Chapter Fourteen: Mother Midnight
Thanks to my beta, Blythechild!
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Isolation.
"This is very disappointing, Emily," Lionel said, looking down on her with the kind of expression she just fucking knew was designed to make her feel small and silly. "This behaviour… how does it reflect upon your pups? Or your mate? Spencer has been an avid member of our community, whole-heartedly allowing himself to extoll the virtues and morals we represent. But when people look at him, they won't see his devotion… they'll think 'that's the wolf with the mate who doesn't respect him'. Have you thought of that, in this selfish path you've taken?"
You scum, Emily snarled, pressing back against the wall of her prison, this fucking shithole room with its delicate tiling and pretty books and shit. Her hackles were up, her canines bared, and if they weren't holding guns on her, she'd be sorely tempted to end him right here and now, with her own jaws, just like she'd almost managed the night before. While Spencer had watched blankly. While he'd… You fucking scumbag. You get the fuck away from him! Get out of his head! He is not one of you!
Stupid. Antagonistic. If Spencer was faking his conversion—he is faking his conversion, she thought firmly, despite him not making a move to stop them from dragging her away from protecting him—this was denouncing that.
But he'd stood aside and let them take her from him. Turned away from her.
He wouldn't…
Would he?
"For the sake of the innocent lives you carry within you," Lionel said, turning away, "your punishment will be lessened. Complete isolation would be detrimental to your health and the health of our young. You will, however, be disallowed contact with the more vulnerable members of our community."
Like I have any fucking contact with your community anyway! Emily snapped, the anger rough and heady. I've been in this goddamn room for months! The room was starting to haunt her dreams. She'd run and run and run and never find the exit, the walls and bed mocking her with her inability to escape.
"You will be fed, as you were when your season was impending," Lionel recited. Around them, no one would make eye contact with her. "You will be given contact with a single steadfast member of our community, once every three days, to ensure you are not starved completely of social interaction. Beyond that, your influence must be quarantined. We cannot allow pervasive and selfish ideals such as yours to flourish in our families, for they will undo us. Are we in agreement, brothers?"
The men around him nodded, slowly, their expressions blank. Emily snarled at them.
Oh yes, you're in the right here, you bastards, she hissed, and turned her back on them. Because I chose to be brought here, to this frozen shithole you call a home!
"I'm sorry it has come to this," Lionel finished, the door clicking open. "We will reconsider your isolation once per fortnight, your behaviour warranting. And, Emily?"
She ignored him, pressing her muzzle against the wall and scrunching her eyes shut.
"If this continues… well, we protect our own. Perhaps we were hasty in allowing your pairing with Spencer to continue. I am very tempted to dissolve your bond and allow him the freedom to find a more receptive mate. With that understanding, you will not be allowed contact with him while we consider what is best for him… and for our children."
The door clicked shut and left her alone before she could register what he meant.
They were keeping Spencer away from her.
She turned and stared at the door, horror dripping down her spine to curl her tail between her legs, a submissively miserable pose she rarely allowed her body to assume. She wanted to scream, to attack the door, to howl and bark and snarl and tear this room down nail by nail. But there was no point. Her energy drained, leaving her shivering in the silent space that was now truly a cage. It was almost more than she could manage to walk slowly to the bed and curl up within a corner of it, his scent and hers still thick in the bedding. She breathed that in and it hammered home.
She was completely alone. Absolutely.
And no one was coming for her.
.
.
They were as good as their word. Twice a week, one of the community members came—always in human form—and chattered to her about the work being done around the settlement, about the inane lives occurring around her, about everything she was being kept away from. And she hated it, but she listened.
God did she listen.
It was always a different person. They weren't allowing her to form any kind of close bond—not that she could anyway, since she couldn't fucking talk back while she was trapped as a wolf. And she knew why they'd collared her, knew that she could have deliberately aborted the pups by forcing a shift if they hadn't collared her, but they were also doing a damn good job keeping her trapped in her own mind with it as well. Always a different person, different stories, all blabbering about the lives they had.
