Altered

by Kimberly Montague

  Devlin rubbed Butcher's head. "He’s just a big cuddly boy, aren’t you Butch?"

  "Well." Gabriel’s voice was gruff and strong. He stood with his shoulders pulled back and a stern look on his face. "He may seem cuddly, but he would bite your head off, or other body parts—" He looked toward Devlin’s crotch making my whole body turn beat-red. "—if you were to hurt someone in this house."

  Devlin stared up at him with wide eyes, and I slapped my hand to my face.

  Gabriel cleared his throat. "I may not have big teeth, but I do have a shotgun. So you’d better watch your step young man. Is that understood?"

  I swear I almost died right then and there as I glanced over to Sonya for help in shutting her dad up. She had her hand hiding her mouth, and her eyes squeezed together obviously trying not burst out laughing. Clearly, she would be of no assistance to me. Evelyn was smiling warmly at Gabriel looking quite proud.

  Devlin straightened up and put his hand out to Gabriel. "I can respect that, sir," he said strongly and very solemnly. "I can only hope to gain both your respect, sir, once you’ve gotten to know my honorable intentions toward everyone in this house."

  Gabriel shook Devlin’s hand with a small smile on his lips. "Well now, Butcher and I look forward to that."

  Testosterone clearly appeased, I breathed a sigh of relief. Gabriel went back down to the den while Evelyn mentioned food, pulling Sonya into the kitchen with her for help.

  Being alone with Devlin was unnerving, to say the least. I didn’t know what to do with my hands or if I should just stand there or sit down. When he stepped forward, slowly entering my personal space, I was struck dumb.

  "You look beautiful," he said, reaching out to put his hand on my waist. "I, uh—"

  An abrupt knocking on the door interrupted Devlin and made him jump back away from me. Butcher started growling again taking his stance in front of me as Gary opened the door and walked right in.

  "Hey man," Gary said, slapping Devlin’s hand. "What’s up?" Devlin nodded at him, but didn’t say anything. Gary came over and hugged me, patting Butcher on the head. "It’s just me Butch, save the growling for Devlin here. He’s trying to steal your woman." As he laughed at his own joke, I covered my face with my hand again.

  "Gary!" Sonya bellowed. "We’re in the kitchen, come make yourself useful!"

  "Hey now," he yelled as he walked in that direction. "I’m always useful. I was born useful."

  As soon as he was gone, I thought Devlin might move closer to me again, but instead, he continued to stand there looking uncomfortable. "So." He stared down at Butcher. "Who all is gonna being here tonight?"

  Ahh, I finally put two and two together. He was worried Jay might walk through the door. Hadn’t Gary told him we broke up?

  I decided it was best to just put him out of his misery. "Jay won’t be here." I watched his face carefully. He simply nodded as he reached out to pet Butcher. "We… broke up… today."

  A very slow smile spread across his sharp features. His sexy, full bottom lip stretched across his perfectly straight teeth, forcing thoughts of his kisses into my mind. He took a step forward again still watching Butcher, but reached out toward me. When he looked up, his eyes were so lively and light. "In that case, can I kiss you?"

  Unable to stop from laughing, I could only shake my head in response.

  "Then, at the very least—" His hand touched mine. "I can hold your hand." The feeling of his fingers intertwined with mine was certainly something to celebrate, and I found myself in a wonderful party mood.

  Devlin kept in contact with me all night long, rarely taking his hand from mine. We sat around laughing as Gary and Sonya told Devlin stories from when I was younger. Every time I got embarrassed and thought Devlin would start laughing at me, he just pulled me a little closer and kissed my forehead. Being so close to him physically for so long dulled the crazy intensity we always had and made it easier to be calm and relaxed.

  After dinner, we sat on the patio enjoying the unseasonably warm weather. Someone was burning leaves in the distance and Gary was talking about the senior camping trip we would be going on that weekend. When Evelyn brought out the cake, Gary made up his own awful "Welcome Home" song that had me laughing so hard I thought I might pee my pants.

  "Dude," Devlin said laughing, "you are so not the next American Idol. Simon would say, 'that was repellent, self-indulgent nonsense.'" His imitation of a British accent had us all holding our stomachs from laughing too hard.

