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SEVENTEEN | DAYDREAMS
“What is it?” Kathrena asked. To the uneducated observer, I was sure that she looked calm, relaxed. But I’d been watching her lately, and I caught the slightly pinched look of her skin, and the way her shoulders hoisted up to brush against the ends of her hair.
I had to admit that I was equally worried. Kathrena and I both had secrets to keep, and we were the only two being held back. But Aradia smiled warmly at us both, and I felt my chest unclench as I met her gaze.
“I think,” she began, her words spilling out slowly as she watched us closely for our reactions, “it would be worth us… loosening the rules regarding your relationships at school. The teenage mind – it can draw links between people and events, often in a ruthless way. I worry that in the unfortunate event of more attacks, the two of you might be singled out as newcomers, and as loners.”
My heart leapt,
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I waited anxiously throughout the whole period, but Skye never showed. And it was the same the next day, and the day after that. I waited, but Skye had disappeared. I felt as though it was my fault, but there were other, deeper feelings that scared me now. I worried that he was injured, that he was hurt. Then I’d loop back around to worrying that I had been the one to hurt him, emotionally, at least, and I spent the next few days in a searing panic, dancing from one ledge to the next, my toes scraping at their edges and sending shards of rock tumbling down the myriad of cliff faces.I let myself slip backwards instead, closing up the walls around me as I fell. I was hard, indestructible; I was surrounded by steel and by stone, and my barricades held firm. I let them down, just a little, when Kathrena, Falmer, or Rowan tried to talk to me. It wasn’t their fault that I’d hurt Skye, and in doing so I didn’t want to continue the pattern by hurting each of them in turn, too.I let time was
She Runs with Wolves NINETEEN | FRACTURED
I couldn’t quell the hope that Skye might have returned to Aspen High by tomorrow, even as I laid out of the groundwork for my plan. Kathrena’s to-do list notepad, it turned out, was quite useful indeed.There were a few torn pages, which looked as though they’d been ripped out in a hurry – not Kathrena’s style at all. I’d once watched her folding along a line, and she’d used a ruler to do it. Hastily and inaccurately were not two words I would use to describe Kathrena, or any of her actions.My words were scrawled across the page, a series of wildly looping letters that just about formed legible shapes. The lamplight was dimmed, but I could still see what I’d written clearly.It was dark outside, now, and the strange, pointed edges of the pine trees loomed in the distance. I’d been out there earlier to hunt, as soon as my short patrol shift was finished. Aradia
She Runs with Wolves TWENTY | ON THE TRAIL
The drive home was silent. Kathrena seemed too embarrassed, too ashamed, to even look at me. I was too focused on my own plans to expend any excess energy worrying about her strange behaviour. The forest rolled by, the trees seeming to grow in stop-motion above us, inching higher and higher until they formed an oppressive archway, blocking out the sky.Then I blinked, and the trees had shrunk back down. I let out a tiny sigh, and gripped the steering wheel a little tighter.I knew what I needed to do. Now all that was left was to do it.Kathrena’s dark eyes followed me quizzically as I dropped her off at home. I’d left the engine running, and my fingers drummed out a staccato rhythm on the steering wheel as she gathered her bag and coat.“Are you sure you’re not coming in?” She asked, one hand on the truck door.“I’m sure,” I
She Runs with Wolves TWENTY-ONE | WATERCOLOURS
I pushed my way through the spiralling branches of a mother tree, and settled myself on a fallen log a little way behind it. I could still just about see the building through the sheet of greenery, but it was distorted, blurred.There were a number of tiny, speckled mushrooms growing beside me. I bounced my fingers along them, tapping each in turn, desperate to distract myself from the conversation that was surely about to happen. Skye’s expression loomed in my mind’s eye, and I felt my heart ache as I thought about the fear in his handsome face.The pillars of light stretched into the forest, tickling the damp toes of my once-white shoes. I stretched my legs out, and then jumped so hard that I almost fell off the log I was precariously balanced on. Skye was beside me, a finger held over his sinfully curved, full lips.He didn’t say anything, and I narrowed my eyes at him. My eyebrows pulled inwards, fu
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I turned the heater on when I got back to my truck, even though I didn’t need it. But it filled the cabin with the last wisps of the scent attached to Skye’s jumper, and I pulled it up to my nose and inhaled deeply.There was a delicious thrumming in my chest, and a tingle that felt like the chill of winter frost nudging at my fingertips. These were imagined sensations, of course, but they felt real to me. I shoved my hands into fists, and pulled them up into the sleeves of his jumper. It was faded, the sea-green of it muted with wear. It seemed like one he’d worn a lot, over and over, and the fact that he’d given it to me sent heat spreading through me anew.I sat for a moment, letting the bliss of the early evening sunshine warm me. It met the flame inside my chest, and they wove together for a while as I watched the golden light dip across the bottle-green pines. There were a few stray bunches of heather at the roa
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"Oh?” I grinned. Skye led me over to his car, and I was pleased to see that it was almost as run-down as mine was. It had faded, peeling grey-blue paint, and it was spotted with rust around its wheel arches.“Yeah,” he said, his chest puffing out. “I thought it would be nice to get to know you a little better. But I know that you’re new here, so you probably don’t know the town that well, and I also know that you don’t eat. Though I don’t know why you don’t eat,” he added, giving me a sly, sideways glance.I shrugged. “I’m just not hungry, I suppose.” Technically, I thought, that wasn’t a total lie. I didn’t get hungry – but I did get thirsty.He shook his head at me, but he was smiling. He yanked open the car door with a creak, and I slipped inside. It was cramped, and I wondered how he fitted his long, broad body in here. My legs were scrunched up against the dashboard, and I was a good foot or so shorter than he was.There was a tiny, handmade wolf charm hanging from his rear view m
She Runs with Wolves TWENTY-FOUR | CINNAMON
Skye held the door open for me, and I stepped inside. The coffee shop was warm and sweet-scented, with a slightly bitter undercurrent of roasted coffee beans. The walls were painted pale brown, with bright teal accents. There were booths at each window, wide and sloping, and there were trailing plants and succulents on wooden shelves, as well as smaller, potted plants on each of the tables.“Hey, Susie,” called out Skye, and I realised with a start that of course he would know everyone in Hawthorn. He’d grown up here, and he’d said it himself – there was only one of everything. That meant that every time he got a coffee, he’d see the same rota of staff.Susie was a tall, olive-skinned girl, with her black hair pulled back into a sleek ponytail. She wore no makeup, but her eyes were framed with thick eyelashes, and she had a teasing grin that immediately made me want to be in on the joke.&n
She Runs with Wolves TWENTY-FIVE | BLURRED
We held hands as we walked down the high street, his palms cool and smooth against my own. I felt small beside him, but safe – his grip was strong, but not too tight, and I knew that even had I not been utterly capable of protecting myself, he would step in and rescue me. It was a heady, giddy sensation, and I found that I rather liked it.My coffee cup was still hot in my other hand, but cooling rapidly as the darkness drew in above us. The glow of the lamps was warm, and the strings of fairy lights made the autumnal trees glow orange. Crisp, fallen leaves crunched beneath our feet.“So,” Skye said, scuffing the toes of his shoes into the leaves, one by one as he took each step, “did you leave Hollowbridge because of – of what you are?”It was an innocuous enough question, but I knew that it was a segue into a conversation I wasn’t sure I was ready to have. But as I gazed up at him, tall, broad, but leanly muscled, with a softness to his face, especially around his eyes and lips, I kn
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