Black Wolf (4 page)

Gisela cried
out, wordlessly; it sounded like denial.

Without a
thought, Kevin scrambled closer to her, laid one hand on her
shoulder to feed her whatever power he still had from his day in
the sun, grabbed the stranger's hand in his other one and
reached
inside, tracking the mind/spirit/self that was
preparing to leave.
Jesse
, that was the stranger's name.
Rebecca should never have done this to Jesse, should never have
used him like this, and Kevin knew far too much about Rebecca's
charm and ruthlessness. That was something Kevin and Jesse had in
common, even if there was never anything else, and it was something
he could use to connect to that fading sense of self and call Jesse
back, keeping him there while Gisela threw everything she had into
healing the damage at least as far as non-lethal levels. He didn't
have enough left to do this, and he knew it, but there was no time
for anything else, and he was
not
going to let Rebecca kill
someone who should never have been involved in their problems.

"Got it,"
Gisela whispered finally. "He won't die now. He's not going to feel
so great when he wakes up, which isn't going to be for a while, but
he'll survive it." She sounded exhausted. Kevin could relate; he
felt cold and vaguely dizzy.

"All right,"
Deanna said briskly. That was Deanna all over, Kevin thought:
worried about her little sister and her best friend, her response
was to go all practical. "Moving our camping gear here is probably
pointless, there's no reason to think this spot was chosen for
things like access to water. There's no way we're going to get a
worn-out healer, a worn-out mage, and one unconscious body all back
to the usual spot under their own power. I suggest we go get
emergency supplies for overnight and stay here until sunrise. If
Kev isn't recovered enough to gate yet, Bane can go get Bryan to
anchor for Lori and she can gate here and get us all back to our
own camp."

"I agree,"
Flynn said. "I don't get any sense of this being a particularly
good spot to camp, and I think it's going to be a few days before
going back to the house is a good idea. And I think it's probably
going to be Lori doing any gates for a day or two. I'll give you a
hand. Bane? Nothing's going to happen in the next little while.
Come help us? You can run something back here for these two to eat
before they go into shock, while Dia and I pack up some blankets
and things."

Kevin let
himself more or less collapse where he was, wishing for moonrise,
which would at least give him back a little; Gisela curled herself
beside him, kitten-like, and he slid an arm over her.

"Gotta tell
you something," she said quietly.

"Hm?
What?"

"He's a latent
wolf. Well, he used to be latent. Now it all depends on how
completely he heals from this."

2

Jesse opened
his eyes, and saw only green. After a moment of confusion, he
identified it as the curve of a green nylon tent over him, which
was followed by recognition of blankets under him and ground below
that, and a lightweight blanket over him. He was dressed, though he
wasn't wearing his shoes or his jacket.

What had
happened, and why did he feel so awful—tired and achy and
disoriented? Had he been in a fight? But he couldn't remember
one.

Cautiously, he
rolled onto his side to look around, pushing himself up with one
arm, surprised at how difficult that simple task was.

On another set
of blankets nearby, he had company: probably not much older than
him, probably taller, with vividly golden-blonde hair falling loose
to jaw-length and amazingly white skin. Hadn't he seen someone who
looked something like that, with those high slanted cheekbones and
slightly large, slightly tilted eyes? Someone associated with
something bad? Or was it with something good? He reached for the
memories, but they wouldn't come into focus, and he couldn't even
decide whether they were recent memories or not.

The blonde guy
looked up from the book he was reading, and gave him a friendly
smile. "Good morning. Welcome back to the land of the living. I
would guess that you feel pretty horrible, hm?"

Jesse
shrugged, not inclined to give away information without knowing the
situation.

"I'm not
surprised. I'm Kevin. I already know you're Jesse, you told me that
earlier."

"Do I know
you?"
I remember the party, I remember leaving, I remember
waking up, and somehow I found out that I'm like a hundred miles
from home but I don't remember who told me that. It can't be
another blackout like the last one, otherwise I'd be too far north
for anything but an igloo. So what's going on and where the hell am
I?

