by Chase Connor
I pushed him back, my fingers digging into his upper arms as I looked him in the eyes.
“I love you,” I gasped.
Lucas’ eyes grew wide and then a smile slowly formed on his face.
“I love you,” I repeated.
“Say it again,” He said.
“I love you,” I said, “I’ve loved you for a very long time.”
Lucas gave me a funny look.
“I love you, too,” He said, “but…what’s going on?”
“I’ve loved you since high school,” I said. “I’ve loved you since you stood in front of me after a football game and asked me if I loved you.”
Lucas pulled back slightly as his brow furrowed.
“What?”
“I just remembered something.” I was shaking my head, still confused about what had happened, but knowing it was real. “You were at the bottom of the stairs, in your football jacket, after you guys had won a game, and you asked me if I had been waiting on you…and then we told each other we loved each other, and we kissed, and—”
“I don’t remember that, Rob.” His eyes were welling up. “But I know you’re telling the truth.”
“Is that one of the things you just know?”
“No.” He shook his head. “I can just see it in your face that you’re telling the truth.”
Lucas gasped with happy surprise as I yanked him forward again and smothered his mouth with mine. My lips savored his, and then I was kissing him all over his face, cupping his face in my hands.
“Why don’t we remember that, though?” He gasped as I kissed him and his arms went around my neck. “Or, at least, why don’t I? Why don’t we remember more?”
“I don’t know,” I said, still kissing him all over his face. “I don’t care right now. But now I don’t feel like you’re missing. I don’t miss you like I did. Now I’m just so glad that I have you back.”
“I don’t care right now, either.” He sighed as I moved to kiss his neck, still holding him tightly to me. “I’m just glad I have you, Rob. I’m so fucking glad to have you back.”
I shivered once again as I tightened my arms around him and hugged his body to mine, my face burying itself into his chest. Lucas held me to him, sighing contently as we held each other there in the stadium. Finally, I understood why Lucas felt like home, why I had missed him so much. All of the details weren’t there, but things were falling into place. After my encounter with Teenage Ghost Rob, and I started having flashes of memories and weird dreams, I felt like I missed Lucas all the time. My relationship with Lucas wasn’t new—even if we couldn’t remember being in one before. Things were coming back to me, though. I prayed that I could help Lucas remember the same things that I remembered, too.
“What’s that?” Lucas whisper against my ear.
“What?”
“That.” Lucas whisper-hissed. “Look.”
Pulling away from Lucas, but not quite letting go of him, I turned slightly on the bleacher to look up at the top of the stands where he was staring. I didn’t see anything.
“Did you see that?” Lucas jerked.
“What are you—”
Shadows moved at the top of the stairs as Lucas and I slowly rose to our feet, our eyes staying fixed in place. Our arms had fallen away from each other, but my hand grasped Lucas’, and I laced my fingers through his as I moved to his side.
“You did see that, right?” Lucas whispered.
“I saw…something.”
As if summoned by my words, the shadowy movement returned to the top of the stairs. The shadows fell away as two men stepped out of the darkness at the top of the stadium and into full view. Illuminated by the dim blue light of the quarter moon, it quickly became apparent why these men were not security guards coming to tell us to go smooch somewhere else. The most obvious clue was that they both had red eyes that practically glowed in the dark.
“Shit.” I gasped, walking back down the stairs.
Lucas followed my lead.
“Are they…”
“I don’t think they’re about to ask us to join in on a game of touch football.” I quipped.
Lucas nodded, and we turned in unison towards the field. Both of us jumped at the sight of the two men standing on the field just beneath the stands. Lucas twitched at my side.
“Rob.” He gasped.
Turning my head to look in his direction, I saw another two men with glowing red eyes walking through the bleachers towards us. A glance to my side confirmed that another two more guys with red eyes were in the stands, helping to close us in on the other side. There were eight guys: two behind, two in front, two on each side. Maybe we could have taken one or two, perhaps even three, of the guys in a fight. At least get away from them. But two against eight just wasn’t fair. Lucas and I whipped around as the men closed in on each side.
