I was too tired to lie to her. It hadn’t done me much good so far, anyway. “Would you believe werewolves?”
She stared at me. It went on a while. Of course, she’d seen what happened when Marcus attacked the security guard at school, so the evidence was in my favor. She flicked her gaze back to Cee, obviously noting the bite mark.
“Well. Um. Is she going to—”
“No. We don’t think so.”
“And are you…?”
“One of them, yeah.”
Lin raised her eyebrows. “I only meant to ask if you’re okay.”
Whoops. It took a minute to find my voice again. “More or less.”
I expected her to start asking if I’d done this to Lacey, or if I’d known the wolf who’d murdered someone practically in front of her. Or maybe she’d just plain freak out and run, which would have been understandable. But she merely sat there, thinking. I gave her a nervous look.
“So is this one for the list of really embarrassing accidental confessions that I’ll live to regret later?” I said.
“Only if you turn out not to be housebroken.”
I had to slap my hand over my mouth to suppress a vastly inappropriate giggle. Then we both started laughing. If the sound had a slight hysterical edge to it, I think under the circumstances we could both be forgiven.
*
I saw Madison and Antonella later, in that order.
Grey and I were still lurking around the hospital, without, amazingly, getting kicked out the door. I guess Dr. Fitzpatrick officially got me into the system, or maybe Barron had pulled a few strings with the hospital staff. One of them even let me use the shower in Lacey’s room. Grey bought a new long-sleeved T-shirt for me at the gift shop downstairs, and I borrowed a pair of pants from what Cee’s dad had already brought for her. We weren’t exactly the same size, but it was close enough.
So I was nearly presentable by the time Madison showed up. If she recognized Cee’s jeans on me, at least she didn’t comment.
“Is she going to get through this?” was all she said in greeting, in fact.
I sighed. “I hope so.”
“Why did you drag her into this?”
There wasn’t much vitriol in it. I couldn’t bring myself to be too sharp, either. “She kind of dragged herself.”
“Yeah. She does that.”
Finally Madison faced me, her eyes giving a telltale gleam. I couldn’t help but remember the times I’d seen Cee volunteering a shoulder for Madison to cry on. That was just what she did, no matter what.
“She deserves to have someone help her out this time, you know?” Madison said.
“Yeah,” I said, my heart hurting. “Yeah, I do.”
*
Antonella didn’t talk much when she came around, but at least she didn’t throw me, literally or figuratively, out of the room. She looked weak as a limp rag, actually, but that wasn’t surprising. Withdrawal from that drug was bad enough for us. I couldn’t imagine what it was doing to her. Still, it didn’t dull her attitude much.
“So,” she said, her voice thick and a little slurred. “Come for revenge, I guess?”
A few days ago I was furious at her, and then I’d thought she was stupid and gullible, but I’d come out somewhere in the vicinity of pity. I shook my head. She snorted, before her expression slanted into worry.
“Do you know…what happened to Brandon?”
“I have no idea.”
“And you’re not out looking for him?”
I wanted to be. I hoped Raoul was. I just couldn’t be everywhere at once. I wished like anything Dr. FitzP had a miracle drug to fix that.
“I have to take care of my friends here, too. But I promise I’ll do something. I swear.”
Antonella didn’t reply, but I didn’t really expect her to. I stepped back, and before I left, told her one more thing.
“I’m so sorry this happened,” I said. “I really am. But for what you did…thank you.”
Whether she accepted my gratitude or not, I have no idea. I finally turned and left, and the curtain fell silently behind me.
*
Somewhere along the way, Barron helped Grey retrieve his wayward truck, and so it sat on the top floor of the hospital’s garage, quietly collecting parking fees. I finally retreated up there for a chance to breathe. I was beginning to miss the outdoors.
From my seat in the bed of the truck, I stared up at the cloud-obscured sky. Somewhere up there was an almost-full moon, and somewhere out there were the rest of my friends—most of all Raoul, who was about to face the transformation as alone as I’d ever been with it. I shivered.
