Free Lone Wolf A Novel by Jodi Picoult

but then whipped around and bit me on the knee.
    It wasn’t a painful bite. He could have easily gone for my throat if he’d wanted to. It was just a nip, and it scared me more than it hurt me.
    The real power of a wolf isn’t in its fearsome jaws, which can clench with fifteen hundred pounds of pressure per square inch. The real power of a wolf is having that strength, and knowing when not to use it.
    I didn’t move. I figured if I tried to get up and leave the enclosure, Arlo might take me down and deliver a lot worse than a nip. Paralyzed by fear, I waited for Arlo to trot away. I didn’t move until the sunrise.
    Much later I would learn that this terror probably is what kept me alive that night. When a new member comes to a pack—a lone wolf, for example, filling a vacancy—he’s tested to prove that he’s capable of holding the position, and that he will not threaten the others in the family. This test takes the form of a bite. If the new wolf doesn’t expose his throat to highlight his vulnerability and ask for trust, the wolves already in the pack will do what they must to teach him a lesson. If I’d flinched when Arlo nipped me, or gotten up and run out of the enclosure, I could have been killed.
    The next night, Arlo bit me again. After two weeks, my knees, calves, and ankles were covered with bruises and cuts. Then one night, he brushed up against me. He was slightly damp from a light rain, and I thought at first he was trying to dry himself, but he rubbed his face, the top of his head, and his tail against me. When he pushed against me with all 120 pounds of his body and I fell backward, he nipped at me—another warning to stay in place. He continued to shimmy against me, until I smelled like a wet dog, too.
    Which was exactly why he was doing it. A few weeks later he began to bring the other members of the pack to my spot on the ridge. They would hang back, wary, while Arlo bit me on the knee and shin. It was Arlo’s way of showing them, I realized, that I could take direction.
    That I could be trusted.

GEORGIE
    “Drinking?” I say, stunned. “You were drinking ?”
    The police are gone, chased away by a nurse after Cara dissolves into shoulder-wracking sobs that leave her gasping with pain. I don’t know who I’m more angry at: the cops, for trying to accuse her of a DUI; or Cara, for lying to me in the first place.
    “It was one drink—”
    “Served in what? A bucket?” I ask. “Blood tests are pretty damn accurate, Cara.”
    “I went to a party with Mariah,” she says. “I didn’t even want to go, it was some guy from Bethlehem High she met at a track meet. And as soon as it started to get out of control, I called Dad and asked him to come get me. I’m telling you the truth. I swear I am.”
    “Why didn’t you say anything when the ER doctors asked if you had any drugs or alcohol in your system?”
    “Because,” Cara says, “I knew this was going to happen. I made a mistake, okay? Haven’t you ever made a mistake?”
    God, yes.
    “If you couldn’t admit it to the doctors,” I say, “you might have at least told me. You made me feel like an idiot in front of those policemen.”
    Cara’s mouth twists. “How do you think I feel? If it wasn’t for me—ifI hadn’t been drinking—Dad wouldn’t have gotten hurt. He would never even have been out on the road.”
    That, finally, cuts through the red rage I’ve been seeing since hearing that my underage daughter was drinking while on Luke’s watch. If I’d found out any other way, I would have called him on it. I would have yelled at him about not being a responsible parent, about changing the custodial agreement.
    But I can’t very well yell at him right now.
    “Cara,” I say, sitting on the edge of the bed. “It was a car accident. An accident. You can’t blame yourself.”
    She jerks away from me. “You weren’t there!” she snaps.
    It’s a criticism of me. I just don’t know if she is upset with me for talking