Dirty Blood

by Heather Hildenbrand

  “Tara? Time to wake up.”

  Reluctantly, I cracked an eye against the cheery sunlight filtering through my window. My mother stood at my open bedroom door, like a sentry. We both knew I wasn’t a morning person, and we also both knew she wouldn’t walk away until she was convinced I was really up and about.

  “C’mon, get moving,” she said, slightly more impatient, as she watched my slow progress.

  I rolled over and groaned, just awake enough to be aware of my body—and it was aching and creaking in protest of having to move. “Mom.” My voice came out a croak. “I don’t feel so good.”

  “What’s wrong?” My mom’s impatience turned to concern. I might not be an early riser but I rarely ever stayed down or got sick.

  “I ache, all over.” My head pounded like a bass drum with every syllable.

  She crossed to my bed and laid a hand on my forehead. “Hmm…you’re pretty warm.” Her fingers stroked my cheek. “You probably caught that bug that’s going around. I guess you’re spending the day in bed. I’ll call school and let them know.”

  “’Kay,” I managed. Her fingers felt deliciously cool against my skin.

  “Do you want me to stay home with you?” she asked, suddenly looking torn.

  I looked back at her, into a pair of blue eyes that perfectly matched my own, and shook my head, not willing to worry her. “There’s no need. I’m just going to sleep.”

  “I told you not to go out in that weather last night,” she said sternly, making a smooth switch from nurturer to lecturer.

  “What weather?” I tried to remember last night.

  “That brutal wind that whipped through,” she said. “Obviously. I told you that last night, too. It was just brittle out there and there’s this flu bug going around.” She gestured to me, like I was the official carrier or something.

  I stared blankly back at her, trying to figure out what she was talking about. I knew being sick could make my brain fuzzy, but I had no idea what she was talking about. I hadn’t gone anywhere last night. I opened my mouth to tell her that, but she just kept talking.

  “Anyway, I hope George doesn’t get this, too. He doesn’t need this slowing him down. Not with those recruiters coming around.” She turned back to me, eyes studying. “He is okay though, right? I noticed it wasn’t him who dropped you off. Is he sick, too?”

  “I—I don’t think so.”

  “So who did drop you off?”

  “Um …” Okay, obviously I should remember this; my mom was certainly sure that it’d happened. But I just had no idea. Everything was fuzzy, from the time I’d gotten home from school until—well, now, basically. I kept my mouth shut. I was afraid that if I mentioned that, my mom would whisk me away to the closest emergency room. I looked back at her expectant face; I still hadn’t answered. “Um, Angela.”

  She nodded and rose, looking halfway satisfied. “Well, I need to get going. Julie has the morning off and I need to water everything before we open.”

  Mom owned a flower shop in the tiny scrap of land that was known as downtown, though Frederick Falls’ version of downtown wasn’t very impressive. We didn’t even have our own mall. You had to drive to the next county over for that. Still, she did okay here—her passion and talent for all things botanical had apparently skipped a generation with me—and as confused and achy as I might be, I didn’t want to keep her from it. Nor did I want her hovering.

  “Are you sure you’re going to be okay?”

  I nodded and settled back against the pillow in an effort to give my achy muscles some relief.

  “I’ll make sure I’m home for dinner,” she said, heading for the door.

  “Okay. Hey, Mom,” I called. “What time did I come in last night?”

  She gave me a strange look. “Ten thirty. Right on time for curfew. Why?”

  “Just wondering. Have a good day.” I forced a smile.

  She smiled back, still with a question in her eyes, and disappeared down the hall. A few minutes later I heard the front door open and close and the key slide in the lock. Then, silence.

  For the next hour I lay in my bed and tried, without success, to remember the details of last night. Mom had said I’d gone out with George, and I remembered making plans with him at school but the details were still hazy. I squinted with the effort of recalling the conversation we’d had after last bell …

  “Tay, look, I know things have been rough on you. My schedule and the team and my weekends away … I get it. But at least give me the chance to work it out,” George had said.

  I’d tapped my foot impatiently at that. “George, it’s not really about any of those things. It’s about you, or the new you, I guess. You’ve changed and I just don’t think I can do this anymore.”

  “My life has changed,” he argued. “Football has always been a part of me, though, and deep down, I’m still the same person.”

  I raised an eyebrow at him. “You blew me off two days in a row to do an interview for the school paper. Half the front page is your picture.”

