“I should go with you,” Grey said again.
I just shook my head. “It’ll eat your soul,” I said. “Remember—cheerleaders waving pom-poms.”
He shuddered. “Fine. If anything happens—”
“Cell phone, I know.”
He nodded as I edged out of the truck, picked up my crutches and made my way to the gate.
It wasn’t too bad limping in, but the steep bleachers made me nervous. I wondered if I even dared try climbing them. While I thought that through, I leaned against the chain-link fence that separated me from the rest of the field. There was so much noise, and it echoed through me until my bones hurt.
It was in that nervous state that I was found out.
“Ridiculous, isn’t it?” someone behind me said. “I can’t figure out why Brandon wastes his time on this.”
“Typical attention whore,” said a second voice. The first person sniffed, as if to agree.
I looked over my shoulder. Two girls stood there, sizing me up with mutually disdainful expressions. They could have passed for twins, if one hadn’t been a tiny Japanese girl and the other a six-foot Amazon. Their styles differed a little bit, too—the tall one looked like a drama club dropout who’d been reading too much Baudelaire, and the other was on some little-girl-meets-French-maid kick. Still, it all got across the same idea: I Am Goth Girl, and You Are Beneath Me. I’d actually have admired the effect if they didn’t look like they’d just as soon dismember me and get on with their lives.
“Brandon said you’d be here,” the shorter girl said to me. I wondered if this was Ayu, the girl Grey had mentioned on the phone with Lacey. The description would fit, considering the Mary Janes and the black-lace frills. I wasn’t sure what the purple ponytails had to do with anything.
The other girl, meanwhile, had stepped forward to inspect me up close. “Hope you’re worth waiting through this whole waste of time.”
Well, she wasn’t Brandon’s girlfriend, that was for sure. A so-called sports champion would have been more into the game. Who else had Cee mentioned in that phone call? There’d been another name—“Pandora?” I guessed.
She snapped her fingers under my nose. “Gold star,” she said.
The snap made me jump about a foot. Last time I did that, I was seven and didn’t have geriatric knees.
Meanwhile, in the stands, everyone was cheering. Pandora took advantage of the noise to whisper in my ear: “You want to meet the pack, right?”
I felt a long, nervous thrill, which was only intensified by Ayu murmuring, “That’s suicidal of you.”
“We got sent to check you out first. You know. Just in case looks are deceiving.” Pandora nudged one crutch with her foot. Off in my peripheral vision, the players were taking the field. I couldn’t help but keep one eye on Brandon as he barreled through the “GO TIMBERWOLVES!” sign, already looking utterly victorious. Thank you, Lady Irony.
“Well, we’re willing to chat,” Pandora said. “If you’re prepared to behave.”
“I doubt behaving is anyone’s strong suit around here,” I said. Ayu cracked a smile at that, showing sharp little teeth top and bottom.
They decided then to drag me into the stands—and my knees didn’t thank them—to wait out the rest of the game. I had to sit there, bursting with questions I didn’t dare ask in that crowd.
Pandora and Ayu sat next to each other, cuddling a little more closely against the cold than was strictly necessary. They glared any gawkers down with impressive efficiency, though, and by extension, I got left alone, too. It gave me the chance to pick out a few other faces, including someone who had to be Antonella, cheering at everything Brandon did. She acted like she thought she was the hottest thing ever, but compared to the kind of power Ayu and Pandora exuded just by breathing, she wasn’t much. I wondered what Brandon saw in her.
“Does she know?” I asked, pointing her out.
Pandora snorted. “Brandon likes to play normal. Just long enough that he can spring nasty surprises on people, anyway.”
“See, now, we’re trustworthy,” Ayu added, with that little smile again. “You know what you get with us.”
Right. Pandora: grim and deadly. Ayu: smirky and deadly. I was getting the picture.
“Anyway,” muttered the grim one, “the Elder always did let him get away with all sorts of crap. Family rates higher than the changed, I suppose. Ilsa wouldn’t be thrilled if she knew what Brandon was up to.” She looked at her fingernails, then laconically added, “And maybe someday we’ll tell her.”
