I don’t know what I looked like to them, except that I’m pretty sure I was grimacing like I had the world’s worst migraine. “Ow,” was all I actually said aloud.
Ilsa watched me, unreadable, as Pandora brushed wet leaves off my back with fussy little swipes. Ayu surprised me by speaking up. “It’s a lot to take in,” she said, almost harshly. “Give the girl a break.”
I was shivering. Ilsa, who was wearing probably half the clothes I was without looking the least bit cold, spoke as if something had just occurred to her. “You have family, don’t you?”
“My…brother.”
“Ah. Not so simple, then.”
I wondered how she thought any of this could be simple. Maybe sensing my anger, she relented. “You can’t choose yet. You’ve barely even begun.”
Kane frowned. “But we can’t let—”
“She won’t tell anyone what she’s seen.” Ilsa fixed me with a look that clearly stated, You will agree to this. “Our safety is paramount. No one can know the truth—who we are, where we are, any of it. You’ve seen what it’s like to be discovered.”
The image of Ilsa’s murdered pack flashed into my head. I shuddered. No wonder she’d picked this place for training.
“We called you in because the Elder wants to know if you’re someone we can trust. Someone who deserves to be brought under our protection. We can help you. I think we should help you. But you must promise not to expose us to danger, and that means from everyone, even your brother. Can you promise me that?”
Kane glared at me like if I didn’t volunteer a yes, he’d ensure that I did. I bit my lip. “Fine. Just…promise me something, too. I don’t want you messing with Grey. I don’t want to see him hurt.”
“Naturally.”
I fixed her with a sharp look. “That’s not an answer.”
You go, girl, I heard. It sounded like Brandon, but I didn’t see his mouth open. I couldn’t make sense of where the words had come from, and my head throbbed. He only smirked.
Ilsa didn’t look pleased, but she nodded. “We will leave your brother unharmed unless he interferes with us. And you will maintain discretion.”
“Yes.”
She nodded again, turning away from me. The air whooshed out of my lungs in relief. I hope it wasn’t as obvious to everyone else.
The next few minutes were a blur. Pandora and Ayu eventually led me out of the woods and back to the school, where we blended, sort of, into the last of the post-game crowd. I collapsed onto a bench near the ticket booth, and Pan and Ayu flanked me, waiting while I caught my breath.
“She comes on strong,” Pandora said eventually. “But she won’t rip your head off without reason.”
Our school mascot chose that moment to walk by, halfway out of costume, with the wolf head tucked under one arm. It took all I had not to choke. “Good to know,” I croaked.
In answer, Ayu pulled my cell phone out of my own pocket, handing it to me.
“Call your brother. Get some rest. Think about it. We’ll see you again soon enough.”
Is that a threat or a promise? I wondered. Either way, the girls stayed long enough to make sure I got through to Grey, which was almost…nice. Or maybe they were just ensuring that I wasn’t going to sic Animal Control on them. Who knows?
They vanished when they heard his truck approaching, so I was alone when Grey found me. I limped back to the vehicle, not sure what to say. It wasn’t until we both got settled that my brother peered oddly at me, and brought up the last thing I wanted to explain.
“What’s that on your eyes?” he asked.
I swiped at the blood with both hands, feeling the dried flakes crumble away. “Face painting,” I muttered. “Didn’t get it all off.”
It was too dark for Grey to spot the lie, but I could see his pained expression just fine.
“Face painting. Face painting. You know what I was saying about how school spirit eats your brain?”
The best I could do was laugh weakly as he started up the truck and drove home.
Chapter Five
Following a convocation of werewolves with an afternoon of homework turned out to be the most surreal contrast ever.
Grey drove me to Cee’s the next day to work on our paper. Her house was on the lake. Of course it was on the lake. The way Gilman works is very simple: you either live in town, up the hill or on the water, with social status ascending in that order. We don’t even live on the hill.
