The Time Loop

by Anita Oh

  I’d never be that tasteless.

  Your fans might like it. It might add to your mysterious allure.

  I have sufficient mysterious allure naturally. I don’t need to add to it. People blog about my mysterious allure. You shouldn’t be dismissive of it.

  I smiled down into my curry. I enjoyed it when Tennyson loosened up enough to make jokes.

  Hurry up and finish eating. We should go to class, he said. If you're going to be on academic probation, you don't want to be late.

  I poked my tongue out at him, then ate a last spoonful of curry. He was probably right; the science rooms were on the other side of school.

  "Okay, let's go," I said, pushing away from the table.

  “You’ll come by right after class?” said Althea. “I can’t wait to see what you look like once I’m finished making you over!”

  Sam smiled at me, and I wondered if it was strange that he wasn’t the one who was excited about seeing me for the dance. It was normal for us, but that didn’t mean that it was actually normal.

  Tennyson and I didn't talk as we made our way to class, either in our heads or out loud. Ever since the time I'd saved him from my dad's evil minions, things had been kind of awkward whenever we were alone together. I wasn't sure why. Maybe he was embarrassed that he'd been rescued by such a useless werewolf. Maybe he was awed by my awesome awesomeness. Even with our bond, some things about Tennyson would always be unfathomable to me.

  I was in totally the wrong head space for biology. Apart from my thoughts going in circles about Hannah and what to do about my history test and why Sam and I never felt like a real couple, I was also wracking my brains trying to think up some topic to talk about with Tennyson that would last more than two minutes. The teacher was lecturing on evolution, and I half-heartedly took notes.

  Do you really think your mother would help me avoid academic probation?

  He shrugged. If it gets to that point, I'll speak to her about it.

  He went back to taking his notes without even looking up.

  Are you excited about the dance?

  He didn't respond. I hadn't really expected him to. I knew he thought of the dance as nothing more than a tiresome obligation that he was going to only because of social expectations.

  Where do you think they're keeping Hannah? I tried.

  Somewhere outside of class, he said. Which is the best place to think about this. I'm not letting you borrow my notes if you don't even try to listen.

  I kicked his foot under the table, but he had a point. Worrying about things I couldn't do anything about definitely wouldn't help my grades. I tried to focus on what the teacher was saying, but I still felt hyper-aware of Tennyson beside me. His elbow brushed against mine as he typed, and I could smell that crisp woodsy scent that always lingered around him. It was as if the lack of words between us made everything else more intense. The more I tried to ignore it, the more aware of him I became. I knew it was just the bond messing with me, but that didn’t make it any easier.

  His hair had grown a little longer than he usually kept it, and it curled into the collar of his shirt. It suited him better than when he’d had it cut super neat. A lock of it kept falling down over his forehead. It looked soft. He twitched his head, trying to shake it out of the way, and when it didn't move, he brushed it back. Then it fell back across his face again. His hair was so dark, it was like a streak of ink against his skin. His eyes were so blue that they seemed to glow under the florescent lights of the classroom. He was the sort of person you’d never tire of looking at: the strong lines of his face, the shadows and contrasts. It wasn't hard to see why people blogged about him and ran fan sites and Tumblrs and wrote fan fiction about him. If you didn't take his obnoxious personality into account, he was abnormally good-looking. And his personality had its own charms once you got used to it. He was loyal and honest, and more than that, I'd seen into his heart and it was pure and beautiful.

  Notes don't write themselves, he said, jolting me out of my thoughts.

  He gave me a sideways glance, and I quickly looked away, back at the teacher. I didn't want to give him the wrong idea about why I'd been looking at him. It didn't mean anything. Sometimes the bond was just like that, especially when I got lost in my thoughts.

  Put a sock in it, I told him. You need a haircut.

  For the rest of the class, I concentrated all my attention on taking notes. I had to get my priorities sorted, and Tennyson definitely wasn't one of them.

