Page 46 of Cold Moon

It was hard to think that much of yourself when a strong wind could knock you over. Yeah, it was ridiculous. Having the Condition wasn’t a moral failing. I hadn’t done anything to deserve it. Linden reminded me of that regularly.

But there was just something about the way people talked about the Condition. The way they treated sick people. Like they thought I must have done something to make myself sick, that they themselves hadn’t done. That way I deserved it, and they deserved to be well.

I had a feeling I could write a book about the psychological phenomenon, if I ever got to go to college.

But unfortunately, as Linden and I had determined, every distance-learning program we’d found at universities of repute required minimum terms of residence on campus every year. Time I could never manage, if I couldn’t even go on a date in my hometown, the safest place in the world for a werewolf with the Condition.

Just as the main character shouted the big reveal, who the villain of the episode was, Linden marched back into the clinic, a bottle held high.

He didn’t come closer to the bed, just stood there in the doorway, bottle of water held aloft. “Water,” he spat. “Sterling-brandwater.”

Dante’s eyes narrowed, and for the first time since I’d known him, I caught the bitter-astringent scent of his anger. “You talked to everyone in town about not carrying their products anymore. I know you did.”

Linden clenched his jaw and nodded. “I did. And Jerry and I are going to have a nice long talk about this, but apparently he got rid of forty pounds of Sterling-brand popcorn, but didn’t think to even look at the bottled water.”

“It’s just water,” I pointed out. “They don’t even put ingredient lists on it, do they?”

“They do, actually,” Linden corrected. “But it’s not like this stuff says, ‘Ingredients: water and werewolf poison.’”

“But it should,” Dante said. It was a silly thought, but he didn’t sound belligerent or angry anymore. He sounded... thoughtful. “And that’s all it should say,” he added, when Linden looked over at him, head cocked and one eyebrow raised.

I tried to clear my still-aching throat, and both of them spun to face me when I coughed. I held up a hand to stop them from running in—especially Linden with his bottle of werewolf poison. I managed to choke down a drink from the water Linden had given me—the clinic’s water came right from the bore behind Grove House, so there was no worry about it being tainted.

Linden set the bottle of water down on a table in the waiting room, washed his hands, and came over to help me lay back down after taking my drink. Then he looked at Dante. “Why is that important?”

Dante’s eyes had never left the bottle, like it was a snake sitting in the waiting room. Or a revelation.

Finally, he turned to look at us. “They put it in the water.”

“So they’re not just trying to kill us, they’re arrogant about it?” I wasn’t sure why that was a good thing, but Dante seemed downright pleased.

“But don’t you see?” he asked, turning back to both of us, excited. “That’s exactly what this means. It says what’s in it, right? It says water.”

“Yes,” Linden agreed, then his mouth fell open. “That’s a lie. And they have to know it.”

“So it’s not some preservative or pesticide they’ve thrown in for a valid reason that’s having an unexplained side effect.” Dante kept glancing between us and the water, like he was afraid it was going to disappear. “There’s no way it ends up in water by accident.”

“That does seem kind of unlikely.” I squinted over at the bottle myself, like suddenly I’d be able to see the poison in it, like it would be green and bubbling or have a skull and crossbones on it. But that was just it, wasn’t it? It seemed completely innocuous, something as simple and pure as water. No one would ever look at a bottle of water and think, “That’s probably not okay on my specialized diet.”

“Even better,” Dante said, turning to us with a grin. “They put it inwater.” When I turned to him, clearly confused, he grabbed my hand and gave it another squeeze. “It’s going to be so much easier to find now. There are two ingredients in the bottle, like Linden said. I don’t have to wade through all the chemicals that make up snack cakes or vegetables. The arrogant assholes put it in water.”

He looked like he was having a genuine moment of joy, and even in my misery, it took my breath away. His eyes, always so nervous and cautious, were lit up like a kid on Christmas, or like I’d just offered him the world on a platter.

“Well, all of them are in the back of my car,” Linden told him, turning the stink-eye on the bottle. “There are a few hundred of them, and Jerry handed them over the moment he realized what had happened. So you’re going to have plenty of test material now.”

Dante bit his lip, trying to suppress his smile, and turned his worried gaze back to me. “If we could take them up to my lab, that would be great, but, um—”

“You can go do your science,” I said, waving my hand at the door. “I mean, I get it. It’s a breakthrough. It’s important.”

He shook his head and sat down next to me, just as the theme song for the TV show started playing again—apparently it was a marathon. “It is. But you’re more important. And it’ll still be there tomorrow, when you feel better.”

Linden gave a little sigh at that and stepped back from the side of the bed. “I’m gonna go ahead and drive all this up to the farm and leave it with the rest of your equipment,” he told Dante. He looked like he, too, was suppressing a smile, but it was aimed at Dante, like he was a puppy who’d learned how to do a trick. “I’d rather not have it here in town. And I’ll stop in and warn the Hills about it.”

He went over and grabbed the bottle as Dante took my hand once again, leaning his head on my shoulder and turning to watch the television.

Linden looked back, met my eye, glanced at Dante, and then... he winked at me. Huh.

Well, whatever anyone else in Grovetown thought, at least I knew for sure that one person was on Dante’s side. And mine.

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