In a jerky, dismissive move, I handed Brandon the empty container. He took it and went to the door without another word. I huddled up in the blankets and looked away. It was so quiet for a minute that I thought he was already gone.
Then I heard one last thing—a metallic clank against wood, like my crutches being set down somewhere. While Grey’s back was turned, Brandon had propped them up beside the door. He gave me a wink.
I laid there staring at the crutches for the longest time. Then I did the only sensible thing I could: I feigned sleep. I don’t know if Grey believed it, but I was left alone with my thoughts.
Not to mention the worry that I wouldn’t be able to keep things under control for much longer.
Chapter Eight
By morning, I began feeling much better. Cee called early, which wasn’t why. When the phone rang, Grey—who’d been keeping an awfully close eye on me—picked it up, listened a while, then interrupted the obvious flow of talk with, “You want to talk to her?”
I glanced up from the books spread across our kitchen table. Grey covered the receiver and whispered, “It’s Cee. If I don’t give you the phone, she’ll never leave me alone.”
When he handed it over, I muted it with my hand, too, and peered at him.
“She likes you, doesn’t she?” I asked. He made a face. I mirrored it, then put the phone to my ear.
“Hey, you,” Cee said. “How are you doing?”
“Well…I’m not dead.”
“I’ll call that a start. Listen, I thought I’d check in. Mr. Spencer said he’ll want to see you as soon as you’re back. You missed a test in history. I talked him into giving you a make-up date.”
“Um, right. Thanks.”
“Oh, and I wanted to ask. Madison finally broke up with Zeke for good—about time, too. I don’t know why she was putting up with his crap—”
Boyfriend gossip. I must have looked bewildered, because Grey made questioning gestures. I spread my hands and shook my head. Cee kept on talking.
“I told her we ought to get together, just the girls. Go out and enjoy ourselves, forget all of it. Right?”
Considering the kinds of things I had on my mind after Brandon’s visit, the best I think I mustered there was “um.”
“So we’re meeting at the Firehouse tomorrow night. If you’re feeling up to it, Madison can pick you up. It’s sort of on her way. Well, not really, but I’ll make her do it anyway. And there’s a movie afterwards, down the street…”
“Hang on. You’re inviting me?”
“Well, I’d take Grey, but even with as long as his hair is getting, I don’t think I could pass him off as a girl.” She laughed. “B, of course I’m inviting you. Don’t give me some lame excuse, just answer the doorbell when Madison rings it.”
That time I know I said “um.”
“That’s it, then. Tomorrow at six o’clock. And remember, just us girls, all right?”
Right. Who else would I drag along? Brandon? “That won’t be an issue,” I told her. I could just about see her grin.
“Beauty. See you then!”
The conversation clicked off, and I lowered the phone.
“What the hell was all that about?” Grey said.
I thought about it, struggling to summarize. Finally, I stood up and dropped the phone in his hand. “She thinks you have girly hair.”
Grey picked up a sheaf of papers to swat at me. I did my best, which wasn’t very, to evade him and dart up the stairs. I’d have to call it a mark of a good big brother that he played along anyway, and this time at least, let me escape.
*
The next night, I almost discovered what a girls’ night out was like.
Madison, however grudgingly, did pick me up in her mom’s tank-like SUV. Lin helped me into the back with Emily before we made our way into what passes for downtown around here. Then we left Madison to fend with the parallel parking. She returned five minutes later with Lin, who looked so annoyed I almost laughed.
“I am not air traffic control,” she declared.
Madison still looked flustered. “I couldn’t see! Someone had to direct me!”
“Someone needs to direct you to get a smaller car.”
Everyone else giggled while I studied the menu. Everyone was asking for pizza toppings like eggplant, artichoke hearts, and, God help me, pesto. Not exactly my usual diet. Eventually I counted my pennies and ordered my own calzone.
