High School Bites

by Rachael Alcobia

  My face grew somber. “You mean if I survive the change.”

  Kodi’s father tilted his head. “Meghan, because you had just been bitten when I pulled on your latent healing ability, I wasn’t able to help you much, especially not right away. You kept yourself alive. You’re still here because you refused to let go. You did it once and I believe you can do it again. You are stronger than you think.”

  I swallowed hard and I felt the sting of fresh tears pool in my eyes. Mrs. Barrett stood and addressed the rest of the room.

  “Well I think that’s enough for tonight. Let’s let the children get their rest. We have more to discuss before the night is over.”

  Kodi began to rise, so I took that as my cue. I headed to the bottom of the stairs and he grabbed my plate of pizza before following. He nodded up the stairs.

  “Ladies first.”

  I smiled and headed up the stairs. In the hallway outside his bedroom, I turned to him.

  “You can have your bed back. I’ll change the sheets and I can crash in the guest room if you’d like?”

  He shook his head. “I changed the sheets when you were in the bathroom. I also put the rest of your camping stuff in the room, so your backpack and your duffel bag are in there as well. My room is larger than the guest room, and you are very welcome to use it. But if you’d be more comfortable in the guest room, I’d understand.”

  I smiled and shook my head, “I like your room.”

  He smiled back and I tried not to blush. I walked ahead of him into the room and he set the plate down on the desk where the soup had been earlier.

  “I’m going to go get us some drinks. I’ll be right back.”

  I nodded and he disappeared. I sat down on the bed and found that he had indeed changed the linens. The sheets were a light green and I hoped that these would remain clean without any bloodstains from my shoulder. The smell of pizza hit my nose again, and I walked to the desk and took a large bite of the first piece. It was delicious. Damn the consequences, it had been so long since I’d had my favorite food and even lukewarm, it was worth the risk of getting sick later. As I thought about it, I realized I honestly didn’t believe that would happen. I trusted Kodi, and he’d said that it was safe. I was just starting in on the second slice when Kodi walked in and handed me a can of raspberry tea.

  “Thank you,” I said before I popped the top of the can and took a drink. It was delicious.

  “You’re welcome,” he said with a smile.

  We remained silent as continued to eat and when I was finished, Kodi threw my plate in the trash can that sat in the corner of his room.

  “Do you feel like going to bed?” he asked as he walked back over.

  “Not really. I had that nap earlier, but I’m sure I’ll fall asleep eventually.”

  “Would you like to watch a movie?” he asked cautiously.

  I smiled. “That would be nice.”

  He smiled back at me and asked, “What would you like to watch?”

  I smirked as I sat back onto the bed. “Anything but a werewolf movie.”

  Kodi laughed and walked to the armoire against the wall. Opening the main doors, there was a flat screen television and blue-ray player. When he opened a side door, there were several shelves of blue-ray movies and I walked over to help choose one.

  While perusing the choices, I received a call on Kodi’s house phone from Jane. I spent the next five minutes reassuring her that I was alright and that I’d see her soon.

  Kodi and I settled on a comedy and when he put the movie in and made to leave the room, I grew confused.

  “Where are you going?”

  He turned back to me before answering, “I put the chair back earlier, I’m going to get it.”

  I looked at the bed, then back at him and caught him doing the same.

  “It’s a big bed, we can share if you want,” I said before holding my breath.

  He smiled at me and there was a look in his eyes that I wasn’t sure I’d seen before. I went to the left side of the bed, the side that I’d been occupying since I woke up here and I watched him walk around the bed. He hesitated, but only for a moment before he sat on the bed and reclined so that he was lying against a couple of pillows at the headboard. My heartbeat picked up and I furiously hoped that, with his werewolf hearing, Kodi wouldn’t notice. He picked up the remote and started the movie. I relaxed against the pillows and just enjoyed being next to him.

