“Eat,” he ordered.
Putting one of the wrapped bars on the step next to me, I opened the other and took a bite. It tasted just as I expected: cardboard with a faint sweetness of fruit. “Um,” I swallowed that bit of granola. “Is there any way I could get a ride to my apartment, please? I'm sure my car's safe at the reserve, and I sure appreciate your generosity here, but-”
“Already got your car here,” Jonathan said, smiling. “Your keys were still in your pocket.” He fished my keyring out of a bowl on the mantel of the fireplace and tossed it to me. Much to my genuine surprise, I deftly plucked my keys out of the air with my injured left hand. Sheppard eyed me meaningfully. So I was particularly dexterous today despite my broken limbs, I wasn't certain that made me a werewolf. But Sheppard definitely had a point when he'd asked me before about who had been in my room. Today, I could smell that no fewer than five others plus a dog had been through the house recently, present company excluded. And why didn’t my wrist ache from catching my keys?
“We'll have to make it a quick trip,” Sheppard said. “We can take you by your place to grab some things and then bring you back here. The vampire has been staking out your place.”
I smacked my forehead with my hand and grimaced. Apparently the formerly swollen eye was still a little bruised. “I missed Jenny's dinner!”
Sheppard raised an eyebrow at me.
“She just got a promotion!” I explained. “We were going out to celebrate. I'll have to call—” I reached into my pocket, where I usually keep my phone on runs. But these were borrowed sweatpants, and my phone wasn't there. I narrowed my eyes. “Where's my phone?”
“It got destroyed when you were attacked,” Matt said, putting his hands up in a placating gesture. “I didn't know anyone even used that sort of flip phone anymore.”
“Hey!” I said “Simple and reliable. Don't fix what isn't broken!” I never even wanted one of the smartphones when they came out. It’s not that they were too complex, it just felt absurd to carry around an entire computer in your pocket. The guy at the store had laughed at me when I told him I wanted the flip phone, explaining that those were meant for elderly folks. He took my money anyway, though, so who was the real winner?
Jonathan leaned toward me. “Except it is broken now. Here, use mine.” He handed me his sleek black phone—the latest model, I was sure.
I stared at it for a moment. What was I going to say to her? “Hey Jenny, sorry I couldn't make it the other night, I was attacked by a werewolf and now I am one too? Oh, but don't worry, I'm not crazy, I'm staying with some other werewolves who seem to be keen on taking good care of me?” Yeah, that would go over real well.
I smirked and handed the phone back.
“Keep it for now, nothing I can say to her that wouldn't have her hounding me for acting all suspicious.”
No one else would have even noticed me being gone, except for maybe Frederick. But he’d been flaky since the last time we went out anyway. Mom was dead, my dad was off in Europe, and my freelance editing was contracted mostly online and through phone calls. I had a working relationship with the local newspaper, but four days without any contact or updates? My replacement probably started yesterday. Besides, since when did I decide I was staying here to recover? I mean, sure, the food's good, but really? I shook my head and sighed.
Jonathan laughed, the sound bubbling out of his chest. “Nice. Hounding. I like it.”
I smiled. Matt rolled his good eye.
“Alright,” Sheppard said. “Let’s move while there’s still daylight. Matt, you're with us, just in case the vampire’s got friends that want to cause trouble. Jonathan, you're in charge of getting everyone here. Now that Lynn is up and mobile, a meet and greet is in order.”
He said my name pointedly, like there was something else they had been calling me before now. Sheppard said I was safe here, and—somehow—that felt true, but it was odd to feel so safe around strangers.
I used the banister railing to get to my feet—well, foot, the one wasn't holding any real weight, though it didn't argue about being rested on the ground. I hobble-hopped a step or two toward the door.
Matt pursed his lips. “Just a moment.”
He went through the living room, into the dining room beyond that toward the back of the house, and into a room to the left, which I could now see was a kitchen. I heard a door open and shut and then Matt was coming back through the house. He carried a pair of crutches with him and eyed my injured arm.
