by Jeff Sampson
“What?” I asked.
“I’ve set up a meeting with the cheerleaders that they can’t get out of, tonight before the football game.”
“How’d you do that?”
He grinned and spread his hands wide. “I’m going to be filling in for Mikey as Gary, the Carver High Cougar.”
I opened my eyes wide and almost burst into a laugh. “The mascot?”
Sitting down next to me, he placed his arm around my shoulder. “Hey, I’m used to wearing fur by now. Wolf, cougar, same difference, right?”
I leaned into him and giggled. “Now this is a plan I can get behind. You’re going to look just so gosh darn cute wearing the giant head.”
“Hey now,” he said, leaning into me as well. “I’m always gosh darn cute.”
Our faces were close, so close that I could feel the warmth from his cheeks. I tilted my head, and he did the same, and we found ourselves meeting each other’s eyes. Once again my heart began to pound like a tribal drum, my hands began to tremble. We both moved closer, just a fraction of an inch.
The first bell rang, and we both jumped.
Laughing at our nerves, we collected our bags and ran toward the front entrance so we wouldn’t be late to homeroom. I reached my classroom first and waved at Spencer as he raced over the green linoleum to his.
One of these days I was going to just let Nighttime Emily take over completely to get over my nerves and actually kiss that boy.
Too bad I had to worry about that part of me only leaving it at a kiss.
You’re right, that part of me whispered in the back of my mind. I would devour that kid.
Blushing and smiling at the same time, I slipped into my homeroom, just as the final bell rang.
I expected the day to calm down after my eventful morning. Just class after class, lunchtime, more classes, then home.
It started out that way. But then I began to notice Megan everywhere I went.
Between classes she’d be leaning against a locker, as still and emotionless as she’d been by the tree. In the classes we shared, she’d sit at the farthest desk from me, off in her own gray world. At lunch she and Patrick whispered between themselves while he cast glances in my direction.
Not once did Megan look at me.
I didn’t know if she was giving me the silent treatment or what. It’s not like she would be above doing something like that, I mean, this is Megan we’re talking about.
But I couldn’t help feeling there was something else going on. Something strange. Because Patrick seemed terrified of me, which made me wonder what Megan had told him. And even though Megan was always staring off into nothingness, it was almost as though I could feel her eyes boring into the back of my skull no matter where we were in position to each other.
By the end of the day, I’d had enough. I understood her anger at me, really I did. But come on, at least talk it through with me, right? Have one final fight before we sever for good? Acknowledge that I, y’know, saved her frikkin’ life?
After school I was on the same bench where I’d sat that morning, waiting for Spencer to come out and give me a ride home. Somehow without my noticing, Megan appeared at the same tree I’d seen her at before school. Same position, same unreadable face. Almost as if she’d magically appeared there, waiting for me.
Taking a steeling breath, I stood, put my bag on my shoulder, and walked over to stand directly in front of her.
“Hey, Megan,” I said.
For a moment she didn’t move, didn’t even flinch. Nothing to acknowledge that I was there.
Then, slowly, her eyes came into focus. I noticed the blue of her irises seemed paler somehow, almost gray. She blinked once, twice, then met my eyes.
“Emily,” she said coolly.
I shifted feet uncomfortably. Behind me students screamed playfully and ran down the walkway toward the parking lot, but they seemed miles away, their voices distant echoes.
“It’s been a while,” I said. “How are you doing? I didn’t get to see you at the hospital after…you know…after you were attacked.”
She crossed her arms. “I know,” she said. “I told them I didn’t want to see you.”
Ouch. The way she said it so flatly, so emotionless…how do you talk that way to your best friend of eight years? How do you just shut yourself off after all you’d been through together?
Despite my best effort to keep cool, I felt my vision go blurry as tears formed. I didn’t expect it to feel like this, like a punch to the gut. I mean, Megan had been mean and desperate and dismissive toward me, I shouldn’t have cared so much after the way she treated me just for finding a few new friends.
But I still remembered the girl she had been just a few years ago, and the girl she was when we were alone together, and to have her talk to me like I was some insignificant stranger….
I sniffed and wiped at my eyes with the back of my sleeves. “Allergies, sorry,” I lied. Those growing tears wiped away, I went on. “I mean, I understand why you didn’t want to see me, but I still worried, you know. I’m just glad to see you’re good enough to be at school.”
She rolled her eyes then looked past me. “I don’t have super-healing powers like you werewolves, but you’d be surprised how well normal human bodies recover.”
I took a step back, wondering if I should just go, give her more time. “Yeah…”
An abrupt giggle burst from her mouth, and I blinked in surprise. “Not that I’m exactly normal anymore,” she said. I must have been giving her a strange look, because her expression went flat again and she waved her hand. “Oh, don’t worry, I know now you were right about the whole werewolf-bite thing not doing anything. It doesn’t matter, though. I don’t want your powers anyway. I’m…” She grinned, though there was no joy behind the expression. “Better now.”
“Better?” I asked.
Still grinning, she looked me directly in the eyes, but didn’t elaborate.
