by Jayme Morse
Luke sat down, remaining quiet and composed. As Chris sat back down next to him, he said, “For the record, part of the reason I voted ‘no’ is because I don’t think Josh will talk to you, anyway. He knows that you’re responsible for Lilly’s death.”
“What do you mean? How am I responsible when Jason’s the one who killed her?” Samara thought back to Lilly’s funeral. Josh had walked away from her when she had tried to console him, but she had assumed that was because of pack ethics. She knew that she certainly wouldn’t want to be caught communicating with someone outside of her pack if Jason had been her Alpha. Had Josh really walked away from Samara because he blamed her, though?
Chris looked at Kyle, prompting him to say something. Finally, Kyle said, “Look, Josh came to me after Lilly died. He was devastated. Jason has no idea, and I knew you wouldn’t mind. Anyway, he told me why Jason killed Lilly.”
Samara raised an eyebrow. Everyone in the pack stared at her, and their eyes told her that they all knew what Kyle was going to say next. “You told everyone but me?”
“We didn’t want you to feel guilty,” Colby intervened. “Luke doesn’t know either because we figured that you would be able to hear it through his thoughts or he wouldn’t keep it a secret from you.” Colby shot Luke an apologetic look. “I feel guilty because it’s not really your fault . . . I’m the one who put you up to pretending to initiate with the Vyka.”
“Wait, Lilly’s murder has to do with our plan that night?” Samara asked. “I don’t understand. I thought Jason killed her because there was something going on between the two of them . . . they were fighting over something. Or I thought it was because Lilly was refusing to cooperate and be on his pack. He really killed her because of me?” Suddenly, Samara was beginning to feel sick to her stomach. She didn’t know what she had to do with Lilly’s death, but the guilt was beginning to build up inside her once more.
“Jason killed Lilly because she came to us to get us to help her stop your initiation,” Kyle said. “She thought that you were going to go through with the initiation . . . she had no reason to believe that you weren’t. She had no idea you were just pretending. Lilly came to me that night, to tell me that I had to stop you before it was too late.” Kyle paused, blowing a puff of air, watching it form a cloudy circle in the cold autumn night. “All of us . . . we didn’t know that what we were doing that night would have affected Lilly. We just thought that if and when Jason caught on, he would have started an attack on you. We were prepared for that. But when Jason came looking for her, he tapped into her thoughts because she didn’t know how to completely block him out yet . . . and he realized what she was doing. That’s why he killed her.”
Samara slumped down on the log that she was standing next to. She felt the tears form behind her eyes. Lilly had been trying to help her . . . and now, she was gone.
*
Luke pulled into Kyle’s driveway and climbed out of the car. Samara and Kyle followed him.
Samara hadn’t felt like going home right now, so she’d called her parents to tell them that she was going to spend the night at her cousin’s house. Her mom only objected a little because it was a school night before giving in. Samara thought that her mom probably knew that she needed to be around family right now, especially since she no longer had Seth in her life.
The truth was, Samara didn’t think she could handle facing her parents right now. She still hadn’t filled her mom in with the details about her phone call with Detective Scotts, and she was going to have a difficult time talking about Lilly right now without crying. Samara had never felt this guilty in her whole life.
Aunt Rae swung the front door open. It was obvious that she had been expecting them. Her aunt’s dark hair was cut into a short bob. She looked so much different from the last time Samara had seen her, when it was long and curly. Her eyes had dark circles under them, and it looked like she had aged about ten years in just a few months. “Sam! How are you, sweetie?” her aunt said, pulling Samara into a warm embrace when she saw her.
Samara shrugged. “I’m okay. I’m just . . . still adjusting to everything.”
“Of course,” Aunt Rae clucked sympathetically. “This is some life-changing stuff. I’m surprised you’re taking it as well as you are. Lord knows I didn’t when Kyle went through the change.” Her aunt said ‘the change’ the way one would refer to a Trojan virus; a malicious, destructive thing.
