The Better to Bite (Howl #1)(38)

“Don’t, Anna.”

Then he ran away, racing right for the darkness.

I finally sucked in a full breath, but there was nothing I could do to calm my racing heart.

***

My alarm rang, yanking me from weird dreams about a woman in a red cloak, a woman running through a tangle of dark trees.

I slammed my hand down on the alarm and shoved my hair back.

Then I remembered last night. Blood. Bullets. Rafe.

If only I could pretend that had just been a bad dream.

But no, I’d spent an hour cleaning blood off the porch after Rafe had run away. No way that part of the night had been a dream. It had been too miserable for dream time. I sat up. I stared at my hands and expected to see the red stains on my palms.

Nothing. My shoulders slumped. Maybe I couldn’t see the blood, but it was there. Some things could never be washed away.

A knock shook my door.

“Anna?” My dad’s voice. “Anna, I need you to come downstairs and meet me on the porch. There’s something I have to show you.”

My heart sank. I’d missed some blood. It had just been so dark. I should have known that I couldn’t slip this nightmare past him. “Dad?”

But I could hear the thud of his retreating footsteps. I jumped out of bed and pulled on some clothes as fast as I could. I was the one to thunder down the stairs. I quickly realized that my dad wasn’t in the house, and the front door was open.

My heart beat so hard it sounded like a drumbeat in my ears. I walked onto the porch. “Dad, just give me a minute, and I can explain—”

He was smiling at me.

My words faded into nothing. He wouldn’t be smiling if he’d found the blood, would he? No, if he’d found the blood, he would have been wearing his angry-tough-cop expression.

My gaze swept the area. I didn’t see any blood.

“What do you think?” He asked expectantly.

I blinked and looked up at him. “Think of what?” Now I was cautious.

He laughed and jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “Of the car, baby. What do you think of your car?”

I glanced over his shoulder. A shiny red, convertible VW sat in our driveway.

“It took a few days longer to arrive than I expected, but…”

I tackled him. My hug was so hard and tight that we both nearly hit the ground. My dad laughed, and I couldn’t remember the last time I’d actually heard him laugh.

“I love you, Dad,” I told him, but, then, I knew he already understood that.

His arms tightened around me. “I love you, too, Anna.”

He fished a set of keys out of his back pocket. “Rules, first.”

Always, with him.

“No drinking. No racing. No texting. No getting lost in the mountains.”

I pulled back and lifted a brow.

He shrugged. “I know, but it never hurts to say it anyway.”

I snatched the keys from him.

“Guess you like it?” He asked as I hurried to the car.

I pulled open the door. Sweet leather seats. The scent filled my nose. Oh, my dad could rule sometimes.

The awesome car almost made me forget the death and monsters that were waiting in the town.

Almost.

Pity my new car was the color of blood. I swallowed and tried to stop seeing an image of Rafe’s bloody back.

***

School seemed…different. And I didn’t mean it was different like me.

“Hot ride!” Jenny told me, bubbling and almost bouncing with energy as she headed toward me.

I smiled. I thought the car was pretty hot, too.

“You’re giving me a lift home today, right?” she pushed with a wiggle of her brows. “I mean, you don’t want me to have to take the bus again.” She shuddered in what I knew was not mock horror.

No, I didn’t want her taking the bus. Every girl should be spared that particular form of torture. I nodded even as my fingers rose to curl around my half-moon charm.

Cassidy hurried toward us. Not with Jenny’s bouncy moves, but with more of a stalking grace. She looked tense and worried. Kind of her usual expression. “Did you hear?” Cassidy asked, her voice hushed. “Some hunters killed three wolves in the woods last night. They think they got the animal that killed Sissy!”

At that moment, Rafe walked by and everything around me seemed to slow way, way down.

I looked at him and couldn’t look away. His eyes were on me, hard and bright, and all I could think was—

Don’t tell anyone.

What would he do if I did?

“OhmyGod.” Jenny’s squeak. That trademark whisper shriek. “What is that look about?” She nudged my shoulder with a little too much force. I nearly stumbled. The girl was way stronger than she appeared. “Seriously, it looks like the guy wants to take a bite out of you.”

Maybe he did.

I felt my cheeks flush. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I turned away and found myself staring at Cassidy. She watched me with her wary eyes.

Cassidy and Jenny—so different. How had I wound up with them?

Why did we seem to fit?

“I heard talk that you found the body,” Cassidy said. As usual, Cassidy didn’t seem to care about the boy-girl, high school gossip. She probably thought it was all crap. No, for Cassidy, it was straight to business.