Shiver

Grace pulled the blankets up over us and we kicked off our clothes beneath them. As we pressed our bodies against each other, I shrugged off my skin with a growl, giving in, neither wolf nor man, just Sam.

CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE • GRACE

30°F

The phone was ringing. That was the first thing I thought. The second thing I thought was that Sam’s bare arm was lying across my chest. The third thing was that my face was cold where it was sticking out from under the blankets. I blinked, trying to wake up, strangely disoriented in my own room. It took me a moment to realize that my alarm clock’s normally glowing face was dark and that the only lights in the room were coming from the moon outside the window and the face of the ringing cell phone.

I snaked a hand out into the air to retrieve it, careful not to disturb Sam’s arm on me; the phone was silent by the time I got to it. God, it was freezing in here. The power must’ve gone down with the ice storm the forecasters had promised. I wondered how long it would be down and if I’d have to worry about Sam getting too cold. I carefully peeled back the covers and found him curled against me, head buried against my side, only the pale, na**d curve of his shoulders visible in the dim light.

I kept waiting for this to feel wrong, his body pressed up against mine, but I just felt so alive that my heart hammered with the thrill of it. This, Sam and me, this was my real life. The life where I went to school and waited up for my parents and listened to Rachel vent about her siblings—that felt like a pale dream in comparison. Those were just things I had done while waiting for Sam. Outside, distant and mournful, wolves began to howl, and a few seconds later, the phone rang again, notes stepping down the scale, a strange, digital echo of the wolves.

I didn’t realize my mistake until I held it to my ear.

“Sam.” The voice at the other end was unfamiliar. Stupid me. I had taken Sam’s phone from the nightstand, not mine. I debated for two seconds how to respond. I contemplated snapping the phone shut, but I couldn’t do that.

“No,” I replied. “Not Sam.”

The voice was pleasant, but I heard an edge beneath his words. “I’m sorry. I must’ve dialed wrong.”

“No,” I said, before he could hang up. “This is Sam’s phone.”

There was a long, heavy pause, and then: “Oh.” Another pause. “You’re the girl, aren’t you? The girl who was in my house?”

I tried to think of what I might gain by denying it and drew a blank. “Yes.”

“Do you have a name?”

“Do you?”

He gave a short laugh that was completely without humor but not unpleasant. “I think I like you. I’m Beck.”

“That makes sense.” I turned my face away from Sam, who was still breathing heavily, my voice muffled by his arms over his head. “What did you do to piss him off?”

Again the short laugh. “He’s still angry with me?”

I considered how to answer. “Not now. He’s sleeping. Can I give him a message?” I stared at Beck’s number on the phone, trying to remember it.

There was another long pause, so long that I thought Beck had hung up, and then he breathed out audibly. “One of his…friends has been hurt. Do you think you could wake him?”

One of the other wolves. It had to be. I ducked down into the covers. “Oh—of course. Of course I will.”

I put the phone down and gently moved Sam’s arm so that I could see his ear and the side of his face. “Sam, wake up. Phone. It’s important.”

He turned his head so that I could see that his yellow eye was already open. “Put it on speaker.”

I did, resting it on my belly so that the camera’s face lit a small blue circle on my tank top.

“What’s going on?” Sam slid up onto one elbow, made a face when he felt the cold, and jerked the blankets up around us, making a tent around the phone.

“Someone attacked Paul. He’s a mess, ripped to shreds.”

Sam’s mouth made a little o. I don’t think he was thinking about what his face looked like—his eyes were far away, with his pack. Finally, he said, “Could you—have you—is he still bleeding? Was he human?”

“Human. I tried to ask him who did it—so I could kill them. I thought…Sam, I really thought I was going to be calling you to tell you he died. It was that bad. But I think it’s closing up now. But the thing is, it was all these little bites, all over, on his neck and on his wrists and his belly, it was as if—”

“—as if someone knew how to kill him,” Sam finished.

“It was a wolf who did it,” Beck said. “We got that much out of him.”

“One of your new ones?” Sam snarled, with surprising force.

“Sam.”

“Could it have been?”

“Sam. No. They’re inside.”

Sam’s body was still tense beside me, and I mulled over possible meanings for that phrase: One of your new ones. Was Jack not the only new one?

“Will you come?” Beck asked. “Can you? Is it too cold?”

“I don’t know.” I knew from the twist of Sam’s mouth that he was only answering the first question. Whatever it was that had distanced him from Beck, it was powerful.

Beck’s voice changed, softer, younger, more vulnerable. “Please don’t be angry with me still, Sam. I can’t stand it.”

Sam turned his face away from the phone.

“Sam,” Beck said softly.

I felt Sam shudder next to me, and he closed his eyes.

“Are you still there?”

I looked at Sam, but he still didn’t speak. I couldn’t help it—I felt sorry for Beck. “I am,” I said.

There was a long pause, completely devoid of static or crackling, and I thought Beck had hung up. But then he asked, in a careful way, “How much do you know about Sam, girl-without-a-name?”

“Everything.”

Pause. Then: “I’d like to meet you.”

Sam reached out and snapped the phone shut. The light of the display vanished, leaving us in the dark beneath the covers.

CHAPTER FORTY-SIX • GRACE

45°F

My parents didn’t even know. The morning after Sam and I—spent the night together, it seemed like the biggest thing on my mind was that my parents had no idea. I guessed that was normal. I guessed feeling a little guilty was normal. I guessed feeling giddy was normal. It was as if I had thought all along I was a complete picture, and Sam had revealed that I was a puzzle, and had taken me apart into pieces and put me back together again. I was acutely aware of each distinct emotion, all fitting together tightly.