The Hunter; The Chase; The Kill by L.J. Smith

Author:L.J. Smith
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing
Published: 2010-11-23T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 10

In midair she was knocked to the side with stunning force. A brutal blocking tackle. She landed with her face crushed into the sand. Not in the hole, on the beach.

Chaos was going on above her. On top of her. A whole football team scrimmaging there. Thick snarls, gasping breath, then suddenly a yelp. Sand fountained around her.

Then it all stopped.

Audrey lay still for a moment longer, then rolled over to look.

Tom was half sitting, half crouching in the sand, his dark hair wildly mussed, his face scratched. He was breathing in gasps. In his hand was a Swiss Army knife, the blade not shining but dark. The wolf was gone. So was the hole.

“Is it dead?” Audrey panted. She could hear the hysteria in her own voice.

“No. It went into that crater thing. Then the crater disappeared.”

“Oh,” Audrey said. She looked at him, blinked. “You know, we’ve got to stop meeting like this.” Then she collapsed back on the sand.

“Audrey! Audrey, where are you? Audrey! ”

Audrey had seldom heard a voice filled with so much terror, but she was drifting in an endorphin cloud of overexertion. She could barely rouse herself to wave a hand without looking.

“We’re here!” Tom shouted. “Here!”

The next moment Jenny was on her knees beside them. “Oh, God, what happened? Are you all right?”

“The wolf happened,” Tom said. “She’s all right, it’s just reaction.”

“Are you all right? Oh, Tom, you’re bleeding!”

Sounds of hugging. Normally, Audrey would have let them have their reunion in peace, but now she said, “Eric’s back there. I don’t know if he’s all right.”

“I’ll go see.” Tom detached himself from Jenny’s arms and went. Jenny turned to Audrey, golden dress shining in the gloom.

“What happened?”

“It tried to chase me into a hole. A hole,” she repeated, before Jenny could ask, and described the thing she’d seen. “I don’t know why, but it wanted me to fall in.”

“Oh, my God,” Jenny whispered. “Oh, God, Audrey, it’s all my fault. And if Eric is dead—”

“He’s not dead,” Tom said, coming back up. “He’s breathing, and I can’t even find any bleeding or anything. The wolf didn’t want him; it wanted Audrey.”

It was only then that Jenny asked, “What are you doing here?”

Tom looked at the ocean. “I didn’t think anything would happen here—but I wasn’t sure. I hung around in the hotel just in case. When I saw Audrey going down to the beach, I kept an eye on her from the deck up there.”

“Oh, Tom,” Jenny said again.

“Thank God you did,” Audrey said, picking herself up. She was bruised, but everything seemed to be in working order. Her brand new Oscar de la Renta, though, was another matter. “It’s a pity you couldn’t have saved the dress, too.”

As they climbed the sandy ocean ramp up to the hotel grounds, she said thoughtfully, “Actually, I suppose you saved my life. It doesn’t really matter about the dress.”

“We can’t be the ones to tell the police about Eric,” Jenny said. “Because we can’t afford to lose the time, and because they might separate us.

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