  “Social networking is necessary at this point.” It was his voice but the words were that of a stranger, a new George who I just couldn’t connect with, try as I might. I tried to think of a nice way to just say it and get it over with. But I’d never been good at endings.

  George took advantage of my silence and pressed on. “Tay, we’ve been friends since middle school. Do you really want to throw all that away?” His eyes were soft and pleading, reminiscent of the old George. It was a look that normally would’ve made me cave or breathe faster or something.

  But I’d been down this road already and given him plenty of second chances. “George, look—”

  He cut me off. “Let’s go out tonight, just you and me. Do something fun. It’ll remind you of the real me. The real us.”

  “George—” I rubbed a fingertip in circles on my forehead, trying to smooth out the tension.

  “Please, Tay. We can shoot some pool.”

  Okay, my weakness for pool aside, the offer was tempting. Some part of me felt like I owed George this much. Like he said, we’d been friends for a long time. And I could feel my resolve wavering. I hated feeling … mean. “Fine. Pool tonight. Then I decide, and you don’t argue.”

  “Deal.” George grinned and I could tell he viewed this as a victory.

  “George,” Eddie, George’s best friend, waved and called to him from down the hall where he stood with half the football team. George glanced over and then turned back to me with a guilty expression that I’d come to recognize over the past couple of months.

  “Crap. I made plans with Eddie to go over some of the unedited footage from our last game. His dad said we could view it in their media room on the big screen.” He must’ve seen the disappointment in my expression and rushed on before I could respond. “It’s the first team we’ll face in playoffs, and we need to learn their signals. I’ll be done in plenty of time, though, promise. I’ll pick you up at six.” Then he flashed me a brilliant smile and strode away …

  My memory went fuzzy after that and I let the images fade away. I couldn’t even remember leaving school. What bug could’ve erased my memory of an entire evening? I wasn’t even sure the flu could cause something like this. But what else could it be? Nothing like this had ever happened before. Not even the night of my friend Sam’s sixteenth birthday party. I’d had way too much to drink that night, some fruity concoction that had smelled like strawberries on alcoholic steroids. The highlight had been when I’d fallen into the pool and almost drowned. George had jumped in and “saved me” by pulling until I realized it was only four feet of water. Even then, I’d remembered most of it the next day, unfortunately, which was why I’d vowed never to drink again. But this … this felt different. I was starting to worry.

  I sighed and rolled over, ignoring the ache it caused in my shifting muscles. Random pieces of clothing littered the carpet in my room—evidence of my tendency toward laundry procrastination. Neare
st to my bed, a scrap of bright red fabric caught my eye. A silk V-neck blouse, my favorite, lay in a heap, under a still- damp towel. I reached down and yanked it free, trying to remember when I’d last worn it. I thought it was still in my closet. Then I looked closer. The shirt was torn in several places, the silky fabric hanging by threads. S I stared at it, an uneasy feeling washed over me. A picture flashed in my mind: me, staring at my reflection in the bathroom mirror, hair disheveled and sticking out, the tattered shirt hanging off my shoulders and exposing my ribs on either side. Bloody scratches showed through the tears in the fabric.

  I dropped the shirt, and sucked in a sharp breath. Hesitantly, I pushed the covers away and lifted up my pajama tee. In several places along my ribs were jagged scratches running down my torso. They were clean, and shallow, like I’d been in a fight with a cat. Only problem, I didn’t have a cat.

  “What the …?” I said to the empty room.

  “Could’ve been worse,” a male voice answered.

  My head snapped up. A boy with bronzed brown hair and eyes to match leaned against the frame of my bedroom door.

  I gripped the covers, my knuckles white. “Who are you? What are you doing in here?” Despite my voice’s earlier croaking, I managed a shriek just fine.

  “Calm down, Tara, I’m not going to hurt you,” he said.

  His tone was calm and a little patronizing, but he’d said my name with familiarity. That surprised me enough to block out the fear for a moment. “How do you know me?”

  “The same way you know me. We met last night. I’m Wes.”

  “I don’t know who you are, but you need to leave, or I’m calling the police.” I grabbed my cell phone off the nightstand without breaking eye contact. I held it up in the air, like a weapon.

  He pushed off from the doorway and took a step into the room. The black leather of his jacket crinkled as he moved. “Look, I don’t want to hurt you any more than you already are, but I’m not leaving, either, so you might as well put the phone down. Besides, you agreed to ‘discreet,’ remember?”

