“Why’d she even have your dogs?” Karen asked as we pulled away from Sheila’s place, both Eli and Wallach stuffed into the back seat.

I’d gotten the boys together, along with their food and leashes, and piled them into Karen’s car as fast as I could. In the back of my mind, I was worried that I was falling into Sheila’s trap by going there. Like I was walking into the lair of the beast herself. But how could I do anything else? I couldn’t leave Eli and Wallach with her. Not if she was the one threatening my life. After all, I'd seen what had happened to that poor tortoise.

“It’s a long story,” I said, sighing. I was so tired, I was just ready to hit the hay and try to get some sleep. “But, well, I was supposed to be going out of town this weekend.”

Karen looked me over. “Jessica, can I ask you something?”

“Uh, yeah, sure. I guess.”

“Why the hell are you lying to me? It feels like you haven’t been straight with me in weeks, and you’re always just dancing around on the edge of things.”

I was shocked and at a sudden loss for words. She was right, I guess, but to have it so blatantly thrown back in my face like a glass of ice water was disorienting. I opened my mouth, but nothing came out.

She sighed, frustrated. “We’ve been friends since high school, right?”

“Yeah,” I admitted grudgingly. “I just, I don’t know, okay? At first, it was one little thing. And, as it’s gotten more and more out of hand, I just knew I couldn’t tell you without you getting upset because of not having let you know about any of it in the first place. Like a poisoned seed, or a dying root.”

“Well,” she said carefully as we slowly drove through town, “why don’t you just tell me everything?”

I groaned. “Better late than never, I guess.”

Karen reached across the center console, grabbed my hand, and squeezed tightly. “Exactly.”

Wondering where I should start, I took a deep breath, then the story just began to pour out of me. All of it, the calls, the bikers, the stalker, fax, the tortoise, my fears about Sheila. Everything.

Except, of course, the werewolves.

I didn’t for a second think she’d believe that.

Who would, right?

“And you want to go home?” she asked, a little shocked. “That’s the last place I’d go!”

When she said it like that, I realized how ridiculous it seemed. If the bikers were still out there, and still wanted to get to me, they'd easily find out where I lived. Especially if Sheila was working with them, or using them as her pawn. And, of course, Sheila knew exactly where home was. “Guess I could get a hotel,” I admitted after a while. “One that takes dogs, I mean. There's that one near the Greyhound stop.”

“What?” Karen asked with a laugh. “A hotel? You’re not staying at any lousy roach motel. You’re staying at my getaway cabin tonight. And I’m not taking no for an answer.”

“Your getaway cabin?” I asked, shaking my head. “No, I can’t do that, Karen. I can’t impose on you that way.”

She smiled at me, her full, glossed lips perfect, her pale blue eyes flashing in the light of the gauge panel. “You’re not imposing,” she said. “I hardly ever stay there, especially with mother being sick. It’s just my place where I can disappear every now and then, clear my head. It’s quiet, you’ll have a place for the dogs to run around out back. Because you can’t go home, not with Sheila still out there, or those bikers. You know that.”

I frowned and nodded. “I’m so sorry, by the way,” I said after a while.

“For what?”

“For, you know, not telling you about everything when this all started.”

She dismissed my apology with a wave of her hand. “You’re forgiven, hon. Things happen, people make mistakes. Not the end of the world, as far as I’m concerned.”

“Thanks,” I said. “And you know what?”

“What, hon?”

“You’re a good friend. Thank you. For everything. For giving me a place to stay tonight, and for taking me by Sheila’s. I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t come along, if I’d been forced to stick it out with her.”

“Don’t mention it. At all, okay? What are friends for if they can’t help you out in a tight space?” She smiled at me.

I grinned. “Yeah,” I admitted. “You’re right.”

A short while later, we were pulling up at a small cabin on the far edge of town. It was close to her mom’s home, only about a five or ten minute drive. “Well, this is it,” she said as we pulled up outside in the drive, “and you’re welcome to stay as long as you like. Barely anyone knows about this place except for me.”

“I really, really appreciate this,” I said as I got out of the car and flipped the passenger seat down, pulling it forward to let Eli and Wallach out. They both promptly hit the grass, running in excited circles until they calmed down enough to find a place to do their business. I searched for a poop bag for them.

“Don’t worry about it,” Karen said with a wave of her hand. “You’ll be able to find it better in the morning, anyways. Let’s get you inside so I can show you around.”

