“Are you getting bored with me?” I greeted him with a quick kiss. “I know I’m nowhere near as exciting as skipping rocks or making dandelion necklaces.”
A quick kiss wasn’t enough for Alex. His lips followed a familiar trail along my jawline, over my cheeks, and back to my lips. “Yep, you’re pretty dull to be around,” he breathed against my skin. “I would tell you to go away and never come back, but I would hate to hurt your feelings.”
He kissed me as if it had been years since we last saw each other, which was hardly the case. Since my rather dramatic collapse at graduation I was kept sedated a majority of the time. My infection was worse, causing my temperature to sky-rocket. On top of that, I developed a migraine of spectacular proportions. My bedroom was kept completely dark because even the dimmest of lights burned my eyes. I wore earplugs to dull the roar of the fan used to keep me cool. My family was even eating out every meal since the smell of food cooking caused me to vomit.
Life in the real world sucked. Here was better. Here nothing hurt, and Alex waited for me.
“I love you,” I said, pulling him even tighter against me.
“I love you, too.” I heard his breath, shallow and fast, and felt his heart pound in his chest.
As countless hours of doing some mildly illegal things online proved, I didn’t really know Alex Cole. I didn’t know where he was born or where he grew up. I didn’t know who his parents were or what he did before showing up at Lake County High at the beginning of our Senior year. Heck, I didn’t even know if his real name was Alex or Christopher. It bothered me. A lot. Not because I felt lied to or manipulated, but because I would never know. It’s why I clung to my sleeping hours, to these dreams. I may never know who Alex was before, but I knew who he was here with me.
He was mine.
We walked along the edge of the lake for a long time, although the scenery never changed. One minute we would be walking under the cliff where we had our one and only real date ever, and the next it would be looming just ahead of us. Soon the sky grew dark and the moon began to show its face.
“It’s a full moon tonight.” I was surprised I hadn’t already known. Last winter I discovered the existence of Shifters, boys who transformed into wolves or coyotes during the full moon. Alex was the first Shifter I knew about, but he wasn’t the only one. Through a bit of amateur sleuthing, I found out my step-brother Jase came from a family of Shifters. Since my boyfriend, brother, and Charlie, Jase’s cousin and one of my best friends, all Changed during the full moon, I made it a habit to keep up with the phases.
I turned to Alex, to ask if he would still be forced into his Change, and found the wolf instead.
I knelt down and buried my hands in his soft fur. “I really wish you would stop doing that. It’s not…” The thought was cut off by a violent convulsion slamming through my body.
“Scout!” Alex, once again a boy, caught me in his arms. “Scout, talk to me!”
“Hurts.” The word came out as a whimper.
“Scout, you have to wake up.”
I tried to answer, but the muscles in my throat jerked, making speech impossible.
“You have to wake up and get outside as fast as you can, okay? Get outside and away from the house. Go into the woods. And whatever you do, don’t let them see your fear. Ever. You have to be strong. Got it?”
He wasn’t making sense. Even if he was, there wasn’t anything I could do. Control was gone and replaced with intense pain.
“Come on, Scout. It’s time to Change. You need wake up now.” The tremors stopped as abruptly as they started. I lay limp in his arms, afraid to move. “Scout, wake up! Now!”
***
My eyes flew open as all my waking world symptoms came back with a vengeance. It was as if I could smell every hidden scent, from the wood of the furniture to the dye in every article of clothing hanging in the closet. My own breathing sounded deafeningly loud to my ears. My stomach churned, and my skin blazed like fire.
The muscle spams were just the cherry on the top of the sundae.
There was no way to get to my walker, so I rolled myself out of the bed, landing on the floor with a bone crushing thud. I crawled to my desk where I managed to pull myself up to a semi-erect position, and then headed out of my room, down the stairs, and to the back door. Every step was pure agony, the inability to do so being the only thing to keep me from screaming out. I was near delirious by the time I collapsed in the back yard. And then the real pain began.