Kevin shrugged
amiably. "No, not really. My friends and I found you walking along
the edge of what passes for a highway around here. You didn't look
so good, so we got the local doctor to take a look at you. She says
you're okay, so we talked you into staying with us. You fell asleep
and you've been out for about, oh, a couple of days now. We were
getting worried. Does that pretty much cover it?"

"Yeah, I think
so. Thanks for helping me." What they were going to want in return
remained to be seen, but at least right now he wasn't just alone in
the forest he recalled seeing—and walking along a so-called highway
through.

"No problem.
You timed waking up rather nicely; it's about lunch-time. And you
have to be starving. I know I would be after sleeping that
long."

At the mere
thought, his stomach growled. He flushed; Kevin just grinned, sat
up, and pushed Jesse's running shoes closer to him.

"Think you can
get up?"

Jesse pulled
on his shoes, then tried, carefully, and made it to his feet. Kevin
rose in one smooth motion and unzipped the door of the tent.

Outside the
tent was wild forest all around a circular clearing. The tent and
what he assumed was assorted camping gear were close to one side,
though not actually under the enormous tree that was nearest. In
the shade lounged two other people.

The male of
the pair was tanned dark and brown-haired, physically rather
imposing under a tattered faded brown tank-top and cut-off denim
shorts, even though all he was doing was leaning against a tree and
working on a puzzle or something in a magazine braced against his
raised knees. Even the lines of his face were strong—Jesse knew
girls, well, mostly girls, who would have just drooled over him. He
glanced up briefly, gave Jesse a nod that might have been a
greeting, and went back to what he was doing.

The woman
looked up from the book she was reading and smiled, and Jesse
wished he knew how to do that, for charming people, just that way.
Clearly tall and strongly built, long thick dark auburn hair pulled
up and clipped off the back of her neck. She was wearing
comfortable-looking loose lightweight shorts over wide hips and a
halter that supported very full breasts, all dark green; out of
nowhere he wondered what she'd look like dressed like a fairy-tale
princess.

No, she
wouldn't be some helpless air-headed princess. She'd be more likely
to save the hero's ass a few times, and maybe get rid of a dragon
or two on the side.

And even
though she was every inch the opposite of what the self-starved
bleached-blonde heavily-made-up girls he knew aimed for, no one
would ever have noticed them with her in the room.

"Hi! I'm
Deanna, in case you don't remember from before, but my friends all
call me Dia. This is Bane. How are you feeling?"

Jesse shrugged
again. "Confused."

"I would be,
too."

"And hungry,"
Kevin said. "What do we have for Jesse to eat? I wouldn't mind a
snack m'self."

"There's
lots," Deanna said, and grinned at Jesse. "You wouldn't know it to
look at him, but Kev eats as much as Bane and I put together. When
he's around, we always bring enough food for an army. Potato salad,
cold meat sandwiches, hard boiled eggs, fresh veggies, fruit… hm, I
think that's most of the selection, anyway. Does anything sound
appealing?"

"Anything
would be great," Jesse said.

"So come
look." Deanna flipped her book over and got up, striding barefoot
over to the trio of rather large coolers near the tent. "We don't
exactly have bathroom facilities out here. If you need to do
anything before you eat, well, basically you just step into the
trees. There's toilet paper there," she nodded to one side, to a
pile of assorted stuff Jesse couldn't quickly identify, but with a
basic white roll in easy reach, "but in that case, we generally try
to bury it. Just to keep things cleaner."

Made sense.
Right now, it was enough of a reminder to reach through the mental
fogginess and make him realize that he really needed to empty his
bladder. He excused himself and headed into the forest at the
nearest point.

