Of Fur and Ice

by Andrea Marie Brokaw

  “Hello! Not gay!”

  Sam is still curled up in a pitiful way, she's still got her ice cream in a death grip, and the puffy redness has not fled from her face. But as her siblings start punching each other over a very mature argument of, “Be quiet!” verses, “No, you be quiet!” she is smiling.

  My good deed accomplished, I slide over to lean against the edge of the couch. Tod reaches down to ruffle my hair. “Good work,” Aliah whispers.

  Too bad I'm having so much trouble ignoring my own pit of despair. I try to get caught up in the fantasy and not dwell on why Warren won't talk to me, but it's like trying to ignore starving to death. It can't be done.

  We take an intermission after The Fellowship of the Ring and before The Two Towers. Volunteering for popcorn detail, I run into the mini-kitchen and start the first bag in the microwave, then rummage through the lower cabinets for large bowls.

  I'm halfway into one of them, reaching way into the back, when a sudden realization I'm no longer alone causes me to jerk up, smacking my head into a shelf with a clunk I'm sure was audible throughout the entire state.

  The laughter behind me, I recognize.

  “Jesus Christ, Warren, what is it with you freaking me out in kitchens?”

  He stops laughing. “Sorry.”

  He turns to go.

  “Whoa! Not so fast!” I scamper to my feet.

  Stopping with his back to me, he looks over his shoulder with deadened eyes. “What?”

  Good question.

  I feel as though I should be demanding explanations from him, but I'm not quite sure which ones.

  The look in his eyes bothers me.

  “What's wrong, Warren?”

  “Nothing.” He turns away again, although his feet don't move. “I'm just here to pick up some stuff.” Another step.

  “You're in the kitchen to pick up some stuff?”

  “No.” His shoulders move under the power of a massive sigh, settling into an uncharacteristic slump. “I'm in the building to pick up some stuff. I'm in the kitchen because I smelled your scent coming in here and wanted to make sure you were alright. You seem to be.” He takes another three steps before I stop him again.

  “Warren! What kind of stuff?”

  “Just stuff from my room I don't want to leave here.”

  “Don't want to leave?” I cross the space between us in some of the longest, quickest strides of my life. “You say that like you won't be here to use them.”

  His face turns towards me, but his eyes refuse to meet mine. “I won't be.”

  I don't know the name of the emotion that grips me, but it's cold and it hurts. My heart isn't breaking, it's freezing.

  “Warren...”

  He looks completely away, shifts his body, but doesn't leave. “It's better, Michaela.”

  Then he does move away. One step... two... three. The tears make my vision blurry, but I can still see him approach the door, ready to leave, ready to walk right out of my life.

  I shouldn't care, not this much. But I've never felt a pain this intense.

  “Am I really that disgusting?”

  He stops. “What?”

  Sniffling, I run my hand along my nose, not caring how gross that is. “You find me so appalling you have to move? Kissing me was that revolting?”

  “Michaela!” His hands wrap around my shoulders, and his eyes bore into mine. “Did I seem revolted to you?” he growls.

  No, he didn't... not at the time. At the time, he seemed at least as attracted to me as I was to him. But then there was the email, and the refusing to talk to me, and now the leaving.

  My eyes squeeze shut, and I struggle to draw enough breath to whimper. “You said you only did it because the moon drove you crazy. You said you were sorry. You regretted it. You're never going to do it again.”

  There's an audible sigh, and the hands fall away, leaving my shoulders cold. “It wouldn't be very nice to Seth for me to keep doing things like that, would it?”

  I open my eyes far enough to give him a confused squint.

  “Seth?” My brain struggles through my agony to try to think.

  “Seth?” I repeat again. Warren's looking at me like I'm an idiot. “You're not allowed to kiss me because of Seth?”

  His face is close. “Your boyfriend?”

  “He's not my boyfriend.” My tears have stopped. The faintest of glimmers of hope starts to shine. I almost, almost, manage to laugh. “I don't know where you are getting your gossip from, but it's not a reliable source.”

  He scowls at me, the look dashing my newborn hope against the wall and drawing tears back to my eyes. His words are uttered in a guttural growl. “It's not gossip.”

  “What do you mean?”

  With a deep breath, he jams his hands into his hair, leaving his fingers tangled up in it. “I've seen you.”

  “Seen us?” What the hell is he talking about?

  His hands jerk forward. “Why are acting dumb?”

  “It's not an act.” I shake my head. “I don't know what you think you picked up on, but you're wrong. We flirt some, but that's the extent of it.”

  “Stop lying to me!” he roars.

  “Warren.” It's a whimper, whispered as tears start to cascade and as my whole body begins to shake with emotion. I back up, stopping when I hit the counter. “I'm not lying.”

