The Wolf in His Arms (The Runes Trilogy) (13 page)

Alec
returned to the shelf and brought back what would be Baby Boy Snug’s freshman
yearbook. He flipped through it and found a photo. “Maxwell,” he said.

“You
found him,” Lucy said, leaning over Alec’s shoulder with Jared. They looked
down into the clearly unhappy face of a young man. His smile was slight, as if
even forcing a timid smile strained him. His eyes—bright green—were heavy. “He
looks depressed.”

“And
he’s only in his freshman yearbook.”

“Maybe
he went to a parochial school after this,” Jared suggested.

“Well,
we have his name at least. Good job, Alec,” Lucy said, hugging her brother from
behind. Alec waved thank you to the librarian as they left. In the car, they
sat to devise a plan and decide who would approach Mary Snug—and Maxwell—first.
“I look young enough to have been a classmate,” Alec said. “I think I should
approach first. I’ll just say I moved away, and I wanted to look him up.”

“And
when he has no idea who you are?”

Jared, always the voice of
reason.
“I’ll
tell him my name. I’ll tell him to look me up on the Internet. To see what
happened, about the fire. Tell him it’s going to happen to him.”

“We
better work on
our
plans, Jared,”
Lucy said.

Alec
dropped Lucy and Jared off at a pizza parlor on Main Street and drove toward
Mary Snug’s house. Mary Snug lived in a small ranch-style house that looked to
have been built in the 1950s. The gray, aluminum-sided house was well
maintained if not elaborate. The front yard was not very deep, and farm fields
stretched behind it and across the street. One large oak tree stood leafless
and solemn in the front lawn. Some juniper bushes, in need of trimming, spread
under a large picture window. A stone chimney was the only decorative aspect of
the unornamented house.

As Alec
pulled into the driveway, his stomach flip-flopped. For the first time, he had
a sense of what Jared must have gone through when approaching him, when trying
to decide how to explain the madness that they were unwitting participants in.
He fought the urge to back out when he saw the curtain in the picture window
flutter, and he knew someone had looked out. He squeezed the steering wheel to
release his jitters and then opened the car door.

He
knocked on the door. His nervousness soared, and suddenly, Alec realized that
something was about to go horribly wrong. He should have listened to his
body—to his instincts. He hadn’t gotten a headache or the vibration, but his
body was definitely warning him.

Mary
Snug opened the door. “Can I help you?” Her question was cautious but stern,
like someone who had been hurt one too many times.

“Ms.
Snug?”

“Yes.”

“My
name’s Alec. I’m a friend of your son’s,” Alec stammered, then for
authenticity, added, “Maxwell.”

Her
face morphed from apprehensive to utter contempt. The door shook with her
anger, as if she were preparing to slam it. “Do you think this is funny?”

“Ma’am?”
Alec said, feeling the anger radiating off her. He felt his face flush.

“If my
son had had a friend in this town, I’d’ve known it. Not one of you was ever
kind to him, and that’s why I haven’t seen him in three years. Do you have any
idea what that’s like.” The door did not slam. Instead, she opened it farther
as her rage got the better of her. “It wasn’t enough that you ran him off. Are
you back for a visit from college, and you thought it might be fun to stop by
the freak’s house? What’d you think, I keep him locked up in this house like
some invalid?” Spit sprayed from her mouth as her heated words carried across
the yard and were swept away by the cold wind. Alec finally saw the tears in
her eyes, the loss, the grief. “Get out of here,” she said, “before I call the
cops.” As Alec stepped away, she added, “And don’t you ever come back, or I’ll
fill your worthless ass full of buckshot.”

Mary
Snug was shaking as she leaned against the front door which she had just
slammed. Her muscles ached with tension and a headache thumped behind her eyes.
She could tell her blood pressure was through the roof, and that damn kid was
to blame. The phone rang and she jumped.

She
crossed the house to the kitchen in the back of the house and answered the old
wall phone. She had kept the phone line and the phone number for years, hoping
one day, Maxwell would call. “Hello?” She asked wearily.

“Mom?”

For an
instant, she felt the voice was a cruel prank—yet another in a long stream of
cruelties life had handed her since the death of her husband seven years
earlier. Her mind told her that this call was related to the young man that had
just visited and that the intrusion was continuing. “Who is this?”

“It’s
me, Maxwell.”

The
voice—yes! Certainly she knew the voice and it was her son. “Maxwell?” Her
voice broke with relief and anguish and despair. “Is it really you?”

“Yes,
yes, Momma, it’s me,” Maxwell said. He looked up from the phone to the officers
surrounding him and Haley. “Mom, last night someone attacked us. Me and my
friend, Haley.”

Friend!
The word was music in her ears.
“Are you okay?” She felt her chest tighten. “Where are you?”

“Chicago.
We’re okay.” Maxwell lowered his voice. “Mom, I think they may come after you
too. I think it’s the ones I told you about. The ones I could see all along.
The bad men. With green eyes like mine.”

Mary’s
hand trembled on the phone, and she saw the young man who stood on her doorstep
earlier. His eyes a familiar green that her anger had forced her mind not to notice,
but now—yes!—she saw it. And his mouth had been a snake pit of lies. “Don’t you
worry about me. I’m fine.” She forced her hands to stop shaking, knowing that
Maxwell would hear it in her voice. “Can I help you? Please, please I want to
see you.”

“It’s
not safe.” The line was quiet for a moment. “I love you, Mom. Goodbye.” He hung
up.

Mary
Snug felt her heart lurch in her chest. Tears flowed across her cheeks.
He’s alive!
Her soul sang.
He’s alive!

*
         
*
         
*
         
*

“Well,
I struck out,” Alec said as he slid into the booth with Lucy and Jared. He
grabbed a slice of pizza and took a bite. “This is good.”

