by Mari Mancusi
“Jareth, let’s go on Friday night instead,” I propose. “I’ve got… things to do. And after all, we have until the next full moon to figure this out. There’s plenty of time.”
Jareth shrugs and agrees, luckily not asking why. ‘Cause how embarrassing would it be to tell him the truth?
That I can’t go on saving the world if it means neglecting my duties as a cheerleader.
11
The next day after school we have cheerleading practice. And let me tell you, it’s more than a bit weird to chill with girls who you know have a habit of turning into wolves, devouring football players, and going house on your hometown each full moon. But since I know they can’t remember all their extracurricular activities, I have to remind myself that in all actuality, I’m pretty darn safe.
Poor Shantel’s practically comatose over her lost BF and can barely concentrate on her moves. I really, really hope it doesn’t turn out that she ate the guy. That’s the kind of thing that could really mess up a girl.
Cait looks even worse. She’s shaking like a leaf and keeping her distance from the other girls. Not that I blame her. Seeing your teammates transform into a pack of dogs doesn’t exactly help create a circle of trust. Still, doesn’t she get that we have to play it cool? We don’t want the cheerleaders suspicious. They keep asking her what’s wrong and she can only stammer nonsensical answers in reply.
“Okay, Cait,” Mandy says, clapping her hands. “We’re going to practice the Hitch pyramid. So come on over and we’ll boost you up.”
Cait stares at her, eyes wide. I can tell that the last thing she wants is any of them to touch her. I wish I could pull her aside for a moment. Reassure her that the girls have no idea she saw what she saw. Tell her she’s perfectly safe, at least until the next full moon. And by then I will have figured out a way to stop the madness. (I’m so confident, huh?)
“Go on, Cait,” I urge her. She glances over at me, her face white as a ghost, and shakes her head vehemently.
“I—I can’t do it!” she whispers to me. “I just keep thinking that they’ll—”
“Come on, Cait! We don’t bite!” teases Shantel.
Cait shoots me one more pleading, terrified look and then sprints straight to the locker room. The other cheerleaders groan and jump down from their pyramid.
“What the hell’s wrong with her?” Mandy demands, glaring at me accusingly. She’s evidently still pissed that I blackmailed her into having Cait join the squad in the first place. Even though she has to have realized by now that Cait is way good—a great asset and hands down the best gymnast on the team. When she’s not scared for her life, that is. I mean, gotta give the girl a break in this case. But Mandy, of course, has no idea. “We’ve got a game next week and we’ve got a lot of work to do to prepare for it. These cheers don’t shout themselves, you know. And we can’t afford to have girls on the squad who don’t take being a Wolf seriously.”
The Wolf pack—er, squad, all nod in sync.
“Why did we pick her, anyway?” demands one of the girls.
“Yeah, she’s not even cute.”
“Oh please, she’s the best girl on the team and you all know it,” I interject. “And she’s been perfectly dedicated since she joined. So she’s having a bad day. Give the girl a break.”
I get a few reluctant grumbles of agreement. Good.
“Well, I’ll go talk to her,” Mandy says. “See what’s wrong.”
“Let me,” I say quickly. The last thing Cait needs is to be trapped in a locker room with someone she thinks will sprout fangs and claws at any given moment. “I’ll calm her down.”
“Fine. But get back fast. We’ve got a lot of ground to cover this afternoon.”
I nod and walk briskly toward the locker-room door, ready to comfort poor Cait. She must be freaking out. I remember how hard Sunny took the whole “vampires are real and I’m going to become one in a week” shock that first night at Club Fang. It’s amazing how some people can live their whole lives perfectly oblivious to what’s beneath the surface reality of our world. But once you’ve discovered the truth, there’s no turning back.
I push open the locker-room door and once again am suddenly overwhelmed by the smell of fresh blood. I double over, hands on my knees, trying to catch my breath and control my almost unstoppable urge to run to its source and dig in. The thirst consumes me: My throat’s suddenly dry as a church group dance and my nostrils strain toward the smell. Jareth warned me about this. The longer I go without drinking real blood, the more power it will have over me. But this is the worst yet.
