Rachel looked away and back into the living room behind her. She didn’t have the strength to look at Brandon‘s face. She might start laughing if she did.
Hearing everything, Brandon nodded. He thought that Jimmy’s disappearance had something to do with money. Why else would someone leave like that? Why else would someone drop everything just to get away? It only made sense. It seemed more than just logical. Hell, he even had it happen to him one time before. He bet money that he didn’t have and it took him a long time to get out of the trouble that it caused him. He worked hard, but he did solve it. If Jimmy was in the same kind of trouble, he knew how to help. It would take some time. It would take some work, but as far as he was concerned about it, he would do anything that he could to do to help. “Why didn’t you come to me in the first place?” He smiled. “I can help.” He slapped the palms of his hands to his thighs. He felt happy again. He felt content.
Jimmy looked up to him but kept his eyes from meeting his. “I didn’t know what else to do.” He frowned some, trying to show him that he truly felt concerned, but instantly, he felt like he failed. He never felt good with telling lies. In fact, he usually sucked at it. However, Brandon showed him that he didn’t fail after all.
“That’s not a problem. We’ll do what we can to get you out of this.” He smiled. “I promise.”
Jimmy nodded, was about to say something else but a musty smell came flashing towards him from the front door before he could say it. The sounds of footsteps coming up the steps came next. Someone was coming.
They all turned, and watched as Sasha opened the door.
13
“Sasha?” Jimmy said first as each of them fell silent as she stepped through the door. He felt more than surprised to see her, that much became more than obvious, but he also felt excited. She obviously came there to help him, but with it, there seemed to be more to it than that. Seeing her there also made him nervous. He looked to both Brandon and Rachel, passing each of them a simple smile. How was he going to explain her to them, and them to her, was now on his mind.
It seemed that Sasha was just as surprised as he was, just by her audible gasp, which went with her into the room. “Jimmy?” She closed the door behind her quietly. She looked to him, and then to the two others in the hallway behind him. She wasn’t expecting to see him with others, and at first, she didn’t know what to think about it. She let her senses help her decide what to do or say next, so she took a deep breath, taking in the smell of the room. What she smelled made her feel even more surprised. The two of them smelled completely different. They smelled pure. They lacked any of the mustiness that she expected from them. With them lacking that, she knew that they were obviously human and that alone, she didn’t expect. Why is he with humans? This alone made her confused. She had to find out what they were doing there. Did they know about what he was? Did he tell humans about them? She didn’t like anything she saw or felt. “And friends?”
Jimmy walked to her and stopped between her and the others. He could feel everyone tighten in the hallway. He didn’t know what to say, so he started with the obvious things first. “These are friends of mine.” He waved a quiet hand behind him and pointed to each of them in turn. “This is Brandon, and Rachel.”
Sasha looked, and nodded to both of them. “Friends?” She couldn’t say anything else.
“From Upstate.” Jimmy paused. “This is Sasha.” He swallowed a fast growing dry mouth. Why was he feeling so nervous? Why did he act like a little kid who was just caught playing doctor with the girl down the street? Before he thought about anything else, an answer came to him just as fast and just as pure. Rachel knew about what he was, so she might be able to handle another one of them there, but as for Brandon, well that seemed like another story entirely. As for Sasha, how would she handle one of them knowing about her as well also seemed there? There seemed to be too many possibilities, and with them, he didn’t know where to start.
“Hey,” Brandon said first. A smile flushed over his face as yet another beautiful woman now came within his mist. He didn’t expect to see someone else with Jimmy. He could only think of one thing about it, and that thing intrigued him more than anything else did. As far as he could tell, Jimmy played on both sides of the fence. He found another woman in the city, left one back home, and that made everything feel all too weird. It wasn’t like his friend to do such a thing, and he knew it. Normally, he would have stayed with one woman and left it at that. Seeing another woman there with him, and seeing the look on his face, told him one thing. He never intended for them to meet each other either. It seemed like the only answer for what he saw, and part of him hated having to be there to witness it, but the other side of him, felt beyond pleased that he was. It turns out that Jimmy had changed a lot, but he never guessed at how far that change had gone. It looked like the cat was out of the bag. He couldn’t wait to see where this was about to go. It brought out a new excitement in him that he couldn’t believe anything at first.
