“Aren’t we all?” I retort, but Blake has already resumed his violent shoot-out with the enemy onscreen, so he can’t hear me. Figures.
And the Ben thing? Why couldn’t she have told me that sooner? “There has to be a way for him to un-mark me,” I mumble to myself, the words no sooner leaving my mouth than Jana returns.
“I couldn’t find peas, but I did find mixed veggies.” She lifts her shoulders, lets them hang there for a second, and then drops them. “Guess they work the same.”
I gladly take it from her, lie back on her bed, and drape most of the plastic bag filled with frozen greens over my face. “Thanks.”
Blake once again pauses the game, violent yelling and gunfire immobilized. I raise the icy sack from my face, only to realize both Jana and Blake have frozen—legs, hands, arms, faces, all unmoving—like the animated soldiers onscreen. Mid-action. Dead silent. Before I can ask what the hell is going on, pounding sounds on the other side of Jana’s door. I nearly jump out of my skin. Jana takes long strides across the room then jerks it open. Two adults stand on the opposite side—a man and a woman.
“There’s been a sighting,” the woman says.
Jana, breathless, asks, “What can we do?”
“The only thing we can do,” says the man. “Fight.”
Chapter Two
“Hold up. What do you mean fight?” I scoot to the edge of Jana’s bed, as if that can help me hear their responses better. “Does this have something to do with more cults around Hartford?”
The woman, who I now see has the same freckles on her nose as Jana, and the same short haircut—or Jana resembles her, I should say—casts a sideways glance toward her counterpart, who, I’m guessing, is Jana’s father.
Before the woman can respond, Jana says, “Mom, Dad, this is Candra.”
Now that she’s confirmed my uncertainties, I wish I had a camera to capture the looks on their faces. Is that shock? Horror that I dare step foot in their house, the one person who’s caused so many problems? No, it’s more like elatedness, because the moment Jana’s words register in her parents’ brains, their mouths stretch into the biggest damn smiles I’ve ever seen.
“Oh, Candra . . .” Mrs. Rendall exhales, eyes sparkling, hands clasped together at her chest. “It’s so nice to finally meet you.”
“Nice to meet you, too,” I reply. “Look, I don’t know if my family ever thanks Watchers for all the hard work they do, but they appreciate it.” What is this, a guilty party? Am I feeling like I should clean up the mess I’ve made and brown-nose while I’m at it?
Mr. Rendall’s booming voice fills the tiny room: “No need to thank us. We volunteered to do the job. Frankly, you guys need all the help you can get, and we want to clean up this town.”
Clean up this town? He makes it sound like drug addicts, gang members and prostitutes hang out on every street corner. The magic users generally find remote areas of the woods to practice their art, but lately they’ve been more blatant about locations, so that could be his reason. Plus, there are more of them now than there were two months ago. It’s going to take a while to rid Hartford of these alliances, but it’s going to take even longer to figure out why they’re actually practicing and how we can stop them.
One mission at a time.
“I hate to interfere, but we should probably get going,” says Jana.
“I’m coming with you,” I blurt, but Jana’s face is a telltale sign I’m not raiding anywhere tonight, except maybe the kitchen . . . to raid her ‘fridge.
“Sorry, Candra. You can’t go with us until after your birthday, once you’ve turned. We’d have no way of communicating with you out there,” she affirms, pointing toward the world beyond these walls.
I get it: the eerie psychic connection between my family and Watchers, the connection between werewolves of the same pack. Someone needs to remind me later how we’re able to speak via our minds. That’s just too weird.
“All right. I understand.” No need for me to pitch a hissy fit that won’t get me anywhere. I’ve got one more week before my human body takes the form of a werewolf, which is when all the fun begins. Oh, joy.
“Let’s go.” Mr. Rendall takes the lead down the stairs, followed by his wife, Jana and Blake.
As they near the rear sliding-glass door, Jana looks back at me. “We’ll be back before you know it.”