  After cake, Gabriel and Evelyn picked up our plates. "Well, kids, you’ve got school tomorrow, so it’s time for the gentlemen to be heading home."

  "Gentlemen?" Sonya asked, laughing. "But what about Gary and Dev?" I joined Sonya in finding it much funnier than it was. Clearly, the frosting had gotten to us.

  "Not gentlemen?" Gary asked, pretending to be insulted. "Vaughn, if I weren’t a gentleman, I would pick Sonya up." He proceeded to do just that. "I would carry her to the pool."

  "Gary! Put me down!" Sonya screamed through laughter.

  "And I would throw her in!" Gary continued.

  She squealed and pounded on his back. "No! Gary don’t! You’re a gentleman, okay? You’re totally a gentleman!"

  He put her down, but held her close to him near the edge of the pool laughing. Anyone could see they totally liked each other. I couldn’t help but smile and shake my head over their attempts to avoid the truth.

  "What are you laughing at, beautiful?" Dev whispered warmly in my ear.

  "It’s just pointless for them to fight it," I whispered back.

  "Hmm," he breathed on my skin, sending chills down my back. "Like it’s pointless to fight what’s between us?"

  "Exactly." I smiled into his eyes as I pulled his mouth to mine. Just as our lips connected, Gary interrupted us again.

  "Come on now, we should go before you ruin that good reputation you’ve been working on with Gabriel all night. You’ll see her tomorrow."

  We both stood up, and he pulled me into his arms, kissing the top of my head. "So." His whole body stiffened, which confused me. "Uh, how do I act around you tomorrow? I mean, can I hold your hand or..." his voice trailed off. It was so surprising that this huge confident guy seemed to keep being reduced to a vulnerable little boy.

  I almost smiled at it, but I didn’t think he would appreciate my reaction given the serious topic he introduced. I thought carefully about how to answer his question. "I don’t want to hurt him, Devlin. We just broke up, and I’m gonna show up the next day flaunting my new boyfriend?" It took me about half a second to realize I had just blurted out that he was my boyfriend when he had never asked me to be his girlfriend. Trying to backtrack, I added, "I mean, if you want to, um…" I needlessly pulled my hair behind my ears, suddenly feeling super self-conscious.

  He laughed lightly, bending down to look into my eyes. "Okay. I can deal with not being your boyfriend at school just as long as I know that I am your boyfriend. Am I?"

  "You are if you want to be." I smiled, biting my lip to keep from looking like a grinning moron.

  His voice was clear and strong as he tilted my chin up to kiss me softly. "Oh yeah, I want to be."

  "Alright, you’re her boyfriend," Gary smacked Devlin on the back. "Now let’s go before you two make me throw up a perfectly good piece of cake."

  The Lone Pine Mountain Devil

  That weekend, the senior class of Kennedy High embarked on a new and wondrous adventure into the outdoors. On Saturday morning, a large contingent of seniors piled onto school busses and headed far, far, away. Okay, it was really only about two hours away, but it felt much farther. We were heading out to the tallest peak in the US, Mount Whitney, to camp in the valley below.

  The boredom of being trapped on a bus for two hours is something I just can’t fully describe. It started out fun. We loaded the busses, spent ten minutes arranging and rearranging ourselves inside the bus until everyone was at least slightly happy about their seating arrangement. Of course,
I sat next to Sonya with Gary behind me. Although Ted started out perched on the seat next to Gary, negotiations soon ensued resulting in first Justin, and finally Devlin on the seat behind Sonya. When I turned around and found him there winking at me, all I could do was roll my eyes and smile at how he finagled his way into that seat.

  Sonya had her camera out taking pictures of everything, but when we took a moment to glance back through them, hardly any of them were decent. She laughed at herself, knowing that she was never technologically friendly and handed the camera to me, proclaiming me to be the trip photographer. As I stood up to take pictures of everyone on the bus, I noticed Jay staring out the window seated next to Alec a couple rows back. His jaw was clenched, and his eyes were narrowed, forcing me to sit back down in my seat and prompting a wave of guilt to wash over me.