It was a little ironic that ‘the change’ was used to describe so many different things in life – puberty, periods, and menopause. Samara and the other werewolves went through one of the biggest changes of all, and they didn’t complain half as much as a menopausal woman bitched about her hot flashes. In fact, Samara had never heard any of the wolves on her pack complain at all. Then again, they had been more prepared for this than she had. At least their families had filled them in on what was going to happen to them, instead of leaving them completely in the dark about it like she had been.
“So, how’s Billy?” Samara asked her aunt, glancing around the house. As Luke and Kyle scampered off into the kitchen, Rae sat down on the beige microfiber sectional. The furniture had recently been rearranged, but the house still looked the same as she remembered it. Samara had slept over at her aunt’s house many times, camping out in the living room under a fort that she, Seth, and Kyle had made out of couch cushions and blankets.
“He’s good,” Rae replied. “He works a lot.” Samara knew that Billy, Rae’s new husband, was often away on business. Samara hadn’t gotten to know Billy that well yet; most of what she had heard about him came from Kyle or her parents. Her parents weren’t too impressed with Rae’s new husband, but Samara figured that had little to do with Billy himself.
Most of the family had been shocked when Rae had gotten engaged only a few months after her first husband, Kyle’s father, James, had died. Rae had said that James wouldn’t have wanted her to be miserable for the rest of life, and there was no reason to wait because she had met someone who she knew could help her put her life back together.
Samara’s parents hadn’t agreed that it was the right time for Rae to get married, but Samara had been happy for her. She would have hated for her aunt to be completely miserable after Uncle James had died. Speaking of which. . . .
“Aunt Rae, did Uncle James really die from a heart attack?” Samara asked her aunt quietly. This was the first time she had ever asked questions about James since he had passed away, and she wasn’t really sure how Rae would react to it. Even though Rae had gotten remarried, she surely still had a spot in her heart for James. Samara was also making assumptions. Kyle hadn’t really told her if his father was a werewolf, though he had made it sound like he wasn’t one. Samara got the feeling that he might have been avoiding talking about it, though, especially if the answer came with any pain.
Rae looked down at the floor and shook her head. “No . . . no, James was a werewolf, Samara.”
“So, he was killed?”
Rae nodded. “There was a big fight. The Ima were trying to stop the Shomecossee from killing a pup who had unknowingly wandered onto their territory. Unfortunately, James was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.” Her aunt paused, looking up at Rae. “I know this is all new to you, so I hope I didn’t scare you.”
“Wow,” Samara whispered. It surprised her that Rae and Kyle had been able to keep this dark, deep secret from the rest of the family. Samara didn’t know if she could ever be that strong-willed; she couldn’t imagine not talking about it. She also couldn’t imagine keeping the fact that she was a werewolf a secret from her parents for much longer, either. “Actually, Aunt Rae,” Samara said, a light bulb going off in her head. “I need to know . . . do my parents know about Grandpa Joe?”
Her face twisted into a facial expression that Samara couldn’t seem to identify. “I don’t know,” Rae whispered, putting her face in her hands.
“You don’t know?” Samara asked confusedly. “I mean . . . you and Dad are stil
l close. Didn’t it ever come up in conversation?” Was it possible that only Rae knew about Grandpa Joe and that her dad really didn’t know?
Rae shook her head, her long, brown curly ringlets moving with it. “I wasn’t allowed to bring it up,” she replied quietly. “Dad had to tell me about it because he was sure that I was going to be the next woman in line to be a wolf. He told me when I turned fourteen years old. He was afraid for me, and he made me promise not to tell Reed.” Rae paused, twisting her wedding band around her finger nervously. “When it didn’t happen – when I didn’t become a wolf – Dad made me promise to still never mention it to your father. And I never did.”
“Why didn’t Grandpa want my dad to know?” Samara asked. It seemed a little strange for her grandfather to tell Rae, and not Samara’s father, Reed. Wasn’t there a chance that her dad could have also been a werewolf? Surely, it couldn’t have been limited to a female child only.
