I go back to bed, closing the bedroom door behind me and collapsing into a fit of tears. At some point, I fall asleep and wake up hours later to voices on the other side of the wall.

My stomach growls. Pulling myself up, my head spins. I clutch it for a moment, allowing it to pass before I make my way to the door and pull it open an inch. Peaking out, I see Rick and Evan sitting on the couch.

"Are you sure they're trustworthy?" Rick's voice is low, but I can make out the words clearly as I pull the door open.

"Of course they are," Evan says, hushed, as I slip out the door and through the adjacent one to the storage closet.

I close the door behind me and find my mouth watering to a familiar smell.

Oh God, there's beef jerky. Where is it?

Through the pitch-blackness, my hand grazes over the shelves and finds a paper bag. Reaching inside, my fingers brush over the familiar package of jerky and pull it out. Ripping it open, I try not to drool all over myself as the smoky smell intensifies. Quickly, I snatch a big piece and shove it into my mouth, groaning in pleasure at the full-bodied flavor.

I hide in there as I eat all the jerky before venturing out and facing the pair of men.

Evan looks unhappy, but relieved to see that I have eaten something now.

I can't read Rick's face. He's emotionless, cold and distant, but I sense that he's trying to feel me out just as much as I'm trying to figure him out.

Rick's the first to stand up from the couch. He turns towards me, while Evan gets up and goes to the front door. His hand rests on the handle momentarily as he waits for Rick to say something.

"Afternoon," Rick says. "Evan tells me that you want to go back to Portland."

I glance at Evan as he turns the doorknob, pulls the door open, and walks out. The door remains open as I return my gaze to Rick. "Yeah."

"You ready to go then?"

I stare at him for a moment before blinking and lowering my eyes, remembering Evan's warning. I definitely don't want to cross Rick if he's offering to take me back home.

I nod. "Yeah."

"Well then, let's go."

He turns away as my mouth falls open.

Seriously? Evan put up so much of a fight, but Rick is chill about it? Isn't Rick supposed to be uptight or something?

I quickly gather my wits and hurry after him out the front door. I'm not about to argue with Rick if he's on my side.

As I step out of the cabin, I see Evan standing at the end of the path, just a few feet away from the edge of the dock. He looks out over the lake, and although I can't see his face, sadness fills my heart at the sight.

Scowling, I turn my attention back to Rick and follow him to the pickup truck. It's one of those big fancy four-door pickups that are a little roomier in the backseat. I wonder briefly if I should sit in the front with Rick, or hide in the back. Since I don't know Rick very well, and he makes me feel a little uneasy, I decide to forgo the front passenger seat and opt for the back.

I climb in and slam the door behind me. Through the window, I see Evan amble towards the vehicle with his hands shoved in his pockets, and his eyes on the ground. I purse my lips and look away.

When he climbs in, Rick puts the truck in gear and we pull away down a very narrow and bumpy path through the forest.

I should be excited to go back home, and I am, but I'm hurt by our argument earlier. I get that Evan's worried about me shifting, but shouldn't he be more worried about my parents' feelings about all this? I have been missing for about a week.

I fold my arms over my chest and watch as the scenery flies by.

If he wants to be a jerk, fine. I'm not going to stop him.

The ride is silent. The uneven dirt path through the forest is simply two lines of tire tracks. We bounce along slowly for maybe thirty minutes before turning onto a narrow, but paved, road. Rick turns the radio on then, and music fills the awkward void.

With the bouncy part of the trip behind us, I lean back in the seat and close my eyes, allowing the music to fall on me and drown out my thoughts and emotions. When we turn onto highway 26, excitement fills me because I know this road goes straight to Portland.

We make a brief stop at the ranger station in Zigzag. Rick goes inside for a few minutes, and comes back out, explaining to me that he just informed Keith about the situation.

"Keith's going to alert the officer in charge of your case in Portland. He's going to tell them that we found you in the national park."

I shrug and turn my gaze back out the window as we pass by the few buildings in the tiny town. "Okay."

"If anyone asks—and people are going to ask—you just tell them that you were abducted, but escaped. You got lost in the forest then, and our park rangers found you."

"Okay."

"Evan told me that you don't remember how you got out here, so say that as well. You don't remember your abductor, or what he looks like. You just remember waking up in his hideout and ran away in fear that he might come back and kill you. Okay?"

"Yeah." It's not like I have any options in what really happened.

I wonder about my parents and my eyes well with tears. I can just imagine the joy on their faces when I come home, safe and sound, and we can put this all behind us. I can't wait to see them.

Evan and I don't say a word to each other throughout the trip. Rick is quiet after his deliberation, and that's fine with me. I'm not in the mood to talk anyway.

As we pull into the perimeters of Portland, my heart swells.

Rick tells me that they have to take me to the police station. "It's just procedure," he says.

Evening is creeping in and I try not to stare at the clock on the dash. I try to remember how many days I've been out here. "Today is Thursday, right?" I ask the guys in the front seat.

"Nope," Rick says. "Friday."

He can't be serious. I try counting the days in my head again, starting with Friday, the night Ava and I went to the club. Again, I can only come up to Thursday, not Friday.

"But... how?"

"You spent all day Saturday running around in wolf form," Evan mutters, his chin in his hand as he stares out the window.

I stare at his reflection in the window, unable to comprehend what he had just said. "What? You're just yanking my chain, right?"

Evan sighs. I can see his reflection's eyes close. "You wouldn't stop, like I said. You were probably running for about 24 hours."

My jaw becomes unhinged and unable to utter a word.

"From the police reports that were filed," Rick goes on to explain, "You were out with a friend Friday night and you disappeared sometime around eleven. Evan said he followed you until he found you unconscious Saturday night."

"About 24 hours after you went missing," Evan reiterates, his eyes still closed.

I don't know how any it is true. How could I forget an entire day?

I bury my face in my hands. Everything is so surreal, and it just seems like it's getting stranger by the hour.

Why can't things just go back to the way they were? Before all of this happened? I had my life under control, I knew what the near future held, and now...

Now, I know nothing. I don't even know what day it is! How am I ever going to get the hang of this shifting thing when I can't even remember doing it in the first place?

The rest of the drive is filled with silence, aside from the music on the radio and the frequent intermissions of commercials, commentaries, and reports on the news, weather, and traffic.

We get caught in traffic the closer we get to the heart of Portland. My heart sinks into my stomach when we pull off the highway and into the parking lot of the police station. I'm not ready to answer any questions when I have so many of my own that I can't get answers to.

Why does everything have to be so complicated?

Rick parks the truck and I hesitantly climb out. I follow Rick into the building with Evan close behind me. I glance at him, wondering whether I should say something to him, but he's avoiding my gaze. My nerves start to eat at me then. What kinds of questions will the officer ask me? What about my parents?

At least Rick and Evan are here with me. That has to count for something.

I reach back and grasp Evan's hand, needing the comfort that simple touch held. He looks up and catches my eyes, a hint of surprise in his, and a small shy smile on his face.

Relief washes over me when he gives my hand a little squeeze.

The hardest part is saying goodbye to Evan once we go inside.