Vesper

by Jeff Sampson

  I half expected him to knock on the window, ask what we were doing, then call a battalion of armed men out of BioZenith to come drag us away. Instead he walked past and down the street toward one of the glass office buildings. I craned my head over my shoulder to be sure.

  “Weird,” Spencer said. I turned back to him and saw that he was surveying BioZenith again.

  “What is it?”

  “All the other parking lots are filling up,” he said. “But no one is going into that bio place.”

  He was right. Not a single car even approached the gated entrance to BioZenith.

  I caught sight of the digital clock in Spencer’s dashboard. It read 8:03.

  “It’s getting late,” I said. “We should start heading back to school.”

  We buckled our seat belts. Spencer turned the ignition and pulled us out onto the street, then headed toward I-5.

  “What is it with that place?” I mused aloud. I felt disappointed. I hadn’t been sure what I’d see when we went to BioZenith, but I was hoping for something. Some clue as to who was behind this, why we were involved.

  “No idea,” Spencer said, his eyes on the road. He drove slower than Megan, more cautious. He even kept his hands at ten and two.

  So the visits to BioZenith and Dalton’s bedside had been more or less a bust. We hadn’t learned anything new, really, and I realized that detective work probably took a lot more effort in reality than it ever did in the movies.

  But that was okay. Because Spencer being by my side tempered the anger that was driving me to seek out these answers, even after all we’d been through in the past twelve hours. And the more time it took to find out the secrets behind everything, the more time we could spend together.

  “Hey,” I said as Spencer pulled onto the freeway and sped up. “What were you going to say back there, about the first night we changed?”

  He made sure it was safe, then merged. Cars zoomed past.

  “Just that I was running out after Dalton and Nikki like Mikey asked me to. Then I smelled you in the woods and I ran after you. I changed into . . . you know . . . and took off running after the smell. But I never caught up with you. I saw those shadow guys, got scared, and went home.” He fidgeted with the wheel. “I actually heard the shots, you know. After I changed. But I was so consumed by the wolf that I didn’t even do anything to help Dalton. I—I just ran off.” His eternal smile faltered, sorrow tightening his features.

  “It wasn’t your fault,” I whispered. Without even thinking, I reached out a hand to touch his arm. “I don’t think you could have stopped him. I—Wait. You heard the shots after you smelled me and changed?”

  He shot me a glance. “Yeah, definitely after. Why?”

  I scrunched my face, thinking, because the timeline didn’t fit. I tried to work it out while speaking aloud. “It’s just that I went after you. I wasn’t even in the woods when I heard the shots, and I definitely changed after.”

  “Maybe you remember wrong?” he asked. “No offense, but you did seem kind of wasted.”

  So he remembered that. Damn.

  “Yeah, yeah, I was,” I said. “But I remember that part clearly. I didn’t change until after the shots, and the only reason I went into the woods in the first place was to chase after you.”

  Spencer popped his right blinker on and merged into the exit lane. “But that would mean that . . .” He turned to me, mouth open in surprise. The car swerved, and he jolted back to attention. Behind us, someone blasted their horn.

  “Oh wow,” I said as realization hit me too. “There’s another one. Another werewolf besides you, me, and Dalton.”

  “And it’s another girl,” Spencer revealed. “I felt very, very sure of that.”

  “A girl . . .”

  So there were more of us. At least one other member of our pack who we needed to find. And maybe once we did, she would know more about all of this. Would actually help us finish connecting the dots between BioZenith, the werewolves, the killer, and those creepy shadowmen both Spencer and I had seen when we were the wolves.

  At least I hoped so. Because my brain was beginning to overflow with all this new information, and as Spencer rounded a corner and our high school came into view, all I wanted right then was to dive into class work and forget all about this endless, frightening, exciting craziness.

  Well, until night fell, anyway.

  Chapter 19

  Grown-Up

  The school parking lot was more full than all of last week, and Spencer had some trouble finding a place to pull in. We drove through the student parking lot, gravel crunching under his tires, until we found a spot that overlooked the fenced-in baseball field.

