We were in the open here, which made me uncomfortable. Just because she hadn't been Carl didn't mean Carl couldn't sneak up on us. He might even be looking for her. Made me nervous.
Backing off, I said, "You want to come inside and talk? We'll stay in the lobby. I'll leave the door unlocked."
After a moment, she nodded. She still wouldn't look at me. I turned and walked away, made sure not to look back, but I could hear her following.
The security guy at the front desk waved at me as I returned to the lobby, and paid attention when the woman followed me in. She glanced around and wouldn't leave the vicinity of the front door.
"Everything's okay. I'm just going to borrow a couple of chairs," I told him, grabbing a couple of the plastic chairs from the wall. If she needed help, I didn't want to scare her off, and that meant leaving her an escape route. I didn't want to corner an already frightened wolf.
She was trying not to look scared. She kept pushing her shoulders back, trying to straighten up, and her frown had almost become a snarl.
I put the chairs by the door. We could talk out of anyone's earshot. "Sit."
And she did, just like that. Completely obedient. I bet Carl loved it.
I sat more slowly. "What's your name?"
"Jenny."
"And what's Becky want you to talk to me about?"
"I shouldn't be here," she said. "I shouldn't have come." She glanced at the door, as if expecting monsters.
"Can you try for a minute to forget about the whole werewolf thing? We're just a couple of people having a chat. I can't talk to you if you're scared of me."
She closed her eyes, took a breath, and that seemed to steady her. Her wolf lingered, though. It probably never really went away for her, and always guided her responses.
"Becky wants me to get away from Carl. She wants me to leave town. You did it, and if I talk to you, I might be able to, too."
"It's really not as hard as it seems."
"But I don't want to." She started crying, quiet tears slipping down her face. I found a clean tissue in my bag and handed it to her. "He takes care of me, I owe everything to him, he's a part of me, I can't leave that."
Then why are you crying? I wanted to ask. I let her talk.
"He's not an angel," she went on. "I know that. But he can't help it, he—" She stumbled to a stop. Her rhetoric amazed me. Did she even realize what she was saying?
She was young and pretty. Carl treated the women in his pack like they were part of his own personal harem. I knew firsthand what he did to the young and pretty ones. He wasn't above smacking them around.
"The thing about being a werewolf," I said. "The bruises heal quickly. No one ever sees them. Makes it easier to just roll over and take it, doesn't it?"
Finally, she looked at me, really looked at me, with astonished human eyes. I understood, and that surprised her.
"This is why Becky said I should talk to you," she said. I nodded.
"Jenny, do you mind if I ask how you were infected? How you became a werewolf? You haven't been one long, have you?"
Slouching miserably in the chair, she looked away. Didn't say no outright, so I gave her time to collect herself.
Finally she said, "I met him at a club a few months ago. Carl, I mean. He was nice. I liked him, you know? He paid a lot of attention to me. I took him home and all."
I listened, my brow furrowed in thought. This didn't sound like Carl. Carl, picking up girls in clubs? And what did Meg have to say about this? I could guess that Meg had lost a lot of points with him during that last fight, the one that drove me out of Denver. She'd made a bid for his position as pack alpha, lost, and then groveled at his feet to beg his forgiveness. He'd given it, but he'd probably lord it over her to the end of time. He could step out on her and she wouldn't be able to say anything. That was all I could figure.
“We went out a couple more times. And then he told me. He told me what he was. I—I didn't believe him at first. I know werewolves are real, I saw you on TV that time, read the news stories. But I didn't think I'd ever actually meet one. I thought it was some crazy new come-on, that he was trying to impress me. I thought maybe he was crazy. But I played along, to see what would happen. I told him if he was really a werewolf he should show me. He wouldn't, not at first. He just talked about it, a little more each time. He made it sound really cool, really great. Like it made you powerful, and the sex was amazing, that you could smell and see and feel things a human never could. He made it sound like a good thing. And I finally said yeah, okay, I'll do it. He was so happy when I said yes, I really thought he was in love with me, I really thought he wanted us to be together. I didn't know about Meg or the pack or anything. After, when he brought me to them, Meg said he'd just wanted a new pup."
My heart jumped to my throat. I sat back and stared at the ceiling, taking a moment to catch my breath. Jenny was young, blond, waiflike—like I had been when I joined the pack, a naпve girl caught by a monster on a mountain trailhead, turned by accident. Carl hadn't been the one to turn me into this thing, but he'd taken an interest in me after. Kept me under his paw, so to speak. Everyone knew I was his. Apparently, after I left the pack, Carl found a replacement.
I'd kill him. I'd fucking kill him myself the next time I saw him.
Right now, I had to pretend like I was doing the show, on the phone with some poor distraught girl. I wasn't used to seeing the face in front of me, seeing the tears. I wanted to keep staring at the ceiling. But I didn't.
"You know what I'm going to say, don't you? There's absolutely no reason to stay with him. Abuse is still abuse, and just because you're both werewolves doesn't justify a damned thing. You don't have to stand up to him—just get in a car and leave."
"But I'd just run into the same problem somewhere else. That's what Carl says, no matter where I go there'll be other…other people like us, and that they'll kill me. He'll protect me, he says he will—"
"Carl doesn't know everything. There are places you can go," I said. "Places where the other wolves won't hurt you, where there aren't wolves at all. I'll make some calls, I'll set something up."
"Kitty, I can't. I don't have a car, I don't have a job, I don't have any money—"
"Carl supports you, doesn't he? He said, don't work. Don't do anything. I'll take care of you, I'll protect you, just do what I say and you'll have it all."
Again, she nodded. He'd made that same offer to me. I'd clung to my humanity instead. I'd had the radio station and my show to pull me through, to give me something else to live for. Jenny didn't have that, obviously.
She almost seemed angry now. "It's easy for you to tell me to get out. You stood up to him. You and T. J."
"You never even knew T. J."
"No. But the others still talk about him, when Carl and Meg aren't around. They say he's the only one who ever stood up to him."
Like he was some kind of fucking folk hero. I wanted to scream at her. We'd failed. T.J. had died, and I'd run like a coward. We were nothing to base a revolution on.
If I'd stayed with Carl, I'd be dead. It was that simple. Carl would have killed me months ago, because I couldn't have kept rolling over on my back for him. How long before that happened to Jenny?
I made a decision.
"Jenny, if you want to get out, I'll help you. I'll find a place for you to go and make sure you get there in one piece. But you have to want it, and you have to figure out what to do next. Before you met Carl, what did you want? Were you going to school, was there a job you liked, anything? If you want to get away from Carl, you need to learn to take care of yourself. You have to get a job, support yourself, learn to control the lycanthropy without him looking out for you. Do you understand?"