Blood Bond

by Heather Hildenbrand

  “I aim to not let that happen, but I think it’s only fair that Cambria be prepared.”

  I sighed. “I understand. Thanks, Grandma. I’ll tell her.”

  “You do that. I’m fixing to get out of here by tomorrow, I think. Should be home tomorrow night. Let her know I can talk to her about it then.”

  “I will. Grandma?”

  “Yes?”

  I hesitated. I wanted to ask her how in the world she could bring herself to work for a man like Gordon Steppe and all he stood for, but I held back. How could I ask her to be honest, to bare her most personal thoughts, when I was lying to her? She had her reasons, I had mine. “Nothing,” I said.

  “I know you’re stressed. I’ll be home as soon as I can. How’s George?” she asked. “And why does it sound like you’re in a car?”

  I didn’t answer. Our entire plan hinged on our destination remaining a secret, even the pretend one involving Alex. Otherwise, I had no doubt Grandma would hop a plane just to double-check my story.

  “Is he all right?” she prompted. She sounded worried now.

  I glanced at George. He was staring expectantly back at me in the fading light.

  “He’s feeling pretty good. Wes and Derek have been hanging out with him, running with him. I’m on my way to buy him some new running shoes, actually.” Running shoes? Geez, could I have come up with a lamer excuse?

  “Well, that’s good he has friends to show him the ropes,” she said. “Just be careful. No one in town can know who you’re shopping for.”

  “I know. I’ll be careful. Love you.”

  “Love you. See you soon,” she said before disconnecting.

  I dropped the phone in the empty cup holder and kept my eyes locked on the highway in front of me. Traffic was light and getting lighter as the sun crawled behind the horizon. Orange streaks lit the part of sky visible through the treetops that bordered the interstate. My guilt was so heavy, my shoulders ached.

  *

  Day gave way to twilight, and headlights lit the pavement. I stopped for gas not long after my call from Grandma. George hadn’t spoken since then. I think he realized I needed to work through it on my own. While George pumped gas, I used ATM to withdraw my meager savings. I wasn’t putting it past Grandma to track my credit card footprint and find me once the truth was out. Her resources scared me. From here on, cash only.

  Back in the car, George flipped through songs on his iPod and I shook my head “yes” or “no” with each choice. “That one,” I said, finally settling on some old Aerosmith song I’d heard George play a thousand times. It had an edge to it that matched the way I felt.

  My phone buzzed with a text from Cambria. George read it aloud. “Back from the run. No one suspects. Cue the compulsion. Be safe. XO.”

  The sign above us said “Kingsport, Tennessee 5 miles” when my eyes began to droop.

  “You could just let me drive, you know.”

  I shook my head as I maneuvered us into an empty space. The neon lights from the beaten-down motel glared on the dashboard. A blinking sign propped against a weather-faded concrete wall read “Vacancy.” It strobed in and out above us, hurting my eyes. I cut the engine.

  “It’s too dangerous. I know your stunt earlier was fake but something like that could happen at any time,” I told him.

  “Then I’d pull over,” he argued.

  “There might not be time. And if you wrecked the car, what then? My mom would love it if I had to call her for bus money.”

  He sighed. I was right. He knew it.

  We got out, abandoning the argument I was sure we’d have again before it was over, and climbed the metal stairs in search of room 207.

  “We’ll sleep for a few hours and get back on the road,” I said, pulling out the silver key and fitting it into the old-fashioned lock. I stepped inside with George behind me and groped for a switch. Yellow light swathed the dingy room. It smelled stale, overused and undercleaned. My nose twitched and I forced my growing sense of smell back down. I walked to the bed and pulled the covers back, inspecting. George emerged from the bathroom and made a face.

  “Don’t go in there if you can help it,” he said.

  “That bad?”

  “I’ll get my shower at the next one.”

  “Hopefully, the next one’s better.”