Are you out there? I sent again, futilely. I miss you.
It was quiet. I sat there hugging my knees, trying to ignore how sore I felt. At last, though, I finally heard something. It wasn’t Raoul. It was Grey calling my name. He was walking across the parking lot, not quite at a run, but with urgency written all over his face. I jerked painfully upright.
“Is something wrong?” I asked, and then added with dread, “Lacey?”
“No, no. Well, yes, but…” He took a breath. “Whatever the hell it is in Lacey’s blood—that’s what this is about. How she’s handling it since she got the shot. Dr. Fitzpatrick got the results back from the tests he’s been running.”
“What did he figure out?”
“Strangest thing. You’ve got to see this. Come on. Hurry.”
“Grey, hurrying is gonna be a little hard.”
“Here, then,” he said, slinging an arm around me. I let myself take the assistance. Without any further comment, he helped me to the elevator and off to Cee’s room.
When we found him, Dr. FitzP had gone from looking like an exhausted mess to an overexcited, probably over-caffeinated one. It spilled over into hasty movements and wide-eyed exclamations. I stood there where Grey deposited me at last, waiting for my doctor to corral his thoughts enough to get to the point.
“B. Good. You’re here. I had to tell you—the signs of the mutation in Lacey’s blood are functionally absent.” He moved as if to hand me his stack of notes, then thought better of it and said it simply. “We’ll still have to get her through a full moon to know for certain, but I believe she’s not going to transform. She may, in fact, end up completely immune.”
For a minute, to my shame, I felt a blast of jealousy and frustration. Typical, I thought. I gripped her bedrail and tried to catch my breath, doing a bad job of both. I popped one thumb out of joint in the process.
“Of course, there’s no way to fully verify that immunity without…well…having someone bite her again,” Dr. FitzP went on, eyeing me significantly. “And I wouldn’t recommend it.”
“No,” I said between my teeth. After evaluating her still-healing wound, my anger ebbed. Guilt settled in instead. “Of course not.”
“But if this holds, we may have a way to stop people from undergoing transformation. It’s a viable preventative measure in case of attacks, if not exactly a cure.”
I raised my head. If not exactly a cure…
“Then what about me?”
There was silence. Grey looked away.
“It’s not as simple in your case, unfortunately,” Dr. FitzP answered at last. “I tested the drug against your blood samples, and from what I can tell, this formula isn’t going to be enough to combat a full mutation. It’s like every other drug in your system. It breaks up too quickly.”
And there went that idea. No wonder Grey was looking disappointed. I had no idea what I felt, except resigned. “Naturally,” I said, my voice quiet.
“We could still work on treatments to make things easier for you, milder maybe…”
“A milder strain of werewolf?” I shook my head, then did the same to my dislocated thumb, popping it back into place. “Listen. I know you mean the best here, but I’m not going through this again. No more experiments.”
“B, wait—”
“I just want to be sure we can take care of Lacey,�
� I said, shutting down Grey’s protest. “I can’t count on whatever you think might happen at the full moon. I need to know, and I need to be there.”
Dr. FitzP gave me a long, sober look. I wondered even more what my brother was thinking. But all Grey did was reach out and give my shoulder a supportive squeeze. He had my back. It was something.
But the hard part was still going to be up to me.
I sighed and stood as straight as I could muster. There was really only one thing I could suggest, so I braced myself and told them.
“Here’s how it’s going to work…”
Chapter Thirty-One
I had no real experience of hospitals, as ironic as that felt by now, but I was pretty sure they weren’t supposed to be empty and quiet as far as the eye could see, until the buzzing of the lights was enough to drive you mad. The whole hallway was like that, though. Twelve empty rooms, and only one at the end still occupied: ours. I’d convinced Dr. FitzP to close the ward.
