A thousand scenarios played before my eyes by the time I made it up the stairs and out into the forest. The people who'd kidnapped me once could be baiting me. They could have found out about Izzy and me, and they were using her scent to lure me out.
But I would have smelled them.
I would have smelled them if they were there with her, too, intending to kidnap me again. No, she was all alone, and I might have had no idea how far I could smell something, but I apparently could smell farther than Red.
The beams of sunlight penetrated the canopy every few feet, making everything look more green than it had when we first came into the forest.
It smelled of oaks and of animals but not too heavy. Izzy's scent was all over the place, too. It was like she'd circled the forest a few times, and now her smell lingered on every tree. I searched for her with my eyes, but when I saw nothing, I turned to my nose. The excitement seemed to make me smell her even clearer, and I turned east, deeper into the forest, until I saw a shadow hiding behind a large tree trunk. It was her.
"Izzy," I breathed, hoping that this wasn't a dream. Hoping that she'd step out from behind that tree and smile at me.
And she did come out. But she didn't smile.
As soon as I saw her face, I ran the few steps it took to get to her, and I wrapped my arms around her neck. God, to touch her, to feel her breathing against me was a fucking miracle. I'd had no idea just how much I'd missed her until now that my tears showed me. Only a couple slipped and I made sure to wipe them before I let go of her and stepped back, needing to get a good look at her face again.
She looked fine. Her face was paler than it had been, and she'd lost a lot of weight, but she looked perfect. To me.
"Look who it is," Izzy said, and her voice had changed, too, I realized.
Almost nothing of its fierceness had remained. Now, she sounded dull. As dull as I did.
"How did you find me?" I asked, breathing heavily through my nose because I wanted to make sure I'd smell others coming.
"Your blood," she said. "You left some in the garage and I did a spell, but it wouldn't tell me where you were exactly. It just pointed me to this area. I've been looking for you for hours. Where the hell were you hiding?"
Red. It must have been Red's spells in the basement under the cabin.
"It doesn't matter," I said. "We have to go, right now."
The left corner of Izzy's lips turned upward, but it wasn't a smile. And the way she looked at me…she didn't seem all that happy to see me.
"Did you know?" she asked me.
"Know what?" Though I had a feeling I already knew what she meant.
"Your wolf," she said through gritted teeth.
Instinctively, I took a step back. "I did." Of course I did. That creature was a part of me since the very beginning.
"And you didn't tell me?" I could have been mistaken, but she sounded hurt.
"How could I?" I asked halfheartedly. "I'd have only put you in danger.
It's why I ran away."
A million times I'd imagined what it would be like to see my sister again. Not that it couldn't happen because I lived in Manhattan, after all, but I never imagined it to be like this. I never thought I'd forget who I was and who she was so absolutely and care about nothing but that we were safe. I thought it would be the other way around. I thought I wouldn't be able to look her in the eyes because I'd know she wasn't my real sister. But now that she was in front of me, I was shocked by my own self all over again.
"You ran away because you turn into a wolf," she said, her brows raised.
"Because my wolf killed three people," I said reluctantly. "They blamed it on bears, but it was me. Her."
This time, Izzy was shocked, too. "Oh, Vicky…" "Look, let's just get out of here, okay? Those people who kidnapped me are probably coming for me right now, and we need to disappear."
"They are," she said with a nod. "It's why I came to find you."
A laugh-like scream left my lips and my eyes teared up again. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you that I was leaving, Izzy, but I'm glad I found you. Or that you found me. But there's a vampire not too far from here, and there are people who can manipulate real wolves into killing people, so we really need to get the hell out of here as soon as possible!" I couldn't stress that enough.
But Izzy didn't seem fazed.
"So you're with the vamp," she said instead.
"I was, yes. Can we go now?"
"I came to warn you, Vick," she said, as coolly as if she were speaking to a stranger. Then it dawned on me. Did she know, too? Had Mom and Dad told her about me? Is that why she ran away from home? "The people that are after you, they're no joke. They're not going to leave a stone unturned until they find you. That's why you need to leave the country right now."
"But you're coming with me," I said because she said you instead of we.
"Oh, no. I'm not going anywhere, but you are, if you want to stay alive." She looked so cold, her eyes once vibrant blue, now turned almost metallic.
