Hot Blooded (Wolf Springs Chronicles #2) (5 page)

Katelyn had braced herself to see Cordelia’s empty desk, but as she slid into her seat beside it, the reality of what had happened hit home. She heard the bell ring, but couldn’t tear her attention away from the vacant space. Around her, people were still talking; life was going on. Moving on.

But that desk was empty.

Somehow, class hadn’t started yet. Then Mrs. Walker, the office lady, came bustling in. She explained that she was subbing for Mr. Henderson, who was absent.

Katelyn rose unsteadily, gathered up her things, and went over to Mrs. Walker, who was putting her stuff down on the desk. Mrs. Walker smiled at Katelyn and lifted her brows.

“I — I don’t feel good,” Katelyn told her. Mrs. Walker was also Wolf Spring High’s equivalent of a nurse. “Headache . . . possible migraine. Can I go lie down?” There was a sick room with a cot next to the principal’s office.

Mrs. Walker pulled a concerned face and nodded. “Okay, but check in with me once you’re feeling better, all right?”

“I will,” Katelyn promised.

She left the room and trudged down the hall. Smells rolled down the corridor like waves on the beach — perfumes, body odors, coffee. Now that she had said she had a headache, a real one was threatening to erupt.

She entered the darkened room, which contained an old wooden desk and matching chair, and a cot facing a blank chalkboard. The top drawer of the desk held a thin blanket and a fresh pillowcase for the pillow, and Katelyn got the cot ready and lay down. Staring up at the old plaster ceiling, she traced faint images the way she and Kimi used to do when the clouds rolled in over the Pacific Ocean. A seashell. A surfboard. A wolf. Another wolf.

Sighing, she closed her eyes and rubbed her temples to break the building tension, the cot creaking as she tried to get comfortable. And then she detected muffled voices on the other side of the wall. Then not so muffled, as she stopped moving and eavesdropped.

“. . . don’t know where he is,” said a voice. It was Coach Ambrose.

“Well, he didn’t call in sick. He didn’t call in at all, and I can’t reach him.” That was Mr. Hastings, the school principal. “I’ll send Pat Lewis over there to check.”

Pat Lewis would be Sergeant Lewis, the man who had taken fingerprints at her house after the break-in.

“Wes did caution the kids not to go into the forest. So he knows better than to put himself at risk.”

Katelyn guessed that Mr. Henderson’s first name was Wes. And he still hadn’t shown up for class. They must be talking about him.

“God, what if it’s another murder?” Mr. Hastings muttered, then sighed. “I don’t mean to sound so heartless. Let’s see what Lewis finds out.”

“I have to get back to my class,” Coach Ambrose said. “Oh, for your info, I’ve got Mike Wright for detention. I caught him loitering around Trick Sokolov’s car after the second bell rang. With a box cutter.”

Katelyn grimaced. Mike again, with his piglike nose and super-bad attitude. She’d made an enemy of him the first time she’d met him by sticking up for Cordelia when he’d started harassing her. Katelyn had had no idea, of course, that Cordelia could have crushed his windpipe and tossed him off the bridge over the river if she’d felt like it.

If I get that strong, I’ll totally do it for her
, Katelyn thought acidly.
For both of us. For Trick, too
.

The principal swore beneath his breath. “There was a break-in over at the McBrides’,” he said. “I wonder if Mike had anything to do with that, too. He’s said some choice words about that new girl, McBride’s granddaughter.”

Katelyn scowled. She just bet he had.

“Remember when Mike and his boys tried to pin those other burglaries on Sokolov?”

“Trick didn’t do this one, either. Lewis already cleared him.”

“Mike’s just a bully. But Trick’s a rich kid, bored, smart as hell,” the coach said.

“Trick and I go way back,” Mr. Hastings replied with a wry chuckle. “Wolf Springs can’t contain a boy like that.”

“Seems to be a few other things we can’t contain,” the coach replied. “I’m worried about Wes.”

“I’ll let you know what I find out,” Mr. Hastings told him.

She heard a door close. There was another silence. Then the principal said, “Yeah, hi, Pat. Listen, can you go over to Wes Henderson’s place? Brick house on the corner by the old stables? He didn’t show up for work and my calls are going straight to voice mail. Given the circumstances . . . yes. Thanks.”

