The Wolf in His Arms (The Runes Trilogy) (8 page)

“He
probably saw me through the door and decided to ruin my day.”

“Maybe
he just wanted to meditate,” Alec said. “It’s not like you’re on a recognizable
schedule.” Lucy glowered at Alec, not wanting to be reasoned with. Alec added,
“Jared has news.”

“Why
me?” Jared asked.

“Because
you’re doing the hard work.”

“But you’re
the one who got the decoder,” Jared argued.

“You
have a decoder?” Lucy asked.

“Yeah,
but you’ve been hunched over the manuscripts all afternoon,” Alec said to
Jared.

“But I
couldn’t do it without the decoder you found.”

“Girls,
you’re both pretty. Now shut the hell up and tell me what you found.”

Jared
flashed Alec another covert smirk before turning to face Lucy. “Alec met with
your mom and found the decoder. It seems to be working.”

“And?”

“So far
I’ve only translated the titles of a few pages.”

“Why
are you jumping from document to document?” Lucy snapped.

Jared
ignored her harsh tone, knowing the reasonable, kind Lucy would return in a few
days. “Two reasons. One, I’m using the titles as a litmus test of sorts. If
enough of them make sense, then I can assume it’s translating correctly.”

“Okay.”

“And
two, I want to know what all we have, so we can prioritize.”

“Okay.
Yeah. That makes a lot of sense.” Lucy offered an apologetic half-smile. “What
have you found so far?” She took the seat next to Jared.

Alec
shuffled the papers into his hands and read. “One is titled History. One is
titled Rogue Species. One is titled Resurrection. And one is titled The Gen5
Pack.”

“The
Gen5 Pack? Is that you guys?”

“We
don’t know yet,” Jared said.

“Anything
labeled...cures?”

Jared
shook his head. “Not yet. But that’s my priority.”

Lucy
shook her head. “The pack is your priority.”

“What
if a cure has to happen now, like there’s only a certain amount of time?” Alec
asked, his voice rising.

“You’re
speculating, Alec. We
know
that
there’s some trigger that’s going to make you guys wolf out just like me. And
if we all change, we’re screwed.”

“I can
work on both,” Jared said.

“We can
all sit and translate,” Lucy said. “Hell, I’ll do the translations, it’s my
fucking specialty. I’m saying you two must
find
this pack. Stop them.”

“Or
convince them to join our side,” Alec said.

“What?”
Jared asked.

“Like
you did me. Look, Darius said we’re
the
pack. The best. Powerful. What if we can convince the others to fight the good
fight? Maybe we can stop the bad guys or, well, werewolves. Whatever they’re
planning.”

“We
don’t even know who we’re up against,” Lucy said.

“Not
yet.”

“I just
had a thought,” Jared cut in. “What if forming the pack
is
our trigger? What then?”

“What
if wearing purple on the third Friday of the month is your trigger?” Lucy
snapped. “I’m so sick of guessing. Guessing when you’ll change. Guessing if the
door will hold me in. Guessing when the werewolves will make their next move.
Let’s
do
something.”

“She
has a point,” Jared said, standing. He looked down at Lucy. “As abrasive as
that point might be.”

“So
we’re going to try to hunt the members of the pack down and convince them to
join us? To fight against the werewolves?” Alec asked.

Jared
nodded.

“But
first we have to convince them that there are werewolves. Even though you and I
can’t change.” Alec shook his head and frowned. “Great plan.”

“Instead
we let the wolves get to them first? Kill their families? Their friends?” Jared
reached out and took Alec’s hand. “This is what we agreed to do. To fight. To
try to stop them.”

“Who in
their right mind would listen to us?”

“I
don’t know. But he’s out there,” Jared said.

“Or
she,” Lucy added.

*
         
*
         
*
         
*

The
drive to The Fullerton Building would take about 45 minutes. Tristan stretched
out in the backseat, fiddling with his camera, as Molly sat in the passenger
seat, watching the world whiz by her window. In the driver’s seat, Kevin enthused,
“I’m so fucking stoked.”

Tristan
reached his head into the front seat between them. “I know I’m gonna get great
shit tonight. Greee-ate!”

“Dude,
are you stoned?”

“Maybe.”

“Seriously.
Are you serious?” Molly yelled, smacking his shoulder. “We agreed. No pot.”

“Dude,
I’m just really excited. And I needed to chill.”

“This
is our first night excursion. We don’t need you breaking a leg because you’re
baked,” Kevin said, his voice thick with disdain.

“No
more,” Molly said. “Give me your bud.” She thrust out her hand angrily.

“You
have it in my car? Asshole!”

Tristan
handed the small stash to Molly. “Generally, I’m like, I’m so lucky that my
boyfriend’s best friend isn’t an asshat. This
is not
one of those moments.” She tucked the bag in the side
compartment of her door. “Total asshat.” She dragged her hand across her
forehead, pulling her bright red-dyed bangs out of her eyes.

“Whatever.
Sorry. My buzz is already gone,” Tristan said, sulking into the backseat. His
mop of curly hair bounced on his head as he slammed his back against the seat
like a pouting child.

After a
few moments of silence, Kevin said, “So you have cameras for all of us?”

“Yeah.
If you want them,” Tristan said, still sulking.

Molly
rolled her eyes to Kevin. “Just because you’re an asshat doesn’t mean I don’t
want to help you ghost hunt.”

“There’s
totally
gonna be one!” Tristan rebounded,
his face thrust happily between them once again.

