Kitty and the Midnight Hour

'Whatever.'

So he drove, and I stared out the window. When he turned onto a side road, it was in the middle of nowhere and there wasn't much I could do about it.

'Where are we going?' Scrub oak and pine trees lined the narrow road. It led to a trailhead near a river. 'Turn around.'

The place was popular with hikers and mountain bikers during the day. But this was midnight. Bill shut off the headlights and pulled to a corner of the parking lot shaded by overhanging branches.

I grabbed the door handle, but he pushed the automatic lock as he stopped the engine.

He moved so fast, I bet he'd done this before.

He held my arms, pinning them, and clambered to my side of the car, pressing me to the bucket seat. Two hundred pounds of Bill weighed on me, and no matter how much I squirmed, I couldn't get away. I started hyperventilating.

'Relax, baby. Just relax.'

I kept saying, No, stop, no, please, the whole time. I'd never been so scared and angry. When he brought his face close, I bit him. He slapped me and pounded into me that much harder.

I tasted blood. I'd bitten my cheek, and my nose was bleeding.

With a sigh, he rolled away finally. It still hurt.

I scrabbled at the lock until it clicked, then I opened the door and tumbled out.

Bill shouted after me. 'Don't you want a ride back? Christ!' He started up his car and pulled away.

I ran. Legs weak, breath heaving, I ran away. I only wanted to get away.

A full moon shone that night. Weird shadows lit the grass and scrub. This was stupid; I had no idea where I was, no idea how I was going to get home. I slid into the grass and sobbed. Stupid, Kitty. This whole night was stupid and look where it got me.

A picnic area lay a little ways from the parking lot. Shelters covered some of the tables. I sat down at one, pulling my knees to my chin and hugging myself. My panties were still in Bill's car. I figured I'd sit here until some jogger found me in the morning and called the cops. I could do that. Hug myself to stop shivering, maybe go to sleep.

In the distance, a wolf howled. Far away. Nothing to do with me.

Maybe I dozed. Maybe I thought it was a nightmare at first when the shrubs nearby rustled. A shadow moved. Its fur was like shadow, silvery and brindled. It turned bronze eyes on me. Canine nostrils quivered.

It stepped closer, head low, sniffing, never turning from me. The wolf was as big as a Great Dane, with bulky shoulders and a thick ruff of fur. Even with me sitting on the table, it could reach me without trying.

Later, I learned that the wolf could smell the blood from my injuries, and instinct had told it a wounded animal was near. Easy prey.

I trembled like a rabbit, and like a rabbit, the minute I thought of running, it pounced.

I screamed as its claws raked my leg and I lurched away, falling off the table. I kept screaming when its jaw clamped on my hip. Using that as purchase, it climbed up my body, scratching the whole way. My flesh gave way like butter, pieces of it flaying with every touch.

Panic, panic, panic. I kicked its face. Startled, it backed off for a moment. In an adrenaline haze, I jumped and grabbed hold of the edge of the shelter's roof. Gasping, clutching, gritting my teeth, I swung one leg up. The wolf jumped, scraped claws down the other leg. I screamed, falling—but no, I clutched the edge, the wolf lost its grip, and I caught one leg over the edge, then the other. Lying there, spent, I dared to look down.

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.'