Red (3 page)

Which was exactly why he wouldn’t expect me
to be lying about my summer job.

I rolled out of bed and headed for the
shower.

As far as Dad knew, I was spending my summer
as a trail guide in the park. I certainly knew the area well
enough, and it was the kind of job where I could disappear easily
if something went wrong. Which really meant if I wolfed out and
tried to eat someone. I suppose I should be flattered that he gave
me credit for enough control that I
could
get away in that
eventuality. I knew it was only because I’d made it through this
year and because he didn’t know about my new supernatural sense of
smell. It was a job I probably would have liked, actually, but I
had bigger plans.

Given my secret, Dad and I never talked
about the future anymore. But I thought about it. One more year
until I graduated high school. Then what? I wanted college and an
education. I wanted a career. And this internship with Dr. Grant
McGrath was a step in the right direction.

One of the foremost ethologists in the
field, Dr. McGrath was in Tennessee to do a feasibility study on
re-introducing red wolves into the park habitat. Others tried it
back in the early ’90s but it didn’t take. Most of the wolves
wandered out of the park, got killed by hunters, died of diseases
that domestic dogs are vaccinated against, or wound up mating with
coyotes or dogs. Eventually the researchers recaptured the
remaining wolves and gave up the attempt. But a lot can change
environmentally in twenty years, so Dr. McGrath was back to see if
it was worth trying again.

My interest was two-fold: acquire field
experience that looked great on college applications and learn as
much as possible about real wolves from real life rather than just
books. Granted, I was pretty sure that there would be a significant
difference in the behavior of natural wolves and werewolves, but I
couldn’t see that educating myself about their behavior patterns
could be a
bad
thing. Besides, maybe with my developing
senses, I’d be able to find out something that the original
scientists missed. Way to find the positive, right?

As I grabbed my keys off the nightstand, I
stopped and stared at the scrap of cloth again. Then, without
really knowing why, I shoved it into my pocket and headed out the
door.

We were out of breakfast food at the house,
and Dad hadn’t yet conceded that I needed a car, so I was stuck
with two-wheeled, self-powered transportation. The air was already
sticky as I pedaled the mile and a half to Hansen’s Quik Mart. By
the time I rolled in to Hansen’s and parked my bike, I could feel
my t-shirt already sticking to my back.

Way to impress your new boss,
I
thought. But there was no help for it. We’d be mostly working in
the field anyway. If Dr. McGrath didn’t already know that Tennessee
got knock-you-on-your-ass hot in the summer, he’d find out soon
enough. I was willing to bet they didn’t have this kind of humidity
in Montana.

Inside the Quik Mart, the air was relatively
frigid in comparison. I shoved both hands in my pockets as I
trudged over to the aisle with the breakfast food. My fingers
brushed the scrap of t-shirt and my mind snapped back to my errant
“rescuer”. I’d been doing that a lot since yesterday. It was stupid
to dwell on what happened. I mean, the guy obviously thought I was
some suicidal lunatic. And it wasn’t like I’d ever see him again,
so there was no reason for me to be intrigued.

But maybe that’s why I
was
intrigued.
I
wouldn’t
ever see him again, so he was a safe fantasy.

Because of my condition—I really couldn’t
bring myself to think of it as a curse—a fantasy was the only kind
of relationship I was ever going to have. According to the book,
the final catalyst for the change was sex. So in real life, I had
to stay as far away from guys and as below their radar as possible.
Not as though that had ever been much of a chore. Like I was gonna
give it up to somebody who required hand holding encouragement and
a billboard stating interest? Please. High school boys were
morons.

The jingle of the bell over the door and a
peal of female laughter that was more like nails on a chalkboard
drew my attention to the front of the store.

Case in point
, I thought, watching
Rich Phillips walk in with the Barbie Squad.