“Didn’t even know you could get away with something like this,” Grey said, while blocking one of the exits with a filing cabinet. I could see a couple of puzzled nurses through the window. They’d just had to move their patients, Antonella included, to other rooms. I was glad they’d had somewhere to go, at least, after I proposed this stunt.
Dr. FitzP didn’t sound enthused himself, but he spread his hands to Grey in a sardonic little shrug. “Yes, well. Extenuating circumstances.”
“What did you tell them, anyway?”
“Emergency quarantine,” Dr. FitzP replied, brushing off his hands. “Barron backed me up and started pulling strings. That man’s got connections I don’t even want to know about.” He shuddered. “I doubt they actually bought the cover story, though. How many firing offenses I’ve committed this week, I can’t even count.”
“You’ll still have the clinic,” I volunteered. Then I remembered. “Well, what’s left of it.”
Dr. FitzP shook his head and pointed me back down the hall. I went.
Cee still slept undisturbed. Uneasily, I sat in a chair beside her. I wondered if she was dreaming. Dr. FitzP joined Grey and me a few moments later, looking solemn.
“We have to wake her up,” I said. “She’s not going into this blind.”
“I’ve already adjusted for that. She should wake soon. Let her come to at her own pace.”
I wasn’t very good at waiting. I fidgeted for a while, until Dr. FitzP said, “I still don’t like this.”
“What? Leaving your patient alone in a room with a werewolf doesn’t inspire confidence?” I cracked a crooked smile. “Listen, I can control myself a whole lot better than I used to. She’ll be safe with me. But if we’re wrong about her test results and she does turn anyway, she’s going to need me. I know what it’s like, changing alone. I’m not letting that happen to her.”
Grey stared at me, bright-eyed. “I should stay too.”
“If she does turn,” I repeated pointedly, “you can’t stay.”
He lowered his head. Lacey moved a little, growing restless, and Grey squeezed her hand before he stood up. It was starting to get dim outside, and my bones hurt with it. “We’ll be all right,” I said.
Dr. FitzP didn’t say anything, merely nodded and withdrew down the hallway. My brother hesitated, watching us both, before following.
They locked the door shut tight behind them.
I sat there with my hands covering my mouth for a long while, just thinking. While I did, Lacey finally came to. I got up when her eyes opened and carefully said, “Hey, you.”
She blinked, still looking bleary. She obviously had no idea where she was. I was going to try explaining, but in the end I mostly let it go. “How are you feeling? You got a nasty—”
One hand went to her throat, touching the bite scar.
I sighed. “Yeah. That.”
“So…will I…?”
“We don’t think so. Not after the shot.”
“But you’re here.”
“Just in case.”
Lacey stared up at me. Then a smile crossed her face. “Thank you.”
I turned away, feeling ashamed at being thanked for this. She only frowned, confused.
“It’s not your fault,” she said, her voice still slurred with sleep. “I just wish…I could help you, too. Seems like there ought to be some way.”
“Yeah, well.” I shrugged uncomfortably. My arms weren’t working quite in sync, for one thing. It was well on toward dark now, and the moon was rising. “I am what I am, I guess.”
“But you don’t give yourself enough credit. Never have.” She coughed to clear her throat, covering my sound of protest. “Wish there was a way you could see what—”
She stopped short. I turned around at last, and was shocked to see Lacey sitting up, looking so terribly pale and thin and not like herself, but she was as determined as ever. She was slowly digging the IV out of her arm.
“Lacey, what are you doing?” I burst out as the machines beeped in protest. She only shook her head, making all that pretty red hair wave down around her shoulders.
“Brandon said something to me, back there,” she muttered. Blood had welled up from her arm. “Something about sharing memories. I don’t see why it couldn’t work from me.”
I grabbed her by the shoulders, wanting to stop whatever she was doing. As usual, though, Lacey was too adept at taking control of the situation. She’d already swiped up the blood and transferred it to the back of my thumb. I looked at the smear, feeling horribly guilty—I’d already been responsible for enough of her spilled blood—but she only looked satisfied.