Something wasn’t right with her. This wasn’t just posttraumatic stress. I remembered what happened the previous Saturday, the shadowman entering her body, the way it clung to her until I’d pulled Megan so far away that the being was forced to let go.
Could it have done something to her? Despite all I’d done to try to save her, had that creature still done something to her?
Or was it just easier to think she wasn’t entirely herself than that she was actually better without me around?
I didn’t get a chance to ask. At that moment, Patrick came to her side, looming above me. He swallowed as he looked me up and down, then grabbed Megan’s arm and whispered in his British lilt, “Let’s go, Megan.”
Sadness at Megan treating me like a stranger gave way to anger at this whole stupid situation. It didn’t have to be like this. Megan wasn’t going to give me anything, so I rounded on Patrick.
Jumping forward, I jammed a finger into his chest.
“Ow!” he shouted. “What the hell?”
“So who are you, anyway?” I demanded. “You appear out of nowhere to live next to Spencer right when murders start happening; you read serial killer books; I see you at funerals for people you don’t know, at the hospital to visit people you never met. And now you’re hanging around Megan even though you wouldn’t give her the time of day when you two first met. So what is your deal?”
I stepped closer and, wide-eyed, Patrick took a wild step back, almost tripping over his feet.
“W-what…” he stammered. “I haven’t any idea what you’re talking about.”
Megan slipped between us, casual and smooth. “Don’t worry about her, Patrick. She’s just used to being the one keeping secrets.” Smirking, she added, “I guess she doesn’t like it when she’s the one in the dark.”
With that, she looped arms with him and the two of them walked toward the school entrance. I could only stare, confusion and rage coursing through me. Fists clenched at my side, I almost considered going full Nighttime to race forward, catch up to them, and demand answ
ers.
“What was that about?”
I turned to find Spencer veering off the walkway to come stand next to me beneath the leafless tree.
“I don’t know,” I said.
Looking back at Megan and Patrick, I saw them greeting a thin man with wire glasses just outside the doors to school. I recognized him as Mr. Savage, some counselor guy who’d been sent to school to talk to us after Emily Cooke was murdered. Or at least, so he claimed. He’d tried to talk to me more than once, and I found him incredibly off-putting.
Megan, meanwhile, was grinning at him and chatting as though they were old friends.
Something strange was going on. On top of everything else, I was going to have to keep an eye on Megan, too.
“Should we follow them?” Spencer whispered to me.
I met his eyes and forced a smile. “Nah. Let’s go home. You need to rest up for your big Cougar debut.”
We walked over to the parking lot to his mom’s minivan, making plans for how we’d approach the cheerleaders later. But I couldn’t stop thinking about Megan.
And even though she’d long disappeared from view, I still couldn’t help but feel like she was watching me.
5
I DO REMEMBER YOU
I’ve always been kind of a nut for organizing my things. I have files on my computer for each type of entertainment I own: DVDs, books, comics, video games. And in those files I have multiple lists for each: TV DVDs by series, movies by title, then movies by genre and title. There are separate lists for DVDs and Blu-rays, plus one combined list so I have my complete library in one place. Same for books, only it goes lists by author, lists by title, lists by series (organized by series name and another organized by author then series name), lists by genre. If I owned ebooks, I’d do the whole DVD/Blu-ray/combined list for books thing, too; I actually don’t sort my books by hardcover and paperback, but man, I probably should, shouldn’t I?
Uh, let’s just sum it up and say that I like to keep my things in order. And also that before all this werewolf business, I had a whole hell of a lot of free time.
Anyway, all this to say, after I got home from school to mercifully find the house empty, and after I checked my in-box to find it still empty save for spam, I pulled up a Word document that I’d created earlier in the week: “Things to Do.”
1. Rescue Dalton
2. Get Tracie back
3. Befriend the cheerleaders
4. Make sure all of us are trained hybrid
5. Find out once and for all what the deal is with BZ
I typed an X next to 2, then a / next to 3, 4, and 5—half an X, since I felt like we were halfway there on those points. Progress!
Thinking for a moment, I then added:
6. Find Evan
7. Figure out how much Dad knows
8. Find out: What is the deal with Megan?
Great. More things to deal with. But writing them down was the first step to getting it all handled.
Shaking my head, I saved and closed the document. I remembered the conversation Tracie and I had earlier about how she always needed to stay super organized. Maybe I’d tell her about my obsessive cataloging. We could totally bond.
The clock on my bedside table read 3:57. Still a few hours to go before Spencer was supposed to pick me up. I’d already texted Tracie to let her know when to expect us to arrive, and it was Friday, so I wasn’t exactly feeling the need to do any homework. Homework is just another phrase for “work you frantically finish at eight p.m. Sunday night.” Especially lately.
I spun in my desk chair, watching my room swirl around me. Invisible ants tingled over my skin and my leg kept shaking. Restless. Just a week ago I felt like I had no free time anymore, but now that I did, nothing that would have entertained me before felt exciting. I didn’t want to read about someone having adventures, I wanted to be out on the streets, running full throttle.
Maybe that wasn’t such a bad idea. Nothing strange about a girl going for a jog, right? It’d give me more time to think about the new additions to the list, as well as what I was going to say to the cheerleaders that night, and how we were going to deal with the face-off with our parents.