I could hear the bones as they snapped, feel every fiber of muscle that pulled apart. Skin stretched so tight I was certain it was going to rip open. My fingers dug into the ground until I no longer had fingers to grip with. Finally, I reached my pain threshold and passed out.
***
Something was nudging my side. No, not something. Someone. I could smell him. It was a good smell. Dirt and woods and sweat and fur and something else. Something unique. Something indescribable. I liked that smell. A lot.
There was another smell. It was even closer than nice smell, right in front of my nose. It was the smell of blood and death. The smell of food.
My stomach clenched at the realization. Food. I needed food. I had never been so hungry in my entire life.
It was in my mouth before my eyes even opened. My teeth tore through flesh and muscle. It was still warm and this made me happy. Fresh meat was best. I ate until there was nothing left, and then mourned the fact it was gone.
I needed to find something else to eat. I wasn’t picky. The rabbit was good, but a squirrel or opossum would do. As long as it was food, I didn’t care.
I stuck my nose to the ground and sniffed around, trying to pick up on a trail. I thought I found one, only to realize it was the same rabbit I just devoured. It ran along the edge of the woods until it’s trail crossed with another.
The scent was unmistakable. The good smell had swiped the rabbit.
The good smell.
I forgot in the haze of hunger and food, and now he was gone. I cocked my head and listened to the night, hoping to catch a rustling of leaves or movement of a bush, anything that would lead me to where he was.
“Identify yourself.”
I spun around, looking for the woman with the smooth, demanding voice, but no one was there.
“You are trespassing on Hagan Pack territory. Please, identify yourself.”
Hagan Pack territory? My home. My land. My territory.
A growl rumbled in my chest, the sound of it briefly shocking me back to my senses. What the Hades was going on? What happened to me? I looked down at my hands that were no longer hands and felt panic creep into my bones.
“Scout?”
The voice was coming from inside my head, and it knew my name. That couldn’t be good.
I shook my ginormous canine head and screamed, “Leave me alone!” with all my mental might, which was not considerable at the moment. A twig snapped to my left, sending me over the edge. The panic completely consumed me, and I ran.
Direction and time were inconsequential. The only thought in my head was to flee. Occasionally, the reality of the situation threatened to push through my altered consciousness, but I refused to let it. Instead, I ran as far and as hard as I could. The undergrowth whipped past me, briars catching in my fur. My paws ached and my muscles burned, but I kept running. I had to escape, to get far away.
If I was in better possession of my facilities, it may have occurred to me that I had no idea where I was going or where my foe was. I might have considered using my super-sensitive wolf senses to alert me to my surroundings. Unfortunately, the only thing I was thinking about was running, which is why I found myself standing at the edge of a particularly deep and fast-moving creek, contemplating my next move, when the scent of the others reached me.
They slowed just before coming into view. There were two of them, small and red. The younger of the two bared his teeth in a snarl, but the older one stood perfectly still, confusion evident in his green ey
es.
Coyotes. They weren’t the two who killed Alex, but they looked similar. I pressed my ears back against my head and growled deep in my throat.
The older coyote snapped at the younger one, but it was too late. He was racing towards me. All I had to do was wait for the perfect moment to spring onto him. He was small and clumsy. I would be able to dispose of him quickly. Just as he was closing in on the perfect distance a flash of fur darted out of the bushes, knocking the young coyote off course. I let out a frustrated snarl at losing my advantage.
The newcomer stood between me and my adversary. If it had been anyone else, I would have knocked him aside to get to the boy.
I barked out a plea, but the wolf remained in front of the boy, protecting him.
I fell back, but then circled around to the right. The wolf realized what I was doing and snapped at me. I moved back and he snapped again, this time stepping towards me.
He was running me off.
All desire to fight vanished as I was overcome with disappointment and humiliation. He didn’t want me. Not like this. I dropped my head, tucked my tail, and ran away.