Katelyn waited, but nothing more came from the office, leaving her to ponder what she’d heard, Trick’s frequent run-ins with Mike, and the slashed tires on his Mustang the first day he’d taken her to school.

She woke to the sound of an incoming text on her phone. She was still in the sick room and she snatched the phone up, reading off an unknown number. Her heart skipped multiple beats when she saw the message.

RU alone? C

C, for Cordelia. Katelyn almost screamed in relief. Her friend was alive!

Yes! School
.
Where RU?
Katelyn texted frantically, screwing up three times in her haste and having to redo.

Safe. For now
.

Katelyn closed her eyes against an onslaught of deep, relieved joy.

A third text bubble popped up:
No thanks to you
.

It hurt, but Katelyn almost didn’t care. Just to know Cordelia was okay was enough.

C, tell me where u r
, she typed.

But there was no answer.

Then her glance ticked up to the chalkboard.

Coming home w/me today
, it read.
J
.

J for Justin. The board had been blank when she’d come into the room. Deep, visceral fear propelled Katelyn off the cot as she stared at the board. Justin had been in this room while she’d been asleep.

She looked around for any other evidence of his visit. There was none. Then she grabbed up her backpack, got a pen and her English notebook, and copied Cordelia’s new phone number into it. Next, with regret, she deleted the texts.

She stayed in the sick room past lunch, hiding, seemingly forgotten by a busy Mrs. Walker. She texted Cordelia four times, but there was no reply. Then she called and let her grandfather know she’d be going over to “study with Cordelia” in the afternoon. When she emerged from the school at the end of the day, Trick fell into step beside her. His cowboy hat was pulled down low over his eyes, giving him a mysterious air.

“Hey, where’ve you been?” he asked, taking her backpack, which she was carrying against her chest. They crossed quickly to the lot.

“I didn’t feel good,” she replied tersely.

“What the hell,” Trick said in a soft, angry tone.

Dead ahead of them, in the lot, Justin had just ridden up on his motorcycle. He stopped and put down his foot. The engine still idling, he reached into a square fiberglass compartment attached to the side of the bike and showed her an extra helmet.

Trick stared at Katelyn incredulously.

“I have to go to Cordelia’s for homework,” she said in a rush. “We’re doing a project.”

“I could have driven you over,” he said.

Justin raced the engine and impatiently held up the helmet. Trick looked from her to Justin and back again, and a purple flush worked its way up his neck. He pursed his lips into a tight frown.

“See you tomorrow.” Katelyn gave him a little wave and Trick shrugged.

Justin flicked up his visor. He didn’t smile. He just waited. Seething, Katelyn walked over to him. She took the helmet as he stowed her backpack in the compartment, then got on the bike and slid her arms around Justin’s waist. As Trick walked past them and headed toward his Mustang, Justin flicked the visor of his helmet back down, gunned the engine, and tore out of the lot.

The ride was long and rough, but Katelyn held on grimly, glad that they weren’t having to talk. Finally they made it to the Fenners’ house.

“Lee’s not here,” Justin announced as the motorcycle rolled down the sharp incline of the driveway. “Truck’s gone.”

Katelyn was relieved. She examined the windows of the large, sprawling house to see if anyone was there. After Saturday night, she felt eyes everywhere, and she couldn’t help being rattled.

The house was an eccentric multi-storied, castle-like building of stone, wood and glass. Trees grew in little courtyards specifically designed to accommodate them. When Katelyn had first seen the rambling house, she had envied Cordelia for all the space she had — something sorely lacking in the McBride cabin — even though the Fenner house was also home to Justin and his older brother, Jesse, Lee Fenner’s nephews; both of their parents were dead. Then she had met Cordelia’s snide, nasty sisters. And her father Lee, who was so bizarre that Katelyn had entertained the thought of suggesting to Cordelia that she move back to Los Angeles with her as fast as humanly possible. Of course, that had been before Katelyn had even known the Fenners were werewolves.

Justin had told Katelyn that the pack alphas had come from Lee Fenner’s direct family line ever since the move to Arkansas in the 1800’s. But Katelyn also knew of Lee Fenner’s recent health problems, his shaky grasp on staying alpha of the pack.

“No one’s challenged him for leadership yet?” she asked Justin as he killed the engine, then waited for her to climb off the motorcycle, pointing again to the left.

