Martha called Shy's father after the ambulance took Dr. Fleiss away, even though Shy would have been fine. She knew David was safe. He would find his way to her. She wasn't worried about walking home alone, because she knew David would never attack her.
Mr. Brown arrived and Martha pulled him into the office to speak with him privately while Shy played with some of the cats. Martha had called in two of the other shelter staff to help clean up and calm the animals, and Shy couldn't listen at the door of the office to hear them, but when Mr. Brown emerged and he and Shy got into the car, Shy could feel the tension in the air.
At first Mr. Brown turned the radio down, then back up again, and finally off. "So, uh, Martha says you're having a hard time because of David?"
Shy tried to stop herself from laughing. "I'm fine, Dad."
"She told me you had named one of the dogs David. And you freaked out when you found out they had to euthanize it?"
"Yeah." Shy wondered how she could play along with this conversation and not come off as crazy. "But he escaped."
"The dog?"
"Yeah."
The silence yawned open again. Mr. Brown tapped on the steering wheel. Finally he said, "I'm not so sure you should keep working at the shelter."
"What?" Shy stared at her father. "Everything's fine, Dad. I wasn't hurt or anything when the wolfhound escaped. I'm perfectly safe."
"Your mother and I agreed that it's not the best idea for you. We should have put our foot down after the last time, when Billy was involved."
Shy sighed.
She couldn't imagine how she would occupy her time without her job at the shelter. It was the only thing keeping her sane with all this werewolf stuff going on. She had been counting on that job to earn money for college.
David was gone, and she didn't know if he would stick with his plan to go to Maine, or if he would return and try to talk to her. She would need to prepare herself either way. She needed a cure by the Halloween dance on Friday.
Her mother didn't let her escape to her room once she got home, either. "Can you start the laundry? Can you set the table for dinner?" Never mind that Billy was sitting in the other room watching TV, cleaning his rifle.
She could barely eat with her parents exchanging glances at every forkful of chicken pilaf she tried to swallow, and then Billy had to go and make everything worse.
"Me and a bunch of my friends are gonna go hunting tonight," Billy announced. "We're gonna get that wolf that attacked us at the shelter."
Mr. Brown cleared his throat. "Billy, perhaps we could—"
"Those protesters can suck it. That wolf is a killer. And if those animal control people can't get their shit together, I know me and Chris and Andy can get him."
"—talk about something else."
Billy and Mr. Brown looked at each other.
Shy pushed her food around. She was sure Billy and his hunting buddies didn't have a chance against a werewolf. At the same time, she wanted her parents to forbid him to go, just in case.
"Maybe we should talk about it," Billy said loudly. "What, you're cool with a killer wolf on the loose that's tried to attack Shy twice?"
Shy looked up. "Twice?"
"Okay, so not you, personally, but you were there, right? When the wolf attacked that doctor at the shelter today?" Billy said.
"I wasn't in the same room," she started to say, but her brother cut her off.
"Oh, come on! That wolf is dangerous. I don't care how into animal rights you are, you can't be cool with a wild animal, probably rabid, going around attacking people!"
"Dr. Fleiss wasn't bitten," Shy said.
"Yeah? What about that kid that got killed in the cornfield, huh? Or all those dead cows and sheep?"
Shyanne gave her parents each an accusing look. "How do you even know what happened today?"
"It was all over the news!" Billy said.
The phone rang then. Normally, Shy's parents wouldn't have answered it on principle, but it was clear they wanted to avoid the conflict at the dinner table just as much as Shy did, because Mrs. Brown got up and answered it, then held it out to Shy. "It's your friend, Mara."
"Thanks," Shy muttered, glaring at Billy as she got up and carried the wireless phone into the living room.
"Hi Mara," she said. "What's up—"
"Oh my god, you're okay, right?" Mara's voice sounded garbled, and in the background Shy could hear people. Lots of people.
"Yeah, I'm fine. Why?"
"Were you at the shelter today?"
"Yeah..."
"I knew it!" Mara yelled, not quite into the receiver, but Shy still had to pull the phone away from her ear. "I knew it!" she whispered again into the phone.
"You knew what?" Shy asked.
"It was you, wasn't it? You helped the wolf escape."
Shy shook her head. "How does everyone already know what happened? It was only, like an hour ago!"
"Yeah, well, turn on the news!"
With a glance toward the kitchen, where Shy could faintly hear a whispered argument happening, she picked up the remote and turned on the TV.
Billy had been right. The familiar front of the animal shelter was on the news, behind a reporter standing with a group of protesters with signs.
"Are you there right now?" Shy asked, finally putting the pieces together.
"Yes! Do you see me waving?"
The icon in the corner might have said "LIVE" but Shy could see Mara in the crowd holding her "Animals are not murderers" sign and though she was on her phone, Mara was not waving. Then, a few seconds later, Mara did wave.
"I can see you," Shy said, wishing she could sound as excited as Mara was.
"We heard on the police scanner that animal control had brought in a wolf, but by the time we got here they said it had escaped, and I just knew. I knew you weren't like David. You're still one of us."
"What?" Shy still wasn't getting it. The reporter on the TV was interviewing Martha. We have no comment at this time, Martha was saying.
"You helped the wolf escape!" Mara cried, then shouted, "Save the Wolf! Save the Wolf!"
Shy wanted to tell Mara that she had nothing to do with helping David escape, and it had more to do with the wolf being David than wanting to save the wolves. She knew that violent animals had to be euthanized – especially one that had killed someone.
But Shy had helped, sort of. David had been awake when Martha led her away. He had only pretended to be asleep when Dr. Fleiss entered his pen, and waited for that moment when the door opened to escape. If Shy hadn't woken him up, he might have remained asleep while Dr. Fleiss administered the shot.
"Yeah," Shy agreed weakly.
"Can you come down to the protest?"
Shy didn't know what Mara and whoever else could possibly be protesting. The wolf had escaped, and unless it was caught, there was no danger of it being euthanized. "My parents don't want me to go out tonight," she said.
"Okay. I'll see you tomorrow in school and give you updates, unless I end up chaining myself to the doors of the shelter." Shy squinted at the TV screen. Mara had a thick rope of chain wrapped around her shoulders and torso. "That's what I was gonna do if they insisted on murdering an innocent animal. Hunger strike, until they stopped killing animals. But looks like I bought this chain for nothing."
"Not for nothing, babe," said a male voice that Shy only knew as Chester's because she could see his lanky figure standing near Mara's on the screen.
"Oh, stop," Mara said. "Okay, Shy – I'll see you later. Animal Rights Club meeting tomorrow after school!"
The phone buzzed in Shy's ear.
Instead of returning to the kitchen, Shy sank down onto the couch. Almost immediately the new coverage switched to the two news anchors at a desk back at the studio.
"Maybe you should turn this off, honey," Mrs. Brown said, coming into the living room. "Come finish your dinner. Billy promised not to talk about any of this anymore."
Shy reluctantly got up and sat down at the table, but she couldn't bring herself to eat. David was out there, and between Mara's protest and Billy's posse, someone was going to get hurt.