She found herself dreaming of her own pack more and more as Spencer's scent faded from the room. The only way to tell time was by the shift of the sun outside—and that wasn't really a valid technique anymore either, because the sun had stopped going down at all. The polar night was a dreadful memory, replaced with this bizarre midnight sun that left her feeling confused and unsettled and desperate for some kind of bearing.
You're gaslighting me, she realized one day, carefully trying to count the hours between her visitors arriving and realizing that it had been longer than three days. She'd had… six visitors? Perhaps. Since the beginning of her isolation. Six visitors, meaning eighteen days, meaning… but it felt like so much longer. You're fucking with my sense of time? How long have I been here? How long has it been! Tell me!
But the older woman just kept knitting away steadily at the booties she was working on, proudly chattering about her grandsons and how well they were growing, how clever they were—all six of them, plus two granddaughters, a small litter that year, love, but we're making up for it now!
If the light caught the glass windows right on the bathroom door, she could examine a faded, indistinct reflection of herself. See the desperate eyes and the rounded sides of a wolf that wasn't Emily Prentiss anymore, but some ghostly version of her.
She stared at that reflection after the older lady had left, trying to force down how tempted she'd been to beg the stupid bitch to stay longer, not to leave…
If she squinted, she could almost see two black blurred wolves staring back at her from the reflection. Almost.
Hi, Aaron, she whispered, and laughed, and felt silly and crazy and a little shattered. How are you doing? Better than me? Better than Spencer, I bet. They took him away. I lost him, Aaron, I couldn't hang onto him and…
She had to turn away. She couldn't.
He's always been a lonely wolf, she told the muddy permafrost outside, staring blankly through the window into a brown washed yard and the cloudy horizon.
"It's been a fortnight," said Lionel, walking in and smiling down at her. Emily was slumped on the floorboards, her muzzle on her paws and her stomach cramping. Listless, drained, and very aware that there was a frantic kind of pattering going on that promised that she wasn't as alone as she could be.
It's been longer than a fortnight, Emily replied lethargically, but Lionel just kept smiling blankly at her. Don't lie to me…
But how would she know? Maybe she was wrong. She was crazy.
It's been longer than a fortnight, she repeated to herself, and closed her eyes to block out the hated man's face.
"You've been a good girl, Emily," he was saying, crouching by her. A hand touched her ears, stroked them. "Such a good girl."
You move so quickly, Aaron had teased her once. I'd hate to be at the receiving end of that strike.
She struck. Bit down and was validated by a gush of coppery blood.
Lionel withdrew without another word, closing the prison door behind her.
You'd be proud, Emily told the black wolf watching from the bathroom door. I'm not submitting. I'm not going to heel for them.
But he didn't answer, and she hadn't really expected him to.
The next 'fortnight' felt like it took a month. Emily heard all about a pipe that burst in Anthony's kitchen, she learned about how well the fifth grade class was doing this year, a small chatter about 'that sexy new professor' that made her heart ache and her stomach flip. She heard about the library getting some new books in—the girl who rambled about that was so sweetly excited by the prospect of new books, barely sixteen with braces and thick freckles across a button-nose, that Emily couldn't help but soften her usual 'aggressively ignoring you' posture.
The girl came back, six or possibly eight visitors later. Emily was ready.
She'd found a book, pushing it onto the girl's lap and tapping her tail hopefully on the floor. The girl looked worried, her eyes skipping to the door as though expecting a reprimand, but none came. Outside the window, the sun was steadfast. Night was a distant memory, just like the green and grey of home, the verge where she'd run with her pack, her family's song.
"This is a book on the polar regions?" the girl read slowly. "Is this really want you want me to read to you?"