The Firehouse did make good food, I’ll give it that. It was also popular, crowded, and loud. By the time some petulant kid started screaming about not being allowed on the old fire pole, something ugly in me wanted to shut him up.
The more people I was around, the more my animal instincts came to the fore. I didn’t like it one bit.
So I sat on my hands until the food arrived, and half-heartedly listened to the conversation. The chatter at the table was all about school, hobbies and boyfriends (until Lacey the Ringmaster steered us off that topic), while I was still thinking about pack politics, transformative biology and the health effects related thereto. Great way to make your head explode.
I survived the dinner, though, even when Lacey’s friend Jake and Emily’s sort-of-boyfriend Ben crashed the festivities. It skewed the girls-only demographic pretty definitively, and I was not prepared for the noise Madison made when Jake dropped an ice cube down the back of her shirt. No wonder Lacey had tried to make the guys stay home.
Lin saw me wince, then smacked Jake upside the head. I decided for sure that I liked her.
Still, the smack wasn’t enough to stop the guys from tagging along to the movie. I studied the crowd as we cut through the side streets, since I was moving more slowly and lagged behind. They were all teasing each other, laughing, jostling for space and attention, and then, as if they all took some cue I totally missed and wouldn’t understand, Jake grabbed Cee’s hand and spun her around right there in the middle of the alley. She looked so graceful at it, so at ease. It was nothing like the wild dance I’d done in the woods, but there was something about it…
I was starting to realize how envious I felt when I heard someone holler from down the block.
Everyone quieted. Jake laughed awkwardly and said, “What’s up with that?” I edged around to see. There was a figure in the distance, shambling forward as if he was drunk. He limped, too, like his left leg was wounded and everything pained him.
And I nearly reeled at the sense of broken familiarity pouring off him.
“God,” Madison muttered. “What’s someone like that doing here?” Lin glared at her, but Emily looked uncomfortable, and Cee apprehensive. Ben went to his girlfriend and Jake stood in front of Lacey—the defender defended, I guess. Meanwhile, the man came closer. I stared helplessly. All I could think was that I finally understood what Ilsa meant by feral. This man was barely holding onto humanity. Matted hair, hunched posture like his body wanted to turn wild, unearthly eyes…
I’d seen eyes like that before. Right before I smashed myself into a mirror during my first full moon.
Jake started backing us down the alleyway. I tried to move. It wasn’t like I could run, unless I changed, like this man’s body was clearly trying to do. He wasn’t growling yet, but I could hear hints of it within his speech.
“You,” he said. “You know about me.”
I did. The others thought he was crazy. “Whoa, dude,” Jake said uneasily. “Let’s just…calm down, okay?”
“There’s never calm,” he ground out in reply.
My hands were shaking, even as I gripped my crutches in an attempt to steady myself. I wanted to warn everyone. I wanted to scream. But I didn’t have time. Everything changed in an instant. He focused, bared his fangs, and lunged—straight at me.
I tumbled down. Some little, terrified voice in my head was pleading not again, not again. Eight years old and screaming, and there was so much blood—
Except this time Jake and Ben were hauling him off me, while he spit and flailed in dangerously
disjointed ways. Ben struggled to keep his grip. The man was stronger than he looked. In the midst of the struggle, Jake yelled to the rest of us, “Run!”
Ben added—either as a cry for help or a call to action, I couldn’t tell which—“Police!”
The police couldn’t help us, but no one else knew that. I also couldn’t have run if you’d paid me. Madison at least was already sprinting away, which was actually the only sensible decision. Emily had pressed her hands to her mouth and backed up against a Dumpster. Ben looked terrified and torn; he clearly wanted to go to her, but didn’t dare let go of the man. Cee stumbled back, but yelled for me—she actually yelled for me—and Lin, who’d made it half a block away, was fumbling with her phone. I was still on the pavement, fighting pain to stand. No one could reach me without getting past the ongoing struggle. Jake was still holding on, but the man had swung out his freed arm, knocking Ben back. Emily screamed.
