by Sarah M. Awa
Was his email serious, or was he messing with her? If this was his idea of a joke, she should simply not respond.
That evening, Mel was loading her tray with dinner when a passerby’s elbow smacked her back. Too forcefully to be an accident. It rattled her silverware, and she was glad she hadn’t grabbed a drink yet. Mel turned and saw Timmy, who threw a smirk at her over his shoulder. She kept her own expression blank and looked away without retaliating.
His emails continued—the same message, sent at the same time each morning—for the next five days.
February 2, Waxing Crescent Moon
The following Thursday, the Sentinel released Issue One. Mel gingerly flipped to the op-ed section.
The werewolf articles were there! Of course Timmy’s original last paragraph wasn’t. Still, she thought, Dammit, Dawn! You should’ve forced him to do a new topic.
Numbly, she pushed through the crowd of students checking their mail on their way into the cafeteria. Almost everyone held the newspaper, and many were scanning it while waiting in line. Mel’s appetite went from dying to deceased. She ducked into the bathroom, nausea surging.
Locked inside a stall, she dry heaved. Gasping and panting followed; it took her several minutes to recover. To calm herself, she tried to recall what Chandra had told her on the phone. Hold your head high. Be proud of what you are.
Timmy’s emails . . .
She should tell Chandra about those.
When Mel finally emerged from the bathroom, she veered away from the cafeteria. She couldn’t go in there, couldn’t risk people approaching her about her article. Timmy would likely have a crowd gathered around him—what kind of rubbish would spew from his mouth and spread around campus? Was this only the beginning of Mel’s having to hide from everyone?
Stomach still churning, she plodded back to her dorm. She slept away the lunch period, as well as her 1:00 class. Crap—I hope I didn’t miss a pop quiz, she thought, hurrying to her last class at 2:30.
That professor surprised her with a quiz. For which Melanie had only read half the pertinent material. She could feel her GPA slipping even lower, while anxiety sucked at her like quicksand nearing waist level.
Safe in her room again, Mel finally texted Chandra about Timmy’s emails.
“At first I thought he might be messing with me, but now I’m starting to believe he’s serious.”
“Can’t blame him for wanting to be at the top of the food chain,” Chandra typed back. “But someone like him has no place with us. Give me a day to think about what you should do.”
Great. More waiting. Waiting for the full moon, waiting for Timmy to ramp up his threats or spill her secret. Waiting for her symptoms to get worse, not knowing exactly how that would happen, what new ones might be added. Waiting for Sokoloff to call her and say he’d figured out her illness and a cure for it.
Waiting, waiting.
Jocelyn logged out of her email, and news headlines popped up on the site’s homepage. “Alleged Teen Werewolf Missing from Texas Home.” Now that she had to read.
Caleb Connor, 17, of recent YouTube fame, was reported missing from his home near Lubbock, Texas, on January 26th. Police found no signs of a break-in or traces of foul play in or around his residence. Connor may have been taken while walking home from school, authorities speculate.
An AMBER Alert was issued, with not much to go on, and no result as of this writing.
Connor’s mother, Elaine Gibson, 41, told police it was possible her son had run away from home. He regularly disappeared during full moons. Police are searching for his hideout based on footage from his viral video.
It remains a disquieting possibility that Connor was abducted by one or more anti-werewolf fanatics, after exposing his alleged transformation online.
More information to follow as it becomes available.
Poor, dumb kid, thought Jos. They could be right about the fanatics. Or it could have been another werewolf—or several—angry at him for outing their kind. No crime scene, no evidence pointing either way.
This reeked of a kidnapping, and likely a murder. Although Jos felt sorry for the boy, she wondered why he hadn’t taken better measures to protect himself. He should have known there’d be backlash.
Was he trying to get himself killed?
She heard footsteps in the hall, poked her head out the door, and saw Melanie. “You hear that Caleb Connor is missing? By the way, I read your article. Well written as always.”
Mel, who already looked too pale, blanched further and swayed.
