“He knows,” I said to Dad. “And I know I’ve won the jackpot too.”
***
Two Months Later
Before I left Wolfcreek, I’d always wondered what life was like beyond this little town. I’d talked about it so many times with Marian, and then I got my wish, and it was the most brutal years of my life.
While in Wolfcreek, although I hadn’t yearned to leave, I was curious, and when I left, I wanted nothing more than to come home.
It took some time, but here I was, home and among the people I loved, and I wasn’t going to leave any time soon.
“Boss?” I looked up and found Valari staring at me from the door. “What are you doing?”
I was on my hands and knees in the freezer and smelling the ground. When Marian poked her head in from behind Valari, she frowned.
“What the hell are you doing?” she laughed, and I got up.
“There is an odd smell in here,” I told them. “It’s been bothering me for two days now, and I need to find what it is.”
Valari looked at Marian as if I was crazy, and Marian nodded at her. “I’ll handle this,” Marian told her, and Valari walked away although hesitantly.
“Are you telling me you don’t smell that?” I said a little angrily, and Marian pulled a face.
“Um, no,” Marian drawled. “Are you okay, Diana? You seem really irritable.”
“No shit,” I grumbled. “Something is rotting in here, and it’s driving me nuts.”
I looked around at the shelves and boxes. We needed to move everything out, I said to myself, because I couldn’t continue working with this scent. Every time I walked by the freezer’s door, I felt like throwing up.
“Okay,” Marian started moving boxes. “I’ll help you look. What does it smell like?”
“Rotting flesh,” I answered, and her eyes widened with disgust. “I’m not kidding.”
“Okay,” she said under her breath. “I brought us lunch, but sure, that can wait while we search for rotting flesh in my freezer.”
We searched for twenty minutes until I found the source at the very back of the fridge, and then I became concerned. The foul smell was a piece of plastic, perhaps ripped off a chicken packaging, and while a little rotten, it was a small piece of plastic with blood.
Werewolves had an impressive sense of smell, but this was off the charts.
“Is that it?” Marian asked when I held the plastic cup with my finger, and I nodded.
She looked from it to me a few times, and then her eyes narrowed.
“You’ve smelled this piece of plastic for days?” she asked, and I nodded.
“Yes, that’s what I said,” I rebutted, and she folded her lips.
“And I see you’re still irritable. When we spoke four days ago, you attacked me about not liking vanilla milk,” she crossed her arms over her chest. “Is there something going on that you’re not telling me?”
“No,” I replied as gently as possible. “I didn’t mean to snap—then or now, I’m just not in a good mood.”
I carried the piece of plastic out of the supermarket’s back exist and threw it in the dumpster. Back inside, I washed my hands three times and used lotion before I was satisfied the scent was gone.
Marian kept an eye on me with a little smirk, and the longer she remained silent, the more I wanted to ask her what she was smirking at. We all had terrible days, and I had one or a few, but it was still normal.
“You’re pregnant,” Marian blurted out when I sat behind my desk, and I went still. She started nodding. “You’re pregnant.”
“I heard you the first time, and you better take that shit back,” I growled. “I’m not pregnant. It’s too early for Kaleem and me to be pregnant.”