Arthur had left the front door unlocked. As Mel and Kit emerged outside, she knew she should usher them to a quieter side street, but her mind wouldn’t accept that as a priority. Every thought, feeling, instinct, and inclination bent inevitably to Arthur. He was getting away from her.
Kit sniffed the sidewalk for a few seconds and pointed eastward. He knelt down beside her and nodded at her to climb onto his back. At her fastest, she couldn’t match half his pace. Mel obeyed. She moved carefully in spite of the fact that Kit was far more likely to accidentally hurt her than she him— if she even could hurt him. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders as though he were giving her a piggy back ride. Kit shook to loosen her grip and rose, standing on all fours. Mel pushed herself upright, found her balance, and took hold of the long fur on Kit’s neck.
“I think I’m ready,” she whispered.
He eased her into his stride, walking for a few paces before picking up speed. Mel’s body seemed to attune itself to Kit’s. Soon they were racing down the sidewalk, eyes gleaming with matched intensity, Kit following Arthur’s scent while Mel scanned the road for his green truck.
The necklace bounced against Mel’s chest. It pulled at her mind, asking for attention. When Kit slowed at an intersection to sniff the air, she took a moment to grant that attention.
“…Please don’t… familiar… If we can…” Rosa’s voice faded in and out of Mel’s thoughts. She tried to connect long enough to get some sense of the message, but could only catch a couple of words at a time.
“…Anyone… as long as… Mel, if you’re hearing this, please—“
Kit picked up the pace again, knocking Rosa’s voice from her mind entirely.
There were few lights on in the houses they passed. Fewer cars on the road still. If they could catch up to Arthur quickly, they might actually stand a chance of avoiding too much attention. She could find a place for them to hide— the woods outside town spanned over ten miles— and then listen to Rosa’s message after dealing with Arthur.
“There!” Mel cried out as they turned a corner. Arthur’s van sat stalled out at a light down the block. She tightened her grip on Kit’s fur and leaned low as he pursued the van in great bounds. She thought she could hear muffled cursing from inside the van as Arthur turned its engine over time and again. As they neared, Kit took one more flying leap over the van. He landed a few feet ahead of Arthur, bared his teeth, and turned around slowly.
Mel met Arthur’s eye. She could feel the impact of her gaze as surely as if she’d reached out and struck him. Blank terror fell over his face, and Mel smiled.
His horn blared as she slid from Kit’s back. The two of them approached slowly, wary after he’d managed to stab Kit, but Arthur’s entire being was focused solely on pressing the horn.
Mel hit the driver’s side window with her palm. Arthur flinched, but didn’t ease off. She tried twice more before asking Kit, “Could you break the window?”
Gently easing her aside, Kit struck the window while letting out a vicious bark. He broke through. His arm was raked up to the elbow by shards of glass clung together with film.
“Fuck— help me!” Arthur cried, his voice too shaken to reach its normal bellow.
Kit pulled a small sheet of broken glass out as he extracted his arm. His lacerations healed shut. Mel stepped up to the window.
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“Get out of the car,” she said.
“Fuck you.” Arthur hit the horn again, a short burst this time.
“Get out.”
He wouldn’t even look at her. She’d caught him— he was hers now— and he wouldn’t even look her in the eye. She told Kit, “Pull him out.”
Arthur threw his arms over his head and yelled in a barely coherent string, “NonostopnoI’ll LEAVE.” He shuddered and unbuckled his seatbelt, his head still turned away from them as he opened the door and slid out. He positioned himself so that Mel stood between him and Kit.
Mel could feel Kit’s breath on her back. “Arthur.” He didn’t answer. “Arthur. Can’t you just look at me? I want to talk.”
“The fuck you do!”
She couldn’t help thinking he looked like a little boy afraid to face his parents. “Aren’t you even sorry?”
His belligerence overtook his fear, and he finally looked at her. “For what?”
The flare of rage that followed terrified Mel. Her vision darkened, her ears rang, and it suddenly seemed that all the world shrank to this one man. Then Kit growled, sending a visible shiver through Arthur. Mel took a breath and said, “I thought we were friends.”
“This is how you treat your friends?”
“Obviously I’m not stupid enough to think that anymore. I meant in the beginning. You said we were like family to you. Did you ever actually care about any of us?” This wasn’t what she’d envisioned while pursuing him. None of it was right.
“How can you ask that after all I’ve done for you?”
“I’m not talking about what you think I owe you. I’m asking if you ever truly gave one fuck about us.”
He only stared at her.
“I thought we were friends,” she repeated, trying to relay all that this had once meant to her: the trust, respect, encouragement, and joy wrapped in that word. “Why do you treat people like this? How can you sleep at night? Don’t you understand how badly you’ve hurt everyone?”
“Ok,” he said, throwing up his palms. “Fine. I’m a horrible person. You hunted me down to have a werewolf murder me in the street, but it’s my fault, because I’m so terrible. Is that right?”
“That’s not—“
“Isn’t that right?!”
Kit loomed over Mel, snarling and digging his claws into the van’s roof. He lunged, snapping his great jaws in the air next to Arthur’s head, and withdrew.
“No, this isn’t right,” Mel hissed. She squeezed her eyes shut. “It can’t be like this. You ruined a man’s life. You told Gus he was family, and you threw away his life like it was nothing. Just be sorry!”
Mel opened her eyes again and saw only childlike fear on Arthur’s face. He was fixated on Kit now. She finally understood: if he’d been capable of caring about anyone, none of them would be where they were.
A sense clearer than words came into Mel’s mind. Kit wanted her to move away from Arthur. She shook her head, tears stinging her eyes, and the sense turned into insistence.
“No,” she mumbled, “none of this is right.” Mel turned away from Arthur and met eyes with Kit. “I’m so sorry. I can’t do it.”
Kit took a couple of long strides backwards and sat on his haunches, studying her. There were tears in his eyes, too. He gave a confused keening sound and urged her to explain with a tilt of his head.
“I thought I wanted… Please believe me, I thought I did.” Kit pushed the thought of Gus at her, hard, but Mel knew she couldn’t change her mind.
Rising on his back legs once more, Kit let out a long, sorrowful howl and brought both fists down on Arthur’s van. Mel hadn’t stopped him from killing Arthur; she couldn’t. She’d only stopped giving him her approval, and he wouldn’t proceed without it.
On sickeningly unsteady feet, Mel moved toward Kit. She heard Arthur gasping behind her. It didn’t matter. One friend was dead, another on the run for her life, and here her poor, sweet, funny, level-headed Kit was on the verge of losing himself to grief. She reached out and lightly touched his elbow.
A flash of light struck him inches above her hand. Mel turned in time to see people in robes running toward her, saw another flash, felt her shoulder hit the pavement, and lost consciousness.