Chapter 5

The new wolves did not stop at the dead one.

They had entered farther north, where the blood had not yet reached. Two turned toward the struggling pack. Three fixed on me.

I forced my right shoulder through the bent maintenance panel.

The steel edge scraped my collarbone. My injured arm would not bear weight, so I hooked my good elbow around a fence post and pulled until my ribs cleared.

A wolf hit the panel behind me.

Its jaws closed on the back of my coat.

The collar tightened against my throat. I kicked through the gap, felt my heel strike its snout, and ripped free, leaving half the coat hanging from its teeth.

I fell into a narrow service trench outside the run.

The trench ended at a maintenance crawlspace beneath the feeding shed. I crawled inside and pulled a warped plywood panel behind me.

Claws scraped the other side.

The space was barely three feet high. Bags of dry bedding had been stacked against one wall, protected from the snow. I tore one open with my teeth and packed straw around my legs and torso.

My left sleeve was dark with blood.

I used the lining of my coat to bind the bites. My fingers shook so badly I tied the knot twice and still did not trust it.

Outside, the wolves paced and struck the panel.

Each impact made me flinch.

I hated the flinch. I hated that part of me still expected Nolan's voice to come through the speaker and end it.

Fourteen years earlier, he had shivered against me in this same cold. I had put his hands beneath my shirt because I was afraid he would lose his fingers.

He had whispered my name until help arrived.

Now another woman carried his child, wore my coat, and watched animals tear mine apart.

I pressed my forehead against the rough wood and cried without making a sound.

The tears did not make me weaker. They made breathing possible again.

Hours passed in fragments.

Claws. Wind. The burn in my arm. My own teeth striking together.

Sometime before dawn, engines moved along the outer road.

Men entered the preserve after handlers drove most of the wolves into the north run. One stayed near the feed shed, pacing the blood on the snow. Flashlights cut through gaps in the floorboards above me.

"Nothing by the south fence," a man called.

Another answered through a radio. "Mr. Bellandi wants proof. Camille says bring the ring if there's no body."

Camille was giving orders to Nolan's men while they searched for what was left of me.

She had my coat and my marriage bed. Now she wanted my ring as proof that there would be no wife left to object.

I looked at my wedding band.

Nolan had slid it onto my finger on the courthouse steps. His hands had still carried scars from the winter I saved him.

I pulled the ring free.

For a moment, I could not let it go.

Fourteen years lived inside that small circle. Morning coffee. Blood on my kitchen floor. His hand at the back of my neck when no one was looking. Every promise I had defended after he stopped deserving it.

The searchers came closer.

I wrapped the ring inside the bloodiest strip of my torn sleeve. When a flashlight moved away, I pushed the bundle through a drain opening into the wolf run.

The wolf left behind found the bundle first.

Fabric tore between its teeth.

"Over here," a guard shouted.

Boots crossed the frozen ground.

A guard hooked the shredded cloth through the drain with a pole. The ring flashed in his light.

The radio crackled.

"We found her band in the blood."

Silence answered.

Then Nolan's voice came through, low and controlled.

"Keep looking."

While they searched the bloody corner instead of the shed, I worked the drainage grate loose with the empty gun.

I crawled through the drainage channel beneath the feed shed and out beyond the outer fence. By the time the sky turned gray, I reached the county road.

My left arm had gone stiff. Cold moved through me in waves, followed by bursts of heat that frightened me more.

I stepped onto the road and nearly fell.

Headlights appeared through the snow.

For one weak second, hope struck before reason could stop it.

Nolan had come to take me home.

I hated myself for still knowing the shape of his headlights.

The black SUV stopped twenty yards away.

Nolan got out alone.

He wore the coat I had bought him for our tenth anniversary. No hat. No gloves. As if he had expected this conversation to happen indoors.

Two more vehicles waited behind him. Armed men remained inside.

Nolan looked at the blood on my sleeve and the empty revolver in my hand.

"You survived," he said.

There was relief in his face.

That hurt more than if he had smiled.

"Get in the car, Hollis."

I raised the empty gun.

He did not reach for his own weapon. He had heard the shot. He knew exactly what I held.

"Come back now," he said, "and Harbor Street stays open."

My clinic.

The people sleeping above it. The patients whose names Nolan knew because I had trusted him with them.

"Walk away from me," he continued, "and I start with everyone who helped you."

Snow settled on his shoulders while he waited.

The wolves had wanted my body.

My husband wanted my surrender.

I kept the empty barrel pointed at his heart.