by Cheree Alsop
I let out a lower growl of frustration and everyone laughed.
“Colleen was very sweet,” Grace commented after a few minutes. Her fingers ran through the soft fur behind my ears, calming me. I licked her hand and she rewarded me with a smile.
We traveled in silence for a few minutes and I stretched out across the backseat. I had just begun to doze off from the lingering effects of the anesthesia when something smashed into the SUV from behind, throwing me to the floor. Grace shrieked, fear tight in her voice.
“What the-” Mr. Davies stared back in the rear view mirror and his eyes widened. He floored the gas and the vehicle sped up.
“Guns!” Jaze shouted.
Grace unbuckled her seatbelt to cower on the floor. I shielded her with my body and she wrapped her arms around me in fear. I peered over the back of the seat through the shattered window and saw the muzzles of guns aimed at us from the tinted windows of a black SUV similar to those that had accosted us at the mall. Mr. Davies jerked the wheel to one side, then the other. When he couldn’t shake them, he gunned our vehicle down an off ramp.
“The chip!” Jet said in alarm.
Jaze's eyes widened and he stared down at the microchip in his hand. He quickly unrolled the window and tossed the chip into the sunflowers that lined the side of the road.
“Too bad they already know where we are,” Mr. Davies forced out, fighting another jolt from behind.
“We have to lose them,” Jaze said. He pointed down another road that dissected ours by ninety degrees. “That way.”
Mr. Davies turned onto it, our tires squealing as he fought to keep the vehicle centered, then we raced toward the skyscrapers that made up the center of the city. We rushed into the bustle of traffic and Mr. Davies dodged left, then right, then turned down a side street Jet suddenly pointed to.
“Slow down here, now turn,” Jet directed.
We pulled into an alley behind a pasta place and a pawn shop and Mr. Davies shut off the vehicle. We ducked and a few seconds later the pursuing SUV raced past.
“Where are we?” Jaze asked quietly.
“Where I got shot after we first met,” Jet replied.
No one said anything for a few minutes, then Jaze gave a tight smile. “At least we know nobody'll mess with us around here.”
Jet cracked a smile and Mr. Davies slowly backed up.
***
I phased in the bathtub after Jaze shut the door. Nikki was right about the mess. Black dye ran down my arms, legs, and chest to pool in a puddle at my feet. I turned on the shower and shut my eyes. Warm water tinged black flowed in rivulets down my face and back. My arm throbbed dully, but the pain from the surgery was almost gone. I leaned against the wall and enjoyed the water.
The werewolf side of me wanted to categorize every smell, the soaps, cleaners, even the detergent used on the towels, along with everyone who had used the shower recently, while the human side of me pushed back memories of the accident, my family, and all that I had taken from myself and them by drinking and doing drugs. I hit my forehead against the wall softly several times in an effort to stamp away both drives.
My thoughts suddenly turned surprisingly sharp and by the time the water ran clear and my body was scrubbed clean of the black dye, I realized two things. I couldn’t push away my werewolf instincts anymore than I could forget to breathe, and I had the ability to make at least one thing right that I had destroyed.
***
“You going home?” Jaze asked.
I looked up from the bed I was straightening and nodded.
“You planning to run there, or what?” he pressed, his eyes calculating.
I shrugged. “If I have to. I hadn't really thought about it.”
“Well, I did,” he said with a small smile.
He tossed a folder down on the bed and I picked it up. Plane tickets along with a fake driver's license fell out. I stared at them. “How’d you get these?”
He grinned. “Let's just say I figured you'd be going home after our trip to the Davies'. You had that look in your eyes.”
I held up the very authentic looking driver's license and glanced at him. He shrugged. “The Hunters have some valuable skills.” He nodded toward the tickets. “Those are round trip.”
I glanced from him to the plane tickets and my heart throbbed painfully at the unexpected gesture. “Thank you. I don’t know how I'll-“
He shook his head. “Don’t. You took a bullet for me and you’ve been selfless in the way you’ve taken care of Grace. You deserve to let your family know you’re alright.”