I abruptly stopped caring about Brandon’s extracurriculars. “Ilsa? The Elder…?”
“Not here,” Pandora snapped.
I didn’t argue. I’d gone too nervous just from hearing the Elder’s title. My ears had pricked and my skin tingled all over, and everything in me tensed like it did the instant before a change.
Pandora and Ayu watched me, their expressions both communicating, I know.
Then Pandora broke away, wound a strand of Ayu’s purple hair around one finger, and settled in for the rest of the game.
We stayed until the clock had almost run out. Of course, Ayu and Pandora chose that frenzied moment to begin forcing their way to the aisle. “Now,” they said when I hesitated.
I grabbed my crutches, stumbled out over somebody’s knees, and fractured one finger on a soda-sticky seat while trying to catch myself. Quickly, before anyone besides the Odd Couple could see, I pulled my wayward finger straight with a sick pop. It made Ayu grimace, but whether it was meant sympathetically or with distaste, I couldn’t tell. Pandora only said, “Interesting.”
Then she yanked me out of the squabbling pile and frogmarched me in my clumsy way down the stairs.
The area behind the bleachers was an eerie space: completely empty, but surrounded by screaming. If you didn’t know there was a game going on, you’d have suspected the worst. We left it behind, heading for the fence at the back of the property. I wasn’t about to try climbing the thing, but fortunately, I guess, I didn’t have to. Pandora took out one chain-link panel with a swift, hard kick. It clattered into the shrubs behind.
“Um…isn’t someone going to come check this out?” I said, instead of, “I’m supposed to navigate that how?”
“Not really. Haven’t you heard the stories about the forests in this town?”
Pandora’s smile was even more unnerving than Ayu’s. “Right,” I mumbled, watching as Pandora tossed a fallen tree branch out of her way. It was practically the size of your average telephone pole, but it tumbled into the distance with a defeated-sounding thud.
Right, I thought wearily, watching her go. Werewolves. Things that go bump in the night. Me and my impossible life.
I took the hint and followed them into the woods.
*
We began by picking our way towards an old, overgrown trail.
I didn’t do the best job of keeping up. It would be all too easy to set my feet wrong, stumble off-course and end up buried in the mud and brambles. I tried my best, though, despite the traitorous suspicion that the terrain would be easier on all fours. I ignored it.
Pandora and Ayu, of course, had no such trouble, although Ayu was more apt to complain for the sake of her clothes. That was actually a little bit funny.
“Just a little further,” Pandora said, more for Ayu’s benefit than mine. I followed.
There wasn’t much in the direction she led us—just a shooting range, finally silent for the night. I’d already heard the distant rounds of gunfire from school grounds, which I was sure drove the security guards batshit. This so-called trail was probably cut before the range was built, and left to overgrow so no one could stumble into the line of fire. In fact, there was another fence before us now, plastered with KEEP AWAY signs. Pandora didn’t kick this fence down, but she did pry back a hole, as easily as if she were tearing paper. Then she stepped through into the open field, beginning to smile.
“This is where we’re meeting?” I said.
“The owners keep finding their security systems broken,” Ayu explained, mock-sympathetically. “The animals won’t leave it alone. And none of the traps work. Strangest thing.”
“But why a firing range?”
“Training,” answered an unfamiliar voice. For the second time that night, I nearly jumped out of my skin.
The woman striding out of the darkness was slender, tall, and ghostly pale, with white-blonde hair falling halfway down her back. She wore a simple dress, and her feet were bare. She was almost impossibly good-looking. The overall impression fell between elegant and eerie, and while I think her smile was supposed to be reassuring, it didn’t really help.
She couldn’t be the Elder. She was too young for that. She also couldn’t be human. For the first time amidst all this craziness, I truly believed I was surrounded by werewolves. Out here, even Ayu with her crazy purple hair looked edgier, a little wilder. I began to wish I’d dressed the part. Instead, I was wearing baggy jeans and one of Grey’s sweatshirts—he’d insisted I stay warm—and I didn’t feel at all like I belonged.
