Chapter 13
Thirteen
That parting scene probably would have been much more final and triumphant if not for the immediate sense of abject loss that overtook me as I arrived at an empty bus shelter a safe distance away from where I’d last seen Iain.
At first, I tried to dismiss it. I was a virgin until five days ago, after all. Someone who’d never even been kissed until yesterday.
Of course, I’d find it hard to leave behind the first guy I’d ever gotten truly intimate with—even if that was the only way to finally start living my life and making my long-held dream of traveling to New Zealand come true.
Plus, Iain was at worst a complete sociopath and at best a seriously deluded nutjob in need of professional help.
So, there was that …
But as I waited at the bus shelter, questions started piling up inside my head. Questions about my new cancer-free status. Questions about my suddenly perfect 20/20 vision. Questions about my hair …
I looked at myself in the shelter’s semi-reflective window. My hair was nearly dry, and despite the absence of any product, my curls looked lush and amazing and no longer at war. On the contrary, I could almost hear them singing a cross-cultural round of “Kumbaya.”
The questions kept piling up inside my chest, along with a terrible ache … like I’d left a limb behind.
Or a mate.
And none of these questions had answers except …
Technically, every single one of my questions could be answered perfectly by Iain’s crazy claims.
The sound of an incoming bus brought my head up. It wasn’t the one that would take me home to Holyrood, but I recognized it nonetheless because it went right by Tara’s place of work—
An idea came out of nowhere, freezing me in place as the bus’s accordion door opened.
I animated, waving down the bus driver before he could close the door again.
“Wait! Wait! I want to get on!” I called out as if it were a matter of life and death.
It wasn’t unusual for Tara to come down and find me waiting for her in the ornate lobby of the elegantly domed building where the Royal Scottish Bank had been headquartered since the 1700s.
But it was unusual for Tara to find me there in the middle of the morning, with only a text sent a minute beforehand to alert her that I was waiting downstairs.
So I wasn’t at all surprised when Tara literally ran off the employee elevator, eyes wide with alarm.
“Are you okay?” She called out, her voice echoing across the old building’s cavernous lobby.
Was I okay? That was a long story with the final answer still TBD.
Instead of responding to my friend’s concerned question, I said, “Hey, Tara! How’s it going? Um … can I borrow your car?”
Whatever questions I might have had about whether Tara was a true-blue friend or not were answered that morning.
Not only did she give me the keys to her little Skoda hatchback, but she also insisted on taking the rest of the day off and coming with me.
Though as a fellow North American who’d grown up driving on the “right” side of the road, she didn’t offer to take on chauffeur duty. That would just be crazy.
Also, from what I could tell, my hale and hearty friend who never got sick must have been coming down with something. She kept sniffling as we sped down the highway toward our destination.
“Do you need a tissue?” I asked sympathetically when Tara sniffed for the umpteenth time. “I’ve got some in my purse.”
“No, it’s just allergies,” Tara answered, waving me off. Then she asked, “Why are we going back to Faoltairn again?”
Because my boss is crazy, I replied in my head. And maybe I am, too.
Aloud I simply said, “There’s something I need to check out. It doesn’t make any sense, and I know exactly what I’ll find. But I need to see it for myself.”
Then off of Tara’s confused look, I said, “I swear I’ll explain everything on the way home.”
Tara sniffed again, and then carefully asked, “So Iain ... invited you back to his place in Faoltairn?”
“Well, not exactly,” I admitted with a grimace.
Another sniff, followed by, “Then what exactly is it you hope to find there? Because last I checked that pa—er, clan doesn’t like outsiders on their mountain without an invitation.”
“How do you know so much about Faoltairn and Iain’s clan?” I asked, glancing over at my friend.
A beat passed. Then Tara said, “I don’t know. Must have heard about it on the news or in a documentary. You know how we always seem to have programs out here about Scottish heritage … and those hillbilly Highland clans, still doing it the way we used to back in the day.”
I narrowed my eyes, feeling weirdly defensive of Iain’s hometown.
Yeah, it might be a bit old-fashioned but …
“Don’t judge the place until you see it.
It’s a neat little place, based on what I saw when I drove out there.
Plus, Iain grew up there, but now he has his own tech company—so, you know, it’s not exactly a breeding ground for hicks. ”
“Whatever you say,” Tara grumbled.
Tara’s attitude didn’t improve much when we reached Faoltairn.
She eyed the cute Victorian-era postcard town suspiciously as we drove down the main street.
Which struck me as odd. There were a few people milling about, and none of them wore overalls—though every male—young or old—wore a kilt, I noted.
However, the effect was more charming than creepy.
And though many of them stared as Tara and I drove by, I thought we looked more curious than menacing.
