by Morse, Jody
Chapter 22
A few hours later, we all ran through the woods in our wolf forms. Chance and Hunter wanted to play tag, and for some reason, Thane and I had stupidly agreed to it. They were really good at playing tag. They were always able to sneak up on us, tag us, and then disappear before we’d even figured out which way they’d run off to. On the bright side, we’d gotten some exercise in—which was something I felt like I was lacking in ever since I’d become a part of the human world.
Just after we swiftly made the change back into humans in the backyard, an elderly man poked his head over the fence between our houses, nearly giving me a heart attack. He had come so close to catching one of us in our wolf forms. “Hello, there,” he said.
“Hi,” I managed to croak out. I glanced around at the guys to see if they were just as shaken up over the whole thing as I was. All of the color had drained from Hunter’s face, and Chance looked like a frog—bulging eyes and all. Thane remained cool and collected, though—at least on the exterior.
“I was wondering when we’d get some new neighbors. This house has been vacant for a while,” the man said. “Mind if we come over and introduce ourselves?”
“N-no, of course not,” I replied. Calm down, I told myself.
The man and a woman, who I assumed was his wife, crossed over into our yard. “My name is Clyde.” Motioning to his wife, he said, “This is Gladys.”
“I’m Skye, and this is Chance, Hunter, and Thane,” I replied, pointing out each of my pack members.
“It’s nice to meet you all,” Gladys said pleasantly.
“You, too,” I replied.
“We all should get together for a barbeque before the snow comes. It’s just me, Gladys, and the grandkids now that our son, Bart, went off to the Army.”
“Your grandkids live with you? That’s great,” Thane told them, trying to make conversation.
“Yeah, I love kids.” Chance beamed at them. “If you ever need babysitters, we’re your guys,” he said, waving his hand back and forth between him and Hunter. “And girl,” he added, grinning at me sheepishly.
I forced a smile. I’d done some babysitting back home, but I didn’t know anything about human kids.
“You hate kids,” Hunter muttered under his breath, quietly enough so that only I could hear him, shaking his head in annoyance. It was true, though. The kids from the Koto pack in Alaska drove Chance nuts. I wasn’t quite sure why he volunteered all three of us to babysit.
“I’m so glad to hear you say that. It’s really tough finding someone around here,” Gladys told us. “And we don’t want to have to resort to placing an ad somewhere.”
“Come on over and meet them,” Clyde said, leading us over to his own backyard.
She eyed us for a moment before asking, “You all live over in that house?”
“Yes, we do,” I replied. “Well, all of us and Akar, my…brother.” Those words still felt strange coming out of my mouth. “Oh, and Ashton, my cousin.”
“And you said you’re all related?” the man asked, raising his eyebrows. He opened the gate to his own yard, and a big dog with black and white fur bounded over to us, happily wagging its tail.
“We didn’t, actually,” Thane replied. “But Skye and I are siblings, and Chance and Hunter are our cousins.”
How did they know we were supposed to be related? I supposed that it only made sense that they would assume that, but it still gave me a weird feeling.
“You look nothing like each other,” Gladys noted, inspecting each of our faces. “Well, except for those two,” she motioned to Chance.
“Oh, look, puppies!” Chance stated the obvious as a little gray dog nuzzled his outstretched hand. I was pretty sure he felt like we needed a distraction from the are-we-related conversation. I felt grateful for the distraction, too. “Come here, boy!” he called to another dog—a reddish brown one. “Or girl,” he corrected himself.
I knew how excited Chance must have been. He’d always wanted a pet of his own, but it wasn’t allowed back home. I looked around the yard, expecting there to be more dogs, but it was just the three of them.
“So, where are your grandkids?” Thane asked, glancing around the yard, too.
“Oh, here they are,” Gladys said, pointing to the dogs. “The black and white Border Collie is Max, the reddish brown Irish Setter is Lacy, and the gray mutt is Benny.”