I spent the rest of the night slinking around, following random paths for a while, but never committing to a hunt. I could feel the sunrise before the first rays broke over the horizon. My muscles began to twitch and I hunkered down onto the ground, praying this time the Change would kill me.
Chapter 3
I lay naked and confused on the dew soaked ground. The bad news was I wasn’t dead. The worse news was the Change back had been just as painful and much longer than the original Change. The worst news was I was conscious for every single second of it.
I think he may have been with me for part of it. Or maybe I was hallucinating. There was really no way to be sure. My brain was on overload, too much shock and pain to function properly. That’s why I didn’t realize someone was next to me until they touched my shoulder, sending a lightning storm of pain across my new, sensitive skin.
“Sorry!” Talley crouched down next to me. “I’m so sorry.”
I wanted to tell her it was okay, but I knew if I opened my mouth a scream would escape.
“Here,” she said, working a garment over my head. “It’s soft and thin. It’ll still hurt, but it’s the best I could do.”
She wasn’t kidding. It felt like I was attacking a sunburn with sandpaper. Once we got all my important bits covered with Talley’s old swimsuit cover-up, I was exhausted. I slumped back onto the ground, focusing all my energy on pulling oxygen into my lungs.
I must have nodded off, because the next thing I knew a hand was brushing the hair out of my face.
“Scout, can you hear me?” I nodded my head, but refused to pry my eyes open. “Do you think you can stand up if I helped you?”
“I don’t know.” The words felt odd in my mouth.
A fourth person joined our group. “It’s okay,” he said. “I’ll get her.”
“No, I’ve got her,” the first guy said, and suddenly I was being lifted off the ground.
He smelled like home and cinnamon.
“Dude, seriously, I think she should try to walk.”
“I’ve got her.” The sound of his voice echoed in his chest, loud and assertive. Everything was loud, but it didn’t hurt like before.
“She’s okay,” Talley assured Jase. “Let him take care of her.”
I could hear Jase’s teeth snap together even though he was a good fifteen or twenty feet behind me. Actually, if I concentrated, I could hear the air as it entered and left his lungs and the steady pounding of his heart. Somehow the ability to distinguish individual sounds out of the cacophony lingered post-Change.
The same must have held true for Charlie. “You’re hungry,” he said after my stomach gurgled for perhaps the fourth time. “Did you eat anything last night?”
“A rabbit.” The memory of the blood in my mouth, the crunch of bone between my teeth, caused me to gag. “I ate a rabbit.”
“You caught a rabbit? Good girl.”
Something in my chest fluttered pleasantly at the obvious pride in his voice. Everything was going to be okay. Charlie was here, and he was proud of me.
It took all of two seconds for my brain to catch up. My eyes flew open, revealing a familiar curve of neck and jawline. The physical pain from the Change was fading quickly, but it felt like someone slammed a fist into the solar plexus of my soul.
In my head I didn’t see the boy I had loved since before I was old enough to understand the word, but the coyote who rolled Alex to the edge of that cliff.
“Put me down,” I said suddenly, struggling against the arms holding me tight. “Dammit, Charlie. Let me go.”
He released me and I scrambled away from him, my body shaking for an entirely new reason. I barely made it to the tree line before I started retching. I grabbed onto a limb to keep from collapsing onto the ground. I looked at the contrast of my hand against the dark bark and remembered how just an hour before it was a paw. I leaned more heavily against the tree as darkness began encroaching on the outer edges of my vision.
“Scout…?” Talley stood just behind me, her hands hovering in the air behind my back, wanting to comfort, but afraid to touch.
“I’m fine,” I said, slowly pushing myself back to an erect position. It wasn’t a complete lie. Other than a throat raw from its recent acquaintance with stomach acid and some sensitive skin issues, I was physically fine. In fact…
I ran my hand over my stomach, surprised to discover my wounds completely and totally healed. I rotated the wrist which had been encased in plaster until it turned into a foreleg. It moved as if it was never broken.
