~ CARA ~“Hey… are you okay?”I looked up from my lunch tray in the cafeteria to find Meg, the quiet girl from my study-group standing on the other side of my table.“Oh, hi. Yeah. Did you want to sit down?” I said, gesturing towards the chairs where Meg was standing.She smiled hesitantly, then nodded, placed her tray on the tabletop, then sat down directly across from me.For a minute we both just ate without speaking. I was distracted. My leg was hurting—and got worse the longer I was on my feet—but I had to work that evening at the library again. How was I going to get back to the dorm after? I didn’t have to close out the night this time, but I wouldn’t finish until nine and it would already be dark—“Are you sure you’re okay, Cara?” Meg asked gently. She leaned her elbows on either side of her tray, picking apart a bread roll without eating it.I sighed. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to ignore you. I’m just distracted.”“What’s going on?”“Nothing…” When Meg looked at me, clearly sk
~ RIG ~I leaned onto the top of the desk and smiled, waiting for my turn as Cara finished giving some freshman instructions on how to find the reference texts they were looking for.She looked pale and a little tired, but she’d noticed me arriving, and her scent had lifted. I’d had to fight down a smug smile.“Hey,” I said when she turned towards me. “How are—”“I know I was freaking out, but it wasn’t that bad, I was just nervous, but I have the number for Campus Security, and they already said they’ll give me a ride. I just have to call them and wait if they’re already taking someone else, that’s all,” she blurted out, all in a rush.I blinked, confused. “I’m… glad you got whatever it was sorted out, but I was just—”“No, Rig. I told Mack it’s not necessary, and I meant it.”“Told Mack… what exactly?” Wait, she’d been talking to Mack?Fucker.Cara had folded her arms, but now her forehead pinched. “Aren’t you here because he told you that I was being weird at lunch?”“You had lunch
~ RIG ~I almost shifted, but if this thing was just a strange human, or if there were other humans around I needed to be in human form—and not be naked. So with a low growl, I moved as quickly as any human witness would think was realistic, following Cara’s trail deeper into the trees.Why had she done it? Why had she come in here alone after what had already happened?A tiny voice nudged at the back of his mind—why had I let her? But I shook it off. She was human and an adult. Not my responsibility.Moments. It took only moments to find the trail and follow it at a full sprint, first down the trail, then, where her scent mingled with that other thing, into the trees and underbrush.Teeth bared, hands whipping branches aside, I tore through the trees, then broke out into a small clearing where the moonlight turned everything silver and black… and my chest turned to stone.The moment I broke through the trees, the male on the other side of the clearing froze.He held Cara facing me, o
~ RIG ~“Yes, I’m certain. It was one guy. But he had… he had a dog or something with him.” I said the words carefully, avoiding Cara’s eyes, praying she didn’t hear me. There were lights in the clearing now. The Police Officer stood just a couple feet away, his notebook in his hand and a stern look on his face. Cara, the wound on her neck already cleaned and covered, was being strapped to the board so the ambulance officers could carry her out, but her knee was causing her a lot of pain.“We have had a couple of attacks recently. But no one has seen them except the victims. You’re absolutely sure—”“Did I stutter?” I snarled. My tension was growing, but they didn’t know that. The officer’s face tightened and I made myself take a breath. My frustration wasn’t for this human, but for the conversation going on in my head between my packmates who had followed the creature’s trail all the way to the main street just outside of Campus where it went cold.Either the thing had a car, or some
~ RIG ~I had to think fast. She was growing suspicious and I couldn’t use the Allure to soothe her.“Because you need help,” I said simply.“Bullshit, Rig. There are girls all over campus who need help. Why me?”“I’ve had to save you twice already,” I said with a wink. “If the hospital kills you now, it will have been for nothing.”But Cara didn’t grin with me. She shifted uncomfortably on the bed, but didn’t say anything. For the first time, I wished I could mindlink with her, hear her thoughts. Understand what she was thinking. Because my own instincts were on high alert, too. I doubted it was good.As her scent prickled and grew hard, I scrambled. I needed to distract her from her suspicions before she convinced herself not to trust me at all.“I’ll go get us some coffee,” I said suddenly. “There’s an espresso shop downstairs. It’s probably crap, but it’ll keep us alert anyway. You have to keep an eye on the doctors. They’re always trying to screw you on the charges.” I laughed un
~ CARA ~I sat very stiffly in the back of the fancy car, praying I didn’t bleed on the cream leather, or touch anything that would break. I’d never been in a real town car before. Back at the hospital, I’d tried to ask the driver to bring a more normal vehicle, but he’d become a little impatient and insisted that he had another job to go to after this. So I’d levered myself into the spacious backseat with my strapped knee and crutches as quickly as I could, then refused to move for the entire drive.As the driver took the final turn before we reached campus I could breathe a little easier… sort of. I felt strange. My chest was tight and I kept seeing sparkling lights at the edge of my vision.The nurse told me it was probably lack of sleep, and that my blood pressure was up from the adrenalin of the attack. She’d been sympathetic, but firm.“I know this was hard, Cara, but the best thing you can do for yourself is return to your life and get back into a normal routine. That knee will
~ CARA ~The next morning, I was swinging myself along the sidewalk towards the cafeteria, starving. I’d eaten all of my snacks and couldn’t afford to buy more until I got paid at the end of the week. With everything that had happened over the weekend, I needed to catch up on the studying I had missed. But if I was going to concentrate I needed to eat, and that meant having breakfast in the cafeteria. Which meant, with the crutches, that I was out of the door early to give myself extra time.I thought I would be sore after working so late the night before. But all that sleep had done my knee good. I still couldn’t put weight on it, but it wasn’t aching as badly as when I’d come home from the hospital. As I clunked onto the sidewalk outside the dormitory, I winced. The undersides of my arms were being rubbed by the crutches. How was I going to handle two more weeks of this?I wasn’t even halfway down the block when the rumble of a vehicle approached from behind, then slowed to roll alo
~ CARA ~“I can’t,” I blurted, sitting back in my seat to put more space between us. But it didn’t stop my pulse speeding up, or thumping in my ears. “I have to study… and I have class.”Rig’s smile slid higher on one side. “You know you don’t have to attend every class, right?”“Of course I do. That’s how I get good grades.”Rig blinked, then huffed a surprised little laugh. “Cara, please don’t tell me… have you never skipped class before?”I kept my mouth firmly shut, but as his stunned silence grew, I wanted to squirm.“Oh my god,” he laughed. “You really haven’t.”“It’s not that big of a deal.”“You’re serious? Not even in high school?”I frowned and started picking up my crutches. “Look, you said breakfast and a ride. I don’t have to sit here and get mocked—”“I’m not mocking you!”“What do you call all the laughing?!” I snapped.“It’s called… polite disbelief.”“Polite?”Rig straightened his face, but his mouth still twitched toward a smile. “Okay, okay, I was laughing—but I’m n