Marked (The Pack)

by Cox, Suzanne

  “Kind of like me in the beginning.”

  “Yeah, like that. When it’s a large pack, like you were traveling with, they often lose it. They really do kill people. They usually eat all the flesh then bury the bones so the person is missing and never found.”

  “Now you’re scaring me, Myles.”

  He caught my upper arm in a tight grip, nearly lifting me off the ground. “Damn it, Alexis, you need to be scared. The Fenryrians and the wolves infected with the virus are out of control. They only think of themselves or what they want. It doesn’t matter who gets hurt.”

  “But I like being with them. I told you that already. It was the best I’ve ever felt.”

  “But you aren’t like them. When they attacked, you tried to stop them. I saw you.”

  I nodded. “You know, ever since I came here I thought I might have had something to do with the woman who was killed that weekend. I kept having these images in my head, but I didn’t know why. Then I found a T-shirt Louise had worn and it was covered in blood. I thought maybe she’d killed the woman, but tonight I remembered, just like I’ve been remembering the other nights I was out before I became aware of what I was.”

  “What did you remember?”

  “It was like tonight. But I think I was in human form. It was Channing and her friends that killed the woman. Louise came and got me away from them. That’s how her shirt got bloody. You can’t imagine how scared I’ve been, wondering what I might have done or what she might have done. So at least now I know I’m not going to attack people or animals.”

  Myles turned and started walking to his house. I fell in step beside him.

  “Yes you will. In time you’ll catch the fever for it that they have. If you don’t they’ll kill you. You’re from the Lycernian pack and don’t forget it.”

  “Why can’t I run with both packs? Channing is my friend and so are you. I won’t choose between the two.”

  We’d reached the bottom of the steps and Myles stopped turning to face me. “Make no mistake about it, Alexis, you will have to choose one or the other. You can’t ride the fence. You’ll join the Fenryrians and go along with them, or they’ll kill you.”

  “What if they don’t? What if I get the Fenryrians to let me be with my friends that are from their pack without hurting anyone and still get to be with my family and friends like you?”

  Myles shook his head. “Then the Lycernians will have you killed.”

  I crossed my arms, the sleeves of the baggy shirt falling to my elbows. “Oh, right, who’ll come and take care of me? Some mafia werewolf hit man?”

  “No, my dad maybe, or your aunt or Dr. Unger even.”

  I opened my mouth to speak, but the words wouldn’t come out. I wet my dry lips with my tongue and tried again. “So they would kill me, right then, without a second thought.” I snapped my fingers. “Just like that.”

  “I’m sure it wouldn’t be without a second thought. But yes, if they were required to do it, they would.”

  “Would you, if you were required would you kill me?”

  “I’m not old enough to do that type of job, but yes. I’m training for it. If the time came that it was asked of me, I’d do what was necessary to protect us.”

  I shoved past him and started toward the woods.

  He caught up to me and put a hand on my shoulder. ”Where are you going?”

  “I’m going home.”

  “Don’t you think we’ve established that it’s not safe for you to walk home right now with that group running loose?”

  “And I’m supposed to be safe in the car with you? Someone who I thought was my friend.”

  “I am your friend and you are safe with me. Nothing’s going to happen to you tonight, okay. I’m just saying that one day, in the future, you’ll have to pick a side.”

  “What if I don’t choose your side at all?”

  He didn’t look at me for a moment but stared at the ground. When he did meet my eyes again, he looked sad. “Then you wouldn’t be the first person I knew to abandon us and turn totally to the other side. My mom did.”

  That brought me up short. “Did the Lycernians kill your mom?”

  “No, I told you. They’ll only kill you if you try and run with both packs. If you choose to stay with the Fenryrians then you become one of them. You run with them and kill with them.

  “And your mom chose them?”

  “Yes, she left only a couple months after I was born.”

  I waved my hand toward his house. “And that’s your real dad.”

  “Yeah, he’s raised me.” Myles caught my elbow, leading me back toward the house.

  “That’s unbelievable.”

  “That he’s had me by himself all these years?”

  “Well, that too, but how could a woman in her right mind leave a guy like your dad? Don’t take this the wrong way, but there must have been something seriously wrong with your mom.”

  “Yeah, I’ll try not to take that wrong.”

  We climbed the steps to the front door. “But look at your dad, he’s attractive and sooo nice.”

  Myles held open the front door, putting a finger to his lips. “Be quiet.”

  “He even raised you to be polite. You always open the car door for me when I ride with you. How many guys open the car door for girls? None I know.”

  “Maybe you know the wrong guys, but my dad will be glad to hear you’re so impressed.” He whispered, motioning for me to follow him down the hall.

  Myles shut the door quietly. “I’ll call Louise and tell her you’ll stay here tonight.”

  He obviously recognized the beginning of a protest on my face. “It’ll be fine. She’ll ask fewer questions if it comes from me. You can sleep in here. I’ll sleep on the couch. We have a spare bedroom, but the bed’s not made. This will be easier.”

  “At least let me sleep on the couch.”

