“Nice place,” he commented as he looked around the room.
“I didn’t build it, so no point in complimenting it. It won’t get you any brownie points.” I then closed the door behind me so it was just the two of us alone.
He turned back towards me and smirked. “You’re really pissed,” he commented, looking to be on the verge of a laugh.
“This is funny to you? Treating people like garbage is funny to you?”
Suddenly, his face went dead serious. “No, it’s not. I wasn’t trying to make you feel like shit, I swear. I was trying to get you to leave.”
“Well, you succeeded,” I snapped back at him and then placed my hand on the doorknob. He needed to know he had a time limit of how much I was willing to listen to him before I threw him back out in the rain.
“I didn’t want you to leave for my sake, I wanted you to leave for yours.” I wasn’t following and he could tell. “You being there was not safe. I’m going to assume you know my situation considering you knew where I was, which means you know this is a werewolf pack, meaning they don’t want any outsiders finding out about them. You can’t just go sneaking around their property and think that’s okay.”
“I was trying to figure out what the heck was going on. Maybe if you hadn’t disappeared without telling me where you were, this wouldn’t have happened.”
“Disappeared? I moved. And correct me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t it you who left town in the first place?”
“Don’t put the blame on me. You know I didn’t have any other choice. I had a job and an apartment back in Detroit, and you made it abundantly clear that it wasn’t safe for me to stay in town. You’re the one who made me feel like I couldn’t stay.”
“Well, excuse the hell right out of me for trying to save your life.”
“Oh, spare me the protective macho act. I did pretty fine last summer, I’m not some helpless little girl, all right? I could have handled myself just fine.”
He hunched his body forward and pointed his finger at the side of his head and said, “What aren’t you getting? This isn’t about what you’re capable of, this is about what I’m capable of.”
I folded my arms and rolled my eyes. His words hardly computed, only the smug way he shot me down. “If you’re just going to yell at me you can leave. You know, on second thought, why don’t we just skip the exposition and get to the part where I throw you out?”
“You didn’t come all this way just to kick me out of your motel room.”
“No, but I also didn’t come all this way for you to treat me like shit, either.”
“You want me to apologize?”
“No, Max, I want you to be apologetic,” I countered. I didn’t need to hear his sorries if they didn’t come from a genuine place. Having him apologize just because I asked, meant diddly squat to me. “I know you think I’m some kind of airhead, but this is not okay with me. You treating me like that was not okay.”
“I don’t think you’re an airhead,” he responded harshly, his eyebrows knitted together so tight he almost didn’t look like himself. “Don’t say stupid shit like that.”
“Way to reinforce the idea you don’t think I’m dumb,” I said sarcastically and swung my arm like a pirate. “Now, please leave.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” he announced.
“This isn’t multiple choice. I said leave.”
“No.”
“Max, you said what you wanted to say, now please leave.”
With both hands in his pockets, he smugly shrugged and responded, “I’m not leaving.”
I had had enough and if he wasn’t going to leave on his own accord I was going to have to force him out by own hand. I swaggered straight up to him and shoved my hands against his chest just to see if I could move him at all. Max’s chest was hard as a rock and I could feel the outline of his pecks beneath his white t-shirt. He had gotten much more defined since we had last seen one another, and because of this, it was like trying to punch a boulder.
Realizing I was physically inferior, I swatted at his chest in frustration and growled, “Get out!” I pushed at him a couple more times and internally I was screaming. I looked like some stupid woman from a black and white film, beating against her lover with her wrists like she was too weak and pathetic to put up a real fight. God, how predictable of me.
In a very bored tone, Max asked, “Are you done?”
Just for asking that I slugged him in the arm. “Screw you,” I said under my breath and then turned away and pouted. I was well aware that I sounded like a child.
“Hey, stop,” he said urgently, and then grabbed a hold of me by my arm and jerked me toward his body before I had a chance to run back to the door. He clasped his hand around mine and then placed it flat onto his chest.
I didn’t know what he was doing, and I attempted to escape, but we were mere inches apart from each other and I was being sucked in by his pale blue eyes that were staring down at me.
“You feel that?” he asked. My eyes mustered up the courage to break away from his gaze and I let myself focus on the fast thudding of his heart beneath my touch. It was racing like crazy. “It’s been beating irregularly since the second I walked in here. Would it do that for anyone I supposedly thought low of?”
Suddenly, it was like the air in the room had been sucked out with a vacuum and I could hardly breathe. I wanted to say something back, maybe even make some clever pun he’d never see coming, but I was completely lost for words.
His feelings for me hadn't changed.
Max's hand slipped away from mine, setting me free, and I stood still tongue-tied as he sat down on the edge of my bed. It nearly sunk to the floor from how heavy he was. How could he remain so svelte, but feel like he weighed a ton?
Max hung his head down low, the droplets from the rain rushing to the tips of his hair, and then very gently, he said, “I’m sorry.” And I knew he meant it wholeheartedly. A simple apology in that regretful tone of his and I was sold. A little too sold even, because I suddenly felt horrible guilt for how I acted. “I forget how much of an asshole I can be at times.”
