"Ouch." I winced as Alex cleaned the cut on my foot with hydrogen peroxide. "That fucking stings." My toes curled against the pain.

"You shouldn't have gone running across the parking lot of a gas station without your shoes on, then," Liz scolded. She sat next to me on the couch, arms crossed over her chest.

"Just hold still, Allison," Alex said. He sat cross-legged on the floor in front of me, a first aid kit open next to him. He was meticulous about making sure my injuries were treated thoroughly. My gaze went to the bite on his neck that was still left open. I wondered why he didn't do the same for himself when he was hurt.

Maybe he didn't want to look vulnerable.

The bus went over a bump, and Alex accidently slammed the cut on my foot with the chemical-soaked cotton swab. I gritted my teeth against the jolt of pain, trying not to scream.

"I think there's a piece of glass stuck in it," I whined. "I can feel it in there."

"There was shattered glass and broken bottles all over that parking lot," Veronica cut in. She and Reggie sat together on the far end of the couch. "Maybe there is something stuck in there."

"There isn't," Alex said. "I checked."

"Well, it feels like there is." I crossed my arms and blew a strand of hair out of my face. "This is your fault, by the way." I glared at him. "If you would have listened to me, I wouldn't have needed to run across the parking lot like that to try to escape."

He continued to clean my wound, ignoring what I was saying.

I ground my teeth as rage churned inside me. He was so convinced he knew what was right, and I was wrong. How could he know what was going on in my own head better than I did? He wouldn't even fucking listen to me.

"I hate you." My voice came out as a low growl.

Alex froze, and his jaw clenched. He pinched his eyes shut. "I'm sorry." His hands shook as he wrapped a bandage around my foot, taping it on the top to secure it. He looked up to meet my eyes for a second, but he didn't say anything else.

I swallowed a lump in my throat. He really believed what they were doing was helping me, didn't he? He really believed my wolf was something evil I needed to be freed from.

It was true—when I'd lost control to her, I'd killed someone.

What if he was right?

He couldn't be, though. I knew my wolf. I'd talked to her. She was confused. She was trying to protect me.

But what if she was lying?

My thoughts wound around, tying knots in my head.

What made Alex and Liz any more trustworthy than my wolf? They had the spirits of my parents within them, but they'd abandoned me when I was a child. How could I trust them after that? How could I trust them after they'd tied me up and held me against my will?

I couldn't. That was the answer.

Regardless, as my rage cooled, the fear set in. What if I didn't find a way to get out of this? If my wolf didn't regain her strength in time, what would happen? I remembered the conversation between Jake and Alex I'd overheard at the gas station. I remembered Alex and Liz talking on the bus last night.

They'd said they would do what had to be done if the exorcism failed. Did that really mean what I thought it did—that they would kill me?

But that was only if I lost control to my wolf the way James did, right? She wasn't trying to take control like that, so if the exorcism failed, they'd realize I was right. If I couldn't escape the exorcism, would making sure it failed be enough?

I needed more information.

"What's going to happen tonight?" I finally asked, keeping my voice low so only Alex would hear me. "The exorcism . . . what's it like?"

Alex frowned as he retrieved a few bandages from the first aid kit. "Put these on your hands."

I took them from him while he cleaned grit and dirt from my skinned knees. I placed the first bandage over the scrape on the palm of my left hand. "How does it work?"

Alex finished bandaging my knees and clicked the first aid kit closed. "When we get to the clearing, we'll perform a ceremony to evict the wolf from your mind." He stood, retrieving the first aid kit and stowing it back in the cabinet.

"Will it hurt?" I asked.

"We'll have to take some of your blood," Alex said. "That will hurt a little." He paused. "Other than that, I don't know. It's hard to predict how the experience will feel."

"It's very similar to the ritual we use when we shift to a new body and join souls with them," Liz cut in. "First, using a pure silver blade, we slice the skin of the body that houses the wolf."

I winced.

