my wolf take our skin and do nothing as he bolts back to our mate through the feral-infested woods. Take our body back and let them tear us to shreds.
My mother’s words ring in my head.If you die, what happens to her?
Izzy will never have to look at me again. She won’t feelthe male who raped her in her chest for the rest of her life. She’ll be free.
Or is that wishful thinking? They say mates don’t tend to survive long without each other. Grandma Floyd died within days of Grandpa Floyd. She refused to eat or drink. Mom said it was the grief that killed her.
Surely, Izzy wouldn’t grieve for me. She’d be grateful.
How sure am I? Enough to risk her life?
I glance over my shoulder at the woods and then back at the mountain. Leith has already caught up with Munroe, yards up the road.
I don’t have the energy to take a step in either direction. I want to lie down here in the dirt and pray a feral is hungry enough to brave the stench of wolf piss to come and drag me off. Take the chore of breathing away from me. Shut up the screaming in my brain for good.
But somewhere miles away Izzy exists.
So I force myself to take one step up the mountain, and then another, away from everyone I ever loved.
They leaveme with an old female named Shona at a huge house that looks like it’s one strong gust of wind away from collapsing in on itself. Easily a dozen males lounge around a fire in a metal trash can out front. In the living room, a few more males are slumped on a sagging couch, snoring and farting. Two gaunt females bustle silently in the kitchen, scrubbing dishes and wrapping leftovers.
Shona leads me through the house to an enclosed porch in the back. In the corner, something tore the screen, and it hangs open like unzipped pants, letting mosquitoes in. Wood is stacked against the house’s wall, and an old, yellowing chest freezer chugs like it’s about todie. Either the compressor is failing or the condenser coils are filthy.
“You can sleep out here,” she says. “I’ll fetch a blanket.”
I can’t muster a thank you, but she doesn’t wait for one, either.
I step through the creaky screen door and sit on the concrete blocks serving as steps to the patchy yard. A stiff breeze blows from higher up the mountain, and bedsheets snap on the line. Power lines run from the house to a half dozen outbuildings, none of them made the same, all of them leaning or sagging or missing slats of siding or shingles. The full moon is high and far, far away.
I don’t belong here.
I don’t belong anywhere.
The wind carries the males’ shouts and laughter and the fading scent of turkey and cornbread stuffing. I can’t bear it. I take off, ducking around the clothesline and jogging past the only outbuilding with a light on. I don’t know where I’m going. Away from here.
I find the river that the town seems built along. A trail runs beside it. I jog uphill until my lungs burn, and I clear the last cluster of houses. The river curves, and the trail becomes stepped as it winds through a thick wood until it ends at a grassy field that slopes to a sandy beach and rocks that jut into the river.
On the far side of the field, a huge stone furnace stands in shambles as if it’s being harvested for raw materials. Old tires are stacked or half-buried nearby like an obstacle course. The whole place smells like strange wolves and stale smoke.
I trot the rest of the way down to the river and kick off my shoes. The moon is bigger now. Closer. Its reflection ripples with the current.
I walk out on the cold, wet rocks that stretch nearly tomid-stream. Except for the rushing water, it’s quiet. The screaming in my head echoes in the silence.
I’m exhausted, but I can’t sleep. The nightmares have taught me not to lie down or close my eyes. In my dreams, I see Izzy’s bare back and the thin line of her spine. I watch my claws plunge into the flesh of her hips and her blood run from her pale flesh to dribble into the dirt.
I’m a coward. I didn’t fight hard enough. All the things I swore in my mind— that I’d love her, protect her, make her smile, never leave her alone, never let her go—I failed to do.
I let go. I left. And there’s nothing I can do to make it right.
The weight of it is a mountain. An ocean.
My hand rises to rub the pulsing ache in my chest.
How do I live the rest of my life with this?
How does she?
How can I let her carry the weight alone?