Thane shot me a confused look before reaching over to the dog closest to him. “Hi, Benny,” he said, patting it on the head.
“These people are weird,” Chance mouthed to me while his back was turned to Gladys and Clyde. His eyes were wide as he glanced around the yard anxiously, before whispering, “Can we go now, before they try to add us to their collection?”
“Be polite,” I whispered back, nudging him a little.
He huffed, and walked over to the black and white dog. “Hey Buddy,” he said, scratching its ears.
“So what do you all think about that barbeque idea we had? We saw that you all had one the other day,” Clyde told us.
I stole another glance at Thane, who eyed me back knowingly. How often did these people watch us? How much did they know? It was in that moment that I realized he hadn’t been kidding about our neighbors keeping tabs on us.
“Do you want to play with the blue Frisbee or the orange Frisbee?” Hunter asked in a baby-talk voice. It actually would have been amusing if I wasn’t so paranoid that Clyde and Gladys knew the truth about us.
“It doesn’t matter much which color you say, son. Everyone knows dogs are colorblind,” Clyde told him.
“Oh they are, are they?” Chance asked mockingly, looking at his brother with an amused smirk on his face.
“How can you be so sure?” Hunter asked, crossing his arms over his chest defiantly.
I wasn’t sure about dogs, but I knew that werewolves, at least, weren’t colorblind.
“Well, I guess no one will ever really know. It’s not like there’s a way to find out. They’ll never be able to let us know. Dogs are lovable companions, but they’re not the brightest animals.”
I glanced at Thane, nervous to see what the twins’ reactions would be.
“Well, it was really nice meeting you both,” Thane said, obviously trying to get out of there before we could find out. “But we have our dinner in the oven, so we’d better get going.”
“How about you let us get back to you about that barbeque?” I asked. “We’ll have to check with our brother’s work schedule.”
“That sounds wonderful!” Gladys chirped.
“Goodnight, kiddos,” Clyde said with a smile.
“Bye,” I called over my shoulder as we went back into our own yard.
“I’m not going back over there,” Chance hissed at me as he and Hunter stormed into the house.
Chapter 23
At school on Monday, I was the first one at our lunch table when Amanda sat down across from me and placed a piece of paper in front of me.
I lifted my eyebrows questioningly. “This isn’t another party invitation, is it? My brother would freak out.”
“No, no, it’s not for another party.” She shook her head. “Read it.”
As Kristina sat down at the table, too, I glanced at the words written on the paper:
Attention Students,
Rosa High will be holding its first poetry reading of the year this Friday at 7:00 p.m. in the auditorium. Members of the poetry club are invited to read, as well as anyone else who’s interesting in sharing their poems. Refreshments will be held in the gymnasium afterwards.
“Okay,” I said, glancing up at Amanda, still sort of confused about why she was showing this to me.
“Don’t you see?” She smiled. “Ashton is going to be at this poetry reading, I’m sure, since he’s a part of the poetry club. So, all I need to do is show up that night.”
“What will being at the poetry reading do for you?” I asked. I wasn’t trying to be mean, but I wasn’t sure how this would
do anything to help her and Ashton get together. I really believed that if there was anything between the two of them, he would have already acted on it. Obviously he hadn’t heard her thoughts, so he didn’t think they were mates. I doubted that a silly poetry reading would change his thoughts about that.
“Well, I decided that I’m going to read one of my own poems that night,” Amanda replied, a slight blush blooming on her cheeks. “It’s the most subtle way I can think of to let Ashton know how I feel about him without actually telling him directly, you know? Unless he’s a complete moron, he should get it.”
I hesitated. “Ashton’s not a stupid guy, but…I could see him completely missing the point of this,” I admitted. “He’s sometimes in his own little world. He might not even be paying attention to your poem when you read it.”
Amanda narrowed her eyes at me. “Everyone pays attention to me, Skye. Trust me. He’ll see me up there on that stage, and when he hears me read that poem, he’ll realize that it’s about him. Now, I just need to figure out what I’m going to wear. I need something that will grab his attention.”
