by Бри Деспейн
“Jude?” I flicked the light switch a couple of times. Nothing happened.
My footsteps kept time with my heartbeat as I walked deeper into the dark room. Apprehension tightened in my muscles. Tingling pain spread through my tendons. My body was preparing for something—flight or fight.
I passed the sofa bed, inspecting the crumpled sheets for the phone Daniel said he’d left there. Daniel opened the bathroom door and cautiously eased inside the tiny room. I heard the opening and closing of cabinets, and then the rustling of the shower curtain.
The tingling pain spread to my fingertips, and I tightened my hand around my cell phone. I hit the Redial button once more. I could hear the ringing through my end before the metal tone of Daniel’s phone began. The noise was soft at first, but then it rapidly got louder and closer.
My body whirled on instinct toward the sound. I landed in a crouching position, ready to pounce. A small growl escaped from my lips.
“Whoa, Gracie!” Daniel said. He stood in front of me, his hands up in a defensive position, and his cell phone clutched in one of his fists. “It’s just me. I found my phone in the shower.”
I lunged at him and threw my arms around his neck. “Holy crap, I thought you were … were …” I held my breath and pressed my moonstone necklace to my chest, letting anxiety slowly drain out of my body. I don’t know exactly what I’d thought was behind me. A werewolf with a phone in its jaws? I felt positively ridiculous now.
“It’s okay.” Daniel brushed his fingers through my hair. “Nobody’s here.”
“But someone was here,” I said. “Unless you have a habit of talking on the phone in the shower.”
“Try using your powers to tell if it was Jude,” Daniel said. “Use your senses like I taught you.”
I didn’t have much hope that it would actually work, but I took a deep breath, held the air in the back of my mouth, and tried to let it fill my senses like Daniel had explained to me at least two dozen times in the last few months. I was supposed to be testing the air for hints of my brother, trying to sift out a faint familiar taste or smell beyond Daniel’s almondy scent and the tang of oil paint that always filled his apartment. I let my breath out in a long, frustrated hiss.
Daniel gave me a hopeful look.
I shook my head. I’d failed again.
“It’s okay,” Daniel said. “It’ll come. It just takes time.” That’s what he always said.
“Yeah, I know.” I hoped he wasn’t going to launch into his usual speech about how it takes balance, and how I’m doing great so far, and how most
Urbat take years to develop their powers. “Besides, I don’t even know if I remember what my brother smells like, and I certainly haven’t ever tasted him before.”
Daniel smiled. Lecture averted.
I took his cell phone from him and used my human eyes to inspect it for clues. The face was cracked, like it had been dropped, and I was surprised it still worked. I checked the time and the number of the last call made from the phone. “He definitely called me from this.” I shuddered.
“He was right in here while we were just outside.”
“What did he say?” Daniel asked.
“He said I was in danger. That we were all in danger. He said, ‘They’re coming for you,’ and that I couldn’t stop them. And he said that I couldn’t trust someone else …” I bit my lip and hesitated. “I don’t know, but I think he meant you.”
Daniel crossed his arms in front of his chest. “Sounds like his feelings toward me haven’t changed.” A look of concern settled in his dark brown eyes.
I wondered if he was thinking the same thing as me—that maybe Jude had other intentions for breaking into the apartment. Maybe Jude had thought Daniel would be here alone and vulnerable? But that didn’t make any sense. If he had wanted to attack Daniel, my presence certainly wouldn’t have stopped him. It hadn’t stopped him before.
“Did he say anything else?” Daniel asked.
“No. The call cut off. I think he dropped the phone. He seemed nervous. Maybe his hand was shaking.” Or maybe he’d been about to go through the change.
“Do you think he was messing with you?” Daniel asked. “Maybe this is just some kind of twisted game to him. He never wanted us to be together in the first place.”
“I don’t know.” I looked down at the phone in my hands. “I guess it’s possible. But it doesn’t make sense that he’d come back here just for a practical joke. I think he’s got some other motivation.”