Cee was friendly enough, though, especially to Grey. No big surprise as to why. He’d pulled his hair back—it was getting really long again these days—which meant the scar down his left cheekbone was in easy view. Every girl who isn’t me loves the scar.
Cee approached him, beaming. “Do you want to come in, too?”
The result was oddly hilarious. I hadn’t seen Grey go on a date in, well, ever, and being confronted with Lacey just plain surprised him. My brother outright stammering was something I sure didn’t see every day.
“I’m…um…I’ve got to go, but…I’ll pick her up in a couple hours?”
“Come by anytime,” she said, practically twinkling at him. Grey left, blushing all the way.
At least it meant he was out of my hair. He hadn’t been satisfied with my stories about the previous night, which were…garbled, at best. I told him Brandon got swept off by the team before he got to finish telling me much.
“You sat through three hours of football for that?” he’d said skeptically. I’d flailed at him, and he got right back into interrogation mode. Over. And over. And over.
Compared to that experience, watching Lacey’s dog go into hysterics as soon as I entered was a walk in the damn park.
“Hadley!” she exclaimed, trying to calm the yipping terrier down. “What is the matter with you?”
I sighed. I could guess. Cee wrestled Hadley into her grip, while he barked louder and louder at me. When I gave no indication of going away, he whined desperately. Cee gave me a helpless look.
“Maybe we should work upstairs in my room? I was going to try to avoid the stairs, but…”
“Upstairs is fine,” I said heavily. “I’ll just…go.”
“Third door on your left,” Lacey said, breathless, while she carried Hadley off. He made piteous noises all the way.
So did I, when my left knee tried to give out halfway up the stairs, but at least Lacey wasn’t there to hear it.
I found her room soon enough, and awkwardly waited in the doorway, trying to get my bearings. Lacey’s room was immaculately decorated and fastidiously neat, all of which smelled to me of “keeping the parents happy.” She’d stuck a few things on the walls, though, like framed pictures of friends and autographed posters for bands I’d never heard of. Then there was the box of studio photographs on her bed. Senior photographs.
I crept in, staring dumbly at them. It hadn’t even occurred to me to get such a thing done. Was I supposed to? And how on earth did people smile like that?
I turned around to see the same smile in person. Lacey had bounced back from the Hadley incident in record time. “Good, you made it. You’re pretty handy with those crutches.”
“I’m used to it.”
“Emily said she saw you fall in the bleachers yesterday, though?”
I sighed. Of course she’d have heard. “It was raining.”
“I’m just surprised you were at the game at all. Didn’t think you’d go for that sort of thing.”
“Yeah, well. Call it a sociology experiment.”
Lacey laughed and perched on the edge of her bed. “You’re just like your brother, you know? I miss having him in orchestra. It’s not the same without him snarking from the back row.” She looked thoughtful. “I know he’s working in town, but wasn’t he supposed to be going off to college? Like, ages ago now?”
God, did I not want to talk about that. I winced, found a seat, and slowly extricated myself from the crutches. Lacey figured it out.
“Oh,” she said softly.
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br /> “Yeah. Can we…?”
I gestured at the pile of textbooks atop her desk. She shrugged and said dismissively, “Don’t worry about it. I finished our paper yesterday.” While I gaped, she added, “You’re more interesting anyway.”
Argh. Yeah, I just bet I was. And with that, I got plunged into my second interrogation of the day, this time about what brought me back to school. Hell of a position to be in, really—a girl with no conversation skills, stuck in a minefield.
“I guess I…just thought I’d try the high school experience once,” I said awkwardly, once I realized I had no choice but to offer up something. “Before I ran out of time.”
She looked impressed. “That’s brave of you.”
I shook my head. Ilsa thought I was strong, Cee thought I was brave—I was surrounded by crazy people.
Cee protested, though. “No, really. I mean, jumping into the middle of this? Senior year? I wouldn’t have the guts. Most of us just want out by now.”