“What
happened?” Lucy asked.

Alec looked
around and, after swallowing, lowered his voice to a conspiratorial decibel.
“Apparently Maxwell ran away at some point. Sounds like the townsfolk
practically ran him off.”

“What?”
Lucy said a little too loud and emphatically. She lowered her eyes as customers
turned their gaze on them.

Alec
recounted his meeting with Mary Snug, ending it with, “So what do we do now?”

They
stared at each other in silence for a few moments. Jared eventually said, “Eat
pizza.”

*
         
*
         
*
         
*

On
Saturday morning, Collin sat on the edge of his bed, his knee bouncing
anxiously as he looked at the clock. Saturdays were visitation day, and Collin
couldn’t wait to see his mom. His visitation slot was 10 o’clock in the morning
until 10:30. He had just a few minutes until he was called down to the
cafeteria for his visit. Last night, he helped set up tables for the Saturday
visits.

A guard
knocked at his door and escorted Collin down for his visit. Visitors sat on one
side of the table and students sat on the opposite. Green-eyed guards searched
every visitor and closely monitored the visits. Proctor Roth stressed that the
school was not a prison, but Collin wondered whom he was trying to convince.
Monitored visits felt like prison.

When he
sat, his mom, Pat, was already waiting. She stretched across the table and
hugged him fiercely. “Oh, I’ve missed you so much,” she grunted as she squeezed
him.

“I miss
you too, Ma,” Collin said, returning the hug.

“How’s
it in here? Looks better than jail. How’s your classes goin’?” She looked
nervously at the guard seated nearby.

“The
classes are good. They’re hard, but I’m doing okay.” He grabbed his mom’s hand.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry I got put in here.”

She
frowned and waved her hand dismissively. “Just learn your lesson. You can do
something with your life. That’s all I want.”

Collin
nodded. “I will. I promise.”

She
started to cry, and it made Collin want to cry, so he said, “The food’s
terrible. I don’t think they serve us real beef. I think it’s horse.”

“You
always say things. Wild things.”

“It’s
true.” Collin lowered his voice. “When you leave, look at all the guards. They
all have green eyes.”

“What?”
She asked, her voice shaking with nervous laughter.

“Just
look.”

She
averted his gaze. “Collin, honey, please don’t do this. I’m begging you. Don’t
mess this up. Don’t let your mind run away and make you think things and then
do things. Just, be cool. Play it cool.” A tear rolled down her cheek, and she
smacked it away angrily.

“Sure
thing, Ma,” Collin said, slamming his back into his chair. “I won’t mess this
up. I’ll eat horse meat and ignore what I see.”

Pat
shook her head. “You have so much anger. I blame your dad.”

“I’m
not angry about Dad. I’m angry because I—don’t know—because life is shit, I
guess.”

“Life
is shit, okay. But it don’t have to be if you don’t screw it up. Don’t go back
to jail. Don’t knock nobody up. And don’t run your mouth off and get in
trouble.” She jabbed her finger into the table as she spoke. “You do those
things, and you’ll get ahead of your dad and I.”

“How is
he?”

“How
should I know?” She huffed.

“When’s
the last time you saw him?”

“Last
time he was sober for more than two days straight.”

“When
was that?”

“About
a week ago.”

“I’ll
get out of here.”

“Promise?”

“I
promise.”

“And no
wild stories?”

“None.”

The
guard next to them stood and announced, “Visitation is over.”

“See
you next week?” Collin asked.

She
shook her head. “I work next Saturday. But I’ll be here the week after that.”
Pat felt her heart tug at the crestfallen look on his face, and tears formed in
her eyes. She grabbed him across the table and hugged him again with all her
strength, whispering, “I love you,” in his ear. As she left, she glanced up
into the eyes of the guard, and they were green. As she exited, she looked into
both guards’ eyes, and they were the same startling green. On the way to her
car, she passed a female teacher, and her eyes, too, were a green like a spring
pond. Starting her car, Pat felt a gnawing sense of dread.

As
Collin walked back to his room, Proctor Roth stopped him in the hall by
sticking his arm across a doorway. “Collin, a word,” he said.

Collin
stopped abruptly. “Sure.” He drew the word out a bit but tried to hide his
dismay.

“You
know we monitor every visit?” His eyes narrowed in anger.

Collin
felt his stomach lurch. “Yeah. And?”

“We
listen in and record every conversation.” Proctor Roth lowered his arm and
stepped toward Collin, glowering down on him. “If you can’t handle the
privilege of visitation, it can be revoked.”

“Yes,
sir,” Collin obliged.

Proctor
Roth suddenly smiled. “So your mother says you have quite the imagination?”
Collin nodded, feeling coldness radiating off Proctor Roth like a frozen river
in spring. “Imaginations can be useful. Now, hurry to your room.”

*
         
*
         
*
         
*

Alec,
Jared, and Lucy spent the afternoon trying to decide what to do next. They sat
in the pizza parlor for as long as they felt they could without drawing
suspicion. In the afternoon, they drove out of town, following signs for a
historic mill. When they arrived, the mill was closed for the season. They
parked by a small waterfall, the edges of the water sparkling with ice.

Driving
back into town, Lucy said, “Let’s just stop by her house again. We have to try.
Maybe Jared can get a scent to see where Maxwell is.”

“If I
could get my hands on something of his, it might work.”

“Well,
she can’t see me,” Alec said. “I don’t want buckshot in my ass.”

“Insert
joke here,” Lucy snickered. Alec and Jared simultaneously rolled their eyes. “So
it’s up to us,” she continued to Jared. “What’s our ruse?”

“We
know the school chum thing won’t work. What about social services?”

“We
have no credentials.”

“Parents
of a missing child asking for advice.”

“That
seems cruel.”