"What the hell are you talking about? Of course you're coming with me! Those people are dangerous, you said it yourself."
"They are," she said with a nod. "More so than you can imagine."
"So? What the hell are you doing with them, Izzy?" I might have raised my voice a little, but I could no longer control my body. She was freaking me out. I was more panicked than I'd ever been before because she sounded serious when she said she wasn't going anywhere.
"You're judging me?" she said with a cold laugh. "That's rich."
I put my hands on her shoulders. "I'm not judging you, you fool! I'm telling you what you told me all our lives: you stay away from dangerous people no matter what!"
Pushing my hands away, Izzy stepped back. It was like she'd punched me in the throat. But what the hell did I expect? I ran away from home and didn't contact her for five years, and now that we were together again, she wasn't just going to accept everything and play sisters with me like when we were little.
"You're wasting both our times," Izzy said, shaking her head. "You're my sister and that's why I bothered to come here. To warn you. If you don't leave the country, they're going to find you."
"Consider me warned, then, but what about you? How can you…how can…" I couldn't say it. It was too much.
She smiled bitterly. "I'm with them. I can't leave. Trust me, I tried, but the only way they'll let me go is if I die first. But you can get the fuck out of here still. So be smart and do it. Don't ask questions, just run."
"And leave you here all by yourself?" Did she really think I'd do that?
Feigning surprise, she shrugged. "You did it once. It shouldn't be that hard."
Right to the heart. "That was different." She wasn't running with a kidnapping and murdering crowd then. She was at home with Mom and Dad. Her mom and dad.
"Whatever floats your boat, sis," she said and stepped back, making my heart skip a beat.
"Wait, Izzy," I said, letting out a sigh. "Who are these people? Why are you with them? Why did you run away from home? Dad said he did something, but he didn't—" "Dad?" she asked in half a whisper.
Oh, right. I hadn't told her about that part yet. "Yes. He came to me to help him find you."
Then, Izzy laughed. It was an Ice Queen laugh if there had ever been one. "The balls on that fucking guy!"
"What did he do to you, Izzy? Did he…did he hit you?"
Her laugh cut off abruptly as she turned to me. "What? No! No, of course not."
I'd thought so.
"So what then? Why did you run away?"
"Because he…" Squeezing her eyes shut, she inhaled deeply. "He sold others for me."
"Sold? How the hell did that happen?" She'd completely lost me.
"Back when Erick Adams was in charge of the ECU, they took me in for being a Storm and did their experiments on me," she said in a breath.
An alarm went on in my head. Experiments? How was that possible?
Izzy was the daughter of Oscar Hogan and Sylvia Brigham, first cousin of Andrew Brigham—one of the elected ECU leaders. I thought for sure that that would keep Izzy from the ECU's clutches. If I'd known she was being held there against her will, I'd have…what? Saved her?
"Hey, don't look so shocked. It wasn't that bad," Izzy said when she saw the look on my face. "Dad just couldn't leave well enough alone, so he brought five other Storms to Adams, in return for my freedom."
"And?" My voice was scratchy, my mind on a ride, picturing Erick Adams's face when he ran experiments on people like they were animals.
Oh, thank God he was dead. Because my wolf wouldn't have rested until she killed him herself.
"And they let me go."
"That's why you're mad at him?" Maybe Dad fucked up by bringing other Storms to Adams, but he did what he had to do to save his daughter.
"Of course I'm mad! Because of him, I can't have a coven. I'm a Storm witch, Vicky. I don't belong with werewolves!"
"But there's a Storm coven now. Have you watched the news? They can protect you."
"Oh, they're not going to protect me when they realize my father took five of them to Adams because of me," Izzy said, her own eyes filled with tears. She was hurt. Really hurt by all of this.
"Of course they will. You're one of them. They'll under—" "Stop it!" she cut me off. "They won't understand."
"They will!" I shouted. I'd say it as many times as I needed to, until she believed me.
With a sigh, she closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose.
"One of the five Storms he turned in was Scarlet Jones," she said.
My jaw touched the ground. "The dragon girl?"
Izzy nodded slowly.
Holy crap. This was bad. The dragon girl was the one who killed Erick Adams. And she did it with a dragon. A real dragon. I kid you not. She went and got one in the fairy realm, brought it here, torched Erick Adams, and changed paranormal history forever. Not to mention that she was like a god among Storms. Maybe Izzy wasn't so far off.
