by Morse, Jody
“You don’t think she’s running through the whole woods, is she?” Hunter asked, glancing around the yard when she didn’t come back right away. “That’ll take forever.”
“I’m sure she didn’t even go far,” Jenny told them. “She’s too much of a chicken,” she called into the woods, loud enough that Amanda could hear if she was close-by.
“Well, this is going to get boring,” Chance sighed, taking a seat on the grass. Jenny sat down next to him, so of course Hunter sat down on the other side of her.
When they were deep in conversation, Kristina whispered to me, “I don’t think she’s being fair to them,” before shooting a pointed look at Jenny. “Like, there are lots of other girls at school that would be interested in whichever one she doesn’t want. She’s sort of just hogging them both until she decides.”
I watched the three of them talking for a while, noticing the way the twins seemed to battle for her attention.
Hunter noticed our eyes on them. “Skye, what’s taking her so long?” he whined.
Kristina checked the time on her cell phone. “Guys, she’s been in there for fifteen minutes. Where is she?”
“I don’t know,” I replied, beginning to grow worried. “Maybe we should go look for her.”
My heart raced as we all crossed the yard and slipped into the woods. I don’t know if it was just because I knew that there werewolves and potential killers out in the woods, or what, but I had a really bad feeling about this.
“Let’s split up,” Jenny suggested. “Me and Kristina will go this way, and you guys go that way.”
“Okay,” I agreed. I headed off to the left, Chance and Hunter following close behind me.
“Skye, we’re scared,” Chance whispered.
“Yeah, we didn’t think that Amanda would disappear. If something happened to her, it’s our fault,” Hunter said.
“Let’s not jump to conclusions yet. We don’t actually know if anything happened,” I tried to reassure them. I wasn’t going to admit it to the twins, but I was just as scared as they were. The forest wasn’t that big, but it was big enough to get lost in.
I wasn’t sure where to go, but I decided to follow a path that led us past an old wooden bench. We checked for Amanda between every clearing, and spread out enough to look for her among the trees.
We were almost at the edge of the forest when I heard leaves crunching. I glanced around, trying to determine which direction it was coming from. Chance clung to my arm and whispered, “There! Between those two trees.” But I’d already spotted him. His back was to us as he quickly walked in the opposite direction.
I chased after him. “Hey!” I shouted, trying to get him to stop.
“Hey! Stop!” the twins called, following my lead. Chance let out a deep, throaty howl. The guy froze in place. Slowly, he turned to look at us. The orange glow from his cigarette was visible even from where I was standing.
Gage?
Suddenly, every bad feeling I had intensified.
Chapter 31
“Guys, we have good news!” Jenny shouted excitedly as she ran over to us. “Amanda just sent me this text message. See?” She held up her phone.
I took it from her and read the message, which said: I’m not feeling so hot. I came back to the backyard, but all of you were gone, so I got my clothes. Tell Skye I’m sorry I’m going to have to miss the rest of her sleepover, but I’m going to walk home. See you all on Monday. Love ya, bitches.
The sinking feeling that had filled my stomach felt a little bit better, but I was still sort of confused. Why hadn’t Amanda just stuck around long enough to let us know that she was leaving? Why did she have to send Jenny a text message, instead?
Something about the whole situation seemed a little off to me, but I decided to shrug it off. I was probably just being paranoid. No nearby werewolves would have done anything to hurt Amanda. It would draw attention to us, which no one seemed to want—even Johnny.
“Okay, well, I think I’ve had enough of Truth or Dare for one night,” I told everyone. “Why don’t we all go inside and get some sleep?”
“Sleep sounds amazing,” Kristina agreed.
Jenny smiled. “Sure. I am feeling pretty exhausted.” She shot a flirtatious glance at Chance and Hunter. “Goodnight guys.”
“Night, Jenny,” the twins said in unison.
