Kitty's House of Horrors

she uses it.

But she can’t keep running forever. She has to go somewhere, so she heads toward safety. She knows that smell, where she’s been sleeping, where she has friends. She has no place else to go. Too far away from her own pack, this will have to do. Though she would run to her pack if she could.

Time passes.

She slows to a trot as she approaches the den where she hopes to find safety. Strange smells— too many people, the two-legged ones, have passed here. Some of them may be hunting her. She whines, because she can’t trust where she is. Can’t trust any of these smells. But the human side, the two-legged self, nudges her. There are friends here. At least, there should be. She has to hope.

The trees end, opening to a wide, exposed clearing, and the large human structure in the middle of it. Full of danger. Her fur bristles, her tail is stiff, her head hangs low. She circles, tracking every smell, every hint of danger. Searches her memory, finds the area smells much like it did when she left. Nothing has changed; the hunter has not followed her. The blood in front of the structure is old, from this morning.

She paces slowly, carefully around the building, spiraling closer. Ready to flee the moment the air feels wrong.

The den draws her in. A noise startles her—she flicks her ear. Footsteps sound hollow, and a two-legged figure stands before her, looking out. She stops, stares. He doesn’t stare back. Drops his gaze, doesn’t offer challenge, and she feels better. He smells familiar. A friend. He has helped her before. She remembers. Her throat whines, because she’s been afraid for a long time now and wants to rest.

More footsteps, more people, too many, and her ears pin back, her hackles go rigid, and she braces, ready to run, ready to fight.

“Stay back. Go back inside, all of you,” the first man says. The one she wants to trust.

“What is it? Oh my God—is that—”

“It’s Kitty,” he says.

“You’ve got to be kidding me, you don’t seriously expect—”

“Conrad, shut up!”

“What happened?” another says. A female.

“I don’t know. We won’t know until she turns back. We need to get her inside, to safety.”

“And how do you propose we do that? It looks… she looks… I mean…”

The first one, the male, acts like an alpha. “Everyone needs to get back inside and give her space. She’s spooked. Go upstairs. I’ll take care of this.”

“Odysseus, are you sure?” Another male, an odd-smelling one—he smells like fish and rivers— says this. “If she bites you—”

“She won’t. I’ll be fine.”

Then the doorway, the whole front of the den, is empty, and he turns his back to her and walks inside, leading her in. Head low, hesitating, she follows. The hard, artificial ground feels wrong, harsh against her feet. Her claws click. If she goes inside, she’ll be trapped, no way to get out, no wide spaces to run in. But to her other side, it smells safe. Her other side trusts.

She slips inside and keeps to the wall so nothing can sneak up on her, surround her. She stays by the entrance, just in case. She keeps her eyes on the man, who sits nearby, quietly, watching.

Then, because she’s been running all day, she folds her legs under her, curls up tight so her tail brushes her nose. She hopes the world is safer when she wakes up.

The bed was hard, but I was warm. My mouth was sticky. I’d had nightmares.

Not nightmares. Memories.

I gasped a breath and sat up. I had a blanket over me—someone’s kind thought. I was against the wall, right next to the front door. This was how far they’d been able to coax me inside. I was amazed I managed to make it this far. Part of me thought I should have just kept running until I made it back to Colorado. Except for that fence, trapping us.

I pulled the blanket tighter around me and scrubbed my face, trying to wake up. My muscles ached, my head throbbed. I wanted to go home. I glanced out the window; the sky was dark. I didn’t want it to be night. Inside, several candles burned, on the coffee table and the kitchen counter. A low fire flickered in the fireplace. The light was warm, full of rippling shadows. Terrible, terrifying.

“Kitty.” Odysseus Grant sat on a sofa, watching me.

“Déjà vu, huh?” I said, smiling weakly.

“Are you all right?”

Screwing my face up to keep from crying, I shook my head.

“What happened?” Grant asked.

I swallowed, to clear the tightness in my throat. “Jerome is dead. We’re being hunted.”

Chapter 13

I went to my room so I could wash and change while Grant gathered the others in the kitchen to try to figure out what to do next. I took a quick shower, enough to rinse off and wake up, but I wanted a longer one. I could have stayed under the spray all night, as long as the remaining dregs of hot water lasted, hoping it would wash away all that had happened. But standing still made me feel like a target. Whoever had shot Jerome would come after the rest of us. I couldn’t just stand here waiting for it.

After putting on a shirt and jeans, I felt mostly human again. But my shoulders were stiff, the shadow of rigid hackles, and the part of me that had claws still glared out of my eyes. I went barefoot, in case I had to run again.

Before my shower, Grant told me that they’d dismantled all the cameras around the house. I still felt like someone was watching me.

The others were waiting for me, gathered around the kitchen table, pensive. In the wavering light of candles and the fire in the fireplace, their faces looked long, skeletal. Grant presided, arms crossed. He might have been a wizard from a fairy tale. I shook my head of the vision. He nodded to me in greeting.

The rest stared at me, and I knew they had seen me as Wolf. They looked at me differently now. They might have known what I was intellectually, they might have seen the video clip from Washington and thought they knew the story, thought they were ready for it. But to see the actual wolf, large for a wolf and gazing with a strange intelligence—then to see the woman lying where the animal had fallen asleep. The most open-minded person in the world would still have to think about it. I’d still look different, somehow. Tina, Jeffrey, Ariel—they looked a little bit afraid.

But Lee—he looked on me with pity.

I couldn’t blame them. But it made me sad, self-conscious. I crossed my arms to match Grant, tried to put out a little alpha attitude.

We were missing people. Besides Dorian and Jerome. The vampires hadn’t yet emerged, but there was one more.

“Where’s Conrad?” I said.

That broke whatever tension had held us all rigid. Ariel giggled—nervously, but still. Even Grant smiled a little.

Tina said, “He watched you change back. He hasn’t come out of his room since.”

I held my forehead and winced. “Finally got through to him, did we? I’m sorry I missed it.”

“No, you’re not,” Jeffrey said. “Grant had to knock him out to get him to quit yelling.”

No, really, I was. All that buildup and I didn’t get to see the denouement. I wouldn’t even get to watch it when the show aired. Because this show was never going to air, not if I could help it. “Should someone go get him? I don’t think any of us are safe alone.”

“Kitty—what happened to you? What happened to Jerome?”