Forever

Sam’s hands were limp at his sides. Grace was looking at me, her face furious.

But I was looking at Beck.

Beck.

I had pulled him out of that wolf.

I walked my fingers across the wall until I found the light switch at the base of the stairs. As yellow light pooled in the basement, illuminating the bookshelves that lined the walls, he jerked to cover his eyes with his arm. His skin was still twitching and crawling, as if it wasn’t sure it wanted to remain in its current form. With all of the space heaters humming down here, the temperature was suffocating. The heat was pushing me so firmly into my human skin that I couldn’t imagine being anything else. If this inferno didn’t keep him human, nothing would.

Sam silently climbed the stairs to shut the basement door to eliminate any drafts.

“You are really lucky that didn’t turn out badly,” Grace said, her voice low, for me alone.

I raised an eyebrow at her and then looked back to Beck. “Hey,” I said to him, “once you’re done with all that, I have clothing for you. You can thank me later.”

The man made a soft sound as he exhaled and shifted positions, the sort of sound someone makes without thinking when they’re in pain. He pushed his upper body off the ground in a move that seemed more wolf than man, and finally, he looked at me.

It was months ago, and I was lying in the body I’d ruined.

There is another way out of all this, he had said. I can get you out of this world. I can make you disappear. I can fix you.

After all this time — it felt like years since he had injected me with the werewolf toxin — here he was again. It was a pretty damn perfect piece of circularity: The man who’d made me a werewolf was the wolf that I’d made into a man.

It was clear from his eyes, though, that his mind was still far, far away. He had pulled himself into an odd, animal position somewhere between sitting and crouching, and he regarded me warily. His hands were shaking. I didn’t know if that was from the change or from me sticking him.

“Tell me when you recognize me,” I said to him. I got the sweatpants and sweatshirt from the chair I’d left them on, never quite turning my back to him.

I balled the fabric and tossed it in Beck’s direction. The clothing swuffed gently to the ground in front of him, but he didn’t pay attention to it. His eyes glanced from me to the bookshelves behind me to the ceiling. I could actually see the expression in them transition, ever so slowly, from escape to recognition as he rebooted as Beck, the man, instead of Beck, the wolf.

Finally, he jerkily pulled on the sweatpants and faced me. He left the sweatshirt lying on the floor. “How did you do this?” He looked away from me, as if he didn’t expect me to have the answer, and instead looked at his hands, his fingers spread wide. He studied both sides of them, backs and then palms, his eyebrows drawn together. It was such a strange, intimate gesture that I glanced away. It reminded me of our funeral for Victor for some reason.

“Cole,” he said, and his voice was thick and gravelly. He cleared his throat, and his voice was a little better the second try. “How did you do this?”

“Adrenaline.” It was the simplest answer. “And some of adrenaline’s friends.”

“How did you know it would work?” Beck asked, and then, before I had a chance to reply, he answered himself. “You didn’t. I was the experiment.”

I didn’t reply.

“Did you know it was me?”

No point lying. I nodded.

Beck looked up. “I’d rather that you had known. There are wolves that should stay wolves in those woods.” He suddenly seemed to realize that Grace was standing opposite from me. “Grace,” he said. “Sam — did it work? Is he—?”

“It worked,” Grace said softly. Her arms were crossed tightly in front of her. “He’s human. He hasn’t shifted back since then.”

Beck closed his eyes and tipped his head back, his shoulders collapsing. I watched him swallow. It was na**d relief, and it was sort of hard to watch. “Is he here?”

Grace looked at me.

I heard Sam’s voice from the stairs, sounding like nothing I’d ever heard from him.

“I’m here.”

SAM

Beck.

I couldn’t keep my thoughts together. They scattered down the stairs, across the floor.
he is a hand on my shoulder car tires hissing on wet pavement
    his voice narrates my childhood the smell of the forest on my suburban street
my handwriting looks like his wolves
    he shouts across the house, sam, homework snow pressed against my skin
hold on, he said. don’t be afraid. you’re still sam my skin rips open
my new desk for all my books I
my hands sweaty on the steering wheel of his car never
endless evenings, all the same, standing by the grill wanted
    you’re the best of us, Sam this

CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

GRACE

My first thought was that Sam needed to talk to Beck, to sort out all of the conflicted emotions in him, and my second thought was that Cole needed to talk to Beck about the various scientific concepts he’d tried out on himself, but my third thought was that I seemed to be the only one remembering exactly the reason why we absolutely needed to talk to Geoffrey Beck.

“Beck,” I said, feeling a little weird addressing him, but neither of the boys were, so what else was there for it, “I’m so sorry that we have to ask you questions when you feel like this.”

It was clear that he was suffering; Cole had made him human, but only barely. There was a scent and energy to the room that was wolfish still; if I’d closed my eyes and used my hidden senses to focus on Beck, I doubted I would’ve pictured him as human.

“Do it,” Beck said. His gaze jerked to Cole, to Sam, and then back to me.

“Tom Culpeper got an aerial hunt approved. In a week.” I waited for that to sink in, to see if I had to explain more what that meant.

Beck said softly, “Shit.”

I nodded. “We were thinking that we could move the pack. We need to know how.”

“My journal …” Beck, inexplicably, pressed one of his hands over his shoulder for a moment, holding it. He released it. It was harder, I thought, to watch someone in pain than to be in it yourself.

“I read it,” Cole replied. He stepped closer. He seemed less distressed than me by Beck’s discomfort; maybe he was more used to seeing people hurting. “You said Hannah led them out. How? How did she keep the destination in her head?”