After all, Samara’s own brother was a werewolf, so it definitely didn’t skip the male family members. Plus, from what Samara knew, the werewolf world was very male-dominated. If anything, Samara would have expected her father to be a werewolf than her aunt if either of them had gotten the gene.
“This lifestyle is dangerous for anyone, but it’s especially dangerous for our family, Sam. Dad didn’t want Reed to get involved in all of this. He was afraid he would go looking for trouble.” Rae looked up at Samara. “As Dad was dying, he made it even clearer that Reed could never find out.”
“So, then, he really doesn’t know,” Samara said quietly. The truth was that she had been hoping that her father did know that werewolves ran in their bloodline. It would have made it easier to break the news to him that she had gotten the gene. Now, she was going to have to deal with telling him – and letting him know that his whole life had basically been a lie, that his father and his sister had both kept huge secrets from him. Just the idea that telling him might come between her dad and his sister made Samara feel saddened.
“I’m not completely sure,” Rae said, furrowing her brows and shaking her head. “On the night our mother was murdered, Reed saw wolves in the backyard right after the murderers left the house. He asked me if I believed in werewolves, but he never brought it up again.”
Recently, Samara’s mom had told her that her grandma had been murdered in the family’s home – and that her dad had hid in the bedroom the whole time it happened. This was when she had questioned her mom about Grandpa Joe to see if she knew about him being a werewolf. Samara had never questioned her grandmother’s death before – mostly because she knew that it was a sensitive topic for her father, but also because she had never even met the woman. Now, she wondered, though. “Was Grandma murdered by a werewolf?” Samara asked Rae.
Rae shrugged. “I’ve thought about it, but I wasn’t there that night. I was at a sleepover at one of my friend’s houses. It wasn’t long after Mom was killed that Dad told me that I might become a werewolf, though. It never seemed like a coincidence to me.”
“My mom mentioned that it was one of his co-workers or business clients or something who murdered Grandma,” Samara pointed out. “Is there any truth to that?”
“That’s what he always claimed,” Rae replied, pulling off the sweatshirt that she had been wearing. Samara noticed that Rae had lost a lot of weight since her husband had passed away. Samara couldn’t ever remember her aunt ever looking this fragile. “We never met anyone he did business with,” Rae went on. “And to be honest, I think that he kept a lot of things from us because he feared that telling us the truth would only put us in danger. I just wish he had told us everything now, or you know, written it down somewhere, so that we would have known what to prepare for.”
Samara nodded. From the kitchen, she heard Luke call her name. As she stood up to go see what he wanted, Rae grabbed her wrist. “Sam? We don’t think Kyle’s in much danger because he’s not a McKinley. He’s a Robinson. But you are a McKinley. If any of Dad’s enemies want to find you, they will, Sam. It’s just a matter of time.”
Chapter 12
****
“Maybe you’re right,” Samara told Luke as she crawled under the fleece blanket that he was lying under. “Maybe I need to tell my parents.”
“It would make both of our lives so much easier,” Luke replied.
Samara sighed. It was hard to imagine that telling her mom and dad one of the most confusing things that they would ever have to hear, if they didn’t already know about it, could make things easier.
“Well, they might get harder at first,” Luke joked.
Samara laughed, knowing he had read her thoughts. “Much harder, I’m sure. What if they don’t accept me . . . because they’re afraid of me? People have this idea of werewolves as being these crazy out-of-control beasts, when it’s really not like that at all.”
“Maybe they’ll be afraid at first, but so what if they are?” Luke asked, wrapping his arm around her. “If anything, you can prove them that they’re wrong about werewolves. I’m sure that it’s going to be hard for them to deal with at first, but they’ll come around. And, who knows, maybe they do know the truth . . . and it won’t be as hard as we’re thinking.”
