Shiver

I didn’t say anything, and Beck leaned his forehead into his hand again. His voice was centuries old. I didn’t say anything, but he groaned. “God, I know, Grace. I know. But you know the stupid thing? I actually like who I am. I mean, not at first. It was a curse. But it came to be like someone who loves summer and winter. Does that make sense? I knew that eventually I’d lose myself, but I came to terms with that a long time ago. I thought Sam would get over it, too.”

I found the mugs in a little cubby above the coffeemaker and pulled two of them out. “But he didn’t. Milk?”

“A little. Not too much.” He sighed. “It’s hell for him. I made a personal hell for him. He needs that sort of self-awareness to feel alive, and when he loses that and becomes a wolf…it’s hell. He is absolutely the best person I’ve ever met in the world, and I absolutely ruined him. I have regretted it every day for years.”

He might’ve deserved it, but I couldn’t let him get any lower. I brought him a mug and sat back down. “He loves you, Beck. He may hate being a wolf, but he loves you. And I have to tell you, it’s killing me to sit here with you, because everything about you reminds me of him. If you admire him, it’s because you made him who he is.”

Beck looked strangely vulnerable then, his hands wrapped around the coffee mug, looking at me through the steam above it. He was silent for a long moment, and then he said, “The regret will be one of the things I’ll be glad to lose.”

I frowned at him. Sipped the coffee. “Will you forget everything?”

“You don’t forget anything. You just see it differently. Through a wolf’s brain. Some things become completely unimportant when you’re a wolf. Other things are emotions wolves just don’t feel. We lose those. But the most important things—we can hold on to those. Most of us.”

Like love. I thought of Sam watching me, before we had met as humans, and me watching back. Falling in love, as impossible as it should’ve been. My gut squeezed, horribly, and for a moment, I couldn’t speak.

“You were bitten,” Beck said. I’d heard this before, this question without a question mark.

I nodded. “A little more than six years ago.”

“But you never changed.”

I related the story of getting locked in the car, and then explained the theory of a possible cure Isabel and I had developed. Beck sat quietly for a long moment, rubbing a small circle in the side of his mug with one of his fingers, staring blankly at the books on the wall.

Finally, he nodded. “It might work. I can see how it might work. But I think you’d have to be human when you got infected for it to work.”

“That’s what Sam said. He said he thought if you were killing the wolf, you shouldn’t be a wolf when you were infected.”

Beck’s eyes were still unfocused as he thought. “God, but it’s risky. You couldn’t treat the meningitis until after you were sure the fever had killed the wolf. Bacterial meningitis has an incredible fatality rate, even if you catch it early and treat it from the beginning.”

“Sam told me he’d risk dying for the cure. Do you think he meant it?”

“Absolutely,” Beck said, without hesitation. “But he’s a wolf. And likely to stay that way for the rest of his life.”

I dropped my eyes to my half-empty mug, noticing the way the liquid changed color just at the very edges of the rim. “I was thinking we could bring him to the clinic, just to see if he’d change in the heat of the building.”

There was a pause, but I didn’t look up to see what expression Beck wore during it. He said gently, “Grace.”

I swallowed, still looking at the coffee. “I know.”

“I’ve watched wolves for twenty-odd years. It’s predictable. We get to the end…and it’s the end.”

I felt like a stubborn child. “But he changed this year when he shouldn’t have, right? When he was shot, he made himself human.”

Beck took a long drink of coffee. I heard his fingers tapping the side of the mug. “And to save you. He made himself human to save you. I don’t know how he did it. Or why. But he did. I always thought it must have had something to do with adrenaline, tricking the body into thinking it was warm. I know he’s tried to do it other times, too, but he never managed it.”

I closed my eyes and let myself imagine Sam carrying me. I could almost see it, smell it, feel it.

“Hell.” Beck didn’t say anything else for a long time. Then, again: “Hell. It’s what he would want. He’d want to try.” He drained his coffee. “I’ll help you. What were you thinking? Drugging him for the trip?”

I had been thinking about it, in fact, ever since Isabel had called. “I think we’ll have to, right? He won’t stand it otherwise.”

“Benadryl,” Beck said, matter-of-fact. “I’ve got some upstairs. It’ll make him groggy and put him enough out of it that he won’t go crazy in the car.”

“The only thing I couldn’t work out was how to get him here. I haven’t seen him since the accident.” I was cautious with my words. I couldn’t let myself get hopeful. I just couldn’t.

Beck’s voice was certain. “I can do it. I’ll get him. I’ll make him come. We’ll put the Benadryl in some hamburger or something.” He stood up and took my coffee mug from me. “I like you, Grace. I wish Sam could’ve had—”

He stopped, put his hand on my shoulder. His voice was so kind I thought I would cry. “It might work, Grace. It might work.”

I could see that he didn’t believe, but I saw, too, that he wanted to. For right now, that was enough.

CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE • GRACE

38°F

A thin layer of snow dusted the ground as Beck walked into the backyard, his shoulders dark and square underneath his sweater. Inside, Isabel and Olivia stood with me by the glass door, ready to help, but I felt like I was alone, watching Beck slowly walk out into his last day as a human. One of his hands held a gob of red, raw meat laced with Benadryl, and the other shook uncontrollably.

A dozen yards from the house, Beck halted, dropped the meat to the ground, and then walked several paces toward the woods. For a moment he stood there, his head cocked in a way that I recognized. Listening.

“What is he doing?” Isabel demanded, but I didn’t answer.

Beck cupped his hands around his mouth, and even inside, I could hear him clearly.