Page 85 of The Wolves of Forest Grove

Considering how fast the day seemed to pass from waking up to the end of the school day, to mowing down a quick dinner I didn’t taste, and picking up Layla and Viv and bringing them here, it was strange how now it felt like time was moving through a thick pile of sludge.

My wolf had become antsy to a point where I knew if someone looked at me the wrong way, I may have growled at them. And I was just done with the waiting.

I needed to get this over with. My anxiety, which had been at a tolerable minimum for a while, was ramping back up to high gear.

That awful fluttering behind my ribcage.

Spots in my vision. An erratic pulse that skittered and spurted and felt like it may very well stop dead at any second.

Oh yeah. It was coming if I didn’t calm the fuck down.

Soon I’d be shaking all over. Barfing my guts out.

That would be a shitty way to have my third shift—in the middle of a full-blown panic attack.

“Allie,” Clay growled against my ear. “Come here.”

I shook my head, gripping my plastic cup of spirits tighter in my hands. If I weren’t careful, I was going to wind up a full-blown alcoholic before I even turned eighteen.

Jared was chatting animatedly with Quinn while Layla looked into the bottom of her own cup, as though hoping it might hold a premonition of her future if she only looked hard enough into the amber liquid.

Vivian, on the other end of the spectrum, was smiling brightly as she and Destiny chatted on the other side of the fire. They both laughed, and Vivian blushed, casting her eyes away from Destiny. They landed briefly on me, and her smile grew tight until it vanished entirely. I frowned.

“Allie,” Clay growled again, and I whirled on him, a snarl forming in the back of my throat.

“What?”

“Would you just come here. You’re freaking out.”

Breathing heavily, I heaved a sigh, forcing the edgy claws of my wolf to retract.

Clay patted his lap, and I cast him one last glare, but sat down, letting his radiating warmth soak into my thighs.

I nearly moaned when he wrapped his arm around my waist, pulling me to him.

Spice and engine grease filled my nose and his sense of numb calm washed over me like warm summer rain.

It took barely a minute before the trembling in my fingertips stopped completely.

“There,” he said, his fingers brushing the bare slit of skin at my waist, making me tremble for an entirely different reason. “Better?”

I grumbled to myself but gave him a nod. “Yeah.”

“It’ll be over soon,” he said softly, and I let my gaze fall to his face. To those blue eyes. I let their steadiness calm me.

“Hey,” Layla said, and I broke the stare, clearing my throat and pushing Clay’s hand away from my waist to turn to her.

She wrung her hands in her long black sweater, sticking her fingers into the wide center pocket to draw something out. She held out the pill meant for Quinn to me and I snatched it quickly before anyone could see.

“What are you doing?”

She paled, her big doe eyes darting from me, to the ground, and back again. “I wanted to be the one to do it, but...” She paused, her throat thickening with tears. “I can’t.”

I lifted myself from Clay and pulled her hard against me, feeling her frailness beneath my arms as she shook. “I’ll do it,” I told her in a hush against her cheek. “It’s okay. You don’t have to.”

“Thank you,” she muttered into my shoulder and pulled away, sniffling as she tried to erase any evidence of her tears before Quinn could see. “Is there, like, a bathroom or something I can use. I should clean up before...”

She couldn’t finish.

“Yeah,” I told her, smacking Clay in the knee. “Clay will take you and I’ll...I’ll take care of Quinn, okay?”

Clay grumbled as he got to his feet, but didn’t argue, dutifully taking Layla to Charity’s cabin to use her composting toilet.

Not even the lure of a real flushing toilet could convince me to use Ryland’s bathroom ever again—much less allow my friends to go in there.

I shivered, thumbing the smooth curve of the capsule beneath the plastic in my palm.

Fuck. I really didn’t want to do this.

With my stomach roiling, I picked my way over to the keg and filled two red Solo cups with foamy beer.

Then, checking to make sure Quin was good and distracted as he chatted with Seth and Kyle, I cracked open the capsule and let the fine powder fall atop the white foam.