  The sky was completely clear now, and the morning sun shone bright over evergreens that rustled in the crisp fall breeze. Omnipresent Mount Rainier stood tremendous and triumphant on the horizon beyond the school’s brick buildings.

  Maybe I’d been wrong earlier. Maybe western Washington weather sometimes did have a way of matching your mood.

  Spencer shut off the car, and we both sat in contemplative silence as groups of kids walked by, chatting as they headed under the walkways and into the brick buildings. More students were back that day, and it seemed a little more laughter and playful screams rang across the school grounds than all of last week. No one would forget Emily Cooke and her untimely death. But maybe they were starting to move on, and things would get back to normal.

  “Before I forget,” Spencer said, “I wanted to say thank you.”

  I met his eyes. “Why?”

  He smiled shyly and ducked his head. “Before yesterday, I thought I was going crazy. You proved I’m not, and you actually managed to learn a lot more about all this than I ever did. Also, you . . . you stayed with me last night when I was hurt, even with those shadow guys there.”

  “Oh.” I bit my lip. “Well, you’re welcome.”

  He chuckled, then climbed over his seat, leaning halfway into the backseat to grab his backpack. As he settled back into the driver’s seat, I said, “And thank you, too.”

  “I didn’t really do much.”

  “No,” I insisted, “you did. You got the killer off me last night, remember? And, well, before this morning I felt like everything was going out of control, but then . . . I don’t know, you sort of calmed me down. Helped make things feel not so totally nuts.”

  He didn’t seem to know what to say to that. My arm began to tremble as I realized I might have just been a little too forthcoming.

  “I mean,” I stammered. “It’s just that—”

  Before I could speak further and make a fool of myself, I felt Spencer’s arms around me, pulling me into a hug. I stiffened in surprise as he clenched me awkwardly over the stick shift. Then his scent—that natural pheromone of his that had invaded my brain and led me to him—swirled around my nose. I inhaled, and every part of me relaxed. I fell into the hug, wrapping my arms around his shoulders.

  “We should talk more after school,” he said, his voice muffled by my hair.

  “Yeah, okay,” I said. “Sure. Definitely. Though I should check with my dad. I’m pretty sure I’m still grounded for all my wacky party shenanigans.”

  Spencer let me go and smiled at me. Shaking his head, he opened his door and hopped out.

  I didn’t want to move from that seat. I wanted to sit there and relive that moment in my head forever and ever. I had just gotten a hug from a cute guy who seemed funny and smart. And oh yeah, who was also a werewolf, just like me.

  Every part of me tingled, and I was pretty sure a whole colony of monarchs had set up shop in my lower intestine for all the fluttering happening there. Part of me wondered, was this just part of the BioZenith programming or whatever it was they had done to us? Had they designed their werewolves to find a preordained mate? If it wasn’t for his smell, would I even like Spencer?

  But right then, I really didn’t care. I’d worry about the details of what Spencer being my “mate” would mean lat
er.

  It may have actually happened differently, but as I remember it, a cloud descended from that perfect blue sky, opened the car door, slipped underneath me, and floated me out of the car. I bobbed along on my cloud, out of the parking lot and halfway to school—until I saw Megan standing on the walkway leading to the main entrance, watching me with an unreadable expression.

  At that moment, the cloud went to vapor and I fell solidly back to earth. I clutched my book bag close to my chest. Spencer was already at the entrance to the school, high- fiving Mikey Harris as though nothing out of the ordinary had happened to him. He threw his arms into the air, telling some sort of joke. The guys around him all busted a gut in response.

  Megan glowered at Spencer and then me, and I knew that she’d seen us together.

  I raised my chin and wound through the milling teens to stand next to her. “Hey,” I said, my voice carried off by the hum of noise from the people around us.

  “Hey,” she said. “I came to pick you up this morning, but your dad said you’d already left.”

