Confessions of a Werewolf Supermodel (31 page)

Tom grins. “Then I guess it'll have to be sex with you. You should have just given it to me on prom night. We could have avoided all of this.”

My rage builds. I remember the beating, the humiliation, the near-rape. “I thought you got the message that I didn't want to have sex with you when I ripped your face off.”

He winks. “You were just playing hard to get. All women want to have sex with me.”

I've often heard that in the mind of a rapist, this is a common belief. The woman wanted him to. The woman was asking for it. It's always the woman's fault in their delusional way of thinking. Darkness is close to falling, and so is the temperature. There's only one way to kill Tom Dawson again. Egg him on.

“You want it, come get it,” I challenge.

He does.

Tom lunges across the flimsy fire and knocks me to the ground. His breath above me is like I remember. Fetid despite the white toothpaste smile. I'm fairly certain he eats raw meat. I'm more than certain he is not going to rape me. I bring my knee up between his legs. A grunt of pain explodes from his mouth.

“Bitch,” he growls, then takes a handful of my hair and bangs my head against the ground. The snow softens the blow. I smell him now. His foul odor. The scent begins the transformation. I use my upper body strength to switch our positions.

“What do you do when a woman isn't afraid, and when she's stronger than you?”

He proves I'm not stronger by knocking me aside. I roll in the snow. He rises up from the ground, and I swear he's taller than he was.

“Then I just get pissed off!” he growls at me.

His eyes glow red in the near-dark. If I'm going to survive, I need to get just as pissed off as he is. Remembering I was once at the mercy of this monster helps. Remembering the way he hit me when I resisted—the way he made me feel like a nobody. I lift my hand, relieved to see claws. My skin itches. I welcome the unpleasant sensation.

Tom stumbles toward me, nearly trips over my beauty bag and kicks it aside. It lands on top of my flimsy fire. That really enrages me. All my makeup is in there. He's probably broken something. I lunge at him and scratch his face with my claws.

His pretty face isn't so pretty by the time he manages to shove me away. I fly backward and hit a tree. It knocks the breath from me again. While I gasp, he marches toward me. His nose lengthens into a snout. The transformation comes quicker for him. He's done it more often than I have. The seams of my clothes burst. At least I know I'm on my way. When Tom lunges at me again, I move and he hits the tree. He stumbles back a step. His own clumsiness fuels his anger. He tilts back his head and howls.

The sound sends a chill down my spine. In the silence that follows, I hear my clothes rip. I'm not cold anymore. I think I've grown a fur coat. Tom now has hair on his face and hands. Sharp ugly teeth protrude from his gums.

I might need an equalizer. I know I'm stronger than an average man. I don't think I'm stronger than an average male werewolf. My gaze darts from left to right. The woodpile isn't far. A good sturdy log should help even things out. I take off. Tom jumps into my path. I run into him and knock him back, but he scrambles forward, blocking my way. I need a distraction.

“Stop or I'll shoot!”

Terry stands a few feet away, his gun leveled at Tom. I can't believe my eyes, and if Terry sees as well in the dark as I do, I don't imagine he can, either. But I don't think Terry can see as well. He's squinting. It's nearly dark. The problem is rectified a moment later. A big fiery blast explodes from the fire pit I dug. Tom Dawson stands too close to the pit. He goes up in a big ball of flame. The howl that sounds from him this time is one of pain.

In a macabre dance, he stumbles toward me. Terry fires his gun and drops him. Tom makes a big fire, and I know any minute, Terry will take his eyes off his target and glance toward me. I know what he will see. I have no choice but to run.

“Lou!” Terry shouts. “Lou, come back. He can't hurt you now!”

I keep moving. I still have my clothes on, although they're ripped in several places. Since I can't feel the cold, I must assume I'm still wearing the fur coat. I run deeper into the trees. When I glance back, I still see Tom's burning body. I don't see Terry, though. I assume he's coming after me.

There are advantages to being a werewolf. I see in the dark, and I run faster than the average person. That isn't saying that Terry is average, only that he's not up to speed. I keep moving.

“Lou!”