Somehow, when
he came back, Jesse found himself with a dinner plate of sturdy red
plastic, bearing a generous helping of what Deanna assured him was
potato salad made by her grandmother's recipe and a large fresh
roll stuffed liberally with tomato and real cheddar and
thinly-sliced roast beef, and a bottle of orange Gatorade. Kevin
took more or less the same. Bane barely glanced up, only shook his
head when Deanna asked if he wanted anything; she fished an apple
out of another cooler and joined Jesse and Kevin.

Jesse noticed
that while she sat in the shade, near its edge, Kevin sat in full
sunlight close to her. That seemed odd; given the colouration, he
would have expected the opposite, or at least both in the shade. He
decided on the sun himself, hoping it would help bake out some of
the achiness.

"So," Deanna
said. "Not that we want to give you the third degree or anything,
but is there someone who's wondering where you are right now who
might be worried? We can go back into town and find a phone, or
give you a ride somewhere."

Who would
worry? Jesse found he had to stop and actually think about that. No
family. There was Shaine, of course, who was probably fearing the
worst by now. No one else would care, and only a few would even
notice.

On the other
hand, he had no intention of giving away any information like
that.

"No one's
expecting me anywhere right away," he said. "I was with a friend
and we had a… a fight..." He closed his eyes, feeling faintly
nauseous, as odd things happened in his head. Déjà vu so strong it
was almost overwhelming, but with it a sense of apprehension,
warning...

"Jesse?"
Deanna sounded worried. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah." He
blinked, forced himself to concentrate on here and now. "Just got
dizzy for a sec there. I came up this way with someone I thought
was a good friend. We had an argument and he got mad at me..." The
déjà vu threatened again, so he just shrugged and took a bite of
his sandwich and left them to fill in their own details. The
sandwich was delicious, somehow all the tastes were stronger—it
tasted
right
somehow in a way he couldn't pinpoint.

"Well, it's
not like we have a regular bus service way up here," Kevin said.
"Why don't you hang around for a few days until you're feeling more
like yourself and then we'll grab the van and give you a ride
wherever? There's no hurry. The tent's big enough for one more
person easily. We were planning to pack up in a couple of days,
school's coming up soon, but we and our friend Cynthia have our own
house."

Jesse didn't
answer for a moment. This was just too weird. These people admitted
they didn't know him and owed him nothing, so why were they being
so nice?

On the other
hand, given how incredibly exhausted he felt right now, just from
the minimal exertion, he really didn't think he was likely to get
very far if he decided to leave. Even if he did accept the offered
ride, he wasn't about to direct anyone right to the apartment he
shared with Shaine—and for that matter, right now he felt so
confused that he wasn't sure he could even
find
the
apartment. It wasn't looking like he had a lot of choice in the
matter.

"Yeah, for a
couple of days that'd be great, thanks." Had there ever actually
been an explanation for why he was feeling like this? Kevin and
Deanna were acting as if there had been, but he couldn't remember
what it was.

"Not a
problem. Hang around, make yourself at home. Unfortunately, it
might get boring, unless you like either doing various sorts of
logic and word puzzles, or reading some of the stuff we
brought—mostly non-fiction and fantasy and science fiction."

"I'm not sure
I could concentrate anyway. That's okay." Even just to lie in the
sun and rest and try to let his head clear would be enough for
right now. Once he could think again, then maybe he could get his
life back under his control.

* * *

The
disorientation lingered, and with it the odd flashes of things in
his head—images and associations he couldn't identify as
hallucination or dream or recent past or from his remote missing
past before the foster homes.

Bane reminded
him strongly of someone, or maybe multiple someones, but no one he
could consciously bring to mind; whoever it was, he got an
inexplicable sense of security when he was nearby. That wasn't
often; he was far less outgoing than his friends, and once just
wandered off into the woods by himself for quite a long time. When
he was around, he either did puzzles or read, generally while lying
in the shade; when he did speak up, he was friendly enough, so
there was nothing Jesse could really complain about even to
himself.