"But you don't know that they wouldn't understand. This wasn't your fault. It was Dad's."
"And if I say that to them, what do you think they'll do? Let it go?" She shrugged. "They're going to want his head for treason. As much of an asshole as he is, I couldn't do that to him. Or to Mom."
I raised my hands in surrender, completely lost for a moment. "Don't you think they'll go after him anyway?"
Izzy flinched. "Maybe. I tried to warn him, but he wouldn't listen." She kicked the trunk of a tree. "He never listens. So now I have to hide and hope they'll keep forgetting about him forever."
Things were much more complicated than I'd thought. "So…what, you just said, to hell with it, and joined a gang of murderers?"
When she looked at me, I thought she was going to shoot bullets at me with her eyes. I knew I'd messed it up. I should have trodden more carefully, damn it.
"You're one to judge. Screw you, Vicky. I don't have to put up with this.
I came here to warn you, and that's that. If you don't want to listen, that's your business," she said and turned around to leave.
Like hell was I going to let that happen. I grabbed her by the arm and stopped her.
"Izzy, wait. I'm not judging you. I'm just saying, they're bad news, and you need to get away from them, too." As if she didn't already know that.
"I know very well who they are, and I can't get away from them—but you can. You've got hours, if not less, to disappear. They're going to find you the same way I did," she said. I could see the pain in the blue of her eyes that were starting to look a lot more like before. But I knew it was an illusion. Things had changed in the five years we'd been apart. We were no longer just a couple of teenagers with no responsibilities or any real issues.
We had changed, and so had the world around us.
"You can't ask me to just leave you here, for God's sake," I said, wanting to kick a tree, too. But I didn't want to allow myself to get even angrier, when my wolf was already alert and listening in on our conversation. It was almost like…like she saw Izzy as a threat. I wasn't going to waste time reminding her that Izzy and I had grown up together, so I just tried to push the thought of the wolf away from my mind.
"I'm fine! I was fine before you came into the picture, wasn't I? Just go!" With her hands on my shoulders, she pushed me back.
Angry tears sprang to my eyes. "No." She could forget it. I wasn't going to leave her in the hands of those people! "The only way I'm leaving is if you come with me."
"God, you've become even more stubborn!" she spit, turning her back to me. "You're not safe with me, trust me."
"I can keep us safe, I promise. You won't have to worry about that," I said in a rush.
"You?" she said, and I have to admit, it sucked a bit that she found that so ridiculous.
I straightened my shoulders. "My wolf. She can protect the both of us."
Facing me once more, Izzy analyzed me from head to toe as if she was just seeing me for the first time. Then, as if she forced herself to come to her senses, she shook her head.
"I've done my part. I've warned you. Now, I have to go," she said, making my heart jump. I grabbed both her hands in mine, squeezing tightly.
"Izzy, I'm not going anywhere without you. Please, don't do this. Just come with me! We'll figure it out," I begged her. Up until that point, I'd had no idea I ever could speak to her like that or even touch her. But now that I knew who she was dealing with and now that I'd seen the fear in her dull eyes, my personal issues flew out the window and her safety was all I cared about.
But Izzy didn't care. She jerked her hands away from me and stepped back, freezing me in place.
"If they catch you, I won't be able to help you. Go. Save yourself while you still can. If he gets his hands on your wolf…" Her voice trailed off, her eyes growing even more distant for a second.
"Haworth, isn't it?" All blood left her face in an instant. I'd heard correctly. The asshole's name was Haworth. "Who is he? What does he look like? Where can I find him?" I asked in a breath. "And what the hell is he doing to those wolves?!"
Pulling her lips inside her mouth, she thought about it for a second. "A bad man. A very powerful bad man," she whispered.
"Not more powerful than a vampire, I'm sure." Red was fast and strong and very good with his hands. In a fight, I mean. Izzy had seen him in action, too, but she didn't seem impressed. In fact, she laughed.
"Oh, Vick. I envy your naivety. Which is why you should get the hell out of this place as fast as you can because no vampire, witch, wolf or fairy is a match for Haworth. He's worse than Erick Adams."