Maybe it was my new wolf instincts taking over again, or maybe it was just some kind of sibling connection, but something deep down told me that Jude was right … we were all in danger. I just didn’t know if he was the one we were all in danger from.
CHAPTER TWO
Benefit of the Doubt
HOME, TWENTY MINUTES LATER
Daniel insisted on following me home on his new—to him, anyway—motorcycle. I drove slowly as I navigated the few miles between my house and
Oak Park, scanning the streets as I went. I slowed every time I came upon a pedestrian, which wasn’t often, since it was after ten o’clock.
I dialed Dad’s cell phone over and over, but it kept going straight to voice mail. What was the point of his finally getting us all cell phones so we can stay connected if he always forgot to charge his? “Call me,” was the message I left each time. Considering how much energy he’d put into looking for Jude over the past few months, I didn’t want to just tell Dad on his voice mail about his being back. That was the kind of thing you sprang on someone in person, preferably when they were standing—okay, sitting—right in front of you.
Chaos was the only word that could describe the scene that met us when I opened the front door to my house. The ten o’clock news blared from the family room, like someone had turned it up to full volume to hear the anchorman speaking over the sounds of James’s wailing as he thrashed in
Charity’s arms on the stairs. It looked like she was trying to haul him up to his bedroom, but the toddler flailed so hard they were both in danger of falling down the steps.
The vibration of the sound suddenly burst tenfold inside my head. I winced and clasped my hands over my ears. Great time for my superhearing to decide to pay me a visit. “What’s going on?” I called over the din. “I put James to bed two hours ago.” I’d made sure James was tucked in for the night and Charity was started on homework before I’d left for the evening. It was the least I could do with Dad being gone.
“I don’t know. He woke up screaming about an hour ago,” Charity said, narrowly missing getting smacked in the face by James. “I finally got him calmed down, but then he started freaking when I tried to take him back to his room. I think maybe he had a nightmare that there was something at his window.”
I exchanged a look with Daniel. He nodded. What James had seen at his window might not have been a nightmare.
“Arg, James! Stop!” Charity yelled as James arched his back in her arms and kicked his legs. She nearly lost her grip and almost dropped him down the stairs.
“I’ll take him.” Daniel slipped past me in the doorway and pulled James out of Charity’s arms. “Calm down, Baby J,” Daniel said, and bounced him on his hip. James quieted almost immediately and wrapped his trembling arms around Daniel’s neck. Daniel was still his mighty hero, and
James, in his footie pajamas, looked so tiny wrapped in Daniel’s strong arms. I couldn’t help remembering the way Daniel had caught him when he fell off that forty-foot cliff in the woods behind our neighborhood.
“How about I read you a story?” Daniel asked, and nuzzled his nose against James’s cheek.
James nodded and wiped his puffy, red eyes.
“How about that Wild Things one? I like the kid with the wolf suit.” That was James’s favorite book—a present from Daniel when he turned two six months ago.
James shook his head. “Nah, too scawey.” His chin quivered. He must have really had a fright.
“Winnie-the-Pooh, then?
” Daniel swung James onto his shoulders and looked at me. “I’ll put James to bed.”
“Thanks,” Charity and I said in unison.
I watched Daniel trot up the stairs, talking to James in his best Eeyore voice—which sounded more like Marlon Brando, if you ask me. How could anyone not love him? And why would Jude still think he couldn’t be trusted?
“Finally,” Charity grumbled. “I’ve got like three more pages of math homework to do.”
“I’m sorry. I wouldn’t have stayed out so late if I’d known.”
“It’s okay.” Charity traced the grain on the oak banister with her finger. “You’re not the one who should be dealing with James anyway.” She glanced down the entry hall toward the family room. “Do you think you can get Mom to turn it down? I really need to concentrate.”
“So it’s Zombie Queen mode again?”
Charity nodded.
I should have known better than to think a day with Aunt Carol would have made Mom feel any better. Carol liked to come out to “help” every once in a while when Dad was gone, but her snide remarks about how our Divine little family wasn’t so perfect after all got old really fast.
