Chapter 5 Mari’s POV

I don't remember getting out of the room. All I remembered was the cold air on my face and the porch rail under my hands, and then I was bent over it, sucking in air like I'd been underwater.

"Breathe," Birdie said, rubbing my back. "In through the nose, out through the mouth. That's it."

"His hand," I gasped. "His hand turned into... into..."

"I know, honey."

"That's not real. That doesn't happen. I'm a nurse. I know how bodies work. I've held a lot of hands, and not a single one has ever grown claws." I was laughing and crying at the same time, and it sounded so awful. "Oh my God, I'm losing it. I'm really losing it."

"You're not losing anything,” she said kindly. "You're just scared. That's allowed."

Then the screen door creaked behind us. Rook stood there in a clean T-shirt with his hands in his pockets, looking like a kid who'd broken a window. His eyes were gray-green again. The wound was pink.

"Give us a minute," he said.

Birdie squeezed my shoulder and went inside.

For a while, neither of us talked. A cold wind moved through the pines, and somewhere far off an owl was hooting. I stared at his boots because I couldn't stand to look at his face.

"So," I finally said. "You’re a werewolf?"

He winced. "We don't love that word."

"What do you love?"

"Wolf. Pack. Family." He shrugged. "Cursed, on bad days."

"Is it contagious? Do I need a shot? Because if I got scratched anywhere I need to know right now."

"You didn't." He almost smiled. "It takes a bite, and it doesn't always work. Most people die." His smile faded. "I was nineteen. It was a guy in a bar lot outside Bend. I woke up in a ditch with half my shoulder gone. Harlan found me."

I swallowed. "And the club?"

"The club's the pack. Every patched brother, plus a few prospects. Some were born to it, some were bitten, and all of us have the same problem. Once a month the moon takes over." He looked at the sky. The clouds had thinned just enough to show a pale half circle. "It’s coming in nine days’ time. Then we’ll all go a little crazy."

"Do you hurt people?"

He didn't answer right away. "Not anymore," he said. "We have a cage in the basement. It works."

A cage? I decided to cry about that later.

"The silver," I said. "That's why the bullet did that."

"It burns us and stops us from healing. It's the one thing that can really kill us." He watched me. "Black Pines found out. I don't know how yet. But they know now, and they've got a whole box of those rounds, and they're hunting us."

"And I'm in the middle."

"You're in the middle because you saved my life. Twice." His voice dropped. "Thank you for that. I should have said it already."

I wanted to stay angry, and I really couldn't. "You're welcome," I mumbled. "I guess."

Inside, Harlan was waiting at the big table, with Wade leaning on the wall behind him. Rook walked me in like a bodyguard.

"Here's how this works, Miss Reyes," Harlan said. "You can't leave. Not until the Black Pines business is settled. We'll make sure your mother's looked after. You'll have a room, three meals a day, and my wife's company, which, I admit, is a prize." Birdie snorted from the kitchen. "In return, you keep our secret help us. We've got no doctor, and you've seen what that costs. We'll take care of Black Pines and find out who's talking."

"So I'm a prisoner."

"You're a guest."

"Can the guest leave?"

"No."

"That means I’m a prisoner, Harlan."

"You’re a protected guest." He almost smiled. "Do we have a deal?"

I looked at him. I looked at Wade, who was smiling again. Then I looked at Rook.

"I want something," I said. "I want to know who's behind Black Pines, and I want to see everything you've got on them. Because the night my sister disappeared, she texted me from their roadhouse. And I've spent three years looking for the person behind her disappearance."

The room went still. Harlan's eyes flicked to Rook, and Rook looked at the floor.

"Rook," Harlan said. "You want to say anything?"

"No, Pop."

"Fine," Harlan said. "You'll have what we have."

I waited for Rook to look up, to give me anything at all. He kept staring at the floor, and that silence remained in my mind long after they sent me to bed.

They gave me a room at the end of the hall, with a lamp and a quilt that smelled like cedar. I lay on top of it in my scrubs and stared at the ceiling. I thought about my mom, and Tess, who had no idea where I was and would be calling my phone right now.

My phone.

I sat up. A basket had been sitting by the door when we came in, full of phones. Birdie had said something about lockdown rules, but I hadn't been thinking. Now I slid out of bed and crept down the hall in my socks.

The Lodge was dark and quiet, except for the buzz of the large fridge. The basket was where she'd left it, so I found my phone and turned it on. I had twenty two missed calls from Tess. I was about to step into the kitchen to call her back when I stopped.

A black leather saddlebag sat in the corner by the door, half open, with a heavy boot dumped on top of it. Rook's. I just knew it. And something hung over the edge of the bag, shining in the dim light from the porch. A thin silver chain.

I don't even know why I walked over there except that something was pulling me toward it. I bent and picked it up, and the cold little charm slid across my palm, a crescent moon with a tiny chip in one corner.

I knew that chip. I'd been there when she dropped it on the kitchen tile.

I'd bought that bracelet myself for Josie's eighteenth birthday. I'd had something engraved on the back, “J + M, always.” My knees went weak as I turned it over.

It said exactly that.

Three years had passed since Josie disappeared. And her bracelet had been in Rook’s saddlebag the whole time.