*
“It sounds like I missed a pretty eventful night,” Thane commented the next day as I pulled some hamburger patties out of the fridge. “Truth or Dare. Naked chicks. Why wasn’t I home again?”
“Shut up,” I replied, tossing the bag of hamburger buns at him playfully.
At that moment, Chance strolled into the room, his eyes growing wide at the food I had out. “What are you doing, Skye?”
“Making cheeseburgers for lunch,” I replied, eyeing him curiously. “Why?”
“We’re not having cheeseburgers,” he replied.
“We’re not?”
“Nope. No way,” he replied, shaking his head frantically.
“Are you sure? I thought you liked them.”
“I did, but I changed my mind. I’m not so sure if I like human food, after all. And I think it might be a really bad idea if we all keep eating it. I’ll be preparing all of our food from now on. In fact, I made my first hunt last night.” He walked over to the freezer and pulled some meat out—meat that I knew I hadn’t bought at the grocery store a few days earlier.
“We caught a deer!” Hunter said excitedly as he began to pull a pan out of the kitchen cabinet.
I raised my eyebrows at them. “You’re kidding, right?”
“Nope. We were thinking that it’s better for us to stick to the type of food that we’re used to eating. Food that we catch out in the wild is the highest quality meat there is. It’s perfect for even the pickiest of eaters.” He shot Chance a grin.
Chance smirked. “This should do the trick.”
I eyed them suspiciously before glancing over at Thane. “Does this have to do with what they’ve been keeping from me?”
Thane shrugged, but the smile that touched his lips told me that it did.
“What are you guys hiding?” I asked, starting to feel left out.
“Oh, nothing,” Chance replied with a smile.
“I don’t believe you.” I crossed my arms over my chest. “Tell me.”
Before either of them had the chance to say anything, I heard a loud crash from somewhere upstairs. I jumped, startled at the noise. “What was that?” I questioned aloud.
“I don’t know,” Chance replied, darting out of the kitchen and racing up the stairs.
I wanted answers, so I followed after him. Hunter followed close behind me.
Chance didn’t even notice that I was at his heels when he swung his bedroom door open. A wolf stared back at us, its icy-blue eyes falling on me in alarm.
“What the hell?” I asked, turning to Hunter. “Who is that?”
“Well, that’s the thing,” Hunter started to say, but Chance interrupted him.
“You should know that it’s a really peculiar thing, Skye.”
“Just tell me what’s going on,” I demanded. “Why is there a strange wolf in your room?” And from looking at it, I knew it wasn’t just any old wolf; judging from the size, I could tell that it was definitely a werewolf. It cowered behind Chance, peeking around his legs at me.
“First off, she’s not strange,” Chance defended, but this time, his twin interrupted him.
“Actually, she’s really strange. Here’s the thing. We don’t know her name, and we haven’t seen what she actually looks like yet. We were in the woods one day, and this werewolf just started following us around,” Hunter explained.
“And she wanted to come home with us,” Chance continued with a smile. “I think she’s a new wolf, because we can talk to her while we’re wolves, but I don’t think she’s figured out how to talk back to us. That or she’s really shy.”
“We’ve tried to get
her to change into her human form, but…it doesn’t seem like she can. It seems like she’s stuck in her wolf form,” Hunter explained.
“So, we’ve been trying to feed her,” Chance went on. “That’s why we’ve been sneaking food upstairs.”
“And why we’ve been doing taste tests. It wasn’t for us. We like everything,” Hunter said with a grin. “But this girl doesn’t. She’s a really picky eater. We’ve tried to get her to eat everything from vegetables to hot dogs, but she doesn’t seem to like anything. Well, she liked hot dogs, but then she puked her guts out.”
“That’s why we caught the deer,” Chance said. “We thought that she might be used to a special sort of natural diet. We would rather eat those hamburgers you were going to make, but we thought she might be able to handle deer meat better.”
“So, wait, let me get this all straight,” I cut in. “You’ve been taking care of this girl this whole time?” I was surprised at how mature it made the twins sound, even if they had been keeping it a secret.