  I stared at him with wide eyes. “What do you mean, hurt me more than I already am? Did you do this to me? Did we—?” Oh, God. Visions of after-school specials and date rape warnings from health class danced in my head.

  Halfway across the room, he turned and grabbed my desk chair, spinning it around to face the bed before sitting down. “No, I didn’t.” His lips twitched. “And no, we didn’t.”

  I breathed a silent prayer of thanks and then returned to glaring at him. “But you know who did this to me?”

  “Yes.”

  I waited, and then realized he wasn’t going to say more. “Well? Are you going to tell me who it was?”

  “I haven’t decided.”

  I threw my hands up in frustration. “Then why are you here? What do you want?”

  “I told you, I want to talk to you.”

  Something about the tone of his voice, the cadence of his words, unnerved me. It was familiar, but it wasn’t. I stared at him for a full minute, waiting for some memory to fall into place about where we might’ve met. Nothing came, but I got that same uneasy feeling I’d had when the torn shirt had been in my hands, something unfamiliar and unlike anything I’d ever experienced. I know it probably sounded silly because I’d only been around him for a few minutes, but I got the distinct feeling he was nothing like anyone I’d ever met before. Not even close.

  I squared my shoulders. “So talk,” I said, trying to sound tough.

  But he didn’t, not right away. He just continued to watch me with cool, studying eyes. They roamed my face and arms, and then glanced speculatively at the comforter I still held up to my chin.

  “Strong, amazingly strong,” he said quietly, almost to himself.

  “What?”

  “What do you remember about last night?” he asked abruptly.

  His eyes found mine and I was struck by their unique color. Last summer, I’d taken a trip to California to visit my grandmother. She and I had hiked to the top of a bluff that overlooked a forest, thick with redwoods, and picnicked there, just the two of us. His eyes reminded me of the redwoods—a swirling mixture of tawny brown.

  I blinked, trying to remember the question. “Nothing, actually. Which is pretty frustrating. Are you finally going to tell me where these scratches came from?”

  “Like I said, it wasn’t me. I just happened to come along at the right time.”

  “What does that mean?”

  My cell phone rang, cutting off his response. I looked around, only to remember I still held it in my hand. I loosened my grip and glanced at the screen.

  “Go ahead,” Wes said, gesturing toward the ringing phone. “I’ll wait.”

  I flipped open the phone. “Hello?”

  “Tara?”

  “George. Hey.”

  “Are you okay? Angela was in the office and heard that your mom called and said you were sick.”

  I hesitated. I’d fully intended to disclose my situation, a.k.a. scream for help, to the first person who called and then wait to be rescued from Wes, the crazy bedroom stalker. I glanced over at him, wondering why he’d even let me answer the phone at all. If he was going to hurt me, he could’ve done it already—and he definitely wouldn’t have let me take this call. His eyes glinted back at me in a silent challenge. He was willing to risk me telling someone? Why? What exactly was going on here?

  “Yeah, I’m sick,” I said finally. “The flu, I think.”

  “Listen, Tay, about last night. I really think we should talk about this.”

  As soon as I realized where this was going, my head began pounding in time to George’s voice. “George, I don’t feel good. Now’s not a good time.”

  “Okay, I get it.” I could almost hear his shoulders slumping. “Can I call you later?”

  I hesitated. “Yeah, sure.”

  We hung up and I found Wes watching me. “You didn’t scream for help.”

  I met his eyes. Yep, definitely a challenge there. “I want to know what’s going on. What happened to me last night?”

  “You were attacked.”

  I nodded. His answer wasn’t all that surprising. I had figured as much, after seeing the scratches on my abdomen. I just hoped that “attack” didn’t mean … I wouldn’t think about that. “Attacked by whom?”

  “Her name was Liliana.”

  “I was attacked by a girl?” Okay, I know that probably sounds sexist, but I’d fully expected my attacker to be male. I mean, I’m a seventeen-year-old high school student, apparently out alone, in the dark. I know what “attacked” usually means for a girl like me.

  Wes ran a hand through his hair, further tousling it, and shifted in the chair. “What do you remember?”

  “Nothing.” Then I added, “Actually I remembered one thing, a flash of something, really. Of looking at myself in the mirror, bloody and bruised. But that’s it.”

  “Hmm. It must’ve worked better than I thought.” He was staring at a spot on the wall; he seemed to be talking to himself again.

