Chapter 27: Briar

brIAR

"Thanks for running to the car with me, bae!" Rory says as she slams the passenger side door. She holds up a pink, sparkly folder in triumph. "I can't believe I forgot my assignment. Mondays are the worst."

"Literally the worst," I deadpan. Rory cackles and lightly punches my shoulder.

She doesn't need to be so careful because I'm fully healed. After three nights with the Wyldharts, everything is back to normal. The bruising, broken bones, and cut all vanished by this past Friday, days ahead of usual.

I don't know why I healed so fast this time, but I'm grateful for it.

We're almost to the front of the school when I trip on nothing. Air one, Briar zero.

I fall on my knees, wincing at the impact. The folder I was carrying goes flying, papers scattered everywhere. Groaning, I start picking up the million and one papers. Rory bends down to help me, but I stop her. "I've got this, Ror. You should head to class. I'll probably be late from picking up everything. You can tell Xander where I am so he doesn't get pissy."

She giggles at my description of Xander. "If you're sure. I can stay to help, though." I wave her off. After lingering for a moment, Rory jogs toward Wyldhart Hall.

Sighing at my clumsiness, I continue picking up papers until I finally have everything back in its proper place. I stand up and smooth my skirt down.

Before I can start walking, I feel something cold and hard pressed against the base of my skull. I close my eyes in resignation, knowing exactly who's behind me before he speaks. His disgusting scent of rot and decay is hard to miss.

"Turn around. Slowly," Patrick orders while shoving what's likely a gun harder into my neck. The whole gun thing is new. If Patrick was looking for something different to try, I'd have preferred him to experiment with being a half-decent person, not a gun-toting psycho.

I do as he asks. He stays behind me, jabbing me with the gun the whole time. "Now walk to my car."

I briefly debate making a scene or running, but I don't know if Patrick would shoot me in public or not. There's a high chance he would, honestly. A beating I can survive. A gunshot to the head, probably not.

If I get in the car with him, hopefully I'll be able to make a break for it wherever he takes me. I snort internally. Yeah, because getting taken to a secondary location works out so well for people on TV.

I start walking toward his blacked-out Escalade. A few steps in, I pretend to stumble and drop my folder. I bend down to pick it up when Patrick barks, "Leave it!"

It's a long shot, but maybe Rory will know something's wrong if she sees my folder out here. What can Rory do about it? I don't know, but it's the best plan I have right now.

As I walk, four faces flash before me. Ava's obviously. But Malachi's, Xander's, and Bastian's do too. The useless organ in my chest cries out for the Wyldhart brothers, wanting the ending of our story to be different. Because I'm pretty sure that is what this is. The end of my story.

But their stories will continue. The Wyldharts will find beautiful girls to have beautiful babies with and live beautiful lives. Why does thinking about them with someone else make my heart feel like it's going through a meat grinder?

Ah, hell.

Apparently, my heart doesn't remember that I'm not supposed to be getting attached to them.

You had one job, and it wasn't getting wrapped up in the Wyldharts like a lovesick fool!

Yeah, yeah, I know.

If my snarky inner voice is going to complain about something, it really should be angry over my current predicament and the clearly terrible life decisions I've made that landed me here.

I feel like I should be more scared while having a gun to my head. Yeah, I'm a little freaked out, but I'm nowhere near as frightened as I should be. Instead, I just feel numb. Maybe this is my mind's way of protecting me.

When I reach the back of his SUV, I stop. Patrick opens the trunk and gestures for me to get in.

Really? The trunk?

Come on, dude. At least let me be comfortable while I'm getting kidnapped.

Without any other choice, I sigh and climb up. As soon as I'm in the trunk, I feel a hard blow to the back of my head, and everything goes black.

Blinking open my eyes, I struggle to lift my head from my chest. The throbbing pain in the back of my head feels like a line of enthusiastic kick dancers going to town. When I get my neck muscles to work, I see a dingy concrete floor, drab gray cinder block walls, and one tiny window to my left.

Where the actual fuck am I? And what happened?

"Oh good, you're awake. Took you long enough." Patrick's smarmy voice behind me has everything rushing back.

Oh goodie, I've been kidnaped by Patrick—quite possibly my least favorite person in the world.

Just what I wanted.

"Drink up," Patrick tells me as he walks to stand in front of me. He's holding a wooden bowl with a glowing blue liquid in it. That totally looks safe to drink. Not.

Standing up, I hesitantly approach Patrick. "What's in it?"

"Wolfsbane primarily. And other ingredients."

Is he delusional?

Wolfsbane can kill you just from touching it. Drinking it will definitely kill you. Also, wolfsbane should create a murky brown liquid, not neon blue.

What the hell else did he add to it?

Not that it matters because there's no way I'm drinking that. I'd prefer not to die today. "Um, I'm good. Thanks, though."

Faster than I can react to, Patrick whips up the gun and fires at me. A searing pain rips through my left shoulder. I feel the muscles and tendons tear as the bullet forces its way through. There's nothing I can do about the scream that works its way out of my throat—half from the feeling of getting stabbed by a shard of molten metal and half from the shock of it.

Patrick lets out an unhinged laugh at my scream.

I'm starting to think he might be insane.

I bite the inside of my cheek to prevent myself from making any other sound. I don't want to give him the satisfaction of seeing my distress.