  After an hour on the bus, the window became boring—scenery is only interesting for so long. Sonya and I listened to her iPod, but it didn’t stop me from feeling restless. If the increase in noise was any indication, the others were becoming restless as well. Finally, I gave up on the window and turned around on my seat placing my knees on the bench so that I could peer over at Gary and Devlin. Devlin’s eyes were on me immediately, sparkling like always.

  "I’m bored," I announced smiling. "Entertain me."

  "There's not enough room for me to get up and dance, Evie," Gary chimed in, stretching his arms up in the air. "Thumb war?"

  "You always win—your thumbs are way too big for me to compete with."

  "I can entertain you," Devlin said with that crooked grin.

  I had a good idea of what he had in mind as I'm sure the blood that rushed to my cheeks gave away. While I would certainly be entertained, I somehow thought kissing on a bus filled with thirty seniors wouldn’t be a good idea. I hid my face in my arms which were folded across the back of the seat.

  "Hey now." Gary started waving his hands. "Let’s keep it G-rated, huh? There are children present."

  Devlin laughed, shaking his head at Gary. "You always say that. No, I have a story I can tell."

  Gary and I shared a look of skepticism.

  Devlin leaned closer to me, laying his arm across the back of the seat next to mine. "Have you ever heard of the Lone Pine Mountain Devil? My grandpa used to tell me about it."

  Sonya suddenly popped up beside me. "Oh! My Nana used to tell me stories about the Lone Pine Mountain Devil. It freaked her out!" The bus got quieter as those around us had clearly heard Sonya shrieking in excitement to discuss this legend.

  "Vaughn, what are you talking about?" Ashley asked from a row back.

  He pulled away from me and turned toward her. "The Lone Pine Mountain Devil, heard of it?"

  "No," she answered. "What’s that?"

  As I looked around, everyone within earshot—about twenty seniors—were watching Devlin in full interest.

  He gave me a look that said this was not what he'd intended. "Okay, well my grandpa used to tell me these stories when I was a kid. There’s this—"

  "Can’t hear you," Crystal yelled from the front of the bus.

  "Louder, Vaughn," Marcus said peering over the seat in front of me.

  Devlin put his arm next to mine again and leaned closer to me. He cupped his hand to the side of his face and whispered in my ear, "I thought I was just entertaining my girlfriend, not the whole bus."

  He pulled back, and I smiled at him encouragingly. "Your public awaits."

  "Alright." His voice boomed out over everyone as if he was calling out plays on the football field. "So, back in like the 1800s, a group of settlers were crossing the country to get to a mission near San Diego, but they never made it. They all went missing. There were forty of them—men, children and women, all gone. Back then, they didn’t send out a search party or anything like that. They couldn’t; the population was still too small to do anything like that. Well, finally, this priest shows up at the mission near San Diego. He’s exhausted and dehydrated and must have walked the whole way because he’s got no horse or anything with him. Well, they take him in, of course, and help him recover, and he starts to tell his story.

  "He says he was with this group of Spanish settlers traveling by stagecoach when they reached the Sierra Nevada Mountains and camped for the night. They were all excited about having gotten that far without any trouble, so they decided to have a little celebration for the patron saint of travelers—I forget his name,"

  "Saint Christopher?" Nina provided.

  "Yeah, that sounds right, Saint Christopher. So, they all danced around and cut down some trees to burn so the party could continue into the night. The party got out of control, turning wickedly sinful." The way he said the word "sinful"—narrowing his eyes and mimicking one of those TV preachers—made everyone smile. "And by sinful, I think you all know what I mean," he looked around conspiratorially before glancing at me with a wink.

  "Well, this wasn’t good, so of course, the priest left the group and camped in his own tent away from them. When he started hearing screams, he thought things were just being taken to a new level." He wiggled his eyebrows suggestively, making me smile. "When the screams became panicked, he finally opened his tent to see what was happening. He said he saw a furry creature like nothing he had ever seen before with several sets of wings, sharp, long nails like talons on a hawk, and several sets of sharp fangs. He knew it was the devil himself, so he crawled away as quietly as he could, praying for the souls of the settlers the whole way to the mission.

