by S. L. Naeole
I could feel the heat of embarrassment and guilt in my face. Did she know what I was thinking about? Did she see the things my mind had thrown at me?
“What?”
“I asked you what the hell do you want to do about this? You don’t want us to kill Fallon on the island, fine. So what do you want to do?”
The answer was simple. “How about we leave her alone?” If only I could follow it.
“Leave her alone? I was kinda hoping you’d be smart and say something like take her off island and then kill her. But…leave her alone? She’s a human living with us. She’s not just living on the island. She’s not vacationing here. She’s living with two of us.
“She obviously doesn’t know what the hell is going on which means that sooner or later, she will, and then it’ll be too damn late. She needs to go, Liam.” Brenda was shouting now. The water had cooled her temper enough to change her back, but it wouldn’t hold her that way for long.
“We have to be objective here-”
“Objective my ass,” I heard Audrey mumble under her breath.
“We have to be objective here,” I repeated. “We can’t go around talking about killing her. Her parents will know what happened to her and they’ll know who to blame.”
“So what?” Jameson complained. “They can blame us all they want but what are they gonna do, huh? Call the cops and turn themselves in for being Panthus? Look, if they’re smart, they’ll blame themselves for even thinking about bringing her here. Brenda’s right, man. Fallon’s cool and all for what she did, but she still doesn’t belong here and I don’t see her leaving on her own.”
“I can’t believe you guys are talking like this,” Audrey scolded. “You’re talking about my friend. You guys are talking about kidnapping and killing my friend.”
Brenda strode over to her, not caring that she was naked. “We’re your friends, Audrey. We’re the only ones who understand. We’re the only ones who know you.”
Audrey’s eyes narrowed into slits as she glared at Brenda. “You don’t know anything. And you don’t understand anything either.” She turned her head to me and frowned. “You saved her. I don’t know why you did it and I don’t care either. Just tell me that you’re not gonna let them hurt Fallon.”
It hurt to hear the pain and disapproval in her voice. “Of course not. The rule has been driven into my brain just as much as it has everyone else, Aud, and I know what’ll happen if any of us-” I made sure Jameson and Brenda both saw and heard me “-breaks it. I saved Fallon despite her being what she is because I don’t want any of that to happen to us.”
My sister pushed herself up and then flipped over, crawling away on the palms of her hands. But she stopped long enough to look me in the eye and hiss, “You’re a liar, Liam Mace. You know you did it because of who she is.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
FALLON
Strapped to the back of my bike were two boxes, each one wrapped in cartoon wrapping paper that we’d had since my fifth birthday. I thought it would be fun to use it, kind of like a gag gift, but as I pulled up to Audrey’s house, the street facing it lined with cars and trucks, I felt stupid. Most parties I’d gone to before had balloons and streamers and music blasting so loud you could hear it a couple of blocks up the street.
The Mace house was different. The only sound I could hear was the blaring of the ferry announcing its noon arrival. I hesitated, the last bits of doubt lingering at the edge of my mind where they were loudest.
If I went inside, I’d be surrounded by people I didn’t know who would each look at me and speculate whether or not I was really there for Audrey or for Liam. Because, I admitted to myself, just the sight of Liam’s truck brought flashes of memory back to me and all I could see were hazel eyes and sweat dripping down his chest.
“Come on, Fallon,” I said to myself. “This is not the hardest thing you’ve had to do. You know that.”
With a new resolve, I untied the boxes from the bike and headed up the porch. The front door was open and I walked in. I heard laughter coming from the kitchen so I headed straight toward it, and then spotted faces outside in the back.
“Fallon!” Audrey was wheeling herself toward me, a large smile on her face. “You made it! And you’re on time!”
“That’s such a loser thing to do,” I said, laughing.
“Yeah, well, I was a whole sixteen years early for this day so, you know, get in line.” She grabbed the presents from me, raising a dark eyebrow when she felt their weight and read the tags. “You got a present for Liam, too?”
I shrugged. “It would’ve been rude not to.”
She placed the boxes on two separate tables, each one piled with present wrapped in newspaper, foil, and even plastic bags. “Come on, I’m gonna introduce you to my friends.”
I followed her toward the group of kids gathered around a small bonfire that had been built behind the house. It blazed inside a circle of rocks and gave off such a tremendous heat, I could feel myself already sweating. I looked down at my clothes, my leggings and tunic suddenly far too hot and dressy for the party. I also realized right then that I’d forgotten to apply my deodorant before I’d left the house.
Great. I was going to meet them smelling like some jockstrap.
“Fallon, this is Lola, Mark, Yvonne, Shay, Sparky, and Jaz.”
I looked at them and tried my best to remember their names and faces. Jaz had the same dark skin as Mom and Dad, her face long, her eyes grey and probing. Sparky was paler than anyone I’d ever met before, with light blond hair that was pulled tight against her scalp so that her pale blue eyes looked almond shaped, giving her an almost fairy-like appearance.