Chance nodded. “Yeah, we really like her.” He met my eyes. “Can we keep her?” He sat down on his bed, and the wolf sat down next to him, waiting for my response.
I hesitated. I knew how dangerous it was to allow a strange wolf into your house—into your pack. It might have been stupid to go with my gut on this, but the way she shivered uncontrollably next to Chance made me think she was harmless.
Plus, the guys had been taking care of her for a while and nothing bad had come from it…yet. I felt conflicted, but I wasn’t going to be the one to break the news to them. I also wasn’t going to be the one to scold them for bringing a random wolf into the house. I knew that their intentions had been in the right place.
“Well, I’m not really sure how Akar will feel about that. He might not like the idea,” I told them. It was true; he’d probably be really pissed that they’d hid her in their room as it was.
“Well, we’ve been hiding it from him for this long,” Hunter pointed out. “What’s a few more days? Hopefully long enough for us to figure out why she’s stuck as a wolf.”
“True,” I replied, considering it. “Okay, she can stay. I won’t tell him as long as you don’t.”
The wolf seemed to breathe a sigh of relief as she laid down, closing her eyes. I wondered who she was…where she came from, and why she had seemed so terrified.
“Awesome!” Chance said excitedly. “Thank you, Skye. You’re so nice to us.” He turned to Hunter. “Isn’t she nice?”
“She really is nice,” Hunter agreed with a grin.
Once again—and much to my surprise—they weren’t being sarcastic. “Just tell me one thing, though.”
“What is it?”
“Please tell me that you don’t really think the toilet will explode if you don’t watch it. All of that was to cover up that you were hiding her up here, right?”
“Well, actually, that’s only sort of true,” Hunter replied.
“Sort of?”
“It was so you wouldn’t notice that we were filling up her water bowl that day, but I really do think the toilet sounds like it’s going to blow up. However, I don’t want to be near it when it does. So, shit, no, I’m not going to babysit the damn thing. I don’t want to be there when it explodes everywhere!”
I laughed, sort of relieved to hear that they were still the somewhat crazy twins I’d always known.
Chapter 32
Later that night we ate dinner—hamburgers for us and deer meat for the girl, who ate in the twins’ room. We didn’t want to risk Akar coming home while she was downstairs with us, and she seemed content up there. I was glad about that, because there was a knock at our front door.
“Chance, can you see who it is?” I called from the kitchen, where I was doing the dishes.
“No, I’ll get it!” Hunter exclaimed, running from the room.
I looked over my shoulder, just in time to see Chance throwing his body into him, knocking him out of the way. Seconds later, I heard the front door open.
“Oh,” I heard Chance say, a tone of disappointment in his voice. “Skye, it’s for you!”
Who would want to see me so late? I finished up the last of the dishes before wiping my hands off and going to see who it was.
When I entered the living room, I saw my two visitors sitting on the couch: Clyde and Gladys.
“Hey, you two,” I said politely, sort of shocked to see them.
“Skye, did you know that someone died here before we moved in?” Chance asked me with wide eyes.
“And we still moved in?” Hunter asked, crossing his arms over his chest as he glanced around the room nervously.
“First of all, I’m sorry I told these two about the previous owner who lived here. It wasn’t my place,” Gladys told me.
“Oh, they’ll be alright,” I waved her off. Great, one more thing for the twins to get overwhelmed about.
“Good, good. I found this next door in our yard, and I think it might belong to you.”
I glanced down at the emerald heart-shaped pendant that Gladys held in her hands. It was the same necklace that Amanda had been wearing at the poetry club meeting the night before.
I met Gladys’ eyes. “W-where did you get this?”
“I just told you, sweetie. It was in the yard,” Gladys replied. “I’m lucky I found it in time. Max has been known to swallow jewelry in the past. We’re lucky he didn’t get his paws on this.”
