Echo Falls by Jaime McDougall

silver bolt into the chest.”
    Phoebe’s eyes snapped open and pursed her lips so she wouldn’t vomit. She couldn’t have heard him correctly.
    Once she trusted her stomach enough to speak, she asked. “Like the others?”
    He nodded.
    They all died in the past month. All in the same way. No, no, no. She closed her eyes, trying to push back the thoughts, but they still came pouring into her mind. How much more evidence do you need before you’ll do something? You may as well have killed Thomas yourself.
    “Maybe you need a different nose to pick up the scent?” Elle suggested quietly.
    A silver bolt to the chest. Silver bolts. Not just regular ones.
    He shrugged. “Maybe… Phoebe?”
    She’d put her hand over her mouth and lowered her gaze, though it didn’t do much to curb the nausea.
    He stepped closer and put his arm around her shoulders. “You shouldn’t be here. It’s too soon after you were attacked. I’ll take you home.”
    “I’ll do it,” Elle said, wrapping her arm around Phoebe’s shoulders. “Charlotte needs her bed at home and River looks ready to sleep on her feet.”
    “Are you okay with that?” He pushed some of Phoebe’s hair away from her face.
    She muttered a weak ‘yeah’ while her wolf preened at the special attention from her alpha.
    He looked at Elle. “Take care of her.”
    She nodded and then looked to the dwindling group of officers. “Take care of Will for me.”
    They walked back to Elle’s car and got inside, both sighing in relief at the comfort of being away from the scene. Elle sniffed and wiped away a few tears, and Phoebe felt numb.
    I killed him. I killed Thomas. I may as well have shot the bolt myself.
    Though the night was cool, Elle turned the cool air on and faced the vents toward Phoebe. Once they were on the road with the air hitting her face, her stomach began to calm and she lowered her hand.
    “Better?” Elle whispered.
    She nodded, relaxing and slouching a little in the seat. She looked back over her shoulder to find River and Charlotte both strapped in and fast asleep.
    “It’s something I discovered with River. Whenever she gets motion sickness, I put the cool air on. Never fails. When we’re at home, it’s a cool cloth on the back of the neck.”
    Phoebe smiled faintly. “You’re really supermom, aren’t you?”
    “I’d tell you, but then I’d have to give you a curfew and make you call me whenever you want to go out with your friends after school.”
    They both smiled faintly and rode the rest of the way to Phoebe’s car in silence. Elle wanted to drive her straight home, but Phoebe didn’t like the idea of leaving her car out all night. If she didn’t already have a parking ticket, she would in the morning. She didn’t say that she needed to start packing and needed her car to put boxes in.
    “What happens now?” Phoebe asked once Elle had pulled in beside her car.
    Elle gripped the steering will and licked her lips as she stared ahead. Phoebe could see her blinking away the tears. When she finally spoke, her voice wobbled.
    “What happens now is we both go home and try to get some sleep. Because tomorrow, more than anything else, our men need us to be strong.”
    They said their goodbyes and Elle made sure Phoebe started her car with no problems before driving off. Phoebe sat there for a while with the radio turned off, trying to stop her body from shaking.
    He’d found her. Of course he’d found her. Didn’t he always? No matter how many times she’d convinced herself that he hadn’t found Echo Falls, that she had just stumbled into a bad situation, the silver bolts sealed it.
    He’d arrived in Echo Falls and he’d done so at the same time she had. Why had she spent so much time trying to run away, constantly debating about staying or going, instead of doing something for once?
    “Because you’re an idiot,” she said, resting her forehead on the steering wheel.
    She sat up, beginning to feel as if she were calling out