A shiver ran down my spine. "I'm not as naive as you think," I said, but I had a feeling she was right. "If you could just let me help you—" "No." Putting her hands on my cheeks, she gave me a tiny little smile.
"Go. Please, just leave. Don't make me have to see what he does to you."
And she stepped away.
But my mind was already made. I wasn't about to let her out of my sight, even if I had to drag her away kicking and screaming. So I grabbed her by her arms, and I pulled her toward me.
"Izzy, please!" I pleaded, and I certainly didn't expect her to hug me.
Except, when she did, her arms were really strong and squeezed my neck really tightly. "What are you…what are you…" Something cold pierced my back. It spread under my skin like wildfire, except it was cold. My wolf watched, as confused as I was. She knew what it was as well as I did. A tranquilizer. The same thing her "friends" had used to kidnap me.
"It's okay, Vick. It's okay," she whispered in my ear.
She was right. I was very naive. It took me until then to realize what she was doing.
And by then, it was too late.
WHEN I OPENED MY EYES, I saw a mixture of green and brown, and my reflection in the vivid colors. It startled me to see my own eyes in his, and I jumped up breathlessly.
Red didn't try to stop me. He stepped away, giving me some space and a second to take in my surroundings. I was in the basement again, lying on the couch in the living area. Izzy's face was all over my mind. The way she'd looked, the way she'd sounded…the way she'd injected the tranquilizer in my back… And I'd done nothing about it. I'd just let her.
I didn't know if I hated her for it more—or myself.
"Drink some water," Red said, his voice sharp and cold, not a hint of the usual amusement in it. When I looked down, I saw he'd set a bottle of water close to my feet. I grabbed it and took a sip just to do something because I couldn't even feel the water in my mouth. All I could feel was dread. And desperation. And fear. Lots and lots of fear.
"Wanna tell me what the hell happened? I thought you knew that person," Red said, folding his arms in front of his chest, looking down at me as if he was reproaching me. It took all I had not to flip him off.
"I did."
"So why did I find you all alone outside, out cold?" he demanded.
"Because I fell asleep in the fucking grass. Happy?" Maybe it wasn't fair to take my anger at Izzy out on him, but there was nobody else around that I could smell, so he was just going to have to suck it up and deal.
"You're being difficult. When you're being difficult, it's hard for me to focus. And when it's hard for me to focus, it's hard for me to keep us safe!"
Red said, raising his voice with every word.
"Don't worry," I said. Getting up was a bit more difficult than I thought.
My legs were really wobbly. "I can smell others coming from farther than you can."
"And what the hell do you think you can do about it?" he said, and the next second, he was standing right in front of me, his eyes dark as if a cloud had suddenly gathered over his head. Any other time, he'd have scared me shitless, but I was already very scared.
"I'll warn you." I put my hand on his chest and pushed him. It was like he wasn't made out of flesh and blood—just steel—but I didn't pay him too much attention because he fell back a step. I just walked over to the bathroom, locked myself inside, and breathed until my vision cleared.
Splashing cold water on my face didn't help at all, but my legs were not threatening to let go of me anymore, at least.
When I walked out into the living area, I found Red just like I'd left him —mad as hell. I was being a bitch and I knew it, but I was mad, too—mad and afraid—and I was used to dealing with those emotions on my own. I just didn't know how to include him in the process.
"Do you want to tell me what happened?" he asked after I sat down at the dining table to try to get my head straight.
"Nothing happened. We just had a talk and then she left."
"How did she find you here?"
I shrugged. "She just did."
"If we're going to work together, you can't lie to me, Victoria." God, when he said my name like that, it was worse than when my father reproached me. I refused to answer, so he came and sat down across from me. Maybe it was a weird vampire thing, but when he stared at me like that, I had no choice but to meet his eyes. "I recognized her smell. She's one of them. Who is she to you?"
One of them. Ugh, that sounded so nasty. "She's not one of them." I refused to accept it.
"So who is she?" Red pushed.
I caved because I wanted to get this over with as quickly as possible.
"She's my sister."
Suddenly, the darkness in his eyes disappeared, leaving way for the real him. Which was funny. I had no idea who the real Red was.
"Your sister?" He sounded like he was choking.
