by A Lonergan
I eyed the bowl of half-raw meat. Could I even say I was getting better? Something was wrong with my brain.
“Your voice doesn’t sound like it, are you sure you don’t want us to come back sooner?” My dad was saying something in the background but I couldn’t make it out. The speaker sounded like it was in a tunnel now. I squeezed my eyes closed and tried to focus on anything else besides the piercing sound coming from my phone.
“What’s wrong with my voice?” I asked then added quickly. “I don’t want either of you to get sick too. This is miserable.”
“You sound,” she paused. “I don’t know, growly? But besides that, you need someone to take care of you!”
I couldn’t risk them coming home and seeing me eat raw meat. So I lied. “No, that’s okay, Tracey is taking care of me.”
“Oh, that’s weird, we haven’t seen her on the cameras.” Leave it to my parents to catch me in a lie.
“Well, she’s getting my assignments for me and she’s coming over tomorrow to help me with some stuff.” I sighed. I would have to invite Tracey over. What could go wrong?
Chapter 11
Rafe Crimson
I stared at Tracey from across the dinner table. “What do you mean she invited you over?”
She rolled her caramel-colored eyes. “You heard me. She forgave me.”
I narrowed my eyes at her and pushed my food away from me. “Not when she realizes what you are.”
She smirked. “You think she will want to have anything to do with you when she finds out who we are?”
“Things will be different then.”
Tracey gave me and everyone else a fake smile. We didn’t normally have formal dinners with the entire pack, but tonight was the night before the full moon. It was a celebration of sorts. It gave us a chance to be a pack while human before we ran the next night. The next night that Tracey wouldn’t be running with the rest of the pack. Which was dangerous but she was needed elsewhere. There wasn’t much I could argue with that. I could give the order for her to stay back but it wouldn’t do anything but hurt Jade. That was the last thing I wanted to do. But I had to keep my distance.
Tracey’s father sat back in his chair and looked between us. “Is this about that girl again?”
Axel had been my father’s right-hand man, and now he was mine. I gritted my teeth in annoyance. “Yes, her name is Jade.”
His dark brows rose up his dark chocolate forehead. “Humans are finicky creatures. She will not handle our secret well.”
Tracey looked down at her plate as her mother wrapped her cream arms around Tracey’s waist. “They aren’t children anymore, Axel. They can handle a lot more than we give them credit for.”
I would have loved to hear what my father would have said about the situation but fortunately, I had put him in his grave a few years prior. He wouldn’t have liked any of this just as much as Axel didn’t. But it wasn’t any of Axel’s business. I didn’t need Axel’s permission to do anything in my pack.
Chapter 12
Jade Rivers
Sunlight streamed through my bedroom window and pierced my eyes through my eyelids. I kicked the blankets off of my legs and stretched. I didn’t feel as sick this morning as I had in the last week. My eyes burned though and that wasn’t normal. The light coming in through the window was a lot brighter than it had been on previous mornings. I blinked my eyes several times in hopes that it would stop the pain.
I rubbed my fists into my eyes but it just made it worse. My legs maneuvered me to the bathroom even though I couldn’t see. Sleeping in my contacts was a usual thing, but they weren’t agreeing with me today. I kept the lights off as I pulled my eyelids open and scraped the plastic lens off of my eyeballs. I leaned against the counter and finally opened my eyes. The burning was gone but something was different. The room looked like the lights were dimmed. But we didn’t have dimmable lighting in the bathrooms and I hadn’t turned the lights on either.
I squeezed my eyes shut before I opened them again and again. Nothing changed. I ripped the bedroom door open and I could see in perfect clarity. Even better than I had with my contacts in.
Was this a side effect of the drug? Did it somehow mutate and cure my partial blindness? This could be a good thing. I shook my head. Nothing about Rafe was a good thing, including the drug he had given me without my consent.
But then the doorbell rang and my ears were flooded with intense pain from the sound. What was happening to me?
