by Anita Oh
There was silence all around the table.
"The transformative event is probably a full moon, most likely the solstice," said Althea eventually. "'The worthy' probably just means someone with the recessive gene.”
I wasn't so sure. "Why would the process even start if someone didn't have the gene?"
She shrugged. "This book is like 500 years old. People did strange things back then."
"At any rate, that part is irrelevant," said Tennyson. "Lucy's worthiness is not in question. More importantly, we need to find out when this transformative event will take place so that we can be prepared."
"Wait," I said. "I mean, it's nice that you think I'm awesome and won't die, but I thought we were all about stopping this. Stop the creepy transformation, break the creepy bond. Zero creepy, isn't that our motto?"
The others exchanged a look around the tablet that I did not like.
"Obviously, that's the ideal scenario," Tennyson said eventually. "But…"
Whatever he was going to say was cut off by the intercom buzzing.
"Pizza's here!" said Nikolai. "Flown in specially. Let's eat and think about all this later."
Nikolai and Althea went to get the pizza, and Tennyson wandered off to do something, leaving me sitting there awkwardly with Sam.
"We just want you to be safe," he said.
I forced a smile. I'd heard that from him before. It was what had started all the trouble between us.
"My dad had some more questions for you," I told him, wanting to change the subject. We'd only just made up. I wasn't going to go into all that with him again yet. "I don't think you're going to like it."
He shrugged. "If it'll help, I'll do whatever you need."
"Wait ‘til you hear what it is before you agree," I said.
He moved over to Althea's seat beside me. "You know, what you're going through, it was similar to my change."
His eyes slipped out of focus for a moment, and I shivered. He'd gone through the same thing — the gene being triggered and changing him — but he hadn't had anyone there to support him. He'd been surrounded by enemies, evil creatures who wanted to hurt him. It was so hard to begin with; I couldn't even imagine what he'd been through.
"You'll get through this," he said, covering my hand with his. "I know you will."
And, just for that moment, I believed him.
Chapter 10
No matter how weird things got at Amaris, I always seemed to find a way to manage, and this was no different. Somehow, I found a balance between school, research, and spending enough time with Tennyson to keep me lucid. After meeting with my dad, I went a week without any freakouts, and ate a whole cake for lunch as a reward.
I was sitting alone at a table in the dining hall, patting my stomach in satisfaction.
"You'll be sick," Tennyson said, appearing at the table and looming over me.
"Cake would never betray me like that," I told him. "Cake is my friend."
He blinked at me. "Well, you'll be sick in a moment anyway." He pulled out the chair beside me and sat down, unaware of all the stares and whispers his actions were causing. "I have to go away."
My belly churned, and it wasn't the cake.
"What do you mean?"
"Something has arisen. A family matter." He waggled his giant eyebrows in a way that made him look stupid but I assumed meant the family matter had to do with lycanthropy.
"Why do you have to go?" I sounded like a whiny brat, but I didn't care.
"It's complicated."
"Well, can I come too?"
"My mother will be there."
His mother did not like me at all. If she learned about our bond, she'd probably keep Tennyson away from me just so I'd go crazy. Or something worse.
I sighed. "How long will you be gone?"
"A day. Maybe two."
I took a deep breath. "When do you leave?"
"Now."
I'm sorry, he said in my mind. Then he reached across the table and brushed his fingers across the back of my hand.
"I'm fine," I told him. "Just go do your thing. It'll be fine."
I pushed back from the table and walked away, but I could feel his eyes on my back until I got out the door.
I knew the exact moment he left the island. I was in history class and about to do a presentation on the Boston Tea Party, but it felt as though I was walking across a tightrope. The moment he was gone, the rope snapped, and I was falling. Down, down, I fell, into a bottomless pit.
Everyone stared at me as they waited for me to get up and walk to the front of the room. Their eyes were like darts, shooting out at me as I fell. And that feeling that had been simmering inside me this whole time once again began to boil.
I stood up, my fingers turning white as they clutched my tablet. Slowly, I walked to the front of the room and stood in front of the teacher's desk. I turned my tablet on and looked at the screen, not really seeing anything. That feeling grew inside of me, surging through my veins.
"The Boston Tea Party," I said. The words meant nothing to me.
The eyes disappeared. The whole room disappeared. Tennyson was gone and there was nothing left, nothing but that power inside of me, taking hold of me. Was I glowing? If I wasn't already, I would be soon. I had to get out of there. I had to get away.
My tablet fell to the floor with a clatter that I barely registered. I rushed for the door, but somebody stood in my way. I stopped for a moment, unsure of how to process this obstacle. Part of me knew it was Fatima, but the association meant nothing to me.
"Lucy, are you okay?" she asked, reaching out to touch my arm.
I pushed her away. Nobody should touch me, not now that Tennyson was gone. My push had more force that I was aware of, and she went flying back against the wall, then slumped to the floor with her eyes closed and her head tipped at a funny angle. I paid her no mind and ran from the room. I had to get away, to be alone. If this force was taking me over, I didn't know what would happen. I'd go back to my room, lock myself in and wait until Tennyson came back. Once he was back, I could deal with this power. Then, it would all be fine.