Amber Cooper, Deanna Jacobs, and Lindy
Zimmerman were all part of the popular crowd in my class.
Cheerleaders. Blonde. Beautiful. Bitchy. Pick your favorite teen
movie and apply the popular girl stereotype, that was the Barbie
Squad. Hey, the stereotype exists for a reason. And naturally, the
favorite school year occupation of the BS—pun absolutely
intended—was giving me crap. Because I was weird. Because I kept to
myself. Because, according to popular rumor and the fact that I
shot down the few guys with enough guts to approach me, I was an
ice queen. I had only just recently managed to return to a low
profile after a particularly vicious smear campaign they’d executed
on Facebook earlier in the spring. Ah, social media. Ruining
reputations everywhere.

I edged away from the powdered donuts and
honey buns so that I was further down the aisle and less visible
because of the tourist guy in glasses who thought Doritos were an
appropriate breakfast food. No reason to get on their radar
today.

Maybe I should disappear to the
bathroom
, I thought.
Surely they’ll be gone in five or ten
minutes.

But then there was the possibility that one
of them would have to use it, and I’d get stuck with a face to face
in the tiny back hall, so I opted to stay put. I tried to focus on
picking out something to eat so that I could pay and get out of
here, but none of the over-processed, high sugar options really
went with the churning of my stomach. I moved toward the drink
cases in the back, circling around to the copious display of meat
sticks. I didn’t think too much about the fact that Slim Jims
sounded a lot more appealing than Hostess pastries.

“
Meat for breakfast. A girl
after my own heart.”

I froze, my hand an inch away from the beef
jerky. A big tanned arm reached past me to snag a couple of meat
sticks. I chanced a glance up and caught the 180-watt grin of Rich
Phillips. As casually as I could, I glanced the other way to see
who was standing behind me, but no, it was just me. Rich Phillips
was talking
to me.

I grabbed a package of teriyaki flavored
beef and turned toward him, automatically stepping back and not
meeting his eyes as I mumbled something about the merits of
starting the day with protein. To my utter horror, Rich didn’t move
on down the aisle to the cash register where two-thirds of the BS
were motioning for him to hurry up. Instead he followed me to the
drink cooler.

“
So what’re you up to this
summer, Elodie?”

“
Nothing much.” I opened
the case and grabbed a water.

He reached into an adjacent cooler and
grabbed a Gatorade. “I’ve gotta drop my sister off for a Junior
Explorers thing in the park, but after that we’re all headed to the
lake to go water skiing. If you’re not busy you should join
us.”

The clear glass door fell shut out of my
suddenly numb hand. He was inviting me to
hang out?
I shot a
glance out the front window, searching for flying pork. Seeing
none, I looked back at Rich and managed—just barely—not to
gape.

“
Um, that’s nice of you to
offer, but I really can’t.” I tried to step away again, but Rich
countered, boxing me in against the glass doors with his bigger
frame.

“
What’s the matter, El? I
don’t bite.”

He offered up the grin again, but I was too
busy trying to hold back a snarl. I was really particular about my
personal space and having this big, testosterone-reeking boy
invading mine was so not okay. All my instincts were screaming at
me to shove him away and attack, but I held very still, even as his
body pressed into mine, his scent—one of soap and sweat and some
hideously overpowering boy deodorant—making my head spin.

Don’t react. Don’t draw attention. Don’t
react. Don’t draw attention.
The familiar litany ran through my
brain as I kept my eyes on the Boar’s Head Tavern t-shirt in front
of me and struggled to keep my breathing even.

“
Rich, what the hell are
you doing?”

I closed my eyes. Oh God, this was worse. I
was being
rescued
by
Amber
.

Rich finally stepped back and I could take a
full breath. I edged away from both of them, fully aware of the
daggers being mentally thrown at my back by the head Barbie, who
totally had her sights set on Rich. And he was just hitting on me.
In front of her.
Oh shit.

It didn’t actually matter whether he was
being serious or playing some kind of joke. Amber’s ire, once
earned, was a thing of legend. So, really, I just needed to find a
rock to crawl under for the rest of the summer and pray she found
someone else to harass for senior year.

A girl can dream.

