The Hundred Lies of Lizzie Lovett(17)

When I was eight or nine, there were these reports of a wolf in Griffin Mills. People saw it in the woods, in neighborhoods, at the edge of downtown. Maybe it was just a big dog that escaped from someone’s backyard. It probably was. I never found out one way or another.

Back then, it wasn’t Emily and me against the world. We had a whole group of friends. I felt like I belonged, and life was an adventure where anything could happen.

We spent the whole summer searching for that wolf, scouring the woods, setting traps, collecting evidence. There was never a moment when we lost hope, when we considered that we might not find it, that there might not be a wolf at all.

Then, in the fall, the wolf disappeared. There were no more sightings. Everyone got distracted by school and forgot all about the search. Everyone but me. I kept thinking about those magical few months when we really believed it was out there. We were certain we could find the wolf and make it bite us so we could change too. Because, of course, we didn’t think it was an ordinary wolf.

I missed being a kid. I missed having friends who would spend the entire summer hunting for a werewolf.

If there were werewolves, they’d probably hang around a place called Wolf Creek. I smiled at the thought. Maybe that’s what got Lizzie. Maybe it was late at night, and she had to go to the bathroom, so she’d slipped away from camp. Only in the woods, something wasn’t right. Something was watching her. She knew she had to get back to the tent. She wanted to shout for Lorenzo but was too afraid to make a sound. So she silently crept toward the clearing. The thing in the dark growled at her. She froze. It stepped out into the moonlight. It wasn’t an animal or a man. It was both. She opened her mouth to scream, but before she could, the beast lunged, and its teeth were at her throat, sinking into the soft skin and—

No. That wasn’t right.

I pulled myself into a half-sitting position. A chill went down my back. A wolf didn’t kill Lizzie.

It was her idea to camp at Wolf Creek. Wolf Creek, where she looked for wolves while wearing a wolf pendant around her neck. I remembered the night after she disappeared, how I’d looked out my window, and the whole neighborhood was lit up because of the moon. The full moon. Lizzie the wolf lover wanted to camp at a very specific spot during the full moon.

I thought about how Lizzie had changed since high school. No more glossy-magazine-cover Lizzie. She became unkempt. A little wild looking. She became a girl who loved nature and had a thing for wolves.

All signs pointed to her walking into the woods that night of her own free will. She wasn’t dragged out of the camp. There was no evidence of a struggle. She left. Lorenzo Calvetti told reporters Lizzie seemed happy before she went to bed.

Some people thought Lizzie was lost, and some people thought she was dead. I’d been certain Lizzie took off because she was bored or wanted attention. But maybe we were all wrong.

Maybe Lizzie Lovett turned into a werewolf.

It was probably because I was so sleepy, but the image of pretty, perfect Lizzie Lovett turning into a wolf suddenly seemed like the most hilarious thing in the world. I started laughing. There, alone on my porch, in the middle of the night, I started to giggle like an idiot. If any of my neighbors would have looked out their windows, they would’ve thought I was insane.

Even after my laugher dried up, as my eyes were getting heavy, I couldn’t get the image of werewolf Lizzie out of my mind. Honestly, it wasn’t the craziest theory I’d heard in the past week. It almost made sense.

I was still thinking of it when I drifted off to sleep.

Lizzie the werewolf.

That explanation made her disappearance much more interesting.





Chapter 7


The Wolf Girl

A car door slammed and woke me up. I rubbed my eyes and shifted my weight. What was wrong with my bed? Then I realized I wasn’t in bed. I’d slept through the whole night on the porch swing. I groggily sat up as Connor climbed the front steps.

“Your parents kick you out?” he joked.

“You’re way too cheerful for this early in the morning.”

“Probably because I didn’t sleep outside on a swing.”

Connor smiled at me, looking like the perfect, all-American jock that he was. He tried to hide it with his stubbly beard and slightly too-long hair, but it didn’t work. It looked too intentional. He could have been on one of those TV shows where everyone was perfect and no one had real problems. I felt very aware of my messy hair and morning breath.

“Rush is inside. You can go in.”

“Thanks. Didn’t mean to wake you, Thorny.”

“Yeah, well, I guess that’s what I get for sleeping on the porch.”

Connor laughed and let himself in the house. As soon as the door shut behind him, I lay back down. My back hurt from the hard swing. My head was achy like I was hungover. Not that I know exactly how a hangover feels, since my experience with alcohol is pretty limited.

Though it seemed like I should have been drinking. Because, you know, falling asleep contemplating werewolf cheerleaders is a lot more acceptable if you’re drunk. Having those thoughts when you’re sober makes people wonder if you’re crazy.

Not that I really thought Lizzie was a werewolf. Obviously. That would have been absurd for a million different reasons. Starting with the fact that werewolves don’t exist.

But still.

There were some oddities about Lizzie’s disappearance, oddities that centered on wolves. It made sense that if someone isolated those details and kept an open mind, they could conclude that Lizzie turned into a werewolf. When you added up all the clues, the whole thing seemed very reasonable.