  Chapter 4

  There were a few things I needed from my room before I went to the Golden House to get ready for the dance, so I rushed off after class with the hope that Katie wouldn’t be back yet and I could avoid her. The room was empty, so I dashed around, frantically throwing anything I might need into an overnight bag — toiletries, clean underclothes, anything that might be useful. I wasn’t exactly sure what I’d need. Althea had sorted out a dress, and she had more makeup than anyone could ever possibly use, and I didn’t know what else I’d need.

  I threw the bag over my shoulder and was about to get away clean when a Skype call came through on my computer. Only my family ever called me, so I couldn’t exactly ignore it. I sighed and went over to the computer to accept the call.

  “Hey, guys, what’s up?” I asked as the faces of my three little brothers appeared on the screen. “I’m kind of in a hurry, so…”

  “We need to talk to you about something.” Liam looked super serious.

  I dropped into the chair, all my attention narrowing on the screen. “What’s wrong?”

  All three of them were there and looked healthy, so I could be sure nothing had happened to them, but our mother? She had a chronic illness, but maybe she’d gotten worse.

  “You’re a big stinky liar, Lucy!” said my youngest brother, Hamish. He was bouncing in his seat, looking way less grim than the other two. It couldn’t be anything too awful if Hamish was still smiling, but I had no clue what they thought I might’ve lied about.

  “What?” I asked.

  Fletcher shook his head but didn’t speak.

  Liam leaned forward to type something, and a second later, a link popped up in the chat window. I clicked on it, curious.

  “It’s slow loading,” I told them, but a moment later, the picture appeared. Then another, and another.

  I’d known that at least one of the girls from Green House was stalking Tennyson and secretly taking photos of him, so I shouldn’t have been surprised that that extended to the other Golden as well. The pictures were of Sam and me. One of us walking through the forest. Another of us sitting together at lunch. All of them were perfectly innocent; you could never tell we were more than friends, but that was definitely not the issue. Sam had been our neighbor for years, until he and his family had all been horrifically killed one night, or so we’d thought. Sam’s family had been like a part of our family, but I hadn’t told my brothers that he was still alive. It had seemed too complicated, and I didn’t want them getting mixed up in the whole supernatural mess. If I had some gene that could be triggered to make me a werewolf or another magical creature, my brothers probably had it too, and there were evil people out there who experimented on kids like us. I wanted them well away from it.

  “You don’t understand,” I told them.

  “What don’t we understand, Lucy?” asked Liam. “We thought he was dead. We missed him. But you knew he was alive. What about the others? His parents? Gemma? Are they alive too?”

  I shook my head. I had no idea what had happened to his parents or his little sister. “I don’t know. I’m sorry, you guys. I was shocked when I found him, and I didn’t know how to tell you. I still don’t understand everything.”

  “Is he your boyfriend now?” asked Hamish. “But I like Tennyson. Make Tennyson your boyfriend too!”

  “Why is he there with you?” Liam asked. “It can’t just be coincidence.”

  I shrugged. “It’s complicated. I can’t really explain it. Maybe when I get
back, over the summer…”

  Liam shook his head. “Stop treating us like we’re dumb kids. This is exactly what Dad said you’d do.”

  My blood ran cold. “What are you talking about?”

  I talked to my brothers all the time, and this was the first I was hearing about them being in contact with our father. No good could come of this; there was no way that man had pure intentions.

  “You stay away from him,” I said quietly, trying to impress on them how important this was. “He’s dangerous, and you can’t trust him.”

  “Well, we can’t trust you, either,” said Liam. “Call us back when you decide to tell the truth.”

  He leaned forward again, and the call disconnected. I tried to call back, but there was no answer, and their status switched to offline. I couldn’t call my father and demand an explanation. I’d deleted his number from my phone after he’d tried to kill the pack, and I could see now that that had maybe been a little rash on my part.

  I took a deep breath, trying not to panic. Maybe he didn’t intend anything bad for my brothers; maybe I was overreacting. Maybe he’d just wanted to get in touch, see how they were doing.

