“Okay. The seizures have stopped, but he’s really weak. They’re still running tests.”
“I’ve been thinking about that. I don’t think he’s going to get better. There’s nothing those doctors can do to help him.”
I glanced at Nathan, but he looked as confused as I was. “So you’re saying what? He’s going to die? Be in hospital forever? What?”
Nathan squeezed my hand.
“I’m not psychic,” Jakob said thoughtfully. “But I think we need to reverse the effects of the transfusion.”
“How?”
He hesitated. “It would require another bite.”
I stepped back, my hands raised in protest. “Are you actually insane now?”
“It might be the only way,” he said calmly. “There’s something in a werewolf’s fangs. For the sake of ease, let’s call it a poison of sorts. When we bite our prey, the poison numbs them to a certain extent, so they don’t suffer—or get away—while we finish them off. In a human, that poison flows through the blood stream and is usually worked out of the system over time. For someone with the right blood, the potential is there to be turned into a werewolf. For others, it’s a kind of temporary blood poisoning. The transfusion may have warped the poison, corrupted the DNA. Basically inhibited the process. He’ll need a fresh dose to—”
“Hold on!” I cried. “What are you saying? You want to turn him into a werewolf?”
“No, no. That requires… an additional step. This will be perfectly safe.”
“How on earth do you know that?” Nathan asked.
Jakob leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes, suddenly looking incredibly tired. “Because it happened to your grandmother.”
Nathan stuttered something before backing away, looking completely confused.
“It’s a long story,” Jakob said, and I couldn’t help wondering how many secrets he held, how many lies he had already told us. “A similar thing happened. I pleaded for help. I was told I needed to give her a fresh dose or turn her into a werewolf. I couldn’t make that decision for her, so I… gave her a fresh dose. She was fine within a few days. It was only later that we tried… the additional step.”
“You bit her?” Nathan sounded horrified.
“I had no choice. She remained gravely ill until the fresh dose from my bite worked its way into her system. After her own blood had been renewed, that is.”
“But you said nobody can know,” I reminded him. “Even if this did work, you can’t bite my dad without revealing everything.”
“There are ways.” A dark smile curved Jakob’s lips.
I didn’t like that smile. “It’s the truth or nothing.” But I was shaking. I had nothing to use to bargain.
“That’s entirely up to you,” Jakob said and left the room without another word.
“He’s like a completely different person,” I said.
Nathan shook his head. “What did my grandparents go through before I came along? Why didn’t they tell us any of this stuff?”
“They didn’t want to scare you, I expect. Hasn’t he told you anything about his past?”
“Nothing like this. I wonder what that additional step is.” His brow furrowed in thought.
I could only make a face as my imagination ran wild. “Where’s Byron? We should talk to him about this stuff.”
“He’s not here. Do you really think he would let me bring a girl up to my room?” Nathan burst out laughing.
“A girl. As in one of many?”
“Yeah. Millions. Come on, random girl. Let’s go solve some problems.” He gave me a piggyback ride to the door.
How could I let a werewolf bite my dad again? Worse still was telling Dad why some animal was in his hospital room. I giggled nervously.
“Why is she so worried?” Jeremy called from the living room.
“How did he know that?” I whispered to Nathan.
“I heard that,” Jeremy shouted.
“Ignore him. He’s showing off. Let’s get out of here. We’ll take Amelia and get out for the day. Forget about all of this… weird stuff.”
“I suppose I don’t have anything better to do. Where do you want to go?”
He grinned. “How about the zoo?”
“Hmm.” I pretended to contemplate his suggestion. “Only if you promise not to scare the lions.”
He grinned and kissed the tip of my nose. “I promise.”
***
“I don’t think I’ve been to the zoo since I was a little kid,” I said. It hadn’t taken long to get the bus into the city once we persuaded Amelia to come with us.
“Sometimes we hear the animals at night when we’re hunting,” Nathan said, then looked embarrassed.
“That’s kind of cool,” I reassured him. “Amelia, you okay?”
She nodded, but the dark circles under her eyes seemed to deepen every day. “Just a little headache.” Her voice sounded odd, kind of croaky. I worried about her.
“The team has a match this weekend,” Nathan said. “I don’t think I’ll be welcome, though.”
“You could always turn up and see,” I said. “Besides, they all liked you at school. I bet they’re over it by now.”
“Nah. I was just new. Everyone kind of lost interest after a while.”
“Then they aren’t worth worrying about,” I decided. He smiled, but he still looked sad. I knew how much he enjoyed playing on the team. I hoped he wouldn’t let Aaron get him down. “It’ll work out.”
He didn’t look convinced.
Amelia’s phone rang, and when she checked caller ID, she grinned happily. “I’ll only be a minute,” she said, her cheeks flushing pink.
“New boyfriend,” I said.
“Don’t say that,” he groaned. “So… what non-werewolf stuff do you want to talk about today?”
“There’s non-werewolf stuff?”
A passerby gave us a funny look which only set us both off laughing. “I have a question,” I said. “Why were you expelled?”
“I’m not expelled. The principal let me off for punching Aaron.”
“Oh, no. Not this school. I meant your last school.”