His voice echoes around me. He's frantic. I'd rather have him frantic than scared to death of me. I wonder if werewolves can climb trees. I hook my claws into a sturdy aspen and give it a shot. I shimmy up that thing with a speed that would make a monkey jealous. Then I wait.

Terry passes beneath me a few minutes later. Fool. He's going to get himself lost if he keeps looking for me. Frozen, too. From my vantage point, I look back toward the inn. Tom Dawson's body is still on fire. He's toast. I don't think he can come back from the dead this time. While Terry searches for me, Tom is being cremated.

I notice the cold. Lifting one hand, I see that my claws have retracted. I touch my face. Still hair, but as I rub it falls away. Running my tongue over my teeth, I don't snag on any fangs. I'm nearly back to normal. That's a good thing. And that's a bad thing. I look down. It's a hell of a drop.

CONFESSION NO. 27

There are worse things than being a werewolf supermodel. Being dead tops the list.

Terry appears below me again. He cups his hands to his mouth. “Lou!”

There's no way I can get out of this tree by myself. Climbing up it seemed like such a good idea at the time. That must be what cats think. Hey, there's a big-ass tree. I think I'll climb it and worry about getting down later.

“Terry.”

He looks around. “Lou?”

“Up here.”

His head swivels back. “Lou? How the hell did you get up there?”

“I, ah, climbed. Now I can't get down.”

“Are you all right?”

“I have a branch up my ass.”

“Stay there. I'll run to the inn and see if they have a ladder.”

“If I could go somewhere I would,” I point out.

Terry takes off.

“Hey, bring back a blanket. I'm freezing up here!” I call after him.

I'm not that cold. My clothes are fur lined even if my body no longer is. But I figure the blanket will hide that fact when and if I ever set foot on solid ground again. In the distance, Tom still burns, although not as brightly. Is the nightmare really over? I keep expecting him to get up and come after me. Real life is thankfully not a B movie and he doesn't.

What seems like an eternity later, I hear the sound of feet crunching through the snow. Terry and my crew race toward me with a long ladder. Natasha's Russian inn owner friends pause in front of Tom's smoldering body and spray him with fire extinguishers. The smell of his burned flesh hangs on the air.

“Lou!” Cindy appears beneath me. “Oh, my God, Lou. Are you all right?”

“I'm okay,” I call down to her. “Be sure to have that blanket ready for me.”

She knows what I mean and why I'm asking. Terry appears. Stefan has one end of the ladder and he has the other. Natasha shows up, and last, huffing like she's going to die, is Karen.

I've got a lot of explaining to do. I'm glad I'm alive to explain. The ladder is extended toward me. It's tall enough to reach. Terry comes up while the others steady it. When he reaches me, he looks like he's aged about ten years.

“You okay?”

I can't be too okay. Terry still expects me to be a woman. “I think,” I say in a shaky voice. “I was so scared I didn't know what I was doing. I just knew I had to get away.”

“Do you think you can climb down?”

“I think so,” I say in the same shaky voice. What I'm thinking is, get out of my way. He starts to move down.

“I'll be right beneath you so if you start to fall, I can help you.”

Reaching out, I place my hand over his on the ladder rung. “How did you know? How did you get here in time?”

He sighs. “Cocky bastard slipped a note under my door this morning. I assume he thought I was at work and wouldn't see it until tonight. Until it was too late.”

I squeeze his hand. “My hero.”

“Yeah, right.” He laughs. “Just what the hell do you carry in that beauty bag? I assume that's what caused the explosion.”

“A woman never reveals her secrets,” I say dryly. “I guess he just couldn't handle a day of beauty.”

Terry shakes his head. “Can we get down from here now? I don't know about you, but I could use a drink.”

In the distance, sirens sound. I'm assuming someone called 911. I hope there isn't press coverage of this.

“Yes, let's hurry.”

*   *   *

The hot shower spray feels wonderful. Terry is downstairs seeing to the removal of Tom Dawson's body. The shoot has been called off. Under the cover of darkness, we will slip away and head back to New York before the press gets wind of what's happened and swarm the place. Karen's in our room packing us up. Cindy and Natasha do the same next door. My clothes are ruined and I stuff them in a trash bag. I still had hair all over me when I took them off. I'm glad I'll be gone when they try to unclog the shower drain. Wrapping a towel around my hair, I dry off and slip into a pair of jogging pants and a turtleneck.