I managed a smile. Cee grinned back like it was a moment of triumph, then stopped. “God, I meant to ask. Something else Emily told me. Is it true Pandora was at the game? Emily said you were sitting with her.”
“Uh, yeah. Why?”
For the first time, Cee looked uncomfortable. “I didn’t know she was still around. We haven’t talked since she got kicked out of school last year.”
My eyebrows lifted. Cee took that for the question it was. “It’s a long story, but…we were friends for ages. We spent a lot of time in drama club together. She was brilliant, but she got sick of having to play men—she kept getting cast that way because of her height, and she hated it. So she started looking around for other things to do. That’s when she met Kane. It wasn’t long after that she started getting…odd.”
“What kind of odd?”
Lacey turned away from me, obviously thinking through bad memories. “She quit talking to most of us. Even her sisters asked me what was going on after she disappeared for days—we never found out why, and it made her parents frantic. I didn’t know what to say. Pandora started having these blow-ups, too. Huge mood swings, nasty tempers. Sometimes she didn’t make any sense at all, and then she’d vanish again for a day or two, claiming she was sick.”
She probably had been. I knew what it was like, getting bitten. I just couldn’t get my head around the idea that it was Kane who’d done that to her. I couldn’t imagine Pandora going for him voluntarily. Then again…it was possible she hadn’t.
There was nothing pleasant about that thought.
“It was bizarre,” Cee said, shaking her head. She was a few steps behind me, but still on the same trail. “Boys didn’t seem to be her type at all, you know? And I think she had her eye on someone else.” She peered up at me. “I think you met her.”
Suddenly I had a very good idea of who’d turned Ayu. I couldn’t help it—I shook my head and said, “Okay, that is messed up.”
Lacey frowned. “There’s nothing wrong with her liking another girl.”
I waved my hands, trying to backtrack. “That’s not what I meant. It’s just the whole…love triangle of doom, here.”
She snorted. “‘Doom’ sure sums it up. You should have seen when Pandora really snapped.”
“What happened?”
Lacey braced herself. “She got into an argument with a teacher during class, and he couldn’t calm her down. Finally she picked up her desk and hurled it across the room. It smashed two windows, and the debris hit a bunch of people. And then she went for Mr. Park. It took three guys to pull her off him, and he was out of school for days. By the time he came back he was still all bruised. It looked like she nearly took his head off.” Cee shuddered. “I was in class the day it happened, saw the whole thing. Pandora didn’t look like herself. Her eyes were just…”
She trailed off, unable to describe it. Still, I could imagine. When Ilsa got into my head to show me the pack, Pandora’s eyes had looked like dark fire.
“That’s awful,” I murmured.
“Yeah. She got expelled, needless to say. And she had a horrible fight with her family over it. They’re a big family, really close, but after that, her dad threw her out. I haven’t talked to her since. I’m amazed they even let her into the game. She’s not supposed to be on school property.”
“Would you want to be the one to stop her?”
Cee laughed nervously. “I’ve got more sense than that.”
I heard something trill. Lacey, looking glad for the interruption, stretched toward her bookbag, plucked out her phone and returned to the center of the bed, so gracefully I had to look away. I stared out the window instead, which gave me a flawless view of the lake beyond. A jet-skier was taking advantage of one of the last sunny days we were likely to get for the year, and at the moment I saw him, executed a perfect backflip.
Everywhere I looked, someone had it easier than me.
Then again, considering Pandora’s story—which of us really was better off?
“Hey, Mad,” Cee said into the phone. I sighed and went for the folder that had slipped out of Cee’s bag. She really had finished our assignment. I half-heartedly read her notes while Cee and Madison spoke. The conversation involved lots of sympathetic noises, then decided tones of outrage. By the time Cee hung up, even I was curious.
“Looks like I’ve got a crisis on my hands,” she said. “Listen, I hate to do this, but Madison’s boyfriend’s being a total ass. I need to talk to her. You wouldn’t mind if I drove you home, would you?”