“You’re not an asshole,” I said softly and then took a spot beside him on the bed. I wanted to make him feel better after lashing out at him. “You’re just... you’re just a little socially impaired. It’s okay, I am, too. I mean, I own a cat.”
He tilted his head to the side so I could see that crooked grin of his growing on his face. I did my best not to openly swoon. Good God, he looked great with wet hair.
“I’m only looking out for you, Cora,” he said to me seriously. It was the first time I had heard him say my name in almost a year. I forgot how nice it sounded rolling off his tongue.
“Why are you with these people if they’re so dangerous? From what I’ve heard, they sound like some kind of gang.”
“It’s not a gang,” he replied with a chuckle, like what I said was beyond ridiculous. “Where did you hear something like that?”
“Some dudes at a bar told me.”
He nodded once. “Sound place to get your information. We’re not a gang, we’re a pack. They found me quite a few months ago when I turned, and then they offered to take me in.”
“That’s hard to believe.”
“You don’t believe me?”
“That’s not what I meant. I just meant that it’s a little hard to believe you would choose to follow anyone. Isn’t that what a pack is? There’s a leader and then you all follow him? You were always a loner. You told me you didn’t like being bothered.”
“Try having almost every bone in your body broken on a monthly basis and then tell me what you won’t try.”
“Try?” I asked, wondering what exactly he meant by that.
Max had a look on his face like he knew there was a lot to fill me in on, but he didn’t know where to start or even if he had the energy for it. “I had no interest in joining up with them, originally, but then they made me an offer I couldn’t exactly refuse,” he
said and then paused, either to contemplate how he was going to tell the rest of the story or just for dramatic purposes. “They know how to turn at will.”
I stammered. “You mean...?”
“They can go into wolf form whenever they please, which means they have total control over their transformations even under a full moon.”
My heart almost exploded with joy when he told me this. I had been agonizing over the torturous months he had spent alone turning into a beast month after month after month, and yet he had a plan all along. He could fight it.
“Max, I can’t believe it!” I was almost lost for words again. “How is that even possible?”
“Don’t get too excited,” he begrudgingly said with his hand raised. “Just because they know how to do it doesn’t mean I do.”
“You mean it’s something you’re incapable of?”
“Technically, no, I am capable of learning it, but I have yet to do it. They make you do all these exercises with breathing and focusing, and they teach you how to shift into wolf form and then coax you out of it.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” I said, a bit stunned. “You mean you can just make yourself a werewolf whenever you want?”
Very casually he said, “Yes,” like I had offered to make breakfast and asked if he wanted his toast buttered. “Turning isn’t the issue, it’s stopping yourself that is. I mean, yeah, I can turn, but that’s not what I came to the compound for. I want to know how to shut it off, so I’m not on all fours every month.”
“Well, why is it others can stop it, but not you? You just suck at your homework or something?” I teased.
“I don’t know. I’ve been trying for months now and it just won’t take.”
“Maybe you just haven’t had a good enough reason to truly fight the turn.”
“Believe me, having my body break in half is good enough reason.”
Suddenly, I was picturing it and all the ways Max had suffered; broken bones, torn skin, high pitched shrieks as he writhed on the floor of some empty basement where no one could find him. I was feeling guilty for leaving him all over again.
“Are you...?” I stumbled over my words for a moment, trying to find the right way to ask how he had survived this past year. I just didn’t know how to word it right. I ended up putting it real simple and asking, “Are you okay? I mean, have you been okay?”
I could tell he was uncomfortable by my question from the way his body leaned to the right, as if to physically pull himself away from it, but he eventually found his way back and then did a half shrug. “It hasn’t been a picnic, I won’t lie,” he said.
My face fell. “I guess it’s my turn to apologize now.”
“You staying wouldn’t have changed anything.”
“You wouldn’t have been alone.”
“I’m not alone now.”
“Are these good people?”
“They know how to help me, and that’s what matters. All I want to do is learn how to stop turning every month and then maybe I can...”
“Return to some normalcy?”
“I don’t think things will ever be normal again.”
“Tell me about it,” I said under my breath. I hadn’t felt normal in over a year. I took a deep breath, wet my lips, and looked Max right in his beautiful eyes and asked, “But are you okay?”
He looked at me like I was the one that needed the pity and not him. “I’m fine,” he said and placed his hand on my upper back and lightly rubbed back and forth. His hand was warm and heavy, and the simplest touch from him put goosebumps up and down my legs. When his hand retreated, I could still feel the warm print on my skin as though he were still there touching me. As his body heat faded from mine, I quickly longed for it to return.
I shook it off and tried to stay focused. “I’m glad,” I responded and bit down on my bottom lip. “Dana just seemed so lost.”
“Dana?”
“Yeah, the girl we met last summer.”
“I know who you’re talking about, I just didn’t know you guys kept in contact.”
