Wolf Broken (Wolfish 2)

“I’m sorry, Sabrina,” he says, void of any emotion at all. “But we aren’t here anymore.”

But it’s Rory who delivers the final blow.

“And it’s all your fault.”

17

Sabrina

They’re gone.

Rory, Marlowe, Kaleb … after everything … are gone.

Really gone.

And I have no one to blame but myself.

I knew this would happen eventually, knew that one day I’d find myself without them if I couldn’t get them to turn me. Either they’d grow tired of me and my rapidly aging body, or I’d slip away … no longer able to bear falling behind.

But I never imagined it would happen now. Here. Without warning.

And certainly not because of my own recklessness.

I know that Jess, and Aimee, and Tom are talking in front of me. I can see their mouths moving as if they are stringing countless sentences into one. But I don’t hear them, at least not in any discernable way. Their voices sound hollow and distant, as if I’m hearing them from beneath the surface of water. When Jess finally looks at me and calls my name repeatedly, I hear the vague familiar echo of her voice. She waves her hand in front of my face.

“Sabrina!” she says, repeating herself for what must be the fifteenth time. “Are you even listening?”

I stare at her with vacant eyes, the same vacant eyes that I see in my dreams.

No, I’m not listening. I don’t even feel like I’m here at all.

I try to wave them off, say something vague of my own, but my throat is so dry I’m not sure I make a sound.

When the three of them get up to go to class, Tom tries to pull my arm to tell me that I’m going to be late. I don’t even look at him. I can see him out of my peripheral vision as he shakes his head and walks away. Aimee has always been the sweetest of the bunch, and also the most naïve.

“Should we call the school nurse or something?” she asks as her and Jess walk away.

There’s nothing the nurse can do. There’s nothing anyone can do.

They should have learned that six weeks ago, when this all started.

When everything that mattered to me ended.

Eventually I stand up when the cafeteria is empty and the late bell has already rung. One of the cafeteria workers comes by and scolds me for being late to class. She threatens to call the assistant principal and I look at her as if I don’t care or even see her, which I don’t. I walk out of the room, leaving her protesting calls behind me.

I think I’m headed to class until my feet carry me straight past the door.

I continue down the hall, past the lockers, to the doors at the end. And I walk straight out of school and don’t stop until I get to the cabin.

It’s not much different when I step inside, the door slamming carelessly behind me.

My mother jumps, making a sound of surprise I don’t hear. She tries to talk to me too, but it all just looks like moving, soundless lips. Her words, like everything else, have turned into a senseless stream.

I ignore her until she starts to yell, staring blankly forward at the wall … and then I ignore her even more. I climb up the steps to my loft and lay down face-first until my breath grows so thick and hot, I think I’m going to suffocate.

I’d stay there, let my consciousness fade into blackness without doing anything to stop it if I could. But eventually the screaming in my lungs wakes me up, bringing with it the sharpness of clanging pots down below and the ear-splitting scrape of tree branches on the other side of the glass above me.

I wish I could lay here, face down, forever—letting the pain in my lungs burn away all the other pain. But I can’t.