I manage to suck a few shallow breaths through my mouth, as they taught us to do in Blood 101 class, and swallow hard before righting myself.
I’m okay. I can control the bloodlust. It has no real power over me.
I stumble to my locker where I keep a secret stash of synthetic. I fumble with the combination, rip open the door, and grab the sports bottle. I gulp the fake blood down, rejoicing as the thick red liquid coats my throat and settles my stomach. Ah, much better.
A moment later my head’s clearer. Only then can I focus on the fact that smelling blood in a high school locker room could be something I need to be concerned with. I mean, sure, it might just be someone’s time of the month, but for some reason I don’t think it’s that simple in this case. Where is the blood coming from? And, more important, where’s Cait?
“Cait!” I cry, eyes darting from one end of the room to the other. “Are you okay?”
There’s no answer. Just the drip, drip, drip of a leaky shower. Other than that, complete silence.
Fear grips my heart. What if one of the werewolves didn’t turn back to a cheerleader when daylight hit? What if it’s after Cait? What if it’s already found her and managed to rip her apart? Could the blood that I smell actually be coming from Cait’s mutilated, dead body?
Panicked, I start whipping back shower curtains, running through rows of lockers, and pulling open bathroom stall doors. She has to be in here somewhere. The only exit— through the window broken by the wolves last night—has been boarded up.
I reach the handicap stall and yank the door open.
Oh. My. God.
I stare down, eyes bulging with shock and horror. Cait’s sitting on the toilet, fully dressed, with her forearm out in front of her. And it’s covered in tiny bloody cuts.
At first I think somehow this is related to the werewolves, but then I notice the razor blade she’s trying to hide behind her back.
“What are you doing?” I cry. “Are you trying to kill yourself? I’m calling 911!”
“No!” she says, jumping up, blood droplets splattering everywhere, some landing on my own cheering sweater as she grabs my arm. Argh. I feel like I’m going to pass out from the irresistibleness of the sight and smell of fresh blood— getting the nearly overwhelming urge to just latch onto her wound with my little fangs and start sucking away.
Sometimes being a vampire is really sick.
“Rayne, stop!” Cait begs, her eyes as wide and frightened as I’m sure mine are. “I’m not trying to kill myself! I swear.”
I stare at her, suspiciously, while my insides war for blood-drinking dominance. “Cait, you’re sitting in the bathroom holding a razor. You’re bleeding. What else would you be doing?”
She turns deep red, leaning back against the wall and sinking down to a seated position. I scramble down on my knees and grab her arm for a better look. It’s then that I notice the scars. There have to be hundreds of them. Crisscrossing up and down her arm—tiny silver threads, permanent reminders of past cuts from days gone by. Either she’s attempted and failed suicide many, many times before or …
“You’re a cutter!” I whisper, horrified and fascinated all at the same time.
I’ve read about girls like her. Those who get comfort from self-mutilation. When they get stressed or upset or scared or helpless they reach for a razor. The physical pain is supposed to soothe them emotionally. A lot of Goth
s and Emos do it for attention—for some pathetic reason they think it’s cool— but real cutters simply can’t help themselves.
Cait bursts into tears and wrenches her arm away from my grasp, pulling down her sleeve to cover the cuts and scars. “Please don’t tell anyone!” she cries, tears streaming down her cheeks, smudging her makeup. “It’s so embarrassing.”
“Embarrassing?” I stare at her. “Cait, it’s dangerous! You could seriously hurt yourself. Even if you don’t mean to. You need to stop.”
“I… I can’t stop.” Her blush deepens and she stares down at her lap. “I’ve … I’ve tried. I just can’t.”
Wow. This is more serious than I thought. Poor Cait. Suffering in secret for God knows how long. I grab her and pull her into a hug, trying to ignore the blood that’s pulsating from her arm and radiating desire to all the pleasure sensors in my brain.
“Drink!” the vampire in me begs. But I ignore it. I have to.