Jimmy nodded again as he put his hands back inside the front pockets of his jeans. He shrugged his shoulders, and felt lost. He felt nervous, almost afraid. For the life of him, he couldn’t figure out what he was doing, or where he was going to go from there. He felt almost like the bully at the prom just found out that he liked his girlfriend. It felt dangerous. It felt all too bad. Feeling everything at once, he just stood there motionless and aloof. He had to wait for someone else to say something, before he could move.
Rachel was the first of them to move. She stepped forward and offered her hand to Sasha. “I didn’t know that Jimmy had met anyone down here yet. It’s nice to meet another friend of his.”
Sasha looked at the woman’s hand, and at first, she wasn’t going to take it. She looked to Jimmy, saw the bashfulness oozing out of him, and turned back to the hand. She felt his nervousness. She could feel his fear. He felt unsure of how the four of them were going to react to one another. She didn’t know what that meant, but now, wanted to find that out more than ever, so she took the hand and shook it firmly. She had to see where this was heading, before she could say anything else.
Rachel winced some from the feel of the grip. The young girl’s hand felt beyond warm, it almost felt hot to the touch. If she didn’t know any better, she almost felt like she had a fever. It felt uncomfortable. It felt strange. She wasn’t sure what it meant.
“Sasha was good enough to tell me about this place.” Jimmy could feel the anxiousness in the room. “She was a friend of Collins.” He smiled, feeling his face flush with his own blood. He hadn’t felt this way in such a long time that he almost didn‘t know what it meant. It just felt plain old weird.
Rachel let go of the grip. “You knew Collins?” She looked to Jimmy. She now understood the feeling of the grip and the firmness of it. It could only mean one thing. She was one of them. She was also a werewolf, and that thought made her wince some. She wasn’t very afraid, but she still didn’t like what it meant. She just felt uncomfortable. She wasn’t sure how else to think.
“For years.” Sasha looked deeply into Rachel‘s eyes, and took a deep breath. She could smell the estrogen oozing through her blood. She could smell the sweat percolating under her arms and at the palms of her hands. The woman, this Rachel, liked Jimmy. She could smell it, and suddenly, she hated her for it.
Rachel nodded and took several steps back towards Brandon.
Brandon passed her and walked up to Jimmy’s left side. “I’m Brandon.” He lowered his voice, making himself sound flexed. He gave the gorgeous redhead a wink, as he held his hand out towards her, and smiled.
Sasha looked at it and took another deep breath. His testosterone seemed beyond his own control. It almost made her sneeze. She laughed it down with a subtle breath.
Brandon felt shocked by the laugh. No one had laughed at him for such a long time that he didn’t know how to respond to it, so he just lowered his hand back to his side and brushed the feeling away.
Sasha watched
Rachel back away. Seeing it and hearing her heart flutter told her one thing. She knows. This Rachel knows what I am. The thought surprised her beyond words. When the man approached her, and by his reaction to her looks, she knew that he didn’t know anything. Both sets of knowledge confused her some. As soon as she could, she had to find out what it all meant.
“Well,” Jimmy flashed out, and turned to the others, to Brandon first and then to Rachel behind him. He could see the fear in her eyes. He heard her heart slamming behind her ribs. He had to calm the room down some, he knew that much. “I’m glad that all of you have finally met.” He smiled, and tried to force his mind back to the matter at hand. He had to change the subject, because if he didn’t, things might get worse. “Sasha?” He smiled to her and then forced his face to a frown. He had to get serious. “I was wondering if you could tell me about the door under the stairs.” He nodded and forced a smile.
