by Reine, SM
Her face felt hot. “Tell them that.”
“They won’t listen to me.” He rubbed the leg that had been in a cast earlier. She wondered if it still hurt. “My mom’s... intense.”
“But you’re going to tell them about me, right?” she pressed.
“If I say you’re a werewolf, they’ll kill you on the next moon. No. I’m not going to tell them. They can’t find out.”
Rylie flung her spade to the ground and walked away from him. “I already hate your stupid family.”
He followed her and grabbed her arm. “Don’t do that.” She didn’t turn around. She was angry, and she could feel the sleepy wolf starting to react to it.
“Why are you here, Seth?” she asked.
“You know why. Look at me, Rylie.” When she didn’t face him, he tugged on her elbow. “Come on.”
It was hard being so close to him. He was even cuter than she remembered. “What?”
“My brother never graduated high school. When he does odd jobs, he has to be a janitor or a road worker or something. My mom didn’t finish third grade. I don’t want to be like them—I want to go to college.”
“Then do it,” she said.
“They’re fighting me about it. They want me to hunt, so they think school is a waste of time. English or computer science or whatever isn’t going to kill werewolves.”
“So what? You’re almost eighteen. You can do whatever you want to do.”
“It’s not that easy. My whole family hunts from the day we can walk. Look at this.” He lifted his shirt to show her his back. Scars striped across his spine. “This one nearly paralyzed me. I was thirteen.”
Rylie flinched. “Seth...”
He rolled up his pant leg. His right calf below the knee was a mess of white tissue, like thick worms frozen in the middle of burrowing through his skin. She realized he had never worn shorts at summer camp, and now she saw why. “This was a year ago.”
“I would never do that to you,” she said.
“I know. But this is what it means to be in my family. So you have to get out of here.”
“There’s got to be an alternative,” Rylie said. “What could I do to make them give up?”
“You have to be dead,” he said flatly.
“Okay, besides that. Would they stop looking for me if it seemed like I disappeared? Like, if they couldn’t find me for a few months, would they move away to hunt a different werewolf?”
“They’ll never give up.” But Seth was obviously thinking about it. His eyes went distant. “Unless... maybe... if they thought you left the area. They would look for you somewhere else. But in order to do that, you’d need to stay quiet for months.”
She lifted her chin stubbornly. “I can do that.”
But she wasn’t really so sure. She was as disconnected from the behavior of the wolf as she was from Abel. She couldn’t control herself. She barely even felt human in between moons.
“It might work,” Seth said. “But it’s dangerous. You know what I think you should do.”
A noise in the fields drew Rylie’s attention to the pastures. Her aunt and the workers were moving the truck toward the road. “You should go,” Rylie said.
He reached out like he was going to take her hand again, but then he thought better of it. “Yeah.”
“I guess I’ll see you at school.”
“Okay. Be careful.” Seth got on the motorcycle again, pulling the helmet over his head, and she let herself appreciate the view as he turned it the other way. His arms were really strong, and his back was broad and muscular.
Memories of seeing him swimming shirtless at the lake flitted through her mind. It had been too dark to see his scars. Would she have been as attracted to him if she’d known how damaged he was from the beginning?
The wolf stirred at the thought of his injuries, and Rylie felt ashamed. The truth was that she found him more attractive with those scars. But she wasn’t sure if it was love, lust, or a very different kind of craving for flesh.
Life was so much simpler over the summer, before she knew the truth about Seth. All she had to worry about was staying human.
Now she had to worry about getting killed.
He gave a wave as he rode off. Rylie gnawed on her lip. She could tell by the way he turned at the end of the road that he must have been staying in town somewhere, since there was nothing else in that direction but farms.
She knew so little about Seth that she couldn’t resist. Getting to see his family, and where he lived, would be like getting to peek at her presents on Christmas.
Although she didn’t have a car, the road meandered through the hills toward civilization. Rylie could cut straight across the hills and reach town before he did. Gwyn was too busy to pay her any attention, so she shucked her gloves and broke into a run.
Wolves were built for stamina rather than speed, so Rylie had to pace herself. She kept an eye on the road as she ran and spotted him when he took the first exit before town.
Rylie stopped at the turnoff, panting hard and dripping sweat. Her lungs wheezed with the dry air.
His motorcycle had vanished into a gated area marked by a sign: Shady Glen Park. Seth’s family was living in a trailer park. Well, that wasn’t a big deal... was it? They moved around a lot to hunt werewolves, so what did Rylie expect? A mansion in the suburbs?
She had never been in a trailer park before. The worst neighborhood she visited in the city was the art district, where people lived off royalty checks and gallery sales and struggled to make ends meet. It was hardly the ghetto.
Sneaking in behind the next car, she followed it along the street in search of Seth.
A lot of the trailers were falling apart. Weeds grew through the walls in a few places. One person had a bunch of tires stacked in their front yard. Another person had an upside-down couch in their driveway. The sun reflected off roofs made of tin and made the entire place glow like it was smoldering.
A dog on a short chain growled at her until she turned her gaze on it. Its ears flattened to its skull and it crept backward, hiding behind the half dead tree to which it was tethered.