“You can stop. But maybe you need help. We can get you some. Maybe your mother could get you an appointment with—”
“No!” Cait says, pulling away from the hug, her eyes wide as saucers. “Not my mother. She’d kill me!”
“If you don’t get help, you’re going to end up killing yourself.”
Cait hangs her head. “I know,” she says. “But please don’t tell my mother. She was so happy when I made the cheerleading squad. For the first time in my life she’s actually proud of me. I don’t want to disappoint her again.”
I squeeze my hands into fists, frustrated beyond belief. How stupid some parents are! Forcing their children to live the lives they want them to lead, even if those lives are far from what the children actually want for themselves. And for what? So the parents can look good when bragging about their offspring at cocktail parties? So they can relive their own glory days through their children? All her life Cait’s been belittled by her mom. For not being cool enough, not being pretty enough, not being good enough to become a cheerleader like she was. No wonder the girl’s mutilating herself. She has to release the pressure somehow.
“Cait, if your mom loves you she’s going to understand you need help,” I say, crossing my fingers that this is true. “Cutting is a sickness. Like diabetes or cancer. You can’t help it. And you can’t cure it on your own. You need help. Surely she will get that and find you some. And if she’s disappointed in you—well, that’s her problem. Not yours. You’re awesome. You rock. Anyone who doesn’t see that is a blind-ass moron who should be shot.”
Cait giggles a bit through her tears. “Maybe you’re right,” she says. “I don’t know. I just— Well, I just don’t want to let my mom down, you know? Since my dad died, I’m all she has in the world.”
“Maybe you could start by going to a school counselor or something. I think they have to be confidential, right? Unless you tell them you want to kill yourself, which I don’t think is what’s going on here. In any case, they could at least point you in the right direction and maybe help you figure out the best way to eventually break the news to your mom.”
Cait opens her mouth to speak, but at that moment the locker-room door bangs open. Great. Just what I need. An interruption right before Cait promises she’ll go get help.
“Rayne?”
Ah, even better. An interruption from my dear friend Mandy.
“I’ll get rid of her,” I say to Cait. “Get back in the bathroom so she doesn’t see you.”
Cait obeys, closing the stall door behind her. I breathe a sigh of relief. The last thing Mandy needs to see is Cait in this state—crying and bleeding. She’d probably use it as an excuse to kick her off the squad.
Mandy turns the corner and I jump in front of the stall door. She frowns. “What are you doing?” she demands, hands on her hips.
I gaze at her with wide, innocent eyes. “Nothing, Mandy,” I say. “Nothing at all.”
“You’d better not be doing drugs, freak. You signed a pledge, remember? Cheerleaders just say no.”
I roll my eyes. “Just because I dress in black and listen to the Cure doesn’t mean I’m some smackhead, you know.”
“Yeah, well …” Mandy seems to be searching for a clever comeback, but none materializes. “What about Cait? What was with that freak-out? I don’t want girls on my squad who can’t handle the pressure. If she can’t take the heat, she needs to get out of the frying pan.”
“Nice mixed metaphor, Mand. And don’t worry about Cait. She can take the heat. She’s just having a bad day. You remember bad days, right? Before you became popular you had a lot of them, as I recall.” I know I shouldn’t be taunting her, riling her up even further, but I can’t help it. She’s such a self-centered bitch. Thinking the world revolves around her and her cheerleaders. Scorning anyone who isn’t exactly like herself. I can’t believe the two of us used to be friends.
“Whatever, Rayne,” Mandy says, again with the awesome comeback. She really should join an improv group, she’s so quick on her feet. “And you’d better be right. After all, if it wasn’t for you, she wouldn’t be on the squad to begin with.”
I cringe. She had to go there.
Please don’t let Cait hear what she said. Please don’t let Cait hear what she said—
A small cry of surprise and indignation sounds from behind the stall door.
Great. She heard.
Mandy stares at me and her gaze drifts to the door I’m blocking. “What are you hiding, Rayne?” she demands, raising a perfectly arched eyebrow.