I nod, and they leave in a sprint. In the space past their backyard, before they reach the woods, their slow cries aim toward the sky—like the trees I saw earlier, pointing in the same direction. Their elongated snouts release the call buried in their chests, as if an overdue tension has been lifted. The sweet attraction of that cry, united with a deep echo of desire and loneliness and wild thirst, only intensifies my wishes to be with them.
What will it be like when I’ve changed? Lately, I don’t want to think about it. Jana and Blake have hinted that it can be quite . . . painful, like every bone and muscle and atom in my body will be set on fire, snapped, broken, extended and strained. There will be blood the first time around. I will cry and scream. I will ask for death, for someone to end it all, but nobody will take pity on me.
After the big birthday event is over, though, I won’t have to worry about the agony anymore. It’s just a one-time thing, according to my fellow weres. My body will grow more and more accustomed to changes and, with time, it’ll become way too easy. Am I scared? Hell yeah. But there’s also a speck of longing within me that wants this. I want to be out there with the others, helping them out. On nights like these, when I’m sidelined, I’m useless.
Since I’m accustomed to staying benched, however, I continue my tradition of what I do best—grabbing a throw and curling up on the couch. The remote is on the coffee table, so I don’t have to hunt for it, and with Jana’s parents subscribing to a million channels, according to the NASA space station on their roof, I don’t have to worry about what to watch.
Today is different, though. Today it’s as if the channel providers know I’m watching and purposely air their worst shows. I doze on and off for an hour or so, and am about to slip off again, when a loud crash, followed by clanging metal and hushed voices, sounds at the back of the house. I know this drill; we’ve practiced it a hundred times. If I hear anything at all out of the ordinary, I run to a bedroom, lock the door behind me, move to the bathroom, and then lock that door, all while keeping as soundless as I can. Easier said than done.
Today is definitely different, though, because I’m as frozen in place as Jana and Blake were earlier . . . and I’m staring directly into the faces of what caused that crash.
So much for safety drills.
Mr. and Mrs. Rendall, and Jana, are carrying Blake. After opening the sliding glass door so they can bring him inside, they scuttle past me and carry him to the kitchen table. The right side of his shirt is a steady stream of blood, and he’s moaning incoherently, rolling his head from side to side.
“What happened?” I ask, heart pounding in my ears.
“We were on the ridge and Blake decided he would get a closer look, but it backfired,” explains Jana. Her breathing is as untamed as mine.
“So, they saw him and used magic?”
Jana nods hastily. “He was too close and they spotted him and . . . and . . .”
I can see she’s worried, so I reach out and rest my hand on her arm, meant as a reassuring gesture. “He’ll be fine. We’ll get him cleaned up, all right?”
Jana ignores me, intent on helping Blake. She takes over pressuring his wound while Mrs. Rendall rummages through a first-aid kit, only surfacing with gauze, Band-Aids and Neosporin.
Mrs. Rendall shakes her head. “This isn’t going to work. He needs stitches.”
“Several, by the looks of it,” adds Mr. Rendall, having just lifted Blake’s shirt to reveal a deep gash. Deeper, even, than I had thought. This isn’t just a surface wound.
“What are we going to do?” Jana shrieks. Her voice reaches that higher pitch, the one sign
ifying panic has set in. “We can’t take him to the hospital and expect them to believe he was hit by shadowy, magical bolts.”
“Jana,” says Mrs. Rendall, waiting for Jana to focus on her. When Jana locks eyes with her mom, Mrs. Rendall finishes. “Go get me the sewing kit. Not the regular, the medical.”
A second passes before Mrs. Rendall’s words register in Jana’s mind. “Mom, no! You can’t just stitch him up like you know what you’re doing.” She makes a wide spread of her hands, showcasing the rest of us, and says, “None of us do.”
“Do you want Blake to bleed to death?” asks Mrs. Rendall, with the calmest demeanor I’ve ever seen in a situation such as this. “Jana, if we don’t get his side fixed, he’s going to bleed out. He lost a lot of blood on the trip over here. He can’t afford to lose anymore.” She presses her lips together in a firm line, eyes piercing through Jana’s. “Get me the kit,” she orders with finality.
