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I try to tell myself it’s just nerves from disobeying Mama and a case of the creeps from thinking about Alpha Victor’s torture pits.
But I know better. I know that when I get a feeling like this—so strong and sure it feels like my bones are vibrating a warning—I should listen. Listening is the only way I’ve avoided being bullied by Pax more than I am already. I sense trouble and make a run for it.
But sometimes I can’t run.
I can’t leave school or children’s circle at pack meetings on Saturdays. I can’t turn into a puff of smoke and float up into the air when Pax corners me on the playground.
And I can’t push past a man three times my size, either.
As I peek around the corner again, I see just such a man—with giant hands and a massive head and creepy tattoos crawling up his forearms—and for a second I wonder if I conjured him with my fear.
That’s what it feels like sometimes, like I see the future coming so clearly that I must have dreamed it into being.
And then I meet his gaze, see the utter lack of compassion in his cold black eyes, and I stop worrying about how he got here. All that matters now is escaping him.
I turn to run, racing toward the rear entrance to the laundromat, knowing it’s my only chance. I won’t be able to climb the fence at the back of the laundry’s trash area fast enough, and there’s no way I can slip past the man without him snatching me up in one of his giant hands.
He’s too big.
Unfortunately for me, he’s also too fast.
I’m still at least six feet from the door when he grabs me from behind, slamming his hand over my mouth and nose as he picks me up. I try to scream, but no sound comes out and no air comes back in.
I gasp again and again, kicking my legs and fighting to dislodge his hand, but he’s too strong.
Black spots dance in front of my eyes and terror churns inside my brain until there isn’t room for anything else. I realize I’m probably about to die—to die without getting to grow up or tell my family I love them again or do any of the things I’ve imagined doing when I’m big.
I’ll never travel to a foreign country or become a scientist or learn to take beautiful pictures. I’ll never have a family of my own or babies or the kitten I’ve always wanted even though Dad says cats don’t like living with wolves, even when the wolves are in human form most of the time.
I won’t even live to get really good at algebra or play stupid Unicorn Blood Sport 2.
The knowledge swells inside me until it’s as big as the terror.
Then bigger.
Bigger, until my suffocating brain is howling with rage at the injustice of it all.
That’s when it happens—a current of something sharp and electric explodes inside my core and zaps out along my skin. For a moment it feels like my heart stops and my lungs do, too, and I’m suddenly…quiet inside in a way I’ve never been before.
Then the man holding me groans a weird, low groan in response and removes his hand. A beat later, I feel the zap of electricity zoom back into me, hitting the play button again.
I gasp, gulping air into my aching lungs as my heart jerks in my chest, so grateful to be able to breathe that I don’t waste energy struggling at first.
And then the man grunts into my ear, “That’s right, baby girl. Let’s do that again. Feels so good, doesn’t it?”
No, it doesn’t feel good.
It feels like dying. Really bad dying.
I open my mouth to scream for help, but his hand is over my mouth again, sending me back into that desperate, terror-filled, near-death place until the thing inside me explodes again.
He does it again and again, until tears and snot flow freely down my face and I’m so broken by it that when he finally lets me go, I can’t even run.
I just lie on the pavement crying until Mitch shows up with his mom.
Later, I realize he must have seen what was happening and gone for help, but at the time all I could think was that it was strange that his mom came to drop off the game, too.
But I’m so glad she’s there.
