G. RETROUVAILLES

 

Retrouvailles: noun. The joy of reuniting with someone after a long separation.

 

I want to move faster, to a place where our escape route isn’t made so obvious by the trail of snowy footsteps we’re leaving behind like on a kid’s treasure map, but Arden’s limp slows us down and I have no idea where we are, let alone where we’re headed.

The mountain has some kind of crazy microclimate such that, as we make our way back down the slope, the scenery changes dramatically. Flattened yellow grass begins to stick out of the snow and craggy rocks eventually reveal themselves until instead of a Siberian-style landscape, it’s warmer and our surroundings get a lot greener.

We follow a rushing mountain stream, staying off the long-abandoned, overgrown logging trails. Spruce trees cast ghostly shadows on the forest floor. A crow swoops into the lowest bough of a nearby tree with a nut in its beak and tries to crack it between its claws against the branch. In these Narnia-like woods just about anything could be lurking. At one point an unearthly moan, long and slow, follows heavy crunching through snow and twigs. Scanning around, I catch the lone figure of a wild boar breathing a stream of hazy mist from its snout. It knows better than to cross our path.

By the time we see signs of other people the sun is high and warm. An old-fashioned train station comes into view along the tracks we’ve been following. The whistle of a steam engine screeches at us as it pulls in. Tourists crowd onto the platform, waiting to board. We’re safe here. The locomotive will bring the tourists up the Brocken, closer to where the Hounds have set up camp, but it’s not like these civilians are in any danger. Humans will always be off limits for the Hounds. We march past them and down a steep incline, trying not to draw attention.

An asphalt road winds down toward town but we cross it, preferring a forested walking path where a wooden signpost directs tourists to points of interest. We follow the route toward some kind of photo op for eco-tourists called the Feuersteinsklippen, because it seems to lead us down the hill.

It might be a nice hike except for all the people trying to kill me and the humorless man bleeding out next to me. Finally the path leads us to small-town civilization. Arden keeps refusing my help and I get tired of hearing him urge me on so I try to get the 411 out of him.

“Where were you before you picked me up in Frankfurt?”

He scowls.

“You’ve been acting weird since then,” I say. “More than usual, I mean.”

“Keep moving,” he tells me.

We walk down the path, not wanting to stick around for the Hounds to catch up. The sight of asphalt and cars comes into view through the trees.

“Seriously, what happened?”

“If you’re not part of the pack, it’s none of your concern,” he says. “Are you a part of the pack now?”

“I don’t know,” I say, more than a bit pissed. “I didn’t volunteer to be a part of any of this.”

A sad twitch flashes across his face. “Life isn’t something you volunteer for. You just show up and do it.”

I don’t know when he became the philosopher king, but arguing the point is kind of impossible. It’s probably better if we don’t talk at all. We head toward a tourist info center parking lot, where he pulls out a set of car keys and presses the remote lock. A bright sunflower yellow Škoda Citigo beeps at us. I have to laugh.

“Hardcore,” I comment.

“Here,” he says, tossing the keys to me.

We get into the little hatchback and throw our bags on the back seats. I start the car and he plugs our coordinates into the GPS. We’re heading back to Paris. The GPS voice babbles off a string of highway and route numbers.

Arden folds up the leg of his pants; his left calf is covered in blood. I swerve a little at the sight of it — there’s, like, a lot to look at — and his bloody hand goes up to the dashboard to stabilize himself. He lets out a low growl. There’s no taking the wolf out of him, even though that’s precisely what happened on a cellular level.

“Eyes on the road,” he snarls.

“Make her stop talking.” I wave at the GPS console.

All he does is glare at me.

“Seriously, I can’t handle it.” When he does nothing, I almost yell, “I can’t drive when I’m being pushed around by that stupid voice.”

He lets out a long sigh before going through the settings and finally turning off the voice navigation. I try keep my eyes on the road as he pulls a first aid kit from his backpack and makes a complete mess of the passenger area. By the time he’s done winding and fastening gauze around his wound there are antiseptic wipes crumpled across the mat at his feet and random smears of blood on the beige upholstery and dashboard.

“You are so getting charged for damage by the rental company.”