"And she found me by doing a spell with my blood that got spilled at that place. She also said that others were going to do the same. We only have hours, if that." I assumed it was already nightfall because Red wouldn't have been able to go outside to get me otherwise.
"Do the others know about her?" he asked.
"No, they don't."
"Are you sure? If they did, they could use her blood to track you easily.
It's very important that you're sure."
"I'm sure!" I said, a bit too loudly. Telling him that he had nothing to worry about was out of the question, because to do that, I'd also have to tell him that Izzy was not my real sister. We didn't share the same blood.
Letting go of a long breath, Red lowered his head for a moment. "We need to relocate."
"Yes." I'd gotten that much on my own.
"But I need to know, is there anything else you're keeping from me?"
The vampire looked at me like he was holding his heart in his hands, offering it to me eagerly, which was how I knew he was manipulating me.
Maybe I wasn't as naive as Izzy thought.
"Look, you've already stalked me. You know what my life is like. The only reason I got involved in this was because I was looking for my sister. I found her—or she found me, and that's that."
"Now that you know where she is, what are you going to do?"
"Get her back. I'm going to get her back." Whether Izzy liked it or not. I was going to get her away from those people one way or another. "And I'm going to help you in the process, just like you're going to help me."
"But she doesn't want out, does she? It's why she left you unconscious and ran away."
Bastard.
"That's none of your business. We made a deal and now you know everything about my motives, and I can't say the same about you." He hadn't told me shit about the thing that was stolen from him, while he played twenty-one questions with me whenever he got the chance.
"What about the piece of steel?" he asked then.
Once more, I'd completely forgotten about its existence. I took it out of my back pocket and put it on the table.
"I have no idea what it is." It looked like…nothing at all. Just a steel plate, perfectly round, about an inch thick with a small opening all around.
There was nothing written or engraved on either side, except for a rhinestone I hadn't noticed there before.
"Where did you get this?"
"I-I-I…" My voice trailed off when I thought about the wolves and the dead witches. And the guy who'd given me this. Taking in a deep breath, I gave Red the short version. "I was looking for my sister when I ran into these werewolves that just smelled…strange and kind of like her. I followed them, I don't know why. They led me to that apartment complex, where I found four wolves—real life wolves—attacking three witches, just tearing them apart with no mercy. So I went in the apartment."
"There were wolves tearing apart witches and you just…just…walked in?" Red asked, suspicion dripping from his voice.
I flinched. "Well, I sort of have this…thing with animals. They listen to me. They never attack me—not even bears. But these wolves were different. They didn't stop when I told them to, and they smelled really strange. Like someone had messed with their body odor with a lot of magic.
Nothing I've ever smelled before. Anyway, I tried to help the witches, but I couldn't. Before one of them died—a wolf had torn his chest open—he gave this to me. Said they couldn't have it, that I couldn't let them find it."
A throbbing ache began behind my eyes and quickly spread all over my head. What the hell was I thinking, following those werewolves that night?
"So you're an animal whisperer," Red said, and for some reason, he seemed to find that funny. The half smile on his face said so.
"At least I'm not a bloodsucker."
His smile froze for a moment, and he nodded, as if to say he had that coming. And he did. I realized that my head was still attached to the rest of my body just because he needed me, but I was taking full advantage of it for as long as I could. There was something about him that brought out the bitch in me. Probably his nature.
"So what does it do?" Red said, nodding at the circle sitting innocently on the table between us.
"No idea." I grabbed the steel piece in my hand. It weighed no more than a tennis ball, and it fit my palm perfectly. Red reached his hand for it, and I gave it to him. It wasn't like he was going to run away with it or something.
He inspected it, analyzed every inch of the circle, and while he did, I analyzed him. It was hard not to. He looked so at ease like that, so completely clueless that, if I hadn't seen him do what he did to my kidnappers, I'd have never in a million years imagined it right now. His dark hair fell over his eyes, and he pushed it away every few seconds. It was such a normal thing to do. If he kept this up, I was going to forget that he was a blood-sucking monster. Even my wolf was certain now. She pushed the thought into my head: not a threat.
And it was probably all his doing. He meant for me to see him like that —so normal, so calm and harmless-looking. So goddamn handsome, it wasn't fair.
Then, something clicked, and the smell in the room suddenly changed.
The feelings in my gut changed, too.
