Moon

by Samantha Allard

  "Yes, you are. Maybe you should head home. Your parents are probably worried sick." She slipped a cup in front of me, but I pushed it away. The thought of eating or drinking anything made me feel sick. She frowned but didn’t say anything else probably waiting for my response.

  "I'll call them." Much later.

  What the hell am I going to say? I'm sorry. I seem to have lost a couple of days of my life. I didn’t imagine that conversation was going to be an easy one to have with my dad.

  ***

  "Well, thanks for taking me in." I slung my bag over my shoulder.

  The little woman walked me to the front door, telling me where the nearest bus station ps. It was almost as if she was in a rush to get me out. As I turned around, I caught a shadow at the top of the stairs. I blinked, and it vanished as if it had never been there to begin with.

  “Not a problem, love. You make sure that you get back home. It's not safe in the big city at the moment." On those cryptic words, she closed the door behind her.

  Chapter Nine

  A large screen with arrival times hung across the farthest wall. The bus station was busy, and a few people sat at the coffee shop, drinking and reading the paper. There were several little shops, and I made my way to the book shop after I noticed that I had half an hour to kill. I could have used the time to ring my parents, but that wasn’t a conversation I was eager to have.

  The young boy behind the counter smiled at me when I walked in. There wasn’t much of a fiction selection, but I made my way to the practically non-exist fantasy section and browsed through the titles. The first book I pick up had a vampire on the front, and as I turned it around to peek at the blurb, I glanced up into a thin strip of mirror near the ceiling. A boy standing next to the newspapers quickly glanced back at the paper in his hands. Cute with dark hair, and dressed in dark blue jeans and a brown t-shirt. He looked familiar, but I couldn’t put my finger on it.

  There was something about him. The way he held himself as if he was used to giving orders and to them to being followed. An uncover police officer? He looked a little young to be one, but that was the impression he gave me. Was he there to check for shoplifters?

  I quickly paid for the book and fought against the urge to wave it at the boy. I glanced up at the clock on the wall. Ten minutes. I needed to find the correct bay the bus would be leaving from. A set of stairs led down, and I went that way.

  The hairs on the back of my neck stood up. I’d learnt to trust my instincts, but I stopped myself short from glancing over my shoulder. Posters kept safe beneath glass, lined the walls. As I passed one, I stopped and tousled my hair. To anyone who saw me, it would have looked as if I was checking out my reflection, but I snuck a glance back up the stairs to my right.

  The boy from the bookshop, the one who I’d caught watching me was there. Is he following me? I shook my head. I’d found myself a thousand or so miles away from where I was supposed to be. It shouldn’t have surprised me that my imagination was starting to play tricks on me.

  A headache started brewing behind my eyes, and I rubbed the bridge of my nose. I couldn’t shake the feeling that he looked familiar. I started walking back down the stairs.

  There were three buses in the station. The one I needed was white, with a purple stripe down the side of it. It was already in the bay. I hitched my bag up and ran for the bus. Missing it wasn’t an option. All I wanted was to get home to something that made a lot more sense. I still didn’t know how to explain my lost time.

  I glanced around the station for the boy. He sat on a bench with the newspaper from the bookstore open in front of him.

  There were two options. One, I could travel back up to Scotland, or two, I could go home. I would rather have Dad angry with me than a bunch of women with God behind them.

  I slipped the book into my bag and retrieved my ticket to show the driver. After he clipped it, I went to find a seat. A young girl sat next to a woman with short curly hair. A mother and daughter? There’s a closeness there that I didn’t have with my mum. I found a seat a few rows behind them and sat down. The side I chose gave me a clear view of the boy reading the paper. I put my bag on the seat next to me and closed my eyes. A headache that had been brewing earlier was back in full force.

  The girl was talking loudly, and I opened my eyes to see her mum nodding.

  "I love you, sweetie, but you’re not the only one of the bus. Ashleigh, I'm pretty sure nobody wants to hear about our plans for the day."