“See, totally Mayberry,” I said as we turned off the main street and headed left around the loch toward Iain’s house. “Maybe you mistook this town for another one you saw on TV?”
“There aren’t any kids here,” Tara pointed out.
I gave her a bemused sideways look. “They’re probably all in school. It’s the middle of the day.”
Tara just harrumphed and continued to stare out the window, eyes squinted like she expected the entire last act of the movie, Get Out, to pop off any second.
When it came time to emerge from the car, Tara grabbed my large umbrella from the back seat. And to my surprise, she was holding it like a baseball bat when I came around the front of the car.
“Um … if you’re scared, you don’t have to come in,” I offered.
“I’m not scared, and I’m definitely coming in,” Tara answered, her voice flat.
Oooo-kaaay. I looked sideways at my friend as we walked to the front door together.
But unlike the last time I was here, the door wasn’t unlocked. I cursed under my breath.
“Oh, that’s a shame,” Tara said, in an entirely unconvincing tone. “We should probably just head home now, right?”
I shook my head.
Tara wasn’t wrong, but I couldn’t stop thinking about how tortured Iain had looked when he’d told me he was a werewolf.
He hadn’t looked like a crazy person, but like the man I’d come to know over the past few days.
The one who’d sat beside me in that waiting room.
The one I’d realized I loved in the moments before I was set to receive what I thought would be the worst news of my life.
Everything had seemed so clear during our fight at the pub. I wanted to go to New Zealand, and he wanted me to stay on as his assistant. To the point that he’d say anything to keep me there …
But now there was a crushing ache inside my chest that wouldn’t go away …
And I wanted to believe him. God, it scared me how much I wanted to believe him.
Also, I had enough money in my account to pay him back for a new window.
I marched toward the back of the house.
“Milly, what are you doing?” Tara asked, her voice strident with censure as she followed me around the side of the house with my umbrella still raised.
But then she lowered the umbrella and asked, “No, seriously, what are you doing?” when I bent down and pick up a large moss-covered stone.
I answered her question by throwing the stone through what I hoped to God was Iain’s office window.
“Can I borrow that?” I asked, holding my hand out for the long yellow umbrella in Tara’s hands.
Tara reluctantly gave it to me but said, “What the hell, Mil?” when I used it to break the rest of the glass.
“I just need to see about something,” I said, dropping the umbrella and hefting myself up onto the window ledge to look inside …
Yes! It was his office. And thanks to my seriously improved vision, I could see into the dark room despite getting zero assistance from the gray skies overhead.
I found what I was looking for next to Iain’s desk. As clear as if a spotlight were shining directly on it. The cage where he kept his wolf. And …
My heart soared. “It’s empty,” I said to Tara. “The cage is empty!”
“Milly …” Tara said carefully. “I think you should come down from there.”
“No, you don’t understand the cage is empty!”
“Milly …” Tara said again.
“Fine!” I dropped back down to the ground to appease Tara. “But let me explain,” I said turning to face my best friend. “Iain told me this crazy story about him being a werewolf. Like, according to him, he was the wolf that bit me last week …”
“Milly …” Tara said, shaking her head.
“I know, I know. I didn’t believe him either.
Of course, I didn’t believe him. I mean, how could I?
But, like I said coming up here, I had to see for myself.
And the cage he was keeping the wolf in—it’s empty!
That means there’s a good chance Iain wasn’t lying.
He really is a werewolf, and I guess that means I’m one now, t—”
A sudden shift in the wind took the “too” out of my mouth. I smelled someone. No, not just someone. A lot of someones … With a turn of my head to the left, I discovered the real reason Tara had wanted me to come down.
A group of what had to be at least twenty or so townspeople, all wearing kilts or long plaid dresses, were gathered in an arc in Iain’s large backyard. And though their ruddy Scottish faces looked pleasant enough, every single one of them was staring at us.
“Um …” I began, trying to come up with some kind of plausible explanation for why I’d driven into their village and thrown a stone through one of Iain’s windows.
But the opportunity to explain was soon lost.
“Ach, clear the way. Coming through, coming through,” a familiar voice rang out.
And then Magnus appeared.
He wore his usual kilt and sweater combo. But unlike during his visits to the AlgoFortune office, he didn’t stand out so much in this crowd.
Not like me and Tara did.
He was flanked on one side by a very large man. And both he and the large man were holding guns. Old guns, the kind of rifles you might see in period dramas starring time-traveling nurses.
“Hi, Magnus,” I said, raising my hands in the air. “Good to see you again …”
But Magnus didn’t seem particularly happy to see me. Or at all flirtatious when he said, “You and your friend—you’re coming home with me.”