  He grunted and flopped down beside me onto his back. He didn’t bother pulling the covers down before reaching for the remote and clicking on the TV. He flipped until he found the sports channel and settled in with his hands propped behind his head. I sat next to him in silence.

  I couldn’t help but think back to another night, another hotel room. A heated kiss, slow to start, but then spreading warmth as it deepened. The memory of it—and Alex, of waking next to him—stirred the animal inside me that seemed to rise so suddenly to the surface lately. I breathed in and out deliberately and tried to clear my thoughts until it receded. It left behind an ache in my chest I suspected had more to do with missing Alex than quelling my inner wolf.

  My inner wolf.

  At some point I knew I’d have to face it. Maybe it would be easier to do a thousand miles from home.

  “Those are some heavy thoughts you’ve got going over there.” The sound of George’s voice was a welcome distraction.

  “How do you mean?” I asked, twisting so I could look at him.

  “That frown you’re wearing droops all the way to your chin.”

  “Funny.” I punched him lightly on the arm.

  His smile faded and he seemed to be scrutinizing my expression, trying to decipher the thoughts behind them. “You want to talk about it?” he asked.

  “That could take a while.”

  “I’ve got time.”

  I winced. We both knew that was technically a lie, but I didn’t argue. “I don’t even know where to start.”

  “How about the phone call from your grandma?”

  “You heard?”

  He pointed at his ear. “A blessing and a curse, these heightened senses.”

  “Yeah, I figured.” What did that mean, as far as time left, if his hearing was already sharpening? “She’s worried about you.”

  “Do you think she’ll be mad when she finds out where we’ve gone?”

  “Yes. I’ll be surprised if the cops aren’t waiting on my doorstep when I return.”

  “She’d call the cops?”

  “If not her, then for sure my mother.”

  “But they know you’re safe. Or I mean, at least as far as the human world is concerned.”

  “My mother has a hard time separating the two. She lives very much grounded in the human world. I think she hopes if she focuses hard enough on being human, all the rest of it will just fade away.”

  “Ignorance is bliss.”

  “Worse. Denial—and she’s a pro. And Grandma, she’d do it simply to use every resource at her disposal.”

  “So we stick to the plan and keep to the back roads?”

  I nodded. “Tomorrow we’ll ditch this highway for a smaller one.”

  “Is there a smaller one than this?”

  “I think so. I saw it on the atlas I brought.” He opened his mouth to say something, but I cut him off. “Don’t ask me to drive again.”

  He sent me a half-hearted scowl. “Whatever you say, boss.”

  “I’m serious. We have to be careful. If your senses are heightening, it means you’re getting close.”

  “We’ll bring some water. Keep my temperature down.”

  I laughed. “I made that up. I have no idea if that even works.”

  He chuckled. “What if Vera or Cord had called you on it?”

  I shrugged. “I was banking on Cord’s lack of knowledge with this sort of thing. And Vera’s not going to say anything.”

  “What makes you so sure?”

  “Vera’s sort of … invested. She basically gave me the idea for this whole plan.”

  “Why? Does she know something we don’t about this Astor guy?�
��

  “She used to know him, but I think it’s more than that. If I know Vera, she’s had some vision or premonition about this working out.”

  “So she’s psychic or something?”

  “Sort of. I don’t think she gets to pick and choose what she sees, though, and she doesn’t ever tell me what she sees. Well, except the first time.”

  “What did she tell you the first time?”

  I hesitated, mostly out of habit. I was very aware that this was George I was talking to, someone who, until very recently, had been high up on my “do not tell about my secret life” list. It felt nice, despite the circumstances that had made it possible, to finally be able to tell someone from my old life all about my new one. Not to mention there was finally someone who knew less than me about this world.

  “Well, you know The Cause, the group all of them belong to?”

  “Yeah, they want to bring peace to the two sides, Hunters and Werewolves, right?”