“Cait is talented, Mandy,” I argue, ignoring her question. “In fact, I’d bet my belly-button ring that she’s the most talented girl on the squad. You can go and say anything about me. I know I’m not Wolf material. But you know as well as anyone that she’s amazing and deserves to be on the squad.”
“The only thing that ugly little troll deserves is to be back on the math team where she belongs,” Mandy returns, looking smug. I realize she knows exactly who I’m hiding and she’s really mean enough to go there. “And if you didn’t blackmail me into putting her on the squad in the first place, she’d be there right now.”
I’m thrown forward as the bathroom door slams into my back. Cait pushes past me, running straight for the exit. I catch a glimpse of her tear-stained face and horrified eyes before she exits the locker room.
I turn to Mandy. She’s totally the cat who ate the canary with her self-satisfied smile. I hope she chokes on the feathers.
“Why would you say that? You knew she was in there! How can you be so cruel?” I demand, hands on my hips. “When did you become such an uber-bitch, Mandy?”
“When did you become such an uber-softie?” Mandy fires back.
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“Oh please. Don’t get all high and mighty on me, Rayne McDonald. You’re first in line when it comes to judging someone based on their fashion sense.”
“Me? Yeah, right. I’ve never turned down a friend because she doesn’t carry this year’s Prada purse.”
“No? Well, how about one who mistakenly wears jeans to a Goth club and embarrasses you in front of all your new friends? Or one who actually—shock, horror—admits she likes high school football and has the nerve to ask if you’d lower your coolness standards for one night to go to a game with her? Or how about a friend who makes the cheerleading squad? Do you congratulate her on her accomplishment and say you can’t wait to see her perform? Or do you have the nerve to ask her if the judging was based on hair highlighting and lip gloss selection alone?”
I open my mouth to respond, but suddenly nothing comes out. Did I really do and say all those things to her? Is that why she hates me so much?
“You always say the cheerleaders are elitist snobs,” Mandy continues. “But as far as I see it, you Goths are just as bad, if not worse.”
Before I can say anything she turns and stomps out of the locker room. The door slams behind her with an echoing bang.
My stomach twists into knots and I feel
like I’m going to throw up. Is that really what everyone thinks of me? Am I just as bad as the cheerleaders? Condemning anyone who I deem less cool than me? Of course, maybe Mandy’s just projecting—to make herself feel better. But still …
I shake my head. No time to dwell on my own possible shortcomings. I’ve got to find Cait before she does something else to hurt herself.
I push open the locker-room door and head out into the gym. The cheerleaders are sitting on the bleachers chatting amongst themselves. Mandy’s nowhere to be seen.
“Have you seen Cait?” I ask.
Shantel gestures toward the exit. “Ran out,” she says. “She looked really upset, too. What’s up with her? Is she okay?”
“Mandy,” I say, as if that could explain everything. “I’ve got to go find her. I’ll catch you guys later.”
I run outside, following the paved path that leads from the gym to the football field. I find Cait down by the bleachers, crouched on the ground, head in her hands, sobbing.
“Cait? Are you okay?” I ask, approaching her cautiously.
“Go away!” she cries, waving a dismissive hand in my general direction. “You’ve done enough.”
“Cait, don’t let Mandy get to you. She’s a bitch and everyone knows it.” I lean down to put a comforting hand on her shoulder. She swats it away.
“What did she mean, Rayne?”
I swallow hard, my mind racing for believable lies. But nothing’s coming to mind. “About what?” I ask, stalling for time.
Cait looks up at me, an angry, accusatory look on her tear-stained face. “What did she mean when she said you blackmailed her to put me on the squad?”
“Um, I don’t know,” I say, laughing nervously. “Who knows what that girl means half the time! She’s so dumb she—”
Cait scrambles to her feet, hands on hips, looking furious. I take a step back, worried she might actually try to hit me.
“Don’t lie to me, Rayne!” she cries. “I can’t take any more lies.” She squeezes her small hands into fists. Her whole body is shaking with fury. “Tell me the truth. Did you or did you not have something to do with me getting on the squad?”