  There was movement in front of me, and a face suddenly peeked through the crack between the chairs.

  "Morning."

  I smiled. There weren’t that many years between us, but I couldn’t remember ever being that cheerful. "Good morning."

  "You don't mind me talking about my trip, do you?"

  "Ashleigh Shaw!"

  The younger girl winked at me playfully. "But, Mum, you said the whole bus didn't want to hear me talk. I wanted to know if it was true."

  The corner of my lip twitched, and I bit it to stop myself from smiling. I was pretty sure her mum wouldn’t appreciate me encouraging her daughter.

  As the bus slowly filled, I turned my attention to the window and noticed my follower had vanished. Why had he been watching me? It was as if he was waiting to make sure I got on the bus. Did he have something to do with my memory loss?

  Now who's being silly?

  The girl’s head appeared over the top of the seats, and she smiled at me. "That's a very pretty necklace."

  Wait a minute. What necklace? I reached up, my fingers catching the chain on something I didn’t even remember I owned.

  The necklace!

  Everything hit me in a whirl of images. I had a brother. How had I managed to forget about him? I travelled to London to find him. More memories returned, they crashed into me like a wave I couldn’t stop. I closed my eyes against the onslaught of images of the boys who tried to attack me. The older man—John, or rather Jonas—who said he would help me if he could, but had sent those boys after me instead. A bad man. A werewolf.

  I laughed in disbelief.

  Rose had drugged me. Somehow she’d been able to steal my memories, and it had been Henry's idea. Henry, the boy who'd been watching me behind the paper. Probably to make sure the memory wipe had stuck.

  "Henry, you bastard."

  The swear word just slipped out. The little girl's eyes widen, and she turned, sliding back into her seat. The mum shot me a disapproving look.

  Oops.

  I quickly got back to my feet. I couldn’t leave. Henry had gone on about it being dangerous if I stayed because I was some kind of genetic wolf. I might have actually left on my own accord if he'd been honest with me, but he'd been sneaky. I didn't like sneaky. Unless, of course, it was me doing it.

  I slipped my bag back over my shoulder. The driver watched me get off the bus. He muttered something about kids. I ignored him. There wasn’t time to worry about him. I needed to come up with a plan. I couldn’t trust Henry or the others. They had proven that when they’d decided drugging me was a good idea. It meant that I needed a disguise, and I needed to follow Henry. It was the quickest way to find my brother, and that was a chance that I needed to take.

  Chapter Ten

  My bag, jacket and t-shirt ended up near my feet. Bent over the sink, I applied the temporary dark brown hair dye. I’d also picked up a black coat with a hood from a charity shop and had thrown out my other, more distinct blue jacket. I decided to keep the jeans I’d been wearing.

  After the twenty-minute wait in the cubicle, I went out and washed the mixture out of my hair. Something that wasn’t easy to accomplish with a tap.

  When I finally finished, I grabbed a handful of towels to dab some of the dampness from my hair. Then, I positioned my head underneath the hand dryer to dry it the rest of the way. Flipping my head, I consider my disguise. I might have worn a wig before, but the hair dye worked a lot better.

  I slipped my clothes back on and picked
up the glasses from where I’d placed them next to the sink. The thick, black frames gave me a slightly severe appearance, but they definitely made me look older. Henry shouldn't be able to recognize me, unless he got a really good look at me.

  I knew it might take me awhile to catch him leaving the motel. I just hoped my brother would be alright. That gave me plenty of time to think things over.

  Am I really a werewolf? Henry said it was triggered if you're bitten by another wolf. Even after what Rose and Henry done to me, there were still things that I found hard to believe. Would I sprout fur and howl at the moon if I got bit? It sounded impossible. I grinned at my reflection, wondering what I would look like with fangs?

  ***

  My heartbeat was loud inside my head as I walked down the street, back toward Rose's motel. How could they make me forget about Michael?

