thirty-five

The cuffs made the skin on my wrists sting. They made me think about birds and wings and angels.

I thought about Ella in the Christmas play as the angel Gabriel. The way her dimples looked like deep little sockets under the lights, how the tips of her wings were stained orange in typical Ella flare. She looked so beautiful, just like an angel on fire.

There was one part in the middle of the play, right after the angel Gabriel came to tell the shepherds about baby Jesus. Ella was standing off to the side of the stage, and someone had tried to follow her with the church’s crazy excuse for a spotlight. The light around her quivered and trapped her in bars made of shadows. It was only for a second, and no one else probably noticed, but I never stopped watching her. She looked like a dimpled bird whose wings poked through the bars of its cage. And then it was gone and she was free.

I shifted my hands so that the cuffs slid down my arm. A ring of shiny pink already crawled around my wrists, and I’d only been wearing them for three hours.

I might be wearing them the rest of my life.

If I had wings like Ella’s, I would let them poke through the bars of this cage so they could catch the breeze from the station door that kept opening and closing. I’d let the breeze ruffle their tips until they caught a big enough gust of wind to help me slip through the bars. And it wouldn’t even matter if I had handcuffs, so, so heavy or not; I would still fly away, away from the cement and earth and into the place where Ella was now. Wherever that was. If I had wings, I could find her.

I could find the wolves.

I’d fly so close to the cornfield that the stalks would tickle my stomach as I flew by. And I’d find them there, howling and snapping and waiting to steal someone else’s soul. I’d kill them, all of them. Or maybe just the one with the yellow eyes. And everyone would see that I’m not crazy, that I would never hurt Ella or Grant, that they were all so wrong.

Why couldn’t I remember?

That’s what they were all thinking out there in their moldy-smelling office. Why can’t Claire remember?

Is she lying?

Was I?

No. I could only remember in snapshots. A flash of a knife here. Constellations of blood there. Eyes, all gray, everything gray, staring up at the sky. Howling and paw prints that were smudged to look like nothing at all.

The feeling of metal sinking into skin.

Into wolf skin. It was definitely wolf skin. Wasn’t it?

Seth’s voice floated by my cell before he did. He stood outside my cage and wrapped his paws around the bars, smirking. “Just checking on you,” he said, but there wasn’t a drop of concern in his voice.

I didn’t bother to say anything to him.

He tipped his head forward so that the fat of his chin dribbled through the bars. “I always knew you were batshit like your father. It was only a matter of time.” He pulled away and two red stripes raced down his forehead. “One Graham down, one to go.”

And then he was gone, just like a bad dream.

Minutes ticked by, but I don’t know how many.

The phone rang in the alcove, just down the hall from my little cell.

Footsteps on floorboards and a sigh so heavy that I swore the whole room dimmed around me.

“Hello?” Dad answered, and I heard his body sink into a creaking desk chair. He sighed again. I could almost see him rubbing his forehead, elbows planted to the desktop. “Dr. Barges, thanks for calling me back.”

I held my breath. Thanks for calling me back? Why had he even bothered to call my ridiculously useless doctor? So that he could answer Dad’s rhetorical questions about the state of my mental health? So, Dr. Barges, do you think Claire is insane?

“Right,” Dad said into the phone. “Listen, doctor, I’m at a loss here. You’re the best in the country for this kind of thing.” He choked back a breath. “I need you to give it to me straight. Did Claire do this because of … of her … what did you call it? Anxiety over the accident? Or mental illness? Or what is it?”

If I could have burned a hole in his head with my eyes, I would have. If I was crazy, then he was just as big of a lunatic as I was. He would never admit that, though. Not with Amble breathing down his neck. So this had to be some kind of act; he had to be doing this for the sake of looking like the normal, concerned father instead of the crazed wolf hunter.

There was a long pause on the other end. The floorboards creaked; the coffee machine gurgled somewhere down the hall. I held my breath. I needed this answer just as much as he did.

Time ticked away, ate at my skin, poked a hole in my heart.

Tick.

Tick.

Something like a palm slapping the desk echoed around me and made me jump out of my skin. “But we sent her all the way to you in New York,” Dad said. “Do you know what I had to do to keep her out of the system here? I would lose everything—my life—if anyone ever found out the measures I took to keep her safe.”

A pause. “Will she hurt anyone else? Herself?”

Another pause. Then a sigh.

“You really think Havenwood is our best shot?”

Havenwood. I pressed my palm to my mouth and choked back a sob that bubbled up from my throat. I hadn’t realize I’d been holding it in for so long—years even.

“Okay, we’ll just have to do that then. Thank you, Dr. Barges. We’ll be in touch.” Click.

I shoved both of my fists against my lips and stuffed the sobs back down until they sank into my stomach.

Dad’s shadow spilled into the hallway. In a second, he was standing on the other side of the bars, hands in his pocket, his forehead lined with stripes of sweat. He blinked at me, watched me. I’d never felt more like an animal in my life.

“I just got off the phone with Dr. Barges,” he said, shoving his hands deeper into his pockets.

I pulled my fists from my mouth and licked away the tears that had pooled in the creases of my lips. “I know.”

“He thinks your only shot of getting out of this is pleading insanity. He’ll testify on your behalf.” Something jangled in his pocket, and a second later he pulled out a fat set of keys. “He thinks Havenwood is the best place for you, Claire.”

“I know,” I whispered. The sob threatened to crawl its way back out of my throat.

Seth’s booming laughter echoed from his office. Dad glanced down the hall, and then starting flipping through a ring of keys. “We don’t have much time,” he whispered.

I blinked at him, my brain slow to shudder to life. “What?”

He stopped at a fat silver one and shoved it into the lock. “You have about thirty minutes tops before Seth comes back here to check on you again. He’s still suspicious of me, wants to make sure you don’t go disappearing on him before he has a chance to drive you over to the county prison.” The lock clicked and my cell door creaked open.

I jumped to my feet and rushed to the door. “But you’ll get fired! You’ll lose everything.” I bit my lip. “Amble’s going to retaliate against you for this.”

Dad just looked at me, his eyes soft and watery, and brushed my sweaty cheek with the back of his hand. “It’s going to be okay,” he said, but he didn’t sound convinced. “You’ll go and find the wolves, find Ella. And then you’ll come back and clear my name.” And then another key, another click, and my handcuffs were off.

“Clear our name,” I said, planting a kiss on his cheek. He held the door open, probably to prevent it from creaking again, and I slipped out. I turned to look him one last time. “I’ll be back before you know it,” I whispered. And then, like a little bird, I flew out of my cage and into the night.