“Yeah,” I said, smiling at the first good thing to happen to me since the Frost Security safe house.

“I just can’t believe Sheila would do something like this,” Karen said as she unlocked the front door and led me and the dogs inside. “Make threatening calls?”

“I know,” I said, sighing as I shuffled in behind her, dogs in tow. “It’s just gotten to the point where I don’t know who to believe anymore or who to trust. I mean, I thought I was going to be safe at the cabin, and I wasn’t. I couldn’t even drive home without someone trying to run me off the road.” I closed my eyes, a sudden vision of the big black truck from the day before filling my foggy mind. I shuddered and shook my head, dispelling the memory. “Now I’m just freaking exhausted.”

Karen’s getaway cabin was bigger than the cabin I lived in full time. Two stories, four bedrooms, attached garage, fully furnished. The amount of money this place must have cost was, by itself, staggering. All so she could have a place to escape to when she didn’t want to be burdened by her dying mother? Don’t get me wrong, it was nice to have a friend who could help me out in a jam like this, but the idea that someone had that kind of money to just throw around was kind of obscene.

I'd never let Karen know that, though.

“I’ll bet you are exhausted,” she said, yawning. She walked through the spacious living room, with all its plastic coverings, and disappeared into the kitchen. “I haven’t had half the day you have, or even a tenth, and I’m beat just hearing about it, hon.”

I laughed, setting the dog food down next to the plastic-shrouded couch and sitting down. Eli and Wallach both stopped and sat down, and looked up at me with their big doggy eyes. Eli promptly yawned, his tail thumping on the hardwood.

“Hey, Karen?” I called as I began to scratch my dogs behind their ears.

“Yeah, hon?” she called from the kitchen.

“Which bedroom am I staying in?”

“Pick one,” she said. “One downstairs, three up. Whichever one you want, hon, that’s yours.”

I sank back into the couch. Even with the plastic covering, it was still incredibly comfortable and supportive. If I wasn’t careful, I’d fall asleep right there. Right then, though, my bladder reminded me that it had been hours since I’d used the restroom.

“One more question,” I called, laughing. “Restroom?”

Karen laughed. “Third door on the left. Can’t miss it. There are a couple upstairs, too, if you decide to stay the night up there.”

With a grunt of exhaustion, I heaved myself up from the too-comfortable couch and went to find the bathroom. I wandered down the hallway, my brain finally deciding that this was shutdown time. Maybe it was because it knew a bed was close by and that I could finally have a well-deserved rest. Whatever the reason, I clearly wasn’t working at one-hundred percent, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that I chose the second door instead of the third.

Instead of the bathroom, like I expected, I found the garage.

At first, I was surprised that I’d accidentally stepped foot in there. Then, I was even more surprised by what I found.

A truck. An older model, one of those bigger work trucks.

I reached up with my left hand and found the light switch. It wasn’t just a big, older work truck. It was a black one with New Mexico plates. “Jessica, hon?” Karen called from the kitchen. “You want a glass of wine or anything? I know it’s late and all, but might help take the edge off things.”

My mouth dropped open and my throat seemed to close.

“Jessica?” she called again, this time closer than before.

I swallowed hard, trying to remember how to breathe, how to bring myself to action.

“Oh, hon, you silly, that’s the garage,” Karen said from behind me, “not the restroom.”

I turned around, my mouth opening and closing.

She had a rag in one hand and an amber bottle in the other. She opened and closed her mouth, making fun of me, then giggled. “What?” she asked, taking a step forward towards me. “Surprised?”

I shut my mouth, my teeth clacking together, and took a step back away from her. “You?”

“Me.” And then she lunged, the rag held up and in front of her like a weapon.

I was exhausted, both physically and mentally, and my reactions were slow. I stumbled back, my arm flying up to try and fend her off, but she easily overpowered me and stuffed the sweet-smelling rag over my face.

“Breathe it in, hon,” Karen purred in my ear as she shoved me back against the truck with surprising strength. “Breathe deep.”

The world darkened, fading away like all things do in the end.

This is it, I thought through the fog. This was what my life had come to. I heard Eli and Wallach both begin to bark and heard Eli growl.

The garage and Karen seemed to tilt on their sides as the world went entirely black, and I slipped away into unconsciousness.

Just before the whole world disappeared, though, I heard Karen scream Eli yelp in pain.

God, I should have known this getaway cabin was too good to be true.