I spun my chair around to close my browser. Just as I was about to click the X in the corner, I saw a “(1)” next to the title of my in-box in the open tab. I had a new email.
I clicked the tab immediately to bring it to the front screen. At the top of my in-box was a message titled “RE: Hey.”
It was from Evan Cooke.
Not wasting a minute, I clicked it open and scanned the message.
Friday, Sept. 24, 2010—4:01 p.m. PST
From: evandetta
To: missleeleeweb
Hi!
So I’m not sure how much we should write in emails. But I want you to know that I think I know what you’re talking about and yes it happened to me too. I really, really hope this is for real, because things here have been insane and…well, I’m just going to hope you’re real. Let me know when you’re available to chat so we can talk in real time. I’m in the same time zone you are. Text me at 503-555-0858 anytime.
Evan
My heart raced and I couldn’t keep the smile off my face. Another pack member. I’d found another pack member! Deep inside, the wolf part of me howled, rejoicing.
Before I could hit reply or grab my phone to send a text, a chat window popped up on the side of the screen. At first I thought it was Megan—she was the only person I’d ever chatted with online, really, and I was used to the pop-up chime signaling a “wassup” from her.
But of course it wasn’t her. Evan must have seen my little chat symbol change from AWAY to ONLINE.
Evan: Are you there?
My fingers hovering over the keyboard, I considered what to type. He seemed eager to chat, like Spencer and Dalton had been when I first confronted them with the fact of our werewolfness. But he seemed a little bit wary, too, and what if I said the wrong thing and scared him off like I almost did with Tracie?
Taking a breath, I decided to just go for it and hope for the best.
Emily: Hi! Yeah, I’m here. I’m so glad you emailed me.
Evan: Well, same here. I can’t believe there’s others like me out there.
Emily: Well, there are. And we probably have lots to talk about.
I waited for him to respond as quickly as he did the first time. The guy was obviously not a slow typist. But it was a full two minutes before the little chat box said that he was typing again.
Evan: Actually, do you have a webcam?
Emily: Yeah, I do. Why?
Evan: I want to make sure who I’m talking to is who you say you are. Just in case.
Wow, he was certainly paranoid. But why shouldn’t he be? For all I knew, this was Mr. McKinney playacting as Evan Cooke. They already admitted they were watching us, though to what extent I didn’t know.
Emily: Good idea. I’ll hook it up.
A moment later, I had the little camera on my monitor aimed at my face and a square box featuring me in all my after-school flat-haired glory appeared above the chat window. A second later, my video box shrunk down to the corner and was replaced by the bigger, streaming image of a grown-up Evan Cooke.
Like his cousin, Evan was unreasonably attractive. Like, not just regular-people hot—unattainable movie-star hot. He had dark blond hair cut short, a slender frame, angular yet narrow features, and eyes so crystal blue that they were gorgeous even all pixelated.
Those Cookes had some crazy-good genetics. Or maybe the Cooke scientists decided since they were making their kids into werewolf monstrosities, might as well give them the upper hand of being super good-looking as a consolation prize.
Seeing me, Evan smiled—his teeth were straight and white. Of course. I smiled back, hoping that the video quality hid my own lack of perfectly pearly whites.
“Can you hear me?” he said, his voice coming through my speakers clearly. His tone was soft and pleasant. For some reason,
I felt right away like I could trust him.
“Yeah, I can hear you,” I answered. “How about me?”
He nodded, and his smile faltered. Leaning back in his chair he ran his hands through the sides of his sandy hair.
“So you definitely are a teen girl, at least,” he said. “That’s good. I was worried that you might be my mom messing with me.”
I tilted my head. “Your mom?” I asked. “Why would she fake an email?”
“Why wouldn’t she?” he asked back. “She was the one who made me like this. She’s been talking about how I’m ‘special’ for years and now that I’m changing and she’s proven she wasn’t schizophrenic all this time, she won’t let me talk to anyone. I’ve been going crazy over here.”
Okay. Whoa. So this was certainly different from how it was for the rest of us.
“We’re probably going to need to start at the beginning,” I said. “I mean, all of our parents kept this from us our entire lives.”
“They did?” Evan asked. Then, whispering to himself, he said, “That would explain Emily.”
“Your cousin?”
He blinked his big eyes, then looked back at the camera—at me. “Yeah, sorry, not you. It was just after my mom made us move that she started telling me about this ‘special’ stuff. She refused to let me talk to Emily after that for some reason, even though she and I were best friends since we were babies. She wouldn’t…” He looked down at his desk. “She wouldn’t even let me go to her funeral.”
“I’m sorry,” I said softly.
Shrugging, he looked back up. “That was when I started changing, so I was distracted anyway. Still. I would have liked to have been there.”
God. How sad. I mean, I stupidly, selfishly felt bad about Emily Cooke because of all these instincts telling me she was part of my pack. I’d never really known her, though. Not like Evan. They’d been more than cousins—they’d been friends.
I wasn’t exactly sure what to say. Coughing nervously, I decided to try and get back to business.