Alexandra’s eyes opened when she turned in her sleep and fell off the bed. Her body slumped to the cool linoleum floor. She saw a pair of tall legs standing over her crumpled body. Trembling in her loose hospital gown, she slowly raised her head, studying the sturdy figure of a police officer before he reached down and lifted her delicately in his strong arms.
“Where am I?” she asked, gazing into the stranger’s deep, brooding eyes. When she found herself lingering on his rugged face, she turned away, blushing.
Laying her down gently, his arm grazed her bandaged legs, and she winced in pain. “What happened to me? Where am I?” she asked him again, looking at her legs as he covered them with the blanket.
She wheezed, and he jumped backward into the shadows. “Shall I get the nurse?” he stammered, hesitating in the darkness by the door.
“No, please don’t leave me,” she called to him. “Can you come closer?” she asked, her voice clawing its way out of her dry throat. There was no response.
“I’m waiting,” Alexandra pleaded, staring deep into the shadows. “What’s wrong? Can you tell me if I’m in some kind of trouble?”
His face emerged first, and she gulped deeply. With a single stride, he stood at her side again. “I’m sorry,” he said shyly, looking at the floor. “You are in no trouble. I have disturbed you and you need your rest. We shall speak when you are ready.”
“I don’t want to go back to sleep,” she said, sitting upright in the bed. “I was dreaming, I think.”
“I was watching you,” he told her. “You looked like you were in pain.”
“It actually felt more like I was remembering something,” she explained to him, looking into his eyes and clutching the blanket tightly around her body. “It felt so real, like it was actually happening. You know what I mean? I was running, falling, and then I drowned—I think!” she said, shaking her head. “No, I don’t want to go through that again.” Her eyes glanced up at the heart monitor beeping steadily by the bed and then down at the plastic bag holding her clothes. “Are those my clothes?” she asked, pointing to the table beside the bed.
“Your name is Alexandra?” asked Kraven, lifting the bag to her fingers.
“Yes,” she said, as the bag slipped from her fingertips to the floor, “Alexandra Peyton.”
Kraven grabbed the bag by kneeling on the floor, so that she would not see his face. He felt both pain and joy. “I have found her,” he muttered softly while he rose to his feet. “She is as lovely as the mapmaker’s daughter, my Iselin.” He handed her the clothes, and she thanked him politely.
Opening the bag, she took out her uniform, caked with dried mud, and laid the skirt and button-down shirt across the top of the blanket. “My mom is going to be furious,” she whispered, shaking her head as she ran her trembling fingers over the blood stains.
“You do not remember?” he asked her when he saw a single tear fall down her cheek.
“No,” she said, closing her watery, green eyes. “Why am I here? Please tell me.”
Turning toward the window so that she would not see his face, he bit his lip and opened the blinds. The rain still poured while lightning strikes illuminated the late night sky. “Let me get you a cup of water from the bathroom,” he offered and turned into the shadows.
Pulling the blanket around her like a robe, Alexandra slid delicately from the bed and walked gingerly toward the window. Looking through the blinds, she saw the lighting illuminate the tops of the sleeping city’s buildings and listened to the rain pelt the window.
“Drink,” he told her, handing her the water.
“Thank you,” she said and gulped down the whole thing. “My throat feels like it’s on fire,” she explained, handing the plastic cup back to him.
When he walked to the bathroom for more water, Alexandra grabbed the cords of the window blinds and yanked them open for a better look out the window. “What are you doing?” Kraven asked, returning with a full cup, his eyes darting over her reflection in the wide glass pane.
Alexandra poured the water greedily down her throat while he tried to take the cords from her. “No,” she told him, hiding them coyly behind her back. “I have to show you something.”
Stepping closer to the window, she tapped it with a finger. “Over there,” she said, pointing to the left. “I think my school is somewhere just past that tall bank building. You’ve heard of Collinsworth Academy?” she asked, turning her eyes back to Kraven, who was standing behind her.
“Of course,” he said, nodding his head.
“And over there,” she continued, pointing to the right, “past that hotel with the white lights on top, is my apartment building. My mom and I live there.”
Alexandra’s face suddenly showed shock. “My mom!” she exclaimed, dropping the empty cup to the floor. “Is she okay? I haven’t talked to her since . . .” Her voice trailed off as she stared into the night.
“She has not been notified,” Kraven told Alexandra as her grip on the cord slackened.
“Oh,” she mumbled, stumbling back toward the bed.
“Let’s close this for now,” he told her, yanking the cord. Once returned to the bed, Alexandra folded her uniform delicately and slid it into the plastic bag.