I realized that it was just the three of us at the table today. “Where’s Jenny?” I questioned.
“She stayed home today,” Kristina replied. “I tried texting her this morning, but I didn’t even get a response. She must be really sick, or something. It’s not like her to not answer her phone. It’s normally glued to her hand.”
“Oh.” I pulled my own cell phone out of my pocket and opened a text message to her. Hope you feel better soon, I typed out and then hit “send”.
“So, what’s new, Skye?” Kristina asked.
I thought for a moment, but then I remembered what I’d wanted to ask them. “Actually, I have a question for you girls.”
“What is it?” Amanda asked, glancing over at me.
As I dipped a French fry into some ketchup, I asked, “Do you know anything about Charlotte?”
“Charlotte?”
“Charlotte Turner,” I replied.
Kristina gave Amanda a sideways glance. “Do you want to tell her, or me?”
“You can.” Amanda shrugged. “It’s just a good thing that Jenny’s not here.”
What did Jenny being gone have to do with Charlotte? I wondered.
“Okay, so you know how Jenny’s sister, Maggie, is always running away?” Kristina asked. When I nodded, she continued. “Charlotte used to be her best friend. They got into some huge fight, and after that, Maggie just seemed to snap. Even though she only ever admitted it once when she was drunk, I know that Jenny thinks that her sister is running away from Charlotte—or something that Charlotte knows about her.” She shrugged.
“So, I need your help, Skye,” Amanda said, abruptly changing the subject before I’d barely had time to process what Kristina had just told me. “You know Ashton better than we do. What type of outfit do you think I should wear to the poetry reading?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. I’m not sure if Ashton pays much attention to girl’s clothing.”
“He likes fur,” a familiar voice said from behind me. I turned around to find Thane staring at me, a smirk on his face. “Can I talk to you for a sec?”
“Okay,” I agreed, rising to my feet. I felt sort of grateful to get away from Amanda for a few minutes. Even though she was turning out to be a better friend than I thought she would be in the beginning, considering she’d practically forced me into having the party at my house, I really needed a breather from all of the Ashton talk.
Of course, I wasn’t really in the mood to get a lecture from Thane about how I shouldn’t be helping Amanda with her plan to win Ashton over at all, either. But I followed him back to his table and sat down across from him.
“What is it, Thane?” I asked.
He stared into my eyes for a moment before saying, “I forgot to ask you this until right now, even though I wanted to after our pack initiation the other night. Why don’t you think Charlotte likes you? I didn’t get that vibe from her.”
I should have known he would question me about this eventually. Thane had always tried to be the peacekeeper of our pack. It was probably driving him crazy to think that Charlotte and I might not get along, no matter what the reason was.
I scanned the area to make sure that Charlotte wasn’t sitting nearby and listening in on our conversation. Luckily, she wasn’t. I spotted her across the cafeteria, laughing with Jade and a few other girls who I recognized from my Algebra class. I turned to Thane. “I don’t know why she doesn’t like me. It doesn’t make much sense. I just have this feeling that she doesn’t. It’s hard to explain.”
Thane stared at me evenly for a few moments. “I think you’re jumping to conclusions, Skye. You’re just being paranoid. Maybe it just seems like she doesn’t like you right now but, in reality, it’s just that the two of you are strangers still. She’ll probably open up to you once you get to know each other better.”
I shook my head. “That’s not what this is. Trust me. Charlotte doesn’t like me, and I’m going to figure out why.”
Without even giving a second thought to what I was doing, I rose to my feet and marched over to the table where Charlotte was sitting. I tapped her on the shoulder, and when she turned around, there was a look of surprise in her eyes. “Skye? What are you doing over here?” She laughed nervously.
