“What?” Nurse O’Neal was more confused than ever. “What are you talking about?”

“A wolf found me,” she said. “Two of them. The good wolves. They found me in the woods and had to fight off a pack of bad wolves before they could even bring me here.”

“Is that right?” the nurse said, the disbelief in her voice tinged with a bit of humor. Obviously the woman wasn’t believing a word Angelina was saying.

“She’s still delirious,” Maria offered.

“I think so,” the nurse agreed.

“No, I’m not,” Angelina said. “The good wolf carried me in his arms all the way through the forest. The other one scared people away so they wouldn’t see.”

“See what?” the nurse asked.

“See that the wolf was…like a man…” Angelina’s words trailed off as exhaustion, the medication, and everything else she’d been through caught up to her and she drifted into a deep, deep sleep.

Nurse O’Neal turned to Maria, obviously looking for some kind of explanation.

Maria smiled, shrugged once, and said, “Kids.”

* * *

“Get dressed,” Tora told Argus.

Argus shook his head. “What good will it do now? She’s seen us change form—up close and personal. If there was any doubt in Maria’s mind about who and what we are, it’s gone now.”

Harlan looked at his brother and sister in turn. “Maria was here?”

Argus nodded.

“But she’s changed now,” Tora said. “She doesn’t want to expose us any more.” She turned to Argus. “You heard her say so herself.”

“And you believe her?” Argus laughed.

“I wouldn’t trust Maria Abruzzo to tie my shoes,” Harlan commented.

Tora ignored Harlan and answered Argus’s question. “Yes, I do believe her,” she said.

Tora really couldn’t blame her brothers for feeling the way they did. After all, just a few hours before, Maria had been sneaking around the woods behind their house with a camera, intent on exposing their secret to the world. Still, she believed Maria had changed, and she was willing to give the girl the benefit of the doubt.

“She was afraid of us before…because she didn’t understand us. That’s what people always fear, the things they don’t understand.”

Argus and Harlan seemed unconvinced.

“She came to us and asked for our help,” Tora continued. “That must have been hard for her to do, considering the way she’d felt toward us before.”

“Of course she said that,” Harlan said. “Her sister was missing. She would have said anything to get Angelina back.”

That much was true. Maria was—correction, had been—the kind of person who would do or say anything to get what she wanted out of life. But people didn’t go through these kinds of ordeals without experiencing some sort of change. There was no way Maria was the same person today that she’d been just a day before.