Rylie hurried to find Seth’s motorcycle and spotted it in the back. His mobile home was in better condition than the others, but that might have been because it had been unoccupied for awhile. The FOR SALE sign had “Sold!” stamped across it.
The door stood open, so Rylie hung back on the other side of the street to listen. The home across from theirs was still vacant. She crouched in the shadow of a bush.
It was easy to pick their voices out from amongst the barking dogs and blaring music elsewhere in the community. Seth’s family was the only one talking about death.
“...murders going years back, but it’s the same thing you always see in a tiny town. I don’t think it’s her.” A woman’s voice. She sounded old and tough, like Rylie thought a war veteran might sound. “This wolf’s a new transplant.”
“Are you sure?” It was Seth talking this time. His voice made her stomach feel funny.
“No, I’m not sure, or else we’d be tracking down this thing right now. What are you doing? Where have you been?”
“I was at school, Mom. And then the doctor.”
Rylie didn’t get a chance to hear her response. A car passed, and she shrunk back to avoid being noticed.
When the sound of its engine faded, Seth was talking again.
“I told the doctor that the injury was two months old. The fracture didn’t show up on the x-rays, so he believed me.”
Her chuckle made it sound like she didn’t really care. There was motion beyond the slats of the mini-blinds, and Rylie glimpsed a dark-skinned woman walk past. “Get over here and help me scrap together some silver. I’m going to cast bullets tonight.”
Silver bullets. A rush of panic swept over Rylie.
Before she could decide how to react, another car approached—and this one was driven by Abel.
Rylie recognized it as a Chevy Chevelle. Jake, one of her friends ba
ck home, had been nuts about muscle cars. He would have died for this one. It was a beautiful shade of dark blue with chrome trim, and she could smell the clean leather interiors when he opened the door.
Abel came out with a bag of fast food clutched in his fist. He had peeled the buns off one burger and was eating the three cheese-smothered patties bare. She was embarrassed to have her stomach growl.
He had almost been turned into a werewolf too. There was always a chance that someone bitten wouldn’t change if they had enough willpower. Rylie chose to transform so she could save Seth, but Abel fought it back and saved himself. Even so, it looked like he hadn’t shaken some of the werewolf’s habits, and that included compulsive carnivorism.
When he went inside, the woman’s voice grew more affectionate. “Abel. News?”
All three of them moved to a different part of the mobile home so that Rylie couldn’t hear what they were saying. She crossed the street, trying to look casual even though she felt out of place in her designer clothes.
She waited by an open window, straining to pick out more than the occasional word. It sounded like they were whispering.
Rylie heard their back door open and swing shut again. Someone had left. She couldn’t see who it was from that side of the trailer. Easing around the end, she peeked into the deepening darkness with her ears perked.
And then someone spoke behind her.
“What are you doing?”
She whirled to find Seth at her back. He smelled more strongly of gunpowder than usual. She could tell by a bulge that there was a gun under his shirt—a loaded gun.
“Seth,” she said. Guilt formed a lump in her throat.
“Did you follow me here?”
She opened her mouth to lie, but she couldn’t think of a convincing way to deny it. She turned her gaze to her feet and nodded. “I was curious.”
Grabbing her arm, Seth dragged her behind a tree and pressed her back against the trunk. He peered around her shoulder at his trailer as if to make sure nobody could see them. “Are you suicidal?” he whispered.
She lifted her chin stubbornly. “It’s not like they would shoot me on sight.”
“They’re not dumb. If Abel starts asking questions and finds out you were at Camp Silver Brook this summer, he’ll know you’re the werewolf.” Seth’s fingers tightened on her arms. “And you don’t want my mom to know you exist.”
“Maybe it wouldn’t be like that,” she said softly.
He didn’t try to argue with her. “Look, Rylie... we probably shouldn’t be talking to each other.”
“Why?”
“I just think it’s better if I don’t see you for awhile.”
“How long?” Rylie asked. There was a rushing sound in her ears that turned his voice distant and foggy, like they were talking from opposite sides of a wall.
“Maybe forever.”
Her knees weakened, and she caught herself on the tree. “But this summer...” They had kissed once. She tried not to think about it after that, since she thought she wouldn’t see him again, but she thought it might be different since they were back in the same place.
“It was different then.” Seth lowered his voice. “You’re a werewolf now. I hunt werewolves.”
She felt numb. Even the wolf was dumbstruck. “But I changed into a werewolf to save you. It’s not my fault.”
“I should go back inside, and you should go home, Rylie. Your aunt will miss you.”
Seth hung nearby, like he wanted to say something else, but then he went back into the mobile home. The door creaked as it shut behind him.
She made out his mom’s voice from inside. “Was someone out there?”
His response was perfectly clear. “No. There’s nobody.”
Rylie didn’t realize she had wandered out of the trailer park until she found herself halfway home. She didn’t remember running, and she didn’t feel winded. But she did feel like she had been squeezed by a juicer, leaving nothing but a beaten pulp.
The anger struck a moment later.
I changed for him.
Rylie stood in a copse of trees, and she glared at them as though they all had Seth’s face with her fists clenched.
I became a monster for him!