Shay, it was obvious to see, was Sparky’s brother. His hair was short and spiked, but still that same ghostly blond color as his sister’s. Mark, standing in complete contrast to Sparky, had dark hair and dark blue eyes that looked deeper than they should. Yvonne stood taller than the rest, her hair cut close to her scalp and bleached to a white gold. Her dark eyebrows betrayed the truth of the color as her dark amber eyes looked me over with a casual glance.
I recognized Lola’s bright pink hair and dark green eyes right away. “Lola…you work at the pancake place, right? Kimble’s?”
Lola nodded. “Yeah.” That was it. She turned to talk to Mark, who didn’t even bother responding to me when I started to tell him hello. The others turned away as well, joining a smaller group of kids who all had their backs turned to us. Audrey gave me an embarrassed and disappointed sigh.
“I’m sorry. They’re kinda protective of me and…well…”
I smiled at her and squeezed her shoulder. “They think that whatever it was your brother told them is the truth, that I totally suck, and you’re just defending me because you’re a nice person.”
She laughed nervously. “If only it was that simple.”
“Look, don’t worry about it. I’ve gone through this a dozen times already; I’m the professional new kid, remember? Besides, I don’t hang out with them so they don’t know me. Wait till we start school. Things will change.”
Whether she believed me or not, I didn’t know. She just looked like she was stuck somewhere between cussing everyone out and bursting into tears, and I felt bad that me showing up was the cause of it. I was ready to offer to leave so that she’d feel more comfortable around her friends but then she made this sound that was like a laugh trapped in a sob.
“You’re too much, you know that? My friends treat you like crap because…well, who cares why. It doesn’t matter why because they’re the ones looking stupid and missing out. And here you are, all ready to give them a second chance even though none of them deserve one. It’s wrong, Fallon. It’s wrong that they don’t trust you like I do.”
“No one ever trusts the new kid,” I reminded her.
“Yeah, well, everyone always underestimates the kid in the wheelchair,” she said, this time the laugh more obvious. “They think we’re all weaklings but give us a head start a
nd we’ll run all of them down and do it laughing.”
Suddenly, I remembered what happened on the road. I could still feel the friction of the tongue on my cheek and the rush of fear in my chest as I began to tell her everything that happened on the road. I even told her about the cat licking me and sniffing my hair. I waited for her reaction, expecting her to be surprised or frightened, but instead she looked almost bored, as if she’d heard the story before.
“I’m just glad you’re okay,” she told me when I asked why she was so quiet.
“Oh. Okay.”
Audrey looked at me and then paused, her mouth open mid-word, before her voice came out, slightly sad yet also hopeful. “To be honest, I didn’t think you’d come at all, you know. I actually believed that you wouldn’t, and…after hearing about what happened, I’m kinda surprised that you did.”
I laughed nervously, the sound louder than it should have been as I realized that we were the only ones having a conversation. I could feel the dozen pairs of eyes burning into my skin, but one burned hotter. I knew it without turning my head to confirm it. But I did turn my head.
Hazel eyes watched me from hooded lids, and when he saw me looking back, he let out a curse, his lids lowering as annoyance turned the gold of his eyes so dark, his pupils seemed to double in size. But he didn’t look away. And neither did I.
“My brother’s kind of stubborn,” Audrey said beside me.
“Kind of? That’s like me saying this rock’s kind of surrounded by water.”
Audrey’s laughter let loose this time, free and rich, not caring that we were the center of everyone’s attention. “He likes you. He might not be able to admit it, but he does.”
“Yeah. It’s so obvious. The bruises I had on my ass after he pushed me that first day told me so,” I laughed along with her.
Against my better judgment, I walked toward him. With each step I took that he didn’t leave, I grew braver. He was only a couple of yards ahead of me, and my feet were moving faster than normal. Seconds, it would take only seconds to reach him and maybe, maybe try to start again. That would be nice, I admitted to myself. If I wanted to be really honest, it would be more than nice. I felt my mouth curve up into a smile and then my lips parted as I made an attempt to speak.
“Hello, Li-”
He walked away. Well…limped, actually. His face was hard, his arm extended behind him, his hand holding tightly to a girl with rich, brown hair and piercing green eyes. I knew who she was, but even if I didn’t, it wouldn’t take much to know that she was warning me away, her grip on his hand as sure a sign as anything that he was hers and I had no chance at anything with him…not even friendship. Brenda was pretty. But, more than that, she was confident.
She knew that Liam didn’t like me and the smile on her face, small and almost undetectable to anyone not looking for it, told me that she would do everything she could to make sure that dislike stayed permanent. And she would win.
She knew it and, more importantly, I did, too.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
LIAM
I’ve been eighteen for only eight hours and already I feel like I’m a hundred years old. Or, maybe it’s the fact that turning eighteen changed the way I experienced everything. Everything smelled differently now. Everything looked different. Things even smelled different.
The minute I turned eighteen, everything changed around me. I felt it, the physical change. Every muscle in my body seemed to clench up at the same time, like a full-body cramp that didn’t want to end. I was lying on the floor, surrounded, feeling more like a circus freak than a man.
Brenda had shown up to help, despite the fight at the maze. She’d been through the change already, and knew what to expect. “I didn’t want you to think I didn’t care,” she said quietly as she laid down beside me.
