Scarred

by Amber Lynn Natusch

  I sighed dramatically.

  “Fine, but you're going to owe me. Big time.”

  He smiled wickedly. “I look forward to it.”

  * * *

  I hung around his apartment for an hour or so, waiting to hear what the plan was. In my defense, I did my very best not to snoop for the first five minutes, then spent the rest of my time rifling through drawers like a stalker, tapping on walls for hollow spots, and looking for mysterious seams in the floorboards. My overactive imagination earned me nothing but a monstrous and well-deserved splinter in my knee.

  Bored and a little embarrassed, I decided to clean up and head home. He'd call when he had something to tell me, at least that was what I kept telling myself to alleviate my brewing anxiety. I hoped he'd prove me right.

  My house was empty when I arrived, and, for once, I welcomed the solitude. So much had happened over the past week and I needed time to digest it all. I wanted to celebrate the snuffing out of the Rev, but that victory was overshadowed by Matty's impending Change. It was the night of the full moon, and, if Cooper's predictions were accurate, my future was only going to get more colorful, not less.

  When I found myself aimlessly pacing back and forth from the living room to my bedroom and back for over an hour, I decided to head down to the shop. I wasn't going to bother opening it to customers, not after everything that had gone down, but there was always paperwork to be done—the bane of a small business owner's existence. As I locked up the apartment door, my phone buzzed impatiently from my purse.

  “Hello,” I said, barely answering before it went to voicemail.

  “Ruby,” Sean answered. He was walking so forcefully that I could hear the fall of his steps through the phone. He was all business for sure. “I'm headed to Langley. I just got off the phone with Alan's contact. I'm going to meet him now.”

  “So you're going to be gone for a few days?” I asked, suddenly more nervous about the full moon. Scarlet hadn't kicked up a stink about it because she knew she was going to get that itch scratched, but if Sean was gone, that put me in a pickle.

  “No,” he said, car door closing in the background. “I'll be back tonight. I'm headed to my jet now, so—”

  “Okay, but...wait a minute. You have a jet?” I shouted disbelievingly.

  “Ruby. Focus.”

  “Right,” I replied, giving my head a shake. “Sorry.”

  “So I'll be back late tonight. I'm just going down to make contact with him in person. I don't want any more of this being discussed over the phone than necessary.”

  “Alright, but be careful. I'll see you later?”

  “I believe you will,” he said, sounding playfully predatorial. “Something about me owing you―I think I like being in your debt.”

  I thought I liked it a lot too.

  “Text me when you get back,” I said, thinking of all the wonderful ways he could repay that debt. My cheeks rosied in response.

  “Feel free to be naked and ready for me. I don't like to waste time,” he growled.

  “Roger that,” I replied, sounding breathier than planned. Trying to play it cool with Sean promising pleasure I could only imagine was impossible, though judging by his laugh, he appreciated my efforts.

  “Goodbye, Ruby.”

  He hung up before I could dig my hole any deeper. I fumbled my phone trying to put it away; I was too flustered to function. Taking a few deep breaths to pull it together, I recovered the phone and managed to climb down the stairs without incident to make it to the office safely.

  Much to my chagrin, there was a pile the size of Texas awaiting me on my desk in the back, and, with a sigh, I sat myself down to face the beast. Peyta had kept everything organized and filed, but the reality was that she couldn't write the checks or balance the books, not that I was a wizard at the latter myself. It took me hours to get through the massive stack, and that was without taking any breaks to eat, pee, or even peel my ass off the chair it was stuck to. When I walked out front, dusk was settling in outside. I leaned on the front counter to stretch my back and legs a bit, propping my right foot up on it as if it was a ballet barre.

  I watched through the window as the darkness slowly permeated, insidiously overtaking the sunset. Staring at the lamppost across the street, I remembered the first time I'd laid my eyes on the Rev in person. It really was gratifying that I never would again. It was even more gratifying that I wouldn't have anyone hacking into my mind at random intervals, sending me personalized horror shorts for my viewing displeasure. At least I hoped not. We hadn’t figured out the how's and why's of my visions, and in that moment I didn't care; I just didn't want them back again.