Emily nodded eagerly, circling on the spot because she wasn't above showing off her pregnancy to invoke a desired response. And it was obvious now, even under her winter coat. It worked. The girl began to read and Emily eagerly listened, although it took almost the entire day for her to reach the bit that she actually wanted.
"Beginning early May, the sun remains above the horizon the entire day, and the phenomenon known as the midnight sun is observed. The sun does not set for about eighty days, until the beginning of August—it's very cool," the girl added, with a bright smile. "We celebrate it when it begins and when it ends. It's called a White Night. Maybe they'll let you out in time to celebrate its end?" She sounded hopeful.
Emily thumped her tail a few more times, her head buzzing with shock.
Hours later, she was alone. The black wolf watched her from the bathroom mirror and the window, and after she'd run in the frigid air outside until her lungs and muscles were screaming, she slumped in front of it and tried to meet that dark gaze.
So when the sun sets, I've—we've—been here… She trailed off that thought, horror twitching her skin all the way to from her hips to her muzzle. Seven months… oh my god, Aaron. Oh my god. You think we're dead, don't you?
But they could be, she realized. If she reached for Spencer, even through the weak remnants of their fading pair bond, she felt nothing. Just a vague sense of something there, some living presence. Or maybe she was sensing herself. Maybe he'd died and left her alone. Maybe she was dead and this was just what came after.
She slept, constantly, desperate for snatches of dreams when she could almost hear their voices.
You're your own wolf, Emily Prentiss, the black wolf whispered, running ahead of her into the white-out dark of a winter night. When she tried to chase him, other wolves gusted out of the snow, only to be torn away by the screeching winds. A white-gold wolf with blue eyes. A puppy that howled because he was alone. A wolf with fur the colour of butterscotch that turned his back and walked away from her. Why can't you just belong?
She howled, in her dreams and in her life, but no one answered.
Sometimes, wolves around her sung. Distant but alive. She joined in once, desperate to be heard. They stopped immediately and her voice trailed into nothing.
She howled for Spencer and he didn't answer.
Howled for Aaron and he couldn't.
The black wolf went quiet. People came and went. Emily stopped caring. What did it matter?
"She has been good," someone murmured overhead, and hands touched her. Unused to the touch, she twitched away. They followed, pressing down, unstoppable, and she submitted to them. Let them stroke her ears and her ruff, fingers tracing the collar on her throat. The only time she even bothered to open her eyes was when the hands moved to her belly, to the unthinkable beings she carried in there. Then she growled, not because she loved them, because she didn't think she felt anything for them, but because she knew she had to protect them despite that. "I think she's ready to reconsider."
The voices faded. She didn't bother looking for them.
But there were more that persisted. A tenacious influx of alien emotions that assailed her constantly, not letting her sleep, not letting her just be nothing. She didn't want to be Emily right now. She ate, she exercised, she slept, but that was it. Being Emily meant dealing with everything Emily Prentiss was dealing with. Spencer's betrayal, Aaron's grief, her own misery, JJ and Rossi and her mom and the countless others who would have been impacted by her abduction…
It meant dealing with the midnight sun and the prison yard she was in.
Go away, she snapped at the thoughts one day, and they fell quiet. One of the pups kicked angrily, or possibly two. She couldn't really tell in the jumble of pokey bits what was a paw or a nose or which it belonged to. She shook that feeling off angrily, racing outside to try and run despite her shambling, heavy gait these days. And she ran, until spots danced in her eyes and her breath steamed in the freezing air, and the world dimmed around her.
Except it wasn't her exhaustion dimming it.
She looked up just in time to see the sun dipping low, vanishing below the horizon.
August, she thought, and sat down with a thump on the frozen ground beneath her. Ears ringing, she could hear waves distantly, sea birds squawking. The rare sound of a motor on the air somewhere far. Seven months. Perhaps a little more. A lifetime.
There was no pretending Aaron was here when standing in the middle of the yard. No false assurances. No black wolf waiting.
