Page 94 of It's You
Cold and wet.
Her moods were influencing their forest. Cold and wet were the worst.
He hated the feeling of the cool wetness under his paws, squishing between the fur of his toes, the hard, constant rainfall making his fur stink. He hated knowing that she was so sad that she made their sky weep with her sorrow.
Where is she?
He looked up at the moon and howled, breathing in deeply, catching the faintness of her scent. South.
He ran, slipping over wet leaves on the forest floor, sliding through mud, his body twisting around trees, leaping over wet logs, and through thorny brambles. He couldn’t remember ever having to run this hard and this long to find her. He stopped, inhaling. He was having trouble tracking her. It was as though she was on the move too, and the rain came down in furious torrents, making the forest dark and slowing his pace.
He finally came to a lake and padded around the water’s edge, bedraggled and exhausted, searching for her.
Darcy! Darcy! DARCY!
He could smell her, but couldn’t see her until he turned his gaze toward the lake itself. She was in a small boat out in the middle of the water, at least a quarter mile from the shore. Her hands rested lightly on the oars, and her chest moved up and down rapidly as though she’d been hard at work.
He locked his yellow eyes with hers.
Come back.
Stay away.
He heard her voice, steady and sure. Hard like steel or iron or anything else that can be fashioned into a weapon to filet something soft.
Please, he begged her.Come back to me.
She put her head down, working the oars, her little boat skimming the water, moving further and further away.
He whined in frustration, padding back and forth across the shoreline before putting a paw in the clear water. Bitter cold seeped into his fur, numbing his paw with pins and needles. He looked up again and watched her pulling hard on the oars to place distance between them. He put another paw in the freezing water, his eyes narrowing with the sharp pain of the cold through the thick pads. He turned around and ran awayfrom the water, then faced the lake and ran full speed into the water, jumping to get as far from the shore as possible before swimming.
Cold. Bitter arctic cold.
He pumped all four legs as fast as he could, moving his heavy, wet, exhausted body through the icy cold water.
Darcy.
He struggled to keep his head above the waterline but after miles of running followed by unfamiliar swimming, his body was starting to give out. The rain fell mercilessly, surrounding him from down below and up above. He could barely feel his legs and paws anymore, and the paddling rhythm he had established at first started to falter. He tried to tread water, but without the vigorous paddling, he quickly lost feeling in his legs entirely and felt his body dipping lower.
He lifted his head, searching for her boat, but it was so far away now he couldn’t really see it at all. Depleted of strength, he finally stopped fighting and let his weary body relax. Falling into the dark, cold water alone, his last thought wasI belong to you, Darcy, and you?—
His eyes jerked open, and he gasped, taking mouthfuls of air into his burning lungs. He turned the key slightly in his car and pushed the button to lower the window. It wasn’t enough. It was crushing his chest. He opened the door of the car and staggered out into the street, unable to get enough air into his depleted lungs, the pain in his heart overwhelming the aching pain of his body.
She left you to die.
You’re losing her.
He felt shocked, dumbstruck, confused. She left him to die.
He leaned up against the car, a desperation building inside of him, white-hot and depraved, more brutal than he had ever felt before. His eyes burned, and his claws dropped. His fangsprotracted until the long, jagged points gnashed against each other in furious sorrow, his fur prickling through his skin, covering his body in thick, padded armor. It had been years since Jack had shifted from his emotions alone, but he didn’t fight it.
The binding isn’t holding. You’re losing her.
He flexed the taut, rippling muscles of his fully shifted body, lifted his claws to the sliver of silver moon, and howled with anguish.
5
It took less than fifteen minutes on foot to make it the rest of the way to Tombeur’s cabin. Jack approached the small cabin, trying to control the impulse to turn and hunt with every step he took.Hunt a human, hunt a human, hunt a?—
