by Reed, Zoe
I had barely started running before a large black wolf clamped down on my backpack and whipped its head to the side, throwing me against the lockers. The large wolf lunged at me, being caught in mid air by another slightly lighter colored wolf knocking him to the ground. When I had been thrown against the lockers I’d hit my head hard, and now it was swimming. I lay there, rubbing the growing bump as the wolves tangled, snapping and clawing at each other, colliding with and denting lockers as they made their way down the hall.
“Crap, crap, crap.” I stood up, frantically trying to think of what to do. I ran to Camille’s backpack and pulled out her cell phone, racing through the contacts with trembling fingers.
“What? I’m in class,” the deep voice on the other end asked annoyed.
“Niko, it’s Kyla.” I spoke as fast as I could. “They just left the building. Go to the practice football field.” That was all I could manage to spit out through the panic and the pounding that had started in my head.
I hung up the phone and ran down the hall, exiting the doors that led to the empty football field. I stood there, frozen solid in fear as I watched the large wolves brawling on the grass, thanking my lucky stars that no one else was outside watching the same thing. They were a dark and snarling coil of fur. A rolling ball of fury moving so fast the only distinction in the dark mass was the occasional flash of pearly white fangs. About thirty seconds later Niko came bursting out the doors behind me, stopping at my side.
He growled, clearly frustrated at the sight, and then dropped his backpack and backed me a safe distance from him. “I texted Luna, she should be here any second.”
Confused I stood there staring, and right before my eyes an enormous light-brown wolf seemed to rip through Niko’s skin. The wolf took off running toward Camille and Jonathan, leaving shreds of clothing floating to the ground behind him. I watched him head-butt Jonathan away from Camille and then pin her to the ground as Jonathan sprinted across the field and to the farmland that stretched behind the school, leaving the scene. Camille struggled under her brother, desperately trying to break free so she could chase Jonathan, but as desperate as she was, she wouldn’t fight him.
Luna threw open the doors just as Camille had calmed enough for Niko to let her up. “Oh my God.” She looked at me, clearly confused, and looked back at the wolves in the middle of the football field. “Go through the wheat field. We’ll get the car!” she shouted at them, pointing to another stretch of farmland.
Grabbing my arm Luna ran toward the parking lot, dragging me behind her. I hopped in the passenger seat while she started the jeep, and with screeching tires threw it in reverse. I sat there without moving, unsure of what to say or do, in awe of what I’d seen.
“Kyla, are you okay?” Luna touched my arm comfortingly. “Are you hurt?” As her eyes scanned every inch of my bare skin I could have sworn she was looking for any bite marks.
Taking a deep breath, I touched the massive and growing bump in my skull. “I hit my head.”
She nodded as she sharply turned the steering wheel, tearing down a road at the end of which Camille and Niko were waiting. She slammed on the breaks when she reached them and they both jumped in the back seat.
“Here.” Niko reached behind their seat, handed Camille a blanket and then wrapped the second one around himself.
I glanced behind me, confronted by Camille’s exposed, blood-streaked body. “You guys are naked.”
“What did you expect?” Niko said rudely. Camille growled at him, a low sound coming deep from her throat, warning him to remember his place. “What the hell happened?”
I stared at my knees, guilt spreading through me like wildfire. This was my fault. I’d made Jonathan mad and Camille had to protect me. “I’m so sorry,” was all I managed to say.
“Jonathan lost control,” Camille said, directed more at me to make me feel better than at Niko. Then to her siblings she explained. “He lost control and was going after Kyla. I had to do it.”
The rest of the ride, however quick, was silent. Pulling into Camille’s driveway I slid out of the car and followed them into the house. When we reached the living room, Adrian had heard us come in and stepped out of his office, frowning when he saw Camille and Niko wrapped in blankets.
“Sit,” he commanded all of us, a mixture of intense emotions riddling his face. We all sat on a single couch, and he took a seat in an armchair across from us. “Who did you fight Camille?” he asked, clearly noticing the welted bite marks all over her skin.
“Jonathan,” she told him, a quick and one word answer, and then looked down at the floor. “Inside the school.”