She howled, mournful. Not sure what the sound was as it tore from her throat, just that it was loneliness and pain and that her heart hurt with it. At the sudden noise, the pups startled. She shivered at the bizarre feeling, a strange, new kind of shock reaching her mind. The alien emotions clamoured for a second.
And she realized what they were.
Holy fuck, she thought, and stopped howled with a trailing cough. It was them. It was the pups.
They were thinking.
And in that shocked silence, someone answered. A single howl, short and cut off quickly. Just as lonely and sad. It was just for her, a desperate you're not alone, and there was a distinct yipping end to it.
Spencer, she thought, and wondered if he'd be able to hear the pups too. Felt her hackles lift at the idea of him being near them, nothing but a stranger to her now. Felt her heart ache at the idea of him welcoming them into the world.
And suddenly, the pups were real, living little creatures in her mind. Not just the unexpected weight she was being forced to carry. If she focused, she could almost pick them apart. Two twined little minds, possibly, intently fixated on each other. And one that was sharper, louder, and set up a furious pattern of kicking paws when she brushed her mind against it.
Go away, Mom, she could imagine that pup growling. This is our space. I'm already sick of sharing.
She began to laugh at the idea. Perhaps they'd soon start complaining about the cramped conditions, or muttering about the food. She could just imagine Spencer—
She stopped laughing.
Spence had replied to her. That was him! She knew it had to be—she didn't know his howl like she knew Aaron's or JJ's or Dave's, but she remembered it distantly from the nights they'd mated and the day he'd hunted and that was him.
He was alive.
And she needed to see him.
She moved inside on numb legs. She needed to get their attention. Their priority was…
The pups. They wanted Spencer's pups, because even if he proved impossible to control, if their hold on him weakened… they'd have three malleable little minds that could be every bit as clever as he was to shape into the wolves they needed. She was just the meat incubator supplying those pups, the fulcrum they were using to—even distantly—control Spencer.
He might be indoctrinated, brainwashed, lost, but he was still Spencer. And Spencer had never been able to bear seeing the people he loved hurt.
The air inside the room felt cloistered, hot. Some of the people tidied when they were here. Mopped, changed the bedding. Kept it fresh for her. But it didn't feel like that today. It felt small and over-warm, and she dragged a white-blue sheet from the bed and sat heavily on it, taking two shallow breaths before doing what she had to.
Everyone fears the mad wolf, she thought sadly, and snapped her jaws closed around her foreleg. Once.
Twice.
Sharp teeth, evolved to tear, caught her skin. Snipped through like she was biting down on her dinner. She closed her eyes against the red on the floor and lurched up to try to shake off the wave of dizzypainsurprise that rushed her. The pups kicked. The floor wobbled. She wobbled.
Opened her eyes. It wasn't bad. Just bare slices.
It wasn't bad enough.
She bit again, shook. Felt pain.
Broadcasted it.
Felt the foggy emptiness around her shatter as minds turned abruptly towards her cry. And she bit again, scented blood. Watched it patter down. Leapt up in a parody of the dance her and Aaron and her and Spencer had wound together, patterning the room with red.
Anger rushed, hot and hard. Anger and hate.
She threw herself at the door with a screaming bark, claws biting the surface. And again. And again, with bruising force, before turning on her forelegs again. Not enough to scar, not enough to kill, but they didn't know that.
All they could see would be the mad wolf going madder.
She broadcasted harder, lashing out at all the minds pressing close with suffocating worry and shock: this is what you've done! she screamed at them. This is you! All of you, with your fucking community and your—
She had to stop because the door flung at her again, someone coming in. She didn't wait to see who it was, just attacked. Plan out the window—hurt self, get doctor. Possibly Quinn. They'll send Spence to talk his mad mate down, see Spence, see if he's alive, talk some fucking sense into him—all she wanted now was to keep fighting, to keep hating, to tear the world down around her.
