The Wolf Came on Christmas (Johanna and Alexander) novel Chapter 63

Chapter 63-1

Chapter 63-1

+25 Points

The trees. Ishida had said he couldn’t put sensors in the trees, because of the branches that moved. But even so-how did he do it? I started to feel suffocated. I realized my hands were shaking again, and I hugged Sasha tighter to stop it.

“That’s not possible! What skylight?” Ishida blurted out, and he sounded completely baffled, as if he couldn’t believe it. I think we were all the same. “I secured the basement gates from the outside, but I didn’t see any skylight. Where is it?”

“Sealed under half a meter of ice and snow. You can’t see it from outside,” Richie snapped.

Alexander shut the basement door and stayed there for a moment, staring at the wallpaper pattern that disguised it, furious. I suppose he was trying to calm down before saying anything else, because his mood poured out of his entire posture-you’d have to be an idiot not to notice it. Andre walked up to him and took his hand in both of his, I imagine to comfort

him.

“They’re very skilled at climbing, but how did he get in without us noticing?” Christian said, as horrified as the Hattai. “At least one camera should’ve caught him, and at least two sensors would’ve gone off. What is he, Cat-Spider-Man? Does he turn invisible? Can he jump twenty-five meters?”

Andre tugged at his father to bring him back to the group, and Alexander obeyed almost by inertia. His eyes looked very hard and dark, very different from what he’d shown of himself up to then. His voice sounded unkind when he addressed Ishida:

“Check every camera file that covers that angle of the house. From the day we put them If that bastard came in through the skylight, he had to be in view at some point, and he has to be recorded. I want to know when he did it.” Then he turned to Richie and Christian. “Bring the equipment. We have to fix that window and the one upstairs. And we’ll weld the basement gates from the inside for now. We’re not going anywhere until we-”

Alexander stopped speaking mid-sentence, and I saw him wrinkle his nose hard. And he wasn’t the only one; the others also fell very quiet, for no apparent reason.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, seeing them so absent. I got scared, and the first thing I did was step a couple of paces toward Alexander. Even Andre was like that-alert and stiff as a board at his father’s side. “Hey! Ordinary person in the house! What is-”

The leader lifted his hand quickly and called for silence at once. He turned his head toward the window and murmured:

“A car is coming.”

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Chapter 63-1

I frowned hard, confused. I tried to listen, but I couldn’t hear anything.

“Could it be Rex?” Richie asked, with a certain anxiety.

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“Rex radioed in about an hour ago, and he was stranded by a storm in Vancouver. He won’t get here until tonight,” the Japanese man corrected in a hissing whisper.

“Everyone on guard,” Alexander suggested, and stepped toward the door.

Through the window, I saw, far down the road, a very familiar-looking vehicle approaching my driveway, and the moment I recognized it I immediately thought of stopping Alexander. It was a completely safe car, and its occupant was no less harmless.

It was the sheriff’s dark green truck.

“I’ll handle it,” I said, so calmly that I surprised myself. “Please, take the baby for a few minutes. I won’t be long.”

“What? No, you won’t,” Alexander snapped, and grabbed me by the forearm when I was about to hand him his daughter.

The other wolves reacted too, in ways I’d call frantic: immediately they took positions to hide away from the windows and doors, tense. Nika went straight into the kitchen. I turned back to Alexander, irritated. His controlling attitude, for a moment, annoyed me quite a lot. That was still my house, my safe zone. I was supposed to be the only one with home-field advantage under that roof, and I felt suffocated by his distrust. I still don’t know where I got the nerve to confront him and pull my arm out of his grip:

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LUCK DRAW >

H

Sasha changed arms without noticing at all in her deep sleep, and I went to get my coat.

Since my anorak had been shredded by the tiger-man’s claws, I got rid of it. I know I didn’t even think of trying to fix it-I threw it into the incinerator along with someone’s shed fur, without looking. Given the circumstances, I had to go with my spare coat, lighter but still

decent.

It had started snowing a little again. The gray light of the cloudy sky felt depressing to me.

When I stepped onto the porch, Sheriff McCord had already gotten out of the truck. A dark green off-road Cherokee with the Fremont County Police seals on the doors and the rear cab windows. He took off his cowboy hat, it seemed, lightly. I walked toward him as calmly as I could along the snowy path. I found it impossible to stop looking toward the trees surrounding us, fighting not to think about the possibility that someone might be watching us

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Chapter 63-2

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curve of her belly looked-I didn’t think her pregnancy was that advanced, and-

I think I stared at Kaylee for a moment a little too long, because the sheriff’s voice pulled me back to reality; he was looking to the right, at the fence and the trees:

“Looks like we came at a bad time. You got company?”

The snow-covered black truck had caught his attention.

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