Willow

by Amy Richie

  Chapter Twelve

  Gage

  A strange boy was standing just inside the living room, making me pause in my quest to find Gage. "Oh," I exclaimed softly. How did he get in here?

  He was a handsome boy with light brown hair cut short to his head. His chin jutted down in sharp angles and his cheekbones protruded just below his eyes. His full, dark lips raised up in a familiar smile.

  "Hello, Willow." The raspy voice belonged to Gage.

  I cocked my head in surprise. "Gage?"

  "I shaved." He shrugged his wide shoulders as if it was no big deal.

  "You're so young!" The words came out in a rush, before I could filter them.

  When he grinned, only one side of his mouth raised up. "I was changed when I was twelve," he reminded me. "I just age slowly."

  "I was changed when I was six. I've aged normally." I cleared my throat nervously.

  "You're female," was his only explanation. "Now," he strode toward me with a new confidence, "you came in here to tell me about Rueben?"

  Who was Rueben? I thought stupidly. He smiled widely, further wreaking havoc on my senses. My numb lips curved up on their own. He cleared his throat softly. "Uh … "

  "Rueben," he gently reminded me.

  I blinked twice. "Right. Rueben is at Carlie's." It didn't seem as important as it had outside.

  "They are friends."

  "She is the girl crying wolf."

  He shrugged, annoyingly unconcerned. "Maybe she's embarrassed and just wants to talk."

  My anger grew again. "Do you know how stupid that sounds?"

  He chuckled. "What do you want to do, Willow?" His voice was much too soft. Was he still talking about Rueben?

  "I … I don't know." That was safe no matter what he was talking about.

  The fact was, I didn't know much about what I wanted these days. Everything I thought I had wanted was coming true, but now I was wondering if I still wanted any of it. I rolled my eyes at my own inconsistency.

  "You could call him." Gage seemed completely unaware of my inner turmoil.

  I shredded the skin on my inner cheek with my teeth as I considered his solution. "Okay," I finally said. "Do you have a phone?"

  I had never bothered with a cell phone. I didn't have friends to call me and the only family I'd ever had could hear exceptionally well. There was never a need to remind myself of my nonexistent social life.

  "No." He frowned at our dilemma. "You could morph. He'd hear you that way."

  "He couldn't respond."

  "You could just tell him to come home, he wouldn't need to respond."

  I tugged at the bottom of my shirt. "I'm going to need new clothes soon," I muttered.

  "I could teach you to morph so your clothes don't tear." He took a few steps toward me.

  My heart sped up. "Bella says it just takes time," I said breathlessly.

  "She's not wrong, but—" he stopped a foot from where I stood.

  "But, what?"

  "There's ways." His eyes narrowed mischievously. "You could always take your clothes off before you morph."

  My face broke into a grin. "That would solve all my problems."

  He quickly closed the distance between us and brought his hand up to my face. He traveled his thumb gently over my bottom lip, making shivers run down my spine. Was he finally going to kiss me? His eyes held such a look of wonder, further taking my breath.

  Other sounds seemed to fade away until I could only hear the sound of my blood pounding in my ears. He dropped his hand suddenly and looked to the floor. Not again, my heart cried.

  "Gage." My voice was steadier than I would have expected.

  "Willow, you're just so young." His voice was filled with ancient sadness, bringing tears to my eyes.

  "I'm not that young."

  He smiled, the heartbreaking sadness still there. "I don't know what I'm doing here," he whispered.

  He was going to leave, I realized with a rush of emotion. I clenched my jaw tight and reacted on that emotion. I grabbed his shoulder hard, forcing him to look at me. "This," I snapped.

  I pulled his head a little too roughly to mine until our lips finally touched.

  At first, he didn't respond at all and self-doubt began to creep into my belly. Maybe he didn't want to kiss me and I was just making a fool of myself. Then, with a low moan, he wrapped his arms around my waist, pulling me tighter to his body. My lips parted in surprise and I felt his tongue slide into my mouth.

  Light exploded behind my eyes. As if it were possible for us to be any closer, Gage pulled me tighter. I circled my hands around his head and molded myself to his body.

  Right before I passed out, he broke the kiss off, allowing me to catch my raspy breath. He kissed me softly along my cheekbones and down to my jaw, murmuring strange words the whole time. Strange noises were coming from my throat also, none of them intelligible.

  Much to my disappointment, he stopped things before they could go too far. He still held my hand in his, but he moved himself to a safer distance. "What's wrong?" I couldn't help asking.

  He leaned over to whisper in my ear, "We have an audience." The words barely meant anything as I reveled in the feel of his breath on my ear. I closed my eyes. "Willow?"

  They snapped back open to see his amusement. "Yeah?"

  "Should we go outside?"

  Why would we want to do that? The rest of the pack was outside. I let him guide me outside though, where the pack was still waiting for me.

  Rueben was with them. Seeing him standing there reminded me that I was mad at him. "Hey." I dropped Gage's hand so I could point at Rueben. "What were you doing at Carlie's?"

  "Nothing." He shot an accusing glare back at Jed. "We were just talking." His face flushed red.

  Yeah, right, just talking. "You can't have a physical relationship with a human."

