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I shook it away. I had to focus.
Grant easily reached the shoebox, and he tapped it
until it tumbled into his hand. He jumped down with a
thud. He took a deep breath before he pulled off the lid.
The doll.
It was a homemade doll, something Mrs. Dunnard
probably stitched together while waiting for customers at
her shop. It s hair was made of yellow yarn, and it s dress
made out of gingham. Two button eyes stared blankly at
me.
It was covered in blood.
Almost every inch of the fabric soaked, except for the
hem of its dress.
I closed my eyes and swallowed. Grant, put it away.
Breathe, breathe, breathe.
A howl came again, this time quick and furious and
full of wanting.
My dad murdered Sarah Dunnard.
Another howl. Closer.
There s a note, Grant said. And & .this. His voice
sounded far away.
I opened my eyes. This was a smear of tarnished gray
and jagged wood, and glittering, gem-colored eyes. Dad s
missing knife. Give me that, I said, holding out my
hand. He can t hurt anyone else. I won t let him.
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Grant stared at the knife for a second, and said,
Maybe I should hold on to it. This is evidence. But even-
tually, he put it into the palm of my hand. I shoved it in
my pocket, trying not to think of the blood congealed on
the tip.
Here s the note. Grant handed me a sheet of paper
with torn edges. It was Ella s handwriting, so rushed that
this time she even forgot to dot her letters with hearts.
He was going to hurt me like he hurt her, so I told them
to take me away. I had to go.
All of a sudden, everything got wobbly and the lantern
light started to flicker. I clutched the workbench. I d been
searching for Ella, certain something feral had carried her
away from Amble while she screamed for someone to find
her. The he Ella was afraid of wasn t a snarling, snapping
wolf or the boy with the heavy-lidded eyes. It was her own
father. The entire time I was holed up in New York, Ella
was being hunted from all sides.
He s going to kill me.
A white light flooded my vision and I was sure I was
going to pass out. I squeezed the workbench harder, but
my fingers felt numb.
Claire, we ve got to get out of here, hurry! Grant s
voice, warped and muffled. Then there were arms around
my back and under my legs and I felt like I was floating.
Another beam of light soaked the contents of the shed,
and then there was yelling. Loud. Furious.
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Dangerous.
Go, go, go, Grant whispered from somewhere above
me. Dry leaves clawed at my skin as he carried me into
the cornfield. The lights from the house splashed across
the stalks, illuminating their brittle gold in short bursts of
color.
One after another, the howls tore through the sky.
As Grant carried me away from the frantic floodlights,
I wondered which was more lethal:
What was inside the cornfield, or out.
And did it even matter anymore?
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twenty-nine
Breathe, Claire, breathe. Grant s eyes floated in front of
my face, soft and full of moonlight. A cluster of cornstalks
bent over us, shielding us from the falling snow with their
twisted leaves. The scent of a bonfire flooded my nose.
It s okay. We re safe.
Something snapped a few feet away and I jumped to
my feet. Grant grabbed my shoulders to keep me steady.
We re not safe. We re not safe at all, I choked. My dad s
a murderer, my sister thought he was going to kill her. She
let them take her away, Grant. My chest constricted with
panic, and I gasped for breath. She let the wolves take her
to get away from him, and now I don t know how to find
her. Thick sobs began to clot up my throat.
Grant pressed his body flush with mine and tucked my
head into the space beneath his collarbone. Her heartbeat
thumped against my skin.
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But it didn t drown out the howling.
I pulled my head from his neck and listened.
More howls, long and melancholic, spanned the corn-
field. Things snapped and popped all around us, and
Grant clutched me tighter.
A flash of gray.
And the blink of a yellow eye.
Grant, I whispered, they re close.
He rubbed the back of my neck. They re right over
there.
I spun around. Smoke billowed toward the star-speck-
led sky, and a bonfire snapped and crackled from a few
feet away. Laughter bubbled over into the space between us
and the party.
Come on, he said, pulling me forward. We can ask
them for help.
I jerked my hand back. How can they possibly help
with this? What did he expect? That we d ask them to
help us catch the wolves and they d say, Sure, no problem.
Let me get my net ?
We could ask someone for a ride back to my house.
Then we could think about our next move from there.
I sucked in a breath. Okay. Okay, that could be good.
Some time to collect ourselves before we went out hunting
for wolves. I took a step forward.
A wet pile of snow gave way beneath me, and I stum-
bled right into the middle of Lacey Jordan s party.
Claire? Lacey said from the other side of the clear-
ing. I could see through the bonfire smoke that she still
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had the fat caterpillars crawling along her eyelashes. What
are you doing here?
The fire snapped in the center of Lacey s oval-shaped
backyard, casting shadows in the spaces between all of the
people huddled there. They were a blur of yellow Amble
High jackets and snow boots, of cigarette smoke and free-
dom. And every last one of them was staring at me.
Grant s fingers touched my back and I let out a breath.
I brought her with me, he said. We need a ride back to
my house.
Lacey stepped around the fire, trailed by two girls that
also had caterpillars for eyelashes. Must be an Amble thing
I missed out on. She narrowed her eyes at Grant. Leaving
so soon, Grant? Now that s rude.
Something rustled in the shadowed space behind
Lacey, and I felt Grant s body go rigid next to me. Look,
Lacey, we re not looking for trouble. We just need a ride,
he said.
The space around us had grown tighter, and all their
shadows fell in watery patterns across my boots. If it wasn t
so cold, I would have been sweating. They were trapping
us, hunting us. They all thought I was the threat, while the
whole time wolves and murderers encircled them, watched
them.
Hunted them.
What are you doing, hanging around with that? a
boy about my age said. He had crept up next to me and I
hadn t even noticed. I could smelled the beer on his breath.
He reached over me and shoved Grant s shoulder. You
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really shouldn t hang out with crazies, Grant. Might rub
off on you.
Grant s fingers left my back. He stepped in front of me
and pushed the guy back. Cole, why don t you go back
over to that cooler, get yourself another beer, and leave her
the hell alone.
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