“Whoa, you all right?” said Jos.
“Fine,” Mel replied tightly. She closed her bedroom door and slipped into the bathroom. Seconds later, Jos could hear her retching over the toilet.
Jos frowned worriedly at the bathroom door before returning to her desk.
25
Escape
February 4, First-Quarter Moon
Chandra didn’t get back to Melanie until Saturday—two days later. “Okay, here’s the deal,” Chandra said without preamble. “I want you to come to the Organization’s safe house for the full moon. Sokoloff will be there, so he can keep an eye on you. You can also observe the trial.”
Mel slunk to her room, looking around to make sure no one could hear her before she answered in a glum whisper: “He hasn’t figured out what’s wrong with me yet. Or at least he hasn’t called.”
“I’m sure he’s doing his best,” Chandra said briskly. “So, next week, you are to leave on the day of the full moon, Thursday, not a day early. If you show up on Wednesday, the safe house will be empty and cold—not to mention locked up.”
“Okay,” agreed Mel. She bit her lower lip and wondered what the place was like. “Dave will be there too?”
“Yes. I recommend meeting him somewhere and letting him take you the rest of the way. You two can work that out for yourselves. The important thing is that you, Melanie, are going to let Timmy follow you.”
“What? Why should I—”
“Because I’m gonna deal with him, get him off your back. I’ll give him a scare he won’t forget. You won’t be part of it. Just act like you don’t know he’s there, and then give me a call.”
“You’re . . . you’re not going to hurt him, right?”
Smoothly, Chandra said, “Of course not.”
Mel leaned back against the wall. Her hand slipped on the phone, her clenched fingers cramping. Everything that had been preying on her for the past two days shook loose. She felt like crying. She almost laughed. “Are you sure it’ll work? He’s obnoxiously persistent.”
“It will. Trust me.” The woman’s confident tone never wavered.
Mel sighed and relaxed. “I do. Thank you.”
“Anything for a fellow wolf.”
February 8, Waxing Gibbous Moon
The following Wednesday evening, Mel paced her room. A maelstrom of doubts, worries, and fears howled beneath her calm exterior.
No word had come from Sokoloff, no diagnosis. Mel’s condition had stabilized, and she hadn’t had any more hallucinations, dry heaves, or fainting spells. How long would that last, though?
Worse, doubts about Chandra’s plan were beginning to torment her. What the heck is she going to do to Timmy? Better for everyone if he doesn’t tail me. I should leave plenty early. Noon, maybe. Hopefully, he won’t be ready to follow then. He wouldn’t skip classes, would he?
She rehashed her meet-up plan with Dave: a highway rest station at 3:00. The Organization’s safe house was two hours away from Wellsboro. Moonrise was at 6:35. Plenty of time.
Unless something went wrong. Unless Dave didn’t meet her. He’d said it was better that she didn’t have the address to the safe house—better to have nothing written down—and she supposed he was right, but that didn’t make her any less nervous.
Should I really go? She longed for the Doyles’ comfortable cabin. For the known. The known-to-be-safe.
Was she truly safe anywhere?
Heart ham
mering, fingers and toes tingling, she sank down onto her bed. The threat of dizziness subsided but left nausea and fatigue in its wake. Even her own body wasn’t safe anymore.
And her mental faculties. How much longer could she trust her eyes? Her ears? Would more hallucinations come? Right now her room looked its usual, normal self, so she was pretty sure what she was seeing and experiencing was real. But with her vivid dreams and general state of stress and confusion . . . ever since discovering werewolves existed, reality had been a lot more elusive.
She had to make this stop. She had to go to the Organization.
Whatever happens tomorrow, she thought, clenching her fists, it’s worth it.
Owl City’s “If My Heart Was a House” gently interrupted. Gavin. She’d been dodging his calls and ignoring his texts for days.
Staring blankly at the phone, she didn’t pick up. He’d leave another voicemail, pleading with her to come to the cabin.
Thoughts of him ripping up her note returned. She scowled. He needs to get it through his head that he can’t control me.