*
         
*
         
*
         
*

In the
dark of winter, Lucy demanded to be in the safety of the vault by the time
night fell, long before the full moon rose. She sat in silence in the backseat
of Jared’s car, her eyes closed, listening to the classical music playing in
her earphones. Alec sat in the passenger seat, looking out the window at the
vacant buildings around them, fiddling with a flashlight. Jared pulled the car
into an empty lot and turned off the engine. “Here we go,” he said.

Lucy
already had her earphones out and was opening the car door. Jared popped the
trunk on the car as he exited. Alec climbed from his seat and looked up at The
Fullerton Building, once the focal point of the nearly derelict neighborhood
main street. Its dark, broken windows gaped like ominous portals to individual
hells. Dankness wafted out of the abandoned building, smelling like a
long-closed cellar. In the fading light of the sun, Alec watched as pigeons
alighted on the window ledges high above. He shivered. The vacant building
always gave him the creeps. Had it not been for Jared’s company, he would never
be able to stay the night in the building.
I’m
a werewolf who’s scared of the dark
, he mocked himself.

Coming
around the back of the car, Alec grabbed the bag for the small pop tent he and
Jared would sleep in as Jared grabbed the backpack and sleeping bags. Lucy had
her items slung over her shoulder. She shook with tense, anxious energy. Jared
double checked that the car was locked and said, “Let’s go.”

Jared
looked around the empty street. One street light shone at the nearest corner,
and otherwise, the street was dark. No headlights approached; no one walked the
street. The emptiness reassured him that this building was the best choice for
Lucy to transform. Ensuring the safety of others and keeping Lucy’s conscience
clean were his priorities. Lucy led the way around the back of the building,
where they entered a door that had been pried open sometime before they began
using the building.

Lucy shone
her flashlight into the entrance of the dark building as they entered. A
cavernous, door-lined hall stretched before them, branching off into other
halls. Lucy panned the hall with the beam of the flashlight, and confidant the
hall was clear, she headed for the stairs to the basement. Lucy kept her hand
on the handrail as she descended the slick marble steps into the basement.
“Love this place,” she grumbled.

“I
expect zombies every time we come down here,” Alec admitted, his voice tight.

The
concrete and solid steel vault was in the back of the basement at the end of a dead
end hallway. The fact that the vault was built to be hard to break into also
made it hard to break out of. The vault was about twelve feet deep and eight
feet wide. Jared shone his flashlight inside. The light fell over the claw
marks in the concrete as he entered the vault behind Lucy. “Let’s get you set
up,” he offered Lucy.

Keeping
Lucy comfortable until the change was a challenge since she shredded anything
left in the vault with her. Working together, they spread out the sheet of
plastic they used to protect her from the damp, cold floor and then spread out
the old blankets she would use this one night. On the next full moon, they
would come with different plastic, different blankets.

In the
hallway, Alec assembled the pop tent as Jared set electric lanterns around the
perimeter where they would sit vigil. Jared double checked that the two rooms
leading off the hall were empty, and then he shut the door that led into the
main part of the basement. He latched the lock that he had put on the door after
their first night and secured it with a padlock. Now, no one could surprise
them while they waited until morning.

He
turned to see that Alec had lit the camp stove and that Lucy was situated on
the blankets inside the vault. As Jared approached to close the vault door,
Lucy nodded to them.

“We
don’t need to shut the door just yet. Not yet,” Alec said.

“Shall
we talk about the translations?” Jared asked.

“No,”
Lucy said softly. “Let’s talk about something else. Something normal.”

A brief
silence fell between them, and they all chuckled.

“Normal’s
hard to come by these days,” Jared said.

“So
what does Mitch do exactly to piss you off?” Alec asked.

Lucy
frowned. “It’s just his demeanor. He’s an excellent trainer—I admit—but he bugs
the hell out of me. He’s so smug.”

“And
today?” Alec looked at his sister, draped in shadows within the vault, the dim
lantern light only partially illuminating her face.

“All he
did was show up. You know, when the change is about to happen, I can be...”

“Moody,”
Alec finished.

Lucy
rolled her eyes cheerfully. “I just really needed to concentrate, and he broke
it.”

“Do you
feel like it helps? The meditation?” Jared asked.

Lucy shrugged
her shoulders.

“I saw
Mom today,” Alec said, trying to navigate away from werewolf talk. “She asked
about you.”

Lucy
opened her eyes. “I know my distance is hurting them, but...” Lucy looked away,
even though her face was inscrutable in the darkness. “I can’t risk hurting
them. Really hurting them.”

“Missing
you is really hurting them.”

“Alec,
this isn’t the time for this conversation,” Lucy snapped.

“Are
you hungry?” Jared asked, digging into the backpack before anyone could answer.

“I can
feel it, you know, beneath my skin.”

Alec
titled his head toward his sister, looking as if he might see something too.

“Before
the change, almost like a warning light, flashing.”

Jared
stared, stone faced, digesting this new information. “How do you mean? What do
you feel?”

“It
burns. Like a fever. Like an acid mist on my skin—no—like acid bubbling up through
my skin.”

“Can we
give her something for the pain, maybe a sedative?” Alec asked Jared.

“No
drugs,” Lucy said.

“Just
to help with the pain,” Alec repeated.

“No
drugs!”

Jared
took Alec’s hand. “You know she’s afraid tampering with the change might make
it, um, unpredictable.”

“The
full moon is enough. I know the full moon. I don’t need any surprises.”

While
Alec could not see her face clearly, he could tell from her voice that she was
crying. He fought the urge to comfort her. He knew she would be angry that he
neared her so close to the change.

“Jared,
I know you saw the walls, the door,” Lucy said.

“Yes.”

“You
have to promise that, when the time comes, that when we’ve run out of hope, you
will—
help
—me,” she stressed the word,
giving it dark meaning.