Bump

by S.J. Finch

  Chapter 13

  School had never been fun, or in Ryan’s estimation, perfectly safe, but the following Monday was different. His teachers were insisting upon the importance of things like chemistry and history. Ryan’s mind however, was much too full; occupied with thoughts of an underground war being waged between armies that wielded incredible power. He thought about how the fate of a city, of millions of lives, might rest on the actions of six people in a ramshackle warehouse. Ryan was all too aware that sometime in the near future, he might decide to bear that burden as well. He looked at every face he passed in the halls and felt his stomach drop a little lower: whether that person lived or died might someday depend solely on Ryan’s actions. He had already thrown up twice that morning.

  In fact, from the moment he woke up the next day, Ryan had been dead set on calling Dr. Webster and backing out of the whole thing. He didn’t want to go back to the warehouse, he didn’t want to meet with someone named Ben. All Ryan wanted was to go back to his normal life, before the wolf. He didn’t want to have to decide whether to make himself accountable for every soul in his history class.

  As the day wore on, Ryan became more and more certain that he could never go back. What had happened, had happened. He knew he couldn’t get out of it and he couldn’t change it. What he could do was learn more about it. That meant he had to go back to the warehouse, to face the truth that he was a werewolf, and to learn all he could from another of his kind.

  He had left the warehouse soon after his discussion with Dr. Webster. Ryan had gone straight home and told all the lies and made all the excuses, and it struck him that this was what his life was about to become: whether he ever went back to the warehouse or not, he would never again be the person he was. He had inherited another life, and it was one he would have to keep steeped in shadow and secrecy. Ryan could never be completely honest with his parents ever again, and it saddened him.

  He had also had to tell some pre-planned lies. Ryan was headed back to the warehouse right after school: Ben would be arriving today, and Ryan didn’t want to put off getting answers any longer than he had to.

  Now it was just a matter of getting through the next few classes and, more importantly, dodging Vanessa. He knew that she would want to know everything that had happened, and that wasn’t a conversation Ryan was quite ready to have. He was still processing everything and trying to deal with the world as he knew it being shattered into a thousand pieces of crazy. To make matters worse, Ryan still had no idea what he was going to do about any of it. Mostly however, Ryan didn’t want to open up.

  Vanessa had seen Ryan at the lowest point in his life, and that thought brought a sick feeling to his stomach every time it crossed his mind. Ryan hated showing weakness in front of the people close to him, nothing made him more uncomfortable, but the weakness had been thrust upon him. She had been there when he needed her most and for that he was thankful, but Ryan still wished he had never needed Vanessa at all. He liked to think he was self-sufficient, and he liked for other people to see him that way. There were enough emotions, enough hand-wringing drama in high school as it was, and Ryan prided himself on being above all of that. Vanessa however, had seen the façade crumble and that bothered him. He didn’t want to crumble in front of her ever again, but his mind was so strained, his thoughts and feelings in such a whirlwind, that he knew he’d never be able to maintain composure if he started opening up to her.

  He had texted her when he first got home to let her know he was okay. Her texts and calls that had followed had gone unanswered. He knew she’d be furious, but for the way Ryan figured he needed to play it, he knew that was going to be an unavoidable cost of doing business. The way he saw it, Ryan had to get his head on straight: his world was changing in ways he could never have imagined and now was not the time to let Vanessa try to exorcise his inner demons.

  He almost made it, too. Ryan rushed from class to class and spent as little time in the halls as possible. He skipped the classes he had with his friends and thought he was home free. She cornered him, however, coming out of the bathroom before the last period of the day.

  “What the hell is wrong with you?” She demanded.

  Ryan felt his shoulder blades smack up against the cold brick of the school hallway. Vanessa’s face was inches from his and seething. They got a few looks from passersby but as soon as they saw Vanessa, they understood. Anyone that knew Vanessa knew that logic rarely wormed its way into her thinking when this kind of fire blazed behind her eyes. Emotion was running the show. Everyone else was just glad it wasn’t directed at them. Ryan was not so lucky.

  “Look, V…” He began.

  “Huh uh.” Vanessa interrupted. “You don’t get to talk. It was a rhetorical question. One text? One text?! You’re smack in the middle of more crazy than we ever knew existed and I get one text?” Her voice dropped to just above a whisper, but lost none of its edge. “What about Saturday night? Did you turn again? Did something else happen? Are you okay? You’d better be, because I’m going to give you the single biggest beating you’ve ever-”

  Ryan grasped her by the arms and spun Vanessa around. He tried to push himself up to his full height as he stared her down. Vanessa stared right back, unflinching.

  “I’m sorry, okay?” Ryan began. “I know you were worried and I’m sorry I’ve been avoiding you, but I need you to trust me: I’ve got this. I promise I’m going to tell you absolutely everything, but not today. I met some people, and I think they want to help, but-”

  She had pursed her lips in a way that made Ryan cut his sentence short, but she didn’t speak. She looked Ryan straight in the eye as their heartbeats slowed and her breathing steadied. Finally, she spoke.

  “You’re going to give me the ‘I need to figure things out’ speech? You really think that’ll fly with me? You don’t get to figure things out on your own any more, Ryan. Not when your life is at stake. You don’t get to be Mr. Macho this time. This is serious, dammit.”

  “You think I don’t know that? You think I don’t know the kind of crap I’ve stepped in? The address was a warehouse down by the waterfront. There are people there that can help.” He said.

  “There’s a person here who can help!” Her voice rose again in frustration.

  “You’ve done more than enough.” Ryan said, pinching the bridge of his nose.

  “Well that doesn’t mean my job is over. Just because you’ve got some crazy mythical curse, just because you’ve found other people like you, that means you and I just stop being friends? That means I stop caring about you? It stops being my job to help you?”

  “That was never your job!” Ryan spat, unable to control his voice any longer.

  “Like hell…” Vanessa muttered.

  “I never asked you to critique my every move!”

  Her voice fell to a whisper. “No, you just asked me to kill you.”

  She hadn’t yelled it, she hadn’t injected it with the slightest hint of venom. She said it softly and almost to herself in a lifeless tone that stung Ryan even more than if she had shouted.

  It was something he hadn’t fully considered before. Ryan had been so caught up in his own life, in the way all these things were affecting him, that he hadn’t given the slightest thought to how they might be affecting everyone else.

  Vanessa’s emotional recovery had been too easy and Ryan knew he should have seen this coming. She hadn’t once brought up what happened that morning at her house, she had let him do his thing and bury it, avoid it, no matter how much it was eating away at her. Now Ryan knew she had just been putting on a brave face for his benefit. He felt a surge of gratitude because that bravery was what had gotten him out of the car in the first place. It was what led them to the alley. It was what pushed him to the warehouse. He was where he was because of her. He owed her everything.

  “I’m sorry.” He said quietly.

  “You don’t have to be sorry.” She replied. “You just have to realize that I’m
in this now, whatever it is. I know how much you want to shut me out but you can’t.”

  Ryan nodded. “I’m headed back to the warehouse today to meet with another werewolf who is coming in from another city. From what I can tell, he’s just about the only good werewolf there is. I’m hoping he can help, but I’m not sure how.”

  “When is he supposed to get here?”

  “He should already be in town.”

  “Well then you’d better get going.”

  Ryan was puzzled. “I thought you wanted to know everything?”

  “I do. But you don’t have time for that right now. You have bigger fish to fry and I get that. So go.”

  Ryan had never been close friends with very many women, but he knew if they were all as confusing as this one, he was in trouble.