Samara rested her head on Luke’s shoulder. “I guess we’ll see. I need to wait for the perfect time. I don’t think right now is.” Her mom had seemed really depressed ever since Seth had moved out. Even though telling the truth might help her mom understand better, Samara knew that it was better to wait . . . at least for a little while.
*
Sometime after Samara had drifted off to sleep, she was woken up by the sound of a deep growling. The spot on the couch where Luke had been lying next to her when she had fallen asleep was empty. She panicked, afraid that something was happening . . . something bad.
Shifting on her shoulder, she realized that Luke was peering out of the window, curtains spread wide open. It was dark outside, but the moonlight from the half-moon casted a beam of light over the family room.
“Luke?” Samara hissed at him. “What are you doing?”
“I – I don’t see who it is,” Luke started. “There’s someone out there. I can smell them.”
“Are you sure? I don’t smell anything,” Samara said quietly, sniffing. Not that she should trust her own sense of smell. She was still getting used to it.
“It’s because you’re still a new wolf,” Luke explained, obviously tapping into her thoughts. “Once you’re a bit older, you’ll be able to smell if there’s someone in wolf form nearby.”
Samara blinked, her eyes still adjusting to the light that poured into the room. She didn’t know that werewolves could smell wolves when they were in human form – but it only made sense. How else were they supposed to protect themselves while they were in human form?
“Can you smell who it is?” Samara asked.
Luke shook his head. “No, whoever it is smells like they tried to cover their scent with animal urine . . . the type that you purchase at a hunting store, probably intending to throw us off. Whoever it is planned this out pretty well. They’re definitely here for a reason.”
Samara pulled herself from the couch, planting her bare feet firmly on the carpeted floor. She felt the panic rising in the back of her throat. What if Jason had come to make good on his promise to kill her? It seemed even more likely right now since she had recently seen him for the first time since she became an Ima. Seeing her had probably reminded him that he needed to get the job done soon.
Luke fled down the staircase that led to the front door. “I’ll take care of this,” he told Samara. “You stay inside.”
Before Samara could respond, Luke was already out the front door and dashing across the front lawn to the side of the yard. When he reached the pine trees that lined Aunt Rae’s property, Samara began to feel nauseous not knowing who was out there and what was going to happen to Luke.
Realizing that she couldn’t just sit around and wait like this, Samara swung the front door open and
ran towards the pine trees. She came to a halt next to where Luke was standing, and he turned and gave her an I-thought-I-told-you-not-to-come-out here look.
Samara shrugged. She opened her mouth to say something, but Luke pressed his fingers to his lips to tell her to “Shh.” I couldn’t just sit around and do nothing, Samara told him through mind-speak.
Following Luke’s gaze into the depths of the woods, Samara saw a movement of bushes, followed by the sight of a furry tail weaving through them. She couldn’t tell what color it was because of the shadows that were created by the pine trees.
A moment later, Samara watched as the tail was engulfed by a cloud of red smoke. She felt her body freeze up and her insides turn. It was a Vyka.
Taking a step back and trying to decide what she was going to do when she came face-to-face with Jason, Samara gasped when the cloud disappeared.
Josh stared back at her, his dark brown hair a mess from the wind and smoke that had just surrounded him.
Luke glared at Josh. “What are you doing here?”
Stop. Don’t scare him away, Samara said. Maybe I can get him to talk to me.
“I’m here to see Kyle,” Josh said, glancing over at the two-story brick house. The lights had been turned on. Aunt Rae or Kyle must have woken up. “I didn’t think I’d be interrupting a pack meeting,” he said cautiously.
“It’s okay, it’s not a pack meeting,” Samara said quickly, noting the nervousness in his voice. It seemed as though he was afraid that he would get Kyle into trouble just for being there.
“Why do you smell like you’ve showered in piss, if you were just coming to see Kyle?” Luke asked accusingly, a harsh tone in his voice.
Josh looked down at the ground. “Look, I’m not supposed to be here. If Jason knew I was here right now, he’d probably kill me.”