The Wolf Came on Christmas (Johanna and Alexander) novel Chapter 82

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With fifteen minutes to spare, we all gathered on my porch to organize ourselves.

Rex had already taken care of assigning people to vehicles; we had two trucks ready, and the luggage was loaded. All that was missing was Alexander, and the new “alpha” coming out with the last bags, and in a few more minutes we would be gone. I still had no idea where we were headed or what Agent Aguilera had in mind, but in the meantime I had made sure I would be the one carrying Sasha, and that I would stay close to the vehicles. Nika stood a few steps from me, that huge assault rifle in her hands, and Richie wandered near the bend

of the shed.

He was staring at something in the snow, very focused. He crouched and stirred the snow at his feet, lifted a handful.

The blonde woman kept looking insistently toward the trees, just a few meters from where we were standing. She carried several weapons on her-not just the rifle, but also pistols and a long knife strapped in a sheath at kidney level. For a moment, I imagined it was Rambo’s knife, judging by the size. And she planned to travel with that in plain sight? It still amazed me that they had managed to get all those weapons through customs.

Her cold bluish-green eyes never stopped following the branches, attentively. I wondered what she was looking at. Did she also have that super hearing?

I was about to say something when I noticed that Alexander and Rex were already on the porch, I don’t know what they were talking about. Hans and Christian were clearing the snow off the vehicles. Ishida came out from behind one of the trucks and quickly shut the rear doors-he had already loaded his equipment. Everyone seemed ready, even Andre, who climbed onto the fender to help Hans remove the snow. The doctor smiled at him with a kind

gesture.

My attention returned to Richie. For a second, I tensed and swallowed hard, uncomfortable. What he was doing struck me as strange-he was about twenty meters from the vehicles, scraping at the snow, smelling his hands, and-

The Australian wolf jumped up almost in a single motion, fist clenched, ripping his hat off with a sharp movement:

“GUNPOWDER!” he howled, in that thunderous voice of his.

… more or less at that moment, my house suddenly exploded.

No matter how much I’ve tried to replay what happened that morning in my mind, and no matter how many versions I’ve been told, I still can’t fully make sense of it.

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<Chapter 82-1

It wasn’t even seven yet. The sun was already up.

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And I was lying in the snow, half leaning against the tire of one of the trucks. All that filled my ears was white noise, and everything in front of me doubled and then came back together. At first I couldn’t connect where I was with where I had been before closing my eyes. How much time had passed? Back then, in those first moments “back,” it felt like very little-just a few

seconds. Later I realized it had been several minutes.

My house exploded. That was the first thing that reached my conscious self. Richie’s voice echoed in my head.

Gunpowder. Gunpowder. Gunpowder!

My semi-conscious self, meanwhile, was still trying to find the fingers on my hand so I could move them, and focused all its effort on calming the savage pounding of my heart, which took off the moment I saw the column of smoke. At times I saw two, and finally both images fused into one and I managed to see clearly. The house was on fire, the windows shattered, the roof collapsed over the kitchen side. Dizziness washed over me. I still couldn’t hear anything. I didn’t even realize when I lifted my hand to touch my ear; I only felt the cold touch of my own fingers on my skin, and something even colder on my face-something sticky and frozen. My head hurt, a stabbing pain on the left side of my forehead.

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<Chapter 82-2

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Chapter 82-2

kept returning every few seconds, I started to hear screaming, crying, curses. The crying was Sasha’s, and the anguished screams belonged to a woman whose voice felt familiar.

The child’s voice shot through me like electricity.

“Sasha! André!” I yelled with all my strength, though to me it sounded like a soft moan. My ears rebelled again and the sound slipped away from my.perception in waves. “ALEXANDER! WHERE-”

Sasha’s cries grew louder. Someone crouched beside me and a frantic hand dug into the

back of my neck through my hair, holding me before I collapsed again into the snow. I didn’t recognize the touch of that warm, small hand, and fear rose in my chest. When I turned, I met Kaylee’s green eyes beneath her wide-brimmed hat. She was holding Sasha, and her voice reached me as if from a mile away:

“Johanna! Calm down, don’t move! Does anything hurt?” she demanded.

“Kaylee… what’s happening? What are you doing here?”

“We’re the first to arrive-the sound of the explosion alerted us. The firefighters will take a little longer, Luke hasn’t called yet, but we can’t rule out that someone saw the smoke column and picked up the phone,” she explained, helping me sit up quickly. Sasha twisted in rage in her arms-she didn’t want Kaylee-but I couldn’t take her because I was still disoriented, and the sheriff’s wife’s words went in one ear and out the other, literally. “Are you okay? We figured it wouldn’t be appropriate to bring the whole unit, so it’s just us… where’s the boy?”

“André?”

I didn’t know whether to trust her or not. What if this was their doing? The explosion…

I squeezed my eyes shut and ordered myself not to be paranoid. Kaylee was with me, dressed in civilian clothes. Was she carrying weapons? Who else was crying besides the baby? I heard a desperate shout, then howls that made my skin crawl. I turned toward the sounds, fearing the worst. Again I thought of the bullets, of that bright copper round my father had held between thumb and forefinger…

I fought to stand, stretched my arm upward and grabbed the door to pull myself up until I was on my feet.

“Johanna! Listen to me, please… a fragment of something hit you in the head…”

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