The silence was so long I thought I was going to have to ask him again.
“What the hell?” He sounded honestly perplexed.
“Yes or no? Are you a virgin?” I lost control halfway through. My voice spiraled up into a scream.
He flinched, and I ached to hit him. I wanted to hit something, that’s for sure. I wanted to do something instead of just stand there and threaten him.
“Sonofabitch answer me!” My voice bounced off the walls, made the whole room whirl around me. My blood pounded in my ears. Adrenaline poured through my blood, copper winding me tighter and tighter.
“Yes!” he screamed back. “Yes, I’m a fucking virgin, don’t shoot me goddammit fucking please!”
I froze. My fingers were cramping outside the trigger guard.
His chest heaved. Tears slicked his cheeks and his eyes were squeezed shut. He strained against the ropes without moving, and my entire body had gone cold.
Almost twelve hours, and he was a virgin.
It might be okay after all.
I didn’t recognize the hoarse rasp coming from my throat as mine. “All right.” I eased the safety back on with a click, after I pointed the gun away. Far, far away from both him and me. “All right. Fine. All right.”
Graves made hoarse little sobbing sounds. I backed off, retreating from the bed.
Jesus. What had I done? I should have asked him that first off instead of putting a gun to his head. I felt sick.
I stumbled for the bathroom and threw up every inch of cereal I’d eaten. Then I cried too, shaking over the cold porcelain. I had to blow my nose three times. When that was done, raw-eyed and sore, I went slowly back down the dark hall into Dad’s room. I found a spare holster and put the gun in it, and I got out a bowie knife. The knots would be cinched down too tight to loosen now.
Graves was lying on the bed with his eyes closed, his lips moving soundlessly. I’d just scared the shit out of him.
So what? Better to scare him than get your throat ripped out. The first time a wulf changes, it’s unstoppable.
I told Dad’s voice to take a hike for once, and began sawing through the ropes. “You were bitten by a werwulf. I had to be sure,” I said as I avoided cutting his forearm. My hands were shaking just a little. “Just stay still. We’ll have you out of these in a jiffy.”
He didn’t say anything.
I managed to get the ropes around his ankles and knees cut through, then the ones at his elbows and wrists. He just lay there, limp, breathing heavily.
“I’m sorry.” I sounded five years old. The words were empty. It was the kind of thing you say to someone when you’ve broken a toy or something, not when you’ve just held a gun to their head and shouted at them. “I had to be sure. If you’re a virgin, it’s okay; you won’t change like a regular wulf. The imprint won’t take, because you’re a closed door. At least, that’s what Dad told me. He was almost always right. I—”
“Shut up,” he whispered. His eyes squeezed shut. Tears made his lashes into a damp mat. “Leave me alone.”
I backed away on my knees, holding the knife. “I’m sorry. Really. I just—”
“I said, leave me alone. Shut up.” His voice broke.
I wiped at my cheek with my fingers. There wasn’t anything else to say. So I just made it to my feet with each piece of my body creaking and left him alone.
CHAPTER 14
I sat on the stairs again, listening to the heater run and the silent un-noise of snow outside. I heard Graves moving around—the toilet flushing, water running, shuffling feet and creaks I hadn’t had a chance to learn in this new place yet. Each house has its own set of sounds, and each person sounds different.
He didn’t sound like Dad. But still, just hearing someone breathing and walking around was better than nothing. Way better than nothing.
My eyes were hot and grainy. I stared at the gun in my hands. Nine-millimeter, dead black, and heavy, its nose sleek and sharp. It was a good gun.
What are you going to do, Dru? Go back to high school and be prom queen? What the hell. Why not?
The answer was right around the corner—I just couldn’t think of it. There was something I was missing, something I was trying not to think. It had to do with that door, and the concrete corridor, and the dream hanging heavy in my head, like a lead bowling ball.
Someone turned Dad into a zombie. While he was out hunting. So someone knew about what he was doing, right?
But who could know? What had he been after? He hadn’t said anything to me.
The questions revolved inside my head. Then the thing I’d been forgetting since waking up slid into place with a click like racking a bullet into the chamber.
Contacts. Dad had contacts. I should call someone.
Relief so intense it was ridiculous poured through my entire body at the thought. Someone adult, older than me, better-armed and more experienced, who could come out and . . .
. . . do what? Set up housekeeping? Adopt me? Take me on as an apprentice? Make everything okay?
Yeah. Sure. None of the other hunters Dad had let me hang around with were in the least parental. But they were older, right? And they’d be interested in something that killed him. They were his friends. Combat buddies. Comrades in arms.
Right?
I closed my eyes. Leaned against the wall, dangling the gun in my right hand.
The stairs squeaked. Graves shuffled down each one like it hurt. There was a dragging sound.
I didn’t open my eyes.
When he sat down beside me I was only mildly surprised. We sat like that for a few minutes, until my eyelids flew up and the world came rushing back into my head again.