Chapter Twenty-Five

Although the strategy had never worked any other time she attempted it, Willa closed her e-mail inbox at work and hoped the action items would resolve themselves.

Her sigh must have been peculiarly loud because Diana pranced over to the desk from the opposite end of the band room, cordless drill in tow. “Oh, hell. What’s wrong now?”

“Any day I can go without hearing from Paul is a good day.”

“And I take it today’s not a good day.”

Rubbing the bridge of her nose, Willa shook her head and pushed her stool back from the desk.

“Want me to go put the fear of Willa into him?” Diana squeezed the trigger of her drill and grinned.

Willa snorted. “No. He’ll just make himself the martyr, and he’s insufferable enough already.”

“What’d he say?”

Willa glided past her to the windows so she could see the parking lot. Hank was supposed to show up sometime in the next fifteen or twenty minutes, if he’d been honest in his last e-mail. The kids she’d handpicked for extra instruction were already there. She’d sent them outside beneath the portico with drum pads and simple cadences to memorize. Already, a few of the kids she’d nudged toward percussion had already fallen off. Drama and band in high school were scheduled in the same block, and two had chosen drama. One had decided to go out for JV football.

Paul was an ogre about extracurricular activities. Even if JV and varsity game nights didn’t interfere with each other, he wanted his marchers to do one thing. Willa thought his dictatorial style was over-the-top, but it was his program. She couldn’t really critique what she hadn’t wanted to run herself.

“He sent me a list of all the kids leaving the program this year,” Willa said. “The numbers were composed of graduating seniors and also a few who fell off due to interest attrition. He listed the instruments they played and put in a little asterisk and footnote saying the flute section is closed.”

Diana made a moue of disgust. “Ugh, he’s such a jerk.”

“He is, but I’ve never been able to figure out what to do with guys like him. Logic doesn’t work, and neither does appealing to their sense of compassion.” Willa added in a mutter, “I’m not sure he has one.”

Willa didn’t see Hank’s truck yet, but she propped the door open anyway so she could both hear the kids and his vehicle when it entered the lot. “Also got an e-mail from the band boosters asking if I knew the ticket price for the concert yet so they know how many we have to sell for the summer camp fund-raising. The way I see it, if no one shows up, it doesn’t matter how much they cost.”

“Oh, that’s pessimistic. Come on,” Diana said encouragingly. “We’ll put butts in seats.”

“How?”

“With everything you’ve done for the Coyotes, you don’t think you could ask them to cough up three bucks each and sit in that gym for an hour?”

“I hate to ask them. The patronage is supposed to go in the other direction. I’m supposed to be supporting them, not the other way around.”

“I see your point, but I think you’re overthinking this.”

“I don’t know. Maybe I am. Chronic failure of mine.” Willa retreated to the podium, lifted the hem of her long skirt, and stepped up onto the dais. She took a peek at her phone. No messages.

It’d only been a few hours since Blue had torn out of her house on the hunt. He was probably fine. Kenny had expressed the ultimate confidence in him but that didn’t lessen her worry.

What if he doesn’t come back tonight?

She wouldn’t be able to sleep. She wouldn’t know want to do except worry, and her worries had a habit of quickly multiplying.

With a furrowed brow and eyes narrowed curiously, Diana leaned in closer, nostrils flaring.

“What?” Willa turned and gave each armpit a discreet sniff. She’d been on autopilot during her morning ablutions, thinking too much about what Blue was doing with the pack.

“I’m not one to hash my words,” Diana said.

“That preface doesn’t bode well in any statement.”

Diana shrugged and set the drill on the dais. “You’ve got an odd smell.”

“Odd as in . . . ”

“As in contaminated.”

“I took out the trash before I left the house.” She peered down at her skirt’s hem, looking for stains. “I might have gotten some dog food broth on my clothes or something.”

“Nah.” Diana gave her head an emphatic shake. “I don’t mean like that. It’s a chemical change. Hormonal, rather.”

Willa raised a brow. “You can tell when I’m having PMS?” Willa had heard of some shapeshifters having extraordinarily sensitive noses, but none of the Coyotes under her purview had ever demonstrated any particular talent.

“Actually, yes, but I don’t think you’re there in your cycle.”

Heat crept up Willa’s neck and cheeks.

Shouldn’t have asked.

Now she knew.