  When my legs felt sufficiently limber, I turned off the lights in the back and collected my things. My purse felt as though it sprang to life when I grabbed it, my phone shaking the worn-in leather. Once I located the source of the tremors, deep in the bottom of the bag, I fished it out to see who was calling.

  Matty.

  My night took an instant turn for the worse.

  18

  “Ruby,” he rasped into the receiver. “Something's wrong. I need you. Please...”

  I looked out the window to see the sunset had faded, moonlight shining down. It would take me just over an hour without traffic to get there in time, and, by the sound of Matty’s voice, he wasn't doing well; there was no time to spare.

  “I'm on my way,” I said, darting out the door. “Where are your parents?”

  “They went down to Jersey to see family, remember?” he grunted. “Jesus, you don't listen.”

  “Right...sorry. I was a bit preoccupied when I last saw you. Just hold on. I'll be there as soon as I can.”

  I hung up and jumped in the car, forgetting to lock up the shop or leave a note for Cooper. I made a mental note to text him when I got there; the car was moving far too fast to attempt any multitasking maneuvers.

  Coop's words ran through my mind as I sped south on Interstate 95: “I want you to stay away from him...he's dangerous...you can't be near him...not safe.” I was carelessly running into the epicenter of God only knew what—the ground zero of physiological chaos that promised me bodily harm and oh so much more.

  When I pulled up in front of the quaint, period home fifty-six minutes later, I didn’t remember a thing about the trip. I tried to walk up the driveway with some level of decorum so as not to alarm the neighbors, but at the first muffled cry I heard coming from the house, I sprinted to the back entrance. Nearly tearing the screen door from its hinges, I yanked it open, pushing my way through the heavy wooden interior door.

  “Matty!” I called from the mudroom, uncertain of where he was.

  “Upstairs,” I heard him grind out through gritted teeth. “My room.”

  The windows were open all throughout the house, so I quickly detoured, closing them all in a weak attempt to keep his painful noises contained within the home. Once I arrived at his bedroom, I nervously pressed the door open, uncertain of what I would find.

  I wasn't ready for what I saw when I walked into his room.

  He lay face down on the floor, an emaciated arm outstretched toward me. His other hand weakly grabbed the bed skirt, though it was clear he wasn't able to pick himself up. His body was utterly wasted.

  I'd seen pictures taken from the concentration camps in Auschwitz during World War II when Cooper made me watch a documentary on the Nazi party once. It never crossed my mind that I would ever see anything like that in person—ever—and yet there was Matty, easily one hundred pounds shy of his normal weight, sprawled across the floor in front of me. I swore he was dying.

  Frightened, I approached slowly, trying, and utterly failing, to keep the look of shock and horror off my face. I pressed down against the floor, kneeling next to him, engaging his hollow eyes.

  “I'm so sorry, Matty,” I whispered, tears rolling off my cheeks to puddle on the hardwood below. “I never wanted this for you. Any of it. I didn’t know this would happen.”

 
“Not your fault...,” he wheezed, wincing as he grabbed his abdomen. He was too weak to even curl in on himself to alleviate the pain.

  “But it is my fault,” I said, choking back a sob, “and I don’t know how to fix it.”

  “Then don’t,” he replied, before wincing in pain.

  “Then what can I do?” I asked, helplessly stroking his hair.

  Let me kill him, Scarlet growled from deep in my mind. “No,” I blurted out without thinking. It may have been the humane thing to do, but I just couldn't let her.

  Guilt was such a strange beast. It skewed your vantage point until you saw nothing as it truly was, just shades of the reality you painted to assuage it. Matty would be fine. That was the reality I needed.

  “I'm not following,” Matty said, his breathing becoming more labored. I had to look twice, but I would have sworn he was even thinner than when I first arrived. There wasn't going to be much left if something didn't improve―and quickly.