“What time is it?” she asked, reaching for her neck, her fingertips grazing the bare skin.
“It is after midnight,” he answered. “Is something wrong?” he asked while she patted the plastic bag with her hand.
“I have to go school in the morning. I have to go home,” she said, her voice shaking while she looked around the bed. “My necklace,” she mumbled and shook the bag upside down, her Mary Janes falling to the bed. “There it is,” Alexandra sighed, unhooking the necklace from a shoe buckle.
“Let me help you with that,” Kraven offered, calmly hoping that she would not notice the tremble in his fingers as she lifted her hair from her shoulders. “Iselin,” he whispered to himself, tying the leather strap around her slim neck.
A knock at the door startled them, and Kraven wrapped his arm around Alexandra. The night nurse returned and stepped warily inside the room, pushing a cart.
“It’s you again,” noted Kraven when the nurse walked toward the bed.
“I have to take her temperature and blood pressure, sir,” the nurse said, noticing his arm around Alexandra’s shoulders. “If you would excuse us,” she told him, holding the thermometer out toward Alexandra’s mouth.
He withdrew his arm and stalked into the shadows, his eyes following every movement of the intruder. The nurse shook her head when the thermometer beeped and placed her hand on Alexandra’s forehead.
“What’s wrong?” asked Alexandra, trying to read the temperature.
“Darn thing is broken,” the nurse explained. “It spiked to 115 degrees and shut off on me. You do feel a bit warm, though. How about some ice chips? I’ll be back in a little while with some.”
In the dark, Kraven laughed softly to himself. “There is nothing you can do for her,” he mumbled when he opened the door for the nurse.
“What did you say?” she asked, as he closed the door on her face.
He returned to the bedside. “We cannot stay here.”
“I know,” Alexandra said calmly. “I have to go home.”
“You cannot go there, either,” he replied.
“Are you going to take me to jail?” Then she suddenly recalled the hot breath of the wolf. “What happened tonight?” she asked. “What was that thing that attacked me?”
Bending over her, he took her trembling hand. “I will protect you, Alexandra. That is my duty.”
Her mouth lifted into a pained smile.
Abruptly, the window behind Kraven shook violently, as if a mighty fist pounded on the glass. Harder and harder the punches landed on the window behind the closed blinds.
“What is that!” screamed Alexandra, grabbing at him. Clutching handfuls of his uniform in her fists, she buried her face into his neck. “Make it go away,” she said, her body shaking.
Kraven lifted her from the bed as if she were a doll and cradled her against his chest. Yanking the heavy blanket up, he covered her head and draped it over her body, while she wrapped her arms around his waist. “My clothes,” she said, before he yanked them into his arms as well.
Cracking open the door of Room 401, he peeked into the deserted hallway. Jumping from the doorway with Alexandra securely in his arms, he slammed his shoulder against the emergency exit door by the elevator and looked up and down the stairwell. A laugh echoed from somewhere high above him.
Alexandra stirred under the blanket. “I can’t breathe,” she said, trying to pull the heavy cover away from her head.
“Please,” he warned. “Keep quiet.”
His long legs carried them downward three steps at a time, while under the blanket, Alexandra held on tightly and buried her face in his shirt, listening to the calm, steady beating within his chest.
He smells like smoke, she thought, like a wild fire.
The stairwell emptied to an exit door. Kraven cautiously poked his head out into the rain. Parked cars lined the empty side street; and in the distance, ambulance sirens wailed toward the hospital’s emergency-room doors. The borrowed patrol car still sat where he had parked it across the street, and he ran for the driver’s side door.
Once they were inside the car, he removed the blanket from Alexandra’s head. Alexandra stared silently into his eyes.
“Who are you?” she said softly.
Looking out the windshield, he cranked up the engine and pulled away from the curb slowly. “You already know that,” he said, turning to look her in the eye. “We’ve met before. I’m sorry you don’t remember.”
“The park!” she exclaimed, running her trembling fingers through his black hair. Alexandra felt herself blush in the dark interior of the patrol car. “What is your name?” she asked.
“Kraven,” he spoke quietly, staring ahead through the windshield.
How do I know that name? Alexandra asked herself.
Her brow furrowed, and she stared into the night outside the passenger window. Kraven pressed his foot harder on the accelerator. Digging her fingernails into the seat, Alexandra closed her eyes and listened to the racing engine. In her mind, she pictured her friend Taylor’s convertible.
“Where are we going?” she asked, her eyes still tightly shut. “Do you have the heat on in here? I’m burning up,” she said, tossing her head drowsily from side to side. “Let’s put the top down, Taylor,” she told Kraven before her head fell backward, asleep once more.