Looking down at the wound, I see dark red blood running out of it. I also feel a sticky liquid running down my back. Hopefully that's the exit wound. Having a bullet in my shoulder probably isn't a great idea.

Well, I'm not dead yet, don't appear to be bleeding out, and can still breathe, so hopefully the bullet didn't hit anything major. It hurt like a bitch, though.

"You can either drink the wolfsbane, or I can keep shooting you until you agree. Maybe you need a matching hole on your other side."

"I'll drink it," I say quickly, not wanting to go through the agony of another shot. The wolfsbane will probably kill me. If Patrick gets lucky and hits an artery or my heart, I will die. Likely death is better than certain death.

Patrick flashes me a wide, smug grin that I want to punch off his stupid face. He shoves the wolfsbane brew into my good hand. Lifting it up to my mouth, I nearly gag at the putrid odor coming from the bowl.

This is going to taste like ass, isn't it?

I throw back the glowing concoction and gulp it down as fast as I can. Yep, it is indeed reminiscent of ass. I cough from the rotten flavor. I haven't had roadkill before, but I imagine this is what it's like.

Handing back the bowl to Patrick, I ask, "Now what?"

"Now we wait."

"For what?"

"For you either to die or turn into a wolf," Patrick says casually while turning back to a rusty old metal table.

I choke on my spit, caught off guard by the second option.

Oh, I understand now.

Patrick is fucking batshit insane.

I've been kidnaped by a lunatic who wants me to become a woodland creature from drinking a toxic plant brew. What could possibly go wrong for me? A trickle of fear worms its way into my chest at the realization that Patrick's gone off the deep end.

He laughs uproariously at my confusion, doubling over he's laughing so hard.

Rude.

"Poor little Briar," he taunts. "Did the Wyldharts not tell you what they are? I guess they don't love you like you thought they did."

I just blink at him in confusion. Whatever he's smoking, I want some of it. It might make this whole "getting murdered by a madman" thing better.

I'm not sure where he's sourcing his info from, but I never thought the Wyldharts loved me. Or even cared about me that much. My heart isn't broken by them having their secrets. Although I highly doubt they're in on this same delusion as Patrick.

When I don't scream or cry or protest that they really do love me, Patrick glares at me. He lets out an inhuman growl that causes the hair on the back of my neck to stand up. I take an involuntary step back.

Patrick grins at my slight retreat. He starts unbuttoning his dark red button-down. He whips off his undershirt and unbuttons his black slacks.

Gross.

I so don't want to see my stepfather naked. Even seeing his bare chest makes me feel like I need brain bleach.

I turn away and swallow hard. I'm not liking the direction things are headed. I surreptitiously scan the barren basement for some sort of weapon. Because if he thinks I'm going to lie back and let him do whatever to me, he's got another thing coming.

"Oh, relax. You're not to my tastes," Patrick tells me in exasperation as he finishes undressing. That's the most backhanded reassurance I've ever heard. I'm somehow both immensely relieved and mildly insulted at the same time. "I can tell you don't believe me about wolf shifting. What better way to make you believe than to show you? I am surprised your mother didn't tell you what you are. Maybe she didn't love you."

"Don't you fucking talk about her," I hiss. He better leave my mom out of this. If he's attempting to hurt me, he needs to try a little harder. I know my mom loved me and Ava more than anything. If she kept information from me, it was only to keep me safe. But, again, I don't buy into Patrick's craziness that people can turn into animals.

"Touchy, touchy. Without you as a backup, your mother would still be alive. It's your fault, after all, that she's dead," Patrick says with a wide smile, knowing his barbs will land this time.

And land they do.

I stagger back like he physically hit me. "You're lying," I croak, voice scratchy with disbelief and grief.

My mom died of heart failure. There's no way I caused that.

But did she? an insidious voice whispers in my mind.

I've always thought her death seemed suspicious.

If he's telling the truth, my mom would still be alive if it weren't for me. My legs threaten to give out under the crushing weight of that possibility. I desperately try to get a breath in through the vice grip on my chest. Tears gather in my eyes, but I blink them back. I don't deserve to cry over my mom if I'm the reason she's dead.

As black spots encroach on my vision, I'm finally able to draw in a ragged breath. I gasp at the sudden influx of air. A sob tries to make its way out, but I press my lips into a thin line to keep it inside.

Part of me wants to let Patrick kill me as penance. The other part is screaming that Ava needs me. I can't be selfish and die to escape the guilt that's threatening to drown me. I need to buck the hell up and find a way to get through this for Ava's sake. I can fall apart later. Shoving every shred of emotion into the biggest steel box I can find in my mind, I lock it all up tight.

A familiar blanket of apathy settles comfortably around my shoulders. With all my emotions locked up, I don't feel anything other than a determination to get through this for Ava.

"Am I?" he taunts, enjoying my distress.

I just stare at him with dead eyes and a blank face. He frowns at my lack of further reaction.

With a shake of his head, he just stands still for a second. His eyes are vacant and sort of creepy.

Suddenly, I hear the snap of bones breaking and rearranging.

Patrick groans and drops to all fours. Fur ripples across his body, and his face elongates into a muzzle. His fingers clench and unclench before they turn into claws. With his back arched at an unnatural angle, his arms and legs transform into front and hind legs.

The process takes only a minute at most. After what looks like a painful transformation, Patrick's no longer standing in front of me. Instead, there's a large brown wolf with Patrick's beady brown eyes staring back at me.