Jackson Pearce - Cold Spell

“Enough,” a large female cop says, sighing under her breath. “Keep it up and we’ll charge you with resisting. That’s a lot more paperwork than I want to fill out. Don’t make me do it.”

“You bet your ass I’m res—”

“Shut up, Flannery!” I snap. She lifts her head, deflating a little when she sees me. The cops look over, raising their eyebrows.

“And you are?” the one leading Flannery asks.

“She’s my prisoner.” Flannery laughs. “I fought an army to win her.”

“Quiet,” I repeat. “I’m her friend. Sorry, she’s—”

“Under arrest,” a male officer finishes.

“For dining and dashing?” I ask in disbelief. “Can’t she do dishes or something?”

“For lifting the wallets off about twenty-three people in there,” the male officer corrects me.

“Oh, Flannery,” I groan.

“Easy pickings,” she says, lifting her chin at the cop defiantly.

“Seriously, shut up,” Lucas says firmly. Flannery opens her mouth to cuss at him, but I glare hard enough that it keeps her quiet. “Where are you taking her?”

“Wesley station. You can post bail for her there.”

“Got it,” Lucas says, then looks at Flannery. “Cooperate.”

“Who are you?” Flannery asks, sounding annoyed.

“He’s trying to help you. Just listen,” I say as they manhandle her toward the car. Something is sinking in me—they’ll book her, take her photo. Even if we get her out, her mother will know where to find her now, just like she was afraid of. I can see the fear in her eyes, a layer mostly hidden by anger.

The cop shuts the door, answers a radio call, and then climbs into the front seat. Lucas drops a hand on my shoulder as the car eases forward and turns down the road the snowplow just cleared.

“That’s your gypsy princess?”

I sigh. “That’s her.”

They’re holding Flannery for twenty-four hours and refuse to make an exception—primarily because she wouldn’t stop singing Shelta songs at the top of her lungs on the way to the station.

“She’ll be fine. We’ll pick her up tomorrow when they open,” Lucas tells me as I drop into the passenger seat of his car. It feels strange and low to the ground after riding in Wallace.

“I know,” I say. “I just… I shouldn’t have left her.”

“You can’t be responsible for everyone, you know,” he says, starting the car. I don’t answer.

Lucas books a hotel room on the edge of Lake Superior. I can’t see the island, given how dark it is, but I can feel it. That’s where she is—does she have a private boat to get there? Her own plane? I wonder how long they have, before she turns them to beasts—how long Kai will have.

I wonder if it hurts.

“How does she do it, do you think?” I ask Lucas absently as I sit in a chair by the window, knees drawn up to my chest.

“What?”

“Turn them into wolves. How does it work?”

“How does anything work?” Lucas says, shrugging. When I look unconvinced, he tries again. “There are some things in the world that defy explanation.” Lucas looks out toward the island. Every so often I think I can see its outline in the darkness, but it’s a trick—there is nothing but shadows outside at the moment. He clears his throat and speaks again.

“What are you expecting to happen on Thursday?”

“I… I guess I expect her to cause a blizzard or something and—”

“Not from Mora,” Lucas says. “From Kai.”

“I expect…”

I don’t know what to say, because I can’t quite separate what I expect from what I simply want. I want Kai to run to me. I want him to renounce Mora. I want us to get away and never think of her again.

But I expect it to be much harder than that.

“I expect him to be different,” I finally say softly. “He must be. Even if he hasn’t… changed. Do they ever change back, once they become wolves? I mean, permanently change back.”

“I…” Lucas extends the vowel for a long time, and I can tell he doesn’t want to say the truth. I look at him pleadingly, and he relents. “When someone becomes a Fenris, they aren’t really the person you knew anymore. It’s like… the monster lives in their body. Uses their voice and their eyes. But if he’s changed, it won’t be him. Not really.”

“What if it’s different with her? I mean, you didn’t even know she existed. The wolves with her look different—” My voice sounds whiny, childlike.

“Maybe,” Lucas says, holding up his hands. “Maybe. But you have to remember that they’re very, very good at what they do. The wolves will manipulate you. They’ll play to your emotions, make you vulnerable. And then they’ll kill you.” His voice is gentle when he says this, but it does little to soften the blow. “So if he’s changed, Ginny, but you think the boy you knew is still in there somewhere…”

“I’ll be wrong,” I finish for him.

“You’ll be taking a risk I wouldn’t take,” Lucas corrects. “So the real question, I guess, is… if he’s changed, do you want him alive as a monster?”

“ He wouldn’t want that,” I say. “I know he wouldn’t.” Kai—the real Kai, not the one Mora has created—wants to be a musician. He wants to live in tiny apartments and take trips to foreign villas and drink coffee in shops tucked away from the masses. He wants to make the world more beautiful, and he wants to do it with me.

He doesn’t want to be a monster, and I love him too much to let that happen, even if it means I have to live without him forever. That’s what the loudest voice in my head is saying; a cool, collected voice, one I know I should listen to. But there’s another voice, a softer one, that’s crying in the back of my mind. Maybe he’ll be fine. Maybe he won’t have changed. Maybe it’ll all be okay.

Please, please let it all be okay.

Lucas looks so grim that I have to avoid his eyes; I look out the window at the darkness as he speaks. “I was never much of a hunter. I mean, if you need me to… I’ll try. But if you’re waiting till he gets close enough for you to be sure, it might be too late to do anything.”

“I know,” I say, though I’m not sure I really knew until this moment: Kai might kill me.

No. Not Kai. The monster, the monster who killed Kai might kill me, too. The monster Mora created, controls.

“I’ve got a knife,” I say weakly. “Flannery taught me how to use it.”

“ Will you use it?”

I swallow. I can’t answer.

“All right,” Lucas says, exhaling loudly. “I’ve been driving all day—I’ve got to get some sleep. You should, too.”

“I will,” I say. “I just can’t. Not yet. Will I keep you up?”

“No,” he says. “You’re fine. Let me know if you need anything.”

“You’ve done more than enough.”

“Well. Still,” he says, and smiles. He walks to the bed on the far side of the room and yanks the spread back, then buries himself in the blankets. It isn’t long until his breathing becomes rhythmic and slow. I reach to the side and flick the lamp off; the room vanishes into complete darkness for a few moments until my eyes slowly adjust. There’s a glow outside, the smallest bit of moon combining with a few streetlights. I can see the red light where the hotel’s dock ends, but I don’t know where the horizon is. Everything in front of me is black. Black and cold, as far as the eye can see.

Sometimes, when my mom’s work schedule meant she came in late and left early, Kai would spend the night at my house. It was an accident the first time—he fell asleep while we were doing homework and we didn’t wake up till six o’clock the next morning. It even started as an accident the second time. He was frustrated with Grandma Dalia for embarrassing him at the store—shouting at the produce manager when he didn’t know what St. John’s wort was.