We looked up at the men coming down the stairs towards us, but they had stopped several yards away and were merely staring down at us. Lucas’ hand tightened in mine as we looked up at the guys while trying to watch the guys in our periphery. Having eight pairs of glowing red eyes watching us was unsettling. I felt another shiver run up my spine.
“You believed me when I said I remembered us, right?” I whispered out of the corner of my mouth. “You know that I was telling the truth?”
“Yes,” Lucas mumbled back.
“Do you trust me?”
“With everything I am.”
“Good.”
“We have a score to settle with you.” The guy on our right on the stairs above us said blandly, his teeth flashing white in the dark.
His teeth seemed longer than they should have. The fact that I caught that detail in the dark made me want to shiver again.
“Well, come back on Monday,” I mumbled. “I’m booked solid until then.”
He snorted, finding my quip pathetic and funny at the same time, I was sure. Lucas gripped my hand tightly.
“I’m afraid this has to be taken care of now.” He replied blandly. “Otherwise we may never get the chance, and we don’t like to leave things unsettled. Rob.”
That did make me shiver.
I didn’t know these men.
Then again, I hadn’t known Lucas.
“I truly hate to let an audience down,” I replied, “but today just isn’t your day, sir.”
Lucas’ hand gripped mine back as I squeezed his.
“Run.” I hissed.
Yanking on Lucas’ arm, I pulled him after me as I ran up three steps and then cut to the right, between two sets of bleachers. Lucas let go of my hand so he could run behind me comfortably. The sounds of the men coming down the stairs sounded. Sounds of men scrambling up and over bleachers, like metallic thunder, reached our ears but I stared straight ahead, pumping my arms and legs as I ran. The only thing I cared about was hearing Lucas’ breath and feet behind me, assuring me that he was keeping up and hadn’t fallen.
A howl sounded behind us, and I flinched but, it did not slow my pace.
“Go, Rob!” Lucas growled. “Run!”
We reached the end of the aisle, and I made a sharp right down towards the field. The men that had been on the field and the ones who had been in the stands with us had been too busy trying to get ahead of us that they hadn’t expected us to head towards the place they had previously occupied. They were now behind us. Another howl sounded. Then another. My heart was in my throat as Lucas and I raced down the stairs towards the field.
When we reached the fence at the end of the stands and the drop five feet to the field beneath us, I immediately leaped and started to clamber up the fence. Lucas was on the fence seconds after me, climbing as if his life depended upon it. And it probably did. At the top of the fence, I swung my legs over and slung myself down towards the field below us. Lucas followed my lead, landing less gracefully than I had somehow. I only took a second to make sure he was okay, and then I was leading the way across the field in the direction of the perimeter fence we had scaled
to get inside the stadium.
“Rob!” Lucas gasped.
“Keep running, Lucas!” I screamed back.
“They’re coming!”
Looking over my shoulder, I could see why Lucas was even more distraught than was to be expected. We didn’t just have eight men chasing us across the field. Five men and three wolves were now giving chase, and I couldn’t tell if the men or the wolves looked more bloodthirsty. Obviously, my theory about some werewolves not needing a full moon, which Oma had confirmed, was correct.
Greetings, powerful pack with a Pack Alpha.
Not so pleased to meet you.
Lucas and I reached the taller chain-link fence that surrounded the football stadium, and I could hear feet pounding the dirt, both wolf and human. Without looking back, not wanting to lose any ground, I jumped onto the fence and started clambering to the top. I felt Lucas hit the fence and start climbing and then both of us were scrambling to reach the top. Lucas somehow reached the top of the fence first and slung his lower body over, bracing his stomach along the top bar as he reached down for my hand. Reaching out, I slapped my hand into his, and he started to pull me up.
“Rob!” He screamed.
Then I felt the tugging.
