Page 97 of The Alpha Dire Wolf
We drove on through town and then out the other side, where all that greeted us was a skyline of green treetops beginning to bend under the wind of the oncoming storm.
“We’re not going to make it,” Lincoln pronounced uncomfortably a few minutes later. “It’s going to hit us before we get there.”
I spared him a glance. He was staring straight ahead, focused on the storm. But his fingers were clenched into fists, and his jaw bulged as he continued to clench it.
“You sound nervous,” I told him, once more searching myself inside for signs of danger, but finding none. It had to be something else then. Did he not like rain? Then it came to me. “Lincoln, are you afraid that I’m going to be put off by the smell of wet dog?”
I grinned at him, hoping he would be impressed with me for the acceptance of his true nature to the point of being able to make a joke about it.
Lincoln took one look at me and then grunted. “You are way too proud of yourself for that joke.”
Then we both laughed.
“Humor is a big step in accepting a massive shift in your worldspace,” I told him. “Often that relates to tragedy, but this qualifies too.”
“So you’re adjusting.”
I giggled. “In less than twenty-four hours? Heck no. Actually,hell no. But I’m trying to, and that’s the big one. This is so unlike anything anyone ever prepares for. In our darkest dreams, we think of the loss of loved ones. I’ve lived that, am living that. But youexpectthat. As a child, you know at some point your parents will pass. Was mine more traumatic and unexpectedly early than most? Yes. But I was old enough to know it was going to happen. This? This is something else entirely. I don’t know if I’ll ever get used to it. I’m having a very hard time believing it.”
Lincoln nodded. “I understand.”
Up ahead, lightning flickered several times in rapid succession. The wind was shifting. The storm didn’t look like it was going to hit New Lockwood anymore but rather moveslightly east, over the mass of the forest. We continued driving straight toward it, the safety of town now well behind us. All around was nothing but trees and emptiness for miles.
“No,” I told him slowly after some more thought, “I don’t think you can ever understand.”
He frowned.
“I’m not being mean. But I just think, you’ve grown up with knowing all of this, Linc. You know my worldandyour world. It’s always been that way. It’s impossible for you to truly have your world absolutely shattered in a way like this.”
“Maybe not like this,” he admitted. “But I—”
Up ahead the sky absolutely lit up with lightning, the strikes so plentiful and so close together it was dazzling my vision. The sky itself grew from dark gray to absolute black in a fraction of a second.
At the same time, my spine began to tingle.
“Lincoln—” I started to say, but he cut me off.
“Drive faster, Vee.Now.”
Above us the storm came boiling forward like the pyroclastic flow from a volcanic eruption. There was no escaping it. Instead, we drove right into it.
The darkness swallowed us whole. In the rearview mirror, I watched the bright blue sky disappear fully. Lightning continued to flash, driving back the shadows as it tinged the sky an unholy combination of greens and blues and purples.
Tiny things crawled up and down my spine. Danger was all around us but not imminent.
“Something’s not right about this storm,” I whispered, my fingers tightening on the steering wheel as the speedometer crept up. The wind outside was tossing the thinner trees left andright with ease. The larger ones swayed under the assault but mostly held the ground.
For now.
The eeriest thing was the silence. There was no rain, the lightning was silent, and I couldn’t hear thunder.
“I agree,” Lincoln said warily, looking out the front and side windows repeatedly. “I feel it too.”
Leaves and other debris from the forest swirled around in little eddies, occasionally washing over the car. The pelting of bark and such was the only sound. Still there was no rain.
“How far?” I asked, the leather steering wheel growing clammy under my grasp.
“Twelve minutes.” His response was only a grunt. He was too busy looking out the windows.
