gasped as I broke out of my shift, falling to the ground, skidding on leaves and pine needles. I landed on my back, chest heaving as I stared through the canopy above. There were flashes of blue sky beyond green leaves.
But all I felt was the blue.
“What the fuck?” I whispered.
I pushed myself up off the ground. I grimaced as a cut on my shoulder began to stitch itself back together. I shook my head, trying to clear my mind.
I stood slowly, head cocked.
Listening.
I would have sworn there had been another wolf in the refuge.
One I didn’t know.
I stood still.
Waiting for something. Anything.
Nothing happened.
I looked around.
Only trees.
I was alone.
My skin was chilled.
“Great,” I muttered. “Now you’re hearing things. Fan-fucking-tastic.”
I decided to head for home.
I didn’t tell Ezra what I thought I’d heard.
We had other things to worry about.
protect me/trust you
“Jesus Christ,” I moaned. “How can you call this music?”
Ezra grinned. “Feel free to stick your head out the window like a good wolf if you think it’ll help.”
“That’s speciesist. You should feel really bad and apologize.” But I rolled down the window anyway. It was warmer than it’d been in Maine. I was stiff and sore, ready to get the hell out of this car, especially since we’d been listening to a woman wail in Italian for the past hour. Ezra thought opera would teach me to be cultured, but it was mostly torture. It didn’t help that we were stuck in traffic as we neared Fredericksburg, a small city outside of Washington, DC. The air was thick with exhaust, and I was pretty sure we were going to be poisoned and die.
“I feel really bad and apologize,” Ezra recited dutifully.
“I don’t believe you.”
“Ah. Well. At least I tried.” But since he wasn’t a complete asshole, he turned down the woman screeching about her lost love or spaghetti or whatever. “We’re almost there.”
“That’s what you’ve been saying for the past two hours.”
He glanced over at me. “How did I not know that you were like this?”
I hung my hand out the window, tapping it against the side of the car. “Because we’ve never had to go this far before.”
“We could have flown.”