Wolf: To Your Bones (Wolf series Book 2), page 27
“Thanks,” I murmured, still in the face of the mighty beast. “Get to safety. We’ll catch up.”
I ran without wasting any more time. The thundering steps behind me revealed that Hunter was now running to the exit—away from me. The pack had put themselves in enough danger. The rest was up to me.
I’d finish it and get Josh out of this lab.
I ran down the hall. The pain in my head was forgotten, just like everything else. I didn’t pay attention to the debris, nor to the dead bodies, nor did I hear the alarm that echoed continuously off of the walls. My brain didn’t even register the raging werewolves that I saw from the corner of my eye. I passed one of them without taking cover. With the next ones, however, I was not so lucky. I just saw them jumping through one of the doors—a stomping group of hateful monsters who wanted to take revenge on each human they saw. I could barely escape into a room without being discovered.
I heard them. Their breaths, their powerful steps, and their angry growls. I could hear them clenching their teeth before I noticed a whimpering scream. The werewolves had found a target.
Half of the werewolves seemed to have simply fled the building, but the other half were hunting down everyone who had tormented them. I couldn’t blame them.
I sat on the floor and pressed my back against the wall, clasping my legs. It was horrible—all of this. Werewolves, humans. I didn’t know both sides of the story, but I didn’t want to hear or see these terrible things anymore. Even in the whole last year I hadn’t experienced so much death and darkness as right now. I had to get Josh out of here.
I closed my mind until it was over and the werewolves’ sounds faded. Then I picked myself up and continued on my way. I had just left the room when something hit me in the neck.
It happened too fast to react. There were hands that grabbed and slammed me against the wall. They belonged to a man with gray hair and a beard. The impact pressed the air out of my lungs. I coughed and couldn’t breathe, for his hands squeezed my throat so tightly that my oxygen was totally blocked. It had to be one of the researchers. His white coat was crooked and covered with blood.
“You!” he screamed. I had never seen a human being so outraged. Saliva flew from his mouth as he yelled at me. “What have you done?!”
He knew that I had released the werewolves—or maybe I was just the only non-researcher he had seen here. His voice echoed across the hall and had to be drawing every werewolf’s attention to us.
I fought, but I wasn’t strong enough to escape his grip.
“You’ll pay for this!” His pressure was getting stronger. He was trying to strangle me. I pedaled my feet without reaching him. He stood two steps away and leaned forward so far that his whole body weight was on my neck. His hands were like a vice. I raised my arms to push him away, and my fingers tugged helplessly at his hands as my consciousness faded. The surroundings changed into flashes of colors and wiped my orientation. I was on the verge of passing out when something happened.
It was just a coincidence—a confused thought amidst my fear. It brought the memory of the policeman with the distinctive face back to me. I remembered my defenselessness and my anger. I thought about my dad, his worried words, and the self-defense course he had put me through.
Suddenly I knew what I had to do. The rest was pure reflex. I threw my arm over the man’s wrists, reached out, and sank my elbow into his face. His hands came off my neck immediately. He covered his face, swore at me, and stumbled backwards until one of the werewolves had him. The beast came out of nowhere and bit into him to fling him around like a lifeless sack. His cursing stopped down immediately—he didn’t even scream. All that remained was the hysterical roar of angry monsters.
I fell to the ground and coughed. My throat burned like fire and forced my entire body to bend. I knew I had no time, because the hallway was full of werewolves. There must have been ten or fifteen of them, hurrying across the corridor, looking like a black, rolling river. They came toward me, so I fled with my last ounce of strength behind a door. There I collapsed and held my neck. The pain was so great that it brought tears.
I prayed that the werewolves wouldn’t follow me. If they found me now, it was over. Just one claw blow would be enough to shred the thin door behind me—together with me. I trembled and stared at the wall with an empty gaze. Every bang could mean my end, and every rumble that they found me. Their footfalls shook the entire laboratory. They trampled down the hall like a disorganized army. A battalion of nightmares that had gone completely out of control. I felt their thundering weight and heard their angry shouting while they smashed everything that stood in their way. I could only hope that they would leave this place as soon as possible.
