Something About Harry(62)

Marty gave her a squeeze, rubbing Nina’s arm. “It is, but Carl’s dead, honey. I don’t think he can feel it. Much like you can’t.”

Nina made a face, kicking stray limbs out of her way in anger. “Have you seen his damn arms and legs, dude? They’re stiff as shit from rigor mortis. The cold can’t help that. What if he’s just out here, wandering around all alone? He doesn’t know his way. He can’t even talk, for fuck’s sake. And who the fuck’s gonna talk to him anyway? He’s dead. Like scary dead.”

“Which only makes him that much harder to sniff out.” Marty remarked what they’d all forgotten earlier. If Carl was dead, he was almost impossible to smell. He didn’t have the stench a rotting body should have due to the baths Nina insisted he take.

“I ain’t nevah gonna forgive myself, Nina. I’m damn well sorry,” Darnell said, letting his head hang low. “I don’t know what happened to me. One minute we was watchin’ Walter make crystal meth on Breaking Bad, the next, I woke up and found Carl gone. Swear I don’t know what happened.”

Mara reached around the enormous demon and gave him a hug, patting his shoulders. “Carl’s hard to keep track of. We know you’d never let anything happen to him intentionally, Darnell. We’ll find him, I know it.”

Mara’s conviction, her determination, settled deep in his bones. Harry watched these people from beneath the brim of his knitted hat, people he barely knew, band together to find Carl, and he found himself full of yet more wonder.

No matter the situation, no matter the time of day or night, they were always there for each other. Always. Everything stopped when one of them needed the other.

And then there was Mara—one of the first to insist they all scour the area. She was warm, soft, compassionate, gentle, fiercely protective of her family and friends.

And he wanted her almost more than he had earlier.

Making love with her had been mind-blowing. But it wasn’t just some of the most incredible sex he’d ever had, or the fact that he’d experienced it on a hormonal high. It was afterward, when she’d sat atop him, the mixture of strong and shy, confident and vulnerable as she gazed at him with a smile that made his gut twist and ache.

Shit. Shit. Shit.

He didn’t want this. He didn’t want to want her. Not given the fact that if he found a way out of this, nothing between them could ever work. She was dead set on believing it was some kind of insult not to want in on the way of the werewolf. She’d resent his choices. He’d only end up stomping all over her lycanthropic sensibilities like the clod he was.

Yet, the idea he’d never experience Mara again, left him empty. Not the kind of empty he felt when Brigitte had broken it off with him, or for that matter, the kind of empty his bank account had felt. Not the “Damn, it sucks to eat alone” kind of empty. It was the “I don’t want to think about a day when I don’t see your face” kind of empty.

Shit, shit, shit.

Harry stopped dead in his thoughts, cocking his ear. While the women fretted out loud over Carl’s disappearance, he listened.

To everything. Caught up, now he couldn’t stop the noises. Leaves rustling, crisp and rubbing against one another in the freezing cold wind. He heard the foliage, deeply imbedded in the soil, most of it dormant now in winter, resting until spring.

He felt the pulse of everyone’s anxiety, heard snowflakes gather and fall in swirling patches. Felt the vibration of forest animals, their blood coursing through their veins, their small hearts pounding out steady beats.

It was like seeing sounds. And it was madness. He put his hands up to block the stimuli, shaking his head as though it would knock the noise out of his brain.

But then he remembered what Mara said. Focus on your subject, force the everyday sounds of life, conversations and such, out.

Harry squared his shoulders and focused so hard he broke into a cold sweat. Clammy chills chased up and down his spine, but he managed to block out Nina’s anxious worry, Marty’s need to soothe and pacify her, Mara’s muttered worry, Darnell’s huffing body as he lumbered over fallen logs.

Because there was one he heard above all else.

Carl. That was Carl’s moan, a stilted grunt, a low whimper of fear.

And it was close. So close, it became all Harry heard.

Carl was terrified. He smelled it, almost tasted it, and it was nearly more than Harry could bear. Helpless, alone in the dark, Carl’s pitiful snuffle grew weaker. He was giving up hope anyone would find him, jarring Harry into action.

Harry began to run, jumping over a fallen tree, knowing it was there before his eyes even saw it. His running turned into a gallop—a blurring gallop of colors and sounds, swooshing past his sharp eyes. His ears twitched, burned, ached with the strain to hear Carl.