Still, I suppose being indebted to Kael was infinitely preferable to being dead.
My eyes glazed over as I continued to stare out the door. I decided I should probably talk to him about it, and apologize too.
I was thinking about just what I should say, when I suddenly realized I wasn’t even sure I’d thanked him for saving my life, for putting his own life in danger to protect mine.
What kind of person doesn’t say thank you for something like that?
I leaned against the door’s cool glass, gazing expectantly toward the edge of the yard. I only had to wait about five minutes before somebody walked out of the woods. I slid the door open quietly and stepped out, squinting to get a better look. It didn’t take me long to recognize who it was and, when I did, my heart sank horribly.
Kael obviously was mad at me—so mad he’d decided not to come get me after all.
Instead, it was Vanessa making her way toward me. Her face lit up with a wide smile as she approached, and I tried to return it as enthusiastically as possible.
“Hey Alex,” she said.
“Hey.”
“Are you doing okay?” she asked. “You look upset.”
“I’m fine. I just thought…wasn’t Kael coming to get me?”
“Oh,” she said, making a face, “you’re disappointed to see me, huh?”
“No,” I said. “I’m just…” I trailed off, shrugging.
“Worried about him?” she finished, the beginnings of a mischievous smile tugging at her lips.
I could almost feel the color draining out of my face. Was I really that easy to read? The thought annoyed me—until I remembered something. She didn’t have to read my body language.
She could hear my thoughts.
I really, really needed to learn how to keep them from doing that.
“I can teach you,” Vanessa said sheepishly. “But until then, I’ll try not to listen in. I didn’t actually mean to do it then. It just sort of happens sometimes...like when you’re around someone who’s feeling particularly emotional, and you’re not consciously blocking it out— sometimes thoughts just end up in your head whether you want them there or not. But anyway, I’m out of your head now—promise. So… talk. Why are you so worried?”
If I talked, maybe she really would keep out of my head, and I could control this conversation, if nothing else. So I begrudgingly admitted: “I feel like he’s mad at me. That’s why I was hoping he was coming. I wanted to talk to him.”
“Mad?” Vanessa repeated airily. “No, I don’t think so. He’s just not feeling well; that’s why I came instead. He went to bed as soon as we got home and hasn’t come out of his room since.”
I frowned. “Is it because of what happened this afternoon? He said he was fine, but…I mean, he was bleeding an awful lot.”
“He’s been through worse,” she assured me.
“But I didn’t even thank him. Ugh. I suck as a human being.”
“You were a bit distracted,” Vanessa said tenderly. “It’s been a difficult past few weeks for you. Don’t be too hard on yourself.”
“But—”
“No more buts. Now c’mon—if you’re really that upset about it, why don’t we hurry up and get back? Then you guys can talk and sort things out.”
I wasn’t convinced that setting this right was going to be that easy, but I stepped forward anyway.
“Good,” Vanessa said with an approving nod. “So… he told me you were already getting faster than the average human. But can you keep up with me, I wonder?”
She turned and bolted across the yard.
I wasn’t really in the mood to race, but I wasn’t about to turn down what sounded like a challenge, either.
Much to my own surprise—and apparently to hers as well, judging by the look on her face—I managed to catch up with her in no time.
Being able to move this fast…it was unreal. And so bizarre it was almost terrifying.
What exactly was happening to my body, anyway?
We reached the cabin as quickly as if our destination had been the house just down the street rather than one a difficult, thirty-something mile hike away. We burst through the front door, still giggling from the invigorating run, and headed down the hall and into the kitchen.
Will and Eli sat on barstools around an island in the kitchen’s center. They looked up at us as we walked in, and I got the feeling we’d interrupted them somehow.
“Hey girls,” Will said. “Have a seat.” He gestured to the empty barstools across from them.
“Are you hungry, Alex?” Eli asked.
“Not especially,” I said.
“How is Kael?” Vanessa asked.
Wow. She didn’t waste any time, did she?
“About the same,” Will replied with a shrug. “He came down to get something to eat a few minutes ago, though.”
“So he’s awake?”
“Probably. Why?”
Instead of answering Will, Vanessa turned to me. “You should go talk to him. His room is up the stairs at the end of the hall. It’s the first door on the right.”
“Um…”
“Go on,” Vanessa insisted, putting an arm around me and steering me back toward the door. “While it’s still early—you’ll be too...um, busy to deal with it later.”
“I guess that’s a good point.” My stomach gave an unpleasant lurch.
I’d been so busy worrying about everything with Kael that I’d almost forgotten why I was here in the first place.
So maybe this thing with him was weighing a little more heavily on my mind than I would’ve liked to admit.
Which settled it: I was going to have to take care of it.
I made it to the top of the stairs and stopped. Kael’s door was cracked open, and a faint orange light spilled out from it and into the dark hallway. I took a few more steps, but my courage failed again just outside his door.
I lingered there for at least a full minute before I finally managed to wrap my fingers around the cold metal doorknob. I pushed the door open and stepped inside as quietly as I could manage.