  “Yes. Vera saw a vision before she ever met me, of me leading The Cause and bringing peace.”

  “I take it you don’t agree?”

  “I don’t think it’s a matter of agreeing or not. It’s … pressure. She thinks I’m special. ‘Like no Hunter ever seen before,’” I said in a deep, mimicking voice. “They think I’m going to save them.”

  “From what?”

  “I don’t know.” I threw up a hand. Talking about this always frustrated me.

  “Are her visions ever wrong?”

  “Not that I know of. I mean, they can be changed, I guess. Free will and all that.”

  “So change it,” he said simply.

  “It’s more complicated than that. Wes believes it. They all do, but him most of all. And he believes we’re supposed to do it together.”

  “He said that?”

  I nodded. “He says Vera saw the two of us as leaders.” The memory of it, Wes finally admitting Vera’s visions to me, of how excited and hopeful he’d been that night, washed over me. “He used the word destiny.”

  George whistled. “That’s a little heavy for someone just finding out about all this. I’m pretty overwhelmed as it is, and I don’t have any sort of mission or purpose to fulfill.”

  “He wasn’t supposed to tell me. Jack and Vera ordered them all not to, so I wouldn’t get scared away, but he did, anyway.” I smiled. “Because of you, actually.”

  “What do I have to do with it?”

  “He told me he saw the way I was with you and he wanted that same openness. He wanted us to be able to tell each other anything.” I fell silent. We’d come such a long way since then—for a while, in the wrong direction. “That was the night he told me he loved me.”

  “And you love him.”

  I looked up, unaware I’d said the words aloud. “I do. Is that—? I mean, I don’t want to hurt you.”

  “You’re not. I do care about you, Tay, a lot. But it feels different as time passes. The longer we’re apart, the more it feels … I don’t know, settled.” He shook his head. “That probably makes no sense.”

  “It does, actually.”

  “I guess what I’m trying to say is, we’ll always be friends, and more and more, that feels good enough.” He smiled slyly. “Don’t get me wrong. If you change your mind about Wes, I’m here.” I laughed. “But mainly I just want you to be happy. Does he make you happy?”

  I looked down at the blanket, at the swirling paisley patterns, and thought about how it was before Wood Point, before Alex, before Wes had become a leader. “He does.”

  “Happier than that Alex kid?”

  I glanced up sharply. “What?”

  “I saw the way he looked at you when I was there, and you had a few looks of your own. You can’t tell me there’s nothing there.”

  “I—”

  “And why did he agree to pretend you’d gone to visit him so we could go on this trip? Doesn’t he hate Werewolves?”

  I concentrated on tracing the patterns again. “He did it for me,” I mumbled.

  “So the question remains—who makes you happier, Godfrey?”

  My heart hurt. I tried to think of an answer and couldn’t. Wes’s name was on the tip of my tongue but I held it back. If I said it out loud, it was like closing a door on the other. It felt final, like walking away. Besides, during those first few weeks of school, when Wes and I had been fighting, Alex had made me happier. Is that what it came down to?

  My face flushed with the effort of trying to answer. Guilt and frustration flooded me.

  “This,” I said, biting off the word. “This right here, helping you, making sure you live. This makes me happy.”

  “This makes me happy too. Come here.” He reached over, and I let him pull me down next to him. I curled into his side and his arm curved around, cradling me. “Can I ask you something?” he asked.

  I stared at a water spot on the ceiling, trying to steady my thoughts. “Depends. Is it a new subject?”

  His chest shook with light laughter. “Yes. Your cheerleader comment—what did you mean, you did it for me?”

  I smiled a little, which was proof at how far we’d come, George and I. “It was around the time I decided to pursue my feelings for you, or pursue you, I should say. I saw you around other girls and I thought—I thought you only liked a certain type of girl.”

  “And you thought that type only included cheerleaders?”

  “No. Yes. I don’t know.”

  “Was I that shallow?”