  And then, she actually smiled at me.

  Taken aback, I didn’t quite know what to say. I scanned Megan head to toe. Same blond hair that hung all the way down her back, same black jeans and shirt, same giant nose. The girl standing in front of me certainly looked like Megan. But this was not a reaction to my car-stealing and milkshake-drugging antics that I expected the real Megan to ever have.

  She linked her arm through mine and started strolling up the walkway to the school entrance. Only then did her smile falter, and I realized that whatever goodwill facade she’d been forcing was not long for this world.

  “I was expecting you to call me this weekend,” she said, her voice rising higher. “After you made me go all the way to Seattle to get my car.”

  I stopped and pulled away. A couple of guys ran into me, muttering, “Watch it,” as they walked past us into the school.

  “Listen, Megan—,” I said.

  She interrupted me, crossing her arms. “You know, I expected you to make a bigger effort to apologize than just give me some money and expect everything to be better.”

  “Megan . . .”

  “I spent the whole weekend waiting around for you, Emily,” she spat. Her chest heaved as she got herself worked up, ready to unleash all the anger she’d held in all weekend. “While you went off and did whatever you’re doing with your new friends.”

  “Megan!” I shouted. “Will you shut up for a second and listen?”

  Stunned, she did just that, finally looking me in the eye. Nearby some other kids watched us, laughing at us behind their palms. I didn’t care.

  “Look,” I said, lowering my voice and leading her off the walkway. “I know things have been weird lately, and I wish I could explain, but I’m still figuring it out. But you need to know one thing: You are the last person I would ever leave or hurt on purpose. I don’t have any new friends that I’m going to abandon you for.”

  “What about him?” Megan’s expression darkened.

  “‘Him’?” I repeated. “You mean Spencer?”

  I stood on my tiptoes to see over the other kids. Spencer was no longer by the front doors. He’d probably headed off to class.

  “Yeah,” she said. “Is he your boyfriend now? Is that what all this stuff is about?”

  “What? No!” I sighed. “Megan, I don’t want to fight with you. I don’t want you acting like I’m some demon for, I guess, trying to be more . . . grown-up.”

  She snorted, but couldn’t hide a small smile. “‘Grown-up,’ huh? Which means I’m not.”

  “That’s not what I mean,” I said. Megan didn’t respond.

  We stood together in a long, awkward silence. Ahead of me, there was a thud of leather against skin, and a girl cried out. I saw class president Tracie Townsend race out of the crowd and into the grass next to the walkway, brandishing a football that I guess had hit her in the face. She chased after a gawky guy wearing a too-big Seahawks jersey.

  Finally I sighed once more. “Look, Megan, I am sorry. I promise you I am. Nothing that happened this past week is anything I ever expected to happen. And that includes taking your car. You’re right, I should have called to apologize. I just . . .”

  I trailed off. I didn’t quite know how to finish, or to truly explain. Spencer and I, along with a few other kids I had yet to find, we shared a secret. A secret I didn’t know if I could tell Megan.

  But Megan had been my best and only friend for years and years. And, forgetting all the insanity of the weekend, I had missed her. I couldn’t imagine not having her to talk to.

  I swallowed. “Please, Megan, just . . . just accept my apology, will you? I can’t imagine us not being friends.”

  She didn’t respond, or even look me in the eye, for what felt like an eternity.

  “Something is going on with you,” she said softly. “Are you ever going to tell me what? Are you actually sick?”

  “I . . . yeah,” I said. “I am. But I think I figured it out. I think from now on, I’ll be better.”

  Megan looked up at me, and I could see the disbelief in her eyes, but also hope. Because I knew Megan, and I knew her well: I was her only real friend, just as she was mine. And she didn’t want to lose me, either.

  “All right,” she said. “Okay, fine. I accept your apology. But at some point, you’re going to sit down and tell me everything that’s been going on.”

  “Deal.”

  Side by side, we re-entered the stream of kids heading up the walkway to the school.