The mystery woman at least didn’t seem bothered by my appearance. She just gestured at the field around us. “We use this course for practice against hunters. Dodging bullets is unfortunately a useful skill. But that’s not the introduction we intended to give you.”
“Um. Thanks?”
The smile returned. “I’m Ilsa,” she said. “Tonight, I speak for the Elder.”
“Why couldn’t he be here?”
“He wanted to meet you. So did we all, after what Brandon told us. I’m amazed, really—you’ve been alone so long, and yet…” She shook her head. “It must have taken incredible strength of will to get this far.”
I sputtered out a disbelieving laugh at that, but Pandora dryly stopped me. “Last wolf we met that went feral tried to rip us to shreds,” she said.
That shut me up. I swallowed. “I’m not…feral.”
“Clearly not. But we didn’t think it was possible to resist going wild without…help.” Ilsa’s eyes glimmered. “It’s obviously been difficult for you. I’m sorry.”
“Sorry,” I whispered. “Right.”
No one responded. Around us, the woods were strangely quiet. I suspected the local wildlife had cleared out. Animals tended to get nervous around me, so I could only imagine how they’d respond to this big of a threat—even if I didn’t feel the least bit threatening myself.
Maybe, something whispered, you’ve been too well-behaved for your own good.
My head snapped up, but no one confessed to having said anything. Only Ilsa spoke, her voice gentle. “What do you remember of being turned?”
“Not much,” I said unsteadily. That memory was such a bloodstained mess of pain and confusion that mostly, I tried not to think about it at all. “It was ten years ago, almost. There was one wolf. It—he, I think—attacked me. I was just playing in the yard, and…” I took a deep breath. “I don’t know why he went after me. I only got away after Dad shot at him.”
My eyes lifted to the building across the range, where I thought I saw a shadow move at the rail. I shivered, trying to blame it on my memories playing tricks—especially memories of the nightmares I’d had for years, of Dad raising that gun to shoot at me.
I think he nearly did before he left, but I wasn’t going to tell Ilsa that.
“They got me to the hospital,” I said eventually. “But the bleeding stopped on its own, so the doctors didn’t know what to do with me, really. We didn’t understand what had happened, then.”
Ilsa’s voice was soft. “How soon after that did you transform?”
“They took me home after a couple hours. I’d had every inoculation in the book, drugs for the fever, all that. But I was still feeling so strange. Acting strange. I think Mom was ready to take me back in. But…”
“It happened that night, didn’t it?” Pandora said.
“Yes.”
Ilsa was walking around me, taking me in. I hated being up for inspection when I was still trembling, thinking of that first awful shift, not understanding, my mother screaming…
“But you survived,” Ilsa said. I prayed she wouldn’t ask me how, because I still didn’t know. Probably the only thing that saved my family that night was a heavy bedroom door and a little girl too scared to do much harm to anyone except herself.
I got good at that, for better or worse.
“Was it a…feral…that bit me?” I said eventually. Ilsa made a face I didn’t quite understand, then shrugged.
“Most likely. Only ferals move alone like that. We’re meant to live in packs—it keeps us in check. More civil than we might be otherwise. And it keeps us stronger. It’s easier if you don’t have to go it alone.”
I felt a sudden pang. Strength in numbers. Someone who understood. I wondered, more vividly than ever before, what it might have been like to grow up with other werewolves around, and someone to spend the moons with. I wondered—
Well, mostly I wondered what the hell was up with Brandon, and why he’d just crashed through the fence like he had through the Timberwolves banner, hollering a hideously off-key version of “We Are the Champions” on the way.
“Family,” Ilsa said under her breath, “is not always entirely what you’d choose, of course.”
Victory seemed to agree with Brandon. There was nothing mean in his expression right then, and he blew me a kiss, of all things, before making an exaggerated bow to Ilsa. “Come on, Ill. You know you love me.”
Ill, indeed. Her answering smile was frosty.
“Kane!” Brandon hollered into her silence. “Where the hell are you hiding, you freak?”
