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Somewhere in western Montana, they spin out on the rain-slicked pavement, and the car ends up in a ditch.
"Fuck," Ava swears, as the wheels churn the mud. They left their cell phones back in Virginia, so that the hunters she once called friends couldn't track them. She had intended to pick up a burner phone at one of the gas stations they hit along the way, but between the long days and the short nights since then, it slipped her mind. And now — now they have no way to call for a tow.
"We're not going to make it to Laurence in time, are we?" asks Bea, quietly.
"We'll make it," Ava says, with a confidence she doesn't feel. "I think we passed a town a couple miles back — if we can just get a tow, we'll be back on the road in no time."
*
By the time they reach the town, wet and tired and covered in mud, it's nearly dark, and the only auto body shop in town is closed for the night. Lights out, windows shuttered.
"We're not going to make it, are we," Bea says. It doesn't sound like a question anymore.
"Let's find some place to stay for the night," Ava says, instead of answering.
*
The motel is a little on the pricy side, but the rooms seem clean enough.
"Why don't you take a shower?" Ava tells Bea.
She waits until the drumming of the shower on the tile joins the drumming of the rain on the roof. Then she picks up the phone on the nightstand and calls Laurence. "We're not going to make it," she admits, for the first time.
"Well then, kid, your girlfriend's just going to have to hunker down and ride it out," he says. "The way we did in the old days."
"What do I do?" Ava asks.
"You got a pen?"
*
Ava tries not to think about the revolver, and the velvet pouch full of silver bullets, hidden in her nightstand.
If Laurence's plan works, she won't need to use them.
But that night, as they make love, she finds herself lingering on every kiss, trying to memorize everything — the taste of Bea's lips, the sound of Bea's voice, the feel of Bea's skin.
Just in case.
*
Anxiety wakes Ava.
She turns on her side and stares at Bea. She's only barely visible in the moonlight streaming through the window, limned in silver — the line of her cheek, the bumps of her knuckles, the curve of her hip.
"I should have told you," Ava confesses into the moonlit silence. "About the hunters. About the werewolves. About everything. I thought — I thought I could keep it all far away from you, if I just — didn't tell you about it. I thought I was protecting you. But I think — I think I might have doomed you, instead."
Bea sleeps on, unaware. Ava listens to her breathing.
*
The next morning, they take Laurence's list to the town hardware store. Thick steel security chains, a bunch of heavy-duty padlocks, a pair of bolt cutters, and a bunch of tools for soldering.
Bea helps with most of it. But when she tries to grab a roll of solder wire off the shelf to toss into the shopping cart, she jerks her hand back with a hiss of pain. When she opens her palm, there are red marks on her fingers.
Ava kisses the marks, and tells her, "This is a good thing. It means Laurence's plan will work."
Bea doesn't look convinced. Ava can't blame her.
*
Ava finishes the soldering at around four in the afternoon, and goes in search of Bea. She's standing in front of the motel ice machine, rubbing an ice cube back and forth across the marks on her fingers.
"Come on," Ava says. "It's almost time."
"I don't know if I can do this, Ava," Bea says quietly.
"You can, Bea. You have to."
"Maybe we should have stayed in Virginia," Bea says. "Maybe you should have let your hunter friends kill me." She looks at Ava. "At least you'd still have them, if you had."
Ava pulls Bea into a hug. Bea is trembling, shaking so hard it feels like she might crumble to pieces in Ava's arms. "No," she whispers into Bea's hair. She regrets a lot of the choices she's made, over her years as a hunter, but not that one. Never that one. "I'd choose you every time."
Even if this ends in a silver bullet, she had to try.
*
Bea puts on a loose hoodie over her t-shirt, and two pairs of socks over her hands and feet.
Ava grabs the first steel chain. "Are you ready?"
"No," Bea chokes out. "I'm so scared, Ava."
Ava sets the chain aside, and kisses the tears from her cheeks. "You can do this, Bea," Ava reassures her. "It's just one night. One night, and then you never have to do it ever again."
"One night," Bea echoes. But there's a hollowness to her voice.
*
The clothes Bea is wearing are supposed to help shield her from the worst of the effects of the silver solder that Ava added to the chains. But as Ava pulls the first chain taut around Bea's chest, there's no mistaking the hiss of pain she lets out, or the way she shudders away from the cool metal.