“Please tell me you didn’t,” he said in an angrily raised voice, standing and pacing in front of the chair. “Do you have any idea how bad that could have been? You know better than all of us that someone could have been hurt.”
“You don’t think I know that?” Something Adrian said made Camille raise her voice defensively, and as her eyes glossed with held back tears she looked everywhere but in his eyes. She quickly blinked away the tears before answering. “I had to do it. He lost his temper and was going after Kyla.”
He folded his arms across his chest, turning his head when he noticed Julian come in the room. “And why did he lose his temper?”
Camille sighed in defeat. “We made him mad.”
Her dad sighed, frustrated, and rubbed his forehead. “Camille, do you have any idea how important this is? There’s a lot more at stake here than your goddamned teenage ego.”
I flinched as Adrian raised his voice, but as intimidated as I was I couldn’t let Camille take the fall. “It was my fault sir.” Both he and Camille looked at me. “I made him mad. Camille was just trying to protect me.”
Another sigh as he tried to calm himself, reluctant to raise his voice again. “Well, Kyla, needless to say you know the situation. Be careful from now on. Camille, any deep cuts?”
She shook her head. “Nothing a shower won’t fix.”
“Good.” He gave a small smile to let us know no grudges would be held. “Anyone else hurt?”
“Kyla hit her head,” Luna told him.
He motioned for me to follow him and dismissed everyone else. I followed him into the kitchen where he told me to sit on the table. “Do you remember what happened Kyla?”
“I slapped him,” I told him honestly, bowing my head in shame.
He chuckled in amusement. “I meant to your head, but nicely done.”
I looked away shyly and laughed at myself. “Oh, he threw me against the lockers and I hit it.” I winced when he lightly touched the bump on my head.
“Sorry. Any dizziness? You didn’t black out did you?” He motioned for me to look up into the ceiling lights so he could check my pupils.
“No. I was a little lightheaded and it was pounding at first, now I just have a little headache,” I told him, and started swinging my legs back and forth like I used to do when I’d visit the pediatrician.
“Okay, well you should be fine. Just let me know if you start getting disoriented or nauseated.” I nodded and he leaned against the kitchen counter, looking at me as if he had more to say. “It’s my understanding that you and Camille are a bit of an item now.” Growing nervous, I nodded again. “She wouldn’t have brought you into any of this if she didn’t care about you, and trust you. Just be careful with her.”
I understood. Adrian was such a nice guy he could never make the legitimate fatherly threat, so this was his version. “I understand. I would never hurt her.” Camille’s dad nodded and smiled at me, but I continued to sit on the table, unsure if he was done talking to me. “I didn’t know you were a doctor?”
“Oh no.” He chuckled to himself. “Don’t laugh at me, but I went to nursing school. Before I met Camille’s mother.” I held back a chuckle and nodded, hoping he would say more so we wouldn’t sit in awkward silence. “You don’t want to hear this boring stuff. Camille’s out of the shower now.”
I glanced up
at the ceiling, but I couldn’t tell anything was different. Taking his word for it I hopped off the table and made my way up the stairs. “Camille?” I knocked on her door before walking in. She had her back turned and was finishing putting on a t-shirt, but not before I could see the welts and a few cuts on her back.
“Camille, I’m so sorry. I didn’t know he’d lose control so easily.” I sat on the bed, pulling her down to sit next to me.
“Don’t apologize.” She stretched out on the bed, putting her head in my lap and sighing tiredly. “It was only a matter of time before I hit him myself. At least now he knows you won’t put up with his bullshit. How’s your head?”
I laughed, knowing all too well how honest she was being about wanting to hit him too. “It’s okay, just a little bruised. And how’s your body?”
Camille smiled comfortingly. “My body is fine. You should see Jonathan. I got a couple good bites on him.”
“Oh, that’s good.” I pictured the two wolves fighting in the field, and the wolf that took Niko’s place in the blink of an eye. If I’d looked away I’d have missed it.
Always so in tune to my moods, Camille asked, “What’s wrong?”