  But I couldn’t lie to myself, not about that. He’d been willing to experiment on me, to risk my life for his own purposes. He had no sense of familial duty. He only cared about himself. There was no way I could trust him with my brothers.

  The door to my room banged open, and I almost fell off my chair. Katie was standing in the doorway, looking surprised and even more twitchy than earlier.

  “You’re here?” she asked, her voice sounding hollow, as if she wasn’t completely there.

  Katie would know how to get in touch with my father, or at least how to get a message to him. I jumped to my feet and rushed over to her.

  “Where is my father?” I asked, grabbing her by the shoulders. “How do I get in touch with him? I need to speak to him. Now!”

  Katie flinched away from me, and for a moment I worried I’d gone too far, but she didn’t run away.

  “The lighthouse,” she whispered. “He’s been expecting you. Go to the lighthouse.”

  I let go of her and pushed past her to get through the doorway. As I ran down the hallway, I heard her call after me.

  “But it’s better if you leave. Go now! You’re running out of time.”

  My heart pounded as I ran through the forest to the lighthouse. My bag thumped against my leg and I sweated and I was going to be late for the dance, but none of that mattered now. All of my problems from earlier paled in comparison to this; the test and Sam and even Hannah – none of it was as important as my family. If my father hurt them, I’d kill him.

  Finally, I broke through the trees, and the lighthouse came into view. I couldn’t feel my father anywhere around. I forced myself to go still and honed my senses. There was something, just the vaguest impression of him, so tiny that if I hadn’t been concentrating so hard, I’d never notice. I followed it into the lighthouse, up the stairs, right to the very top.

  My father wasn’t there. The impression of him was to my left, on a rickety old table. I moved closer and saw that it came from a phone. I touched the home button on the phone and the display lit up, the background reading, “Dial the first number in the contacts list.”

  I rolled my eyes. My dad was way too fond of this espionage BS. But what else could I do? I dialed the number.

  “It’s about time,” my father said. “I’ve been waiting for ages.”

  “Stay away from my family,” I told him.

  He laughed. “But, Lulu, I am your family.”

  “What are you planning with them?” I asked, though I knew he wouldn’t tell me, not until he was ready.

  “Nothing,” he said. “Not if you’re a good girl and do as you’re told.”

  “They’re your children, not your leverage,” I said. “If you hurt them, I will kill you.”

  He clucked his tongue at me. That was obviously why he’d decided to do this over the phone — if he’d been there in person, I probably would’ve ripped his throat out. He could say we were family until he was blue in the face, but family tried to protect each other. He was the thing they needed protection from.

  “Nobody needs to get hurt,” he said, his voice provokingly calm. “And I’m not about to damage such valuable assets on a whim. But I can make things very uncomfortable for you, unless you agree to do one simple thing.”

  “You want me to leave the pack? Not going to happen. Here’s my counter-offer. Stay away from me, and stay away from my family.”

  “Or?”

  “Else.”

  He laughed. “You have until midnight,” he said, then hung up the phone.

  Chapter 5

  By the time I got to the Golden House, the last thing I wanted to do was dress up and go to a dance. I wanted to arm myself and go to a fight.

  “You can’t go through with it,” Althea said after I explained to everyone what had happened. “Do you know what the ceremony involves?”

  I shook my head.

  “I’ve read that it’s very painful and dangerous, especially if you do it under duress. Joining a pack is a massive commitment. It’s very rare for anyone to leave, and it’s not uncommon for people to die trying.”

  Pain and danger didn’t bother me if it would help my brothers, but that wasn’t the issue. If my father knew he could threaten my brothers and I’d jump to obey him, there would be no end to it. I was a well of untapped power. Even I had no idea what I could do, and to give him access to that was unthinkable.

  “Your mother did say I was only nominally a pack member,” I told Althea. “Does that make it easier to leave?”

  Not that I was considering it; I was just curious. I hadn’t actually made a commitment to anything. I’d just started hanging out with werewolves, and it had happened.

