Free The Wolf in Her Heart by Sydney Falk Page B

sneakers, she’d be at less of a disadvantage. Bare feet were the better move when her other option were heels, and her heels were upstairs where she’d woken up.
    Lou had said it’d be a trap. Lou had said she should have come with.
    If there was any way Lou could have, Samantha would have brought her. But she was in heat the night of the party, and no doubt now she was changed and howling somewhere to keep her wolf reigned in.
    Samantha drew a deep breath and shut her eyes. If Lou was here, I’d be safe. I’d feel safe, at least. Feeling safe sounded nearly impossible right now.
    A long, slow howl sounded, and Samantha turned her head to the direction of it.
    At the far end of the hall, a shadow moved on the other side of the metal doors, a terrible shadow with jagged furred edges and a long muzzle.
    Samantha turned to the other end of the hall and took off in a dead run towards those doors. If she was lucky, the doors at the other end were locked. If she was unlucky, the ones she was running towards were locked.
    She smashed her palm against the push-bar and the door swung open. Thank god. Samantha burst through, her lungs burning, the chemical headache throbbing through her skull. She didn’t slow down. There wasn’t long before Rick was going to explode through them after her.
    A scraping sound of metal on metal caught her attention and she spun around.
    A crowbar hung, slid through both the handles of the double metal doors. They strained against it for a moment as Rick bashed the other side of the doors.
    The figure in the dark hallway turned, and somehow it was Lou, in her leather jacket and a band tee.
    “Oh my god! Lou!” Samantha wrapped tight around her for a brief moment.
    “Hey.” Lou staggered a little, and when she stepped back, Sam got a good look at her. Sweat poured down her face and soaked into the tee. Tings around her eyes spoke of little sleep. There was a pale green pallor to her face.
    “What happened to you? Are you okay?” Samantha wrapped around her tight, somehow convinced that if she didn’t, Lou would turn out to be her imagination.
    “It’s a long story. We need to get safe. Come on.” Her hand was clammy and hot, but it was the most comforting thing in that moment. “That crowbar isn’t going to slow him down long.”
    Sam scrambled after Lou as the double metal doors shook and clanged.

Lou pulled a spray bottle out of her pocket and spritzed it into the air as they traveled the hallway.
    “What is that?” Samantha’s voice was barely a whisper. It was stinky as anything.
    “Wolf musk. It won’t prevent him from tracking us but it’ll make it harder.” She sprayed one door directly several times, then opened a door down the hall from it. “If that tricks him, then he’ll try that door first and we’ll get a head start running again.”
    Samantha forced herself to catch her breath. “What’s wrong with you? Talk to me. Why do you look like you’re about to die?”
    Lou shut her eyes and rubbed her face. “I took an aconite tincture. Wolfsbane. It’s a poison.”
    Sam blinked. “You poisoned yourself?”
    “Kind of. It keeps me from changing on the full moon, but only until it wears off. I needed to come find you, and I needed to be able to think for that.” Lou pulled Sam through the open door, into what appeared to be a small office of some sort. “The wolf isn’t so great at strategy, wouldn’t you know.”
    “It’s poison . That can’t be good for you. It’s kind of a universal trait of poisons.”
    Lou whimpered and shook her head, shutting the door behind them. “It won’t kill me. It’ll just make me weak until it passes, and keep me from changing. I’ll be okay.”
    “You better be. I thought you were—“ Samantha wrapped gently around Lou. “I thought I’d never see you again, Louann.” Samantha pressed her hand to Lou’s forehead. “You’re burning up.“ Sam pressed her palm to the center of Lou’s chest. “Oh, god, Lou, your