“I won’t lie, seeing you fighting with him was scary. It looked like it was to the death, and I was scared you were going to get really hurt.” I half-lifted her shirt so I could draw pictures on her stomach with my finger. It was nice not having to worry about the ways I touched her now. “But I saw Niko Change, and that had to be the coolest thing I’ve ever seen. Except for the naked part afterward. That kind of threw me off.”
Camille laughed and stopped my finger, interlocking our hands. “Yeah the nakedness is something you get used to, but I’m glad Niko’s Changing didn’t freak you out. Was my dad being nice?”
“Yeah,” I laughed with a nod. “He checked on my head and then told me he went to nursing school.” Then I shrugged and looked up as Luna appeared in the doorway.
“Hey, Mike just got back with the drug results. Let’s find out what this asshole’s up to,” she told us and then turned and ran down the stairs.
Camille and I looked at each other excitedly and then got up, almost running down the stairs too. We sat on the couch next to Luna and waited for everyone else to sit or stand somewhere in the room, each of us nervously fidgeting or tapping our foot. Julian was the last to arrive and sat in an armchair that Adrian had reserved for him.
“Okay everyone ready to hear it?” Mike asked, pulling a folded piece of paper out of his pocket. “Alright, the drug you submitted contains high amounts of nicotine, not surprising,” he said to himself, and as his eyes continued on, his jaw dropped. “It also contains epinephrine, more commonly known as adrenaline.” He looked at each of us in the eye before continuing. “Adrenaline, apparently, from some species of canine.” As I looked around at dropping and clenching jaws, I didn’t think I’d heard right. I couldn’t have.
“Just to make sure we’re all on the same page here,” Camille asked, reading my mind. “They’ve been selling werewolf adrenaline to humans?”
“That’s what it looks like.” Mike nodded through clenched teeth.
“But why the nicotine?” Luna asked.
“Keep the customers wanting more,” Niko answered her with a shrug.
I sat there, frightened and confused, and turned to Camille to whisper in her ear. “How come if people take the adrenaline pills it doesn’t turn them into a werewolf?”
“In order to turn someone it has to enter their bloodstream. When you eat something your body doesn’t absorb everything,” Camille told me, and then explained further so I would fully understand. “A human taking werewolf adrenaline would probably be like them taking really good steroids, but because it’s a natural hormone it wouldn’t have any of the negative effects that steroids do, and it won’t show up on drug tests.”
“And the same thing with the nicotine,” I said, nodding in understanding. “But why not take the adrenaline and then let the werewolf go? Why kill them?”
“Leave no witnesses, other werewolves could ruin their plan, or just because they can. As long as we can’t find them, we can’t stop them and they can do whatever they want.” Camille sounded frustrated, like she wished Niko hadn’t stopped her from tearing into Jonathan earlier.
I sat there and let the situation sink in. As I looked around at all the people that I was starting to grow fond of, I feared for them, most of all for Camille. Jonathan had said that she was starting to piss him off. Why wouldn’t he go after her first? He had every reason. A cold pit grew in my stomach as it finally sunk in just the kind of dangerous situation I’d gotten myself into.
I pulled into Kyla’s driveway on Friday afternoon nearly shaking with excitement. For our first official date I’d packed a small cooler with food and was going to take her to watch the sunset at the beach. I knew it was cheesy, but I didn’t care. The beach was the only place I could take her where we could be alone and not have to worry about any werewolf business.
I knocked on the front door to be greeted by Kyla’s oldest brother, Jeremy. “Oh hey Camille, come on in,” he said, and then shouted up the stairs for Kyla.
As we stood there in the kitchen waiting for her to come down, Jeremy reached into a bag of chips, offered me some, and hopped up on the counter. He was studying me too intently to be doing it on accident. As I realized he was trying to intimidate me with that intense stare, I couldn’t help but smirk. He had to know about Kyla and me. So I reached into the bag of chips and smiled at him confidently, letting him know he wasn’t making me nervous.
He gave a quick smile back, and then tried to act serious. “I’m watching you little one. You be good to my sister.”