I looked down, and one of the wolves had caught up to us. The heel of my shoe was in his mouth, his teeth holding on for dear life, his mouth salivating and his eyes glowing red fury at me.
“No!” I screamed, thrusting my free down at him.
I don’t want him to hurt Lucas or me.
Please don’t let him hurt us.
Fire shot out of my palm and splattered against the wolf’s face like liquid heat. The wolf howled in agony and let go as he fell towards the ground, the fire traveled over his muzzle and around his head, then quickly crept over his entire body. I dangled there in Lucas’ grip, my right foot pushing into one of the holes in the chain link. My eyes grew wide as I watched the fire envelope the wolf, burn away its fur, then sputter out in a plume of acrid smoke. The wolf was on the ground, unmoving, its mouth gasping over and over again in terror and pain. I glanced towards the two remaining wolves and the five men. They had all frozen in place, staring at the scene unfolding before them.
“Come on, Rob!” Lucas growled and pulled me upward.
I lifted my “fire hand” to flip off the men and wolves, then pushed off of the chain link with my right foot, pushing myself up towards Lucas. Howl after howl sounded behind me, but I didn’t look over my shoulder to see the rest of the men shift into wolves. Lucas and I dropped to the other side of the fence, confident that the men, in wolf form, would have to find a different way out of the stadium. Without hands and feet, it was unlikely that they could scale the fence.
Running beside each other, Lucas and I didn’t say a word as we ran through the parking lot of the stadium and into the field where he had parked the truck. The two of us didn’t make the same mistake twice with seating assignments, though we both climbed in through the passenger door since it was the closest to us as we approached. Lucas tore the door open and clambered across the bench seat and started the truck as I jumped in and slammed the door behind myself. The roaring of the tires reached my ears before my ass was fully planted in my seat.
Lucas peeled out of the field, sending tall grass and mud flying as he punched the gas. I grabbed onto the dash as we bounced and shimmied in our seats. Once we hit the blacktop, I settled into my seat, my chin falling to my chest as I gasped for breath. Lucas’ hands were vices on the steering wheel as he looked around frantically to make sure we weren’t being followed. I wanted to scream at him to keep his eyes on the road—not out of anger, but fear. However, I found myself turning in my seat, looking to make sure that there were no wolves running in the road behind us or any other vehicles that might be in pursuit.
“What the actual fuck, Rob?” Lucas was breathing heavy as well.
I was trying to control my breathing.
“You shot fire out of your hand!”
“I do that sometimes.” I grimaced, finally realizing that Lucas had no idea about my magic laser-slash-fire fingers.
“Since when?”
“I don’t know.” My chest was heaving as I tried to get my breathing and heart rate under control. “They knew my fucking name, Lucas. How did they know my name?”
Lucas stared at me for several moments, then seemed to decide that the throwing fire with my hand situation could wait.
“Do you know them?”
Turning to him, I just frowned.
“Well, I didn’t think so.” He gave a nervous laugh, trying to bring levity to the situation. “But…what other explanation is there?”
“Maybe I don’t know them like I didn’t know you,” I mumbled.
“What?”
“Maybe I’ve forgotten that I know them?”
“That’s just…”
“Crazy?” I snorted, my breathing slowly returning to normal.
“Well…yeah.”
“Must be Tuesday, Lucas,” I said. “Rob Wagner is crazy as shit. Or, at least, everything in his life is.”
“If they knew your name…”
“What?” I turned in my seat to look at him.
“What else do they know?” He chewed at his lip as he kept his eyes on the road. “Do they know where you live?”
I thought about that statement for a moment, the realization of what that meant slowly dawning on me.
“Oma.” I gasped.
Lucas gunned the truck.