They hit the ground, hard, and she went for his throat, sinking teeth through the thick lining of his parka until it touched skin.
His hands pushed against her and then released. Hit the ground under them with a thunk as he went limp and waited for the fatal bite. Startled by his submission, she looked at him.
Spencer, she whispered, staring into his eyes, and then she crumpled. A helpless heap of wolf on his body, she shuddered against him as blood pooled on his waterproof coat and funnelled down to the floor. Spence…
But there was nothing more to be said. He couldn't hear her. There were men behind him, guns, someone shouting.
He still said nothing, just brought his arms up to wrap around her, his heart skipping a few beats when he realized how much more of her there was to hold. And they lay there, his arms around her, as wolves clamoured around them.
Help her!
What's wrong with her?
I told them she wasn't okay—is she okay?
They should let her out! I told you, Mom. We should have told them to let her out!
Shh, love. You're loud. Shh.
No! I want to be loud! It's monstrous—
"I'm staying with her," Spencer said loudly, suddenly, and rolled over to deposit her gently on the floor. "You said she'd be looked after if I complied!" His scent was rough, furious. Dangerous, sparking with a surge of adrenaline that hinted he was close to rage.
"She is being looked after." Lionel. Emily rumbled at the sound of his voice. "Her illness is a flaw within herself, not any fault of our own. Some wolves are just too tainted by their previous lives to—"
"I'm staying," Spencer repeated, and looked at the room. That room. She couldn't. She couldn't.
Don't make me go back please don't make me go back, Spencer please no, not the room, she realized she was sobbing, rambling, and everyone could hear her. Some agent. Silence yawned, but not the deliberate silence of the past few months, but a frozen horror.
"No," Lionel replied coldly. "You're too new. Too easily swayed back to desolation. Would you turn your back on us, Spencer?"
His arms closed tighter around her, trembling, but she felt him falter. He was going to do it.
He was going to betray her again.
For a heartbeat, she wished she'd bitten down.
"Quinn will stay with her," said a sudden voice. They all turned. Ethan, his own clothes hastily arranged and a rifle on his hip. A wolf stood by his side, mousey-brown with ragged fur around her throat. "She can't be alone. She needs medical care and if she's this distressed, the pups will need monitoring. Spencer can stay with me to ensure he isn't tempted back."
Lionel scowled, uncomfortable. But there was a murmur around them, a whisper of that's fair, why are you punishing her this much? and he was cornered. "I'd prefer if he stayed elsewhere," he began, but Spencer spoke up.
"Ethan is no more my brother than any other wolf here," he said monotonously, his eyes downcast. "Our previous lives have no hold over us. It doesn't matter where I go, but please, only if my mate is cared for. You promised." The downcast look shifted, turned simmering and bitter, but he masked it in a moment.
Hope flared.
"Fine," Lionel spat. "Just for tonight—"
"Until she's better," Ethan cut in, and the men shifted closer to him. Emily watched with interest, filing that away in the part of her brain that still knew about behaviour and optimism and planning for an uncertain future. "A night won't help her. It's this, or you allow her into the community. No one is happy with this arrangement, Lionel—there are those who would see her released tonight."
Lionel looked down on her, his expression thin and tight, and then he turned and strode away. "Clean that up!" he threw back over his shoulder, before vanishing through the doors.
Spencer pulled close, nestling his mouth against the tufts of her ear and skimming his fingers over her belly longingly. She froze, unsure how to react to this sudden intense touching after months of nothing, his breath damp and sour on her fur. Her ear flicked as something dripped and touched it, he huffed air against her and choked down something as the men moved closer to pull him away.
"We celebrate the snow," he whispered suddenly into her fur, his voice thick. "Don't forget about Andrei Rublev."
And then he was standing in a flurry of clothes and striding away. She was left, a ghost of her former self, on the cement floor.
Quinn tapped forward, nudging her with her nose. They would have preferred I stayed human for this, she whispered on a private thought, for Emily alone. But this way we can talk. Come on.