  Ten

  Maggie’s fire burned brightly before me and I walked closer to the heat. She sat on her log whittling away at a long cylindrical piece of wood with what looked like a small bowie knife. It looked similar to the one that I’d taken camping in the bottom of my backpack only a little smaller. Come to think of it, I should have taken it along with me when I went wandering in the woods that night.

  “What are you making?” I asked her as I took a seat on a nearby rock.

  “A flute. Something to entertain myself while I’m waiting on you,” she said with humor in her Irish lilt.

  “So sorry to have kept you waiting,” I said sarcastically.

  “You are forgiven. So, how did your meeting go?” she asked without looking away from her task.

  “It went alright. I’ll have to face Simone tomorrow. Jack assures me that I’ll be protected, he was kind of intense about it all.”

  She laughed lightly, “Yes, he can be that way about things. Stubborn as a goat, that one.”

  My head tilted in curiosity. “You know him?”

  Maggie remained silent, so I didn’t ask again. It was several moments before I asked.

  “Maggie, will I survive the change?” I hated that my voice shook.

  Maggie heaved a great sigh and for a moment, I didn’t think she was going to answer this question either, which I would have taken as bad news.

  “I’m a gypsy, dearie, not a psychic. This is the fight I’ve been telling you that you would face. Not getting bitten. I know the road seems long and torturous, but I must tell you that even if you do survive the change, your troubles won’t be over. There is someone who is counting on you to fail. They want you dead. It’s obvious who that someone is, of course, but there are those who are bonded to her by blood and would see her unharmed. You’ll want to keep an eye out for those two.”

  I digested all of what she’d told me. Two bonded by blood. It must be her parents. So, if I died during the change, the pack would most likely want to kill Simone based on pack law. But her parents wouldn’t let that go peacefully, so they would probably go after the pack, especially the Barretts. Kodi would be in danger. If I survive the change, Simone will most likely find a way to kill me. But she couldn’t do that without being sentenced to death, could she? I decided to ask Maggie.

  “If a werewolf kills a human, the wolf is punished by the pack. Do you know if the rules are different when a werewolf kills another werewolf?”

  Maggie smiled then but it didn’t reach her eyes. “You are a very smart girl. The law is the same, a werewolf killing another will be put to death. But not if the wolf was killed during a challenge.”

  My brow furrowed. “A challenge?”

  She gave me a quick smile, “Ask your young lad about it. You’re going to wake up in a moment.”

  Blinking awake, I moved to stretch before a weight on my stomach gave me pause. I looked down and found Kodi, as my brown wolf, sleeping with his great head using me as a pillow. With the aid of the morning light shining through the bedroom window I could take the time to notice that Kodi’s fur had a beautiful mixture of different shades of brown. It ranged from dark brown to an almost blonde color. I ran my fingers through the softness and the wolf’s silver eyes remained closed. We must have fallen asleep during the movie. I wondered why he hadn’t remained in human form. I would think that would have been easier than to go undress to become the wolf. I knew he didn’t sleep in this form all of the time because the morning after I was bitten, I’d found him fast asleep in the chair next to the bed. I li
ked that he’d stayed. Both times. I think I know why he’d shifted to his wolf form. It is a lot less uncomfortable having him here like this rather than as a human guy sleeping next to me. This way there was less scandal as well. I wasn’t sure how his parents would feel about us sleeping in the same bedroom.

  I like it here, I decided. Jensen and Jane are two of my favorite people on this earth, but even they couldn’t make a group home feel like a real home. This was what that was. It was ironic that I felt so at home in a house full of monsters, but then again, I was on the road to becoming one of them. Monsters. Other than Simone, they didn’t seem like monsters at all. Monsters sank their teeth into people and try to kill them. They didn’t dive into rivers at night to rescue someone on the other side. They didn’t sign documents to take you into their home and show you the meaning of family out of the goodness of their hearts. The Barretts weren’t monsters. Neither were the other four werewolves that helped save my life that night even though they’d never even heard of me. Jack was responsible for the lives of all of the werewolves in Mountain Falls and he had taken the risk to heal me even though it had weakened him. Then there was Kodi.

