Chapter 4

Blenda

I sat there for a full minute with my thumb over the screen before I typed: Okay.

The clinic’s back lot was dark except for one lamp, and a man stood under it with his hands in his pockets.

He was taller than I remembered, with longer hair, and when my headlights swept across him, he looked up and went still.

I got out of the car, and we stood six feet apart.

“Hi.”

He didn’t hug me.

He took one hand out of his pocket and held it out flat, and on his palm sat a blue plastic butterfly clip with a chipped wing, faded almost to gray.

 “Eighth grade,” he said. “You lost it at the lake, and I found it the next day and meant to give it back, and somehow it ended up in every box I packed for years. I figured you wouldn’t believe it was me without proof.”

I closed my fingers around it.

“Not here,” he said. “Get in the truck.”

He had parked at the far end of the lot, and I climbed into the passenger seat with the clip in my fist while Caleb gripped the wheel without turning the key.

“It’s not a treatment, Blenda,” he said.

“What?”

“There’s no cure, and there never was. Every time he’s been taking your blood into the lab, and not to fix you.” His voice scraped. “To map you.”

“Map me?”

“To learn why your body doesn’t reject things.” He scrubbed both hands over his face.

 “A-wolf’s body fights any embryo that isn’t hers, even a mate’s, because the wolf inside won’t allow it. That’s what killed the surrogate last year. Her name was Dana. She was twenty-three, and she was three months along.”

Suddenly, Molly’s words echoed in my ears: We tried a surrogate last year, but she passed away, and honestly, it was such a hassle.

 Another wave of acid rose in my stomach, and I almost threw up again.

 Caleb asked with concern, “Are you okay?” I just shook my head.

“He needed a body that wouldn’t fight back, someone without a wolf, and he spent five years working out the hormones and the doses and the timing to make yours work.”

His voice dropped. “He was never trying to give you a baby. He was building a place for somebody else’s.”

“He held my wrist every time, and he said it’s almost done—”

“No, just to keep you still.”

I pushed up my sleeve, and under the dome light, I could see a neat line of tiny white dots, one for every new moon.

I pulled my sleeve back down.

“How long have you known?”

“Three years,” he said. “The first time Jeff spotted a pattern in your numbers, he pulled me in on it, and he said if I ever opened my mouth, he would put me down. I told myself I’d fix it quietly, that you were safe as long as you were useful.”

His jaw worked. “I’m a coward, and I know it. I’m telling you now because Molly’s embryos are ready, and the implant is on his calendar.”

My free hand slid to my stomach before I could stop it, and Caleb’s eyes dropped to it and rose again.

“I just saw this plan today. I struggled for a long time, but I still told you about it. Otherwise, I’d blame myself for the rest of my life.”

“Thank you, Caleb. Thank you for telling me the truth. I don’t think it’s too late; I found out. I want to leave as soon as possible.” I said.

 Caleb ran both hands through his hair and let out a long breath.

“I think leaving is the best thing you can do,” he said. “I would rather not see them do that to you.”

Then he looked at me. “How about tonight? I traded for the east patrol so I can get you to the edge of the Pack Lands.”

“You’ll be in trouble.”

“Probably,” he said, with a crooked smile that wobbled.

“Okay.” I tucked the clip and the folded paper into my back pocket. “Let’s go.”

He drove with the lights off down the service road behind the pack grounds while I sat on my hands so that he wouldn’t see them shake, and he cut the engine at the end.

 “It’s a mile on foot from here. Past the ridge, there’s a creek, and once you cross it, you’re out. The bus line is two miles on.”

“You’re coming with me.”

“I’ll see you to the creek.”

“Caleb—”

“Please. We can argue later.”

I can’t shift, and I’ve never been fast, and my lungs were burning within two minutes.

But Caleb stayed half a step ahead with one hand stretched back toward me, catching my elbow each time I tripped on a root.

 The ridge rose out of the dark with the sound of water beyond it, and I could taste cold air and wet leaves and the end of the road.

We crested the ridge, and white light hit us in the face.

I threw up an arm and saw four trucks across the creek bed and a half-circle of pack warriors standing perfectly still.

A door opened, and Jeff stepped out and walked toward us through the headlights with his hands loose at his sides, so calm that it scared me more than shouting would have.

“Where are you going, Caleb?” he said.

“Your phone pinged the clinic tower at midnight, and you’ve never asked for that line before.”

Caleb pulled me behind him, one arm barring my chest. “Let her go, Alpha.”

“Which one of you am I talking to?” Jeff’s eyes moved past Caleb’s shoulder to me and didn’t change at all. “Take her.”

Two warriors seized my arms.

I kicked one in the shin and bit the other’s hand, and an elbow caught me in the ribs and emptied my lungs, so I folded forward and locked both arms over my stomach.

“Pack law is clear,” Jeff said to the crowd.

 “A Beta who conspires against his Alpha forfeits his life.”

A murmur ran through the warriors.

“Fortunately for you, Caleb, there’s still one lab in this pack and one man who can run it, so you’re going to live. You just won’t enjoy it.”

“Jeff, don’t!”

A large hand clamped over my eyes, smelling of leather and gun oil, and when I thrashed, it shoved my head back against someone’s chest.

I heard the thud of a fist into flesh, then another.

“Blenda.” Caleb’s voice came from somewhere close, steady even then. “It’s okay. It’s okay…”

“Caleb!”

The hand dropped away.

 I blinked into the glare with my eyes streaming and saw two warriors hauling Caleb up by his arms, his head hanging, blood on his face.

Jeff stood in the road, wiping his knuckles with a handkerchief, one finger at a time.

“Take him to the clinic cellar,” he said. “Put a guard on the door.”

The warriors dragged me toward the trucks.