Sometimes, not knowing was better for her peace of mind.

Diana shrugged. “Told ya I didn’t hash words. I’ll just be blunt. You smell like my brother.”

“Oh?” Although she was feeling nauseated and had a sense of foreboding, as casually as she could manage, Willa pulled her wrap sweater more tightly closed around her neck and put her broach back into place. “How strange.”

He was probably going to say she’d entrapped him, but that wasn’t the case. She certainly hadn’t gone looking for a lover. In fact, she’d been purposefully avoiding connecting with people. She hadn’t trusted her judgment. Immortality wasn’t a gift she could easily revoke from her partner. If she’d chosen wrong, he could still reap the benefits even after she drifted away from him. She didn’t want to end up like her mother, constantly antagonized and harassed by someone more powerful.

“There’s only a couple of ways to absorb a Coyote’s scent,” Diana said flatly and counted off on her fingers. “Either he bites you or—”

The loud rumble of a custom pickup truck reverberated into the room, and Willa bolted toward the door as though she were a starving cat and someone had shaken a bag of kibble.

She was immediately startled back by a large crow swooping down the breezeway, but once she caught her breath and got her wits back about her, she hustled into the parking lot, picking up her skirt as she went. Every year, she had to reacclimatize to skirts and dresses. She tried to hold out as long as she could, but there was no getting around the fact that New Mexico was hot and her body needed to breathe.

Hank stepped down from the truck cab, brow already furrowed as she approached.

“Hi. Thanks for coming. Lily told me how busy you guys are at the end of the week, so it means a lot that you’d break away for a bit.”

He gave a slow nod and reached into the truck. From within, he pulled a stick and mallet roll. The guy probably had a closet full of music junk he’d been ignoring since high school. A shame, really, given his talent. He’d come to terms with his lot in life, but Willa happened to think he had some room to explore those old passions at a higher level. Nothing was holding him back except himself. Unlike his brothers, he couldn’t use kids as an excuse because he didn’t have any, and his wife was pleased as punch that the woodworker had a lesser-known skill. It was up to him to make the effort.

“I hate to ever admit to being wrong about anything.” Hank slammed the truck door shut and locked it. “But I think you were right in plucking out the students you did. I don’t necessarily think it’s a boy-girl thing, but rather just the instrument split. Correlation and causation.”

“What do you mean?”

He gave her a furtive look and slowed his gait. The kids were watching, waiting on the sidewalk. The conversation probably wasn’t one he wanted overheard. “I’d never given it any thought before. My starter instrument in sixth grade was trumpet, but I didn’t play it long. I went straight to snare because no one else volunteered. I didn’t pay much attention to the larger scores from that point. I looked at the percussion lines and ignored for the most part what everyone else was doing. Of course now, I know that the instruments at the top of the ensemble tend to have the players with the fastest fingers and fastest music scanning ability.”

“Not all are successful.” There were plenty of poor flute and clarinet players in every school band.

“No, but even at moderate skill level, those musicians have an edge over students whose instruments don’t require the same technical proficiency. In a high-tempo piece, a trombone player is almost always going to play fewer tones than a flute, clarinet, or saxophone player, plus they’re only moving one hand.” He wriggled the fingers of his left one. “Most aren’t used to doing anything with this one.”

“Go on.” Willa was reasonably sure he’d never said that many words to her all at once. She felt a strange satisfaction at that—and the fact she was actually holding a conversation with someone she was terrified of.

But am I?

After all, she’d walked out to greet him. Maybe that made a difference.

“I’m really impressed by Sarah.”

“Really?” Willa glanced briefly at the eccentric witch who was tying a dandelion stem around the neck of a drumstick.

“Shockingly, yeah,” he said with a laugh. “I don’t know if she’s assertive enough to go toe-to-toe with the boys on the high school drum line, or if she’ll be able to carry that harness, but she’s got the talent.”

“She’ll be fine.” Willa didn’t know how she knew that, but she could picture it as a certainty in her mind. Not the next year, but a couple of years or three down the line. Sarah still had some growing left. The drum was going to be heavy, but she’d condition, and she’d ignore the harassment as long as someone kept telling her that she was able.

“And Quinn,” he said, turning his back to the kids and lowering his voice. “She can carry a rhythm, and can even change a beat without losing track. Unlike most kids at this age, she keeps up with the conductor’s rhythm and not the ensemble’s. She’s a drum major’s dream. I’d be happy to see her out there with a base drum, but she is tiny.”

