That’s not my fault. I didn’t choose to like the guy with issues. I’m not that girl, who goes after the tortured boy in hopes of converting him into prime boyfriend material. My attraction to Luca is purely incidental. I didn’t intend for it to happen. It just did.
Walking to my car with my large meat-covered pizza, I almost wish I said yes to Luca’s dinner invitation. Almost. Instead, I’ll be eating this huge pie alone all weekend, and my date tonight is with four girls named Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy.
Jill still isn’t there when I get home, and I suspect she is at Jeremiah Stone’s party—the one Vienna has been trying unsuccessfully for the past hour to convince me to come to. The house is quiet and peaceful—exactly how I like it for a good reading marathon.
I enjoy a few slices of the pizza in my bedroom, a worn copy of Little Women in my lap, and get Vienna off my back by making a morning coffee date with her.
Time slips away.
My head snaps up at the sound of a loud thump at my window. I stare outside, wondering when it got dark. I pick up my phone to check the time and see that it’s a little past midnight. No missed messages or calls.
I set the book down with a yawn and rub my tired eyes.
Another thud squeezes a yelp out of me. I jump to my feet when another noise quickly follows, combined with the sound of glass cracking.
I tiptoe around my bed, angling toward the window. I am a few steps away when a bird crashes into it. Not a normal bird either. I’m talking a massive, dinosaur-looking thing with a long, pointy beak and razor-sharp talons. Its beady eyes fixate on me as it makes a high-pitched squawking noise, then rams the glass over and over and over.
I don’t speak bird, but its intentions are clear.
“Not again,” I mutter as I backpedal across the room.
The back of my knees hit the bed as the bird strikes the window again. Its beak cracks the glass and gets trapped in a narrow hole. As it struggles to free itself, thin fracture lines snake outward from the puncture in the center. The glass groans. Tiny shards fall to the floor.
I bolt for the door. As I pull it shut behind me, the window shatters. I keep my hand on the knob as the giant bird rams the door from inside my room. It squawks loudly as it hits again. And again.
I release my grip and back away from the door with a shake of my head.
This isn’t normal. Birds don’t act like this. Birds don’t look like this. At least, no birds that I am familiar with.
I reach for the phone in my pocket before I realize it’s not there. It’s on the bed. In my room. With the mutant bird.
Not that I have anyone to call to help me with this predicament. The only one who would believe me is Luca, and I don’t have his number. Vienna would laugh and find a way to get me to come to the party. Jill is worthless, and Dad doesn’t need to know about this.
I’m on my own.
I start down the stairs at a run. I have no plan, but I know I have to do something before that thing destroys my room. My books. My pictures.
I grimace. “Bird poop everywhere.”
In the kitchen, I stop and look for a weapon. I eye the set of steak knives on the counter, and then the cast-iron skillet.
I pick up the skillet, feeling its weight in my hands. “Good enough.”
I start toward the stairs when a thump from the front of the house draws me into the living room. I face the front door, listen, and wait.
Something smacks into the window beside me. I jump and turn with a scream that surprises even me. Out of the darkness, a white, feathered beast rams the glass. Not the same bird that broke my bedroom window, but another one.
From the kitchen, another thud. At the front door, another.
Squawks and high-pitched cries surround me. The sheer frequency and number of thumps against the house alarm me. There has to be at least a dozen of them.
As I listen, the noise from the birds is joined by a familiar, hollow sound that penetrates the walls of the house and sends a shiver down my spine. A wolf. Its howl alerts me, and anyone within earshot, to its arrival.
I dash to the window in time to see a streak of silver dart by. The giant bird that, moments ago, tried to claw its way into the living room, soars into the air. I press my nose to the glass to watch as it makes a nosedive back to the ground—right at the wolf.
“My wolf,” I whisper. My breath fogs up the glass, and I wipe it away with a trembling hand.
The bird slams into the wolf, catapulting it halfway across the side yard. The wolf jumps to its feet as the bird dives again, and its massive jaws snap down on a skinny leg. I glance away when the wolf shakes its head, sending a cloud of feathers into the air.
One bird down.
A swarm of half a dozen giant mutant birds swoop in and surround the wolf. I see nothing but a blur of beaks and talons and feathers, and an occasional glimpse of silver fur, rolling across my yard.
The wolf is going to get hurt.
My wolf. It’s my damn wolf, and I’m not about to let harm come to it. Not because of me.
I race to the door with the skillet. There is no doubt, no hesitation, when I whip it open and run outside. My concern is for the wolf—my wolf.
A bird dives at my head the instant I step onto the porch. I swing the skillet like it’s a baseball bat, slamming it against the bird’s head. The creature drops to the ground at my feet, squawking like its rabid.
“Ew.” I bend at the waist to peer down at it as it flops around on the porch. I don’t consider myself a bird expert by any means, but this thing doesn’t look like it belongs in the Pacific Northwest, let alone this planet.
It’s big, unblinking eyes are on me as it tries to scramble to its feet. One black wing hangs limply at its side as it flails and rolls and smears its blood all over my porch. I’m not wearing shoes, or I would boot it into the yard. Instead, I position the skillet like a golf club and launch it into the night.
I brace for another one, but nothing comes at me. The growls and squawks coming from the side of the house let me know the rest of them have their sights set on the wolf.
My eyes narrow. “My wolf.”
I run down the stairs and start across the yard when a medium-sized dog with shaggy gray fur darts by me, nearly cutting my legs out from under me. It dives into the fray with an assertive bark.
I stand at the corner of the house, one hand holding the skillet at my side and the other gripping onto the side of the porch for balance, as I watch the most bizarre animal fight ever witnessed. National Geographic doesn’t have shit on this.
Feathers litter my yard along with half a dozen dead and dying mutant birds. The silver wolf snags another by its neck, shakes it, and tosses it aside. Two more fly into him, talons first. He growls and twists, jaws open wide in search of a bird appendage to grab a hold of. He finds a wing and flings the bird off of him. The dog barks at the wolf’s feet.
Thank God I live in the country, and my closest neighbor is an elderly woman with hearing loss. Because I doubt the police would believe the truth, and I certainly can’t afford to pay a fine for disturbing the peace.
Then, suddenly, it’s over. Four giant birds fly away and vanish into the night. Twice that many lay dead, or dying, in the yard. It’s just me, a wolf, and a shaggy mutt.
My grip on the skillet tightens when the wolf howls. One long note morphs into two, then three, and it’s both the most terrifying and amazing song I’ve ever heard. My fingers dig into the porch railing for support, because my legs are useless from the dizzying effects of the howling and rush of adrenaline.