“The Change repairs any bone or muscle damage,” Talley said. “It puts the cells back where they’re suppose to be, not where they were. You should be back to where you were before the accident.”
“I have scars.” I could feel the ridges through the thin material of the cover-up.
Talley’s eyebrows knitted together. “Really? That’s not supposed to happen.”
I let out a bark of laughter. “None of this is supposed to happen! Did you miss the part where I grew a tail and ran around on four legs eating rabbit tartar?”
“I know this is hard to understand —”
“Hard to understand?” I shook my head in disbelief. “It’s impossible to understand. I’m not a Shifter, Tal. I’m Scout, normal girl, remember? Unless my dad is a Shifter and you didn’t tell me,” which was exactly the sort of thing they would do, “or I’m adopted,” which I doubted, “this completely defies understanding. I mean, do you have an explanation? Can you tell me what is going on? Because if you’ve got so much as a theory, I’m all big, wolfy ears.”
Talley’s fingers were wound up in her hair. “I… I’m not sure.” She looked to Jase and Charlie for help, but they didn’t have any to provide. “We’ll figure it out, though. We’ll take you to Toby and he’ll get the answers.”
This caused another sardonic laughing fit on my end. It was nice to be able to do so without feeling like I was being split in two. “Oh, I feel all kinds of better now I know that Toby is going to figure things out for me.”
“Toby is the Pack Leader,” Jase said as though that really did make everything all better.
“So?”
“So it’s his job to protect and care for his people,” he explained. “He’ll take care of this. Promise.”
I wish I could be as confident. “I’m not part of his Pack.”
“Of course you are. You’re family.”
“Really? Whose?”
“Mine. You’re my sister, remember?”
I automatically touched my stomach, still surprised to find scars instead of stitches.
“How are going to explain this?” I asked, refusing to acknowledge Jase’s statement about our sibling bond. “What am I supposed to tell Mom when she goes to change my dressing?” The thought of her face when she lifted my shirt to find a whole stomach...
Oh crap.
“We have to call Mom! She’s going to be freaking out!” Ever since the accident Mom checked on me regularly through the night. “The police are probably looking for me.”
Talley shuffled awkwardly. “She knows where you are. We called her as soon as we realized what happened.”
“She knows what? That I decided, despite my inability to get out of bed, I would go camping?”
“She knows you Shifted,” Jase answered. “She knows everything.”
That stopped me cold. “Everything?”
For quite possibly the first time in his life, Jase looked uncomfortable. “Everything.”
I worked hard to keep my voice controlled. “How long has she known everything?”
“I don’t know. Since my dad died? Since I was born?”
Of course she knew. Everybody was in on the secret. I don’t know how I managed to still feel betrayed by it all.
“And my dad?”
“She was supposed to tell him last night,” Talley answered. “Parents of Shifters are the only normal people who know about any of us.”
I tried to imagine how that conversation went. My practical, no-nonsense mother explaining to my just-the-facts-and-nothing-but-the-facts father that his daughter developed the ability to transform into a wild canine when the moon was full. I’m sure it went over really well.
“So, all those times you told her you were going camping or whatever, she knew what was really going on?”
“I guess. She wouldn’t talk to me about it. When I was old enough to be told I was a Shifter and start going out on full moons with the Pack, I tried to tell her where I was going and why, but she wouldn’t listen. She said, ‘You’re going to your grandmother’s to spend the night. Nothing more, nothing less.’ She wants to pretend like it isn’t real, like I’m normal.”
I could almost see the attraction of that attitude. My life had been completely turned upside-down by the discovery that Shifters existed. If I could go back to a simpler world, I would do it in a heartbeat, but I didn’t have that option.
“What do we do now?” I asked no one in particular.
Time Mends Page 2