  He stared at me blankly. "You mean sex?"

  "Yes, I mean sex," I hissed. This was so embarrassing. Now I understood why they dedicated whole books to teach humans how to talk to their kids about sex.

  "Yes, I can. Everything down there is basically the same." He moved his eyes to indicate which there he was talking about. My face flamed in even more embarrassment. "I mean, it still works the same," he hastened to assure me, "it's just I don't think about it as much now. I guess the wolf thing took over."

  I rolled my eyes and looked at Gage - who was just barely keeping his laughter contained. "I don't mean you can't, I mean you can't as in it's not allowed." While my eyes widened for emphasis, Rueben's eyes narrowed.

  "Because Andros said so?" His voice was deadly cold. It surprised me to hear that name come from Rueben's lips. For the first time I wondered what Noreen had told them.

  "It has nothing to do with the vampires." I choked slightly over the word.

  "Then … are you jealous? Because I thought that you and him," he gestured vaguely to Gage, bringing another blush to my cheeks.

  "No," I cut him off before he could add anything else.

  "Then why?" Rueben demanded the explanation but the other boys were staring at me just as intensely.

  "It's because of … " My throat closed up and my mouth turned incredibly dry. I remembered when I was nine, Bella was tucking Ivy and me into bed.

  "You must never say his name," she warned sternly. "He is an evil, pitiful excuse for a wolf. He turned on his pack, killing them all.

  My eyes grew wide. "Why would he do that?"

  "It doesn't matter why!" Her breathing had turned ragged. "He turned on his own kind, he's worse than the vampires." I sucked in my breath and held it there. "You're right to be afraid, Willow. If he catches you he'll rip your heart from your chest and eat it."

  "Why?" I whispered.

  "Because he hates you, Willow."

  I swallowed hard. "Will he find me?"

  "Not if you are careful. Anywhere he is in the world he can hear if someone says his name."

  "He can?"

  "Yes, so this is why you
must never say his name."

  Ivy and I turned to look at each other, both of us terrified. "We don't even know his name," Ivy reminded Bella.

  "That is why I'm going to tell you." Her voice had gone strangely flat. My heart was thudding loudly in the silence. "We have to be ready. When he comes for us, we'll kill him." Ivy's hand found mine under the blankets. "Mikhaul," Bella said through clenched teeth.

  For an unguarded moment I saw all her beautiful rage. It transformed her face. Her lip pulled back tightly from her teeth and in the darkness I thought her eyes burned red.

  "Because of who?" Rodney asked loudly, bringing me out of my memory.

  "Because of," I dropped my voice to an even lower whisper, "Mikhaul." Gage stiffened beside me. I didn't want to talk about him either, but maybe I had to.

  "Who's Mikhaul?" Jed asked way too loudly.

  I cringed low to the ground, automatically looking around. "Shh!"

  "Why? Is he here?" A loud growl sounded when two of the boys morphed. Gage stepped automatically in front of me.

  "No, he's not here." I straightened up. "Of course he's not here." The blood drained from my face at the very thought.

  "Then what does this Mikhaul guy have to do with anything? Who is he?" Rueben asked.

  "Don't say his name," I said. Rueben crossed his arms over his chest, waiting for an explanation. "No matter where he is in the world, he can hear when you say his name."

  "Do you know how ridiculous that sounds?' Steven asked.

  "That may sound stupid," I agreed, "but he's looking for me." Even Gage turned to me in surprise.

  "Why would you think that?" he asked.

  "Because he hates me and he's going to eat my heart."

  As soon as the words were out I realized they sounded like a little kid's nightmare but I couldn't take them back. Everyone stared at me in stunned silence for the length of two heartbeats but then they moved to put me in the middle of their circle.

  Jed's face was a hard mask of anger. "Why?" Gage was the only one who didn't look angry. He stood beside me in the middle of the circle, curious.

  "He doesn't like Noreen."

  "Noreen is dead," Gage stated matter-of-factly. The boys recoiled from the statement but held their ground.

  "Ugh!" I rubbed my hands vigorously down my face. My eyes felt gritty, as if I hadn't slept in a few days. "I'll have to start at the beginning," I concluded.

  "Good idea." One by one the others sat on the ground until I was the only one standing.

  Muttering incoherently under my breath, I settled myself on the ground. I wished I could morph. It would be so much easier to not be terrified if I was wolf. I sighed and looked at Gage. His encouraging smile was only half way there, but at least he tried.

  My mind chased itself from past to present. All my life I had been taught to fear the name of Mikhaul. In reality, I had never seen him. Never even been within a hundred miles of the infamous traitor.

  My heart still went double time when I thought of him though. There had been several scares when I was a child. Bella had thought she saw him and she would immediately pull us out of school and we would move.

  Ivy and I had childishly vowed to each other that one day we would kill him. We figured that he would never expect two kids to try to kill him so it would be easy for us. We had even climbed to the top of our apartment building and screamed his name for over an hour.

  Now all I felt was fear.

  It was silly though. He hadn't come that day we screamed his name so maybe Bella had been wrong. Either he didn't care about Ivy and me or his hearing wasn't that good.

  He was nowhere in our area, I was fine.