"I can stop," Ava says reflexively.
"No," replies Bea through gritted teeth. "You can't."
*
The chains need to be loose enough to avoid cutting into Bea when she transforms, but tight enough to hold her in her wolf form. Laurence had very specific instructions about placement, garnered from decades of experience, but it's hard to convey things like that over the phone. Ava can only hope she's doing his instructions justice.
As she works, Ava catalogues every flinch, every wince, every hiss of pain. By the time she finishes, it feels like there's a piece of her heart that's been scraped raw.
Bea is chained up in the fetal position — knees strapped to her chest, arms strapped to her sides. She's shaking, quaking, teeth bared in a perpetual grimace of pain. Ava curls up on the bed behind her, wrapping her arms over the chains holding her in place. "I'm sorry, Bea. It'll be okay, I promise," she says, and presses a kiss behind Bea's ear. "Once the moon rises, you won't feel a thing."
Bea lets out a quiet sob. Ava decides she can afford to hold her for a few minutes more.
*
Five minutes before moonrise, Ava takes the revolver out of the nightstand.
She sits in the chair by the window, and loads six silver bullets. And then she waits.
*
Even with all her attention focused on Bea, Ava almost misses the change — that's how quick it is. Within seconds, dark fur sprouts from her cheeks, her ears shift and move up to the top of her head, and her nose and mouth are reshaped into a long snout. Underneath the bulky clothes, it's difficult to see the rest of the transformation, but the shape of her knees underneath the bulky sweatpants she's wearing is definitely not right.
For a human, at least.
This is the part where things could go very, very wrong. If she missed a chain, if she placed a chain wrong, if she made the chains too loose ...
Ava is a hunter. She knows what happens when werewolves are allowed to run free.
She grips the revolver tighter in her hands.
The wolf snarls. She snaps at the chains she can reach with her mouth, then flinches and whimpers as she touches the flecks of silver solder with her bare muzzle. She paws at whatever she can reach with her limited mobility, paws until the socks slip off, revealing the dark fur beneath. She paws again, and again, and then lets loose an inhuman howl when the chains shift and twist and slide from her clothes directly onto her fur paws.
But although the chains are moving, they're not moving far.
The wolf is contained, at least for now.
Hope begins to take root in Ava's heart. But she doesn't let go of the revolver.
*
At around three in the morning, all of the thrashing and growling and snarling finally seems to tire out the wolf. Her movements gradually become slower and smaller. She lowers her head to rest her snout on the blankets, and her eyes begin to droop closed.
After a few minutes, the wolf begins to snuffle in her sleep.
Ava unwraps her fingers from around her revolver, and sets it on the dresser next to her. Her fingers ache from clutching it so tightly.
*
At around five in the morning, the rain starts up again.
At first it's just a gentle drizzle, a slow and steady drumbeat on the roof overhead. Then it becomes a torrent, one raindrop melting into the next, blending into a soft roar that sounds almost like ocean waves pounding against the shore.
Ava's eyes drift closed.
*
Ava wakes with a start. There's a bit of gray light showing through the crack in the curtains, and the creature curled up on the blankets is moving again, writhing against the chains that bind her.
Ava instinctively reaches for the revolver.
But then she realizes — the creature lying on the blankets is no longer a wolf.
It's Bea.
Ava reaches out to stroke Bea's cheek. "You're alive," she breathes, joy blooming in her chest.
Bea's eyes flutter open. "Ow," she says.
*
Once Ava has removed the padlocks and the chains, they discover the extent of the damage. Bea's wrists and ankles are peppered with tiny red burns, as is the area around her nose and mouth. She's also covered in fresh purple bruises, from the neck downward.
"I'm sorry," Ava says quietly.
Bea touches her fingers to her lips, and winces. "It's better than the alternative."
Ava takes Bea's hand — one of the few places she can touch without causing pain — and presses a kiss to her palm. "It won't be like that next time," she promises. "Laurence has potions to make it easier."
"I hope so," says Bea. "I don't know if I can do that again."
I know I can't, Ava thinks.
*
After fetching breakfast for the two of them, and a bucket of fresh ice for Bea's burns, Ava picks up the phone and calls Laurence.
"How'd it go?"
"Miserably," Ava says. "But we'll be there in a few days."
"We?" he asks.
"We," she confirms, and meets Bea's eyes across the table.