Don't Open That Door - GoM 1

13

Graham, Bass and the others lowered their rifles and traded horrified looks and turned to look down at the spot by the campfire again. Tom was fallen there, flat on his back. And Alex on top of him, covering him with her own body. Neither of them moved.

Bass cleared his throat to call a hesitating, "Al...?"

There was no answer and they took a couple of steps closer.

Graham tried to keep his voice from trembling. "Alex!"

Tom opened his eyes, stunned after hitting his head against the ground. He found Alex's face not an inch away, and he registered the weight of her body and her arms around his head.

"Al!"

"Alex?"

The men came closer.

Alex looked down at Tom, still holding her breath. She made sure he was alive and let out a shaky sigh. Then she nodded and rested her hands by his head to push herself up to her feet.

He didn't move, still processing what she'd just done.

Alex faced her friends with a glare as to set them all on fire.

"Stay back!"

The five men stopped on a dime.

"Thank God, Al!" said Bass, relieved. "For a moment I thought you—!"

"I SAID BACK!"

The hunters took a cautious step away from her, as she patted the dirt off her arms and clothes, still glaring at them. Graham showed off what a pair he'd grown and shook his head.

"Good Lord, Alex! Why did you—?"

"You bunch of brainless ASSHOLES!" she cut him off. "WHAT THE HELL d'you think you're doing! You just frigging SHOT ME!"

"We heard the shots," said Jack from a safe distance.

"And you wouldn't answer the radio," added Bass. "We all thought you were in trouble."

"And I was, dickheads!" Tom sat up slowly. Still glaring at the sheriff, Alex offered him her hand to help him stand up. "Don't you see the dead wolves? Not exactly hounds, right, Dave?"

Tom stood by her as she turned to Jack. Graham glanced back over his shoulder and spotted the dead wolf near the tent.

"You heard four shots, right?" she said. "Well, there you have two dead wolves! Another one got away with a bullet in its leg!" she turned to Graham again. "Two of those shots saved my life! So I'm sorry I didn't pick up the radio. We were kinda busy as you can see!"

Bass signaled the others to put away their rifles and approached Alex, resting a soothing hand on her shoulder. She spun on her heels and Tom shot a menacing glare at him.

"You're right, Al: we screwed up," Bass said gently, and faced Tom with an apologetic smile. "I'm sorry. We all are. The whole situation looked quite different at first sight."

Tom nodded—apology accepted.

Alex shook off Bass' hand, snorting, still mad at them, and turned to Graham. The sheriff was some convenient yards away, crouching by the dead white wolf. He straightened up to face her.

"I'm glad you're okay. Whoever your friend is, he's—"

"Shut up, Dave," she growled. "He's the archer who saved the city kids. I found'im here yesterday, badly wounded."

"Jesus, Alex! Why didn't you call us for...?"

She didn't need to speak. Her glare was enough to make him trail off.

She glanced back at the campfire, where Bass was introducing Tom to the others. He shook their hands with cold nods and answered their questions about the wolves.

It was such a strong sensation that Alex felt relieved it lasted only a moment. But all of a sudden Graham, Bass, all of them were the strangers, even dangerous in their ignorance, hasty, blind. The only one she could rely on was Tom, the actual stranger with real skills with knives, guns, bows. Yet he was the one she related to. He didn't shoot before asking stupid questions. He didn't underestimate her. He had her back.

Graham startled her back from her musing.

"Why are you guys still here? You should've gone back down to Jeff's."

His good intentions softened her answer. "He was hardly alive when I found'im, Dave. He only got to his feet to fight the pack a while ago." Well, and earlier on as well, to put a knife to my throat, but let's just leave that bit out for now.

"Well, now we can help him..." Graham trailed off again when she shook her head.

"Listen, Dave, this is what we're gonna do, and I ain't taking no arguments, okay? I think I've earned it, after you almost killed me."

The guild gambit worked and Graham nodded with a troubled frown.

"You guys are going straight back down now. And you ain't venturing into the woods again until I tell you so. They're ordinary wolves, but the alpha isn't. That wolf is controlled by something else. So I'm staying here with Tom till he's in shape to walk all the way down to the station. And meanwhile, I'm gonna figure this out. Until then, I cannot tell you whether you guys can help me and you'd only get in my way."

Alex could tell every wound she was causing to Graham's pride as a man, as a cop, as a game hunter and as her elder. She couldn't care less.

She was about to speak again when she felt—only then—the burn in her shoulder. She touched it, finding the flannel's ripped fabric. Her fingertips came out wet, and Graham stiffened at seeing the blood.

"Shit, Alex! You okay?"

Alex raised her eyebrows. Judging by the line of the scratch, both of them knew it'd most likely been Graham's bullet.

"Alex! You—"

"I'm fine, Dave. It's just a scratch."

"Anything you may need? We have food, rounds, blankets..."

Alex's smile was ironic at Graham's attempt to make amends. "That'd be nice. Phil's survival six-pack would come in handy, and a complete first-aid kid, too. We already ran out of spare T-shirts patching up Tom's wounds."

She patted his arm to head together back to the campfire.

Graham's eyes fell on Tom. "And you say he was badly wounded," he said.

"Yeah, he almost bled out. That's why I camped right here—I couldn't move him."

"Well, looks like he's healing fast."

Don't say. Actually, too fast to be normal. But she wasn't about to discuss that with Graham.

They joined the others and Alex supervised the recollection of supplies from her friends. When they were about to leave, she asked Graham for his phone and typed a text message.

"Please show this to Claire, Dave," she said. "Tell'er to look this up in Grandpa's books. Tell'er to be ready to come over if we need'er to."

Graham kept back his phone with another concerned glance at Alex's shoulder.

"I'm so sorry," he murmured.

She smiled. "It's okay. You just owe me a new flannel and a red wine from Stone's Cellar. Well, a little trust would do better."

Graham frowned, puzzled. "Trust?"

"Yeah, like you used to trust Grandpa. I need you to trust me like that. Like, when I tell you not to come around."

She didn't add, 'like I told you to stay away from here'. She didn't need to. Graham already looked abashed like a scolded puppy.

Bass came to Alex's side and hugged her. He shook Tom's hand and waved for the others to get moving. They picked up the dead wolves and left, heading for the Hollow path into the woods.