He stared at me for a full minute before rolling his eyes. “Amelia has such a big mouth. Okay, okay. I jumped off a roof.”
“You did what?”
“My mates were going on about parkour, how they jumped off this and that. Of course, I start boasting, and I end up being dared to jump off the roof of the gym. It wasn’t even that high. But everyone saw it, and I was kind of on my last straw. So I was booted out. And then we moved here.”
“What did you do to get to third strike status?”
He nudged some pebbles around in the dirt with his foot. “Got into fights and stuff.”
I tried to laugh it off, but it disturbed me—not because he got into fights, but because he had seemed so calm when I first met him. I would have thought he was the last boy to get into a fight. And lately, that had changed. A lot. But I needed a nice day, so I pushed it to the back of my mind. Amelia hurried back to us with a smile still on her face, shattering the tension between Nathan and me.
“Good chat?” I teased.
“Nothing serious.” But she winked at me, and it was nice to see the old Amelia shine through. “Come on. Let’s go check out some real animals.”
Typical for a sunny day, the park and zoo were both packed with families. I soaked up the normality: parents yelling at their kids to behave, boys wrestling in the playground, smaller children squealing whenever a monkey did something particularly disgusting.
“I’m not sure I like this,” Nathan said as we passed by the clear enclosures of the snow leopards.
“What’s wrong?”
He didn’t speak until we stood outside the wolf area. He laid his forehead against it, staring hard at the animals. “I feel bad for them.”
Amelia stood close to him. “Me, too. They look so bored.”
I hadn’t really thought about it before. Obviously
sitting in a zoo went a little against their instincts. I suddenly felt stupid. I should have skipped past that section. Of course Nathan would relate. He had often spoken about his wolf being caged in his mind.
One wolf lifted its head, sniffing eagerly. Its face turned to Nathan, and it immediately began to howl. All of the wolves joined in, coming out of their various hiding places to pace the enclosure. One ran straight over to Nathan, and Amelia gripped his arm. The wolf lowered its head and whined. A younger wolf, I guessed, judging by the yapping sound an older wolf kept making as if to call it back.
“They’re scared of me,” he said. “What am I supposed to be?”
“Come on.” I tugged at his shirt sleeve. “All of the little kids are getting upset.”
The howling had silenced the zoo. The eeriness of it was only eclipsed by the sudden eruption of sound as most of the animals went crazy. Both Nathan and Amelia looked upset, so I led them through the crowds, past worried zookeepers, and outside until the noise died down. I wondered if the weirdness would be on the news.
“That was so strange,” Amelia said, wrapping her arms around herself.
“They were protecting themselves. They didn’t know,” I said. “Something in their instincts warned them off.”
“Yeah,” Nathan said. “They’re locked in a zoo, yet they still trust their instincts. Compare that to my family.”
“You’re not a wolf,” I said. “You’re different. You’re a real boy most of the time.”
He smiled a little. “It’s kind of cool that they protect their pack, even if they don’t have to.”
I nodded. “They built tunnels under their enclosure once. Went on for ages at night. When the people who work in the zoo found out, they had to fill it with concrete, just in case.”
His eyes gleamed. “Think they were trying to break free?”
“Maybe. At some point, everything has to be what it’s supposed to be. People can cage them, but the animals still have to do the things they were born to do.”
He ruffled my hair until it frizzed.
“Thanks a bunch,” I grumbled.
“I like you,” he said.
“Oh, well, that’s handy. Considering some dead gypsies decided we should be together and all.”
“One gypsy,” Amelia blurted.
We both turned to look at her.
“What?” Nathan asked, frowning.
“I need to go home. I’m not feeling so good.”
“You look a bit pale. Nathan, we should probably get her back. She must be coming down with something.”
On the bus home, Nathan practically squashed me with his weight as he leaned on me, his hand holding mine. I let him, enjoying the tingling sensations that kept shooting up my arm. The trip to the zoo had been a massive disaster, and I was kind of worried about Amelia, but everything else paled when Nathan and I were together. I realised I hadn’t thought of everything we were supposed to be worrying about for hours.
“Think the grownups will have sorted out our lives by now?” I asked.
“You have to stop mocking my grandfather. It’s extremely disrespectful and completely my job,” he said.
“He deserves it for keeping so many secrets.”
Nathan leaned his head on my shoulder. “When this is all over, I’m going to take you somewhere really nice.”
“Will you two just shut up? You make me want to puke,” Amelia shouted, startling most of the bus.
“She’s acting like you,” I whispered to Nathan after a few minutes.
“Shush, or she’ll hear you. She’s scary in this mood.” He laughed under his breath at the glare she sent his way.
“Good hearing, too,” I noted. Nathan’s face creased into a frown, and it seemed as though he wanted to say something, but then it was time for us to get off the bus. I was holding him to taking me somewhere nice, though. I thought we both deserved to have something good to happen for a change.
“You coming back to my house or off to the hospital again?” he asked. Amelia had already walked off, rubbing her temples.
“I’d be happy to never see the hospital again.” I meant it, too. Even the colours were dreary and depressing. I couldn’t understand why a place meant to heal was full of colours that were either boring and grimy-looking or loud and garish primes.
