I didn’t understand. And then I heard the soft sound again, and saw his shoulders shake. No, not his shoulders, but his entire body, a tremble more than a shake, the intermittent, silent sobs of someone who has been at it for a while and is saving his strength for the long haul still to come.
I remember feeling nothing but absolute surprise that Beck should have had something like this living inside him and that I had never known, never even guessed. Later I’d learn it was not the only secret Beck had, just maybe the best-kept one.
I left Beck up there, him and his private grief, and I went downstairs to find Ulrik, flipping listlessly through television stations in the living room.
I said simply, “What’s wrong with him?”
That was how I learned about Beck’s wife, and how she had died on this day in May, nine years earlier. Right before I was bitten. I hadn’t made the connection, or if I had, it wasn’t in any important way, not in any way that mattered.
Now, it mattered.
• SAM •
As we pulled into the driveway, my cell phone rang again. Koenig didn’t even put the truck into park. He put his foot on the brake pedal. He looked at his watch and then in his rearview mirror as we climbed out.
“Are you coming in?” Grace asked him, leaning in. It hadn’t occurred to me that he might want to.
“No,” Koenig said. “I’m pretty sure that whatever is going on in there is — I would just prefer to have plausible deniability. I never saw you today. You are talking to your parents later, correct?”
Grace nodded. “I am. Thanks. For everything.”
“Yes,” I said. It wasn’t really enough. The phone was still ringing. It was still Cole. I needed to say more to Koenig, but — Beck. Beck was in there.
“Call me later, when you decide,” Koenig said. “And, Sam, pick up your phone.”
Grace shut the door and patted the side of the truck, twice, sending Koenig off.
“I’m here,” I said, into the phone.
“Took you long enough,” Cole said. “Did you walk back?”
“What?” I asked. The afternoon light was coming in strong and low through the pine trees; I had to blink and look the other way. I thought I hadn’t understood him right. “I’m in the driveway now.”
Cole paused before saying, “Good thing, too. Hurry the hell up. And if you get bitten, remember, this was your idea.”
I asked Cole, “Do I even want to know?”
“I may have misjudged doggie tranquilizer dosages. Not everything you read online is true. Apparently wolves require more than neurotic German shepherds.”
“Jesus,” I said. “So Beck is loose in the house? Just wandering around?”
Cole’s voice sounded a little terse. “I’d like to point out that I did the impossible part for you already. I got him out of the woods. You can get him out of your bedroom.”
We hurried to the front door. In this light, the windows of the house were mirrors full of the sun. Once upon a time, this would be dinnertime. I’d be walking into a house full of microwaved leftovers, pending algebra homework, Iron Butterfly pounding out of the speakers, and Ulrik playing air drums. Beck would say: “Someone once said European men had great taste. That someone got it really wrong.” The house would feel filled to capacity; I’d retreat to my room for some peace.
I missed that sort of noise.
Beck. Beck was here.
Cole made a hissing sound. “Are you inside yet? God bless America and all her sons. What is taking you so long?”
The front door was locked. “Here, talk to Grace,” I said.
“Mommy isn’t going to give me a different answer than Daddy,” Cole said, but I handed her the phone anyway.
“Talk to him. I have to get my keys out.” I dug in my pocket and unlocked the front door.
“Hi,” said Grace. “We’re coming in.” She hung up on him.
I pushed open the front door and blinked to get used to the dimness. The first impression I got was of red striped over the furniture, the long afternoon light coming in the window and lying over the furniture. There was no sign of Cole or a wolf. He was not upstairs, despite his sarcastic response.
My phone rang.
“Sheesh,” Grace said, handing it to me.
I held it to my ear.
“Basement,” Cole said. “Follow the smell of burning flesh.”
I found the basement door open and heat emanating from the stairs. Even from here, I could smell wolf: nerves and damp forest floor and growing spring things. As I descended the stairs into the dim brown light of the basement, my stomach twisted with anxiety. At the bottom of the stairs, Cole stood with his arms crossed. He cracked every knuckle on his right hand with his thumb and started on his left. Behind him, I saw space heaters, the source of the choking heat.
“Finally,” Cole said. “He was a lot groggier fifteen minutes ago. What took you so long? Did you go to Canada? Did you have to invent the internal combustion engine before you could leave?”
“It was a couple of hours’ drive.” I looked at the wolf. He lay in an unlikely, twisted position that no fully conscious animal would adopt. Half on his side, half pushed up onto his chest. Head weaving, eyes half closed, ears limp. My pulse was shallow and fast, a moth destroying itself on a light.
“Speeding was an option,” Cole said. “Cops don’t get tickets.”
“Why the heaters?” I asked. “That won’t make him change.”
“Might keep a career werewolf human a little longer if this works,” Cole said. “If we don’t all get savaged first, which is a possibility if we dick around for much longer.”
“Shh,” Grace said. “Are we doing this or not, Sam?”
She looked at me, not Cole. The decision was mine.
I joined her in a crouch beside the wolf, and at my presence, his joints jerked as he became suddenly responsive. His ears were instantly more alert and his eyes flicked to meet mine. Beck’s eyes. Beck. Beck. My heart hurt. I waited for that moment of recognition from him, but it never came. Just that gaze, and then uncoordinated paws scrabbling, trying to move his drugged body.
Suddenly the idea of sticking him with a needle full of epinephrine and God knew what else seemed ludicrous. This wolf was so firmly a wolf that Beck could never be pulled out of him. There was nothing here but Beck’s eyes with no Beck behind them. My mind grabbed at lyrics, something to get me out of this moment, something to save me.
Empty houses don’t need windows
’cause no one’s looking in
Why would a house need windows, anyway
If no one’s looking out again
The idea of seeing him again, just seeing him, as him, was such a powerful one. I hadn’t realized until this moment how much I had wanted it. Needed it.
Cole crouched down next to us, the syringe in his hand. “Sam?” But really, he was looking at Grace, who was looking at me.
Instantly, my brain replayed that second where the wolf’s eyes met mine. His gaze, without any understanding or reasoning behind it. We had no idea what we were working with here. No idea what effect the drugs would have on him. Cole had already guessed wrong on the dosage for the Benadryl. What if what he had in that syringe killed Beck? Could I live with that? I knew what choice I would make — had made — in the same situation. Given the choice between dying and having the chance to become human, I’d taken the risk. But I had been given the choice. I had been able to say yes or no.