“Yeah, can you imagine how painful it would have been for him to shit that out?” Clyde joked. The twins burst into a fit of laughter, but I was no longer in a joking mood. I couldn’t seem to shake the feeling that something had happened to Amanda last night, after all.
“Thank you for returning the necklace. We need to get back to doing the dishes now, though,” I told them.
“Oh, we’re sorry to bother you,” Gladys replied.
“You will let us know about that barbeque, though, right?” Clyde questioned.
“We will,” I said, escorting them to the front door. There was no way in hell I was having a barbeque with these people. I had the eeriest feeling now. “Goodnight.”
“Goodnight!” Gladys waved over her shoulder.
“Bye, kiddos!” Clyde said brightly.
Once they were down the steps, I closed the door behind them and glanced over at the twins. “This necklace is Amanda’s.”
“That’s…weird,” Chance said, nodding. “Really weird. And it kind of makes me annoyed!”
“Annoyed, why?” I asked with raised eyebrows.
“Well, when we gave Amanda that dare last night, we said she had to be completely naked. But if she had her necklace on her, that means she wasn’t really naked.” Chance shook his head. “She doesn’t know how to play Truth or Dare properly.”
“Maybe she lost her necklace when she took off her clothes,” Hunter pointed out.
“Maybe,” Chance replied, considering the idea. “But if that’s the case, it wouldn’t have ended up in the lady’s yard. It would have been with her clothes, wouldn’t it have? I didn’t even know Amanda went over there.”
The bad feeling I had was only getting worse, but I didn’t want to worry the twins. “Guys, you stay here, okay? I’ll be right back.”
“Okay,” Hunter replied with a shrug.
I was already out the door when Thane followed after me. “I’m not letting you go out there alone, Skye.”
For the first time in a long time, I was actually thankful that he could hear my thoughts. “Okay, come on.”
He walked alongside me, and after a few moments, he took my hand. I allowed the gesture to calm me down a little. “I’m sure nothing happened to her, though, Skye. You’re probably worrying for no reason. I mean, she text messaged Jenny last night, remember?”
“Yeah, but…what if it wasn’t really her?” I asked.
“What do you mean?” Thane questioned with raised eyebrows.
“I mean, what if someone stole her cell phone? What
if they sent the text message to make it seem like she was alive?” The idea made me feel sick to my stomach the more I thought about it.
“Well, let’s check the woods and see what happens before we jump to conclusions,” Thane replied.
I nodded, even though I was already jumping to conclusions. I followed him through the woods. We searched everywhere, and it was starting to get too dark to see.
I was about ready to give up searching for the night when I saw it: a piece of light, curly brown hair sticking out from underneath a pile of leaves.
Thane saw it, too. “Shift,” he commanded, and I knew the reason why. As long as we were in wolf form, we wouldn’t leave behind any DNA evidence if we touched the body. I refused to admit the hair belonged to Amanda until I knew for sure that it did.
I made the change into my wolf form and then moved some of the leaves with my nose and paws.
Sure enough, Amanda’s lifeless face stared back at me, her eyes open and hollow.
The tears sprang to my eyes, and I took off. That wasn’t how I wanted to remember her, but now, I couldn’t get the image out of my mind. I stopped running, opened my mouth, and released the contents of my stomach onto the grass.
Who could have done this?
Chapter 33
Later that night, after we’d already anonymously alerted the police, Thane, the twins, and I sat in the living room in silence.
“Guys…do you think somebody killed her?” Chance asked, sounding shaken. I wasn’t sure exactly what to tell him. Both of them were already taking Amanda’s death pretty hard; I didn’t want to upset them any more than they already were.
“Or is there a chance she was just running and…collapsed?” Hunter questioned.
I looked at Thane for help.
“It’s…possible,” he told them. “But I don’t think so.”
“Do you think the killer’s still out there?” Chance whispered, glancing around the room anxiously. He got up to close the curtains, and Hunter made sure the back door was locked, pulling the curtains on the sliding glass door closed, too.