by S Bolanos
“What are you talking about? Pretend what?” I asked, terrified of the answer.
“I love you, Sara, you have to know that by now.”
“What?” I asked, the word as numb as my lips.
“I know it’s wrong to be glad that you were bitten, but I am. You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me and if I have to sacrifice everything, then I will.”
“I can’t do this.” I vacated the chair and made a beeline for the door.
“Sara, wait!” he called after me before his voice was stolen by a massive coughing fit.
I spun around to see him hanging half out of the bed. “What are you doing!” I moved back to his side and helped re-situate him. “Are you out of your mind?”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to…” He squeezed his eyes shut. When he opened them again, they were clearer, but not by much. “I can barely think straight. Everything hurts. I don’t want to argue with you, Sara. If it takes walking into the office and making a public declaration, then I will.”
“That’s not funny.”
“It’s not meant to be. I care for you, more than I’ve cared for anyone in a long time. And while I can’t understand how you can’t see how special you are, you need to know that I do. I believe in you and I pray to the moon that you learn to believe in yourself too before it’s too late.”
His words struck a nerve that I tried very hard to keep buried. I licked my lips unsure of how to respond in a way that wouldn’t result in me having a total meltdown. “If I promise to stay, will you stop trying to get up, and rest?”
His features relaxed slightly, but the fear and sorrow in his eyes didn’t fade. He gave me a small nod and looked away.
A fresh wave of guilt tightened around my chest. With a heavy sigh, I carefully climbed in beside him. He cast me a surprised glance, but said nothing. We sat in silence, the weight of everything he’d said heavy between us. I’d never had anyone call me out so thoroughly on my lack of self-worth, not even my parents. It had defined me since I was little. Since I’d learned the truth about who I really was: no one.
I, Sara Sheppard, was no one.
I slid a little closer to Michael. I hoped one day his words would be true, but I feared they never would be.
I sat up, clawing for air. Sweat drenched every scrap of fabric around me while a humid heat clogged my lungs. Careful to not disturb Michael, I crawled out of bed. I peeled off my clothes and let out a grateful sigh at the cool kiss of fresh air on my bare skin.
A wave of panic shattered my relief as I registered the source of the ungodly heat. I scrambled back to Michael’s side and stared down at his unmoving form as if I could will a fever to be visible. I pressed my fingers against the smooth skin of his forehead, then snatched my burned hand back as cold flooded through me.
No. This can’t be happening. Werewolves don’t get sick.
I fought back my rising panic and strained to hear him breathing. A faint rasp tickled my ears, shallow, but there. Momentarily reassured, I pulled on the nearest thing that wasn’t soaked, which happened to be a shirt of Michael’s. Not bothering with anything else, I ran down the hall, sending up a silent prayer that Charline hadn’t charmed David into staying the night. A quick glance in the guest bedroom showed that David had not succumbed to Charline’s wiles. I woke him with a violence that bordered on hysteria.
“Wha—?”
“Michael has a fever. He’s burning up.” Cold swept through me with renewed vigor at the blank look on David’s face.
Oh God he doesn’t know what to do either.
In a heartbeat, his mouth set in a grim line as he threw back the covers, then strode down the short hall. I blinked, realizing I’d been left behind and spun to follow, nearly crashing into the wall in my hurry to catch up.
“Should we take him to a hospital?” The darkness swallowed my feeble question.
“That probably wouldn’t be a very good idea.”
“Why not? I was at the hospital.”
He looked at me clearly at a loss. “You hadn’t turned yet. How are we supposed to explain this?” He peeled the cover back and I gagged. Michael’s bandages were a mess of sticky fluids, including what was clearly blood seeping through, and surprisingly hair. The stench of decay wafted up to fill the room with cloying sweetness.
“Why is he like that?” I held a hand to my mouth and fought down the bile threatening to rise.
“I don’t know,” he said shakily.