The world moved in a blur of color as I made my way back to my room. I moved purely on instinct, all my focus taken up with keeping that power at bay, with not being overcome by it. It felt as if I would never make it to safety, but finally, I got there. I locked the door and dashed to my bed, where I hid under the covers.
If I focused on my breathing, I'd be okay. All I had to do was keep breathing. Everything would be fine, and the power wouldn't defeat me, as long as I kept breathing.
"Hey."
Katie. I'd forgotten Katie.
"Don't you have class?"
Breathe in. Breathe out. I was fine.
"Hey, are you okay?"
She pulled the covers back and stared down at me. "Man, you do not look okay."
"Leave me alone, Katie," I said. "You don't want to be around me right now."
She nodded and sat down on her bed. "That's facts. I don't want to be around you most of the time. You're mean and rude and messy. But you know, I don't have much choice in it."
Her words were enough to pull me out of my freakout just a bit.
"What do you mean?"
Sure, we had to share a room, but that didn't mean she had to keep trying to force a friendship on me.
She raised her eyebrows at me. "You can't tell me you don't know."
I shook my head. "Katie, this is so not the time to be messing with me. I'm a ticking time bomb here."
She sighed. "I thought your dad told you. I thought that was why you didn't want to be friends."
With a strength I hadn’t known I had, I pushed that power right down. Whatever was going on with it, it could wait. This was more important.
"What do you know about my father?"
Katie pinched the bridge of her nose. "Oh, man, I did not sign up for this," she muttered, then looked over at me. "Our fathers work together."
"Oh," I said.
A bunch of things clicked into place. How my dad could access the island so easily. How he’d known something was going on with me. "So, you're here to spy on me."
Katie shrugged. "Kind of. Among other things. Your father was worried about you." She waved a hand at me vaguely. "But, obviously, he was overreacting, right? You're totally fine?" She gave me a sarcastic smile.
"Whatever I am, it's none of your business," I told her. I sat up, pulling myself out of bed. "I can't believe I thought I was just being paranoid about you."
"Look, I get that you're mad at your father for whatever reason, but I'm not the enemy here. I know about your zero gene thing, and you're clearly in the middle of some serious kind of meltdown, so if there's anything I can do to help, you just have to tell me."
She sounded sincere, and in a way, I much preferred this straight-shooting Katie to the overly nice Katie she'd been when she was lying to me. Either way, I was done with being lied to and manipulated.
"Yeah, there's one thing you can do," I told her. "You can leave me the hell alone."
Walking out was the last thing I wanted to do. I had nowhere to go. But I couldn't stay there with her.
I knew I could go to the Golden House, but if I detonated, I didn't want to take them with me. Until I knew what I was, what I'd turn into, and what would happen when I did, I couldn't risk hurting anyone. For all I knew, I'd broken Fatima's neck. I couldn't be around anyone.
The only safe place for me was the forest.
I headed toward the lighthouse, because that was the path I knew best and I knew nobody else used it. It was growing cold; I could feel it on my skin, but inside, I was burning up. Although I knew the power wasn't sentient, it seemed as if it was angry that I'd pushed it down and was striking back at me with a vengeance. I fell to the forest floor, unmindful of the mud and leaves and bugs as I writhed with the torment inside of me. The power filled me, burning away everything that I had been to make room for what would come. I had no defenses against it. There was nothing I could do but lie in the dirt and let it take me.
But then, he was there. I couldn't see him with my eyes, but I could feel him like a cool breeze on a summer's day, a break in the weather during a heat wave. That feeling enveloped me and cooled my boiling blood until I gradually started to come back to myself. I was lying on the forest floor, covered in leaves and mud, and Tennyson Wilde was standing there beside me.
"You came back?" I whispered when I felt like I could speak.
He nodded. He looked more pale than usual, and I wondered what it was like for him when I had a freakout. Did he feel it with the same force that I did, or was it more like an echo?
He knelt beside me and held my face in his hands. I closed my eyes and relaxed into the touch, ignoring the strangeness of the situation, how much more intimate this seemed than his hand on my wrist. I wanted to feel this way forever, this quiet happiness that didn't ask anything from me. But eventually, I had to open my eyes.
"Fatima," I whispered. My throat was sore, as if I'd been screaming for hours. "I think I killed her."
He shook his head. "She's fine. But I think your history grade might not be."
"Did you just make a joke?" I asked him.
"No."
He stopped touching my face and stood up, offering me a hand to get up with him. I brushed the leaves off my clothes and tried to pick them out of my hair, but it was difficult enough for me to even stand upright, let alone anything more complicated.
"Can you walk?" he asked.
I nodded. The alternative would be… what? To have him carry me back to school? That seemed like a terrible idea. Still, it was slow going. I hobbled along, clinging to his arm like an old lady clinging to a walker while crossing a busy road.
"What about your family thing?" I asked him after a while, needing to break the silence between us. "Is it okay that you bailed on it? Or are you going later?"
I really hoped he wasn't going later. I didn't think I could handle this whole thing again.