I enter our room. “Almost done,” Karen says. “You sure you're all right?”

“I'm fine,” I tell her.

She shivers. “You should have told us you were being stalked, Lou. We would have all watched out for you.”

“I didn't want my friends involved. Terry was handling it.”

“He wants to talk to you.” Karen zips the last suitcase. “He's waiting in the hall. We'll get the car loaded up.”

“Thanks.”

She opens the door. Terry stands leaning against the wall. He has a beer in one hand and what appears to be a shot of Wild Turkey in the other. Cindy and Natasha come in and help Karen drag all of the suitcases into the hall, then Terry comes in. He hands me my drink and goes back to close the door. Now I have some 'splaining to do. I do the shot first.

“What is the connection between you and Tom Dawson? I got your message when I was almost here, but I couldn't get a signal to call you back. I tried calling to warn you when I took off this morning. When you wouldn't answer your cell I went crazy.”

He must have tried to call when we had the music blaring, singing songs we didn't know the words to.

“Do you know every cop in this area is working an avalanche?” He shakes his head. “I couldn't catch a break.”

Now I know why he looks ten years older. “You should have had the Wild Turkey instead of me,” I say. “Calm down. Everything turned out all right.”

Terry sits on the bed and runs a hand through his hair. “It could have just as easily turned out bad. Real bad.”

I sit beside him. “I went to high school with Tom Dawson. He beat me up and tried to rape me on prom night. That's when I ran away from home. I never went back.”

His eyes are tired and bloodshot when he looks at me, but his jaw is clenched and I know he's pissed. “I'm sorry that happened to you. So why did he come after you seven years later?”

I don't think Terry can't handle the truth. At least not yet. “I guess he thought I might tell on him at some point. He had football scholarships and his life was looking pretty good until he attacked me. Maybe he thought I'd wait until he was a football star then blow the whistle on him or try to blackmail him. I don't know. He's crazy. Or he was. He waited because it took him this long to find me. I've changed a lot since high school.”

“Why didn't you know it was him before now? You saw him in visions.”

“I never saw his human face in my visions. You saw him tonight, didn't you? In the light of the fire?”

Terry glances away from me. “I'm trying like hell to tell myself that was some kind of trick.”

“It wasn't a trick.” I figure Terry can handle more than I give him credit for. “He was a werewolf. That's how he came to me in my visions. That's why I didn't know who he was.”

“I've seen some weird shit in my life, but I've never seen anything like that. It's easier to tell myself I didn't see it.”

Reaching out, I turn his face toward me. “Maybe this is your wake-up call. The chance for you to accept things that you've previously discounted as being real.”

He runs a hand through his hair, then gives me the half-smile. “Like psychics and things that go bump in the night?”

“Exactly,” I answer.

While I have his face turned toward me, he leans forward and gives me a kiss. Just a short one. “I need to take your statement, and then we all need to get the hell out of here. I'll try to keep your name out of it, but a serial killer caught and killed, that's going to make the headlines.”

“I don't need the publicity,” I agree.

“I'd offer you a lift back, but there are still things I have to take care of here before I can leave.”

Rising from the bed, I say, “That's all right. I'll go back with Karen and the other girls. They're a little freaked out by all of this. I need to assure them everything is okay.”

Terry also rises. “Your photographer buddy downstairs needs assurances, too,” he says. “He's been pacing the floor ever since we got back.”

It's time to go home. I'm tired and figure the girls are just as anxious to get out of Vermont as I am. “Take my statement. The girls are waiting and it's going to be very late by the time we get back.”

He whips out his pen and notepad.

*   *   *

An hour later, Karen, Natasha, Cindy, and yours truly are back on the road. The atmosphere isn't nearly as festive as it was on the drive up. You'd think I would keep reliving the confrontation with Tom; instead, I keep thinking about my goodbye with Stefan. He was hurt and angry that I didn't confide in him. That my life was in danger and he didn't even know about it. He said he might never forgive me. He also said he was leaving.