  "Several months after their disappearance, some copper miners were in the area when they entered a dark cave. The smell was horrific, and they stayed just long enough to see bodies on top of bodies of men, women, and children piled in the cave, their faces chewed off, and their stomachs completely gone. That’s what the Mountain Devil eats, the tasty flesh of your face and stomach, leaving you alive, but paralyzed from his venom while he feasts on you."

  Several faces in the crowd of students were contorted in disgust as everyone sat in silence digesting—no pun intended—the information Devlin had shared.

  "They say," Devlin began again, "that it attacks anyone who disturbs the natural environment of his mountain or disrespects him or his peaceful setting in his cave."

  "That’s such bullshit!" Jay’s very loud and very rude voice caught me off guard as he glared directly at Devlin, challenging him. It didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that this had very little to do with his personal opinion of Devlin's story.

  "No," Justin joined in. "It’s true. My grandpa still lives on the Paiute Reservation, and he told me all about it. He even told my dad he didn’t want me coming on this camping trip because we were going near the cave where the Mountain Devil lives."

  "He was just trying to see if his grandson was a freaking girl or not, Justin." The condescending tone Jay used and the way he narrowed his eyes at Justin made me wonder if he was just out to piss everyone off.

  "Well." Devlin looked directly at Jay. "The news has mentioned several times that that football player from Independence High that went all crazy and killed a bunch of people had recently been camping near the cave.”

  “Oh!” Litsey shouted from the front of the bus making me turn in her direction. “I heard that! His friends think he was possessed by the Mountain Devil himself."

  "We’re seriously going near this stupid cave?" Jay asked like a petulant child.

  "We’ll be right by it," Devlin challenged in response.

  "Okay then, let’s go see this Mountain Devil for ourselves if you’re so sure it exists." Devlin didn’t say anything, but everyone around us stayed super quiet as Jay got louder. "Unless you’re afraid of it?"

  "I don’t have a map in the back of my head, Jay. I don’t know exactly where the cave is. We could search for days and not find it."

  "He’s afraid," Jay antagonized, turning to everyone around him.

  "Fine, I’ll talk to the ranger when we get to the campground and see if he knows where the cave is, bu
t if no one can give us an idea of where it's at, I’m not gonna go hunting for it." Dev kept watching Jay who stuck out his chin and raised his eyebrow in challenge. "I didn’t come on this trip to spend my time getting lost in the woods, Jay. I came to hang out with—friends."

  I nearly hit him over the emphasis he put on that last word. Jay’s jaw clenched tighter than I had ever seen it, and his eyes were tiny slits of anger. I couldn’t watch, and instead, opted to hide by turning back around and slouching in my seat. Everything seemed to quiet down after that.

  "Well," Sonya whispered in my ear. "That was entertaining alright." She nudged me in the arm and smiled indulgently before handing me one of her earphones.

  I faintly heard more talk of the Mountain Devil, but managed to tune them out listening to music on Sonya’s iPod.

  When we finally arrived at the campsite, I learned that I had an unknown skill—I could assemble tents. Everyone tried to get their tents together, but I seemed to be one of the few that could actually figure out the purpose behind some long poles and some short poles. The tent I was sharing with Sonya, Sarah, and Litsey was up in record time, so I wandered from group to group helping out as they called for my assistance. It was nice to feel needed.

  Mr. Berg, Ms. Kasper, and Ms. Jones were our senior advisers and chaperone leaders for the camping trip, which was comforting because I had gotten to know them all pretty well. After all the tents were up and ready to go with our stuff tossed inside, we were all sent out to find firewood.

  Justin thought he was hilarious when he yelled out, "Don’t cut down any trees or you’ll piss off the Mountain Devil!" But several of the girls in our group appeared concerned, including me.

  As I wandered off with Sonya, gathering handfuls of wood, we were finally alone enough to discuss the bus "entertainment."

  "So." Sonya was bobbing her head slowly up and down. "That was a fun bus ride, huh?"

  "Yeah, I love seeing my ex-boyfriend antagonize my new boyfriend. Do you think Jay knows about Devlin and me?"