“Maybe you don't need both,” he said, offering one to me and leaning the other against the wall next to the door, “but one will at least keep you independently mobile.”
“Thanks,” I said around the last bite of the first energy bar, shoving the wrapper into the pocket of my sweats. Taking the crutch, I took a few steps away from the door and back again to get a feel for them. It took only a minor adjustment to the length to get it to be reasonably comfortable.
“Let's go,” Sheppard said, opening the door for us.
Past the front door was a beautiful covered wraparound porch, complete with swing and rocking chair. The crutch made light work of the two steps down to the yard and walkway. The huge house was at the apex of a cul-de-sac. Looming in the driveway was a shiny black Dodge Ram. My little purple Civic del Sol was parked in the driveway too with an olive-green Jeep behind it. The headlights of the Ram blinked as the locks clicked open. I smiled, of course the Ram belonged to Sheppard. How appropriate.
Sheppard opened the passenger side door. “You first Matt, Lynn needs to keep that right leg extended.”
Not that the splint would let me bend it anyway.
Matt got up into the truck and, along with Sheppard, helped me in. Actually, it was mostly Sheppard, as he scooped me up and paced me in the seat. Sheppard put the crutch into the bed of the truck. While I understood the seating arrangement logistically, it seemed rather silly to put Matt in the middle of the bench seat as both Sheppard and Matt were built like football players.
The truck smelled of warm spicy musk. Almost like incense. It was actually kind of comforting, and I laid my head against the headrest and closed my eyes for a moment.
But as we pulled out of the driveway, something Sheppard said resurfaced. My eyes snapped open and my heart started to pound. “How do you know that anyone has been staking out my apartment? How do you even know where I live?” With a lurch in my chest, it occurred to me that these guys may be the reason I was attacked.
“I’ve been following you,” Matt explained, placing a hand lightly on my uninjured knee.
That sure didn't help any. I set my jaw and squirmed closer to my door. Matt’s hand didn’t follow me, thank God.
Sheppard made a soft rumbling noise. Did he just growl? “I asked him to. We wanted to keep you safe.”
My thin hold on calm slipped free. “Safe from that thing that attacked me?!” I exclaimed. “What did you call it? A crazed wolf?! I really gotta hand it to you, great job there!”
Fear knotted in my stomach. I put my chin in my hand, facing the window, and rested my elbow on the door handle. The doors were locked, and we were on the highway now. Even if I thought jumping from a moving vehicle was plausible, I certainly wasn't going to get away from these guys in my condition.
Matt growled, an intense rumbling sound in the enclosed cab of the truck. “What genius goes running by herself on a nature reserve where cell reception is shit?!”
“It was daytime!” I countered, not looking back at him.
“Look,” Sheppard said, his calm voice a stark contrast. “Your friend Frederick is a vampire. We were trying to keep you safe from him, and he knew it.”
Wait. Frederick? He’d been following me long enough to know about the time I’d spent with Frederick? And he thought he was a vampire? No. He was sure he was a vampire.
“Right,” I said with a huff.
Of course Frederick was a vampire. And I'm a werewolf. I rolled my eyes and opened the second energy ba
r.
The next exit was onto the street my apartment complex was on. A minute more and we were pulling into the parking spot in front of my apartment, the cardboard fruity goodness on its way to my stomach. This was no gated community, and it certainly wasn't in the best neighborhood, but I lived above the leasing office and that seemed to keep the shady characters at bay for the most part. Sheppard got the crutch out of the back as Matt reached over me to open the door. Sheppard leaned the crutch against the truck and picked me up again. He put me down gently and handed me the crutch. I quickly hopped away and up the flight of stairs to my apartment. As I got closer, there was a familiar perfume, the smoky sweet aroma of clove cigarettes, and something else I couldn't place. I wrinkled my nose at the rank scent of it, focusing instead on the familiar.
“They were just here!” I exclaimed, leaning over the second-floor railing to look back at the parking lot. No sign of Stephanie's convertible or Jenny's orange Eclipse.
“That trail's three days old,” Sheppard said, catching up to me.