“Am I?” I asked quietly.
He looked at me for a moment, then nodded, a smile touching his lips. “Yeah, you are.” He left through the door before I could respond.
I looked at the tickets and the driver’s license again and my heart gave another thump. I was going home.
Chapter 15
My heart raced when I exited the taxi. I walked slowly across the darkening lawn to Renee's house. Anticipation at seeing her again began to race through my veins. I hadn't realized how very much I was holding inside, how much I was lying by telling myself I didn't need my family or Renee, that they would be better off without me, until I crossed the grass I had crossed a million times and stood on a porch as familiar to me as my own home. I lifted a hand to knock on Renee's door, my heart pounding.
A voice spoke inside. My unemotional werewolf instincts labeled it as male and too young to be Renee's father. I reasoned that he must be a cousin I hadn't known about, but there wasn’t cousin I hadn't met in the four years we had been together. My heart slowed and I walked down the stairs and around the side of the house to the kitchen window.
My breath caught in my throat at the sight of Renee. She stood against the kitchen counter, her blond hair like a brilliant sunflower in the noonday sun. Her bright eyes, as blue as a robin's egg, crinkled into the special smile she had always saved for me. Only she wasn't smiling at me.
Someone leaned on the table with his back to me, a pair of skinny shoulders covered in a jean jacket, brown hair curling under a faded red baseball cap, and his thumbs hooked in his belt loops in a way that was so familiar I racked my brain to remember who it could be. Then he laughed and my breath caught in my throat at the nasal tone of it. Chad Parker, a smart kid everyone had made fun of during high school, but who hit it off big with one of the major computer companies. He always had eyes for Renee; now he had millions of dollars and she had no boyfriend to stand in the way of his advances.
I thought of punching the window and throwing him out of it regardless of the mess he would make on the grass, but something about the look on Renee's face made me pause. I opened and shut my fists in a way that reminded me of Jet while I studied her face and the happiness I saw on it.
There was a touch of sadness in her eyes. She didn't forget me; the tiny framed pictures of us that were scattered across the kitchen table attested to that. They had been gathered to cluster around a blue folded page that I realized was the funeral program for me, Colleen, and Debra, Colleen’s best friend. My sensitive eyesight took in the tear stains on the paper now protected behind a glass frame with wildflowers around the edges.
She always liked wildflowers. Even now, her gaze flitted to the pictures briefly and her smile lessened, but when she met Chad's eyes again, the smile deepened in sincerity. There was no doubt that having him there made her happy, and her special smile, reserved only for me for so many years, showed that she really had feelings for him.
It hurt that I had only been gone a few months and she already found someone else, but the rational side of me said that I didn't know the situation, and I couldn't blame her for finding a shoulder to cry on. I owed it to Chad for being there for her. She thought I was dead, and had already gone through the pain of losing me. With the laboratory men and who knows what else chasing me, there was no saying that she wouldn't have to go through it again.
I looked down at my hands and remembered the wa
y blood red fur climbed up them as they phased into paws. I thought of my red eyes and the strange wildness that now filled me. I was a monster, and worse than that, a monster brought back from the dead. I wouldn't force her to deal with my fate the way that I couldn't.
Renee laughed again and I closed my eyes to capture the sound in my memory. I took a deep breath of night air tinted with the lavender and brown sugar scent of Renee's house, my second home, and turned away into a night that welcomed me with the songs of crickets and the whisper of night air across the summer warmed grass.
The same rational that made me leave Renee's without announcing my presence battled inside me as I made my way slowly through the half mile of neighborhoods that separated our houses. I entered our yard from the side and stood near the orange trees by the back fence, watching the only other place in the world that held my heart.