  His reticence was getting annoying. “Would you just spit it out already? Why was I attacked?”

  “Fine. I don’t know what started it. I wasn’t there for that part. By the time I got there, Liliana was already on the ground.”

  “On the ground? You mean, I hurt her?”

  “Yes, which was definitely a surprise to me and why I’m here now. But what you need to know is that Liliana was more than just some girl. She was a Werewolf.”

  Wes might’ve kept talking after that, but all sound and movement suddenly ceased for me. I was still stuck on that last word: Werewolf. I would’ve laughed out loud, but there was no denying Wes was serious. He absolutely believed that this Liliana girl was a Werewolf and the look on his face told me arguing wouldn’t change a thing. This just figured. The hottest guy I’d ever seen, alone with me in my room, and he was completely whacked.

  I abruptly cut off whatever he was
saying. “You seriously just said Werewolf, didn’t you?”

  He stopped, midsentence, and his shoulders sagged a little. “Yeah.”

  “Do I need to explain how crazy that sounds?” I decided my wording might be better than “you’re crazy,” which was what I was thinking.

  “What I don’t get is what you are,” he said, basically ignoring my question.

  “Hello? Are you listening to me?”

  “Yeah, just trying to figure this out,” he said, distractedly.

  “That makes two of us.”

  He sighed, like he was getting impatient. “This will be easier for you when you remember. Close your eyes.”

  “What?”

  “Close your eyes.”

  “Why?”

  “I’m going to help you remember.”

  I stared at him, waiting for him to explain more, but he didn’t. “What are you going to do?” I asked, trying to sound more confident than I felt. I was beginning to wonder if I’d made a mistake in not telling George about this.

  “I’m not going to hurt you. I won’t even move from my chair. If you hear me get up or move at all, you can open your eyes, scream, call the police—whatever you want.”

  I eyed him suspiciously but I could feel my curiosity winning out over my fear. I really, really wanted to know what had happened to me last night. “Fine.” I closed my eyes and waited.

  “Now relax and clear your mind.”

  I tried not to think how much he sounded like my mother’s yoga video. I took a deep breath and let it out as slowly as I could, imitating what I’d seen my mother do when she tried meditating, which really seemed like a rip-off of sleeping. Then I waited.

  A moment later, I felt something. Not a physical feeling, but rather a mental one—a weird tickling sensation in my mind, like when you try really hard to recall an old memory. I jumped and started to open my eyes.

  “Keep your eyes closed. I’m almost done.”

  I fidgeted with the comforter but kept my eyelids clamped shut. Black and blue bursts of light danced behind my closed lids, swirling into abstract pictures that reminded me of ink blobs a psychiatrist might use on a patient. A moment later, the tingling receded, and then I jerked in surprise as images flooded into my mind.

  My eyes snapped open and I found Wes watching me. His lips were pressed together in a tight line. All I could manage was to stare back at him with a slack jaw, as the images played over and over in my head. What I saw was almost too much. Impossible, really.

  “Did it work? Do you remember?” he asked, though it was pretty clear that he knew I did.

  I answered anyway. “Yes,” I breathed.

  The memories flooded back and then replayed over and over like a video simultaneously stuck on fast forward and repeat. I could feel Wes’s eyes on me, taking in my reaction. I wanted to say something, to ask him what he’d done and how he’d done it, but the images in my mind were too overwhelming to push aside.

  First, an image of me in the kitchen. The clock above the stove read six forty-five. George was late. No surprise there. Then, the replay of my attempt at one last date with him, at Moe’s, my favorite pool hall. The arguing. Him talking on the phone to his dad or agent through half a game of nine ball. The inevitable break-up. Then, me cutting through the alley to get to the bus stop.

  I let the image fade away, already knowing what came next. How was any of this possible? More than the memory of the night was the knowledge. Somehow I’d known what to do, to fight that … creature. But how? What kind of person was strong enough to fight—and defeat—a Werewolf? Not a normal human, that’s for sure. And how could Werewolves exist and no one even know it? And why, out of everyone who could’ve gotten pulled into something like this, did it have to be me?

  The questions went on and on and finally I had to shut them out to think straight. I hoped Wes could answer some of them, but I honestly couldn’t even figure out where to start. Instead I focused on what I did know: Werewolves were, in fact, very real. And Wes had somehow manipulated my memories. Twice.

  ~ 3 ~