Slight movement caught my eye; I darted a glance toward it. It took me a moment to realize what had moved—the doe. Her eye. She blinked, and as she did, I saw that she was looking right at me. Not dead—dying. Funny how two things could be so similar and yet so far apart. Something about the expression in her liquid black eye made my chest hurt. It was like—patience. Or forgiveness. She had resigned herself to the fate of being eaten alive.
“Jesus,” I whispered, getting slowly to my feet, trying not to alarm her further. She didn’t even flinch. Just this: blink. I wanted to back away, give her space, let her escape, but the exposed bones and spilled guts told me flight was impossible for her. I’d already ruined her body.
I felt a bitter smile twist my lips. Here it was, my brilliant plan to stop being Cole and slip into oblivion. Here it was. Standing naked and painted with death, my empty stomach twisting with hunger while I faced a meal for something I wasn’t anymore.
The doe blinked again, face extraordinarily gentle, and my stomach lurched.
I couldn’t leave her like this. That was the thing. I knew I couldn’t. I confirmed my location with a quick glance around—a twenty-minute walk to the shed, maybe. Another ten to the house, if there was nothing to kill her with in the shed. Forty minutes to an hour of lying here with her guts exposed.
I could just walk away. She was dying, after all. It was inevitable, and how much did the suffering of a deer count for?
Her eye blinked again, silent and tolerant. A lot—that was how much it counted for.
I cast around for anything that might serve as a weapon. None of the stones by the lake were large enough to be useful, and I couldn’t imagine myself bludgeoning her to death, anyway. I ran through everything I knew of anatomy and instantly deadly car crashes and catastrophes. And then I looked back to her exposed ribs.
I swallowed.
It only took me a moment to find a branch with a sharp enough end.
Her eye rolled up toward me, black and bottomless, and one of her front legs twitched, a memory of running. There was something awful about terror trapped behind silence. About latent emotions that couldn’t be acted out.
“I’m sorry,” I told her. “I don’t mean to be cruel.”
I stabbed the stick through her ribs.
Once.
Twice.
She screamed, this high scream that was neither human nor animal but something terrible in between, the sort of sound that you never forget no matter how many beautiful things you hear afterward. Then she was silent, because her punctured lungs were empty.
She was dead, and I wanted to be. I was going to find out how to keep myself a wolf. Or I just couldn’t do this anymore.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
• GRACE •
I didn’t think I’d slept, but a knock on my bedroom door woke me, so I must’ve. I opened my eyes; it was still dark in my room. The clock said it was morning, but only barely. The numbers glowed 5:30.
“Grace,” my mother’s voice said, too loud for 5:30. “We need to talk to you before we go.”
“Go where?” My voice was a croak, still half asleep.
“St. Paul,” Mom said, and now she sounded impatient, like I should know. “Are you decent?”
“How can I be decent at five?” I muttered, but I waved a hand at her, since I was sleeping in a camisole and pj bottoms. Mom turned on the light switch, and I winced at the sudden brightness. I barely had time to see that Mom was in her billowy fair shirt before Dad appeared behind her. Both of them shuffled into my room. Mom’s lips were pressed into a tight, businesslike smile, and Dad’s face looked as if he had been sculpted from wax. I couldn’t remember a time I’d seen them both looking so uncomfortable.
They both glanced at each other; I could practically see the invisible talk bubbles over their head. You start. No, you start.
So I started. I said, “How are you feeling today, Grace?”
Mom waved a hand at me as if it was obvious I was all right, especially if I was well enough to be sarcastic. “Today’s the Artists Limited Series.”
She paused to see if she had to clarify further. She didn’t. Mom went every year—leaving before dawn with a vehicle packed full of art and not coming home until after midnight, exhausted and with a far emptier vehicle. Dad always went with her if he was off from work. I’d gone one year. It was a huge building full of moms and people buying paintings like Mom’s. I didn’t go again.
“Okay,” I said. “So?”
Mom looked at Dad.
“So, you’re still grounded,” Dad said. “Even though we’re not here.”
I sat up a little taller, my head tingling in protest as I did.
“So we can trust you, right?” Mom added. “To not do anything stupid?”
My words came out slow and distinct with the effort of not shouting them. “Are you guys just…trying to be vindictive? Because I—” I was going to say saved up forever to get this for Sam, but for some reason, the idea of finishing the sentence closed my throat up. I shut my eyes and opened them again.
“No,” Dad said. “You’re being punished. We said you were grounded until Monday, and that’s what’s happening. It’s unfortunate that Samuel’s appointment happened to be during that time frame. Maybe another day.” He didn’t look like he found it unfortunate.
“They’re booked for months in advance, Dad,” I said.
I didn’t think I’d ever seen the line of Dad’s mouth look so ugly. He replied, “Well, maybe you should’ve considered your actions a little more, then.”
I could feel a little pulsing headache just between my eyebrows. I pushed a fist into my skin and then looked up. “Dad, it was for his birthday. This was the only thing he got for his birthday. From anybody. It’s a really big deal for him.” My voice just—stopped. I had to swallow before I went on. “Please just let me go. Ground me Monday. Tell me to do community service. Make me scrub your toilets with my toothbrush. Just let me go.”
Mom and Dad looked at each other, and for a single, stupid moment, I thought they were considering it.
Then Mom said, “We don’t want you to be alone with him for that long. We don’t trust him anymore.”
Or me. Just say it.
But they didn’t.
“The answer’s no, Grace,” Dad said. “You can see him tomorrow, and be glad that we’re allowing even that.”
“Allowing that?” I demanded. My hands fisted the covers on either side of me. Anger was rising up in me—I felt my cheeks, hot as summer, and suddenly, I just couldn’t take it. “You’ve been ruling this particular part of the world via absentee ballot for most of my teenage years, and now you just ride in here and say, Sorry, Grace, no, this little bit of life that you have managed to make for yourself, this person you’ve chosen, you should be happy we’re not taking that, too.”
Mom threw up her hands. “Oh, Grace, really. Stop overreacting. As if we needed any more proof that you were not mature enough to be with him that much. You’re seventeen. You’ve got the rest of your life ahead of you. This is not the end of the world. In five years—”
“Don’t—” I said.