The Better to Bite (Howl #1)(68)

I heaved up and looked over his shoulder.

Rafe stood just a few feet away from Valerie.

Valerie was staring after me. “I read the journal, Anna!” She yelled. “Before I torched that damn station, I read it—I know your secrets! I just didn’t realize—not until now—just how like dear, dead mommy you really were.”

Dad hadn’t let me see the journal. Why hadn’t he?

But Valerie turned her smirk on Rafe. “You think she’s so perfect? You don’t even know the truth about her.”

“Brent!” Rafe’s voice snapped like a whip. “Get her out of here! I don’t want Anna to see—”

He didn’t finish. But I knew.

I don’t want Anna to see me kill Valerie.

Dad had said there was only one way to stop a rogue. To save me, to protect the town, Rafe would have to kill Valerie. But what would that do to him?

“You can’t!” Valerie’s taunt. “You won’t. You don’t have it in you, Rafe Channing.”

Brent was running now. Leaving them behind and holding me so tightly that I knew I’d have bruises from his hands.

“She’s not getting away! I won’t let her get away!”

Once more, the snaps and pops of the shift filled the air. Valerie’s voice deepened, became wild. “I’ll track her, I’ll kill her, wherever—”

A gunshot blasted through the night. One, then another.

Brent froze.

My hands dug into his shoulders. I tried to look back—

Valerie—her face twisted and her hands still claws—had a hole in the middle of her forehead.

And in her chest.

She fell back to the ground and Rafe—Rafe had been at her side, fighting with his own claws. He wasn’t hurt yet, but his fangs were out and his claws were out and he looked wild and— “No!” My scream. Even though my body hurt, even though I felt a bone-deep cold chilling me, I jerked free of Brent’s arms. I hit the ground. Tried to crawl back to Rafe. “Dad, don’t!”

Because I knew who’d shot Valerie. In the vision I’d seen, my dad had been running through the woods, running to me. The wolves with him had scented the blood and led him straight to us.

My dad didn’t fire again.

Rafe raced toward me. He grabbed me.

I held him tight. Just as tightly as Brent had held me seconds before.

“It’s not him!” I looked back at the trees on the right. My dad was there, with his rifle cocked. Two wolves were at his side. “Rafe didn’t do anything! He and Brent saved me!”

But my dad wasn’t lowering his weapon.

“Get away from them, Anna!” His order.

No.

“Get them help!” I ordered right back. I wouldn’t look at Valerie again. I couldn’t. “Lower your weapon and help us!”

My dad’s weapon slowly—very slowly—lowered. “Anna?”

Everything was starting to get even darker around me. My clothes were soaked with blood.

Rafe’s head leaned toward me. He was all I could see then. “Don’t leave me,” he whispered.

We were in the woods, the woods I should have feared, but I wasn’t scared anymore.

My heart seemed too loud in my ears. The cold too rough on my skin.

“Don’t leave me,” Rafe said again.

I shook my head. My eyes were starting to close. I managed to lift my hand and touch his cheek.

But…

Something was wrong.

My hand—it looked funny. My nails were too long. Too sharp.

Like claws.

“Christ, no.” My dad’s voice. Then he was there, pulling me away from Rafe and cradling me in his arms. “It’s gonna be okay, baby, everything’s gonna be okay.”

I wondered why my dad was lying to me. I could always tell when he lied.

Okay didn’t live there anymore. I don’t think it had ever lived in Haven.

The wolves shifted back into human form around us. Mr. Channing. Deputy Jon.

My dad held me tighter. “I’ll stop it. You’ll be okay.”

But everything was slipping away from me.

The dark took me, and the last sound I heard was a wolf’s long, mournful howl.





Chapter Seventeen


Two weeks later, I went back to school. Mr. Knoxley nodded to me when I headed down the hallway. Cheerleaders talked excitedly. Troy shoved some freshman against the lockers, and I only caught a few frowning stares that were directed my way.

The world had moved on.

Valerie had been buried. Shot twice with silver bullets, there had been no more movie-monster risings for her.

I’d been in the hospital for a week. I didn’t remember much of that time, but when I’d woken up, dad had told me that Valerie was gone. The killings were finished.

Haven was back to just being…Haven.

Home of the monsters. The cursed. And me.

I hadn’t seen Rafe or Brent. My dad had basically put me under house lockdown until I’d gotten my strength back. They’d both sent flowers. Roses. Blood-red.

I’d caught sight of a wolf from my window a few times. Watching me with yellow eyes.

Rafe.

Somehow, I could tell the wolves apart. No one else could, but I knew them now. Maybe I knew them too well.