Page 2 of His Three Wolves
“Hi, I broke down on, uh, somewhere on the way to Corpsewood Manor, and I need help.”I waited.“Hello?”
With dread sitting in my stomach like a fatty meal, I pulled the phone from my ear and looked at it.
The screen was dark, and it wouldn’t let me wake it.Three percent hadn’t been enough, but with any luck, my call for help had gone through.
“Luck.Yeah, sure.”
I looked in the rearview mirror, looked at the road ahead of me.There was nothing to see there, no other cars.The last car I’d seen had been… I wasn’t sure.The lack of traffic had been relaxing when I was driving, but now?
“What the fuck were you thinking, going on a trip to the middle of fucking nowhere?”
I knew what.I’d wanted to get away from it all, and I’d wanted to go to a place where Steven wouldn’t expect me to.I’d also, maybe, in a childish way, wanted to show him I was fine going out into nature so long as it didn’t involve a hunting trip with his cheating ass.
Grudgingly, I got out of the car and walked into the greenery along the road, hoping for a tow truck to appear like a fairy godmother with wish-granting powers.
“Fuckfuckfuck,” I said, because neither a truck nor a fairy godmother was coming to my rescue.
You never want to do anything, you never want to go out.
Yeah, the asshole ex had said that, and now here I was, showing him.And getting kicked in the teeth for it, metaphorically speaking.
I walked along the road one way, then the other, doing my very best not to cry.
Why do you always cry?It’s just a movie.
I hated his guts.For four fucking years, I’d dealt with all his shit.I’d endured his love of beer even though I hated the smell, his requests to fuck when I had a deadline looming, him working late all the fucking time.
I snorted on my way back to the car.“At least now I know why you always worked late, you asshole.Couldn’t keep a leash on your fucking dick, could you?Four years of going to all your fucking faculty parties and listening to your stupid colleagues talking about lasers, four years of you accusing me of reading at those fucking boring parties just to get me to blow you in the bathrooms at all thosefucking stupidparties.”
I put my hands on the car’s hood and focused on my breathing.Shouting at the air wouldn’t help me.I got back behind the wheel and tried to restart the car.
“Turning you off and then on again.Come on, please be like a printer.”
But no, the thing didn’t budge.Nothing lit up at all.The sun was rapidly descending, and I had no flashlight other than my phone, which was totally useless now.
“Fuck.”My eloquence had gone out the window along with everything else.
I tried my best not to freak the fuck out as I sat behind the wheel and considered my options.It was possible that the owner of the manly voice on the other end of the phone had heard where I was and that I needed help, but wouldn’t they have sent someone by now?What if no one came?I couldn’t spend the night in the car, I just couldn’t.
What I could do was walk back to the town I’d passed earlier.The only problem was I didn’t think I’d get there before nightfall, and walking around an unfamiliar rural area when it was dark was just not going to happen.
The other option was to head to Pleasant Peak, the small town where my cozy creepy B&B was waiting for me.I’d downloaded the maps of the area to my phone earlier, and I’d looked at them.I remembered that the road I was on was going somewhat left, and that I’d have to circle back and go right and down once I got to town, whichever compass direction that was.I’d just been surprised that there wasn’t a road that went straight to where Corpsewood Manor was.
I looked to my right.
“And of course the quickest way is through the motherfucking woods,” I said.
I cursed a bit more, flexing the creative muscles all that copywriting had honed.There was nothing else for it though.If I had memorized the map correctly, Pleasant Peak was an hour or two away on foot—doable and closer than the other option—and they were expecting me, so that was good.
I grabbed my shoulder bag from the passenger seat.It held my laptop, my wallet, and some bottled water.Good enough.I zipped my phone away in there as well.Hoping against hope for someone to come to my rescue at the last moment, I waited five more minutes behind the wheel, but of course, my bad luck proved obstinate.
With daylight waning, I headed into the woods.
2
Something was in the air.Or at least, that was what my dad would’ve said about the restlessness that had set me to pacing the length of the living room for the better part of the afternoon.Dom looked at me through the glass door that led out to the deck.
He’d been busy out there, ripping out the old and partially rotted boards and putting in new ones.His golden-red hair curled around his ears, and he’d gotten rid of his shirt a while back.