"It doesn't have to be a very big cut," Reggie assured me from the other side of the bus.

I nodded and turned back to Liz as she continued explaining. "The blood that is drawn must be fed to the flames in the center of the clearing as an offering to the forest. This evicts the wolf's soul from the body."

I ran my hand through my tangled, sweaty hair, taking it all in.

"When we usually perform the ritual," Liz continued, "the souls of the human and wolf have been so closely merged that one cannot be evicted without taking the other along with it. For you, though, that won't be the case. Since you haven't merged consciousness, the spirit of the wolf in you will be exorcised, and you'll be cured."

I closed my eyes, tilting my head back and exhaling heavily. I had to prepare for the worst. I had to make sure this exorcism failed. I couldn't let that happen to my wolf.

"But it didn't work last time you tried it." My hand found its way into the pocket of my jean shorts, and my fingers fidgeted with the plastic hand grenade. I ran my thumb over the ridges of the cap. I needed any luck it could give me. "It didn't work with James."

Both Alex and Liz tensed when I said his name. Alex clenched his jaw and Liz straightened in her seat. I was hitting them where it hurt. Good. If I had any chance of convincing them not to do the same thing to me, that was what I needed to do.

"Why didn't it work with him?" I pushed on.

Liz opened her mouth, but before she could get a word out, a wail of a siren cut her off.

Everyone in the bus froze.

The spell broke with the second scream of the siren.

"Fuck," Alex spat under his breath as he glanced out the window.

Outside, red and blue lights flashed as a black, unmarked cop car pulled up alongside our bus.

"Shit, shit, shit," Liz muttered. She slinked out of her leather jacket as we slowed and pulled off to the side of the road. "Put this on." She tossed it to me.

Instinctively, I caught it and did as I was told, shoving my hands through the sleeves and shrugging it over my shoulders. "Why?"

"You need to hide the rope burns on your wrists." She mimed rubbing her wrists. Then, she glanced over to Alex. "Alex, your neck."

He traced over the bite wound quickly before grabbing his sweatshirt from the bench behind him. After pulling it on, he flipped the hood over his head.

The bus finally shuddered to a stop on the side of the road. I held my breath, my heart pounding against my ribs. Why were we being pulled over? Was it possible the cops knew something about what happened back in Minneapolis? Someone had seen us headed in exactly the wrong direction—fleeing the scene of the crime—and word had gotten back that we were on the run. It was suspicious.

I thought about our stop at the gas station, and a lump formed in my throat. What if we'd been spotted there? What if they figured out what happened? I couldn't go to prison. I couldn't spend my life rotting away like that.

"Why are we being pulled over?" I asked compulsively. Sweat dripped down my back and beaded on my chest. My teeth chattered like I was freezing.

"I don't know, but I'm going to find out." Alex walked towards the door to the bus, but before he could reach it, it swung open.

My heart skipped a beat, and I froze.

"Can I help you?" Alex blocked the doorway with his body. He extended his arm and pressed his hand firmly against the wall so the entire passageway was blocked.

"Yes, do you mind moving?" a deep, gruff voice said.

Alex kept his footing firm for a second before slowly stepping to the side.

A tall, heavyset police officer climbed the steps onto the bus. He took off his hat and sunglasses when he reached the main section of the bus, his eyes scanning over us.

Jake climbed into the bus behind him, looking like he'd seen a ghost. He and Alex exchanged pointed glances. Were they communicating something telepathically?

"What's the problem?" Alex crossed his arms over his chest as he addressed the officer. "We weren't speeding."

"Take your hood off, please," the officer told him.

Alex hesitated but did as the officer said, flipping his hood down and shaking his hair slightly, like he was trying to use it to make the bite less obvious. Unfortunately, his hair wasn't quite long enough to hide it, and the attempt only drew attention to it.

The police officer narrowed his eyes when he saw the bite on Alex's neck, but he didn't say anything about it. "We had some reports from a gas station about some suspicious activity on your bus."