I stared at him as he dug deep for a solution.
Finally, he fisted his hands and squared his shoulders. “I’m going to make a call. In the meantime, try to clean him up. That much, I do know.” David swiftly exited the room, leaving me all alone with the sensory onslaught.
I finally absorbed the instructions and flicked on the lamp. Michael and the putrid mess that covered his chest looked even worse in the light. Before I could wuss out, I gathered hot water, towels, antiseptic, and a hand towel to tie over my nose and mouth. When I returned with my supplies, Michael hadn’t so much as twitched. I took a deep breath that I instantly regretted and systematically began removing the ruined bandages.
They clung with sickening stubbornness to the rancid wounds. The long scratches across his chest glared red and angry in the low light, the gaping wounds oozing a greenish pus. I peeled back the bandage barely covering the deepest slash and found the source of the matted hair. It was growing out of the wound.
Fortitude escaped me. I ripped the cloth from my face and vomited in the wastebasket I'd brought for the bandages. I glanced up as David entered the room still on the phone, likely alarmed by the sound of dry heaves. His face went very pale as he took in Michael’s wounds in the lurid light.
“Yeah. Wait a sec.” He scrambled back out of the room, his voice gaining strength the farther he got from the horrific sight.
Steeling myself, I regained control of my body and returned to the task at hand. As I cleaned, Michael’s words from a couple of hours ago came back to me. ‘You stopped him’. But I hadn’t, I hadn’t saved the man I'd come to care so much about, who was showing me there was more to living than waking up and going through the motions.
I choked back a sob.
The scuff of a foot on the hardwood alerted me to David’s return since my sense of smell was completely shot. I couldn’t help but wonder if I’d ever be able to smell anything other than the rot of infected flesh.
“Please tell me you have something,” I rasped.
“We have a theory, but I have no idea how we’re going to put it into action.”
Tears streamed unhindered down my face as I looked back at him. “What do we need to do?”
He took a deep breath and pointed to the matted hair. “You see this? It’s like part of his body is trying to change. We need to get all of it to change.”
“How are we supposed to do that? Is he even strong enough to change? It could kill him.”
“Yes, it could. But he is definitely dying now.” He looked back at me as if willing me to believe that it would work. “It’s all we’ve got,” he whispered. The silence stretched. The seconds ticking by like pieces of Michael’s life slipping through my fingers.
“How?” I finally asked.
“We need to trigger his survival instinct. If he feels threatened enough, the wolf should take over and force a change. Like when you…” He looked at me sideways.
“Like when I freak out. But Michael isn’t afraid. Simply growling at him isn’t going to work.”
“No, but threatening his mate might.” My face scrunched in confusion. “Sara, you have to know, he’d do anything for you,” David said quietly.
That was the problem, I did know. That was what had gotten us here in the first place. I nodded my head, not trusting words.
David’s hands closed around mine. “I need you to be strong, Sara. It has to feel real.”
I nodded again.
“This could be really dangerous,” he cautioned. “If t
he mutt is nearby, we could be in a lot of trouble. I hope the neighbors aren’t feeling especially helpful tonight.” Then, without any other preamble, he turned and left.
I tried to squash the growing hopelessness and sudden fear. David hadn’t exactly said how he intended to accomplish this impossible, potentially deadly goal. I suspected he’d left it that way intentionally.
I don’t care what it is, as long as it works.
I reached over and turned off the light. I couldn’t bear to see Michael like this. Despite enhanced night vision, the room seemed exceptionally dark without the lamp. Despair seeped into my bones devouring the tiny spark of hope David had created.
A long, shrill, howl echoed down the hall. The hair on the back of my neck rose in response to the piercing sound. I knew that howl—I’d run from it in my nightmares every night since I’d turned—it was a hunting howl. And there, at the back end, as it trailed off, a note of victory—he found what he was looking for. My stomach clenched.