  “No, you weren’t. I was. Looking back, I wasn’t confident in who I was. I thought I needed to be someone else to make you like me. Which is silly because I never felt that way when we were just friends.”

  “It’s not silly. I felt that way too sometimes.”

  “You did?” I couldn’t help but feel surprised.

  “Sometimes, when you’d talk about a book you read or an article about something interesting, I’d feel completely out of the loop. And completely unworthy. You’re so smart, full of ideas and opinions, and I didn’t have much of either to offer. I wondered if you ever noticed or felt like something was lacking.”

  “I never felt that way.”

  He shrugged. I know that, I mean, logically, but it crept in a few times. So I get it.”

  The conversation faded. I lay there, enjoying the comfort he provided.

  “I’m really glad we’re friends again,” I said. I didn’t say the rest out loud, that we were so much better friends than we’d been as boyfriend and girlfriend.

  “Yeah,” he agreed, and I had a feeling it was for both the spoken and the unspoken sentiment. “Get some sleep,” he whispered.

  He hit the volume on the remote and the sportscaster’s voice began droning on about football camps and team negotiations. George was right. I needed to sleep. I wanted to be on the road before the sun came up. I twisted my head so I could see the screen and forced myself to focus on the man’s voice. Soon, the monotony became white noise and I felt my lids begin to close.

  George’s shoulders shook, startling me. “Sports Center always does the trick.”

  I smiled and fell asleep.

  *

  At Nashville, we went northwest into Missouri and across Kansas. By the following night we’d made it into a town called Colby where the interstate and county highway intersected. The single stoplight was a good indication we were still off the beaten path enough to avoid detection. I found a neon sign identical to the one from the previous night, and pulled into the near-empty lot of the roadside motel.

  Momma’s Kitchen, the restaurant across the street, advertised today’s special as fried chicken and mashed potatoes. Several eighteen-wheelers decorated the lot.

  “I’m starving,” George said, hurrying to get the seat belt off.

  “Let’s get a room and then we’ll eat.”

  George opened his mouth as if to answer—and snarled.

  My eyes widened and we both froze. Instantly, George’s face contorted from the angry snarl to
shock and remorse.

  “What just happened?” he asked.

  “You snarled at me.” I stared at him, trying to gauge what was behind his calm exterior. “How do you feel?”

  “Hungry. Starving, actually. I think that’s why I’m so cranky. Sorry about that.”

  “George, you snarled. That’s more than cranky.” I rebuckled my seat belt and started the engine.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Leaving. I’m not taking you into a motel, or a restaurant full of innocent people.”

  “I guess that’s smart.” He leaned his head back against the headrest. “Can we at least drive-through somewhere for a burger?”

  I nodded, trying to get the sound of that snarl out of my mind. It continued to echo long after we’d devoured a bag of burgers and left Colby, Kansas, behind.

  *

  “Tara, wake up.”

  I came awake slowly, blinking against the blaring sunlight as it slanted through the windshield.

  “What time is it?” I mumbled.

  “Two forty,” George said, verifying the time on the dashboard. “You were out for a while.”

  “You should’ve woken me sooner. I can drive again.” I hated letting George drive, but he’d finally worn me down somewhere around Utah. I couldn’t drive on no sleep, and I was too afraid to stop. We’d parked and slept in the car at a rest stop once but George had complained it was such a waste of time. He insisted he wasn’t tired at all. I wasn’t even sure the last time he’d slept. That worried me, but so far, he’d kept a human frame, and he hadn’t snarled again.

  “I need to know which road to take,” he said.

  I looked around, trying to get my bearing, and reached for the map on the floorboard. “Where are we?”

  “The sign back there said we just left Great Basin National Park.” I looked at him blankly. “Nevada,” he added.

  I sat up straighter and rubbed my eyes. “We’re in Nevada already? Geez, George, how fast are you going?” I caught sight of the speedometer and winced.