With a roar, Rylie tore a sapling from the earth and threw it as hard as she could. Dirt showered from its roots. It crashed into another tree, which cracked at the impact.
Balling her fists into her hair, she dropped to her knees and screamed at the sky.
The wolf was awake now.
And it was furious.
Eight
The Watcher
Gwyn didn’t let Rylie rest that weekend. They had to get the ranch ready for winter, which meant (amongst many other chores) digging a ditch along the west side of the barn.
“The runoff last year caused flooding,” her aunt explained over a breakfast of chicken-fried steak. “We need to make sure it diverts down to the creek this year. Cows hate swimming. You’ll work with Raymond to get that done today.”
“Fine,” she snapped. “Whatever. Does that mean I get to drive heavy equipment?”
She understood Gwyn’s laugh to mean “no,” which was how Rylie found herself in the fields with one of the ranch hands and a shovel.
She held it away from her body like it was a giant snake. “You have got to be kidding me,” she said. Raymond was too busy digging to respond. A thick pair of leather gloves protected his hands and a hat shaded his lined face from the sun.
The other ranch hand and Gwyneth were stocking the sheds in anticipation of a long, harsh winter. It had been a drought year, and much of their hay was yellow and dry, but it was better than running out in the middle of a blizzard. Since her aunt wasn’t watching, she couldn’t force Rylie to work.
She dropped her shovel and sat down on the fence, folding her arms.
Rylie caught a flash of disapproval on Raymond’s face. It was enough to set the wolf within her growling, and she didn’t have the patience to calm the beast that day. School had been hard after her confrontation with Seth. She kept running across him in the halls, and he would barely look at her, much less stop to talk.
She didn’t want to talk to him anyway. She didn’t need him in her life. He wanted to hang out with his family? Fine. That was just fine. And the fact that they all wanted to kill her was fine, too. She didn’t like them anyway. If Seth wasn’t going to help her avoid them, she would take care of them herself.
Sniffling hard, she wiped her nose on the back of her hand.
But why didn’t Seth want to be with her?
Raymond grunted as he worked, getting sweaty even though the air was cool enough for them to wear sweaters. There were clouds creeping over the distant hills. It looked like it might snow soon.
“You know your aunt wanted you to help,” he said.
“Don’t talk to me.”
He didn’t push, and Rylie tried to ignore his annoyed glances. He was just some guy working for her aunt. He didn’t matter.
Raymond was good at what he did, though. He had soon dug a deep hole in the soft earth, piling the castoff earth along the sides. The ranch hands had already started digging a ditch earlier in the week, so he was halfway across the barn in an hour or two. Rylie picked at her fingernails.
He was angry. She could smell it on the air. Why wouldn’t he mind his own business?
She could imagine what he was thinking. He probably thought she was an entitled little princess who hadn’t done a day of hard work in her life. Rylie bristled. What did he know about her anyway? Nothing!
If he didn’t stop looking at her like that, she would claw the eyeballs out of his skull.
His back faced her, but she could feel his disapproval. Gwyn was nowhere to be seen. Nobody would know if she took care of him.
Entitled little princess.
As if she hadn’t fought for her life all summer. As if she hadn’t been fighting for sanity every day ever since. As if she hadn’t been the one to bea
t the werewolf at camp when nobody else could do it.
She glared holes in the back of his head. “What do you know?” she hissed.
“What?” Raymond asked, straightening.
“Nothing.”
He leaned on the handle of his shovel. “You know, I’m not going to get this done today without help.”
Help? He wanted help?
“Fine,” she bit out. “I’ll help you.”
The shovel was satisfyingly heavy in her hands. She positioned herself behind Raymond and stuck it in the earth, hauling out a clump of dirt. It was easy. She was so strong that she thought she could have dug a ditch around the entire ranch.
She dug for a few minutes without speaking, but Raymond was still looking at her. He was trying to hide it. He was still thinking about her, and it made her feel angry and hot and itchy all over, like something was boiling under her skin.
Rylie would help him all right.
She swung her shovel deliberately wide as she lifted it, and it smacked into the back of Raymond’s shoulders.
He pitched forward with a shout.
Something crunched when he landed in the ditch.
Rylie slid down to stand beside him. He was panting, covered in sweat, and grabbing his leg. She thought his ankle might be broken.
“Get—get help—” Raymond groaned, face screwed up with pain. His shovel was a few feet away. He was defenseless.
Her head tilted to the side as she studied him, and Rylie licked her lips.
Delicious.
Someone came running across the field. “Hey! What happened?” It was the other ranch hand, Jorge. He shoved the hat off his head and jumped into the ditch.
Rylie’s reverie shattered, and she realized she had been standing over him for at least a full minute while he writhed in pain. She took several steps back to give Jorge space. “It was an accident,” she said, hoping her quavering voice made it sound like she was upset. “I accidentally hit him with my shovel, and he fell in.”
“Hold still,” Jorge said when Raymond tried to stand. “Hey! Gwyneth! Over here!”
Gwyn came down to examine the ranch hand. “We better not move you,” she decided. “We’ll get an ambulance. Rylie, go to the house and call the hospital.”