  She rolled her eyes. “That means nothing, except that Mother was being nasty. There’s an initiation, and before that, the alpha can choose to reject that person without a ceremony if they don’t fit in with the pack, but that’s the same for everyone. We’ll have yours after school ends. It’s the most effective at the summer equinox, but it’s just a formality, really. It’s actually more of an organic process. You accept the pack in your thoughts and feelings, and we accept you back, and the bond is formed naturally. That’s why you probably don’t feel anything from the pack members you haven’t met, because you don’t know them. The bond is always stronger with pack members who are closer.”

  I chewed my lip, thinking.

  “As fun as it is to constantly be in the middle of your problems, this dance won’t organize itself, and if I’m not there, we’ll end up with freaking sakura petals everywhere,” said Nikolai. He was already dressed. In a hot pink tux. His hair was styled into exaggerated curls, and he was wearing heavy eyeliner. “I’ll see you losers there.”

  “We’ll figure this out,” said Sam, patting me awkwardly on the shoulder. “Nothing will happen to your brothers, I promise.”

  I smiled at him, but there was no way he could actually keep that promise.

  “He said he wouldn’t hurt them on a whim,” said Tennyson. “That implies he’d rather keep them safe to dangle over your head in future negotiations. It sounds as if he intends a different punishment if you don’t meet his midnight deadline, something that affects you directly.”

  I took a deep breath. Tennyson’s simple logic worked far better than Sam’s optimistic promises to calm me down.

  “You’re right,” I said.

  “Still, I’ll make some calls and arrange protection for your family, just in case. We could relocate them, but that might prompt your father into action.”

  I nodded in agreement. “Thank you.”

  “Right,” Althea said, then clapped her hands. “Let’s get ready for this dance!”

  The next few hours felt like torture. I was poked and plucked and sprayed with toxic chemicals. Well, they weren’t actually toxic and probably not
even chemicals, as Althea assured me more than once that she only used cruelty-free, organic products. She’d even stopped modelling for companies that weren’t ethical, she told me as she dabbed stuff onto my face and smeared it around. I wasn’t allowed to look in the mirror until she was completely done, and then she left me there, staring in shock, while she went to get ready.

  I did not look like myself, not one bit. For the first time, I actually looked as if I might belong at this school. The dress was amazing, and I didn’t even want to think about how much it had cost. It was pale green, with a full skirt, and the bodice was embroidered with delicate blossoms that wound up my neck and down my arms into sleeves. She had braided my hair into dozens of different-sized braids that she’d wound around my head in various patterns and pinned with bejeweled pins so that it looked like a sparkling crown. She’d given me big, smoky eyes that took up half my face. I looked like some sort of tree sprite or wood elf, not plain old Lucy. Not even plain old Lucy the lycanthrope. I looked like an actual girl, a girl who went to dances and flirted with boys and knew the right thing to say.

  Moments later, Althea reappeared. Even though she’d barely been gone ten minutes, she looked better than I did after hours of primping. Her long dark hair hung loose. Her dress was cherry red but simple and elegant, showing off her shoulders and her tiny waist. Her lips were matching cherry red, and they curved into a grin when she saw me.

  “You look so beautiful,” she said, obviously getting way more enjoyment out of dressing me up than dressing herself.

  “Thanks,” I said. “For everything, I mean. I’ll try not to ruin anything.”

  She shook her head. “Don’t worry about it, just have fun.”

  We headed downstairs to meet the boys. Sam did a cheesy double-take when he saw me, and I rolled my eyes, but I couldn’t help but be pleased. Tennyson glanced at me and then stared off in the other direction. They both looked so good, Sam in a navy three-piece suit that accentuated his long legs and Tennyson in a black tuxedo. Somehow, the tux made him seem more wild than usual, as if the formalwear was contrasting with his inner wolf in a way his everyday clothes didn’t. It made his hair look more unruly, the lines of his face sharper. It suited him.