It was my only chance to survive.
A few minutes later, the werewolves were gone. I listened to them running up away, probably leaving nothing in their path unharmed. With their disappearance, an uncanny silence returned. They had left me with the ruins of this place and far too many people and werewolves who hadn’t made it.
I took a deep breath and listened intently.
Nothing. There was nothing more to be heard. I seemed to be alone, so I jumped up and leaned against the wall to find my balance. When I hurried back outside, I found an absolutely demolished hallway. A sea of white, in which only one single, dark form stood out from the rest of the surroundings.
Josh.
Chapter 23
He was cowering in a corner, his glaring eyes fixed on my face. His posture showed that he obviously felt threatened, arching his back like a tiger before the pounce. Everything about him looked miserable. He didn’t seem to understand where he was. Maybe he didn’t even know who he was anymore.
But he was still here. I hadn’t lost him.
“Josh.”
The fear made my heart beat faster. The longer I gazed at the werewolf, the more I feared facing someone who could possibly now be a stranger. Had our intimate gaze a few minutes ago been mere coincidence? What should I do if he didn’t recognize me? The thought threatened to destroy my focus, so I threw all my doubts overboard and walked toward him.
I could see him tense up as every muscle of his black body strained. He let out such a deep growl that I halted. It reminded me of Josh’s fight at the wreck of the Jetta, before he had fled into the forest. He had recognized me then, even as a werewolf, so that had to be possible today as well.
Without moving my feet any closer, I stretched my arm in his direction.
“Josh.” I forced myself to smile, even though I didn’t know if he could interpret it. “Please. Come here.”
He didn’t budge and just stared at me—a bundle of hate that had never seemed more defenseless.
“Come,” I repeated quietly. “Let’s go home.”
With my words, something flickered in his eyes that I knew. A feeling or a memory that now set him in motion. The werewolf came closer until his breath reached my face. Then he rose to full height. His ears almost touched the ceiling as he looked at me with glowing pupils.
I no longer dared to make a single move. I just stood there waiting for what he was going to do.
“Josh.” My fear was in my throat.
“It’s me.” I hesitated. “Ruby.”
His ears twitched. Did he know my name? Or was he just reacting to my voice? I didn’t know. The werewolf opened his mouth but made no sound. Instead, he brought his paw closer to touch my face. It was huge. Big enough to encompass my entire head, if he wanted it to. I felt his claws against my opposite ear. My instincts demanded that I close my eyes and protect my face, but I resisted and held Josh’s gaze. No matter what form he was in, I loved him. I wished for nothing more than to finally see him again—the Josh I had fallen in love with. In the sports shop, at the city festival, and in my kitchen as we talked. I couldn’t remember when it happened. Looking back, it felt as if I had never not loved Josh.
I peered into his yellow eyes and tried to awaken his human heart without letting my fear surface again.
“Josh.” My voice trembled in spite of myself. “It’s okay. It’s over.”
At last, the big werewolf fell to his knees. A heartbeat later, the black fur began to disappear.
From one moment to the next, I found everything again. There were eyes as deep as the ocean, raven-black hair, and the outline of a face I had looked at for so many hours. There were countless scratches and scrapes on his forehead, cheeks, and neck, but I didn’t even notice them. I focused on Josh like he was a ghost, a fantasy I wasn’t allowed to believe in. I couldn’t believe he was in front of me. Not after searching for him for so long.
Not after I’d almost given up hope.
Instead of saying anything, Josh grabbed my arm and pulled me toward him. My first breath against his chest filled my lungs with his heat. His smell broke all my dams. I sank against him like an infant, holding him as if I had never stopped doing so.
It was a dream. It wasn’t reality, until I finally heard his voice.