"Althea went in my place," he said. "Mother will be angry, but it seemed like the only solution at the time."
"I'm sorry," I told him. "You shouldn't have to be at odds with your mother just because of me. You could've just let me suffer, so thank you."
He stopped walking and turned to face me.
"This isn't just happening to you alone," he said, his voice so cold that he seemed like the old Tennyson. I'd almost forgotten he used to sound like that. "It isn't as if I just suddenly think, 'Oh, Lucy seems to be having a hard time. I should completely rearrange my life for her'. It's not like the pack bond, where I would have an awareness of what you feel but I could disregard it. I feel everything you feel, as if it's happening to me too. If you really focused, you would be able to feel what I feel, but I think that because of this Becoming, you're probably unable to differentiate between which feelings are caused by that and which are mine. So, it's not as if I'm doing you some great service. I was unable to attend my family obligations because I was suffering from the same experience as you. It was only my superior mental fortitude that allowed me to return back to school and find you. It's incredibly fortunate for you that you bonded with someone with my training and skills."
I blinked at him, trying to process everything he'd said. I hadn't realized it was as bad for him as it was for me, that he was suffering the same thing. That really sucked for him. But I couldn't apologize. He wouldn't accept it, and it wasn't as if this was my fault, anyway. But I felt as if I understood him just a little bit better. Though, I wondered what particular training he’d done to be able to handle all this.
"But you realize that if I hadn't bonded with you," I said, "this wouldn't be happening at all."
"Well," he said, beginning to walk again. "You could've bonded with Nikolai, and then you'd be Becoming a pervert."
Chapter 11
Knowing that Tennyson could feel everything I felt was kind of awkward. By the time we got back to school, I felt almost normal again, but my thoughts were racing from one embarrassing scenario to another. Could he feel it when I needed to go to the toilet? Could he feel it whenever I saw Sam and my belly flipped? Could he feel it when I ate so much that I was slipping into a food coma but still kept on eating anyway? There were some things I just didn't want to share willy-nilly, and it wasn't as if I could ask him. The only way to know was to try to focus, like he'd said, and see if I could separate his feelings from the strange feelings of the Becoming.
The Golden House was all lit up when we passed through the gate.
"Everyone is worried," Tennyson said.
Sam was pacing in front of the fireplace when we entered the common room. Nikolai was staring vacantly into space, seeming more pale than usual. Their eyes snapped to the doorway as we entered. I'd always thought Nikolai didn't care much for me, that he only tolerated me because he had to, but he sagged in his seat when he saw us, a hand clapped over his face. Sam grabbed me up in a crushing hug.
"We thought you were dead, you idiot," Nikolai said to me. "Next time you can't handle something, say you can't handle it, instead of acting all tough and then trying to murder your history class."
I couldn't answer him, because Sam had squeezed all the breath out of me. Finally, he let me go and stepped back, his hands on my shoulders.
"You look a wreck," he said. "You should go have a hot bath and some rest."
I probably should, I knew that, but I didn't want to be that far from Tennyson just yet. I glanced over at him and knew that he could tell that. It was the perfect time to test whether I could feel his feelings too. Tentatively, I reached out through the bond, ignoring that bubbling power just under the surface that didn't belong to either of us. It was difficult, confusing, but all of a sudden, I could feel an exhaustion that was apart from my own. It was tinged with relief and exasperation and a bunch of other stuff, but it seemed shaded differently from my own feelings, almost as if he felt things in a different color than I did. That wasn't exactly it,
but it was the closest I could come to understanding it.
"I think you should be saying that to Tennyson," I said.
He gave me a short nod, and I knew it wasn't because he agreed with what I said but that he was acknowledging that I'd felt what he was feeling. That he appreciated that I’d heard what he’d said and tried.
He was right: this was completely different from the pack bond that I'd experienced when I'd been in his body. It was much more personal.
"I'm not the one with leaves in my hair and dirt all over me," he said, and moved over to the table. "Have you heard from Althea?"
Nikolai nodded. "She messaged to say your mother was suspicious, but otherwise things were going well. You should let her know you're both fine, though. She was worried." He hesitated before he went on. "Tennyson, I think I might know somebody who can help with all this, but you're not going to like it."
Although I couldn't see Tennyson's face from where I was standing, his reaction could not have been clearer. It was as if now that I was aware of his feelings, I couldn't make myself unaware. He was wary, but pleased and proud that Nikolai was being open with him.
"It's a friend of my cousin's. A vucari."
I didn't understand the shot of fear that struck Tennyson at hearing that word. What was a vucari?
Nothing good, Tennyson told me.
Is there any harm in talking to them? I asked. How much worse can they make it?
Tennyson shrugged. "Contact them and ask for information, but don't give them any specifics about our situation."
Nikolai nodded and got up from the table. "I'll go talk to my cousin."
When Nikolai left the room, a nervous sort of tension seemed to replace him. I stood awkwardly between Tennyson and Sam, wondering if I should make an excuse to leave.
"I should go message Althea and then have some rest," Tennyson said before I could get the words out. He tapped me on the arm. "You need to rest too. Don't be long down here."