“Wonder how long it’ll last this time,” Charity said, and headed up the stairs.
I sucked in a deep breath and made my way to the family room. James had stopped crying, and I could even make out a trill of his laughter coming from his bedroom, but the TV volume was still up at full blast. My ears throbbed as I got closer to the set. I picked up the remote just as the newscast started in on a new story.
A reporter stood in front of a police line outside a jewelry store called the Family Jewels that I’d passed more than once while in the antiques district of the city. “Two jewelry stores were hit in broad daylight in the last two days,” the reporter said, “but with no eyewitnesses of these bold crimes, the police are left scratching their heads. Employees at both stores claim to have been knocked unconscious before seeing anything, and both stores were completely vandalized and robbed of all their merchandise in a matter of minutes. Security cameras failed to pick up anything at either scene, and authorities speculate that the cameras were somehow disabled before they were able to capture anyone on film.”
The screen cut to a plump anchorman with puffy hair sitting behind a desk. “Wow, Graham,” the anchorman said. “These robberies sound frighteningly familiar, don’t they?”
“Yes,” the reporter said. “These two robberies may be related to a string of other bizarre and unexplained thefts and attacks in the city, which we’ve reported on in the last few months. But it seems the police are just as baffled as everyone else.”
“Hmm,” the anchorman said. “Perhaps we should all be worried that the Markham Street Monster has turned to a life of organized crime.…”
I turned down the volume, cutting off the anchorman chuckling at his own lame joke. I never did find any kidding about the Markham Street
Monster funny—especially now that I knew the truth about it … or him, I guess I should say. Mom didn’t protest my messing with the volume. She just stared at the footage of bystanders being interviewed about the mysterious robberies. Her eyes flicked from face to face in the crowd. I knew who she was looking for.
“Mom?” I picked up the empty wineglass and the bowl of cold tomato soup off the coffee table in front of the couch. “You didn’t eat. Do you want me to make you something else?”
Mom shifted slightly so she could see the TV past my legs.
“Dad said I should call Dr. Connors if you stopped eating again.”
She didn’t even blink.
Every ounce of me wanted to tell Mom about Jude’s calling. That he’d been right here in Rose Crest. That I’d talked to him. That while she was busy watching the news for any sign of him, he may have been right outside her other son’s window.
But it was that last thought that stopped me. I didn’t know why Jude had come back. I didn’t know what he wanted. I didn’t know if he was more monster than human now, staring into the windows of the people he’d once called his family. And I didn’t know if he’d even come back again after tonight. What I did know was that it was best not to say anything to Mom—at least for now.
She reached for the remote and clicked the volume up a few notches. I took her bowl to the kitchen sink and dumped out the contents, watching the red of the congealed tomato soup slip down the drain. I rinsed the bowl and then started in on the rest of the dishes, filling the sink with the hottest water possible. I don’t know why, but I liked the way heat swallowed my hands as I plunged them into the scalding water and scrubbed the dishes. Mom’s Zombie Queen mode always made me want to feel something extra—like I was feeling pain for both of us.
I prayed silently while I scrubbed a pot that Mom wouldn’t see anyone on the news she thought looked like Jude. She’d get all worked up, call
Dad, and make him go looking in whatever city or state or even country she thought she’d seen him in. And Dad would go, even if he’d already been gone for almost two weeks, because maybe this time it really was Jude. Maybe this time he’d find him and bring him home.
I’d been just as hopeful as Mom the first time she thought she’d seen Jude on the TV. I’d waited with her by the window all night long while Dad was gone looking for him. But when Dad came back—alone—it felt like Jude had left all over again. Mom didn’t eat for an entire week—that is, until she thought she saw Jude in the background of a CNN newscast about an industrial fire in California. But that didn’t pan out, either, and Mom only got worse the longer Dad was gone.