Kael was lying on a bed in the corner with one arm across his face. It was covering his eyes, making it impossible to tell whether he was awake or not.
Maybe I should just come back later, I thought, taking a half-step backward. If he was sleeping, I didn’t want to wake him up—especially if he wasn’t feeling good. I started to inch backward.
I was less than a step from the safety of the hallway when he moved.
I froze.
“What are you doing in here?” he asked. He kept his arm over his face as he spoke.
“I was just…I just wanted to come check on you,” I said, taking an unsteady step forward. “Vanessa told me you weren’t feeling too well.”
“I’m fine.”
“Oh…That’s good.” I fidgeted with the sleeve of my jacket.
“Don’t you have somewhere to be?”
I frowned at the abruptness of his tone. “Not right this second.”
“Well can’t you go find someone else to bother?” he asked, rolling over on his side so that his back was to me. “I’m trying to sleep, in case you didn’t notice.”
I could feel the color burning in my cheeks, but I tried to keep my temper in check for once. I was here to make peace, after all.
“Why are you being so rude?” I asked, calmly. Politely, really.
“Me? You’re the one who invited yourself into my room.”
“I didn’t think—”
“Obviously.”
Okay, he was making it really difficult to be polite.
“I was coming to check on you.”
“I already told you I’m fine,” he said.
“Fine!”
“Okay.”
“Good!”
“Alright then.”
“Enjoy your rest, asshole.”
He laughed.
So much for peace.
Balling my hands into angry fists,
I turned and stomped toward the door. I’d made it about half way there when I suddenly remembered the reason I’d come up here in the first place. I really didn’t want to turn around and thank him after he’d just been so incredibly rude to me—but I had already walked all the way up here, and I wanted to finish this.
“Thank you, by the way,” I said briskly.
“For what?” he asked, rolling half-way back over and staring at the door behind me.
“For saving me earlier,” I spat, turning and resuming my stomp toward that door.
“If I’d realized then what a pain you were going to be…”
“What? You would’ve let Sera kill me?”
“I’m just saying I would’ve thought twice about getting involved. It was really your problem, anyway—you brought it on yourself.”
I spun back around, glaring incredulously at him.
“I told you it was dangerous to go off alone,” he said, sitting up and looking directly at me for the first time since I’d entered the room.
“You didn’t actually think I was going to spend the rest of my life locked in my house, did you?”
“The rest of your life?” he repeated with a hollow laugh. “Like we could expect that out of you. But even if we did, what would it matter? We would’ve been wasting our time. You couldn’t even last one day.”
“So I—“
“You were too selfish for that, weren’t you?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Too selfish and too stubborn to let anybody tell you what to do—even when those people were trying to save your life.”
His words stunned me into silence.
I stared blankly, my mouth dry and hanging halfway open in bewilderment.
Was he really that upset with me for not listening to him?
When I finally managed to unstick my tongue from where it had lodged in the back of my throat, I could think of only one thing to say: “You’re a jerk.”
“Ouch,” he said, lifting a hand to his heart. “That really hurts.”
“This isn’t why I came in here,” I said, shaking my head.
“Well the door’s over there,” he said, pointing. “Feel free to leave at any time.”
I left without another word, and I made sure to slam the door as hard as I could behind me. The pictures on the wall were still rattling from the slam when I reached the stairs. I could feel the sting of tears in my eyes. They didn’t fall; they just formed a wall of water that blurred my vision and made walking down the winding stairwell kind of difficult.
I was angry.
Angrier than I’d ever been in my life, maybe—and that was saying something.
It wasn’t just because of Kael, either. His hateful words had triggered it, but the anger had been there—boiling beneath the surface, waiting for this opportunity to erupt.
I couldn’t take this anymore. I missed my dad. I missed my normal, boring life. I wanted to go back, back to before I’d ever known anything about this horrible fantasy. Back to before I’d accepted this all as real, and decided I’d embrace it and try to fight my way out. Back to before I’d accepted the crazy idea that becoming a monster was my fate.
That last part, at least, had only happened a few short hours ago.
I could still take it back, right?
I could go and tell Eli and the others right now. Tell them I wanted out. Tell them I wanted to stay human— and they could take care of whatever threatened me and my family.
I heard their voices now, and I followed them to the room at end of the hallway. On the wall to my right, their shadows danced about in the light of a fire that I could hear crackling. I paused, watching and wondering if it was too late to decide this.
Probably.
I should still go ask them for the antidote, I told myself as I wiped away a few tears clinging to my eyelashes. But I didn’t move.
I just stood there, alone, in the middle of the hallway.
“Alex?” Vanessa called. I heard her footsteps moving toward the hall, and I considered running and hiding somewhere. I didn’t want anyone to see me like this. I only had a split- second to decide; there was a door to my left so I sidestepped quickly and threw it open—to reveal a closet crammed full of coats.