I watched Red raise the steel plate in front of us. A piece of steel right where the white rhinestone had been embedded had risen up less than an inch, with a perfectly round opening in the middle. It looked exactly like a ring.
I reached out for it and grabbed it from Red to inspect it. It definitely smelled different now. It smelled like…a lot of things. Like magic, for one.
Like rope. Like blood—and a bunch of other stuff I couldn't name yet.
"This is weird," I mumbled and tried the ring on my middle finger. It fit me like it was made especially for me. And as soon as the ring was on and the plate touched the palm of my hand, it extended.
Mesmerized, I stood up, and the disc slid down and down until it touched the floor, and then it came back up to my palm again. Smiling, I opened my fingers and pushed it down again, just to make sure I hadn't imagined it.
"It's a yoyo!" I said, laughing, and watched the thin, almost transparent rope that attached the plate to the ring shimmer as the plate went up and down from my hand to the floor and back.
"Victoria," Red said, drawing my eyes to him. He'd stood up and had backed away from the table, looking at the toy like it was the devil itself.
"That's not a yoyo."
"Well, it's not a traditional yoyo, but it definitely feels like it. Come on, it has the ring and the thin rope and it goes up and down exactly like a yoyo."
"I'm telling you, that's not a toy," Red said, his eyes dark again.
I stopped playing and took the ring off my finger to inspect the plate again. Except when I tried to pull the ring up to see the rope, it wouldn't budge. Hmm. Maybe it needed the finger inside the ring. So I tried to put it on again.
"No, don't," Red said, startling me. He looked…scared. Not that I had known him long enough to know what he looked like in different situations, but the open mouth and wide eyes were pretty clear indicators.
"Hey, relax. It's just a—" "Can't you smell it?" He cut me off.
"Well, yeah. It smells of magic and of…things." I wasn't sure what yet.
Surprised, Red met my eyes. "It's enchanted. And it's silver. And it's wolfsbane. And messir."
I raised a brow. "Wolfsbane? Are you kidding?"
"Put it down, Victoria," he said, slowly raising his arms at me. That made my wolf very curious, but she…couldn't wake up? Strange. It was almost like I could see her trying, but she couldn't come forward.
"Red, wolfsbane is a myth. It doesn't hurt werewolves. And what the hell is messir?"
"Fairy poison," he said. "And, yes, wolfsbane, properly fueled with magic, hurts werewolves. A lot."
I'll be damned. He sounded dead serious, pun intended.
Suddenly, the weight of the yoyo in my hand grew. "If it's enchanted, what the hell does it do?"
Just as I said that, something burned my stomach, right below my ribcage. It was my wolf. Her howl took over my thoughts for a second.
What the hell? I dropped the yoyo on the table, and as if a spell had been broken, the burning sensation disappeared, and my wolf awoke.
I could feel her squeezing me, struggling to come out.
"Oh, shit," I whispered, stepping away from the table. She was coming.
She wanted out, and I had no idea how to stop her.
"What's wrong?" Red said, but I sat on the couch, hugged my knees to my chest and squeezed my eyes shut.
Go away, go away, go away, I begged in my head, but the squeezing around my heart only grew stronger. My wolf howled again, demanding my body.
"Victoria, are you okay?"
Red sat next to me on the bed and grabbed my arm, but I didn't dare open my eyes.
"It's her. She wants to come out," I said through gritted teeth, and I tried to hold my breath as much as I could, hoping that that was going to distract the wolf.
"So stop her," Red said, almost making me laugh.
"I can't!" I shouted. My head threatened to explode, the pain rising to brand new levels. "Stop it!" I shouted at the wolf, but she didn't care. She was going to take my body, and there was nothing I could do to stop her.
"Stop, stop, stop!"
She didn't. I felt my bones cracking, just like they always did when the shifting began. I screamed in frustration, so focused on my wolf, I hardly felt the pain radiating from my core. I gritted my teeth and tried to calm her down, and when that didn't work, I tried to force her into submission. I'd done it many times before, ever since I was a kid. It only rarely—very rarely—worked.
But then, something cold touched both my cheeks. I though, maybe it's a spell. But Red was a vampire. He couldn't do spells.
He could just twist my head to the side real fast, and the pain, the screams, and the howls all disappeared.