“Shh…” I glanced around us. My dad had spread some BS story about Valerie getting caught with a knife as she tried to attack me, Brent, and Rafe. Sure, it was partially true. Valerie’s knife had been at the scene, but she hadn’t been slicing folks apart with that weapon.
When she’d attacked Sissy, the hikers, and even Granny Helen, she’d used her claws.
But now the friendly folks of Haven thought their would-be homecoming queen had been a psycho, one with a fondness for knives, and one who’d been killed before she could take out her ex-boyfriend in a jealous rage.
Some folks would believe anything.
“You saved lives,” Jenny whispered, nodding her head vigorously. “They don’t know it.” She jerked her thumb to the folks walking by in the hall. Laughing. Talking. “But I do.”
You’re no savior. Valerie’s voice wouldn’t leave me. You’re just as much of a monster as I am.
I glanced down at my nails. Nails, not claws. I was sure I’d imagined the change that night. I wasn’t a wolf.
Neither was my mom.
No matter what some crazy psycho wolf had said.
***
Brent was waiting for me at lunch. Tall, blond, the perfect All-American guy, with a very wild side.
To make room for me at the table, he scooted over, shoving Troy. I felt all the eyes on me as I sat down and grabbed for my drink.
“You missed the service,” Troy said.
I was pretty sure I saw Brent elbow him in the ribs.
“Um, but it’s okay because…” Troy floundered. Jenny sat across the table, glaring at him. Definitely trouble in paradise. Troy cleared his throat. “It’s okay because…you’re probably glad you missed it,” he finished in a rush.
“No.” I put my drink down. On this, I was sure. “I would have liked to say good-bye.”
Troy looked at me like I was the crazy one.
Maybe I was.
I couldn’t help but wonder what would Valerie have been like, if she hadn’t been a wolf? If she’d been someone else?
Someone like me.
Troy’s shoulders hunched as he eyed me. “I heard my dad talking to Mr. Knoxley at the service. The principal said that Valerie’s mom and your mom were cousins. Some kind of distant family or something, and to think that your own family tried to kill you—”
My appetite died. “What?”
Troy blinked.
“Man, you need to drop this conversation,” came from another of the jocks at the far end of the table. A more sensitive guy, obviously.
But I wasn’t about to let anything drop. “How does Mr. Knoxley know anything about my mom?”
Troy’s Adam’s apple bobbed. “Lots of folks knew your mom. She was a cheerleader, even homecoming queen, back in the day. Just like—”
Valerie.
Oh, no. No. I jumped up.
“Anna!” Brent’s tight voice.
I hurried past the crowd and pushed my way inside the main building. My sneakers slapped against the linoleum floor. I turned a fast right, then a left—then I was in front of the wide trophy case in the school’s foyer. The trophy case that I’d passed every day I came to school. Only I hadn’t bothered to actually look at the thing because I didn’t care about cheerleading and football.
I should have looked.
I scanned the photos now. Dozens of them. So many, but going back, back in time. The years slid past me.
Then my mom’s face stared back at me. Younger. Smoother. Smiling as she lifted her pom-poms high in the air.
Footsteps tapped behind me. My eyes lifted, and I saw his reflection in the glass.
Sometimes, you just couldn’t get away from the wolves.
“Mr. Knoxley.” I drew his name out on a sigh. “Is there something you want to tell me?” Because I’d seen his picture, too. A football player, number sixteen, standing close in the picture of my mom. His team, my dad’s old team, had been state champs that year. The golden trophy still gleamed as it sat next to that picture. Someone must polish the trophy regularly.
“You remind me of her.” His voice was soft with memories.
I glanced over my shoulder. “No.” I was absolute on this. He was wrong. Valerie was wrong. They were all wrong.
“I keep wondering how much you’re like her, and how much you’re like your father.”
This wasn’t happening. I licked my lips. “My mom—she went to see Granny Helen, she had power, she wasn’t—”
“She wanted to stop being a monster.” He turned away from me and began to shuffle down the hallway. “Sometimes, we all want to stop, but we just can’t. You can’t fight your nature.”
I shook my head and glanced up. Brent stood in the doorway. Watching me.