  “One thing,” she said as we walked. “If you ever—ever—do anything else to me like you did Friday night, I will cut you. Got it?”

  I laughed. “Got it.”

  We reached the front doors just as the first bell rang. All the students who had mingled outside until the last minute rushed to their first classes. Megan and I were about to do the same, but something caught my eye.

  “Actually, I’ll head to class in a minute,” I said to Megan. “Just need a sec out here, okay?”

  She regarded me curiously, then shrugged. “All right. See you in a few.”

  I left Megan and the crowd behind, strolling just off the walkway to the wall where the makeshift memorial to Emily Cooke and Dalton had sprouted up the week before. The ribbons on the pole nearby had started to come untied, the flowers were wilted, teddy bears were soaked with rainwater. Only the pictures seemed to have weathered the weekend unscathed, protected as they were behind laminate.

  I pressed my fingers against the photo of Emily Cooke. I looked into her smiling blue eyes and whispered, “I did it. I got him.”

  I had wanted to flip the switch that would make me become a normal teenager. But this? This could prove to be so much better. And now I had someone who understood me. Someone who was like me, with whom I could share all these changes. Several someones, in fact.

  Not everything was right in my life, not by a long shot. I still had so many questions about what was going on with me, and despite what I’d told Megan, I still didn’t know if I would ever be able to control the wild behavior of my other selves. I still had a whole family who thought I was becoming someone else, and a best friend who didn’t seem entirely convinced I was still the same person, and a whole school full of teenagers—specifically some incredibly popular cheerleaders—who thought I was the corporeal embodiment of Satan. Not to mention I had a nervous feeling that Jared’s brief interrogation of me and Spencer that morning wouldn’t be the last we heard from the police.

  Yeah, life was changing for me all right. It was scary and exciting, painfully sad and blissful all at the same time. Nighttime Emily had proven reckless, brazen, sometimes out of control. The wolf me was something totally different altogether.

  But Daytime, Nighttime, Wolftime . . . they were all me. Frightened and fearless and frightening, all in one body. I didn’t have all the answers, wasn’t quite sure where life was going to take me, if I would ever feel completely in sync w
ith my selves. But standing in front of that photo of the other Emily, it didn’t matter. I let the worry wash away.

  The final bell rang then, shaking me from my thoughts. I turned to find the front walkway to the school completely empty, save for a few loose pieces of notebook paper fluttering across the lawn.

  Gripping my backpack tight, I raced through the front doors to the school, sneakers squeaking over the linoleum. I started to race toward class—when two officious-looking people stepped out into the main hall, deep in discussion.

  The woman, who I recognized as one of the office ladies, turned toward me, her eyes registering recognition. I expected a stern glare at my lateness, but instead she put a hand on the shoulder of the man next to her and gestured in my direction.

  “That’s her,” I heard the woman say.

  I stood rooted to the spot, not sure what was going on. My heart pounded—was this guy from the police? Had they figured it out? Did they know what I was?

  The man turned to face me. He was mousy and thin, no taller than me. He wore an unexceptional gray suit that seemed a size too large for him. His brown hair was thinning, his wire-rimmed glasses tilted slightly off center.

  The man left the office lady’s side and came toward me, smiling.

  “Emily Webb?” he asked me, his voice surprisingly deep despite his diminutive size.

  I nodded, confirming. “Am I in trouble?” I asked. “I didn’t mean to come in late, I was just—”

  The man let out a gentle laugh and rested a hand on my shoulder. I squirmed uncomfortably.

  “No, not at all,” he said. “I was sent from the school district to talk converse, erm, counsel students like yourself who have been directly affected by all that’s been going on lately.”

  Stepping back, out of his grasp, I said, “I haven’t really been affected. I don’t know why—”

  The man shook his head. “We got a call from the police department about how you and another student discovered a man’s, ah, body last night. A man who could have been the person responsible for Emily Cooke’s untimely death. Of course we understand how that might be traumatizing.”