I couldn't believe it. “Jenny's perfume, Steph's cloves, but that last one...” I narrowed my eyes.
“That’s vampire,” Matt said, crossing his arms.
“Your friend Frederick,” Sheppard said. “He came later, about a day ago.”
“Uh huh,” I said. “And I’m a tooth fairy.”
Matt leaned close and dropped his voice, so it was more of a quiet rumble than actual words. “Does that scent—that rank, acrid scent—smell safe to you?”
He was too close for comfort, but I sucked in a lungful, trying to weed out just the unpleasant scent. It smelled like death—like something that had rotted in the summer sun for hours on a wet road.
I looked into his clear eye and shook my head. “No.”
“Then whether you call it vampire or something else makes no difference,” Matt said, backing away from me. “Either way, it’s bad.”
Sighing, I shook my head and unlocked the door to my tiny studio apartment. The welcoming scent of my own home engulfed me as I opened the door and stepped in. I breathed it in, allowing it to help release the knot in the pit of my stomach. Sure, my place was a little messy, it always was, but this was my home. Mine. Another step in and a muscle in my shoulder started to unwind. I closed my eyes, taking a deep, slow breath.
Sheppard and Matt came in and closed the door behind them. Matt began moving around the apartment and I opened my eyes. Sheppard leaned against the wall next to my door. He watched Matt, who looked out the huge picture window to the left of the door. It didn't have much of a view, but it sure let a lot of light into my apartment. He pursed his lips and stepped back from the window, visually tracing around the window frame and then walking through my apartment, tracking along the ceiling, down the short hall and into the bathroom. I heard my shower curtain move and then Matt came back into view. I furrowed my brow at him as he nodded to Sheppard. Then I realized it—he just swept my little apartment like the SWAT teams do in movies. Maybe they were trying to protect me.
I opened my walk-in closet and grabbed the duffel off the top shelf. Pulling clothes from hangers and drawers, I stuffed a handful of changes of clothes into the bag. Sheppard hadn’t mentioned how long they wanted me to stay with them for, but I suspected it was at least till the full moon. That was what? Five days from now? No, wait. Jonathan’s comment as I got up implied I had lost two days. Well I certainly had enough clothes in the bag for three days.
Hopping into the bathroom, I caught my reflection in the mirror. The entire left side of my face was still purple, and the pink skin of a fresh scar ran a vertical track over my cheekbone. It must have happened when that wolf slashed at the arm that had been trying to cover my face. Touching it gently, I remembered Jonathan's scars and the way the skin over his stomach muscles looked so touchable.
The sound of my fridge opening made me blink, and I shook my head, realizing I had been smiling. What on Earth was I thinking? I put the duffel down on the closed toilet lid and grabbed my toothbrush, deodorant, body spray, and comb. Shoving them into the bag, I tried to remember where I'd dropped my purse. . . It was in my car, of course it was in my car. I rolled my eyes again and grabbed my shampoo and conditioner off the shelf above the bathtub. They joined my other belongings in the bag and I settled it onto my shoulder again.
I hobbled over to my bed and plopped the bag on it so I could zip it closed. The rosary my mother gave me swung on the bedpost in the corner of my field of vision. I'm not the most religious person, but my mom had said it was blessed, and I just felt better when it was close. I looped it around my wrist a few times so it wouldn't fall off and shrugged into my favorite hoodie.
Matt had a slice of cheese rolled up and took the last bite of it as I closed the blinds to my window. Joke’s on him, I was pretty sure that cheese expired two weeks ago.
“Ready to go?” Sheppard asked.
I took a deep breath. “Okay,” I said around a lump in my throat. Why did I want to cry all of a sudden? It wasn't like I was never going to see this place again.
Sheppard nodded and we exited my apartment. “You can shower when we get back.”
Locking the door didn't help the lump in my throat either. I guess I really had made the decision to stay with them until I was healed up.
FOUR
SHEPPARD SCOOPED ME back into the truck and tossed my bag in the bed along with the crutch. The three of us headed in the direction of Sheppard's house. My stomach growled as we passed a fast food restaurant.