I pulled a sweatshirt from the top of my dresser and hoped I wouldn’t smell anything that would make me throw up again. I didn’t bother with changing out of my leggings from the night before and pulled my long blonde hair into a bun on the top of my head. As I galloped down the stairs, I could hear something tapping against the ground outside. It wasn’t until I yanked the front door open that I realized it was Tracey tapping her foot on the front doorstep. My eyes zeroed in on the sandals she was wearing. They seemed extra sparkly. In fact, everything seemed to be brighter, clearer, and just plain vibrant. Her mustard-colored sweater seemed to glow.
The smell of Tracey didn’t revolt me either. She smelled of fresh-cut grass and something floral. I hadn’t noticed it before. “Did you get a new perfume?”
She frowned and lifted her arm for a sniff. “No, I don’t think so. Why? Do I smell funny?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know, everything has smelled funny lately. You’re the first thing that smells normal.”
She smiled at me and pushed her way past me into the foyer. “How have you been feeling?”
“I’ve had better days.”
I followed her down the hall and to the kitchen. She put her backpack in the center of the white island. The sound of the zipper was almost too loud. I winced. She dug around in the bag for a minute before she pulled a Mason Jar from its depths.
Inside of the jar was a greenish, brown muck. It looked to be as thick as peanut butter. Just the sight of it made my stomach roll. “What’s that?”
She smiled at me like she had finally gotten my friendship back and things were back to the way they were before I was drugged. But they weren’t and they never would be. I didn’t know if I could even trust her. The only reason she was here was because I needed to get my parents off my back. She slid the jar across the countertop and then dug a spoon out of the drawer in front of her.
“This will help you feel better. You need to eat a spoonful of this every morning until it’s gone.”
I was too afraid to open it. I had a feeling the smell was worse than its appearance. A few seconds ticked away and Tracey realized I wasn’t going to open it. I could have sworn a twinkle lit up in her eye as she slid the jar back toward herself and popped the top. I cringed as I waited for the scent to hit my nose.
No smell came from the open jar. I peered at it suspiciously. How odd. Maybe Tracey’s grandmother really was a witch. The spoon moved through the mixture easily as I scooped some up. The mixture was heavy on my tongue but didn’t have a taste. It was hard to swallow it down but after it was completely gone from my mouth, I realized all the sensitivities I was having to light and sound were gone.
Yep, Tracey’s grandma was definitely a witch.
Chapter 13
Jade Rivers
It was easy to forgive Tracey. Everything she did was selfless and I should have seen that from the start when she didn’t get smashed when we went out together. She always made sure I was in her sights and she never left without me or without telling me where she was going. I never felt uneasy when I was with her. She was the kind of friend that I had taken advantage of and now that I thought about it… I realized how much I didn’t deserve her before. She had always helped me and put me first and I had never done the same for her. Tracey was the kind of friend I wanted to be.
So what happened with Rafe made everything all the weirder. I couldn’t understand the connection of family friends because my parents had never had anyone close to them like that. They had moved o
n from high school and didn’t bring any of their friends with them. Their journey of infertility alienated them from many people along the way. I was pretty certain I didn’t even have godparents, which was fine. I preferred to do things alone. So understanding the loyalty that came with family or even family friends was foreign to me. I hadn’t even had a best friend growing up. I didn’t go to dance class or have extracurricular activities to keep me busy. I usually stayed glued to my parents with a book in my hand. I didn’t mind it… but it did get lonely at times.
But Tracey had swooped me up under her protective wing and hadn’t let me go since freshman year. I called her my friend loosely, but out of all of the people I could count on… She was the only one.
Which, honestly, when admitting that to myself, it seemed really pathetic. My parents were both only children and their parents had died while I was still in diapers. It made sense that I stayed alone, but now? Now not so much.
Tracey spun around in my office chair and eyed me curiously. “What really made you want me to come over? It couldn’t have been your own free will to decide your immediate forgiveness.”