  I looked down at the snoozing wolf on my stomach and listened to his light snore. Kodi was an amazing creature. I thought it was funny that at least in this form he didn’t have to worry about his hair falling into his face or attempting to shake it away. Suddenly, I remembered a moment back at the campground when I was with the wolf, before I had known it was Kodi. A fly had been buzzing around his head and had annoyingly landed between his eyes and he’d flipped his head in a way that was so similar to the way Kodi kept his hair from falling down into his eyes. I laughed at the memory and the motion caused my stomach to jump beneath Kodi’s great head and he blinked open his eyes.

  It was very strange to see silver eyes instead of green, but in them still see that they were Kodi’s. The same knowledge flowed through them and I couldn’t help but reach out to run my hand slowly over the top of his head. I know it was crazy but a small part of me wanted to see how he’d react, to figure out how much of the wolf was Kodi. I would have to ask him about that when he returned to human form.

  Kodi leaned into my hand and I was delighted that it was safe to touch him. Once I dropped my arm, he yawned before jumping down from the bed. The moment he lifted his head, my eyes widened at the fact my shirt had ridden up some and he had been lying on my bare stomach. I hurried to pull it back down as he gave himself a shake and once again, he reminded me of an average friendly dog from the clinic. He stopped in front of a black dresser that had four large drawers set on top of each other. Each drawer had a knob in the center with a string tied around it. At the end of the four strings were three-inch sticks of wood. Pieces of a branch was my guess. I didn’t understand how I’d missed that before. I’d seen the dresser of course, but the strings were a new discovery.

  Kodi closed his jaws around the stick attached to the second drawer and walked backward, causing it to open. I watched in shocked fascination as he stood on his hind legs and grabbed something out of the drawer before turning his head to drop it on the floor. I was fairly sure it was a bundle of clothes wrapped in what looked like twine. He walked like a circus performer on his hind legs and somehow managed to close the drawer. Locking his teeth over the twine and stared at the closed bedroom door before turning his head to look at me. Still reeling from what I’d just witnessed, I scrambled from the bed and opened the door for him. He gave a twitch of his tail and trotted from the room. Kodi had to be in control because I’d never heard of a wolf being that clever.

  I walked to my duffel bag that Mrs. Barrett had placed under the window and rifled through it. Right off, I’d known someone had washed my clothes because these smelled fresh and were folded neatly. I never folded clothes and I had run out of clean clothes last night because I’d only packed for the weekend camping trip. Pulling out a pair of jeans, I came across a black, bundled up wad and unfolded it to find a shirt that I hadn’t known was in there. Giving it a sniff, I found that it was clean. Then I remembered. I had purchased the shirt on impulse after I’d found out I was sick. The group home would have deemed it inappropriate and thrown it away, so I’d shoved it into the corner of the duffel bag in the back of the closet that I shared with Sarah. I didn’t know Kodi’s family well enough to guess how they’d react to the shirt and I didn’t want to insult them, but at the same time it seemed rather fitting that I wear it on this day.

  Tossing my clothes onto the bed, I carefully lifted the hem of the shirt I’d slept in over my head and tossed it on top of the duffel bag. I adjusted the straps on my bra before picking up the clean shirt but before I could put it on, the bedroom door opened and I froze in horror when I saw Kodi standing in the doorway, a shocked expression on his face and his green eyes wider than I’d ever seen them. He recovered quicker than I did, however, and apologized before backing away and closing the door. My legs suddenly feeling like jelly, I sat on the bed and hung my head in my hands. Red-hot embarrassment burned my face and I cursed inwardly at myself for not checking to see if the door had been locked. Standing, I rushed to the door to turn the lock, although I was sure seeing me shirtless was all the warning Kodi had needed to stay away. I was never going to live this down. Now every time I saw him, I was going to be struck by humiliation and yet another memory I’d like to erase.