  “It's Scarlet...my wolf. We're disagreeing, which is really par for the course with us.”

  “She sounds like a good time,” he said, trying to push himself up.

  “Let me help you,” I said, gently taking his arm and ducking my head under it. The position was an ergonomic nightmare, leaving me bent forward so awkwardly that I was worried I'd actually face-plant rather than leverage him up. When it became painfully clear that our skills on the dance floor weren't translating so gracefully to the situation, he abandoned the idea, crashing back down to the tattered rug below.

  “Am I dying?” he asked, face blank, eyes cold.

  “I...I don't know,” I said, hedging. “I think you're Changing. Cooper said something about you the other day—that he knew you were Marked for it. I had no idea that this is what would happen, Matty.”

  “So I'm becoming a wolf, like you?”

  A wolf like me. I hoped not. My life had been suffered only because of Sean's affection for me, however strange it was. I didn't think Matty would be afforded the same courtesy, not that it would matter. Once Sean knew what happened, we'd both be dead. End of story.

  I looked at Matty lying on the floor in clothes that seemed to be growing around him, a cold clammy dew glistening his flesh. Cooper had said he'd be dangerous, but there wasn't even so much as a whisper of threat coming from him. He was the one who needed protecting, not me. I'd done wrong by Matty not once, but twice, and I wasn't going to do it again. I would see him through the night, successfully Changed, even if it killed me. After that, it was up to Scarlet. She would do whatever needed doing to ensure her own survival, and I'd have no way to stop her.

  I ran into the hallway bathroom and grabbed a towel, soaking it in cold water. The last time I'd been there it was Matty looking after me, making sure I was okay and taken care of. Ever the gentleman. Ever the Boy Scout. He may have had a more than checkered past, but that wasn't the person I knew, and I refused to let it tarnish our relationship. I'd done a bang-up job of that all by myself.

  It was time to call in reinforcements. I pulled my phone out of my coat pocket and hit up Cooper as I ran back to the room. Just before I entered, Matty let out a blood-curdling howl—right when Cooper picked up.

  “WHAT THE FUCK, RUBY!” he screamed, having quickly put two and two together. “Get out of there, NOW!”

  But it was too late. My feet had grown roots, seemingly penetrating the floor beneath me, rendering me useless. I slowly dropped the phone to my side. While Cooper screamed expletive-peppered commands at me, I instinctively fingered the “end” key, cutting him off from the horror I was witnessing. As Matty continued making the torturous, guttural pleas, I tried to make sense of what I was seeing. He looked like he'd been yanked up and quartered by invisible ropes, his head pulled so far back that his chest faced the ceiling. And it was very, very near it—he was levitating. I wanted to run to him, to pull him down and hold him until the pain that was clearly coursing through his body was gone. The pain that I had caused.

  Instead, I stood by, utterly transfixed, and watched as his withered body reforged itself, replacing the mass that had just hours before been there. The display was gruesome, but I steeled myself and watched as the fibers twitched and writhed beneath his skin—forcing myself to swallow my just desserts. His extremities were pulled so taut that I feared limbs were going to start popping off like crab legs in the dead of winter.

  The current of electricity that hummed throughout the house called to Scarlet, and it was all I could do to keep her at bay. I thought I could make it through his Change before having to deal with her. It looked as though there was a change of plans.

  I grabbed the door frame, digging my nails into it for the support and the discomfort. I needed to keep a clear head, and pain had always worked wonders for that.

  “Not your turn,” I grumbled, sounding as threatening as I could against the force within that could destroy me without breaking a sweat.

  Before she could respond, Matty crashed to the ground, his invisible bonds cut. I looked on as he lithely uncurled his body to his full height, facing away from me. My breath caught in my throat as he turned around slowly to pin flaming orange eyes on mine. Before I could move, Scarlet slammed through my mind, knocking me down and out for the count.

  It was the last thing I remembered.

