Page 28 of The Alpha Dire Wolf (Bloodlines & Bloodbonds #1)

Sylvie

A s I turned the car onto Main Street, my fingers clamped down on the steering wheel hard, the prickle of unseen nails along my spine digging in with abrupt force.

Charlene, sitting in the passenger seat, glanced over at me. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine, yeah, why?” I asked, trying to blow her question off.

The warning wasn’t at immediate danger levels yet, but the closer I’d gotten to the center of New Lockwood, the worse it got.

I was looking around left and right for danger, wondering just what my instinct was trying to warn me about, while also working to discover a way to cut the trip short that wouldn’t be overly strange.

The sensation had started the instant I got in the car, and after picking up Charlene, it had only gotten worse block by block.

I shouldn’t be going into town. That’s what it’s trying to tell me. Turn around.

“Because it looked like you were in some sort of pain. You even hissed a bit,” Charlene said, right as another wave turned the nails into spikes. “See! Like that! You should pull over.”

“I’m fine,” I said, waving it off. “It was just a shiver, caught me by surprise. That’s all.”

I trusted Charlene to a degree, and as a ten-year-old had trusted her fully, but that wasn’t the same thing as being able to fully confide everything in her.

If I told her about my “danger sense,” she would probably think I was nuts.

Which was definitely not something I wanted right then.

It was nice getting back in touch with her.

After the death of my grandmother and loss of relationship, I was more than a bit lonely. Any friend was a good friend right about now, at least while I was still in New Lockwood.

“If you say so.” Charlene didn’t sound fully convinced, but she didn’t push harder.

I drove on, my head on a swivel, looking left and right for whatever was out there. Long ago, I had learned to trust my intuition, and just then it was on the verge of going off like an air-raid siren at full blast.

The problem was, even as I slowed slightly to test it, adjusting speed didn’t change anything.

I had no way of knowing if the problem was coming up behind me or waiting up ahead.

All I knew was that out there, danger lurked.

Stopping the car might fix it, or it might make everything a thousand times worse.

So instead, I kept watching, my nerves twitching, ready to react to anything.

The road itself was nearly empty as we approached the bridge over the Dyne River that marked the entrance to town. The only vehicle was an old farm pickup way in the distance.

I glanced up, eyeing the sky for danger.

One time back in college, I had visited a friend in the Midwest, and my warning sense had been able to give us an extra thirty seconds of notice of an incoming tornado.

But the skies were clear and blue, no imminent threat visible there. It was a perfect day.

Too perfect.

Uneasily, I lifted my foot off the gas. The car slowed. I caressed the brake pedal ever so slightly, almost without thinking, trying to figure out what the danger was.

A second later a huge red pickup truck came screaming out from behind the building on my right, cutting across our path. I screamed. Charlene screamed. The car shrieked a collision warning, and my foot jammed down onto the brake pedal so hard I could have broken it.

The heavily tinted truck’s engine roared, the sound louder than the squealing of the brakes and the shrieking of both my car’s occupants as we slid across the road. Rubber shrieked in protest as we started to spin, leaving black marks behind us and filling the air with the unmistakable acrid smell.

Then suddenly we slid freely, the tires finding a slick spot, and we picked up speed once more.

Renewed screams filled the interior of the car as we whipped across oncoming traffic, going up and over the curb with a horrendous jolt that sent all the lose junk flying everywhere.

The car slammed down, nose over the steep embankment, filling the windshield view with nothing but the deep, fast-moving waters of the Dyne River far below.

All that stood between us and a watery plunge was the walking path and a flimsy metal railing that wouldn’t stop my car if we went over the side.

Charlene and I both froze, neither one risking a single movement as we both silently willed the car to stay put. The screams were gone. The deafening roar of the red truck’s engine had disappeared into the distance, fleeing the scene of the near T-bone collision.

All that was left was a gentle creaking. For a moment, I feared the worst. We would go over the side, the car wouldn’t stop, and we would plunge into the river and drown. But my spine was calm. No hairs were lifted on my neck.

The danger had passed.

I don’t know who started it. But one of us let out a tiny giggle. A hysterical giggle. And then we both started laughing wildly as the adrenaline finally bubbled over. The laughter quickly turned to tears again as our shoulders heaved and our stomachs ached.

A vehicle approached, and a moment later a door slammed.

“Are you ladies okay?”

I craned my head around to see the driver of the farm pickup hurrying to us. The thick-waisted elderly man with a beard as gray as the flannel of his shirt wore a look of extreme concern.

“We’re okay!” I called through another batch of laughing tears. “We’re okay.”

“Oh, thank goodness,” he said, slowing his run with a look of relief. He waddled right up to my window and peered inside. “Ma’ams. You young ladies sure you’re okay?”

“Right as rain,” Charlene said, letting out a big sigh.

“Mmmm.” The farmer looked back across the intersection.

“I saws the whole thing. Blasted kids and their giant pickups. No need for such huge things. Killing machines, they is. Probably didn’t even see you.

Just racing off to wherever, uncaring of everyone around them.

How unlucky that you hit that oil patch in the middle of the road there right when it came along. ”

“Yeah. Very unlucky,” I said, thinking back to my arrival in town, when a red pickup had cut me off the road then too.

