Now she was shaking, and coughing, and her hands were gripping on the rails of the hospital bed.
Across the room, Cole stared at the door. The knob was jiggling.
“The window,” he told me.
I stared at him.
“She’s not dying,” Cole said, and his own eyes were wide. “She’s shifting.”
I looked back down at the girl on the bed, and she looked back up at me.
“Sam,” she said. She was jerking, her shoulders hunching. I couldn’t watch her. Grace, going through the agony of the shift. Grace, becoming a wolf. Grace, like Beck and Ulrik and every other wolf before her, disappearing into the woods.
I was losing her.
Cole ran to the windows and jerked up on the latch. “Sorry, screens,” he said, and busted them out with his foot. I was just standing there. “Sam. Do you want them to find her like this?” He rushed over, and together we picked Grace off the bed.
I heard the door crashing now; people calling on the other side.
There was a four-foot drop outside the hospital window. It was a brilliantly sunny, clear morning, perfectly ordinary, except that it wasn’t. Cole jumped down first, swearing when he landed in the short shrubs, while I steadied Grace on the sill. She was becoming less Grace in my arms every moment, and when Cole lowered her onto the ground outside the window, she retched on the grass.
“Grace,” I said, my vision swirling now because of her blood smeared across my wrists. “Can you hear me?”
She nodded and then stumbled to her knees. I knelt beside her; her eyes were huge and afraid and my heart was breaking. “I’ll come find you,” I said. “I promise I’ll come find you. Don’t forget me. Don’t —don’t lose yourself.”
Grace grabbed for my hand and missed, catching herself from falling onto the ground instead.
And then she cried out, and the girl I knew was gone, and there was only a wolf with brown eyes.
I could not bring myself to stand. I knelt, bereft, and the dark gray wolf slowly cringed back from me and Cole. From our humanness. I didn’t think I could breathe.
Grace.
“Sam,” Cole said, “I can send you with her. I can start you over, too.”
For a brief moment, I saw it. I saw myself again shuddering into the wolf, I saw my springs, hiding from drafts, I heard the sound I made when I lost myself. I remembered the moment I knew it was my last year and that for the rest of my life I’d be trapped in someone else’s body.
I remembered standing in the middle of the street in front of The Crooked Bookshelf, filled with the certainty of a future. I had heard the wolves howling behind the house and remembered how glad I had been to be human.
I couldn’t. Grace had to understand. I couldn’t.
“Cole,” I said, “get out of here. Don’t give them any more reason to look at your face. Please—” Cole finished my sentence. “I’ll get her to the woods, Sam.”
I slowly climbed back to my feet, walked back into the emergency department through the silently swishing glass doors, and, covered in my girlfriend’s blood, lied perfectly for the first time in my life.
“I tried to stop her.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
• SAM • So it comes to this: I would have lost her either way.
If Cole hadn’t reinfected her, I would have lost her in the hospital bed. And now Cole’s wolf toxin pumps through her veins, and I lose her to the woods, like I lose everything I love.
So here is me, and I am a boy watched—by her parents’ suspicious eyes, since they cannot prove that I kidnapped Grace but believe it nonetheless—and I am a boy watchful—because Tom Culpeper’s bitterness is growing palpable in this tiny town and I will not bury Grace’s body—and I am a boy waiting—for the heat and fruitfulness of summer, waiting to see who will walk out of those woods for me. Waiting for my lovely summer girl.
Somewhere fate laughs in her far-off country, because now I am the human and it is Grace I will lose again and again, immer wieder, always the same, every winter, losing more of her each year, unless I find a cure. A real cure this time, not some parlor trick.
Of course, it’s not just her cure. In fifteen years, it’s my cure, and Cole’s cure, and Olivia’s cure. And Beck —does his mind still sleep inside his wolf’s pelt?
I still watch her now, like I always did, and she watches me, her brown eyes looking out from a wolf’s face.
This is the story of a boy who used to be a wolf, and a girl who became one.
I won’t let this be my good-bye. I’ve folded one thousand paper crane memories of me and Grace, and I’ve made my wish.
I will find a cure. And then I will find Grace.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Once again, I feel unequal to the task of thanking everyone involved in the making of Linger. So many folks have been part of making Shiver and Linger that I’m afraid I’m bound to leave people out.
First of all, I have to thank my absolutely incredible editor, David Levithan, who helped me laugh hysterically as I transformed Linger from a house cat to a tiger. I have learned so much writing this book with you. And I have to thank the entire Scholastic team, for their tireless support of me and the series. Special mentions to Tracy van Straaten (we’ll always have Chicago), Samantha Wolfert, Janelle DeLuise and Rachel Horowitz (Eastern Europe is putty in your hands), Stephanie Anderson (my intrepid production editor, for her tireless work on the books), and Rachel Coun (founding member of the Shiver fan club). I would list everyone at Scholastic who made me laugh or helped make the books a success, but it would take all day. Suffice to say: I love all of you.
I have to single out Chris Stengel, my jacket designer, for special thanks. Chris, you are a graphic god, and you have chosen to use your powers for good. Thank you for that.
My agent, Laura Rennert, and her dog, Lola, have been tireless champions and listeners, and without them, I would be puddles of ooze. Ooze does not make for great fiction.
Thanks to random folks: Jennifer Laughran, for NARKOTIKA. Marian, for tea with almond extract.
Beau Carr, for shouting from the rooftops. To all of the Gothic Girls, for returning my sanity. Vera, for accuracy in acetaminophen dispersal. To dead Germans, for writing excellent poetry.
I couldn’t have written this without the help of my critique partners, Tessa Gratton and Brenna Yovanoff. I know you’re in every acknowledgments page I write, but heck, it’s true. You could cackle evilly when I beg for a lifeline, but instead you guys always throw it out to me.
My family: Kate, you know you’re my first reader and best friend. Dad, you make werewolf logic possible. Mom, you always manage to know just when I’m at the end of my rope. Andrew, for helping me work out what made Cole tick. Jack, for countless wagon rides. Mom-in-law Karen, for wrangling Things 1 & 2 while I tore up NYC. Thank you.
And finally Ed, always Ed. It always comes back to you.