Would he try to kidnap her again?
She definitely had to leave early tomorrow. Noon it is.
February 9, Full Moon (first night)
The next morning after Mel showered and dressed, Gavin called again. (She’d changed his ringtone back to a generic one.) Gritting her teeth, she thought, I’d better set things straight with him.
“I’m not coming with you this time,” she said in lieu of a hello.
There was an intake of breath, a pause, and then his voice, sounding angry and hurt: “Why? Where are you going to—”
“I think you know.”
“Melanie, please. Don’t do this. Don’t go with them. It’s too dangerous.”
Her fist balled at her side. “You don’t know that for sure.”
“But my—”
“Your vision, yeah, yeah.” She threw herself onto her bed, kept her voice low. “But you know what I’ve come to see? You, clinging to your preconceived notions of things—and people. You need to stop and give them a chance to show you the way they really are.”
With an exasperated growl, Gavin returned, “Well, I think you think you know everything—and you’re blinded by what you want to believe. You trust too easily—except when it comes to me, apparently, the one person who’s actually helped you. But no, you’d rather trust strangers than someone you know.”
“I’m not sure I do know you,” she spat. “You saved me once; that doesn’t mean you own me. Besides, I paid you back at Cedarwood. My life is still my life. I can do whatever I want, and you had no right to destroy that note!”
There was a longer pause. Mel imagined him scowling, or the blood draining from his face. Then she heard a thump, and wondered what he’d punched or thrown.
Finally, voice deadly calm, Gavin said, “You’re right. You don’t know me. Because if you did, you’d understand I’m trying to protect you, not clip your wings. But I guess you can’t see that because you’re so focused on yourself and on what you want.”
How dare you! Rage boiled, shooting upward from her midsection to flush her face. “You think I’m selfish, huh? Do you even know what it is that I want? I just want to fucking stay alive! Do you have any idea about the people who are out there, who want to hunt us down and mutilate us for sport?” Her throat tightened as she recalled the bloody images from online.
“I know about hunters. But the cabin is safe. Hidden. They can’t get us there.”
“Sure it is—for now. As far as we know. But things change, and until we’re human again, there’ll always be some risk.”
“And what are the odds we’ll ever find a cure? You know how long I searched for one.”
“They have a geneticist.”
“They don’t know it’s in our DNA, or anything that science can discover and fix. What if it is a literal curse?”
Melanie gripped the edge of her mattress and squeezed, hard.
Black ooze squeezing out of her chest.
No. Can’t be. St. Peter was wrong about her being damned.
Steadying her breathing, she said, “Last I heard, he’s making great progress. There could be a breakthrough any day now.”
“Well, I hope you’re right about that,” Gavin sighed. “I hope you’re right about them and their intentions. I do wish you well, Melanie. But I still think you’re making a huge mistake.”
“It’s mine to make. My decision.” Not mistake.
They hung up, and Mel hurried to finish getting ready for classes.
After her two morning classes, she zipped through the cafeteria line, slapping together a to-go meal: ham sandwich, apple, and bag of chips. She’d packed plenty of bottled water and snacks for her time at the Organization’s hideout. Dave had told her there was a kitchen stocked with basic food, mostly canned, but her cautious and always-prepared side wasn’t about to take any chances.
Hurrying back to Hartman, she kept a sharp lookout for Timmy. No sign of him or his old white Buick.
Mel scanned her room one more time, as she always did before full-moon trips, making sure she hadn’t forgotten anything. Her bags were in her Honda’s back seat already. The gas tank was full. She took deep, calming gulps of air. Better get going. I can do this. It’s going to be okay. The pepper spray was in her coat pocket.
She was locking the door behind her when she heard footsteps creaking up the stairs. “Hey, Mel,” said Jos, arriving on the landing. “Would you mind helping me with something really quick?”
“Like what?” Melanie tried to hide her chagrin but couldn’t help checking her watch. It was a quarter past noon.
“Some fancy formatting for my psych paper. You’re good at that, right? Shouldn’t take long.”