Not in the room, Emily gasped, her body shuddering. The pups were moving frantically, her insides moving with them it felt like, and it was a horrible feeling when added to the surge of throbbing pain that was her legs. God, not again…
I know, it's awful, Quinn pleaded, nudging her closed again, and her voice was sharp and desperate but, most of all, honest. Please, Emily. You're not alone. You've never been alone. We're here.
"What is she saying to her?" one of the men asked suddenly, so Emily lurched to her feet and staggered back into the bloodied cage, letting herself tumble heavily into the bed to stare at the open door with a gaping mouth and heaving sides.
"Just explaining that we're going to help her adjust to the community properly," Ethan said blankly. The same blank voice that Spencer had used, Emily noted, and something sharp picked up in her chest. The exact same voice that Ethan was lying with now, was the one Spencer had used with Lionel…
But not with her.
Remember Andrei Rublev.
When does the snowfall again here? Emily asked, because it had barely snowed for months now, and when it had it had melted away to a brackish slush. The temperature never above freezing, some snow remained hidden in shadowed corners of the yard, but it was grey washed and dirty. When does the weather change?
October, Quinn said, her ears perked forward as Ethan slid a medical kit inside the room and stepped out to let the door close. Why?
A month.
She could wait a month.
I've always loved the snow, she said as Quinn shifted back and got to work stitching the tears on her legs. Emily watched her chest as the other woman breathed, the shift of the scar on her shoulder. Antiseptic stung the air and her nose, her legs were numb, her brain fuzzy.
She might have slept. More of a crash than a sleep, but when she woke the sun was gone, the room was dark, and there was a brown mouse of a wolf curled to her side with her ears twisted towards Emily's abdomen.
When you exercise, don't tear the stitches more, Quinn sent softly, her eyes flicking to Emily's bandaged forepaws. Was that an actual attempt to hurt yourself, or were you trying to get my attention?
I don't know, Emily admitted, her stomach growling. Hungry, and there was a bowl of cold soup by the wall from the dinner she'd slept through. Not hungry enough to get it yet, she closed her eyes and tried to order her thoughts. I don't even know if I can trust you. I don't think I can trust Spencer or Ethan. He told me himself, males are a slave to their need to protect.
She couldn't keep the bitterness from her voice.
Yes, Quinn said finally, after a long, uncertain pause. They are that. He thinks he is, you know. Protecting you. You… when you hurt yourself today, he panicked. Utterly panicked. I think they were keeping him deliberately in the dark about your condition.
But you knew, Emily accused hotly, standing and staggering over to the soup on legs that didn't want to leg anymore. You knew and you kept it from him. You lot are testing all the water from this fucking place, and I bet my piss is raw cortisol right now. I'm not Spencer, but I know extreme stress shows in urine. She slowed her voice, turned her face away, dug deep for the bitterness that she'd developed and laced her tone with it: not that he'd give a shit anyway, now that he has his new family to cosset. Have they found him a new mate yet? Some pretty vapid thing who thinks he's just swell.
The wall rattled as wind blew against it, gusting angrily around their compound. Emily lapped at the cold soup, wistfully remembering having hands.
Spencer is a very single-minded wolf, Quinn said, and Emily's throat tightened as she took that statement apart in her mind and examined it from every angle. He is resolutely determined to find his way in this new land before anything else… the snow offers new chances for change. Covering the tracks of our previous mistakes.
That wasn't subtle. Emily lifted her head and looked back at the smaller wolf, her own heart hammering. Quinn's gaze skittered about nervously, her scent notably tense. As though worried about being overheard.
Why did Ethan sterilize himself? Emily asked, straightening so her greater size loomed intimidatingly over the other wolf. You are too—but you carried a litter. You'll miscarry any future litters, we can only bear them once, and yet you dosed yourself with an experimental drug.
