Page 33 of License to Kill

“Maybe she’s the perfect bitch, but she’s not you, Karma. Jake will never forget that. I recommend you never forget that, either. And this may not help right now, but in the future, consider this: Jake is being just as hurt as you are, and he’s woefully aware of the truth of your circumstances. Your ma turned on you. He’s afraid his will turn on him for the crime of daring to love you rather than a proper bitch. Right now, I know that doesn’t matter all that much, but once Jake breaks free of the manipulation, I think you’ll find the only future he wants is one with you in it. It’ll ultimately be your decision if you want a future with him in it.”

Did I?

I couldn’t even dare to hope for one.

Mellisa smiled. “My recommendation? Make him beg for forgiveness—and make him prove just how badly he wants you back in his life. Most importantly, give yourself time to figure out what you truly want. In any case, you’ll need real therapy eventually, but I recognize when I’m fighting a battle I can’t win—and you can’t win your battle here or now. And I want you to win. If nothing else, please remember that. I will always want you to win. If you need me, call, and I’ll come as soon as I can. And if you don’t call and they screw everything up, I’ll take steps to show up anyway.”

I did as Mellisa suggested, choking down lunch and dinner despite an utter lack of desire to eat a thing. Francesca seemed happy with me, and when her shift ended near dusk, she offered a smile and told me she’d see me in the morning.

My smile was a lie of the worst sort.

A little after ten at night, I pulled the catheter out of my arm and hunted for the fox lurking beneath my skin. It didn’t take long to shift, and I stood on my hind legs and pawed at the screen until I hooked a claw in it and pulled it out. It fell on my head, and I eased it to the ground before jumping my way to freedom.

My body hurt, lingering reminders of my healing gunshot wounds.

I headed across the lawn to the street, which wasn’t busy despite being the early evening. On the other side, trees waited. I crossed, and I ran for the safety of the forest. It didn’t take long for me to discover it was a park. Chittering my annoyance, I picked a direction and ran.

Hopefully, if anyone did spot me, they’d think I was someone’s lost, over-sized dog—or a misplaced coyote. Maybe someone would mistake me for a wolf. I didn’t care.

Within three hours, the nurses would discover I was gone. Maybe the Thomas family didn’t actually want me, but I suspected they would hunt for me anyway. Without me, the divorce papers wouldn’t get signed, which wouldn’t fit well with their plans, whatever they were. Those plans probably involved Jake pursuing Amelia.

It hurt just thinking about Jake, a betrayal that cut so deep I doubted the wound would ever stop bleeding. No number of miles would change that fact.

In retrospect, I understood where I had gone wrong, asking for more than he could give me and refusing to back down. But, he had promised a life with me—one where we would be partners in all things.

He hadn’t wanted me in his pack. I still had no idea who he’d been spending his time with, but it hadn’t been me. I hadn’t been right, either, but the truth remained. I needed what he couldn’t—what no one—could give me.

Truly alone in the woods seemed far easier to bear than cut out and left alone in a crowded room, so I ran.

Eight

I had given my word, and I would hold true to it.

The days slipped into one another while I hunted for a forest remote enough it no longer stank of humans and the civilization I no longer desired. When I found it, it was on the slopes of a mountain. Ill-maintained roads warned me people sometimes visited, a warning I disregarded. When I breathed in deep, I couldn’t smell cars nor wolves, which was good enough for me.

I picked a place in the upper peaks to den, locating a crack in the stones so deep it touched the softer soil hidden in the mountain’s heart. I filled my days expanding my den and flattening and hardening the ground with my paws. During the nights, I hunted, safe from the prying eyes of humans.

Long after I had cleared away enough space for myself, I kept digging, expanding my den until it was large enough for many instead of just one.

There would be no puppies, kits, or cubs for me, no children of any sort. My chance for that had long passed. Pieces of paper, signed or unsigned, wouldn’t change that.

I had given my word, and I would hold true to it.

Whether human or wolf, Fenerec ate a lot, and I was keenly aware I wasn’t like them in how infrequently I needed to emerge from my den to hunt. A rabbit or two sustained me for several days, and when I did venture out to fill my stomach, I took the chase far enough away from my den so the prey on my mountain would remain plentiful.

When winter came, I wouldn’t leave many tracks around my territory.

On the fringe of what I called mine, a farm skirted the forests, and the putrid stench of sheep and other livestock deadened my nose. Something about the places attracted prey, so as often as not, I hunted near the fences, avoiding the humans’ animals while eating my fill.

Time flowed by, the weather chilled, and it was on the cusp of autumn that I spotted a human in the pasture, driving what I recognized to be a four wheeler. I watched him, and after a few minutes, I realized he watched me, too.

Turning my ears back, I left, flicking the tip of my tail in annoyance over having been spotted. I remembered being human, and the unwanted memories haunted me.

I was supposed to be a human, too—if I had been born a proper human, everything would have been different. My ma and my pa wouldn’t have needed to put me in kickboxing to control my wildness. I wouldn’t have been so driven to do anything, including join the FBI.

If only I had been a little more human and a little less fox.

I left the farm in search of a new place to hunt, one that wouldn’t have reminders of what I had been and could have been. I reminded myself being alone in the woods far surpassed solitude in a crowded room.