“Sure.” Mel sighed inwardly and followed Jos into her room. Why couldn’t she look this up online?
Jos brought up her paper and explained what she wanted done. Mel tweaked, finagled, and figured it out in five minutes.
“Thank you so much!” said Jocelyn. “You’re the best.”
“No prob,” Mel said curtly, flashing a half smile. She rose to leave, but Jos slipped between her and the door and shut it. She leaned against it, arms crossed. “What are you doing?” Mel asked, narrowing her eyes.
“I know you’re leaving again. And I know why.”
Words failed Mel. The blood drained from her face, and the air seemed to crystallize into a block of ice around her. “What—? How—?”
Jos rolled up her sweater sleeve, exposing angry red lines on her forearm. “These are killing me again. Like they’ve been doing for the past two months around the full moon. When you disappear for a few days. . . . Also, I saw you packing your car this morning.”
Blood rushed in Mel’s ears; blackness edged her vision. She swayed and grabbed the nearest support, the footboard of Jos’s bed.
“Whoa, you should sit down.” Jos moved to help Melanie lower herself onto the bed. Numbly, Mel allowed her to do so and to sit next to her. “You’ve been looking so sick lately—I’m worried about you.”
Not right now. Not right now. I don’t need this right now. This can’t be happening. Mel put her head in her hands and took steadying breaths.
“You . . . haven’t told anyone my secret, have you?” she choked out. The dizziness ebbed, but her heart still pounded.
“No.”
“Not even Pam?” She couldn’t look at Jocelyn. Her tear-filled eyes were riveted on her trembling hands.
“Nope, but I think you ought to tell her. She’s going crazy, y’know? She’s really hurt by the secrecy.”
Mel did look up then, eyes flashing. “Don’t you understand why it has to stay a secret?! Since the Caleb Connor video, everyone is so scared of—everyone hates—” She couldn’t finish.
Jos nodded. They sat in silence. Eventually, she said, “It happened on the camping trip, didn’t it? The beast in the cave—it bit you.”
“Yes.” A faint whisper, almost in
audible.
Though Jocelyn wasn’t a touchy-feely person, she rubbed Melanie’s back and said, “I’m so sorry, Mel. I can’t imagine what you must be going through.” Her green eyes crinkled with compassion.
Melanie felt walls crumble inside her. For so long, she’d been erecting an elaborate structure around her heart—a castle complete with palisade and moat. It had been meant to protect her . . . but it had also been keeping out the protection of her friends.
You don’t hate me? You’re not terrified? A tear spilled down Mel’s cheek. Her body shook with sobs that she tried desperately to restrain.
“Honey, you need to let that out,” said Jos. Her hands moved in soothing circles, fingers massaging Melanie’s shoulders. “We all need to ugly-cry sometimes. You’ll feel a lot better.”
Sniffling, swiping at her face, Mel said, “I don’t have time for this. I gotta go.”
“The moon doesn’t rise for hours,” said Jos. “Where do you go during full moons, anyway?”
“A cabin, a couple hours away from here.” Mel wasn’t about to mention the Organization or her change of plans this month. And she didn’t feel like bringing up Timmy either.
Jos raised her eyebrows. “How’d you find a place like that?”
Should I explain about Gavin? It’s his secret to tell, not mine . . . but I have to tell her something. With a sigh, Mel started at the beginning: her conversation with Gavin at the volleyball game, his weird “seizure” that turned out to be a vision of the future, how he’d cut her with the knife to show her she wasn’t exactly human anymore, then resorted to kidnapping her because she didn’t believe him.
Her suitemate’s eyes grew wider as the story progressed. When Mel was finished, Jocelyn said, “Holy cow. . . . Gavin is a clairvoyant? And he saved you . . . saved us from you.” She blanched. “And werewolves exist. This is all . . . insane.”
“Tell me about it,” Melanie muttered. “Do you actually believe what I just told you, or are you about to call the local loony bin and have them come get me?”