Sasha smiled back. She knew what he tried to do. She could feel his awkwardness. She could feel his embarrassment. One didn‘t have to be a wolf to know what he felt like. “They go into the basement. Collins used to spend a lot of time down there.” She turned, looked to him and turned to Rachel and then back to him again. Seeing his face, and feeling what he tried to do, she accepted it for what it was. Now was not the time to lose control. She respected him enough to give him the time to explain all that was going on. She owed him that much. Kalima would have had it no other way.
Jimmy nodded. He didn’t know what else to say so he didn’t try to say anything else.
Brandon turned to Jimmy with confusion all over his mind. He had to get back to the matter at hand. “Is this Collins guy the one that you owe the money to?”
Hearing that, Jimmy winced as he looked back towards him. He didn’t have an answer to that, so he didn’t even try to answer him.
14
Sasha gave Brandon a tour of the house. Jimmy asked her to do it. She obviously knew the place better than he did, and besides, he needed the time to explore it some for himself. That way, he could go downstairs and see what was in the basement, something that he couldn’t do with Brandon there. He wouldn’t understand what he was looking for. Hell, as far as he was concerned about it, he didn’t know what that was either. It just seemed easier to do it without him around, asking him a thousand unending questions as he did it.
Sasha didn’t mind doing what he asked her to do. She didn’t mind helping. Besides, she knew that Brandon didn’t know what was going on, so she went with the idea. It also gave her the time to think for herself about what was happening as well, so she took him upstairs as Jimmy went to the door to the basement. As for everything else, all would be answered in due time.
When Sasha and Brandon left, Jimmy finally breathed. He finally relaxed. Instantly the room became calm almost at once. Everything went back to normal. Well, almost everything did that is.
Rachel, on the other hand, had something else on her mind. “So.” She paused, trying to bring herself back together again. With Brandon and Sasha gone, it now seemed like the right time to ask some questions of her own. “You’ve been busy.” She smiled.
Jimmy stopped at the open door to the basement and swallowed a dry mouth. In fact, it felt almost like a frog seemed lodged in there, and refused to go down into his stomach. “She’s a friend.” He looked to the open stairwell, but then turned around and faced her again. He didn’t know what else to say.
Rachel smiled. She had been around long enough in life to know what was going on. She could tell that he wasn’t interested in Sasha. She could tell that his feelings for her hadn’t changed. She was a grown woman, so why would it bother her that he had another female as a friend. Besides, Jimmy and I are just friends, right. They had nothing else. At least that’s what she tried to tell herself. Her heart racing and her feeling like she was just sucker punched, well that told her something else entirely. It told her that she felt somewhat jealous, and she hated the feeling. She hated herself for feeling it even more.
Jimmy could feel her heart racing. He felt what she felt, and could almost feel her thoughts. He seemed to be getting rather good at sensing other’s minds. It seemed the wolf was good for other things as well. “She’s just a friend, really.” He smiled. He swallowed that damn stubborn frog again, and again, it still refused to go down. He wasn’t going to give up. It would just take a little more effort than he thought that it should have taken.
“I know.” Rachel returned his smile. Hers seemed far more forced than his ever could have been.
He nodded. He had to change the subject now more than ever. “Shall we?” He held out his right hand to the doorway to the basement.
“You first.” She stayed right where she was. She could easily smell the heavy mustiness coming from the stairs. The smell made her wince. She had no idea what they were going to find down there, so he had to go first.
He blinked.
They went down the stairs into the basement, with him leading the way.
The steps creaked as dust came up with every footstep. It seemed like years have passed since anyone used those stairs. When they reached the bottom step, Jimmy stopped. He had to breathe before he moved on. It felt hard to do. He didn’t know what he would find once he reached the room. He had to prepare himself for anything. Anything could be down there. Anything could be waiting for him. He just didn’t know. He couldn’t be sure of anything, but when he looked into the room, all of those fears vanished within a blink of an eye.