Chapter 10
When Lucas came to a gravel-flinging stop in Oma’s driveway at the front of the house, I had my door open before he had put the truck into park. The lights were on in the living room, and everything looked peaceful. No paparazzi, no strange cars, no wolves circling the house hungrily, looking for a little girl in a red cloak. Everything looked as it always did. Lucas’ door popped open as I slammed my door and started for the house. Lucas fell in beside me, his hand finding mine as we hurriedly walked towards the house and up the porch steps, looking over our shoulders every few steps.
“Do you think they followed us?” Lucas whispered.
“I hope not,” I said. “But I really hope they didn’t get here before we did.”
“Mrs. Wagner is okay, Rob.” He nodded his head furiously, as though trying to convince us both. “I just know it.”
“That makes me feel strangely better.”
Making our way up the steps, I let go of Lucas’ hand once we were on the porch so that I could open the front door, allowing it to swing wide. Before I had even stepped over the threshold, I spotted Oma. She was kicked back on the sofa with her feet up on the coffee table, enjoying the fire. A mug of tea was in her hand, and the shotgun was sitting on the coffee table beside her feet. My breath came out in a relieved sigh, and Lucas smiled widely at me as we entered the house. It wasn’t until I was inside the house, with Oma within eyeshot that I felt my heart rate finally begin to return to normal.
Lucas’ hand once again found mine and I turned my head to look into his eyes, a smile immediately coming to my face. He looked back at me, and his hand squeezed mine again. I didn’t know what we had achieved at the football stadium, as far as memories go, but I knew that what I’d felt since the night the three wolves tried to attack me in the backyard was real. I could see in Lucas’ eyes that, no matter what else had happened at the stadium, he was glad we had gone. The way he gripped my hand let me know that he never wanted to let it go if he could avoid that. I reached out and brushed his sandy hair off of his forehead and away from his eyes before giving him a quick kiss.
“Oma,” I turned away from a smiling Lucas, “we’re home.”
“Ya’ think I didn’t hear the damn door?” She announced over her shoulder. “I’m old, not fuckin’ deaf.”
Lucas laughed.
“Are you okay?” I asked, heading into the living room, pulling Lucas after me.
“Don’t I look okay?” She frowned up at me as we r
ounded the sofa to stand before her. She raised her mug in salute. “Got my tea, got my fire, and I’m pretty sure I peppered some of those sonsofbitches as they was runnin’ away.”
“I saw you, Oma.” I shook my head with a smile. “You were aiming for the sky.”
“Well,” She waggled her head, “I still think a few of ‘em shit their pants. Did some damage either way. You boys ever not touchin’ up on each other? Jesus.”
She gestured at our clasped hands.
Lucas and I smiled at each other and let our hands slide away from each other’s as Oma took another sip of her tea. When Lucas gave me a stern look and jerked his head in Oma’s direction, I knew pleasantries had to end sometime. I turned to my grandmother and sighed deeply.
“We have another problem.”
“What the fuck did you idiots do now?” She pulled her legs off of the coffee table to sit forward. “Where the hell did you two go anyway?”
“The football field,” Lucas responded for us.
Oma’s brow furrowed as she looked over at him.
“We…needed to see something,” I added.
“Thought you’d take a stroll down memory lane?” She rolled her eyes.
Her statement was like a punch to my gut. But I didn’t have the time to dissect a statement from my grandmother that could have been completely flippant. The way Lucas’ hand grabbed mine again let me know that my instincts were not off. Oma had said something spot on, my gut was telling me something, and Lucas’ grip was letting me know that he knew something.
“We ran into more werewolves.” I ignored the previous statement. “Eight of them.”
Oma whistled with wide eyes.
“Well, I’m impressed.” She took a sip of her tea. “If I was bettin’ on you two idiots against eight werewolves, well, I would have been expecting to lose that bet.”
“Thanks.” I snorted.
“Just sayin’.” She shrugged. “That’s four on two. You two can barely wipe your own asses without accidentally finger-bangin’ yourselves on accident. Didn’t think you was capable of handling yourselves so well.”
“Oh. My. God.” I looked upwards as Lucas laughed nervously.