13
When I fell into bed, I was more tired than I’d ever been in my life. It was a different kind of tired, though. My inner wolf was satisfied, a feeling I wasn’t familiar with.
“You’re going to sleep like the dead tonight,” Kyle said. “Sleep after a shift is better than sex.”
I laughed. “Good. Cause sleep is all I’ve got.”
He sat on the edge of his bed. “I get that. There wasn’t exactly anyone I was interested in back home.”
“Maybe you’ll find your mate once we break that barrier. New people will be able to come in and everyone will be free to go explore the world.” I yawned. It was getting difficult to keep my eyes open.
“Maybe.” He stood and walked over to me. “Go on, under the covers.”
“I can tuck myself in,” I said.
“Sure. You look like you’re ready to pass out on top of your blankets and you never bothered to take off your clothes,” he pointed out.
With a groan, I rolled off the bed so he could toss back the covers. Then I climbed back in, still dressed. I was far too tired to worry about what I was sleeping in. Kyle pulled the blankets over me. “Sleep well.”
I don’t think I responded. My eyes were already closed. I didn’t even recall hearing Kyle walk to his bed.
* * *
I was back in Wolf Creek, walking through deserted streets. Everything looked ancient and abandoned. Paint was peeling from the buildings, doors hanging by hinges.
Ahead, I noticed the grocery store where I’d worked. The windows were boarded up and the closed sign was duct taped to the window.What the fuck was going on?
I jogged over to the store and peered in the windows. The shelves that I’d stocked for years were mostly empty and there wasn’t a soul in sight. Concerned, I moved the door and tried the handle. To my surprise, it opened. I stepped inside and a cloud of dust floated up around my feet. The floors I’d spent all that time sweeping were covered in a thick layer of grime. The registers were open, the drawers balancing precariously. Some of them were missing buttons and had cracked screens. None of it made sense. Even if they closed, Jud wouldn’t leave all this stuff behind. And it would take years to look this beat down.
“Hello?” I called out, half expecting Jud to answer me. All I got was eerie silence.
A mouse scuttled by, making me jump. What happened here? Jud kept the place meticulous. If he knew there was a mouse in here, he’d personally hunt the creature down.
I walked toward the shelves. A single can of beets, covered in dust, sat on a shelf. Spider webs had claimed the empty spaces. Everything looked like it had been abandoned for a decade.
This couldn’t be real, could it? I had to be dreaming. Wolf Creek didn’t look like this.Wake up, Lola.
A door slammed, sending my heart into frantic pounding. “Who’s there?”
Cautiously, I walked toward the back of the store, and crept slowly into the back room. It was dark and dingy back here. Nothing like it should be.
The back door leading to the ally was open, it wavered in the wind, nearly blowing closed before blowing open again. I took a deep breath. There wasn’t anyone here. It was just the wind.
Despite my confidence that I was alone, I found myself tiptoeing toward the door. My pulse raced, and I tried to remind myself that this couldn’t be real. There had to be something about this dream, though. If I wasn’t waking, there had to be a message for me. Something I was missing.
I stepped through the door into the familiar alley. This looked exactly as I remembered it. It was dark outside, a canopy of diamond dusted stars overhead. No moon. Crickets chirped somewhere nearby, but there were no human sounds. No cars, no people walking by. Just me and nature.
In the inky darkness, I narrowed my eyes to investigate the alley. The dumpsters were still in place, as was the chain-link fence. Other than that, I couldn’t see much.
A loud slam made me jump and scream. I turned to see the back door had closed. Panic surged through me, sending a rush of adrenaline. I ran back, grabbed the door and pulled. It didn’t budge. “Fuck.”
“You are even sexier when you use language like that,” a voice cut through the silence of the night.
My whole body tensed. I knew that voice. I would know it anywhere. Why washehere? I turned slowly to face Tyler. “What do you want?”
As soon as I saw him, the tension melted away. Almost like I wanted to see him. Like I was relieved. That couldn’t be right. I didn’t want to see Tyler. I wanted him gone, away from me. Didn’t I?
He took a few steps closer and my breath hitched in anticipation. There was no fear, no hatred, no anger. I tried to pull those emotions to the forefront, but they refused to come to the surface.