  “I saw you. You were kissing him. And you meant it, Michaela. I could see you meant it.” The words are dragged from somewhere deep and dark and hidden. Hearing them, I slide down the side of the cabinet to the floor. “It hurt so much,” he whispers. “I jammed my claws full force into my leg and couldn't feel it.”

  Jammed his claws... I stop shaking, traveling to the point where I am so upset as to appear calm.

  “Blood.” My lips form the word, but I'm not sure it was audible. “It was your blood in the hallway outside of the music room.”

  “Yes.”

  That was the same day he left Wolfgang at my door, the plush wolf that I've clung to every night since. Bile rises in the back of my throat. That was the last day Warren was at school. He left, thinking I had chosen someone else.

  “Warren...” I look up at him. His pain is raw in his eyes. “I'm sorry.”

  Pausing for a tearful breath, I try to let him see how much I mean it.

  “Sorry?” he asks in a dull voice.

  “I...” I don't know what to say, what I should be explaining. “I never meant to hurt you.”

  God, say something less trite! “It...” Struggling to breathe, I take half a second to try to think. It doesn't work. “I didn't even know it would have hurt you...”

  Why won't he say anything? Why is he just standing there, looking at me with an expression I can't translate and a tension that feeds my tears?

  “And he was so sad...” I sniffle again, an ugly sound I'm sure comes with an ugly wince. “And I didn't know I shouldn't have done it. And that's all there was, one kiss. And then we laughed about it because the idea of us being anything other than friends is just ridiculous. And I swear that's all we are, all we ever were or ever will be.”

  The sudden surge of words collides with a series of sobs that still only when I realize Warren has edged closer to me.

  Expression guarded, his head leans to the side. He takes a long breath, and his eyes narrow. “You smell like him.”

  He's not exactly accusing me of anything. He's just doesn't appear certain he can let himself believe me.

  I sigh. “I told you, we're friends. You probably smell Sam on me too, and, I assure you, I'm not dating her either.”

  His stance doesn't alter.

  “I last saw Seth several hours ago,” I tell him, although I don't know why I'm going to these lengths to explain myself. If he doesn't trust me, do I want him to stay? “He was on his way to the dance. Without me. And he was worried about Sam. He just wanted me to tell him she'd be fine and he was doing the right thing to run off to take the girl he'd promised to go with to the dance. I
gave him a very chaste hug on the way out because he is my friend, and he seemed to need it.”

  Abruptly, Warren sits. “He's your friend.”

  “Yes.”

  He looks down at the denim stretched over his knees, then pulls his gaze up to mine. “Am I your friend?”

  My eyes drop. “Sometimes.”

  “When I'm not being an idiot?”

  “I don't mind you being an idiot.” Looking at him, I start to feel everything might be okay. “Just don't be a jerk about it.”

  Every so slightly, his mouth curves, and his eyes start to crinkle. “I'll try.”

  We sit, looking at each other and not saying anything, for what feels like years, before he takes a long, very shaky, breath as asks, “So, does that mean you are currently unattached?”

  Currently unattached? I smile at the phrasing. “I don't know.”

  His eyes narrow. “You don't know?”

  “No.” I shake my head, my eyes staying with Warren's. “You see, there's this one guy I'm really, insanely, interested in... I even broke into his room once and stole a dirty shirt so I could wrap it around my pillow at night.” His eyebrows go up. “And he gave me this stuffed animal I not only can't sleep without, but would carry around to class if people wouldn't make fun of me for it. And he disappeared for a few days, and I've nearly gone crazy looking for him pretty much everywhere I go, up to and including the ladies' room.”

  I was fine when I started speaking, but the words are getting harder to form, my breath harder to draw. My earlier panic grabs hold of me again, shaking me like a rag doll. “But he's stopped answering my email, and he won't take my phone calls, and now he says he's leaving school.”

  The tears are back in force, spilling down my face in an avalanche of watery grime. “And I know it's crazy when I've only known him for a month, but...” I have to fight to have enough air to go on. “I don't know how I'll stand it if you leave, Warren.”

  Leaning over my knees, I stop talking and allow myself to cry in earnest.

  “Michaela.” He moves to wrap me in his arms, pulling me onto his lap, placing me sideways to rest my head on his shoulder. Hands pushing me into him and stroking down my hair, he makes soothing sounds. “Shh... It's alright. I'm not going anywhere.”

  “You said,” I gasp.

  “That was before what you said.” He arms tighten for a brief moment. “How could I leave after all of that?”

  “How could you leave before it?”

  There's a gentle sigh. “I didn't know you wanted me... to stay.”

  “Of course I want you.”

  He squeezes me tighter.

  “God, I love you, Michaela. So much.”

  He loves me.