That’s when I discovered the identity of that shadow across the range. Someone vaulted over the rail, landing in a strangely animalistic crouch. I held my breath as he rose and walked closer. He looked like Brandon, only rougher around the edges, with longer blond hair and stubble on his chin. It didn’t look sloppy so much as…untamed. Possibly dangerously so.
And he’d just been watching us from up there? Waiting for me to make one wrong move?
Pandora avoided him. Ayu was the one to introduce him, such as it was. “Meet our resident Rottweiler,” she said under her breath.
Kane didn’t respond beyond a dispassionate stare, but he endured a fist bump from his brother before going to Ilsa’s side.
Slowly I began puzzling out the group. Those were the Rayner brothers, then. As for Kane and Ilsa—were they a couple? It seemed creeptastically appropriate, somehow. So how had Pandora and Ayu joined the pack? There was the question of the Elder, too, so conspicuous in his absence. Had he gathered everyone together in the first place, or were there other relationships in play?
“We could tell you more about the pack history,” Ilsa said, like she’d heard every question in my head. “But it might be easier to show you.”
She didn’t stop to say anything more. She just lifted her hands, and let them change.
It was an amazingly subtle shift. Only two fingers transformed, one on each hand, which both grew claws. I was too astonished at how much control that must have taken to be afraid of what she might do. Fortunately, she only nicked her own skin, scoring the pads of both thumbs. Then she took my face between her hands, using her bloody thumbs to close my eyes. Very lightly, she then touched one thumb to my lips. I tasted copper—and something far stranger.
It’s hard to describe what happened next.
What I remember from when I’m a wolf is different from my human memories. Everything becomes a little stranger, filtered through altered senses and my overloaded nerves. What I experienced in Ilsa’s hands felt just like that, except I didn’t see my own memories at all. I saw hers, playing out in my head like a disjointed dream.
I saw faces in brief flashes—pale like Ilsa’s, narrow-featured, proud—before they blurred into wolf form. They were running together across a wide, clear landscape that erupted upwards into the stars. I should have been scared,
but it was just exhilarating. I could feel the crisp, cold air and the ground beneath her feet. Above all, there was speed. Freedom. Caring about nothing except the chase. I’d never wanted so badly to change forms and go running right alongside her.
Then I heard the crack of gunshot after gunshot. In clouds of white and red, all her family fell.
I was with her as she fled alone, shattered—until another wolf appeared, blurring with motion as it barreled her down. The ferocity and strength of that intruder were overwhelming. There was a brief tussle for superiority, but Ilsa ended up pinned and panting beneath him, and…well.
I started blushing fiercely. I had the feeling I hadn’t been wrong about her and Kane. Fortunately, though, as if she’d realized she didn’t want me sharing that moment, the memory was swept away.
I was struck afterwards with a rapid-fire barrage of images. Brandon in wolf form—it had to be. That lolling grin, even canine, was unmistakable. Kane brought in Pandora—Kane and Pandora! What on earth?—and then Pandora was by Ayu’s side, standing as her guard. I saw them first as humans, but their animal forms were overlaid in shadow, until it was hard to distinguish between them.
Finally there was something that didn’t even fit into my field of vision, something that reeked of power, yet seemed to be fading…
The Elder? I thought.
Reality came thrumming back up before I could get a handle on it.
Everyone was still standing around me. I could smell them, hear them, feel the bonds and the tensions between them. They were evaluating me, too, and the intensity was almost too much. I was shaking, like my body couldn’t decide which shape it wanted to take. The pack wanted to know if I was with them. What I was, and what I wanted to be.
I was not ready to answer. I backed away from all of it and pushed Ilsa’s hands aside.
I’d like to claim I withdrew with indignant grace, but honesty forces me to report that I fell flat on my ass.
I got up, eventually. Pandora and Ayu consented to help for the second time that night. Kane said nothing, just inclined his chin, and Brandon went surprisingly silent. He didn’t look smug, or sympathetic, or anything, really. Just thoughtful.
Stronger Than Blood Page 3