Without a word he just balls up the garbage and sticks it into his backpack, wiping the blood off his hands against the fabric of his black pants. He sits back, gazing out the passenger side window. I turn on the radio to soften the atmosphere, but after about three seconds of a catchy folk-rock song, he switches off the music.

“What did Trajan tell you about Wolf’s Bane?” he asks.

I don’t get why he’s asking, but it’ll kill the time anyway. “You would probably know better than most. It separates the wolf from the person, turns off the marker that lets you shift between forms, and switches to human permanently.”

“You mean Neanderthal.”

“Whatever, Captain Caveman. Human, Neanderthal — basically not wolf.”

“Did he talk to you about anomalies? Where the reverse happens? Stripping the man from the wolf instead? This virus that created our kind, he said it merged Neanderthal with wolf DNA.”

“You’re kind of living proof of all of this, aren’t you?”

He considers it but somehow isn’t convinced.

“Look, I’m not the science nerd. I’m just telling you what I know, and it’s not that much. You should’ve just asked Trajan back at Fenrir.”

I glance at the console between us when the GPS coordinates finally make sense.

“We’re not going back into hiding when we get to Paris, are we? I mean, those are the coordinates that you left with all the packs we’ve been tracking down. We’re going to see your pack.”

I get why he’s been extra broody and intense since he picked me up from Fenrir. I get it, but I still have to ask, “They’re cured, aren’t they?”

That’s why he’s sending the other packs there, not to organize, just to see with their own eyes. He nods so succinctly that I would have missed it if I’d blinked. ‘Fair’ is a word I haven’t had a lot of use for lately. Might as well ban it from my vocabulary completely for all the good it’s done since I’ve been bitten.

“You should just take off with Amara,” I say matter-of-factly. “I would.”

“Why didn’t you? You said yourself, this isn’t your battle. You had the choice to leave. You still do.”

“I have nowhere to go,” I say, a little hurt.

He scoffs. “You have everywhere in the world. All the time in it as well. You know something else is holding you here.”

My eyes scan the rearview mirror and the forested landscape behind us. “Maybe I’m just tired of running.”

“As long as Breber has his eye on you, running is your only option,” Arden says. “What did he want with you?”

“He has this misguided idea that Connor would sell you all out for me.”

He turns his head to look out the passenger side window. “Love is a dangerous weapon.”

My eyebrows knit. Part of me doesn’t want to hear that word. The last time love had anything to do with my life it almost killed me.

“‘Love’ is a strong word,” is all I can say.

With a shake of his head, Arden argues the point. “Words only have as much power as you give them.”

It takes us close to nine hours to reach the GPS coordinates but we don’t say much else for the rest of the drive. There’s nothing left to say. Goussainville-Vieux Pays is on the outskirts of Paris and we get there under the cover of dark. It’s a ghost town. Deteriorating building are shuttered. The crawl of nature has moved into empty spaces, where roofs and walls lie collapsed and trees grow from within.

The navigation system directs me down the crumbling asphalt roads into the center of town, where I park the yellow Škoda. Arden and I step out into the cool spring night, stretching and scanning around in the dark. It’s close to midnight, and I’m still not sure why we’re here.

A black she-wolf struts into the street ahead of us — Amara. I only recognize her from the ring that dangles at the end of a gold chain around her neck.

Arden lets out a sigh and runs from the car. Amara paces steadily toward us, making him stop in his tracks. He melts where he stands, legs coming out from under him the way pieces of a glacier slide out into the ocean, and collapses to his knees. Amara runs faster until he locks her in an embrace. Tears stream down his face as he cries openly into the fur of her neck.

Way too much PDA for me. Even Amara is surprised and shifts into human form with an alarmed expression as she wraps her arms around him. Something about the moment changes everything in him.

Arden pulls back in bewilderment when she shifts and he begins laughing abruptly through the tears. He brings her face into his hands and kisses her fully on the mouth. I can’t stop watching, not really getting what he expected to find here. There’s something so pure and joyous about the act that I finally understand why they’re really here, not safely miles away. Those who aren’t willing to take a stand for the things they believe in risk never having moments like this.

And that hurts.

Because ever since I was bitten it’s moments like this that I’ve been running from, so afraid to lose them again that I didn’t even want to try.

My voice is barely a whisper when I ask, “Where’s Connor?”