Mom and Dad, in the same positions they had occupied every evening I could remember of my childhood, sat on the couch in the partial kitchen with a gas fire in the fireplace and their feet nestled together on the ottoman as they snuggled under the same tattered black and red checkered blanket they had used since before I was born. Dad read a newspaper, probably browsing the business and sports sections, while Mom read one of her inspirational books she picked up from the nearby grocery store. Every once in a while, Mom would nudge Dad's shoulder and read him a passage from the book. He would nod, mumble something positive and incoherent, and go back to his newspaper. There was a larger couch in the living room, but they both preferred the love seat and the closeness it created.
Eventually, Mom's head drooped against Dad's shoulder and her book rested on her knee with one finger between the pages. Dad rose to his feet, tucked the blanket snuggly around Mom, then went to the kitchen counter for one last refill of his customary hot tea before he helped her up to bed. He filled his cup from the kettle, dropped a teabag inside, then looked out the window while he waited for it to seep.
His eyes met mine and I froze. “Kaynan?” he mouthed, his eyebrows lifted with disbelief. He set the cup down on the counter and slid open the back door. I stepped back into the trees, my heart pounding, but he came down the steps and crossed the lawn toward me on bare feet. I could have jumped the fence and run, but the look I had seen in his eyes stopped me.
He peered into the darkness of the trees, his face a mixture of despair and hope. “Kaynan, is it you?” His voice shook slightly, but it wasn't with fear.
I forced my pounding heart to slow and stepped out into the faint light from the kitchen. “It's me,” I said softly.
Dad threw his arms around me and held me tight. He didn't say anything, but his shoulders shook with his sobs. I hesitated, then wrapped my arms around him. Tears flowed down my cheeks, breaking open the heart I had kept so carefully shielded since I woke up at the labs.
When both our shirts were damp with tears and neither of us had any left, he pushed me gently back to arm's length and looked me up and down. “How is this possible? You died. We buried both of you. How can you be here?” he asked. Then he shook his head before I could speak. “It doesn't matter. All that matters is that you're here.”
He tried to pull me in for another hug, but I shook my head. “No Dad, it does matter.” The truth of my words weighed heavily against me, bringing a knot to my throat. “It does matter. They changed me.”
“Who changed you?” he asked when I couldn't speak further.
I swallowed and whispered, “They brought me back from the dead and turned me into a monster.”
No judgment or fear showed on his face. He merely looked me up and down, touched my shoulder again as if to reassure himself that I was real, and gave me a warm smile. “You're my son. They haven't changed that. Come inside. Your mother will know what to do.”
The thought of hugging my mom made me so happy I wanted to cry again, but I also feared what learning what I had become would do to her. I shook my head again. “I can't go inside. I don't want to hurt her.”
Dad's face took on the stern fatherly expression he wore when he tried to be firm even though we all knew he was a pushover and Mom was the strength in their relationship. “Now Kaynan, you need to go into the house and say hi to your mother. She has every right to know that you're alive, and she always knows what to do.”
I sighed, but knew he was right. I followed him back across the lawn and up the two steps to the deck I had helped him build one summer when I was grounded for shoplifting. I stepped through the back door and the scent of my childhood home washed over me with a wave of memories of better times. I smelled Colleen's faint scent and almost turned around and left, but Dad was already shaking Mom's shoulder, telling her that her son was home.
“My son?” Mom said, blinking up at him. “What do you mean, George?”
Dad pointed toward me and she turned to look over the back of the couch. Her eyes widened, filled with tears, and her lips formed my name but no sound came out. She looked from Dad to me again and stood slowly from the couch. The blanket fell to the ground unnoticed at her feet. I was shocked at how frail her body had become over the few months since the accident. Her shoulder bones showed sharply through her shirt, her cheeks were thin, and she moved with a shuffling gait so different from her usual lively step my heart ached.
“My Kaynan,” she said in a voice just above a whisper as she crossed the last few feet between us. Her arms wrapped around my shoulders but barely touched me as though she was afraid of hurting me.