  The fact they had that ability made the pit of my stomach twist uncomfortably. I reached up, brushing my fingers against the heart necklace. How long would the tea have lasted if I hadn’t triggered the memories of my brother? If they’d taken the only real physical thing I owned? A part of me knew they’d only done it to keep me safe, but they shouldn’t have made that decision for me. They hadn’t had any right to.

  The motel was on a street where both sides opened onto a main road. As I made my way along, I kept my head up. The lessons my dad had unintentionally taught me still helped.

  Always look like you belong.

  As I walked by the motel, I kept my eyes facing forward, and my hair hid my face as I spared a brief second to cast my gaze to the side.

  The windows were dark. Rose was probably in the living room, watching TV. There was no way of telling if Henry was there. I needed to find a place where I could watch the place without drawing unwanted attention. Somewhere I could sit and fade into the background.

  I kept walking.

  As I got closer to the street corner, I noticed the chairs outside a coffee shop. I pushed the door open and ducked inside. One cup of coffee and a free newspaper later, I headed back outside. I worked one which one of the seats that faced the window gave me best view and sat down.

  I laid the paper out on the table. The cup in one hand, I pretended to read. I'd never been a fan of coffee, and I hoped Henry would make an appearance soon, before the caffeine made me jumpy.

  The street looked mainly deserted, save for a few passing cars. Every time a door opened, I glanced up to see if it was the front door of the motel. Every time I saw my reflection, the dark hair still took me by surprise. I missed the vibrant slice of pink, but the darker shade had been a deliberate choice. If Henry spied a blonde with a pink streak trailing him, he'd know it was me. I didn’t know what skills or gifts werewolves had.

  Will he be able to smell me? The thought made me shudder, and I decided to focus on something else that had started to bug me.

  Which one of my parents had given me and Michael the werewolf gene? If I’d had to hazard a guess, I would have said Dad. How could they have kept this secret from us?

  A door opened somewhere behind me and stopped that particular train of thought in its tracks. For a second, nothing catches my eye. I was about to turn my attention back at the paper when I saw it.

  My heart skipped a beat. Henry walked down the garden path. I watched as he zipped up his jacket, glanced from side to side, and walked off down the street—heading away from me. I folded the newspaper in half, left some change on the table, and followed him.

  A busy main street made it hard for me to see my target, which meant it would be harder for Henry to see me. With my fingers, I styled my hair forward in case he turned around. I hadn’t given much thought about what would happen if the dark-haired boy realized that he was being tailed. At Rose's, he hadn’t struck me as someone who’d like it.

  Oh, well. I’d worry about it later.

  He was two shops in front of me. Since London was still pretty much unknown to me, I didn’t know where he was going. The almost uniform streets, in their worn and battered state, made it hard to tell one from the other. It didn’t matter. I'd follow him into hell if it meant finding Michael sooner rather than later.

  Henry stopped in front of a flower shop. I quickly crossed the street and paused in front of a newsagent. The window was murky, but I could still make out his vague shape. He knelt down near some flowers and moved his head from side to side as I picked up a magazine.

  Is he making sure he isn't being followed?

  "Are you buying that?"

  The voice made me jump. I shook my head and put the magazine back into the stand. The man scowled at me, but I turned around to see Henry farther down the street. As he was about to disappear around a corner, I quickly checked the traffic and ran after him.

  The alleyway was deserted, except for a large metal bin. Glancing up, I saw a ladder a good few feet in the air, but I didn’t see Henry. The alleyway ended in a dead end. There wasn’t anywhere for him to hide. I glanced at the large bin, and figured that probably wasn’t his style. My instincts screamed at me. There was nowhere for him to hide. So where was he?

  I half-walked, half-crept farther into the alleyway, leaving the busy street noises behind me. All I could hear was the sound of my heartbeat in my ear. There weren’t any doors. Did he use his werewolf skills to jump the fence at the end of the street?