Willa understood the emphasis. It would have mattered if Quinn had been a normal child. “She’s a Coyote.”

“Yeah. I know her puberty will probably accelerate soon. She’ll get a shifter’s strength and will be able to carry the weight, but people are going to wonder why she can. I’ve got a hunch that she’s not going to get much taller.”

Another flash of certainty.

Willa didn’t know where her newfound certainty was coming from, but compared to her usual doom and gloom outlook, it was a breath of fresh air. “So she’ll be a novelty on the football field who competition judges will expect failure from. Let her surprise them. Just get her in shape well enough to carry that drum through band camp, and let her do the rest.”

Hank took a deep breath, ran his hand through his long hair, and let the breath out in a sputter. “I’ll call Paul and tell him what I think.”

“Brave man.”

“Not in the way you’re thinking. We graduated the same year. I was section leader. He was third snare.”

Ouch.

“I can get the rest familiarized with pit percussion, just to be safe,” he said. “Being in the pit crew is still a hell of a lot more enriching than not being some kind of will-they, won’t-they alternate. That’s a waste of time for the kids and the parents whose schedules will keep getting yanked around by Paul’s whims.”

“That’d be wonderful. Thank you so much. You have no idea how much this means to me.”

His cheeks reddened, probably at the unexpected shower of effusiveness, but he nodded, turned on his heel, and headed to the kids.

Finally feeling like something was coming together in the way she’d hoped, she walked back into the band room with a smile, bravely looking Diana in the eyes as she passed. “I love it when a plan comes to . . . ”

Suddenly, Willa was ripped out of her band and dropped into an unfamiliar place. Or at least, she seemed to be. Her mind was there, but it seemed to lack a body.

Miserable. Miserable. Miserable.

Diana’s movements played out in fast-forward in Willa’s mind, and in that harrowing vignette, there were no good options for Diana. Her future held panic and compliance, not the freedom she had in Maria. The Sparks pack had an alpha with an iron fist and no conscience, and she was going to have every flicker of optimism snuffed out.

 “Doesn’t matter what you want,” came the unseen man’s voice. “It’s not about you, girl.”

“What’d you say?” Diana put a firm, but gentle grip on Willa’s shoulder and brought her out of her head. Apparently, Willa had been daydreaming about unfamiliar people and places. Her imagination working in overdrive, perhaps.

Willa pressed the heels of her palms against her eyes, thankful she hadn’t bothered with makeup. “I . . . said something?”

“I think you said that it doesn’t matter what I want, but . . . it’s like it wasn’t even you. Wasn’t your voice. You were kind of looking through me and not at me.”

Odd.

“I don’t know what that was.” Willa dragged her forearm across her warm brow and walked to her computer, finally ready to tackle fundraiser details. She had to pick her poison, and she preferred old anxiety over new kinds. “I’m sorry if I scared you. I think my brain sometimes short-circuits and—”

“Those are your choices, Aitkenson.”

That voice again, but this time, Willa could see him. Thick, lustrous gray hair. Cold blue eyes. Tall and broad-shouldered. Threatening.

Dominant.

 “In or out. Choose your terms. Pick your enemy.”

The man had a devil’s eyes and a shark’s grin.

Unquestionably dangerous.

Another of Diana’s shakes roused Willa. “Willa! What choices? Are you talking about Lance?”

“Lance?” Dread pooled in Willa’s gut as she gave her eyes another vigorous rub. Evidently, after living so long without having a complete psychiatric break, her luck had run out. She’d prayed to be spared, but maybe her brain was too much like her mother’s. If her mother had been born in the modern era, she would have been a textbook schizophrenic. “What about Lance?”

“You said Aitkenson. That’s Lance’s last name.”

“I . . . didn’t know. I didn’t see Lance.”

“What do you mean see?” Diana curled her fingers over Willa’s shoulders and stooped a bit to meet her gaze. “What are you seeing?”

“Right now, I’m seeing you, of course. I’m seeing the band room.” Willa wrapped her hands around Diana’s wrists and, taking a breath, gently nudged them away. “I’m sure I’ll be fine in a moment. Just one more thing to deal with, I guess. I’ll figure out a way to cope with this, just like everything else. Hopefully, I won’t—”

Another fall into a strange place, and this time, Willa saw a woman.