“Yea, me too,” Matt said, patting his own stomach.
Sheppard nodded and turned around. As he pulled into the drive-thru lane, a voice garbled from the loudspeaker. “Can I take your order?”
“I need twelve number sevens, five of the big packs of nuggets, seven large fries, and three large sodas.” Sheppard seemed for all the world like it was nothing at all to order enough to feed an army.
“Who's gonna eat all that?!?” My eyes must have been as wide as dinner plates.
Matt raised the scarred eyebrow and looked at me. “You'll likely have three of the burgers yourself since you're healing, then there's the rest of us. This should tide us over till dinner.”
The attendant repeated the order back.
“I can't eat all that!” It was highly uncommon for me to eat everything when I got a meal at any fast food place. That's why I usually ordered off the value menu. Well that, and my meager paycheck from freelancing for the newspaper rarely afforded me anything outside of cups of noodles and canned pasta.
“That’s it,” Sheppard replied when the attendant finished. He rolled his window up and looked at me, “I think you'll find you can 'eat all that.' Werewolves have a much higher metabolism than humans. Much of our body's stored energy is used when we change. Once you're back to one hundred percent, I think you'll find yourself not only able to eat, but hungry, any time food is available.”
I pursed my lips as the drive-thru attendant handed Sheppard the bags of food. I'm not so sure about that, particularly since there was no way I could afford to eat like that. Sheppard passed bag after bag to Matt, who handed many to me. The drinks soon followed. Once we had everything, Matt fished three burgers out of one of the bags, handing one each to Sheppard and me.
“Mind the upholstery,” Sheppard said with a smile as I unwrapped my burger.
I had that one down and was working on a second when we pulled up to the house. The cul-de-sac was lined with cars, while Sheppard's initial spot in the driveway remained clear. When we had parked, Sheppard got out and grabbed my crutch and bag from the truck bed. He came to lift me out of the truck, but I put my hand up, stopping him.
“I’m tired of being carried around like an invalid,” I said. “I can do this.”
Matt smirked and walked around to the passenger side of the truck.
Sheppard eyed me. “Your leg isn’t holding weight and your arm still can’t grip things.”
“I can do this,” I repeated
stubbornly from my seat.
Matt handed me another burger. “Better claim it now or you may not get the chance.”
Sheppard nodded, “Okay, I’ll take your bag upstairs for you.”
“I can get it.”
Sheppard’s eyes narrowed as they met mine.
“I can do this,” I repeated, softer this time.
Sheppard sighed. “All right.” He shook his head. “See you inside.”
I put the burger in my left hand. It might have been unreliable at helping me into the truck or pushing my body weight around, but it could hold a burger well enough. I scooted toward the open door and let my right leg dangle out while I maneuvered my left down. My right foot hit the ground with more weight than I wanted and with a cry I scrambled my weight back onto the bench seat.
Except my leg wasn’t screaming with pain, it just ached in a pointedly throbbing sort of way.
Silly girl.
I sat staring out the front window for a moment, thinking. I leaned and rolled so that my belly was toward the bench seat and my left leg was the leading one. When it hit the ground, it held my weight steadily enough that I could lower myself the rest of the way out of the cab without issue. I sighed and looked at the crutch and my bag. I only had one hand that could do anything.
I grabbed the crutch and hopped over to the porch to eat my burger. I put a little weight on my right leg and used the crutch as leverage to sit. My leg throbbed, but it wasn’t unbearable. As I unwrapped my burger, I heard voices drifting from around the back of the house. I could smell that a total of eight others had arrived, including the warm scent I had begun to associate with Sheppard and the spicy muskiness I associated with Matt.
I took a bite of my burger. What would I say to them anyway? I had always considered myself an outgoing person, but this was suddenly all so strange. I couldn’t think of any way for me to know the proper way to act around a bunch of werewolves. I guess those books I'd read with all the werewolves and vampires were a little useful, but it wasn't like they were reference material. They were just something someone somewhere made up, hoping to entertain an audience.
A Place to Run (Trials of the Blood Book 1) Page 4