  19

  It was a long drive back to Portsmouth.

  My hands gripped the wheel too tightly as I drove—a feeble attempt to stop them from shaking. I was supposed to go to Sean's that night, but I couldn't. Not after what had just happened.

  If I couldn’t go to Sean’s, then I couldn't go home either. I loved Cooper dearly, and, even with the tension we were having, I knew he would have been comforting to some degree, but there were things that women just couldn't share with a man. They couldn't just listen to you and not try to fix it. I didn't want to be fixed or reprimanded or lectured. Under those criteria, it was strange that I found myself on Ronnie's front porch.

  “Ruby...,” she gasped, covering her mouth with her hand. “What's wrong?” My state must have been more appalling than I'd originally thought based on her response. Before I could say anything, she whisked her arm around me, shuttling me into the living room.

  “I didn't know where else to go,” I sniffled, trying to maintain some level of control over my shaky voice. “Peyta's not home, is she?” I asked with a start, looking to the adjacent rooms for confirmation.

  “No. She's out with Jay,” she replied, sitting me down on the couch. “Wanna tell me what this is about?” Her eyes were sharp, but not unkind. She looked like a mother bracing herself for terrible news: stoic, but slightly shaken.

  The answer to her question was yes, but I couldn't find my voice. I tried several times to push the frenzy of thoughts that were tormenting me out into words, but I was paralyzed yet again, this time by fear. No matter how hard I tried to apply my “no running” policy, it failed because this time I wasn't trying to escape; I was frozen. Frozen with shame.

  “Sean called here earlier looking for you. He sounded worried,” she said, eying me closely. “Should I call him?”

  “NO!” I screamed, lurching towards her. I clasped her wrists in my hands and squeezed them so tightly they started to turn purple. “He can't know where I am. Promise me you won't tell him.”

  “I promise,” she said curtly, “but if you're going to get me into trouble with him, I need to know why I'm sticking my neck out for you.”

  And there it was—the price of doing business with Ronnie. She was willing to cover for me, but her silence came at a premium. If I wanted to keep what had happened from Sean, I was going to have to own up to it, and admit to both Ronnie and myself that I had done something horrible―irreparable. I had created another being that wasn't to be borne. The PC tolerated my existence because Sean demanded it. They would not suffer another. Matty’s death warrant would be signed the moment they found out. With my luck, they already knew.

  Sean knew everything.r />
  As for what had happened that evening, the situation had me completely beside myself; I didn't know what to say. I had no recollection of what took place after he locked his wolf eyes on me, like I'd been thrown into a dark box and stashed away. The bits I did remember from when I awoke had too many implications, none of which were favorable, and none of which I thought necessary to share with Ronnie. If I betrayed Sean, then I didn't need someone else making me feel badly about it. My guilt clung tightly to every part of my body, choking me, and I wondered how I could ever look him in the face again. He may have forgiven my sexual encounters with Cooper―I wasn't hopeful that I'd be given another pass.

  She sat across from me, staring at me with prodding but patient eyes. I knew I had no choice but to tell her. Facing her was far easier than the alternative.

  I told her everything—almost everything. I managed to leave out the tiny little part regarding my involvement in Matty's infection. That shame could be exposed another day. She listened quietly, which was somewhat unexpected, and waited until I appeared to have finished completely before saying anything.

  “What happened...,” she started, voice softer than I'd ever heard it before. “It's not your fault.”

  She had no idea.

  “I know, but—”

  “Listen to me,” she said, louder and more sternly. “It's not your fault. It's not really anybody's fault. You can't blame someone for being what they are.”

  “What?” I gasped, jumping away from her on the couch. “So I'm expected to sleep with everyone because I'm a werewolf?”

  “Ruby,” she said, trying to calm herself. “I need you to be quiet and listen.”

  I glared at her, thinking I'd picked the wrong person to confide in—a judgment error of epic proportion.

  “What was last night?” she asked, trying to lead me to her point.