The woman, achingly beautiful, exotic, poised, elegant, extended her hand and pinched the band of the diamond ring between her thumb and forefingers. She slipped it onto her left ring finger and held the newly decorated hand up to the light. “It fits.”

Willa didn’t know that young woman, but she knew the voice that said, “That’s it, then.”

That was Blue’s voice.

No.

“Give it back to him!” Willa shouted.

But the woman kept turning it this way and that, watching it sparkle.

“Give it back!”

Willa clawed at the woman, or tried to. She couldn’t see her own hands. They weren’t landing on anything. The woman with a ring was a phantom, and Willa couldn’t see Blue.

“He’s not yours!”

She couldn’t have him, whoever she was. It was Willa’s turn to have someone. She’d waited so long to have someone, and she’d decided it would be Blue. He couldn’t just leave her. She didn’t have anyone else.

“Don’t go away . . . ”

“Willa,” Diana whispered, and her hands were under Willa’s arms, pulling her up. Apparently, she’d fallen.

Diana came into focus. The creasing of her brow. The tight set of her lips. “Can you see me?”

“Yes?”

“Your eyes turned gold. I didn’t think you could see.”

“I . . . ” Willa let Diana set her on the stool. A good thing, because her head was swimming too much for her to stay upright. She put her head between her knees and tried to slow her breathing. “My . . . mother was probably schizophrenic. I . . . might be?”

“Honey, your mother may have been, but I don’t think you are. For one thing, you probably would have known by now. You’ll have to trust me on this. Shapeshifters have a higher rate of neurodiversity than any other group. Blue and I have seen a little bit of everything, okay?”

“But—”

“Who were you talking to? Who did you see?”

Willa squeezed her eyes closed tight and tried to scrounge up the memory, but it was already gone. It’d flitted away, just like the one with “Aitkenson.” The only thing she could remember was bits of the one with the ring.

“There . . . there was a woman with an engagement ring. She . . . ”

Already, Willa had forgotten what she looked like. Just that her skin was brown and that her nails were long, and that Blue had given it to her.

“I . . . can’t remember. Blue gave it to her.”

The column of Diana’s neck convulsed with a labored swallow, and she stared down at her twined fingers. “You tried to fight me. Maybe that’s why.”

“Oh no!” Appalled, Willa covered her face with her hands. “I don’t remember that. I’m sorry. I wouldn’t want to hurt anyone.”

“You didn’t hurt me, but lemme take you home. We’ll figure out where Blue is, and we’ll sort this out.”

“He’s not going to want me if I’m like this.” Whatever this was. One more thing to cripple her. She didn’t know why she even tried anymore. Nothing was ever going to come together for her the way she wanted things to.

One step forward, two steps back.

“I think he’ll take you any way he can get you.” Diana stood and cautiously pulled Willa to her feet. “You wouldn’t smell like that if he didn’t intend to keep you.”

Hope flared, but only briefly. “For how long?”

“For as long as you’ll have him. Say what you will about Coyotes, but when they find their mates, they don’t waver.”

“Mate?” That was a healing word. It meant she hadn’t entrapped him. It meant he did more than just tolerate her, and that he might even be able to endure what could be perpetual threatening from her father. “Are you sure?” she asked in a rush. “I need something sure.”

Ignoring the question, Diana slid the band room key off Willa’s ring and handed it to Hank. “Can you lock up when you’re done? I think Ms. Matheson might be coming down with that nasty cold that’s going around. I’m going to drive her home.”

Hank’s nod came slowly, suspicion notable in his spastic grimace.

He wasn’t going to ask questions, though, not with the kids there. He was too smart.

“I’ll e-mail you,” Hank said. Whether it was to Willa or Diana, Willa couldn’t tell.

She was too concerned with the massive crow perched on the roof of her Jeep. Its attention was too focused, and the dark creature was too brave, unmoving as they approached.

No fear, not even when Diana unlocked the doors and the Jeep chirped loudly.

The crow stared them down until they were close enough to open the passenger door, and then it took off, leaving one discomfiting, perfect black feather on the ground.

Willa bent to pick it up.

Diana slapped her hand and bundled her into the car. “Don’t touch that. Don’t you know those things carry germs?”