“Alex, is that you?” Vanessa’s voice was followed promptly by her appearance as she peered around the closet door I was still holding open. “What are you doing?”
“Nothing,” I said quickly. “I mean, I was just checking out this closet.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah. It’s… nice. Nice coats. And stuff. I love nice coats.”
Vanessa gave me a look that was half-concerned and half-amused.
“Do you want to talk?” she asked, gently prying my hand from the door handle and closing the door.
I wanted to say ‘no’, but for the second time that night my tongue seemed to be stuck. Before I could free it, Vanessa had one hand on my back, guiding me down the hall and into a room on the right. The room, which looked like a small study, was dimly lit by a lamp sitting on a corner desk.
“Alex?” she said, turning to face me. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
“You’re a terrible liar,” she said, raising an eyebrow.
I sighed, and I let my forced smile slide back into a frown. “I know.”
“Did you go see Kael?” Her eyes held a knowing look, and I wondered if she was reading my thoughts.
I squirmed a bit, uncomfortable at the thought of having an audience for this embarrassing mental breakdown I was having.
“I take it the visit didn’t go very well?” she prompted.
“That may be the understatement of the year.”
“That bad, huh?”
“We didn’t talk long. He seemed very…agitated.”
Vanessa nodded, looking unsurprised. “He doesn’t mean anything by it.”
I gave her a skeptical look.
“I’m serious,” she insisted. When my doubtful gaze didn’t waver, she let out a good-natured sigh, shaking her head. “It’s just the way he is. He’s got a bit of a temper to begin with, and the full moon never helps with that. And he’s injured, and sick…” She hesitated, then added: “and not to mention worried.”
“Worried?”
Vanessa didn’t reply right away. Her eyes darted around, as if she was searching for eavesdroppers, then she leaned forward and spoke in a voice barely above a whisper: “Look—don’t you dare tell him I told you this. He’d kill me if you did.” Her wide brown eyes were centimeters from my green ones. “Promise you won’t say anything?”
All of a sudden I felt like I was back in junior high swapping secrets with my best friend Leah.
“Do you want me to pinky-promise?” I mused.
Vanessa smiled and shook her head. “I don’t think that’ll be necessary,” she said. “Just swear you won’t say anything to him?”
“I won’t. Just tell me.”
“He wouldn’t want you to know, and he wouldn’t admit it if you called him out on it, but he’s been really worried about you.” She said all of this within a single breath, inhaling sharply once she finished. It was as if she’d been waiting all day for a chance to say it to someone.
“Um… doesn’t he have good reason to be?” Vanessa looked disappointed that I wasn’t nearly as excited about her revelation as she was, so I continued: “I mean, haven’t we already established that my family and I are basically walking targets?”
“Well yes, and of course we’re all worried about you,” she said, somewhat impatiently. “But it’s been different with Kael. First of all, he’s Kael—and he’s actually concerned about someone other than himself. You have no idea what a big deal this is. And he’s been so concerned about you that he’s kept within a half-mile radius of you since everything that happened at the lake Saturday.” She folded her arms across her chest and nodded, as if that settled the matter.
I was hardly convinced though—after all, he
didn’t seem to want me within a half-mile radius tonight.
“He’s just in a bad mood tonight,” Vanessa said, as if I’d voiced my thoughts aloud.
“What about last night?” I asked. For some reason, I was suddenly determined to prove her wrong. “After he walked me home, he didn’t seem to want to stick around. He said he was coming straight back here.”
“What Kael says and what Kael does are usually two completely unrelated things,” Vanessa said. “He didn’t come back last night. And this morning? He followed you to Boone. He was right behind you—and you know, I think that may be part of why he’s so upset. Because things got so close with you and Sera, even though he was there…Yes! I bet that’s it. And I bet—”
“Okay, so he doesn’t actually hate me or want me dead. I got it.”
It’s not that I didn’t appreciate her trying to reassure me. I just had a lot of other things on my mind at the moment. And despite what Vanessa claimed, thinking about Kael right now still made me angry. He’d been obnoxious—whether or not he had a legit excuse to be was kind of beside the question.
“Just thought you should know,” Vanessa said with a shrug.
“Thanks,” I said, flashing her a quick, genuine smile before walking over to the door. I nodded down the hall, toward the room I’d heard Eli and Will’s voices coming from earlier. “What are Will and Eli doing?” I asked, trying to redirect the conversation.
“Probably waiting for us,” she said. “Or for you, rather. Sun’s almost set.”
And just like that, my argument with Kael slipped a little further from my mind.
My time as a human was running short. I needed to tell Vanessa I’d changed my mind.
Now.
“Are you sure you want to go through with this?” she asked, placing her hand on my shoulder.
I looked down at her hand, but I didn’t speak.
What the hell was I waiting for?
I think what upset me most about everything Kael said was that I knew he was right. He’d known me for less than three days, and he’d already figured me out. I was stubborn.
Probably way too stubborn for my own good.
I had made a decision earlier today, and I wasn’t changing it.
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