Jana releases a noise mirroring a squeak, but then finds her courage and storms off in the direction of the back of the house.
“What can I do?” I ask, unsure of where my place is in all this commotion. If we misstep, Blake might not make it, and I couldn’t live with the thought of not helping at all if that happened.
Mrs. Rendall has taken over Jana’s place, keeping pressure on the wound. But it’s still not enough. The gauze is soaked, and blood seeps past without hindering.
“I need you to hold his legs down,” says Mrs. Rendall. “If you have to lie on top of them, so be it, but he can’t fight me when I stitch him up.” Her hands are red, drenched in Blake’s blood, but that doesn’t stop her from placing one on my forearm. “Whatever happens, you give it all you’ve got. Understood?”
God, this can’t be happening. Like I, Candra Lowell, seventeen-year-old werewolf-to-be, could hold down eighteen-year-old Blake Thomas, full-blown werewolf. This is seriously whacked. What if he’s so incoherent he decides to turn while he’s being stitched?
I can’t do this. I just can’t.
Jana returns with the sewing kit, but she loses color in her face when she sees Blake. She hands over the plastic square box to her mom.
“It’ll be all right, Jana,” says Mrs. Rendall. “I promise I’ll do everything I can to help him.”
Jana becomes fidgety, leaning close to her mom, dropping her voice to a whisper. “You know what you could do.”
Mrs. Rendall shakes her head. “He’s too far gone for me to try. If the circumstances were different, we’d still be out there, and I’d heal him.”
Wait, what? Heal him?
“Jana, I need you to hold down his arm. Your father will control his head and other arm while Candra takes his legs. In his state of mind, I don’t know what he’ll do. It’s best if we take precaution.”
Jana’s cheeks are wet, face still whiter than a fresh dusting of snow. I have no idea what she’s going through. All I can do is stand back and watch as her world collapses.
Everyone remains in position, as instructed by Mrs. Rendall. She measures, cuts and ties thread to a thin needle before taking a deep breath, asking if everyone is ready. We all respond in the affirmative. Carefully, tenderly, Mrs. Rendall glides the needle through one side of Blake’s skin to the other, forming the first stitch.
He doesn’t move.
For a minute, I almost believe him dead, but when Mrs. Rendall finishes the third stitch, it’s as if Satan has taken over his body. He thrashes, arms punching wildly, legs kicking anything in their path—including me. The tip of his shoe hits my cheekbone, sending me to the floor, flat on my back, head meeting hardwood. Let’s not mention the fact that I was hit in the same area earlier by Ali.
The pain is blinding, and I can’t see through the commotion above me. Is everyone else all right? Voices overlap each other, stacked into layers, until they’re one conglomeration of animated words drifting through the air.
“. . . him down!”
“Can’t . . .”
“Tie . . . up!”
My face feels like a baby alien is struggling to be released, pulsing underneath just before extending my skin. I groan, forcing myself to sit up and actually see. Figures move in front of me, but they’re all shadowed blurs. I rest a hand on my head, as if that can help stop the throbbing in my face and skull. Gradually, the room comes into focus.
Blake is unconscious again. Mrs. Rendall is frantically trying to repair the stitches that came undone during the struggle, and Mr. Rendall and Jana work to keep him down this time. I stand, almost losing my footing, but regain my balance.
“You okay, Candra?” Jana’s voice is the first to reach me following the chaos.
“Yeah,” I say, squinting in their direction, “I’m fine.”
“Think you can take over his legs again?”
“I can try.” I blindly reach my arms out, patting the air, searching for blue jeans and shoes. When I get a hold of my bearings, I’m able to find his familiar clothing. This time, though, I’m taking a preventative measure and situating my body over his legs. Looks wacky, but hopefully it’ll work.
Mrs. Rendall labors at a frenzied pace. If she’s thinking what I’m thinking, then she doesn’t want another psychotic episode spurring from Blake. Eight minutes later, however, she ties off the final suture, tapes a square piece of gauze over the wound, and holds her hands at an elevated position over his body. Closing her eyes, she inhales a deep breath and concentrates.