“You have no idea how much I love you,” he whispered. His lips touched my ear and sent a shiver down my spine. He held me so tightly, as if I were his only connection to the world. We forgot the alarm, the werewolves, and the people who might still be in the building. Time stopped because there was only him. Just his voice, just his eyes. They extinguished an ungracious fire that had almost burned me alive.
“Josh.” I sobbed. “Josh. Josh.”
His hands were at my back, a calming weight of pure heat, and his breath touched my neck. I couldn’t let him go. I clung to him, covered in his presence, and cried out all that had tormented me the past weeks. I gasped for breath and held him even tighter until his arms clasped around me. It almost hurt. His forehead was on my shoulder. There was no inch of space between us. We had become one person, a single heartbeat. It felt like we were beginning to exist again.
“Shh.” His hands clasped my face so he could look at me. The expression in his eyes softened my knees. I was about to collapse, but Josh caught me. He held me until he was sure I had found my balance. Then he put a kiss on my lips that broke my loneliness and blazed through every cell in my body. I reached for his neck to deepen the kiss, but Josh’s lips left mine. He stroked my cheek and smiled that smile I had missed so much. Then he pulled the red hood back over my head. In his gaze I now saw determination and fear as well as love and gratitude.
“We have to leave,” Josh said, his voice low. “Right away.”
He took a step back and put distance between us. That was what finally made me realize we were in great danger. We were still in the lab. A single silver bullet from a remaining human could be enough to kill either of us. I saw Josh’s shaved hair, the burns on his neck, and his emaciated body, but I didn’t let the images get to me. Not now. If we wanted to escape, I had to function. I wasn’t allowed to break now.
“Okay.”
Josh seemed to have been waiting for my confirmation, because he now began to transform. A second later, he had turned into the hybrid.
There he was—my beautiful, tall wolf with the bushy fur. His faithful look stirred everything inside me. I remembered the gunshot, the screaming, and his suffering in front of me. It made me rush over and bury my face in his glowing fur. I could hear the powerful heart in his chest beating. Living.
It was over. I had found him.
My knees threatened to go weak again. With our reunion, the protective framework of longing and adrenaline that had driven me disappeared. Now black spots danced before my eyes. The lab and all the information from the last few days were just too much. Everything around me felt like a crazy dream. It had been only four hours since we had left Hunter’s house, and yet it was like I had experienced multiple lifetimes. My head was tired and crowded.
The hybrid bent down. His amber eyes focused only on me.
Get on.
It took me forever to find my composure. When I finally got it back, I threw my leg over Josh’s back and buried my hands in his fur. When the mighty wolf stood up, everything was fine. I saw his ears in front of me, smelled the tangy scent of his skin, and knew I was home.
Josh’s lungs took a deep, rattling breath before he ran toward the exit. I felt his thunderous steps, his tensed muscles, and his claws on the tiled floor. I blanked out. I no longer paid attention to the dead in our path, nor to the silver cages. The only thing that filled me was the deepest gratitude.
I had him back.
Josh raced up the stairs and brought us back to the surface with powerful leaps. We were greeted by a dark, rainy sky, which made me hardly recognize the clearing. The old building behind our back was in ruins. Even the doors of the storm cellar lay torn off in the grass. I saw the wreckage of machines and crumbling masonry and could’ve sworn I had accidentally traveled through time. The small building that the pack and I had found now consisted only of remains, and the meadow had given way to deep, irregular craters, without a doubt left by the claws of werewolves. It was a battlefield that told us what must have happened up here while we were in the lab.
I heard the rumbling of gunfire and engines in the woods. My fingers dug into Josh’s fur as I realized that this was far from over.
I suspected that the scientists were tracking the werewolves—armed. The dead bodies around us testified to it. People who hadn’t escaped the werewolves, and dead werewolves themselves. All lay motionless around us, covered in gaping wounds from silver bullets.
“Josh”—the panic tied my throat— “we have to find the pack.”
