wanted to make themselves into fists by my sides, but I thought that would look bad, so I forced them to hang, loose. They felt like deadweights at my sides, swollen and not belonging to my body. All the while, Amy was watching me, gauging my reaction.
I knew she wanted words, but I didn’t have any that I wanted to say. I just shook my head.
She smiled a sad little smile. “I don’t think you did. But then — where is she, Sam?”
Uneasiness budded slowly inside me. I didn’t know if it was from the conversation, or the paint fumes, or Cole back at the store by himself, but it was there, nonetheless.
“I don’t know,” I said, truthfully.
Grace’s mom touched my arm. “If you find her before we do,” she said, “tell her I love her.”
I thought of Grace and that empty dress balled in my hand. Grace, far, far away and unreachable in the woods.
“No matter what?” I asked, though I didn’t think she could possibly say it in a way that would convince me. I separated my hands; I realized I had been rubbing a thumb over one of my scarred wrists.
Amy’s voice was firm. “No matter what.”
And I didn’t believe her.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
• ISABEL •
The problem with Cole St. Clair is that you could believe everything he said, and, also, you couldn’t believe anything he said. Because he was just so grandiose that it was easy to believe he could accomplish the impossible. But he was also such an incredible dirtbag that you couldn’t really trust a single thing he said, either.
The problem was that I wanted to believe him.
Cole hooked his fingers in his back pockets, as if proving that he wasn’t going to touch me unless I made the first move. With all the books behind him, he looked like one of those posters you see in libraries, the ones with celebrities advocating literacy. COLE ST. CLAIR SAYS NEVER STOP READING! He looked like he was enjoying himself up there on the moral high ground.
And he looked damn good.
I was reminded suddenly of a case that my dad had worked on. I didn’t really remember the details properly — it was probably several different cases run together, actually — just some loser who’d been convicted of something in the past and was now being accused of something else. And my mom had said something like Give him the benefit of the doubt. I’d never forgotten my father’s reply, because it was the first and only clever thing I thought he’d ever said: People don’t change who they are. They only change what they do with it.
So if my father was right, it meant that behind those earnest green eyes staring into mine, it was the same old Cole, perfectly capable of being that person he was before, lying on the floor drunk out of his mind and working up the nerve to kill himself. I didn’t know if I could take that.
I said finally, “And your cure for werewolfism was … epilepsy?” Cole made a disinterested noise. “Oh, that was just a side effect. I’ll fix it.”
“You could have died.”
He smiled, the wide, gorgeous smile that he knew very well was wide and gorgeous. “But I didn’t.”
“I don’t think that counts,” I said, “as not being suicidal.”
Cole’s tone was dismissive. “Taking risks is not being suicidal. Otherwise, skydivers need serious help.”
“Skydivers have parachutes or whatever the hell it is skydivers have!”
Cole shrugged. “And I had you and Sam.”
“We didn’t even know that you —” I broke off, because my phone was ringing. I stepped away from Cole to look at it. My dad. If there had ever been a time to let it go through to voicemail, this was it, but after my parents’ tirade yesterday, I had to pick it up.
I was aware of Cole’s eyes on me as I flipped the phone open. “Yeah, what?”
“Isabel?” My father’s voice was both surprised and … buoyant.
“Unless you have another daughter,” I replied. “Which would explain a lot.”
My father acted like I hadn’t spoken. He still sounded suspiciously good-tempered. “I dialed your number by accident. I meant to call your mother.”
“Well, no, you got me. What were you calling her for? You sound high,” I said. Cole’s eyebrows jerked up.
“Language,” my father replied automatically. “Marshall just called me. The girl was the last straw. He’s got word that our wolf pack is coming off the protected list and they’re setting up an aerial hunt. The state’s going