This must be her ability, her power. If I’m correct, this means she’ll be a valuable asset during any battle waged against the Conway’s. I’m surprised they’re not after her power instead of mine. Either side would be lucky to have her, but thank the stars she’s on ours.
Though my ears have only been filled with talk of powers and abilities and how they come to be, I’ve never actually witnessed someone other than Randy and Beth use them. Jana and Blake have never even spoken of theirs, and I’ve never known what my parents were gifted with. Note to self: ask them later.
“There,” says Mrs. Rendall, releasing a pent-up breath. “I’ve done all I can for him. Now he must rest.”
I slide off his legs, standing at full position again. “That’s it?”
“That’s it.”
“Aren’t you afraid he’ll go crazy again, leaving us at square one?”
Mrs. Rendall shakes her head. “I have faith he’ll be out for a while, long enough for him to heal.”
“Of course.” I roll my eyes. How can I forget? “Because werewolves heal faster than normal.”
Mrs. Rendall smiles at me, then glances toward her husband. “Come, love. Let’s leave them.”
As Mr. and Mrs. Rendall exit the room, my attention turns to Jana. She’s bent over Blake, holding his hand in hers, murmuring words to his unresponsive face.
Then, regarding me, she says, “I was so scared, Candra. We weren’t prepared at all. It’s like everything was in slow motion: Blake wanting to get closer, the witches turning around from their circle as he moved in, the one closest to us producing a black ball of energy between her palms.” She stops, not really seeing me, but through me. I imagine she’s replaying the earlier events over and over again in her head. Her eyes fill with tears. “I—I thought I’d lose him.”
“But he’s here now. Safe. Healing. All you can do is be here for him.”
She nods, one droplet trailing down her cheek and plopping onto the edge of the kitchen table. “That could’ve been you, you know.”
I tilt my head inquisitively.
“You wouldn’t have been trained, wouldn’t have been as strong as Blake.”
I walk around to the other side of the table, where she stands, and encircle her neck with my arms. “But it wasn’t me, Jana. I’m here, protected by all of you. And I promise this: when I do become a werewolf, I’ll give it my all.”
She sniffles, wiping away the next tear before it falls. “You don’t understand. We were going to raid that area in a week, after you turned. It was going to be a
surprise birthday present from my parents, for you to get in on the action.” She pulls back from my hold and watches me, waiting for my response. When I don’t generate one, she continues, “Candra, it would’ve been you. If everything unfolded next week as it did tonight, you’d be lying on this table instead of Blake. And, more than likely, you’d be dead.”
I regard her words for a handful of seconds before shrugging. “Good thing you didn’t wait because I hate surprises.”
Chapter Three
Over the next three days, Blake regains his strength, Jana’s emotions even out, and I want nothing more than to inflict destruction on those who injured my friend. Like cataclysmic destruction. I can only hope that, when I acquire my power, I’m imbued with one from Zeus.
Oh yeah, almost forgot. My parents arrived in Hartford. Again.
After the Halloween incident, they were on the next flight to Connecticut. When they realized how out of hand this feud with the Conway’s has become, they booked it back to Charleston so they could settle personal matters. Now that those issues have been taken care of, they’ll be residing at the Lowell residence. Indefinitely.
I still haven’t figured out what, exactly, they think they’ll achieve in Hartford. It’s not like they’re werewolves; they stopped changing when I was born, to focus on me and living a normal life void of shape-shifting and magic and constant feuding. Once you make that decision, you can’t change it—you’ll remain human for the rest of your life. Maybe they’re just here because they want to act as a support system. For me. So much has happened already, and they weren’t close for any of it. Now’s their chance to prove themselves, to keep me safe, and to be the extra helping hands.
“Your bruises look much better,” Mom says, passing me at the kitchen bar on her way to the coffee machine. I was so relieved when they didn’t freak about the black and purple marks all over my body.
Taking another bite of blueberry muffin, I manage to speak while chewing. “I’m still sore, but I’ll heal.”
Black Moon (Silver Moon, #2) Page 2