  After getting dressed the rest of the way, I headed down the stairs and found the Barrett family in the kitchen. At my entrance, Mrs. Barrett, or Trina, as I’d learned, turned from the stove and handed me a plate of bacon, eggs and toast. I thanked her with a smile and moved to sit at the kitchen table where Kodi ate his breakfast while staring intently the plate, and Jack looked up from his newspaper to greet me was my guess, but once he noticed my shirt, a bark of laughter escaped from his throat.

  “Nice shirt, I could have used one like that a few times in court,” he said, and I smirked. Kodi and his mother glanced at the shirt and Kodi choked on a bite of toast while Trina turned back to the stove, but from the angle of my chair I could see her hidden grin. This was a better reaction than I had expected so I took that to mean that my shirt, which pictured a giant hand flipping the bird, hadn’t insulted any of them.

  The remainder of breakfast was filled with small talk between Kodi’s parents and I, and awkward silence with Kodi. I could only hope that they didn’t pick up on any tension between us because I didn’t think I’d have the guts to explain it. I helped Mrs. Barrett with the dishes and ten minutes later found us exiting the house and entering the woods, my first time since being attacked. My anxiety was mild compared to the panic attack that I had expected. My first instinct had been to take hold of Kodi’s hand for support, but I fought the urge and stayed a few paces behind him.

  It was quite a hike to wherever we were headed for the meeting. We went much further past the area where he had camped out. Once we got to a dirt hill, I glared at it. My shoulder was not healed completely so I couldn’t bear any of my weight on it. The hill was very steep and six feet high so I would have to climb with one hand. I rolled my eyes at Kodi’s back when he and his parents gracefully climbed the hill like it wasn’t there. Finding a groove in the dirt to place my foot, my first step was a success but when I reached and tried to gain footing for a second step, I slipped and before I could gather air in my lungs to cry out, Kodi had appeared out of nowhere and grasped my arm with inhuman speed and pulled me effortlessly to the ground above.

  “Thank you,” I gasped with relief.

  “You’re welcome. I forgot that you’d need help, I’m sorry. Not many humans come up here, and I was distracted,” he said tightly.

  I could tell that he was mad at himself, but I couldn’t understand why. He’d caught me and just like when he’d made the spider go away, all I wanted to do was throw my arms around him. I restrained myself this time however, because this morning’s humiliation was still fresh in my mind. We caught up with his parents and after another
five minutes or so of hiking through trees and listening to the sounds hundreds of birds we reached a clearing that was all too familiar to me. It was a place I’d visited many times in my dreams.

  “Maggie,” I whispered.

  Kodi turned sharply in my direction. “What did you say?”

  “Nothing,” I shook my head. I had no idea how to explain that this area with the fire pit and the logs was the same place I met a strange Irishwoman in my dreams pretty much every time I fell asleep.

  Kodi watched me with a look that I couldn’t decipher, so I turned back to the group seated on the logs around the unlit fire pit and stalked forward. There was a total of eleven werewolves in the clearing including Kodi and his parents. I recognized Stephen right away, seated next to a man that was tall and lanky as well, and figured he must be Stephen’s father. The couple that had been at last night’s meeting and had also helped save me the night of the attack were present as well. I’d learned from Trina over breakfast that their names were Ed and Renee Trimble and that they had a four-year-old daughter named Nancy, who was with a babysitter for the duration of the pack meet. Then I spotted Simone.

  The moment our eyes locked, a strange growling noise came from me and I put a hand on my stomach. There was no way I was hungry again after the delicious food that Mrs. Barrett had cooked this morning. It felt different from a normal stomach growl. In fact, I’d swear it had come from my chest. Kodi appeared next to me and whispered in my ear.

  “You might want to tone that down,” he said with an amused smile.

  “I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I don’t even feel hungry,” I whispered back.

  He had a bewildered expression on his face, and he gave a short laugh before bringing his face even closer to mine to whisper more quietly. “That wasn’t your stomach growling. It was your wolf. My guess is that your DNA is completely paired with that of the werewolf gene and now you’ll feel her, just beneath the surface. Take note of your instincts, think like a team and you will learn. Listen to her now, what is she telling you?”