With Amber on duty, Rich rounded up his
little sister, a skinny little girl of about ten who seemed to hide
behind her curtain of sandy hair as soon as Amber got within ten
feet of her. Poor kid. I totally related. The pair of them got
hustled to the front of the store. I hung out by the coffee
station, hardly daring to breathe until the lot of them paid and
left.

Mr. Hansen eyed me as I brought my jerky and
water to the register. “They givin’ you trouble, Elodie?”

“
No, sir.”

The tilt of his caterpillar eyebrows
suggested he didn’t buy it, but he left it alone as he rang up my
purchases.

Outside an engine roared to life, along with
a radio cranked up to maximum volume. Stuffing my breakfast into my
backpack, I looked out the window just in time to see Amber’s hot
pink Jeep Wrangler back over my bike. This time I couldn’t stop my
mouth from falling open in shock.

Mr. Hansen swore and reached for the phone
even as the Jeep peeled out of the parking lot. “I’ll call the
Sheriff.”

“
Don’t bother,” I told him,
clenching my teeth to hold in the sudden spurt of rage. “I’m sure
it was an accident.”

Of course it wasn’t. I’d seen Amber’s
self-satisfied smirk in the rear-view mirror. But maybe she’d
consider us even.

I went outside to survey the damage. The
bike was toast. The frame was bent, the front wheel now resembled a
taco shell, and the sprockets were busted. The only place this
thing was going was into the dumpster around back. And I was
approximately seven miles from the research station.

Shit. I was gonna be late for my first day
of work.

~*~

Elodie

Taking the road was not an option. Mortimer
is a small town. My pulling an apparent hitchhiker routine on a
stretch of pretty heavily travelled road was going to get me
noticed, which was against The Rules. Plus, the last thing I needed
was my dad finding out that I wasn’t working where he thought I was
working. Instead I struck out cross country, heading for the
research station as the crow flew. It shaved off a mile and a half,
but I was still forty-five minutes late.

The research station was housed in a
trailer, one of those dealies you usually see at big construction
sites. You know, where the foreman or architect or whoever hang
out. This one was long and low, with corrugated tan walls and no
sign to indicate I was in the right place. But this was the
location Dr. McGrath had given me in his email, so after checking
to make sure that my unscheduled hike hadn’t totally blown my
deodorant, I trudged across the gravel parking area, past a handful
of mud-spattered vehicles.

Because they were shaking with nerves, I
shoved my hands back in my pockets and started fiddling with the
scrap of t-shirt. I wove the fabric through my fingers.
Please
let me not have screwed this up.
I was just going to provide a
calm, reasonable explanation for my tardiness, and hopefully Dr.
McGrath wouldn’t be so pissed he kicked me off the project on the
first day.

At the door I hesitated. Should I knock?
Just go in? In the end I opted for decisive and confident, even
though I felt anything but. It was better than slinking in like a
delinquent to the principal’s office.

I stepped inside. Several people were
clustered around a long table further down the room. All faces
turned in my direction with expressions ranging from curiosity to
irritation.
Too much attention. Too much focus.
In a moment
of instinctual panic, my fingers tightened on the scrap of t-shirt
in my pocket. It steadied me somehow, reminding me that I wasn’t a
coward.

Zeroing in on the older guy in glasses, I
straightened my shoulders and said, in a voice that sounded a lot
calmer than I felt, “Dr. McGrath, I’m Elodie Rose. I’m terribly
sorry I’m late, but I had some transportation issues.”

One of them stood up from the table and
walked over. “Well, we’re glad you made it, Elodie. I’m Grant
McGrath. Come on in and join us.”

I blinked, a little taken aback. Dr. McGrath
wasn’t the skinny guy in glasses who actually
looked
the
part of a scientist. He was an enormous man, towering at least a
full foot above me. His face was ruddy and windburned, with
crinkles around his green eyes.
Indiana Jones, eat your heart
out,
I thought, taking the hand he offered. His dwarfed
mine.

“
So did your car break
down?” he asked.

“
I don’t have a car,
actually. I had—” I paused, searching for words that did not reek
of the angsty, teenage idiocy that had resulted in the destruction
of my bike. “—a mechanical problem with my bike. So I had to hike
in.”