"Like what?" Alex's tone made my heart race. I didn't know why he was being so aggressive. That would only make us look more suspicious.

The officer glanced around the space, pursing his lips. The floor creaked beneath his heavy footsteps as he paced across the floor. My eyes traveled to the gun in its holster on the side of his belt, and I swallowed down a dry lump in my throat.

"May I check the rest of the bus?" he asked.

"Of course," Alex replied, giving him an overly sweet, fake smile. "We have nothing to hide."

The cop headed to the back and pulled open the door. Alex followed him, and they both entered the sleeping area together.

The sudden thought to make a run for it now came over me, but I pushed it down. I needed to escape an exorcism, but I also couldn't get myself caught for murder doing it.

"What's going on?" Veronica whispered.

"Just stay calm, babe," Reggie said. "Alex is taking care of it." But from the look on his face, I got the idea he wasn't any more convinced than I was that Alex was handling the situation the right way.

Before any of us could say anything else, Alex and the police officer returned to the main section of the bus.

"A girl," the cop looked directly at me as he said it, "apparently ran out of your bus and into the woods while you were stopped at a gas station. She was barefoot, and she was allegedly chased down by two other people from your bus and then escorted back onto it."

We were all silent as he looked us over.

"It's suspicious." His brown eyes flickered as they landed on me again.

"What about it is suspicious to you?" Alex asked.

The officer turned his attention to Alex and frowned at him.

Alex didn't seem to know when to shut the fuck up. I didn't understand why he was provoking the police officer like this. He was acting like a dog chained to a pole watching another dog piss on his lawn. He was trying to defend his territory, but all he could do was bark.

"It was me," I cut in before Alex could say anything else. "I ran off of the bus because I had to puke. I get motion sickness really easily."

A heavy silence filled the bus. I could hear my heart pounding in my ears as I waited to see what the officer would say.

"I've told her to stop puking in the bathroom on the bus," Veronica suddenly broke the silence, picking up on my lie quickly. She fidgeted with the black choker she had around her neck, twisting it back and forth between her fingers. "It makes the whole fucking bus smell." She paused. "Sorry, pardon my language, officer."

He narrowed his eyes at Veronica and then turned to me. Sweat slicked the back of my neck as I held my breath.

"Maybe it was just a false tip, then," he said, making his way towards the door. He glanced back to Alex before leaving the bus. "You should get that checked out, kid. Wouldn't want it to get infected. What the hell happened? You get bit by a wolf or something?"

"It was a dog." Alex narrowed his eyes at him.

"Must have been one hell of a dog." The cop paused near the doorway, glancing up and down the room again. "I don't see one around here."

"Yeah, that's 'cause it wasn't our dog," Alex said. "We don't have a dog. And, I don't appreciate your cryptic mind games, frankly. Are you playing traffic cop or detective today, officer? I'm going to have to ask that you leave now, considering you have no valid reason for pulling us over."

"I'd watch my mouth if I were you," the cop told him. "You in a rock band or something, kid? I wouldn't be surprised if there were some illegal substances stashed around here somewhere. I'm sure I could find a reason to get you into some trouble . . . if I wanted to."

"We're sorry for troubling you," Liz interrupted before Alex could say anything else. She got up and stood next to him, placing her hand on his arm. He flinched when she touched him.

"It's been a long day of driving for all of us," Liz continued. "We just want to get back on the road again. We have a gig we need to get to tonight."

The cop nodded. "Fine," he said. "I'll send in the report that everything checked out okay here." He swung the door open, pausing a second before stepping off the bus. "Good luck tonight."

My heart skipped a beat. It took me a second and a half to realize he was taking about our show, not the exorcism.

As the door closed behind him and he walked back over to his car, we all breathed a collective sigh of relief. That was close. Too close. I only prayed that word didn't somehow get back to Minneapolis that we were spotted in the fast lane headed in exactly the wrong direction—fleeing the scene of the crime.