“Take it,” she said. “There’s something I think you should see.”
“Lacey—”
“It’ll help. Just take it.”
There was a weird resonance to those words I probably should have been more worried about, but I decided in the end not to argue. I lifted my hand, studying the shape of the smudge across my still-human skin. Then while I still had the chance, I brought it uneasily to my lips.
One taste nearly knocked me off my chair.
She’d been right, as usual. Memories pass through the blood, the pack said—no matter whether it came from other werewolves, or someone who was damn well close enough. And in that moment, thanks to a friend who didn’t know when to quit, I was getting all of Lacey’s memories.
Of me.
*
Back when I was a shy, self-conscious kid, back before I really had things to worry about, I got fed a lot of lines about how the rest of the world actually sees you.
I got told not to worry what other people thought, for one thing. My father usually said—ironically enough, as it turned out—that most people would put you out of their heads soon enough, because they were too busy thinking of themselves. I always was a little skeptical, though, and it only got worse once I changed. Even now, I was stuck with the question: what could someone like Lacey Hilliard ever see in me?
That night, I found out, and I was not in any way prepared.
Because no matter how many reflections I’d ever seen, it wasn’t until I saw myself through her eyes that I had any real idea of what I looked like.
Her first image of me was from the start of school. I really had been a ragged mess. Me and my snarled curtain of hair, fierce eyes glaring at everything…I did look like some feral little creature, and most of that was my own fault. It was a wonder she even spoke to me.
But I caught bits of her thoughts about me—not the words, more just the impressions. She thought I deserved the help, and that I’d need it if I was going to survive Gilman High. Probably true, in retrospect. Given the choice between teenagers and werewolves, I still wasn’t sure who was scarier, really. Just look at Antonella.
Along the way, though, things changed. I caught glimpses of me with Lacey’s friends, slowly opening up. I saw the conversations we’d had in her house—the one where we were chatting away and getting nowhere with our homework, and then the time I came to tel
l her what I was. I looked so different in the second. There was something quietly worrying about me then, but it was obvious I had a strength and determination I hadn’t had before.
My eyes even looked clearer. Strangest thing.
She’d been terrified of me up at the cabins, both when I’d commanded her to stay in the car, and again when she returned for me with Grey. But she still came. I heard what she told my brother that time: She’s been through too much to just leave her. I can’t do it. Neither can you.
I saw Grey through Lacey’s eyes, too, which was a perspective I’m not sure I needed of my brother, but she really did care for him. I could hear his music through her ears and it just about broke my heart, how beautiful it sounded. At least getting that bass to him had been the right thing after all, no matter what the school probably thought of it.
And then, amidst a cloud of fragments—some flattering, some really not—I saw something that knocked me completely sideways. It was something I’d never seen of myself.
It was me…transformed.
Lacey saw me that way when she’d come back for me with Grey. And she was amazed by it. I’d never thought anyone would consider me beautiful, but she did, as she gaped in awe at this huge, silver-and-slate wolf with my eyes. I’d had no damn idea my eyes always looked the same. But it was, unmistakably, me.
Even after I changed back—and oh, God, but watching myself transform was disconcerting. I’m not surprised Lacey shut her eyes partway through—there was something about me, standing there with Raoul…looking tired and scared but still standing.
I’d forgotten I’d smiled at her.
I lost the thread of her memories then, underneath the shock of a much deeper change. But it was that image that lasted: me with my eyes shining, bright as the moon.
And it was just enough to carry me through.
*
When I finally fell free of Lacey’s memories, I was staring up at what looked madly like a moonscape.
They grey darkness above me, pockmarked with a thousand tiny spots, only slowly resolved into ceiling tiles. The room was quiet except for the beeps and whirs of medical equipment. Medical equipment, I thought. The hospital room…
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