  A noise behind me, which was almost soundless, like a cat landing on hard pavement. As I moved around to look, I was shoved against the wall. Turning my head quickly to the side stopped my nose from getting squished. The arm of the glasses snapped, and they fell to the ground.

  “Who are you? Why are you following me?”

  I should have known better than to try to follow a werewolf. He pushed me hard against the wall and I grunted.

  "Do you work for Jonas?"

  A mixture of annoyance and shock stopped me from saying anything. A heavy hand fell onto my shoulder, and I was roughly turned around. My head was tipped forward, and I hid my face from the annoyed werewolf in front of me. At least he hadn’t hurt me, but I would have bruises.

  He must have used the ladder. Hell, maybe he'd hung onto the wall, like some supernatural version of a superhero Can werewolves actually do that? I could feel his face close to my hair. Oh, God, he's actually sniffing me.

  His breath catches. "Rachel?"

  I peeked out at him through a curtain of dark hair. "Henry." I brought my knee up sharply, connecting with what boys held most precious. "Miss me?"

  Chapter Eleven

  Henry hit the ground hard, trying to catch his breath. He hadn’t taken his eyes off me, and I waited until his balls dislodged from his throat.

  He stared at me, seeming incredulous. “Why the hell do you always hit there?”

  I shrugged. “You weren’t in any rush to have kids were you?”

  He shook his head. "What the hell are you doing here? I saw you get on the bus. You should be halfway home by now."

  "I managed to break whatever Rose did to me." I kept the necklace part to myself. If there was even the slightest chance they would try the same thing again, I had to keep the way I’d broken the spell or thrall Rose put me under.

  Henry took a deep breath. He hadn’t bothered to get up from where he landed on the floor, and no one had bothered to come find out what was happening.

  My breath left me in a shaky, angry sigh. "How could you do this to me? What gives you the right to make any decisions for me?"

  His face, if it was possible, went even paler. "I did what I had to do to keep you safe."

  “You don’t have the right.” I pointed at him. " What? You took one look at me and thought I was a sixteen-year-old girl who couldn’t take care of herself?"

  "You are a sixteen-year-old girl, and you can’t handle what you’ve uncovered. You have no idea how the world really works." He coughed as something crept into in his blue eyes, something that looked a like respect. "Damn that really hurt. Who taught you how to fight dirty?"

 
I offered him a hand, which he took, and helped him back to his feet. “Always aim for the unguarded part of your opponent’s body.”

  Henry frowned.

  “My dad. He didn’t really teach me how to fight, but he was always quick with the advice.” Even when he didn’t know he was giving it.

  "I can help." I hold his hand and look at him, not breaking his gaze. "You managed to get my brother sucked back under Jonas's control. You might not be able to break the brainwashing again. Face it, Henry. You need me."

  He scowled. I was pretty sure it was the fact I was a girl that saved me from Henry smacking me.

  "I can't guarantee your safety."

  "I'm not asking you to."

  He peered down at me. The last time we’d been that close, he’d been crowding my space. I glanced up at him. It hadn’t escaped my notice, even when I had seen him at the bus station, that he was good-looking. It was a shame that he was such a pain in the arse.

  "And I will not make you into a wolf."

  "I'm quite happy with that side of me being dormant." It hadn’t even occurred to me to ask him. For a second, it didn’t look as if he believed me, so I said the next thing that popped into my head. "I don't really want to be rocking the whole fangs and fur look."

  There’s a ghost of a smile across his face, and my face burnt under his intense stare.

  I glanced down at where our fingers were intertwined and reluctantly let go. "Where were you going today?"

  "I'm supposed to be checking in with my Alpha. No, before you ask, you can't come with me. The fewer people who know you're here and what you are, the better."

  "So where am I supposed to go?"

  He tilted his head to the side as he considered my question. “Best bet would be to head back to the motel. Rose will take care of you."

  That's what I'm worried about.