I was terrified for Hunter, Liam, and Keith. They had left the lab way before we did. If they had been caught in the gunfight, nobody could help them. How would we find them? Normal werewolves all looked alike. How could we distinguish them?
“Can you smell them?”
Josh shook his head. We both knew how hard it was to spot werewolves by their scent. He had explained it to me at the ice cream parlor. The meadow, the lab, the forest, everything around us reeked of hate. I could see Josh wrinkling his nose trying to pick up a trail. He had to find the specific scent of the pack members among all the werewolves, and he had to do it from memory. It was an almost impossible task.
I lay half on his back, my gaze flitting hectically across the clearing, hoping Josh or I would find something. A lead, or at least a hunch. My wish came true, because soon Josh watched a deep part of the forest. He had just started to move, when suddenly three werewolves rushed out of the thicket and cut off our way.
Josh stopped immediately. His eyes flew over the wall of monsters that had stopped in front of us, before his flews lifted and exposed his teeth. I had never heard the hybrid threaten so fervently before. The bass of his muffled voice captured my entire body as he took a slow step forward. In a strange way, it reminded me of the fight at the Jetta. Three werewolves staring at us, and a hybrid who knew no fear. At that time, Josh had attacked the pack because his anger had gained the upper hand. Today he knew that he could also turn into a werewolf if necessary.
I looked breathlessly at our opponents. Their dark fur hung full of twigs, fir needles, and blood, as if they had fought a fierce battle in the thicket. In the dull sunlight they looked like ancient statues because they hardly moved at all. Only Josh’s obvious threat made one of the three beasts step in front of the others protectively. His gaze came from bright yellow pupils, and he was looking directly at my face.
“Josh.” I grabbed his fur. “Stop. This is Hunter.”
There was no doubt. Just an hour ago, I had met this pair of eyes when they were full of concern for me. It was Hunter; I would’ve bet my life. The pack must have been waiting for us, even though it was so dangerous here.
Josh put on his ears suspiciously, but the werewolf agreed with me. He raised his paw to wave at us with an obviously human gesture. We all understood what it meant.
Let’s go.
Josh only hesitated a second before following the pack into the thicket.
We rushed through the forest. Even with me on his back, the hybrid was the fastest runner, so the wolves became a formation. They transformed Josh into the tip of an arrow, closely followed by the powerful steps of the three massive werewolves. I saw them in the corners of my eyes as I bent my back and held on to Josh’s fur with all my strength.
It was dead quiet around us. There were no birds and no wind to make the leaves rustle, only the uneven stamping of heavy paws and hastily rasping breaths. A chorus of escape that made me utterly focused on the path. Here everything looked the same, so we had to rely on Josh’s nose. The hybrid ran straight ahead, jumped over tree trunks and undergrowth, and led the pack through the forest. They followed us as if we had always been a team—an avalanche of claws and teeth, which for the first time in my life didn’t make me afraid.
We belonged together. All of us.
We would return home.
No one looked back. No one lost control. I pressed my heels against Josh’s flanks and fixed my sights on the horizon until the thicket cleared.
We had almost left the forest when new werewolves leaped into my field of vision. They came from all sides and joined us as if they wanted to get away with us. However, my gaze landed on black fur and feverish eyes that made my blood freeze. I could tell by their sheer appearance and how they were looking at us.
They didn’t want to run. They were going to attack us.
There was hardly any time to react. Before Josh’s name could leave my lips, a deafening rumble shook the ground. Suddenly claws flew through the air, splitting the undergrowth and turning branches and stones into deadly projectiles. I had to lower my head and protect my eyes from the rocks and splinters of wood. Meanwhile, I saw the pack loosen the formation. They split up and encircled us to fend off the werewolves nearby. I heard the collisions of centimeter-thick teeth against flesh while the pack members disappeared into a tangle of endless black. The forest was full of werewolves, and they were all fighting each other. Even though we had freed them, it didn’t make us allies. Our escape must have aroused their hunting instincts.