I did too, because the man was changing right in front of us.
And so my scream came out as something else.
I wasn’t thinking. I just pushed myself up and let the anger and fear all break loose at once. It came out sounding like a beast issuing a challenge, and it made every window in the nearest parked car shatter at once. Its alarm blared furiously to life.
The wolf-in-progress staggered backwards, his eyes gone huge and human. He looked terrified. Of me.
With one last tug, he got out of Jake’s grip and away from me as fast as he could, disappearing into the darkness. Everyone watched him go, stunned.
Then they turned to me.
I couldn’t say anything. My knees almost buckled—I wanted to change and run after him, make him pay for hurting us—but I stayed upright somehow, swaying, until Cee crept forward and hesitantly touched my arm.
“B,” she said. “B, I—”
“What the hell was that?” Jake exploded. I didn’t know whether he meant the feral or me. I only looked at Ben, who was sitting up with Emily’s help and groaning, and Lin, whose phone dangled uselessly from one hand. She hadn’t even finished dialing.
“I’m sorry,” I said, with what little was left of my voice.
Lin called the police eventually, but by then there wasn’t much to find. Our reports were garbled from stress, the evidence looked more like a dog attack—imagine that—and the policeman finally left us, more annoyed than anything. I couldn’t blame him. I was the only one who knew what our attacker was, and if I explained it, I’d get locked up.
In the end we retreated to the car, where we found Madison huddled in the driver’s seat, not wanting to open the doors. I started to understand the appeal of an SUV that massive after all.
What was worse was watching Cee try to comfort her. Cee did that sort of thing a lot, I was gathering. But this time, she was stuck taking care of someone because of me.
I clenched my fists so hard that my crutches creaked. In that moment I made a decision. The pack owed me real answers, and I was determined to get them before anything like this happened again.
Chapter Nine
I didn’t make it home that night. Cee decided to host everyone at her place, which I’m sure resembled a normal sleepover as much as our movie night did a “girls’ night out.” But her dad was away, and she wanted to call him, then everyone’s else’s parents, to fill them in on what had happened—probably before any other reports got back to them and caused a major freakout. So she gave everyone the sanitized version, while I watched nervously from across the room.
“She’s the best one here at smoothing things over,” Lin muttered to me. “Just leave her to it.”
I nodded warily. God only knew what she told Grey. I didn’t listen. I just tugged out my cell phone and hesitantly attempted a text to my brother, since I didn’t know where I could call privately.
Don’t think the guy who jumped us was normal. Please keep an eye out, I said.
I couldn’t tell if it went through, because there was no reply. I mostly stayed quiet and waited. Eventually, Cee offered me the guest bed. My pride normally would have made me grumble about it, but as shaky as I felt, I wasn’t in much shape to protest.
So I slept in an unfamiliar house for the first time in years, set unnervingly apart from a room full of gossiping friends, all of whom were whispering about horrors they couldn’t understand—and I couldn’t explain to them.
Which is to say, of course, I didn’t sleep much at all.
*
It was in an exhausted mood, dressed in Cee’s borrowed sweater and feeling tremendously out of whack, that I got to school the next morning. I was anxiously poking at my phone the whole way. Grey hadn’t replied. Cee kept telling me not to worry, but I was doing a poor job of following instructions.
The only thing I knew for certain: I had to find Brandon.
Instinct got me halfway across campus, where I found him loitering by the lockers. His friends from the football team were with him, but Brandon took one look at me and immediately stopped the conversation. “You want to talk, don’t you?” he asked me.
I nodded tightly. The other guys hooted. Brandon brushed them off. “Shove it,” he said, then told me, “This way.”
He led us away from the crowd, and in fact, away from the school.
Brandon’s idea of privacy was a shed out past the science wing. It was a rickety thing, one that looked much older than the newly-constructed main buildings. I gave it a skeptical look. Brandon just shrugged, ripped the padlock off with a contemptuous snap, and held the door open for me. Behold, Mr. Chivalry.
