Page 40 of Loved By the Wolf

Becca

Pac was exactlywho I thought he would be and just like Jill described. I cringed at the thought that he had carried me into his house before tying me to the foot of the bed and locking me in this room. Aside from the bed, which had one quilt on it and no pillow, there was a dresser, two barred windows, and the carpet I was sitting on. The only other thing in the room was a speaker nailed high up near the ceiling.

Music would waft out of it sometimes, and at other times, Pac would intermittently talk to me. Mostly about how disappointed he was in me. About how if I was truly Jill’s friend, I should have let her stay, because Jill had such a good life with him. I didn’t know if he thought he was doing reverse psychology on me, but it wasn’t working, and with nowhere to go, his voice was grating on my nerves.

It’d only been a couple of hours, but my stomach was growling, and I was feeling sick. Someone came to the door one time, and some oatmeal—more like watered porridge—would be slid in for dinner, along with a slice of yellow cheese. I was thankful it wasn’t moldy, because I could feel the wetness seeping in from the walls.

This whole house needed to be fumigated. The sound of little nails clipping around in the walls had my skin crawling, but thankfully, I didn’t see any holes anywhere, so I figured I was safe from rodents.

The one thing this place had going for it was the smell of gardenias. I didn’t know if they were pumping the smell in or what, but I was glad I couldn’t smell what looked like mold growing in the corners.

“You know,” Pac said through the speaker, “I don’t know what Brandon sees in you. You’re so pale and not what I’d call beautiful. Jill, now she was a girl worth showing around.”

Some howling ensued. Pac yelled at the others to be quiet. “Jill is mine. You all hear that? Jill is mine!”

I heard a fist slam into something hard and then what sounded like plates and utensils clattering onto the floor.

A new voice spoke up. “Boss, can one of us have the redhead?”

A scratchy laugh emanated from Pac. “She’d be a good one for you boys, but I need her for my purposes. If Brandon doesn’t deliver, well then, she’ll be all yours.”

The howling became even louder this time, and I drew my legs in and squeezed myself into a tight ball.

“Did you hear that, Becca?” Pac said.

More laughter ensued. This time, they laughed so loud I could hear it through the walls of the house. They must not be too far from me then.

Thankfully, the howling ended, and I lay down as best as I could with my hands tied behind my back and let the tears fall. The last thing I wanted was for Pac to come back here before he was planning to. Mom was right—one of my cases came back and bit me. And I didn’t have Brandon to come and save me anymore. I had done a great job of pushing him away.

Brandon

“I told you,it’s all gardenias. That’s Pac’s signature smell,” I said to Thomas.

“Why would he choose that smell?”

“He didn’t!” I dragged my hand down my face, wishing someone in the family would show up already. We’d waited a whole ten minutes, and it was all I could do to not shift and charge into the house.

“I don’t believe that he himself smells like gardenias,” Thomas argued.

“Well, it’s true.”

“Never heard of such a thing.”

I turned to Thomas with my hands outstretched. At the last second, I fisted them and slammed them into my thighs, withholding the roar that threatened to release.

“You can punch me, you know,” Thomas said, eying me closely.

I grunted, sticking my fists into my eyeballs and hoped the pain would stop me from shifting right this moment.

Thomas sighed. “You’ve got it bad.”

I swatted at him, but he caught my arm and slammed it back down.

“Look, there’s nothing wrong with having panic attacks,” he said firmly. “I thought me giving you a hard time about the flowers would get your mind off of waiting around.”

We were in the alley. After walking to the front of the house and not being able to get any closer, I gave in to the realization that we needed to wait for Miti. But ten minutes felt like an eternity, and who knew what Becca was going through. I ran my hands through my hair and started pulling the strands.

“Hey! Don’t do that. You’ve got to have a full head of hair when you see Becca.”

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