  “I think it will be better if my dad finds me asleep on the couch instead of you. Especially since he’ll probably only be wearing his underwear and you’ve got this sick thing for him.”

  “It’s not a sick thing. You’re right about you sleeping on the couch. I like your dad, but I’m not really interested in seeing him in his underwear.”

  Myles pulled out his cell phone. “Well, that’s a relief to hear.”

  I looked at the pictures on Myles dresser and only half listened to what he was saying to Louise. He was right. She did take things better from him.

  He finished and I glanced at him. “She okay with it?”

  “No problem.”

  “Figures. You’ve got her wrapped around your finger.”

  He laughed. “Is that what you call it? And I just thought she trusted me.”

  I groaned and decided to change the subject. I pointed to the pretty blonde in one of the photos. She was sitting in front of a microscope. Beside it was another picture of the same girl with Myles. They sat on a bench laughing. They made a cute couple, him all dark and her so blonde.

  “Your girlfriend?”

  He nodded. “Lana.”

  “She’s really pretty.”

  “She’s also really smart. That’s why she’s not here this summer. She’s doing an internship at Yale working with a researcher there.”

  “Really? That’s impressive. But then you must be really smart too, because you said you wanted to be a doctor.”

  He turned back the bed spread then went to the closet and got a blanket. “I’m smart in the normal sense of things. Lana is smart in a different way. She’s finished all her high school work. She mostly works on research and studies under different professors.”

  “And she’s… you know, like you. I mean like us?”

  “If you mean, is she a werewolf, then yes.”

  There was a scratch at the door and Myles opened it to let Beowulf come trotting in. The dog sprung onto the bed and buried into the pillows.

  “How long have you two been together?”

  He ran a finger across the
top of the picture. “A long time.”

  He sounded so serious, like he was married to her already. I studied the picture again until Myles tossed the blanket over his shoulder and gave me a push. “Come on, it’s late. You may get to meet her sometime. Who knows?”

  I kicked off the flip-flops and climbed into his bed still wearing his much too large t-shirt and shorts. I snuggled under the covers. Beowulf circled on the pillow next to my head and plopped down.

  “Come on Beowulf, let’s go.” Myles snapped his fingers, but the dog only lifted his head then lowered it again, curling into a tighter ball with a soft sigh.

  “Traitor.” He said and turned to leave.

  “Myles.”

  He paused, one hand on the light switch, one on the doorknob and looked back.

  “What now, Myles? What do I do?”

  “I can’t answer that for you, Alexis. You’ve got to figure this out on your own. It’s a lot to deal with. I can’t really imagine because I’ve known most all my life what I was and what I would do. I guess I had a choice, but I never really considered it.”

  “Thanks for helping me tonight.”

  “Anytime, but from now on, know, if you’re running with Channing and her friends, anything can happen. So be careful. Next time, I might not be around.”

  “I’ll remember.”

  He turned off the lights and pulled the door shut behind him.

  ***

  I took the porch steps two at time as Myles drove away. The morning was bright and the awfulness of last night seemed far away. I walked through the house looking for Louise and finally found her in a lounge chair on the back deck. She appeared to be dozing. I slid a chair next to her then reached over giving her a shake.

  “Alexis, you’re home earlier than I expected.” Louise scooted further up in the chair.

  “Myles’ dad made an early breakfast, so I decided to come home after I ate.”

  “Myles shouldn’t have kept you out so late last night.”

  I sighed and traced a pattern on the too large shirt. “He didn’t really. He kind of helped me out of a spot.”

  Louise stiffened. “You’re wearing his clothes. What happened?”

  “I need to ask you a question.”

  “All right, go ahead.”

  “If Channing is Fenryrian…”

  She held up her hand. “There’s no if, Alexis. She is, case closed.”

  “Okay, if I chose to stay friends with Channing and run with her pack in my wolf form, but still tried to run with you and your friends, would the Lycernians have me killed?”

  “Someone’s been informative tonight and I don’t have to guess who.”

  “Don’t blame Myles. I needed to know this.”

  Louise pulled a pillow behind her back. “That’s true, you do need the facts. And yes, if you were doing that and didn’t keep it secret, when Lycernians found out you’d be killed for the safety of our pack.”

  “Would you do it? If they told you to, would you kill me?”

  Louise dropped her head back against the cushion and stared at the sky. After a few seconds she tilted her head forward. “Yes, if I was told to, I would.”

  “And Mr. Branton, he would too.”

  “Yes. It’s our job. It’s what we do.”

  “I thought you were a teacher,” I whispered.

  “I am, but that’s not all I do. I wouldn’t want to do it, but if I had to, I would, for the pack.”

  I stood from the chair.

  “Look Alexis, you don’t understand that this is bigger than you or me.”

  I started toward the door. “You’re right. I don’t understand. Now I’m going to put on my own clothes.”