No. I will not change. I will be strong for Michael. I couldn’t save him before, but I can now.
I stood and turned to confront the threat. He twitched beside me and I glanced down.
He can hear it too.
Hope bloomed inside my chest. Then a low growl emanated behind me. My happy feeling evaporated. I swallowed hard and turned back to the doorway. Logically, I knew it had to be David—prayed that it was—but all I saw was the flash of teeth. For once, it wasn’t my mind playing tricks on me. These were real teeth catching the almost nonexistent light in the room as their owner launched across the space separating us.
I screamed as we fell to the floor. My surprise battled with the trauma that was trying to overlay the two experiences. I was in a bedroom. No, I was on a sidewalk.
It’s just David. It’s just David.
The mantra repeated itself over and over in my mind. I pushed against the heavy form only to have my arms fold beneath his weight. His savage growl merged with the memory of deafening thunder. Teeth grazed my shoulder. I flinched and something deep down tried to take control.
I can’t change.
A scream ripped through me as jagged teeth tore into my arm. In a split second of pain came clarity as instinct took over with a vengeance.
Not again, never again.
Claws sprouted and I used my free arm to swipe at my assailant. The nails dragged into flesh and the teeth relinquished their hold. Injured arm cradled to my chest, I swiped again and again at the darkness, blinded by pain and rage, my own growl rolling out to fill the night.
Not ever again.
Something slammed into the wall. I stopped blindly swinging and looked up. The beast I hoped was David sat five feet away staring at the bed, heedless of the blood beginning to mat his right side. The contrast snapped me back to my senses.
I lurched to my feet and the room swam before I regained my equilibrium. Michael bucked on the bed and his head thumped hard into the headboard. I’d never seen anyone go through the transformation, not even myself. A sense of morbid curiosity consumed me. I watched fascinated as his legs cracked and bent the wrong way. I willed my feet to carry me out of the room, but they refused to move. I needed to know. I noticed that David wasn’t leaving either. He needed to know too. Would Michael live?
Each pop of bone and sinew squeezed my heart. I could see why people chose to change in private. It wasn’t just the obvious, that it wasn’t exactly a pretty sight, there was something more. The change made you vulnerable, caught between the battle of selves fighting for dominance and ultimately being weaker than both.
David lingered another minute then padded out of the room. When he returned, it was on two legs instead of four. I barely spared him a glance, absorbed in the awfulness that was the change. David may have been confident in Michael’s survival, but I was not.
Michael’s transition ended with him disappearing under a mat of bandages and bedding. I strained to hear the sound of a ragged breath or faltering heartbeat, something, anything to know he was alive. A faint whimper drifted up from the tangle of bedding. I lurched forward, scrambling to remove the ruined sheets.
“Sara,” David’s whisper urged caution. Another whimper.
With slightly more care than I'd started, I removed the shredded bedding. The figure beneath filled the bed, larger than I remembered and infinitely more fragile. I didn’t care if he would instinctively lash out, I reached out to him. He flinched and whimpered again, but otherwise didn’t move.
“David, turn on the lamp. He’s so dark I can’t see anything.”
A soft light bloomed behind me. I took a moment to let my eyes adjust, then set to the very careful task of checking Michael over. Parts of his arm and shoulder had the look of raw, new skin with next to no fur. That was promising, if a little disturbing.
I shamelessly used soft, comforting sounds in order to roll him a bit so I could see his chest. The gashes there hit me like a slap in the face. My strangled sound made Michael twitch and brought David rushing over.
“What is it?” he asked in a harsh whisper.
“They’re still there.”
David took a moment to perform his own inspection. After a minute, he let out a huge sigh. “But he’s not really bleeding anymore and what blood there is looks healthy.” In a true test of my squeamishness, he gently put my fingers in the little blood that had leaked out of the wounds and held it up to the light. Red. A bright, perfect red.