  Loves me...

  Love...

  I love him too, don't I? That's what I was saying before, in a much more roundabout way.

  I am in love with Warren Denali.

  I am in love with a wolf.

  My heart is cheering, and I grin as I pull back, even though the tears haven't stopped. I put my arms around his neck, bring his head down for a kiss, trying to put everything I feel into it so he will know, beyond a doubt, that I do value him... want him... love him.

  “Mike!”

  I go still at the sound of my name pounding against me from outdoors.

  “I know you're in there, Mike!”

  Oh, expletively expletiving expletive! My head turns, my eyes going in horror to the windows.

  “Come out, come out, wherever you are!”

  “Who is that?” Warren half-growls, half-breathes into my ear.

  I look back to him, a new level of fear surging inside of me. I understand now why his mother didn't want me to tell him what's going on. The fear of Warren doing something stupid and getting himself hurt is crippling.

  “Come on, just one dance?” the voice comes again. “For old time's sake?”

  Warren's teeth grind together. “Who is that?” The question, slowly ground out, is a deep, ominous, rumble.

  “It's Troy,” I admit, clinging to Warren for dear life when he tries to spring to his feet.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Warren and I are arguing over whether he gets to go outside or not when Tod comes into the kitchen and wins it for me. “Warren, if you go, she's following you.”

  The wolf shuts up instantly, glowering but no longer vocal in his disapproval of the situation.

  There's some more yelling for me. I try to ignore it.

  Tod's eyes examine the windows. “I don't think he can see you from here. So he might not know for sure you're here. Go into the dining room.” He glares when I don't move. Warren grabs my elbow and tugs me toward the doorway.

  “Mike...” Troy's voice has a playful tilt to it when he says my name, but then it turns cold and brittle. “Who's touching you? Tell him to stop.”

  “So much for not being seen,” I mutter, continuing into the hall anyway.

  “Where are you going? Come outside!”

  Odd, I honestly don't remember him being this insane. Or insane at all.

  “Please, Mike!”

  Tuning Troy out again, I look to Tod. “Is Mr. Atherton here?”

  “No.” He shakes his head. “And no response to his cell. I did get word to your mom, though, Warren. So I expect several pack members to be here before too long.”

  Warren's breath hisses inward. “They're hunting pretty far from here tonight. We didn't think he'd come back again so soon since it was obvious his lair was found.”

  The fox accepts that with a mild grunt.

  “Tod?” Aliah, pale and vulnerable and all the prettier for it, sneaks into the room. “Think we should get the tranquilizers?”

  “Sure. How?”

  She dangles something in front of her. It looks like a knife until she pulls it open and a reveals a series of long, slender sticks. “Same way I got them last time.”

  Tod starts to grin. “You can pick locks?”

  Nodding, she closes the picks with a fluid motion, laughing as Tod swoops her into his arms and spins her around asking, “Have I mentioned I absolutely adore you?”

  “Not in the last five minutes.” She places a playful kiss on his nose. “And you can elaborate later. We need to stop the psychopath.”

  He grins. “Yes, dear.”

  It takes Aliah all of ten seconds to get into the room off of Mr. Atherton's office where the guns are stored. It takes her a lot longer to get into the weapons cabinet itself. Nearly a minute.

  Warren stands very silent through all this, scowling at nothing in particular. He keeps humming in a low, menacing tone. My hand squeezes his whenever the humming starts to get too loud. That seems to help.

  He tries to move to the front when the lock snaps and Aliah swings the door open, but I hold him back. “Let the calm people be in charge of the weapons. Please?”

  Looking down at me, he seems torn between anger and something else, something softer. I can't tell if it's a good something or a bad something.

  “I'm not questioning your competence,” I whisper. “But you've been trembling since this started.”

  His eyes still filled with mysterious emotions and hidden thoughts, he shuffles his feet. He opens his mouth to say something, but closes it again as Tod slaps a rifle into his hand.

  The boys stare at each other for a long second. Then Warren nods, some sort of male understanding achieved. Tod goes back to the other guns as Warren removes his hand from mine, backs into the far corner, and examines his piece. I go to stand beside him, leaning against the wall.

  My eyes close in a dispirited sigh as Lyly surges into the room. It didn't seem crowded a second ago, but now I feel like a sardine. “You're stealing,” she proclaims.

  “What are you doing here?” Tod asks her, sitting on the edge of a table pressed against a wall. He opens a box of cartridges, removes some, and tosses the rest of the box to Warren.

  Her hand plunks down on an upraised hip in one of Lyly's infamous
dramatic poses. “You grounded me,” she grits out.

  “No,” Tod starts to load his weapon, “I told you to stay away from school functions. I assumed you were out somewhere else.”

  “With whom?”