“I didn’t say that no one’s challenged him,” Justin replied. He pushed down the kickstand.

Katelyn took off her helmet and studied the house again. She hadn’t done anything to deserve this.

I did this to myself. I drove into the forest alone. I got out of the truck
.

No. There was no way she was going to blame herself for this, or allow anyone else to put it on her. She was carrying enough guilt already: guilt at having taken a painkiller for a gymnastics injury on the night of the earthquake in L.A. — the earthquake that had led to her mother’s death.

Justin dismounted and took off his own helmet, shaking out his curly hair, and despite her anger, Katelyn couldn’t help blushing at the remembered sensation of her arms against his six-pack abs on the ride from school. She was a dancer and an athlete, and she appreciated a well-taken-care-of human body.

Don’t try to sugarcoat it. You think he’s hot
.

It had taken nearly an hour to get to the Fenner house and she had felt her phone vibrating in her jeans pocket with text after text. From Trick, she was guessing. Hoping, she had to admit. She pulled out her phone and checked. Five messages from Kimi made her smile in surprise. Then there was a single text from Trick.

Call your grandfather
, he had reminded her. That was all; and she already had, keeping up the pretense that she and Cordelia were meeting to make up and work on their project.

Tnx
, she texted back.

“Drop your stuff on the porch,” Justin said. “Then let’s go. Lee’s asked me to begin your training.”

Training? It sounded so weird, as if he were a gymnastics coach. But Katelyn knew she needed to understand more about her new life, so she did as he asked, slipping her phone into the pocket of her jacket. She didn’t linger on the porch.

They began to walk into the woods, and Katelyn felt that as soon as they were in the forest, Justin relaxed slightly. It was funny. Everyone else feared the woods but those who were werewolves seemed far more comfortable there than elsewhere.

“Those of us, the families who make up this pack, come from Norway originally. We Fenners are direct descendants of the Fenris Wolf.”

“Like in Norse mythology?”

“Exactly like. Fenris was a supernatural wolf-being who would bring about the death of Odin, king of the gods. He was bound with magical chains and imprisoned in a cave.”

“Why did you come here? Why not stay in Norway?”

He moved his shoulders. “We’re people, too, Kat. Lots of people left the Old World for different reasons.” He gave her a look. “I’ve always wondered if someone found out about us.”

She quickened with anxiety. There was always that threat about spilling the secret. Always the worry that she and her grandfather could be killed to guard it.

Justin raised his chin. She could tell he was sniffing the air, and she tried to breathe in whatever he had detected. She smelled leather and spice, dirt, and the pungent scent of pine.

Then he blinked and looked at her, as if he’d realized he’d lost his train of thought.

“Some folks also said that the cave where Fenris had been bound might be around here.”

Katelyn’s scalp prickled and she thought of the silver mine that she and Cordelia had been looking for. What better way to trap a werewolf than surrounding him by silver?

“What?” Justin asked suddenly. “You’re shaking your head.”

She hesitated. She never knew what she should say, and what she should keep to herself.

“Tell me,” he said, stopping her with a hand on her wrist.

“I just thought about the silver mine Cordelia and I were trying to find for our history project, that’s all.”

She expected him to make fun of her, but he just looked thoughtful. “I suppose anything’s possible,” he said after a moment.

“So is Fenris good or bad?” Could
he
be the Hellhound?

“Legend says that Fenris was just. He dealt swift punishment to those who sinned, and rewarded his good children with plenty of hunting and land. But Odin ruled based on whim. And he was moody.”

“Like your uncle,” she said before thinking.

Justin’s eyes widened. He pursed his lips for a couple of moments, and then he just looked sad. “I guess that’s what makes it so hard to take. Uncle Lee was always harsh, but fair. The rules were simple, clear. Now . . . now no one is sure where they stand.”

When she realized he was including himself in that statement, it sent another rush of fear through her. And she could guess how hard it was for him to live in a world of shifting rules. Of course, everything that Lee did, that all of them did, made no sense to her because she didn’t even know what the rules were supposed to be. But he looked so sad that it made her heart ache for him. His life hadn’t been an easy one, she knew. Just like her, he had lost both his parents, and nothing since then had been easy. She decided to shift the topic away from Lee for a minute.