The third time he left to follow one of her wild leads—a bear attack in Yellowstone, where a dark-haired boy supposedly saved a young girl from being killed—I got angry. I’d stood in front of the door, my arms crossed, unwilling to let Dad leave. But he took my hand and sat me down on the porch. “You know the story of the Good Shepherd, don’t you, Grace?”
I shook my head, even though I did. I was too upset to speak.
“The Bible says that a good shepherd, even if he has one hundred sheep, if he loses but one of them in the wilderness, he must leave the other ninety-nine behind to go looking for that one.”
“But doesn’t that mean he’s basically throwing the rest to the wolves?” I asked.
Dad sighed. “It’s what I did for Daniel—helped him no matter what. It’s what you did for him. Now we owe that to your brother, too.”
I couldn’t argue with that.
Dad squeezed my fingers. “Besides, I’m leaving the rest of the family in capable hands,” he’d said, then he got up and left.
But I didn’t feel very capable right now. I mean, what was I supposed to do when the lost sheep found us and the Good Shepherd wasn’t here?
And what if the sheep wasn’t a sheep at all?
What if he was the wolf?
LATER
I’d almost emptied the sink when Daniel came into the kitchen. “James is finally down.” He brushed my arm and then picked up a towel and dried a saucepot.
“Thanks,” I said, and handed him a newly washed cup.
He frowned at my reddened skin. “You should take better care of yourself.”
I looked at my hand and then closed my eyes, concentrating on erasing the pain. I waited a few seconds, but when I opened my eyes, my skin was just as red and tender. I wasn’t surprised.
“I should get my mom to bed,” I said, and dried my hands on my pants.
“Do you want me to stay here? Just in case Jude … comes back. I can sleep on the couch.”
As much as the idea of Daniel’s spending the night made me feel better, almost as if my dad were here, I knew it couldn’t happen. “That might push my mom over the edge,” I said.
“Hmm. Good point.”
“Then again, maybe that wouldn’t be such a bad thing. Getting a reaction out of her would be almost worth it.” I was glad I wasn’t going to be grounded for coming in after the ten o’clock news had started, but as much a
s I hated Mom hovering over my every move when she was in a
Crazed Mother Bear manic state, it was still preferable to the zombie zone she was in now.
Daniel’s devious grin slid across his face. He took my hand gently in his and brought it up to his lips. The look in his eyes as he kissed my reddened knuckles made my knees ache, and for a moment I wished we were still lying in the grass together.
“Not a good idea,” I whispered, and pulled my hand out of his. If Mom did come to her senses, I’d be grounded for the rest of my life.
“As you wish,” Daniel said, and picked up another cup to dry. “I’ll help you finish this up before I go.”
I sighed. I knew the house would feel empty and cold the moment he left. Every sound would make me jump. Every minute would drag on for a year until I finally fell asleep. “I wish my dad were here at least … but I doubt he’d be able to protect us, either.”
Daniel frowned and put down the cup. He shifted his weight from his bad leg to his good one.
A wave of guilt washed through me. “I didn’t mean you.” I put my hand on his shoulder. “I didn’t mean to say that you couldn’t protect us anymore. I was talking about me, I swear.”
“It’s okay. I know I can’t, Grace. It’s kind of a side effect of losing my powers.”
“But you’re still strong. You could—”
“No.” Daniel finally looked back at me. “But you can … someday. I promise. You’ll get the hang of it.…”
“I have a feeling someday isn’t going to be soon enough. I think Jude called me because he needs my help.” I looked down at my stupid red hands that refused to heal. “But I’m not strong enough to do anything.”
“Grace, you’re the strongest person I know. You’d have to be to save me the way you did. You can be a hero like you wanted.” He lowered his voice and glanced back at my mom on the sofa, as if he was worried she might actually be paying attention to us. “You have all this power just beyond your fingertips, and we’ll figure out how to reach out and grab it for good. All you need is a little more time and patience and balance, and we can make it work. Maybe we’ve been pushing it too hard to begin with. Maybe we need to ease into it more. Take more time with your lessons …”