“I need to talk to you,” I replied, feeling more determined than ever to find out what her problem was with me. It wasn’t even just about me at this point; I needed to find a way to prove to Thane that I wasn’t just being paranoid, and that Charlotte really didn’t like me.
Charlotte raised her eyebrows at me. “About what?”
I glanced over at her friends, who were all watching us closely. “I’d rather talk to you about it somewhere else.”
“Anything you could say in front of me is fine to say in front of my friends, too,” she replied, motioning to the people sitting at her table.
“Okay,” I began, even more irritated than I was before. How could anything I have to say be appropriate to say in front of her friends? It’s not like we would’ve had a conversation if she hadn’t joined the Koto. “Remember the other day, when you went hunting—”
“I’ll be right back, girls,” she told her friends, jumping up from the table. With obvious reluctance, she followed me over to a corner of the cafeteria. When she met my eyes, I could see how frustrated I’d made her. “Please tell me that you’re not going to beg me to try to convince Johnny to step down as Alpha. If that’s what you want, it’s so not going to happen. He’s been waiting for this to happen too long to back out now. Akar should have thought about it before he agreed to be a part of our pack.” She chuckled to herself, seemingly pleased with everything that had gone on the night before.
“This has nothing to do with Johnny,” I told her flatly. “I have two questions for you. The first is…why couldn’t I smell you when you were still a Shondi?”
“I don’t know. Maybe your sense of smell is weak.” Charlotte smirked.
I shook my head, noting that I could smell her now. She shared the same scent of fresh breeze and snow that I had, too. “It’s not weak. Somehow, you’re hiding your scent, but how? Is it because you were using wolfsbane?”
“It’s really none of your business. If you have a problem with it, you should take it up with our Alpha, but I can almost guarantee you that he’s going to take my side on this.” She shot me a fake smile. “He always will.”
“Fine, whatever,” I replied, deciding that it didn’t really matter all that much why I hadn’t been able to smell her. I chalked it all up to the fact that I was right and that the Shondi really had used wolfsbane. “Look, I want to know why you have such a problem with me. What have I done to you to make you dislike me so much?”
The question seemed to catch her off-guard. “I never said I didn’t like you, Skye.”
“You didn’t have to say anything. Actions speak much louder than words. Why have you b
een such a bitch to me? Why did you call me a wet dog?” I asked, my voice rising to a higher level than I meant for it to.
Charlotte rolled her eyes at me in annoyance. “I was just kidding, Skye. God, you really need to learn how to take a joke.”
“I don’t see how it’s funny.” I crossed my arms over my chest defensively. From the corner of my eye, I could see Thane watching us closely.
“It’s funny to me,” she replied with a shrug. “Listen, the truth is…I don’t have to like you. I don’t know what your pack was like when you lived in Alaska, but what I do know is that things are going to be different here. I’m not going to go out of my way to be your best friend just because you’re a part of my pack now. Jade’s my best friend. I don’t need another.”
“So, what are you saying?” I questioned. “That you don’t want to be friends?”
She shook her head firmly. “Nope. I have no interest in being your friend and, to be honest, I’m not sure that any of us do. Well, actually, I take that back. Oliver might want to be your friend. He can always use more friends.” She pointed her chin in the air, and I followed the direction she was motioning in. Oliver was sitting at a table all by himself, eating his lunch with his nose stuck in a book.
When I glanced back over at her, gaping at the fact that she had just talked about her own brother that way, she said, “I’m sorry. I hope I didn’t hurt your feelings. But…I don’t care if I did.” Her lips twisted into a grin, and she headed back to her seat, leaving me standing in the corner all by myself.
I got the feeling that the way she was acting towards me had to do with more than just her not wanting to be friends, but I wasn’t sure what her deal was.
I also couldn’t help but wonder if I’d blamed the wrong wolf. What if Johnny wasn’t the one who had killed Vinny? What if it was actually Charlotte? She might have seemed like one of the least obvious members of the Shondi pack to have killed him, but she definitely seemed like a cold-hearted bitch to me.