The entire basement looked simple. It looked redone. It even looked nice. Instead of having just stoned walls, it looked covered with what looked like a light tan colored paneling. The floor also looked well tiled. The white of those tiles sparkled some around the room. The rafters were covered over with sheetrock, and they looked well painted, with a white, bright color. The room looked well lit with lights stretching out across the ceiling with fixtures that hung down low over the floor. Even with the lights off, the room still looked bright. It didn’t look evil. He didn’t expect what he saw.
Not very scary now is it? He stepped into the room, leaving the last step and made his way onto the tiled floor. He looked to the far wall, to a desk that sat there, looking simple, lying near the wall to the right, opposite the stairs. He could see that it looked covered with papers of all types. It looked like something he would have used to do the bills of the house. Along both ends of the desk were two bookshelves, one on each side of it. The shelves looked lined with narrow books. They looked like logs, or journals of some kind. On the floor at the front of the basement, at the front of the house, were several more cases that were covered with artifacts of all different types and sizes. It almost looked like everything belonged in a museum.
Rachel went to the artifacts, as Jimmy went to the desk.
He stopped in front of it and looked down to everything on top of it. Newspaper clippings were everywhere. Each newspaper had a different name and a different date. Some looked recent, from only a few years ago, while others looked much older, faded yellow with age. He sifted through them and found one that looked older than all the rest. September 1934. He gasped some seeing the date. How old was he? He thought about Collins. He didn’t look that old. He didn’t feel it.
She picked up what looked like an old flintlock type of pistol and held it up in her hands. She couldn‘t believe how old it looked. It even looked ancient. With it, it stole her breaths away. “My God.” She turned back to Jimmy holding the pistol in her hand. The date 1790 was printed neatly on a brass plate on the side of the weapon. It felt heavy, and it being that, it told her that it was real. “How old do you think he was?”
He turned from the desk. “It looks like a while.” He picked up the newspaper clipping from 1934 and held it up towards her so that she could see it. “At least since September 1934.”
She couldn’t see the date, but took his word for it. “At least 1790.” She replaced the pistol back to the shelf and looked back to Jimmy. “He liked it d
own here, didn’t he?” Why else would he have saved so much all in one place? It all looked well cared for and then some. It all looked like some type of a shrine.
He nodded. “That’s what Sasha said.”
“She’s one, isn’t she?” She swallowed a dry mouth. Maybe it was because of the knowledge that she just spoke, or maybe it was because of the dust in the room, she didn’t know why she did it, but she did.
He nodded again, replacing the newspaper clipping back to the pile on the desk. “She is.”
“How did you meet her?” She put her hand in her jeans and left the shelves behind her. She heard her voice crack some and she knew why it did. She liked Jimmy, and seeing Sasha, beautiful and young and the way she looked at him made her realize just how much she felt for him. What was the saying? You never know what you have until it’s gone. That felt like her now, more and then some.
“I found her one night, not that long after I arrived here. I began following her for a while.” He didn’t notice her voice. The amazement of everything around him blocked that from his mind. “That’s when I found the others.” He looked back to the stairs, and then to his right at the far wall. Another large bookcase sat there, looking to be a part of the wall itself. It looked out of place from the rest of the room. A bookcase that suddenly felt familiar to his already fluttering mind. This was all too much to take in at once. He felt overwhelmed by all of it.
“Others?” She stepped into the center of the room. She couldn’t believe what she just heard. It suddenly made her feel nervous. It made her feel somewhat out of place. She suddenly didn’t feel like she belonged there.
“Others, yes. There are several here.” He nodded to himself. “You shouldn’t have come here, Rachel.” He spoke his mind honestly. He didn’t know how else to say what he meant to say. “It would have been safer if you stayed back in Redford Forge.” He left the desk, walked to the far bookcase, and stopped just in front of it.
A Werewolf's Saga Books 1, 2, & 3 (A Werewolf's Saga Boxed Sets) Page 37