Inside was a mess—tools, equipment, and a pile of chemistry gear quietly moldering in the corner. I expected it to explode at any moment. Meanwhile, there was no good place to sit. I leaned against a wobbly cupboard and waited for Brandon to shut the door.
“Y’know, last time I had a girl in here—” he started to drawl.
“Oh, can it, Rayner.”
He chuckled, secured the door and came to join me. “At least you’re yourself again. So what’s this about?”
I didn’t waste time, and I didn’t leave much out. Last night’s events spilled out in graphic detail. By the time I finished, he didn’t look happy. Ironically, I understood then why other girls thought he was cute. That brooding expression probably could entice someone to try to comfort him.
Just not me. I was not in the mood.
“You told me ferals were easy to spot,” I said. “You weren’t kidding. But why—”
“Is one running amok in town? I’ve got no fucking clue.” Brandon straddled a makeshift sawhorse and sat down. “We thought we’d gotten them all.”
“Gotten them all?” I repeated apprehensively. His answer wasn’t exactly direct, but I didn’t stop him, because for once, someone was starting to explain.
“Some werewolves run in families. Some run alone. Those are usually the trouble cases, ‘cause going wolf can be easier than trying to stay human. You’ve probably noticed.”
I didn’t dignify his comment with a reply.
“So, yeah. If we get too off balance, get separated from what keeps us human, we tend to go a little…”
He mimed claws and bared his teeth. I gave him a grim look and continued saying nothing.
“Look,” he said, sighing heavily. “It’s obvious that’s the kind of wolf that got you in the first place. Maybe it’s our fault for missing him, I don’t know.”
“What do you mean?”
“Our pack kind of had a…mission, I guess. The Elder decided someone had to look after the lone wolves out there. There’s less space all the time for us to live, so packs keep getting pushed out of their territories, and when that happens, families get split up, people go haywire. We’ve been luckier than most. The Elder always said that made it our responsibility to take care of others.” Brandon shrugged, as if he wasn’t sure he agreed, but it was long past arguing by now. “So we looked for the misfits, took some in, took out a few who were too dangerous. We covered a lot of territory. S
ome of it I barely remember. This all started when I was really young.”
“How long have you been a werewolf, then?”
“Always have been. I was born to the pack, same as Kane.”
My eyes widened. Brandon tugged his shirt collar down, letting me see that his neck was unmarked. No bites.
“Children of female werewolves become werewolves themselves. Think about it. It’s not like you could stop yourself from changing for nine months. The babies have to shift too, or they’d die. And things still go wrong.” His mouth twisted. “Not a lot of babies survive. The mothers, either. Mine didn’t. Maybe that’s why we can transform people, who knows. Otherwise we’d just die out entirely.”
He was matter-of-fact, but I felt nauseated. I never thought I’d be in any position to worry about having children. I’d figured it wasn’t possible. I wasn’t exactly glad to be wrong.
“In some ways it’s easier to start out that way,” Brandon said, mistaking my unease for sympathy. “We’ve never known anything else. And I think our bodies deal better with the change.” He grinned lopsidedly. “We’ve had more practice.”
I wasn’t sure that was an improvement. The idea of a child, a baby, being forced through the transformation made me feel sick. Then I pictured the result—werewolf puppies?—and had to slap my hand over a hysterical giggle. “Oh, God. I’m sorry. It’s just—”
“Freaky shit on parade, I know.” He shook his head, getting back to the point. “Anyway. That search of ours kept us away from home a lot, especially around the full moons. And we never went into town much. Werewolves just aren’t city dwellers, usually, and with you locked up and all, we never did find you. Or our new-found feral friend. Go figure.”
“So how did you finally figure out I was there?”
“We finally stopped playing nomad, for one thing. Ilsa was tired of running.”
Given what I’d seen of her memories before she joined the pack, I couldn’t blame her.
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