Hours later, tired beyond imagining and satisfied that Sam’s dire predictions had turned out to be false, I spotted a motel ahead. The empty parking lot screamed vacancy better than the creepy, flickering red sign mounted in the office’s window. My feet and legs hurt too much to ignore the opportunity to rest. Sighing, I pushed open the office door and rented a room for the night using the emergency cash I always carried. My plan remained simple enough. In the morning, I would find the nearest bus station and buy a ticket home or as close to home as possible.

Key in hand, I walked to my door and let myself in. A damp, musty smell engulfed me. I stretched out a hand and patted the wall until I found the switch. I grimaced at the room. It didn’t inspire any thoughts of recently washed sheets. I kicked off my shoes and set them near the door. About an hour into the walk, I’d stopped to put on socks, and as I padded across the dirty carpet toward the bathroom, I was thankful for their protection.

The shower curtain looked brand new, but the tub and floor hadn’t seen a scrub brush in a long time. I used the toilet but didn’t look at it closely before or after. Sometimes ignorance was bliss.

The water dripping from the faucet had stained the porcelain brown. So I let it run while I dug through my bag. My stomach rumbled, and I regretted not grabbing some food before leaving. Ignoring my protesting stomach, I scrubbed my teeth. When the water ran clear, I spit and rinsed, smelling the water too late. Rotten eggs. Instead of wishing for food, I wished I’d just left the toothpaste in my mouth.

I wanted to go home where a clean bed waited, where inadvertently swallowing water from the bathroom sink wouldn’t put me in the hospital, where I could pretend this weekend never happened.

Purposely not thinking of anything but the present, I left the bathroom light on and moved to the main room. I set my bag on a chair, turned off the light, collapsed fully dressed on the bed, and pleaded with the universe that nothing gross contaminated the coverlet.

The drama of my day had taken its toll. My eyelids refused to stay open. Grossed out and hungry, my last thoughts were of the creepy guy at the front desk and chaining the motel door.

I stretched, only half awake, and fell off the bed. For a queen-size bed, I must have rolled around on it a lot to work myself so close to the edge. Laughing at myself in the darkness, I pulled myself back up on the mattress and winced at the soreness in my legs. I paused. Darkness? My stomach flipped in fear as I remembered the light I’d left on in the bathroom.

I blindly stretched out my arm. There should have been a wall near this side of the bed. The door to my room swung open. Light flooded in, blinding me.

A shadow moved to block the light, and I suffered a moment of disoriented panic. Was it the man from the front desk? By my third squinted blink, I saw Sam standing silhouetted by light. Behind him, I spotted his foldout bed.

“You okay?” he asked.

“What am I doing here?” I turned and looked at my familiar room at the Compound.

“Dunno,” he mumbled. “He brought you back before dawn. Didn’t say a word, just knocked on the door carrying you. I let him in. He set you on your bed then left.” Sam’s hair stuck up in places, and he absently scratched the hair on his chest, wobbling a bit as he stood in his flannel house pants. He needed his coffee.

I looked down at myself. Dirt stained my clothes as if he’d dragged me all the way back here from the motel...by my feet...through mud. I reached up to comb my fingers through my hair, and a leaf fluttered to the floor. I stared at it in disbelief and let my hands drop back to my sides. He’d left me looking like a wreck. What was going on with this guy?

“What happened after I left? Did he follow me?” I watched Sam closely. If he didn’t respond with complete honesty, I wouldn’t be responsible for what I said next.

“Not right away. When you started walking, he looked up from the truck and watched down the road for a while. Long after you passed from sight anyway. Then, he just took to the woods, leaving my truck in a heap.”

Apparently, he wouldn’t let me go easily. Not that walking half the night had been easy. It also meant he’d left after I’d walked far enough that I could no longer see his spark. He’d probably tracked me by scent, keeping his distance. Clever. But why?

I needed to talk to him and figure out what he wanted. There were probably new rules—his rules—that I needed to learn, too. My impotent frustration grew. Better to get it done now so I could figure out a way out of this mess.

“Where is he?”

“Gabby. Before you do anything else, I’d like two minutes of your time. You need to hear what I have to say.”

My anger at Sam still lay in a dark, dormant pool inside me. I didn’t want to listen to anything he had to say. Some of my anger and frustration collapsed in on itself as I acknowledged the truth. Sam’s dishonesty bothered me, but my brush with freedom, to have it so close and then ripped away in the last few seconds, hurt more. Besides, if I didn’t hear him out, I’d wonder what he had wanted to tell me. Defeated, I agreed.

“Fine, but please hurry.”

Sam turned and walked back to his bed. I followed.

“His name is Clay,” Sam said, sitting on the lumpy mattress. “Clayton Michael Lawe.” He looked up at me as I moved closer and eyed me from head to toe.

In the brighter light of the living area, I really did look like I’d been dragged, or at least rolled, in mud. How had I slept through someone carrying me for miles?

“He’s twenty-five and completely alone. His mother died when he was young. An accident. Shot by a hunter while she was in her fur. His dad took him to the woods.”

That meant he’d been raised more wolf than boy. Sam had explained much of the recent pack history to me when we’d first started coming to the Compound. They’d only maintained enough of the original buildings to keep up appearances and used the 360 acres that came with it to live as wolves. Charlene’s arrival had brought about huge changes, mostly in the social aspect of the pack. Afterward, most pack members started acclimating to their skin. Only a few of the old school werewolves still preferred their fur.

“His father died a few years back,” Sam continued, pulling me from my own thoughts. “Clay’s been on his own ever since, still choosing to live in his fur more than his skin. He’s quiet and has never been trouble. He comes when an Elder calls for him but still claims no pack as his own. So, by pack law, he’s considered Forlorn.”

Forlorn. I closed my eyes tiredly and recalled my werewolf history.

Prior to Charlene, the decimated numbers had only supported one main pack in Canada and a few packs overseas. Over the last two decades, the Canadian pack had grown enough to consider splitting their numbers.

Because of the dangers of discovery, joining a pack ensured an individual’s safety and continuity for the pack. Some, like Clay, stubbornly remained reclusive. The majority of those who stayed solitary did so because they disagreed with the changes Charlene had helped to establish. Many felt the superiority of the pack entitled them to an elitist isolation from humanity and the world.

By staying on his own, Clay had effectively stated his opinion on the pack’s reentry into human society. However, Sam’s comment about never being trouble meant Clay had not yet actually sided with the other opinionated Forlorn.

Yet Forlorn, not having a link to a pack, still had the link to the Elders. A link all werewolves shared. Elders acted as the lawmakers and enforcers for all werewolves while the pack leader enforced the rules for the pack, settling disputes. Elders and pack leaders worked hand in hand to keep the pack healthy and growing. Though a pack leader did not control any Forlorn, the base society rules laid down by the Elders still bound them.