“We don’t. I talked to her a couple days ago and...” I leapt out of the bed, flabbergasted that I hadn’t brought this story up already. It was the whole damn reason I came here, yet I had almost forgotten. “How could I be so stupid?” I said out loud, answering my inner thoughts as I began to pace.
Max’s eyes followed me as I moved back and forth across the floor. “You lost me,” he said.
“Max, you’re in danger.”
“Come again?”
“This guy came to my motel room looking for you and Dana. He knows what you guys are, he had your picture, your name, and he knew that I knew you.”
“Who was he?”
“I don’t know.”
“You didn’t think to ask any kind of information?”
“I was half expecting him to whip out chloroform and a Hefty bag, so there’s no way I was going to start drilling him for answers. I shut the door in his face and pretended I knew nothing.”
Max rolled his eyes and rubbed his thumb across his wet brow. “Yeah, I’m sure that was believable.”
“What, are you saying I don’t know how to lie?”
“No, no, not at all.”
“Good,” I said proudly and folded my arms.
He scoffed. “See, you’re so bad you can’t even tell when I’m lying. Now, what did this guy want?”
“Just if I had seen you or knew where you were and that you were important to his investigation, or something along those lines.”
Max was unresponsive.
“Why are you not freaked out by this?” I practically yelled.
He gave a very long, nonchalant shrug. “A lot of shit went down last year, it doesn’t surprise me that there are still people looking for answers. Maybe I moved out before he got to ask me anything.”
“No, Max, I feel like he knows exactly what you are.”
“How would he? You’re about the only one.”
“That’s why it weirded me out.”
“But did he say outright what he knew?”
“Not exactly.”
“Then there’s no reason to get bent out of shape.”
My hands landed right on my hips and I tapped my toe on the ground viciously. Goddamn it, I needed to stop looking like my mother.
“Why are you always so, whatever, about things?” I said, scolding Max in the most inarticulate way possible. I sounded like I was sixteen. “Hasn’t history taught you that my hunches are not always so impossible to believe?” The last time he disregarded something, I tried to warn him about we ended up with three werewolves attacking a party.
He pointed at me for a brief second and said, “Okay, you have a point.”
“Thank you.”
“But even if there is some guy coming after me, I promise you, I’m in good company. I’m pretty protected.”
I thought of Edgar and Allen’s story about the guy thrown into the hospital just for stealing a guy’s chair, and I had to wonder if one of those guys was Max and if they were in fact some kind of werewolf biker gang. Lord, it sounded ridiculous just in my head.
“You sure you’re not a part of some werewolf mafia?” I asked. Oh, look, it sounded even dumber out loud.
He stifled a laugh. “No gang, no mafia, just something else.”
What did that mean? That didn’t exactly sound like a no. I know he referred to it as a pack, but what exactly was a pack? They hunt together was as far as I could figure.
Max lowered his head and focused on his cold, wet hands between his knees, rubbing them together to keep warm, and when he peered back up at me a few strands of wet hair dangled in front of his eyes as a coy grin formed from his bow lips. Something was on his mind.
“Is that really why you came all this way?” his seductive voice rang, his eyes positively twinkling as they locked onto me, barely blinking, looking incapable of taking them off me.
It wasn’t such a risqué question, yet I found my face getti
ng heated from the way he asked. “Well, yeah. I wanted you to know about the guy.”
“About the guy?”
“Yes.”
“You could have called to warn me.”
“I didn’t have your number.”
“But you were able to find where I was.”
“Just barely. I had to persuade drunk men to spill the beans.”
“Uh-huh,” he said vacantly. He stood up from the bed and came walking toward me slowly, looming in until there was hardly any space between us. “A number would have been a lot easier to find than a home,” he informed me, his voice soft. The way he spoke didn’t match the actual words coming out of his mouth. He sounded like he was trying to seduce me.
“You’re right, but I couldn’t find a number,” I spoke, my throat getting drier and drier the closer Max came toward me. I ended up backing into a little dresser pushed against the motel wall, and I jumped when I felt the metal handle ram right into my ass. I tried to slide to the side so I could have a little personal space, but Max was looming in so quickly, I was practically trapped between the furniture and his body. I could barely move.
Max tilted his head to the side and said, “Are you asking for my phone number?” I could tell he was playing with me, twisting my words to make it sound like I was asking him out, most likely to try to embarrass me for his own pleasure. And because I’m me, it worked like a charm and my face heated up quicker than an oven.
He was five inches from my body smirking and waiting for me to come up with a response. I could tell he took great pleasure in watching me squirm.
“You’re such a pompous...” I searched for an insult.
“What?”
“Ass... butt”
“Did you just call me an assbutt?” He was trying not to laugh at me.
My eyes slammed shut, and I threw my hand against my face so hard, it made a cartoonish wham noise. “Yes, I, in fact, just said that,” I answered with my eyes still closed. There was no point in denying it. He had heard my epic failure at name calling. No wonder I was such an easy target for kids on the playground.
“You sound at least twelve when you say that.”
Lunar City (Lunar Rampage Series Book 2) Page 9