I couldn’t help but laugh at him as he tried to scowl at me, but only ended up looking like he belonged in a nuthouse. He chuckled along and offered me some more chips. “You don’t need to worry. She’s safe with me,” I reassured him as Kyla came hurrying down the stairs.
She saw Jeremy sitting on the counter next to me and squinted her eyes at him suspiciously. “J, are you being nice?”
Jeremy tsk-ed at her sarcastically while shaking his head. “Nice is my middle name.” Kyla laughed and rolled her eyes at her brother, ushering me out of the kitchen. “I like you so far Camille. You two behave yourselves,” he called after us.
Kyla waved and stuck her tongue out at him as we walked out the front door. “He knows about us, if you couldn’t tell,” she informed me as I jumped in the driver’s seat.
“Yeah I caught that,” I told her, starting the car and then leaning over to give her a hello kiss. “When did you tell him?”
“I didn’t actually,” she admitted as she pulled her seatbelt across her chest and buckled it in. “He found out from a friend whose sister goes to our school.”
I sighed, but my sarcastic tone assured Kyla I wasn’t aggravated. “People just can’t mind their own business. He seems to be okay with it though. Are you glad he knows?”
“You know, I am glad.” She let on a big affectionate smile for added assurance. “It’s kind of a relief knowing that someone from my family’s okay with it."
I nodded. I understood that perfectly. Werewolf or not, telling your family about something like this was hard and scary. “What about your parents? Are you going to tell them?”
I glanced over to see Kyla pulling at her lip thoughtfully. “Um, I don’t know. I mean I know that they need to know eventually, and I don’t want to put it off for too long. But I don’t know. Are you okay with me not telling them yet?”
“Of course,” I told her, nodding vigorously to emphasize how okay with it I was. “As long as you still want me, you do what you got to do.”
Kyla leaned over and gave me a tender kiss on the cheek before turning up the radio. She flipped through the stations and after finding one she liked she started belting out the song that was playing. I couldn’t help but laugh in sheer joy as I watched her sing and dance in the passenger seat,
and soon enough was dancing along. The rest of the ride lasted a couple hours until we reached the beach, and we got there right as the sky turned orange. So far, our timing was perfect. I grabbed the little ice cooler out of the jeep and led Kyla to a small patch of boulders that lined the far edge of the sand. Aside from a small amount of other couples and bonfires that dotted the shore, it was empty.
I set the cooler down next to the boulders and turned to look at Kyla, who was staring in awe at the vast water and then lifted her face toward the sky. “What are you doing?”
“Smelling it,” she told me, laughing embarrassedly. “I wish pictures could capture smell. Then I could take this home with me.”
I smiled and thought about how if I could do that for her, I would in a heartbeat. “Well it looks like we have about thirty minutes until actual sunset. Do you want to eat?”
“No,” she started, suggestively stretching one leg before the other as she strode toward me.
“Um, take a nap?” I backed against one of the largest rocks as Kyla pressed right up against me, and I had to bite my lip to keep from jumping the gun. Such bold affection from her was definitely new, but I couldn’t say I minded.
She slid her hands halfway up my shirt, running a finger down my stomach before pulling my shirt over my head. She then slipped off her own shirt, rolling her hips provocatively as she did so, and revealing a royal blue bikini with a pink Hawaiian flower on one breast.
“We’re going swimming,” she laughed, and then apologetically pecked me on the lips for leading me on.
I laughed and shook away the effect she had had on me as she took off her shorts, now completely ready to go into the water. “I hope you know the water is freezing cold. Like an ice cube.” It was for that exact reason that I hadn’t even bothered to put on a bathing suit.
Kyla shrugged. “You only live once right?” To which I nodded in agreement. “Race you,” she called behind her, already sprinting toward the water.
I struggled to hurriedly strip off my jeans, but ended up getting them caught on my feet and face-planting in the sand. From the ground I kicked them off and darted up, taking off toward Kyla who was nearly halfway down the beach. I was almost at the water when she reached it, and once her feet hit the icy ocean she let out a shriek and backed out of it.