I leaned against my headboard and pulled at a string on my comforter. “You’re right, I lied to my parents and I needed proof to back up my words. I don’t want them to worry about me. The last thing I need is for them to ask questions about my weekend from hell.”
Tracey toyed with her messy curls and wouldn’t meet my eyes. “There are so many things I wish I could tell you about that night, but just know this, I wasn’t involved in Rafe drugging you or even injecting you with more sedative.”
“That was sedative?” I guess that made sense. If he wanted to do anything else he would have needed me to stay asleep. Did that mean nothing from the syringe had made it into my system? “What were you a part of then?”
She leaned back and the chair tilted with her body weight. Her bright teeth snagged her bottom lip and for a second it looked like they were longer and pointier than usual. “I was involved in trying to hook you two up. But I knew you weren’t looking for anything long term and figured the timing was off. Rafe has unconventional methods.”
“Why did he drug me?”
Tracey shrugged. “I honestly couldn’t tell ya. I haven’t really spoken to him much about it.”
I raised my eyebrows. “You’ve spoken to him since this all happened?”
Tracey rolled her head on her shoulders. She wouldn’t look me in the eyes again. “We probably shouldn’t talk about this. If you’d like, I can leave. I only want to make sure you’re okay.”
I shook my head and tears welled up in my eyes. “I am not okay. I have been feeling weird since the entire thing and I came to the realization today that I am always alone. I hate being alone. I never realized it before because I blanketed the feeling under partying and adrenaline. But now I’m forced to look at my feelings and right now I’m feeling pretty lousy. You can go if you want but you’re probably the only one I have ever cared about besides my parents.” I closed my eyes and sighed before I opened them up again and admitted defeat. “I don’t want to be alone. I’m scared.”
Tracey unfolded herself from the desk chair and sat next to me on the bed. “I don’t really care for Rafe all that much but we grew up together. Side by side. Everyone thought we were going to end up mat-married. When his dad died he went through a lot and my parents have been there for him ever since.” She pulled my hand into hers. “I don’t want you to think I’m sticking up for him or hanging out with him because of what he did. I want you to understand that I can’t exactly shake Rafe Crimson. He lives next door to me.”
“Crimson?” I frowned. “Isn’t that the oldest family in the town? Like everything around here is named after them?”
The mascot of the university was the Crimson Coyotes. The library had the Crimson Crest stamped into the front double doors. It had a wolf’s face stamped on the front of a shield with two spears crossed behind it. Everyone knew who the Crimson’s were.
Tracey leaned back and nodded. Her wild curls bunched up against the headboard and her nose wrinkled. “Yeah, that’s the one. Rafe, his little brother, and his mom are the only Crimsons left.”
“Don’t try to make me feel bad for him. Just because he lost someone doesn’t mean he’s a decent human.”
Tracey snorted. “Oh, he’s definitely not a decent human, but he has his quirks. Maybe someday he will show you that he’s not as bad as he looks or sometimes acts.”
I closed my eyes. I couldn’t believe I was about to tell her this. “He stole my panties.”
Tracey laughed. “No, he didn’t. I saw him hand you that cup then followed him upstairs when he had you in his arms. I made sure he didn’t touch you indecently. Though, I know he would never do that.”
I bit the inside of my cheek. “No, like he stole my extra pair I kept in my purse.”
Tracey’s burst of laughter almost had me jumping out of my skin. Heat filled my face. “Are you serious? When I told him to return your things, I didn’t think he would go through them.”
“This isn’t funny,” I grumbled.
“I can’t wait to tear him apart for that one.” Laughter continued to spill from her lips. For the first time since that night, I felt normal again, even if I didn’t feel whole yet.
