Page 45

I’d be embarrassed if I had the capacity, but right now I am too busy being completely annoyed about the whole thing. Why does Henry have his dad lurking in the bushes outside the house? Why couldn’t he have introduced me in a normal way? He’d have to have known that I’d do something like this. Or he should have, anyway.

I go upstairs, confidently telling myself that this is not my fault and I have done nothing wrong, while the feeling inside me grows ever more guilty and scared by the moment. All I had to do was take a nap, but instead I created a mess.

I go to our room and I take off the coat and I put on… god, I don’t know what to put on. There’s almost nothing to wear here besides what I was wearing yesterday and that’s been shredded from my shift.

I put the coat back on.

I want to go and look out the window and see if everyone has sneaked back to their designated bushes, but there’s a chance they’re going to be looking back up at me and right now I do not want the burden of being perceived.

Yesterday, everybody here would have deferred to me. They would have considered me a better person than them. I would have had authority. Today, I have gathered the memory of what it feels like to be summarily and brutally brought down by a small pack of wolves. The feeling of teeth in my neck is not going to go away anytime soon.

I walk in small circles, trying to think of an explanation that is somehow going to make any of this better. Maybe Henry won’t mind being called back from whatever he was doing in order to wrangle me. Maybe he’ll think it’s cute and fun.

He’s not going to think it is cute and fun.

He’s going to whip my ass, and I am going to not be able to stop him because those guys out there came with backup silver and I’m collared again. He must have known that I’d get it off, or at least obviously planned for the contingency.

Henry doesn’t trust me at all, I realize.

He’s right not to, of course, but still. How rude.

I hear the front door open down below. Henry is home. Fuck. I start to sweat almost immediately, my palms turning clammy. I’ve been told that’s a way for the body to prepare to climb away from danger, makes it easier to grip bark. What I wouldn’t give to be an arboreal tree frog right now. I could catch insects and make noise at night and never answer for my escape crimes.

He walks upstairs, his weight making each of the stairs creak. I am looking for somewhere to hide, even though nothing has actually been said.

Fuck it. I go for the closet. Hiding like a little prey animal might work. And if it doesn’t, it will at least delay the inevitable. I’ve heard good things about that approach.

* * *

Henry

I wasn’t entirely surprised to get the call that I needed to come back to the house. I wasn’t even surprised that she managed to get the collar off and shift. I am surprised she managed to start a fight with my dad, who has been volunteering to run the perimeter. My family may not have the historical weight of the Swales, but we are not to be messed with.

“So you met Fiona,” I say as I get out of the car. He’s waiting near the door, posted up with his arms folded across his chest. My father is not the sort of man you cross easily. He’s served in more military campaigns than I can count, though he’s retired now.

“More of her than I would have thought,” he says. “You picked a handful, son.”

“I’ll take it from here,” I say.

“Mhm.”

I go inside and walk upstairs. Hard to keep a straight face about all of this because I just knew she was going to pull some shit and then she went and did it. My father looks a combination of displeased and impressed that I recognize because I feel it in myself right now.

I go up the stairs slowly, gathering my patience. From the reports I received on the way, it sounds like she went completely feral. Odds are she’s still wound up. If I go in there too dominant, she’s going to freak out, which is not what I want.

I open the bedroom door, half-bracing for her to tackle me. But nothing happens. The room appears to be empty. For a moment, I wonder if she managed to escape again while everyone was assuming they’d gotten her contained. Maybe she just walked right out the back door. No. Jacob would have caught that, and if he didn’t, then Tinker definitely would have.

She’s in here.

I can smell her.

There aren’t any real nooks and crannies in this room, which means she’s hiding on purpose, little brat.

I expected this sort of thing, to a certain extent, which is why the collar wasn’t just a circlet of silver infused alloy and instead actually contained a small circuit that could send a signal if it was removed. I knew she’d slipped her leash before she jumped out the window and fought my pack, but that information wasn’t as useful as I’d have liked it to be. A lot of trouble can be gotten into in the short period between someone taking off a tracker and launching themselves out the window.

I walk up to the closet and stand in front of it. She might be under the bed, but I think that would make her feel too small. A closet, however, that’s where an adult hides when she doesn’t want a spanking.

“I know you’re still here,” I say. “Come out and let’s talk.”