Edmund Graves's Arc

Chapter 10 of 12

Edmund packed his bag while the light failed. His plan for tonight was simple. Take his thirteenth kill, then drive out before the county van came. But one thing stood between him and a clean escape: the wolf. It followed Maddie everywhere. If it appeared at his kill tonight, it became a living witness. A tracker could follow the animal straight to the buried body and to him. He had to break the pair apart first. He drove the quarter mile through the woods to the abandoned cottage. The little wooden house sat boarded and quiet under the trees. He knew the wolf circled here because Maddie wandered here. So he would give the girl a reason to stay home. He nailed a warning to the door where she would see it. The sign was old, its edges rusted, its white face streaked with dark red stains. NO TRESPASSING. KEEP OUT. A child would read that and turn back. Then he waited in the brush with his game call. He meant to lure something small and loud, a fright that would send Maddie running for good. Maddie came at dusk, alone. Her braid swung as she walked. The wolf was not with her. Edmund's chest tightened. This was better than he had hoped. He blew the call once. A bear cub crashed out of the ferns, wide-eyed and squealing, its small body tense with alarm. Maddie froze. The cub bawled. And then Edmund understood his mistake. The cub's cries would bring its mother. Brush snapped behind the cub. Something large moved. Maddie screamed and ran, not toward the road, but deeper into the trees, away from her house. Edmund broke cover to grab her. If she died out here, the wolf would find her body, and searchers would find both. He needed her alive and home. The wolf came first. It burst from the dark and put itself between Maddie and the crashing sound. It snarled at Edmund, then herded the girl with its shoulder, driving her back toward the path, toward home. Maddie ran. The wolf ran at her heels, guarding her the whole way. Edmund stood alone at the cottage. He had not split them. He had proven again that nothing separated the girl from the animal. His noise had woken the woods. The bear cub still bawled, and its mother was near. He walked back to his car with empty hands. Full dark now. No time left to hunt a stranger, no time to be careful. His thirteenth kill would not come tonight, not cleanly, not with the wolf awake and the woods stirred. At his house he saw headlights on the road. They slowed. They stopped at Sarah's dark, empty house across from him. A door opened. Someone stepped out with a flashlight and turned the beam toward Edmund's windows.