Chapter 4

NEVILLE

“Work for you?” She shakes her head. “Are you a crazy asshole or what?” She puts some distance between us. “I’m not what you think. I’m not looking to work for some stranger that I don’t know anything about!” She stares at me wildly. “What do you mean by ‘my driver will drive you back to my house?’” 

"I meant. . .you're looking for work, aren't you?" My fingers are under my eyes, massaging the eye strain from being up all night and not sleeping enough on the flight on my way back home. "I can offer you work if you are earnestly looking for it. I just want to help you." I try to focus my gaze on her face. "My dad's-his real estate property probably needs a keeper and I need someone who I can trust."

"And you think you can trust me?"

"Is there any reason why I shouldn't?" I give her a look. "What are you trying to say? That you're not to be trusted?"

"No, that's not what I am saying."

"Then what is it?"

"I'm saying that you need to get the hell away from me." She's exuding anger, and her fingers are clasped together into tight fists. "I won't work for you or any random perverted asshole in a million years, even if I have to clean floors for the rest of my life." She explodes at me. "Get out from here. I don't want to see your face."

I don't understand why she is so livid right now. But before I go, I try my luck once again with her.

"You won't know this by any chance, but our lives are quite similar." I take a beat. "You are losing your mom, and I have already lost my dad. I'm heading home to finalise his funeral services when I get out of this place." I shake my head. "We are not much different, despite what you think."

That makes her still in her place. No words come out of her mouth, though. After sharing a couple of concerned glances with each other, I leave the supermarket with my things in hand.

It hurts a little bit knowing that I will probably never see her again. And she might never forgive me for what I have done to her without wanting to.

"Hey, can you wait?" Her voice calls out. "I'm sorry." She runs toward me to catch up with me. I still myself in my steps. We both stand outside awkwardly, staring at different things in our surroundings but at each other. "I don't know why I said those things."

Staring at the sun and the street in front of me, I decide that it would be the best if I leave.

"I think I should go." I give her a tight-lipped smile. "We will probably see each other, I think, hopefully, we will."

"Probably."

With that, I leave her standing and staring at my silhouette before she goes back inside the store.

***

"Did you get everything you need?" Arnold asks me. "Yeah, what have you got there?"

I nod. I undo the packaging from the top of my sandwich and take a big bite out of it.

"Let's go home," I speak through bites of food. "I need to get home. Everyone must be waiting for me."

"They sure are, son."

"Are you sure you haven't noticed anything unusual since the news broke out?" I lick my lower lip because some of the mayo spills out. "Anything out of the ordinary? Someone behaving funny or acting out of their everyday normal behaviour?"

"I have only noticed Margarethe not coming in since the morning when I dialled her and told her that your dad is gone." He sighs. "She was at your residence, but soon she left the property and hasn't come back in since." He stares at the road in front of him as he puts the car in drive. "I have to call in and check on her. It must have been hard for her. They are-were good friends, and they trusted each other with almost everything."

His words run through my head.

They trusted each other with almost everything.

Is she the missing piece of this puzzle?

Do I need to go and have a talk with her?

"Can you go and pick her up once you drop me at home?" I breathe out a sigh of anxiety and dread. "I want to talk to her. I think she might know what business my dad had that night when he left to deal with things by himself."

"Of course, Nev." He nods. "I'll go bring her home when I'm done with you."

"Thanks."

"Do you want me to put on some music?"

"No."

Arnold changes lanes again at the next freeway exit, and I see something surreal in the rear-view mirror on the side of the car, and it leaves me gasping for breath. The scene is so out of the normal on the streets of Denver that I wonder if I'm seeing things correctly.

Am I losing my mind?

From what I can see, I see two wolves of considerable size--since they can't be dogs because dogs aren't that huge with those beady piercing eyes--staring back at me, with their giant forelimbs risen off the ground out of fearlessness from the side corner of the street. They gaze at me for a minute, challenging me, making me stare back at them with a strange expression on my face, then they disappear behind the trees on the side of the road as large trees give way to a looming forest not far from where we are. No one sees them. Nothing lurks out of the ordinary because I don't see people stopping in traffic and honking their horns at them. It's so freakishly weird.

I wonder if I'm dreaming or if this is my exhaustion catching up with me. I'm seeing things now. The plane ride was long, and I didn't sleep much because of the hangover and the turbulence in the air when we crossed the pacific ocean. The uneasy feeling settles back in my stomach. There's a shrill-pitched ringing rising in my ear as the night starts to fall all over the sky.

There's something that catches my eye, though. 

The wolves that I just saw had almost golden glimmering eyes, and it sets off a crucial memory in the back of my mind. Some parts of that foggy night I had lost immediately comes back to me.

The forest grove. A row of large wild birch trees. A man running through the woods next to a silent lake. Blood glides all over his body. The grass where he walks is painted with blood as he meanders through the bushes with a limp. Then a sharp, agonising, numbing pain overtakes his body as he falls to the ground.

The sharp pitched noise gets louder in my head, and I put my head in both of my hands to try to concentrate on the image that I'm seeing. I try to force the memory before my eyes so I can see it clearly.

The noise only gets louder.

One, two, three, four, five. . .

Then I see a large white wolf howling at the moon and running across the copse, his snout covered with blood and his eyes a golden-honey colour that shimmers under the inky black sky. He runs around in pain and dread as darkness rages within him.

And just like that, the memory fades away when I see Arnold staring at me through the front rear-view mirror.

"Did you call Jean?" he asks. "He was really worried about you. And he wants you to call him right now. I just got a text from him."

"All right." I sigh. "I will call him."

I put my gaze back on the street as I keep seeing those golden-honey eyes shimmering everywhere from behind the trees as we drive home.