Chapter 14
Jade Rivers
As the sun had gone down I watched as Tracey went from energetic to nervous. We had spent the entire day together and nothing got old. I could listen to her tell stories for hours. Stories about her growing up in the woods or how her parents raised her with all their friends. They had the tightest community and she loved every second of it. There were even a few endearing stories about Rafe thrown in. But that didn’t mean I wasn’t going to enact my revenge. He had it coming for him and I couldn’t wait to deliver justice.
As her nerves continued to go up, her eyes started to glow. I wanted to think it was only my imagination but when she asked to stay the night, I was worried about her. Her eyes were almost yellow and her voice had gotten a little deeper. I had asked her several times if she was okay and she had reassured me that she was. I didn’t believe her. But I was thankful she stayed, I didn’t feel like going through another night alone. Crying myself to sleep wasn’t something I enjoyed doing. Having her around kept me from the pits of my own despair.
When the pain shot through my body, I was especially grateful to have her beside me. I shot up in the bed and pain spiraled down my spine.
Tracey flicked the light on, but it didn’t matter. I could see in the dark now. Which was the least surprising thing that had happened lately.
Pain shot down my fingers before my teeth felt like they were going to fall out. Every single nerve ending in my body felt like it was on fire. All I could do was writhe in the bed. I whimpered as Tracey pushed my hair from my face.
Another wave of pain hit me and I shot off of the bed. What now? I cried out as more pain took over my body. I knew I was going to die. This was it and I was going to accept it. The syringe hadn’t had a sedative in it, it had something that was going to kill me slowly. I knew it.
“I’m so sorry,” I managed to get out.
“For what?” Tracey asked as she came in from the bathroom. She pressed a cool cloth against my forehead and I felt myself relax slightly.
“For being a jerk to you,” My back shot off of the bed again as the pain came back even worse.
“That’s the last thing I’m worried about.” She continued to wash my face even as I thrashed on the bed.
Another cry escaped my lips. “Please, tell my parents that I love them.”
“You aren’t dying, Jade.” Tracey’s voice was stern. There was no arguing with her right now.
I could have sworn I heard her say, “Your first change is always the hardest.” But that was the least of my worries as darkness overtook me.
Chapter 15
Jade Rivers
A night I couldn’t remember and a spli
tting headache. Too bad I knew that the two weren’t from a good time. Bits and pieces of the night before filtered through my head as I blinked my eyes open. Then I immediately closed them tightly. Something bad had happened. My room was trashed and Tracey was curled up at the foot of my bed. She had a cut along her cheek and blood on her shirt.
“You have to face the music eventually,” Tracey grumbled.
“I’m still sleeping,” I replied back tiredly.
Tracey shifted at my feet and jostled the bed. Aches and pains rolled through my joints. There was soreness in places I didn’t know I could be sore in. I peeked my eyes back open and Tracey stared at me from the end of the bed.
“How’d you sleep?” Her eyes were no longer glowing but the cut on her cheek was making me nervous.
I looked around at my destroyed bedroom. “What happened here?”
Tracey pushed her wild hair from her eyes and winced. “I don’t know if I’m the right person to talk to about all of this.”
“What does that mean?” I crossed my arms over my chest and realized I was bleeding too. There were claw marks up and down my arms. I shoved the blankets from my legs and stood up. My clothes were shredded on the floor. “What did you do to me?’
Tracey’s lips pressed together in a thin line. “You did this to me.” She held her hand up and touched the tender spot on her face.
I reared back as if I had been slapped. “I didn’t do that to you.”
Tracey rolled her eyes and pulled her bag from the floor. “Yes, you did. You probably remember nothing from last night but I can tell you that it was rough. Hell, just look under your rug.”
She grabbed her bag and went into the bathroom. A few seconds later the shower cranked on and steam rolled under the door. I sighed and rolled the rug out of the way. Sure enough, there were deep gouges in the floor next to the bed. It looked like an animal had gone insane in here. There were claw marks everywhere. I raked my fingers through my hair but stopped short as discomfort ran through my fingertips.