Once was a coincidence, but twice? My warning sense had gone off long before the truck appeared. Had this been on purpose? Was someone trying to kill me?

“We’d have been far more unlucky if Sylvie here didn’t possess a sixth sense,” Charlene said, patting my arm. “You braked right before that truck cut us off. If you hadn’t …”

I smiled awkwardly, trying to play it off as casual. “Maybe my subconscious saw the oil spill or thought I was going too fast. I don’t know, but I’ll take it. That’s for sure!”

“Me too,” Charlene agreed with a smile. Her eyes lingered on me for a second.

Did she know? How could she? I had been very careful to conceal my talent. Did she think I was a freak now?

“I’ll call you a tow,” the farmer said. “Get you out of here.”

I looked around. The situation wasn’t as dire as it had seemed in the moment.

“Do I need it?” I asked. The engine was still running. “I might be able to back up onto the road.”

“You took quite a jolt when you went up over the curb,” the farmer pointed out.

“I know.” I didn’t have a lot of money. “If I can drive it there, though, it’ll save me a tow.”

“True.”

The farmer backed up, and after tearing up a bit of grass, I turned the wheel and one of them caught on the curb. The car bounced hard again as it came back down onto the asphalt, but all in all, it still worked.

“You should really take it to a mechanic. I know a good guy, Mike, he’s got a little shop over on Elm.”

“I know the place,” Charlene said. “I can show her where it is.”

“Don’t put it off. You might do more damage if you wait,” he admonished.

“I promise, I will,” I said with a smile.

“And you’re sure both of you young ladies are okay?” His gray-green eyes were heavy with concern. “That was quite the scare.”

“We’re tougher than we look,” Charlene said with a big wink.

The farmer smiled and waved us a good day as I reversed the car across the intersection, unblocking it for the two other vehicles that had come along since, both occupants looking at us curiously as they went past.

“I don’t know about you,” I said once I was parked alongside the curb. “But I need some wine with those groceries now. Maybe a tub of ice cream.”

Charlene nodded. “Girl, I’m getting whatever you’re getting. We’re in this shit together!”

I smiled and put the car in gear, carefully ignoring the slight grinding noise as it shifted into first. I was really happy to be reconnecting with Charlene, an unexpected gift from a trip that had started out so badly.

Later that night, I sat in the recliner chair of the living room, mindless reality TV blabbering away in the background.

The glass of wine to the left of me had but drops.

The bowl in my lap contained only the half-melted remains of the chocolate caramel crunch ice cream that had been calling my name since it made its way into my cart.

A tissue was clasped in my right hand, damp with the few remaining tears I’d shed after finally having a letdown from the accident. My eyes were half-closed, breathing slow and on the verge of lulling me into sleep. I was finally relaxed and ready to—

I jerked upright, fingernails digging into the fabric as the bowl toppled over when my spine arched outward with frantic warning.

Screech.

Thud!

It all happened in the span of a second or two. Tires on the street. A car door opening and then a tremendous shake as something heavy slammed into the front door.

Screaming, I dove for the kitchen. I needed a weapon. Any weapon. A knife would do.

Halfway there, I saw the bag from the surplus store and scrambled for it. My fingers closed around the handle of the blade I’d purchased. A second later, I dug for the bear spray and then ducked down behind the counter, trying to stem the shaking.

That was when I saw the sheath was still on the blade. I ripped it off, the silver blade gleaming in the light, sharp and deadly. I was as ready as I could be if someone tried to break in.

But all that followed was silence. Empty silence, except for the host of the television show I’d been watching as he cast off one of the contestants. My spine was relaxed now, the danger warning fading swiftly into the darkness outside.

Slowly, carefully, I edged around the corner of the countertop, paying excruciatingly close attention to any sort of pinprick on my spine. Anything that would warn me the situation was changing again. Nothing happened.

Creeping forward, I came within a stride of the front door. It was still in place. Unbroken. Something had hit it and now waited on the other side. Moving to the side, I eased my head up cautiously at an angle until I could just barely see over the sill to the curb outside.

Empty.

Still tentative, I unlocked the door and grasped the handle, listening closing to my inner voice. It was silent.

Pulling open the heavy metal and wood door, I instantly spied the culprit. A giant rock was on the front porch, paint from the door marking where it had hit and scraped free. Something had been tied to it with heavy twine.

Setting the knife and spray down—but not out of quick reach—I turned the rock over to see a piece of paper attached like a scroll. Undoing it, I was greeted with giant blocky letters that read “LEAVE. NOW.” scrawled on it in red.

Below—in much smaller and harder to read handwriting—was an accusation that I had brought evil to the town. That I was responsible for the animals in downtown.

“Damn,” I hissed, thinking back to the town hall and Lincoln’s exact words stirring up this sentiment. Had he known they would target me?

Nervous about the ominous warning on the porch, I went back inside and locked the door. Then, after a second’s thought, I pulled a heavy sitting chair from the nearby room and put it against the door to block it.

Standing back to admire my handiwork, I was struck once again by how empty the house was. Empty, except for me. On my own.

All at once, I didn’t want to be alone. I wanted company. Reaching for my phone, I clicked on one of my more recent messages. From an unsaved number, but I didn’t need that to know who it was. The single message read only “hi.”

I stared at it for a few seconds and then hit Call. It started to ring.