All I could think was, What? A rescue? Are you kidding?
“Oh…that’s fine.”
“Phew. Thank you. I promise, I’ll make it up to you later.” She smiled, clambered off the bed and grabbed her keys.
And thus my noble Knight Defender got me out of the way so she could tend to the jilted Lady Madison, apparently with the aid of ice cream and a marathon of so-bad-they’re-good movies. It was hard not to wonder what she could come up with to fix my problems.
After all, I’d have to face Brandon again the next day. And I’d have my hands full with something far worse than Madison’s boy problems soon enough.
Chapter Six
My brother by nature is an inquisitive soul. Sometimes this is useful. Sometimes it’s maddening.
Monday’s after-school special was definitely the latter.
By the time Grey picked me up I was tired, sore and nursing a headache, which was why we didn’t talk much until we got home. Grey had been researching again, and came up with some herbal concoction he thought might help with my joint pain, but it only made me woozy. I didn’t want to disappoint him by saying so, but I think he guessed at dinnertime, when I missed the kitchen chair entirely while sitting down. My tailbone would be complaining about that for hours.
All totaled, we made an awfully sorry pair for the conversation that followed.
“Have you noticed anything useful about Brandon yet?” Grey asked. “There’s got to be something. Maybe something he eats at lunch?”
I shrugged uncomfortably. It wasn’t easy getting near his lunch table. His friends were all tall and muscular and at least twice my weight, and they kept themselves busy by taking potshots at everyone they saw. Not exactly the welcoming committee.
“I only got a peek,” I told Grey. “But I think he brings food from home. It sure smelled like a werewolf special. I don’t think the caf could keep up with that kind of meat-meat-and-more-meat diet.”
Grey glanced at the remains of my decidedly non-vegetarian chili. “Anything else?”
I’d seen Brandon at the vending machines twice. I was told the school purged all junk food from them last year, but one machine, for reasons unknown to God or man, still dispensed M&M’s. “He eats enough chocolate to practically qualify as a girl. Does that help?”
Grey stared, then pulled something out of his bag and slapped it on the table. “Eat a Snickers,” he said, and went off to wash our dishes.
So I was left to think over
what I wasn’t telling Grey—because I hadn’t actually gotten out of the lunch room unseen.
Stealth, after all, is not my strong suit. When I’d gone to scope things out at lunchtime that day, I’d tried spying from a nearby table, but the neck-craning ended with an awful pop. I was left feeling dangerously floaty, like when things begin disconnecting before a change, and ended up in an unplanned, graceless slump over the table. When I raised my head, Brandon was waiting.
“Hungry for something?” he drawled.
I winced. Not only was he standing right there, but several bystanders were watching, too. None of them heard what he said next, though, since the tiniest of whispers was enough for my ears.
“There’s something you should know. They want you to come tomorrow night.”
Who he meant was not in question. What he meant, though—“Come where?”
“It’s the new moon tomorrow.” That at least I could feel in my bones; it’s those few days of the month that I feel the least crappy. “So we’re throwing a party. Thought it was only polite to invite you along.”
With that, Brandon winked at me. Actually winked.
“We’ve got a place. All of us live outside of town together. Thought you should see that too. Find out how we live when we’re not playing at normal.”
I heard a displeased call from behind him. “Brandon,” Antonella said. “What are you doing over there?”
“Just a minute!”
I arched an eyebrow as he turned back to me. “So is she coming too?” I asked.
He looked, I thought, ill at ease, but then he shrugged. “Nope. This one’s just for the pack.” He smiled crookedly. “So no telling.”
“Hmm.”
He nodded as if I’d agreed. Before I could decide if I had, he said, “Meet me at the empty lot on your street at twilight tomorrow.”
With that, he left me to the questionable mercies of the Gilman High lunch crowd. The creepy thing was that I was sure I heard his last words in my head as he was walking away:
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