I fought back a smile at the memory of her bear hugs and picked her up and spun her around. “It's me, Mom. I love you so much.”
A small, joyful laugh escaped her and when I put her down she reached up and set a hand on my cheek. “My son.”
I wasn’t worthy of the proud, loving look in her eyes. As much as I longed for her acceptance and her loving smile, I wasn’t the child she deserved. I owed it to my mom to let her know what I was. I didn’t want her to fear me, but I had lied to her too many times, and I would never lie to her again.
I turned my face away and removed my sunglasses, took a steeling breath, then turned back to meet both of their gazes. “They changed me. They made me into a monster.”
Mom’s breath caught at the color of my eyes and she searched my face. “What kind of a monster?” she asked, though I knew by her tone it didn’t matter. I could tell her anything, and she wouldn’t care past the fact that her son was home.
I led her to the table and helped her sit down. Dad took the seat next to her and I knelt on the floor looking up at them. “This is going to sound ridiculous,” I said. I couldn’t think of where to start; my mind raced, but everything I came up with sounded like something straight out of a horror film.
“You’re here,” Mom said. “That’s all that matters.”
“It does matter, Mom,” I replied gently, taking her hand in both of mine. “I need you to know what happened.” I swallowed, then said, “I don’t know what happened to my body after I died, and I know I died,” I said, answering the question Dad opened his mouth to ask. He closed it again and nodded, waiting for me to continue. I let out a breath slowly. “All I know is I awoke in a lab strapped to a table with a scientist performing experiments on me.”
Mom’s hand tightened in mine, but I continued, “I broke free and helped a girl escape who had lost her eyesight at the labs. She told me later that they had turned me into a werewolf.”
“A werewolf?”
I had anticipated the surprise in Dad’s voice, and the doubt, but the brush of fear that touched Mom’s eyes gripped my heart in a tight fist. I pushed on. “I’ve found others like me, and they’ve helped me learn how to control the wolf side. I can handle it, but the scientists want me back.”
This time it was Mom who spoke. “Were the others created at the labs, too?”
I shook my head. “They were born werewolves.”
She let out a small breath, her joy of having me home warring with the realization that there were othe
r monsters out there like me. Dad took her other hand and squeezed it gently. “Kaynan’s home, sweetheart. The rest will work itself out.”
She closed her eyes for a moment, then opened them again and smiled. She put both of her hands on my cheeks. “We love you no matter what, Kay. Dad’s right. Everything will work out.”
“Colleen should be alive, not me,” I forced past the knot in my throat.
Dad shook his head. “Kaynan, you're here. By whatever grace or miracle you've been given, you have a second chance. We lost both of you. Never regret for a minute that you're back, because we won't.” He took a small breath. “You're here, and you are our son no matter what they did to you.”
Mom's gaze became critical. “Werewolves need to eat, don't they? You're skinny as a twig.” She pulled me to the table and forced me to sit down. I almost laughed aloud at the sudden strength and determination that returned to her as though it had never been absent.
While she pulled food from the refrigerator, I looked around the kitchen. It was the same as before the accident, warm, cheery, lit with the soft yellow lights Mom loved and the brown hues of the cupboards Dad had put in a few years back. Sitting at the table felt like such a reality check I could barely remember I had ever been gone.
“I hope you have a hearty appetite,” Mom stated, coming back from the kitchen. She slid a plate loaded with roast and potatoes onto the table in front of me.
I looked to Dad for help, but he merely shrugged with a smile, his eyes still on me as though he could barely believe that I was sitting at the table again. “When it comes to food, there's no arguing with your mother. You know that.”
I fought back a smile and took a bite. The taste of my mother's seasonings and gravy made me feel more real than anything that had happened so far. “There'll be seconds where that came from,” Mom stated. She sat down next to me with a second bowl, ready to swap it for the first. Her hand stole across the table while I ate to touch my arm. She lifted her gaze to Dad's and they both smiled with shining eyes.