I recognized the voice. And the stench. One of the assholes from the park.
We ran.
Tires screamed on the pavement as the Mustang roared after us. All I
could think of was that barren highway in Wisconsin where this had all
started and how brutally that had ended.
If they ran me down, would I come back to life over and over again like
the werewolf I’d hit
?
My wolf swerved across the street and through the strip of tiny yards that
fronted the rowhouses. She leapt and bounded, dodging around the bushes,
flower beds, and little iron fences. A hedge of hydrangeas exploded into a
shower of frozen petals behind us.
We juked and swerved as a ray of frost hit the ground beside us,
sheathing each blade of grass with a thick coating of ice. Those assholes are
trying to kill us with ice magic! I screamed at my wolf.
To my horror, she charged the Mustang. The surprised driver slammed on
the brakes, and the car twisted sideways. Its tires squealed and left stinking
black streaks across the pavement.
We’re going to die! I shouted in my head.
My wolf pounced on the hood, then launched over the guys’ astonished
faces, landed in the back seat, and spun, snarling and snapping.
The jerks screamed, flailed at the doors, and tumbled out of the still-
skidding vehicle. My wolf bolted out of the car and raced across the street in
the opposite direction. We ducked down an alley, jumped a fence, and
hunkered down beneath someone’s porch.
That was too close! I said.
But didn’t you have fun? I should have ripped out their throats for the
way they treated you the other night. I could feel my wolf’s emotions, and it
was hard to disentangle them from my own. Triumph. Rage. Protectiveness.
How was I supposed to relate to this new, very spirted, independent part