“Let’s put a temporary bandage on them and let him get some rest. The change did what it needed to, the infection is gone and for now, he’ll be okay.”
I nodded and pulled out the fresh gauze I'd acquired earlier.
“Let’s give him some space,” David said once we’d applied our haphazard bandages, including a smaller one for the quickly healing punctures in my arm.
“But…”
“He needs rest and no distractions. I can smell your anxiety,” David emphasized.
I conceded and picked up the wastebasket filled with the putrid remains of his previous bandages as well as the ruined sheets. Once the trash was triple-bagged, I joined David in the living room where he’d already acquired us some water. I sipped it, knowing my body needed it, but not really appreciating it. We sat on the couch in silence to wait for dawn. The hours dragged by and my eyelids grew heavy.
I didn’t remember falling asleep, but there I was, an awkward sleepover mess of tangled limbs with David on the couch. He looked like he was stirring as well, but what had woken us? A soft shuffling noise made my ear twitch.
Logically, I knew I should be more concerned about a strange noise, but exhaustion kept the alarm muted. I cast a drowsy glance towards the hall then bolted upright much to the discomfort of David.
“I see how it is. I’m out of commission for one night and you’re already moving in on my girl.”
David waved away the accusation, more concerned with untangling himself.
“Mi—” I began.
Michael held up his hand to stop the onslaught of concern. That simple movement alone betrayed his true state. I could clearly see the tightness in his face, his hand shaking as it supported him against the wall, how he wasn’t putting any weight on his leading leg. My heart constricted, but I held my tongue. Meanwhile, David extricated himself from the couch and stretched his arms above his head. That’s when I realized he was only wearing boxers…tight boxers. Heat flooded my face and I quickly adjusted my attention.
“So, um, how are you feeling?” I asked Michael.
“That’s all I get?” he teased. My attempt at a smile faltered. His laugh sounded painful. “No hug? No kiss? I almost died.”
I bounded up, thankful that I didn’t immediately face plant, and went to him.
“Easy,” he whispered in my ear as I cautiously wrapped my arms around him.
"I'm glad you’re okay. Well, mostly okay. How do you feel?" I asked again.
"I suspect better than I have a right to. Do I want to know how bad
I was or how I'm alive at all?" I looked back at David who really didn’t seem to care at all about his state of dress or lack thereof. He simply shrugged and made his way to the kitchen.
I gently guided Michael to the now vacant couch. David placed a glass of water within easy reach as Michael slowly lowered himself, using me as a support.
“How much do you remember?” I asked.
“I can remember the fair—most of it anyway. I know we were split up when the mutt attacked us… Behind the tents?” I nodded and he continued. “I remember landing on something and a bang, but it’s hazy.” He glanced at me sideways, but didn’t say anything. I could almost make out the surprise and was it—pride in his expression? “After that, it’s all fog. I don’t remember how we got here. I don’t remember what the wounds were or how extensive. Only…pain, a lot of pain.”
Before I could say anything, David reached out. His hand looked so healthy compared to Michael’s. “Suffice it to say, it was bad. All that matters now is that you’re recovering. You’re alive and you have your very brave partner to thank for it.”
Michael stiffened beside me. I glanced over at him, curious if he remembered any of our conversation after David and Charline had left. He met my gaze with a look that bordered on hunted.
David’s voice cut through the mounting tension. “You will have plenty of time to stare into each other’s eyes after all of this is over. Right now, we have a mutt to sort out.”
I shifted my focus to David. “You’re right, we need a plan of action. I’m tired of running, of always looking over my shoulder. I’ve been so caught up in simply trying not to be killed that I haven’t been able to really absorb any of the new, amazing things in my life. I think it’s time this fucking son of a bitch got a taste of his own medicine.”
Silence met my declaration. I glanced at each of them in search of a reason for the inexplicable lack of response. Michael looked at me like I was a victim of the alien body snatchers while David seemed to be appraising me with a new level of respect.
“What?”