Testing the serum, Quinn responded instantly. They would have used him as a stud. He was the beginning of this, you see. Not the abductions—they've been happening for years. Longer than you know, far longer than twelve years. They used to wait until they crossed the border to grab them, and they still do. That's how they got Ethan. And when they realized he was, well, how he is… much like your Spencer… they knew they needed more of him. So they put him with me, the first time they've forced a union. And he was horrified. And he did that to himself and it almost killed him. So I refined it, used it on myself, made it look natural. Something catching, perhaps some genetic flaw. So they wouldn't see what we'd done, for making ourselves incapable of creating life… it's a great sin to them. But it's also why they quarantine new females, so I guess that's my fault too, in a way…
There was no hesitation in this story, it surged forth in a torrent that implied that she was desperate to tell someone. That she'd been bottling it up for years.
How old are your pups? Emily asked finally, not asking the other question on the tip of her tongue—do you love him despite what he did to you? did you forgive him? —because she knew the answer already.
Four, she replied, closing her eyes and looking away. And I've never held them. They won't let me near them, probably for fear that I'll test them to see which is mine. I have suspicions. They let Spencer teach them, you know. Emily blinked at that, somehow not being able to picture Spencer surrounded by four year olds learning to count. He requested it, said it was part of his learning to welcome his new role as a father. They were delighted, but Lionel stepped in and removed him from the position when they saw him with one of the boys. A…Arlo. His name is Arlo. Emily watched as the smaller wolf's head dipped back up in the dawning light of the short night ending, their eyes meeting. He looks just like Spencer. Just like him. God, I didn't even realize how alike they were until I saw Spencer holding him…
Emily didn't know what to say to that.
I'm sorry, Quinn said eventually, when the silence grew too heavy. We're… people have left here before, you know. Escaped. Some might even have managed it. But… Ethan tried. Before we were mated, and they hunted us down and dragged us back. The Reids are special to them. Improvement of the race is the next step, they believe. And Ethan's… Ethan tried to hide Spencer, he really did. And we thought Spence was safe, in DC, but then you both showed up asking questions with the Sandstone wolves… Lionel has had men there for years, working the nearby train-yard. It's how they got you out. But we knew they wouldn't let you go without a fight, and Spencer didn't want to risk you getting hurt or drawn into it all and—
She paused suddenly, seemingly waiting for a response.
But Emily had never been good at forgiveness. She remained silent. The moment stretched and stretched and tore, until Quinn shivered away, her expression shuttering with everything that wasn't said. The room closed in around them.
Quinn huffed, sinking her muzzle onto her paws. I hate it in here. It reminds me of…
Yeah. Emily didn't need an answer to that. I don't think you should stay here. It was hard to say, but not as impossible as it would have been just hours ago. There was something in Quinn's words, or maybe in the intent way Spencer had whispered to her… something that made this possible.
I will for tonight. Quinn inched over, letting Emily back into the bed next to her and cautiously lowering her head down beside her. Maybe we should have talked him into bringing you into this. I think… I think maybe you're stronger than he is.
The pups kicked three times before settling, their minds a low buzz of contentment. Emily focused on them, curling around to cock her muzzle towards her abdomen. Maybe, she said, the bandages rough under her paws. I'm going to kick his ass if it turns out he left me here for three months out of some sexist male pride.
Quinn laughed softly but didn't answer.
Emily stared out the window and waited for the snow.
.
.
She howled alone the first night the snow blew in, and he didn't come.
She howled alone the second.
On the third, a blizzard fell thick and fast and pushed her inside. The pups kicked with her anger, railing against the world she despised, the wolves in it, everything that had left her here to rot. She snarled at the deep scratches in the door, snarled at the memory of his voice, and when she saw the black wolf watching her from the bathroom door, she snarled and turned her back on him too.
She slept and didn't dream and when she jerked awake, a man leaned over her.
