The Wolf Came on Christmas (Johanna and Alexander) novel Chapter 30

Chapter 30-1

Until I was finally able to leave the baby sleeping in the portable crib and return to clean the kitchen, I had to spend a long time coming to terms with the fact that I had been the one in the wrong for speaking to Alexander the way I did in the first place. I could only try to imagine what he must be feeling. His wife-the woman he had loved for years and with whom he had been so happy-suddenly… no longer recognized him, nor Andre, to make matters worse. He hadn’t mentioned anything about Sasha. Maybe because she was a girl and the girls of his kind didn’t transform? I couldn’t imagine anyone rejecting a child as adorable as Andre, in any form. The boy had won me over with his candor and liveliness, and that was despite having first met him in his animal form.

I didn’t understand what had happened between them, but why meddle in his life?

Alexander had said his wife was very religious. Hadn’t she imagined what she was getting into when she married him, knowing that one day it could be revealed? Or one of their children? And on the other hand-was I really going to switch into journalist mode with him?

No. He had already paid me to keep quiet. Why insist on digging into things that could hurt him? It made little sense to keep snooping around his private life; provoking a werewolf was truly not something I wanted to do. Maybe what I really wanted was to understand-to know what was going to happen to him or to his children when they left my house. I didn’t think I was capable of stopping myself from worrying about those children’s well-being.

I decided to try not to ask any more difficult questions.

Agent Aguilera returned around noon, as promised.

He didn’t enter the house; Alexander went out to meet him and they exchanged a few words in the front yard. Then the federal agent pulled a huge blue duffel bag from the trunk of his car-a dark SUV with tinted windows. When the bag changed hands, Rex turned his back to the house, and Alexander did the same.

They were surely discussing something they didn’t want to leak under any circumstances.

It was only fifteen minutes or so, but they greeted each other again with that wrist-grip handshake, and then Aguilera got back into his vehicle and drove off. My guest came back inside, carrying the bag over his shoulder-it looked heavy, mostly because of its size-and set it down in the living room near the fireplace. I didn’t dare ask what it contained. He still looked irritated, and I didn’t want to even imagine what he might say if I bothered him with curiosity.

We had lunch in tense silence, broken only by Andre’s voice as he talked about his drawings

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Chapter 30-1

+25 Points

and the equations Alexander had written for him on a sheet of printer paper. The boy was seven years old and solved small, simple equations with just a few numbers-so well that I felt embarrassed thinking I hadn’t gotten along with math until at least sixteen. That made

me even less inclined to chat.

All the same, his father kept glancing at me every few seconds, as if he wanted to say something but didn’t dare.

I think my “reverential fear” of Alexander wasn’t about how he’d treated me. It was more that I perceived him as powerful-fierce-and that intimidated me greatly. I think I was well within my rights: in that house, I was still the weak prey (in some sense), and I had overstepped with him. Wasn’t it right to respect superior powers?

After eating, I locked myself in my room to write a little, and around three in the afternoon I told Alexander I was going out. Andre and Sasha were napping together on the couch, and he nodded when I asked whether he’d be all right on his own for two hours.

I took the jeep and headed into town to see my psychologist.

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Chapter 30-2

Chapter 30-2

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Something happened on the way there. Something I maybe should have paid more attention

I didn’t think anything of it when I saw the motorcycle parked on the side of the road. I only frowned, wondering who would have left that pretty Honda Storm alone on the shoulder, slowly being covered by the snow that had already begun to fall. Half a mile later, under snowfall that was growing thicker, I saw someone walking in the same direction I was heading.

again.

Why did I care about the poor kid?

“Yeah, actually. I’m going to see my girlfriend-she lives in the city… she must be furious, it’s

late.”

“Oh, I see. Dressed for a date.”

He laughed at my (bad) joke and then nodded. He showed me his dirty hands and how little the tissue was helping-or how little effort he was putting into it, as if he really didn’t want to dirty it. He watched me with a kind of fascinated cheer, those dark eyes fixed on my face as I focused on the road. He seemed like a good kid. I turned on the high beams when I noticed the snowfall had grown even thicker and the sky was darkening in a way I didn’t like.

I began to fear that going out had been a bad idea.

“…I hope the roads don’t get too covered,” I murmured. “I have to get back home in a while.”

“It won’t snow much more,” the young man said confidently.

“How do you know?”

He smiled again, and though his lips barely curved, small wrinkles formed around his eyes. I wondered, secretly, what he found so good-what made him so happy. Maybe it was love. I watched him fold the barely stained tissue neatly and rest it on his thigh, calm and unhurried.

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