Kitty and the Midnight Hour
Page 43

The wolf looked back at me, but it couldn't reach me. It turned and ran.
I didn't have the energy to move another muscle, so I fell unconscious, one arm hanging over the edge of the shelter.
Something squeezed my hand. The sky was light, pale with dawn.
With a shriek, I pulled my hands close and started shaking. Blood caked my legs, my skirt, my shirt. Blood had pooled on the roof of the shelter, but it was dried. I wasn't bleeding anymore.
Carefully, I inched closer to the edge.
Hands gripped there, and a woman hoisted herself up. I scrambled crablike away from her, all the way to the other edge. I looked down to where a couple of men stood, watching me with cold eyes.
The woman knelt at the edge of the roof. She had long black hair, brown eyes, and moved with a dancer's grace, settling to a seated position without taking her gaze off me.
"What's your name?" she said.
I looked around. A half-dozen of them surrounded the shelter, men in various states of scruffiness, unshaven and uncombed, wearing leather or denim jackets, T-shirts, and jeans. All of them were barefoot. The woman also wore jeans and a T-shirt without much thought to style. Still, they all managed to intimidate, radiating strength just in the way they stood.
I didn't answer.
"The bites, the scratches—do they hurt?"
I had to think about it, which meant they didn't hurt. I touched my hip. It was tender, but not painful.
"Look at the wounds," she said. "What do you see?"
I pulled up my shirt, exposing where the wolf had taken a bite. A scar, red and healing, maybe a week old, puckered the skin. The gouges on my legs were pink lines, closed and healing.
I started hyperventilating again. I managed to gasp, "How do you know what happened?"
She said, "One of our people attacked you. We're here to take responsibility for his actions."
"But you're—"
She crept toward me, her eyes focused on me, her nostrils quivering. I flinched, but if I backed away any farther, I'd fall off.
"I won't hurt you. None of us will hurt you. Please, tell me your name."
All I wanted to do in that moment was fall into her arms, because I believed that she wouldn't hurt me. "Kitty," I said in a small voice.
For a moment, she looked disbelieving. Then, she smiled. "Oh, that's rich. You're way too nice for this life, kid."
"I don't understand."
"You will. You'll have to. I'll help. T.J.?"
Hands appeared on the edge of the roof behind me. One of the men pulled himself up easily, like he was hopping onto a tabletop and not climbing up a seven-foot-high shelter. He crouched at the edge, one hand resting on the roof to steady himself. He was—God, he was gorgeous. Tanned, well-built, biceps straining at the sleeves of his white T-shirt, dark hair flopped around an intense face.
He radiated energy and scared the daylights out of me. I backed away, scraping my knees on the roof's asphalt shingles. But then she was there, just as intense, trapping me. I curled in on myself, on the edge of screaming. Something inside me started to rip.
"Who are you people?"
The man, T.J., said, "We're the pack."
A convulsion wrenched me, and I blacked out.
I fell in and out of consciousness for the next three days. I remembered a little—the smell of the park that morning, pine trees and dew. Someone carried me. Someone else—her, the woman—kept a hand on my shoulder. Voices, which I couldn't keep straight.
"She smells like sex."
"Sex and fear."
"There's blood. Not from the bites and cuts. Meg, look."
I shook my head and tried to struggle, but I was like a baby, arms flailing without gaining purchase, too weak to pull away. "No, stop, don't touch, don't touch…" I gasped.
"She was raped," the woman said.
"You don't suppose Zan—"
"It doesn't smell like Zan."
"Someone else, then. Might explain how she ended up out here."
"Wish she'd talk."
"She will later. She's got a couple of days of this yet." I groaned. I had homework, I couldn't—
I opened my eyes.
I lay on a bed. A sheet was tangled around me, like I'd been thrashing in my sleep. I wore a T-shirt—nothing else—and I was clean. I was cold, and sweat matted my hair. I took a deep breath—I didn't know how long I'd been sleeping, but I felt exhausted, like I'd been running. I didn't want to move.
The bronzed idol from the park was sitting in a chair by the bed, watching me. The woman moved from another chair to sit at the foot of the bed. I looked back at them, waiting to feel panic. I'd been kidnapped. Some cult thing. Did Bill put them up to this? None of that seemed right, and I didn't feel afraid at all. Somehow, I felt safe. Like I knew they were here to watch over me, to take care of me. I was sick. Very sick.
"How do you feel?" he said.
"Not good. Tired. Wrung out."
He nodded like he understood. "Your metabolism's all fucked up. It'll work itself out in a few days. Are you hungry?"
I hadn't thought so, but as soon as he said it, my belly felt hollow and I was starving.
"Yeah, I guess I am." I sat up.
He left through a door in what appeared to be a well-lit bedroom. Meg studied me. I looked away, feeling suddenly shy. T.J. returned carrying a platter with a steak, like he'd had it waiting. I looked skeptically at it. I wasn't much of a steak eater.
He set it on the bedstand and handed me a knife. Reluctant, I sliced into it. It bled. Profusely.
I dropped the knife. "I don't like them rare."
"You do now."
I thought I was going to cry. Glaring at him, my voice barely a whisper, I said, "What's happening to me? Why aren't I afraid of you?"
He knelt beside the bed. I looked down on him now, which was comforting. Meg came around to the other side and sat next to me, so close I could feel her body heat. I was trapped, and my heart started racing.
She took my hand, then raised both our hands to my face. "What do you smell?"
Was she nuts? But with our hands right in front of my nose, I couldn't help but smell as I breathed. I expected to smell skin. Maybe soap. Normal people smells. But—there was more. I closed my eyes and breathed deep. Something rich and vibrant, like earth and mountain air. It wasn't soap or new-age deodorant or anything like that. It was her. I calmed down.