Jameson had showed up, too, and helped to hold me down to keep me from hurting myself or someone else when the pain gripped my body so hard, I couldn’t control what it wanted to do.
Audrey…she wasn’t really talking to me after what happened at the maze, but she knew she needed to be there with me. She held my head when the pain first hit, spreading like a stain through my body. She didn’t say anything, but she did keep her eyes on mine. It was probably how she looked at me when she was having her episodes, only she was braver; she always had been.
She never made a sound when it was her, but she was always the stronger one. I screamed. I screamed like I was ten years old again and afraid of dying in that damn car. It had been a long time since I felt pain that bad. I swore I felt the scar on my face rip open, and as my scream turned into gurgles, I was almost positive that I was drowning in my own blood.
It felt like my skin was being ripped off layer by layer, while my muscles were slowly burning underneath. Blood isn’t supposed to curdle, but that’s what I was sure was happening as everything just grew hotter and hotter. Every breath, every blink was an earthquake of pain.
For over three straight hours my body went through the storm of changes like every other Panthus before me. On the floor in Audrey’s room, everything changed. I used to be a cat in a boy’s body. By the time it was all over, I was a man in a panther’s.
One thing about changing, though, is that it’s easy to get distracted by things and how different they were from what I imagined. I knew I’d be able to tell that Brenda was nearby just by the sound of her heart beating. I knew that the smell of her would change because I’d be smelling what was inside her instead of what was on her.
What I didn’t expect was that I’d be able to smell how someone felt. It wasn’t subtle, either. Brenda’s jealousy had a smell, like friction-heated skin. Audrey’s disappointment smelled like the end of a pier, where everything is drenched with salty water and dark with the weight of it.
The smell of smoke and irritation, on the other hand, are exactly the same, and anyone standing within five feet of me today would know just by inhaling that I was irritated.
The joint birthday parties had been Audrey’s idea. She wanted to celebrate it together because that’s how it had been when we were kids, before Mom died. She wanted to start over, she said. So I gave in and said okay. That was before the attack on Fallon. Now, it was just us trying not to disappoint our friends.
Dad didn’t tell us we couldn’t have it. The only thing he wanted was for everything to be cleaned up and dinner made when he came home. If he stayed out as long as he had for the past week, he’d be back well after dinner, which meant that the party could last until after dark.
Normally, that would’ve been great; nothing but friends and fire and maybe even some wine coolers if someone could find any to sneak in. But with Audrey not speaking to me or any of my friends, and her friends doing the same, great was the last thing this party was gonna be.
And then Fallon showed up, turning the party from not great to full of suck. Audrey tried to introduce her to her friends, but they weren’t open to accepting her and I knew that it was mostly my fault. The only upside was that after Fallon came, everyone else found a common target. It was easy to hate Fallon, especially when she was pretty much everything Audrey talked about now, as if she was the only thing Audrey thought about.
What made it worse was that if I wasn’t paying attention, if I wasn’t going out of my way to make sure it didn’t happen, Fallon was all I thought about, too.
Her smell would be all over the house after she’d visit. I’d have to go upstairs to escape it, and then when I was in my room, I’d find reasons to go back downstairs, like some kind of junkie looking for a fix. I’d hunt around the kitchen and the sofas trying to find where her scent was strongest and then I’d stand there like an idiot, inhaling. Audrey caught me doing it once, but said nothing.
Maybe if she had, I wouldn’t feel so damn guilty now, with Fallon so near and my senses picking up everything about her. She always smelled like apples, but now I could smell the blood in her, the sweetness to it.
“It’s always the fruit
you can’t have that tastes the sweetest,” Brenda said with a huff. I reminded her quietly that we’d all agreed to leave her alone, for Audrey’s sake.
“Audrey’s friend is starting to cramp my style,” she muttered before turning to speak to Jameson about school starting up again.
Ignored, I watched Audrey and Fallon talk. I could hear them and see how close they’d become in such a short time. Audrey laughed more than she ever had before, and she smiled more, too. I never really thought Audrey had been sad or depressed, but I could see now that happy wasn’t exactly what she’d been either.
It was a heavy feeling knowing that it took a human to make my sister feel this way. And then when Fallon turned her head and looked at me, I cursed under my breath because damn her and those brown eyes…she made me feel things, too.
She continued to talk to Audrey, but she never looked away. I heard what they were saying, but I didn’t care. I was too busy trying to understand why her eyes were so different. They were ordinary brown, nothing special about them, really. How many hundreds of girls came onto the rock with brown eyes and all I ever wanted to do was see them skinned.
But her brown eyes made me stop breathing. They made me stop thinking. It was like some sick game being played with my head and I wanted out of it because I knew I’d lose. I didn’t know what losing meant, but if I had to spend another second with my eyes locked with hers, I’d find out.
So when she came up to me, her voice getting ready to say my name, I couldn’t let her finish. I couldn’t let her see just how close I was to crossing that line. So I walked away.
I was surprised to feel Brenda’s hand in mine as she followed, her grip tight. I knew she smelled the fear in me. I could only hope she thought that I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to keep myself from tearing Fallon apart instead of…instead of what? What did I want to do?