Reminded of paint, I stared at my hands. They were completely clean of any of the paint or ink stains that had haunted my skin for years. I hoped my block wouldn’t last forever. I missed letting my heart spill onto paper, and the longer it took, the more congested my feelings would become.
And I couldn’t keep hiding away, either. “I should go see Dad. Can you let me know if Amelia’s okay? And if Jakob came up with anything better than trying to trick Dad into letting a werewolf bite him?”
He smiled and pulled me in for a kiss. “Of course. Be careful. Call me later if you want. I mean, I don’t mind. And—”
“Look at you being awkward. I’ll talk to you later.” I didn’t let him walk with me to the hospital in case somebody saw us and ratted me out to Dad. That feeling of helplessness hit me again as soon as I was alone. I was spiralling out of control with nothing to hold on to. All of the decisions were out of my hands. I had to keep going along with everything and hoping for the best.
Erin was with Dad at the hospital. I was glad for the buffer.
“Where have you been?” he snapped.
“The zoo. It got weird, so I left.”
He tried to sit up, but it was so difficult for him, he sank back down and hit the bed, making a frustrated sound.
I watched Erin try to help him. Watched him push her away. Watched her face grow strained. I knew I had to do something before he lost the only thing that made him happy.
“Dad, what would you do to get better?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Would you, like, eat placenta if you were sure it would cure you?”
“Perdy!” Erin cried.
“If it was scientifically proven, then yes,” he said, his face brightening.
“Stephen!” Erin looked so horrified, I almost laughed. When I was a little kid, I spent a lot of time trying to gross Dad out. He delighted in doing the same to me.
“What if it wasn’t scientifically proven, but someone you knew had tried it and swore it worked?” I asked.
“Depends on the person,” he replied.
“Gran.”
“Ha! Definitely not. She still throws salt over her shoulder, for heaven’s sake.”
I smothered a smile. “Erin then.”
“Erin’s not an airhead. Of course I would trust her.”
“Me?”
He stared hard at me. “What are you getting at, Perdy?”
“I’m trying to figure out how close-minded you are, and if you actually trust your own daughter.” I tried to look innocent as I picked up a magazine and flicked through it.
“Perdy.”
“Yes, Daddy?”
“Don’t. Don’t pull the Daddy card,” he said.
“Okay, Daddy.”
“Perdy!”
“It’s okay. First, you think I’m crazy, then you ban me from seeing my boyfriend, and now you think I’m an airhead. That’s okay. It’s all fine. I see how it is now.”
He squirmed on the hospital bed, his face red. “Now, that isn’t what I said. Of course I don’t think you’re an airhead.”
“Even though I’m going to art college?”
He grimaced before speaking through his teeth. “Of course not.”
“You know, lots of people do acupuncture and take holistic medicines and stuff. Some people even say you can think yourself better, but really, what’s weirder than sticking needles in yourself?”
“Eating placenta?” Erin ventured, but she was smiling.
“Perdy, what are you getting at?” Dad didn’t bother hiding the frustration in his voice.
“I was thinking how what’s wrong with you must be really rare. I mea
n, modern medicine can’t figure it out, so it must be something a little off the reservation. You know what I mean?”
“Okay,” he said, drawing out the word.
“Well, the answer must be pretty strange, too.”
“Vitamins strange, or leeches strange?” he asked sarcastically.
“Stephen, stop it. You know what she’s saying.”
“Letting an animal bite you, except this time not getting a transfusion kind of strange,” I blurted, letting all of the words run together.
He stared at me for long seconds before turning to Erin. “Can you give us a few minutes?”
With a worried look on her face, she left the room.
“Perdy, stop this nonsense now. I don’t know where this imagination of yours has sprung from, but it’s getting ridiculous.”
“It’s not my imagination, okay? It’s…”
“It’s what, Perdy? What exactly is this conversation about? Have you been seeing Nathan again behind my back? Has he put these ideas into your head?”
I stormed out of the room, knowing full well he couldn’t follow. Erin tried to stop me, but I brushed her off. I felt stupid and angry. I wanted him to say okay, to ask me to explain rather than reject everything I said outright. It was art college all over again. He made a laugh of the idea on a regular basis, as if it wasn’t real, as if it was a massive joke. I was tired of it. Yet all I really wanted was for him to get better. But how could I convince him?
Chapter Twenty-Two
Nathan
I was surprised to scent Ryan and Willow around my home. My stomach churning with anticipation, I went inside to find both of them in the living room, along with my grandfather and uncle.
Willow looked wild again, and her excitement fuelled my own apprehension. She and Ryan stood awkwardly together, obviously uncomfortable in our territory.
“Where’s Jeremy?” I asked.
“Upstairs checking on Amelia. She’s ill. He’ll be down in a minute.” Byron sounded calm, but his nostrils were flaring.
I nodded to Ryan. “I take it there’s news.”
He inclined his head.
We all waited for Jeremy. Willow moved around edgily, her fingers twitching with agitation. Watching her made me feel panicky inside, as if she couldn’t keep a lid on her madness and it might infect the rest of us.
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