It took a minute to sink, and when it did, I swirled the plastic cup, making sure it was good and mixed.

We had to hope this would work fast. I’d been hoping Layla already had given it to him. It would be time soon. Really soon. I eyed the cup already in Quinn’s hand and rolled my shoulders back, swallowing past the hard lump in my throat.

You can do this.

I went over to the small group of guys and stumbled purposefully when I reached them, knocking my elbow into Quinn’s wrist to send his drink sprawling to the dirt.

“Shit, Allie,” he said with a laugh. “How wasted are you?”

Not even a little bit. “What? Me? Pfffft.” He laughed.

“Here,” I said, passing him the cup from my left hand. “Have this one. I was grabbing it for you anyway.”

Quinn narrowed his eyes at me for a second, and I just about shit myself, but then a creeping smile moved over his lips, and he took the cup. “Not trying to poison me, are you?”

I laughed, hoping he couldn’t tell how I was on the verge of being ill.

“Don’t worry,” I said, trying to hide my discomfort. “It’s the good kind.”

I winked and held out my cup for a salute.

He rose to the bait, knocking his cup into mine and lifting it to his lips.

I took a long swallow of my beer, and Quinn followed suit, a furrow forming in his brow as he brought the cup away from his mouth. His eyes went wide. “What did you…” he began, but trailed off, a muscle in his cheek twitching.

“Shit!” Seth cursed as Quinn’s eyes rolled back in his head and his body sagged to the ground. I tossed my beer in time to catch him before he could fall too hard, gritting my teeth.

“Fuck. You weren’t kidding,” Kyle said, his eyes wide with horror. “Why did you—”

“It’s how Layla wanted it. He’ll wake up if he shifts.

If he doesn’t…”

“…then he won’t have to ever know that he was chained up in a moon room with a bunch of wolves,” Seth finished for me.

I nodded.

“I mean. I get it, but that shit’s savage,” Kyle said, finishing off his drink and walking away.

I felt Seth watching me as I carried Quinn easily over to a camp chair and set him in it, making sure his head was tipped back so he could breathe unrestricted. “That worked fast,” Jared said, appearing behind me and just about earning himself a black eye.

“Whoa,” he said as I whirled, my wolf about to crest the surface. “Didn’t mean to freak you out.”

I settled myself with a staggered breath and slumped into the camp chair next to my unconscious friend. A quick glance around the fire told me that in the last few seconds everyone had somehow found out exactly what I’d done. Suddenly, I was really glad Layla had asked me to do it for her.

I wouldn’t have appreciated them looking at her how they were looking at me.

“I thought Layla was going to—”

“She couldn’t do it,” I snapped before I could get myself back under control. Jared’s jaw clenched, and he glanced up at the sky, taking in the ugly white face of the moon. Then he reached into his pocket and drew out his phone, the flare of the screen flashing over his face.

“I think it’s time,” he said, giving me one last look, studying the glow of my irises. “We should get you guys in there in case the shift is triggered early. It’s been known to happen.”

Judging by the tremble in my hands and the sudden ache in my muscles, I knew he was probably right.

“Clay went to take Layla to the bathroom,” I told Jared. “Can you go bring them back? I’ll grab Viv.”

He nodded and leaned it to brush a kiss over my temple before he left. His eyes told me what he couldn’t say, everything will be all right.

The lie made it easier to stand back up and do what I needed to.

“Viv,” I said, butting into a conversation between her and Destiny. “It’s time.”

She visibly paled, her hand clenching around her plastic cup. “Already?’

I nodded.

Destiny reached over and curled a hand around Vivian’s shoulder. “I’ll go with you,” she said.

“You don’t have to.”

“I want to.”

Viv finished her beer and tossed the plastic cup into a nearby metal bin, almost hitting Ryland as he reappeared from behind a cabin, buckling his belt. The alpha raised his eyes to the heavens and grinned, lowering them to meet both Viv’s and mine with a challenging stare.

He swept an arm toward the stone moon chamber in the distance, peeking out behind the side of his house. “Shall we, ladies?”