  I could feel Louise’s eyes on me until I closed the door. Suddenly, they’d sucked all the fun out of being a werewolf.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  I set the mop bucket on the floor and began my daily clean- up at the camp. Channing hadn’t mentioned the night at the cemetery and I hadn’t either. The girl that had been attacked still came by in her convertible to pick up her sister, but I had no idea about the guy. I’d never seen him before the night of the party and hadn‘t seen him since. Obviously, the girl didn’t die. I wondered how long before the virus would take effect. I tried to gauge how I felt about the fact that Channing and her friends went about spreading what was the equivalent to a disease. No wait, it was out and out a disease. It would be different if they discussed it with the person and they agreed to get bitten. But the girl and guy in the cemetery had been attacked just like… I frowned. Just like the women in New Orleans that night of the party. At least now I knew what had happened.

  I stopped mopping and pressed the heel of my hand to my forehead. It gave me a headache just thinking about it. All I wanted was to go home to Chicago and hear how rehab had gone or what it had been like to be under house arrest for the summer- to listen to someone else’s tales of terror and forget my own. But since I hadn’t received an e-mail, phone call or even a postcard from any of my friends in Chicago, I wondered if they might have forgotten I existed. That was if they had ever really known it at all.

  With a swish of the mop, I finished my last indoor chore and went to put everything away. Some of the craft items had been left outside on the picnic tables to dry. I had to move them inside so they wouldn’t get damp with dew overnight. I regretted volunteering to do all the clean up by myself. But, at the time, I’d felt like I needed to do something, anything, to keep me from dwelling on whether or not I should spend time with Channing anymore. Running with them a few times while I was still here didn’t mean I was officially going to join that pack and leave the one I was born to. Though I didn’t really feel like I’d been born to anything.

  When the last brightly painted plaster rabbit had been put away, I wiped the sweat from my face and glanced around the deserted campground. I hurried back to the kitchen where I found my bag and dug in it until I unearthed the old ragged bathing suit I kept there, just in case I ever needed it. Today I needed it. Besides, no one was around, who’d care the suit had a little hole on the butt or that the top was so threadbare you could practically see through it. I stripped and put the suit on, then ran to the camp’s pier and leapt into the lake without slowing up. The lukewarm water closed over my head, washing away the sweat. At home the water was always cool, but here it was more like bathwater. I was beginning to like it.

  I surfaced and kicked around for a minute then put one hand on the pier. It vibrated beneath my grip and I looked up. It was Eric, wearing swim shorts and carrying a towel over his shoulder.

  “Hi.” He paused, standing above me. “I didn’t expect anyone to be here. You mind if I swim with you?”

  I shook my head, not sure if I could speak at the moment, because my heart had begun to thump in my throat.

  “I haven’t seen you for awhile.” I finally whispered.

  He sat on the pier and slipped into the water beside me. He went under wetting his golden hair. When he surfaced, he tossed his head. Droplets of water shimmered in the air, a few landed softly against my cheek.

  “I went on vacation with my family to the beach.”

  Now that he mentioned it, he was awfully tanned and his hair did have a more sun bleached look than I remembered. He touched my shoulder, then ran his hand down my arm. Catching my hand under the water, he pulled it up to his lips.

  “I missed you.”

  I jerked my hand away, even though I wanted to leave it next to his lips forever. What if his touch sent me into an uncontrollable transformation to my wolf state?

  “You’re not still worried about Channing are you?” He asked, raking back his wet hair.

  “No, but my life is really complicated right now. I’m not sure how wise it is to start liking someone when I’m going to be leaving soon.”

  “Start liking me? I thought we had passed that already. Tell me what’s so complicated. Let me help you deal with it.”

  I nearly laughed. What wou
ld he say if I blurted out that I was having a bit of trouble adjusting to life as a werewolf? I decided against that revelation.

  “My mom’s out of the country and I have this new stepdad to deal with. It’s a lot of things.”

  He put a hand on my head and shoved me under the water. I came up choking. He laughed. “There, we’ve washed all those troubles away.”

  I shook my head, then jumped toward him trying to push his head under. He swam away from the pier and I chased after him. Catching up to him, I was finally able to push him under. When he came up, he was only inches from my face. His legs bumped mine as we tread water. One hand cupped my chin. I knew what was coming. He was going to kiss me. I wasn’t ready, was I? What if something horrible or crazy happened? What if I couldn’t control myself and transformed? I wasn’t so sure this was a good idea.

  “I don’t know.” The words slipped out unexpectedly.

  He leaned closer. “You know.”

  Then he kissed me once, his lips pressing softly against mine. He paused and kissed me harder. What I felt inside of me wasn’t an impending transformation. It was something else, something maybe even more powerful. I pressed closer to him. He kissed me harder. Our legs banged against each other as we tried to stay afloat, while still holding on. He wanted more and his hands explored my body. I tried to tell him with my kiss, my hands, that I wanted him too. We both forgot to kick. We began to sink.

  As Eric pulled away so we could stay afloat, our haggard breath made ripples on top of the water. I heard the sound of tires crunching on gravel. On the drive near the pier, a sheriff’s car inched to a stop. An officer got out and walked down the pier. Law officers didn’t typically show up at day camp. Eric and I swam over and held on to the wooden decking.

  The man crossed his arms in front of his chest and stared down at us. “I’m Deputy Carson. I’m looking for Ms Miller that runs the day camp.”