"Shh," said Spencer, his hand on her jaw. Above them, the vents were silent. His breath frosted the air, his face barely visible in his thick winter clothes. The lights were out. "Shh, Em. Come on, get up. We're running—now!"
She staggered up, following him out the exterior door into the outer yard. The blizzard slammed into them and she stumbled. He caught her, his gloved hands tight on her ruff, and practically dragged her into the flurrying snow. Gusts of white whipped them one way and the next as they ran for the fence—she almost cried out at him to be careful, her paws slipping into the snow—and scrambled through the neatly cut wire. He pulled her through, his mouth covered and eyes glittering inside the hood. Lashes white-frosted, he trembled and she fell heavily onto him and wriggled off. They stumbled up, his gloved hands fumbling in the snow, and she thought, this is suicide. The world was white. Nothing but white and the fence behind them, the polar night approaching. Inside her, the pups were silent. Sleeping in this moment, as though they could sense their end approaching. And she thought, at least it'll be peaceful, and imagined shivering herself to sleep in his arms. Maybe that was his plan, kneeling in the snow until they froze.
But then he was up, this stranger in his dark parka and his scent masked by the weight of his clothes. Up with a snow-dusted rope in his hands, the other finding her ruff and hauling her along as they followed it into the white.
Within minutes, the fence was gone.
Within minutes, he was all that remained of her world. Just the hand on her ruff and her eyes scrunched shut against the snow, the cold ripping through even her own thick fur as she sunk into drifts that were growing deeper with every step. And this continued, paw in front of paw, hand over hand, until a shadow loomed ahead that turned into black that turned into the yawning mouth of a warehouse door.
They staggered inside, snow gusting around them, deaf and blind. Spencer shoved the door closed against the worst of the wind as Emily tried to shake her senses back into working.
"Move quickly," someone said, and Emily whirled with a growl squeezing out between clenched teeth to find Ethan tearing a tarp from a blue and white snowmobile, his expression tight. Spencer was working fast next to him, hooking up a laden stretcher on runners to the back. She inched closer to stare as the two men dragged the machine closer to the door, Spencer scrambling into a horrifically neon protective suit and adding a helmet and goggles to his outfit.
"Get Em in," came his muffled voice, turning to stare nervously at the back door. "Is it gassed up?"
"Full tank should get you over a hundred miles," Ethan confirmed, gesturing Emily closer. She went, the collar heavy around her throat and bitterly cold. He glanced it at, wincing, but made no move to remove it. It likely required a tool, something they didn't have time to prioritise, but she swallowed back disappointment all the same. "I'm going to strap you in, Emily. It has a quick release—here—if he tips it."
"Which is likely," Spencer muttered. Even muffled, it was audible. Emily groaned. "Get these on—if we need to run, our paws will be shredded by ice."
She stared at what he was clumsily passing to Ethan. Booties. They were fucking booties. And goggles. Doggy goggles.
If you tell Dave about this, I'm going to kick your ass, she promised Spencer as she lifted her paws for Ethan to slip them on and felt the googles snap tight around her head, cutting off her peripherals. Jumping up onto the sled in the centre of the secured bags, she lay flat for the waterproof blanket to cover her, the straps snapping in tight. In here, she was blind, only able to shift her head around a little to peer at the orange windshield and the shadows of Ethan and Spencer moving overhead. She felt sick. Excited. Terrified. A little unreal. The snowmobile bumped, the door grinding open. She felt more than saw Ethan and Spencer moving close to each other, the rustle of clothes pressing together.
"Come with us," she heard Spencer breathe, his voice painfully young and raw. "Ethan…"
"You have to go," Ethan replied, stepping away. "Now. Go!"
The machine roared, Emily's ears ringing with pain, and surged forward. White on white surrounded them in seconds. Instantly blind, the cold slamming down on them like a knife and wind ripping around their ears.
She looked back and the compound was already gone. They were running.
They were free.