Chapter 9
“Jase is going to be okay.”
I leaned into the driver’s seat, sighing in relief. Of course, I already knew he was okay - my ears stayed trained on his vital signs and Mom’s auditory assessment even as I fled the house - but it was a comfort to hear the words. Even more comforting was the fact Mom came outside to find me, not that the finding part was hard. My plan had been to get in my new car and drive off. The problem was, I was completely pinned in by Talley’s vehicle.
“Let me see your hand,” Mom said, opening a plain white jar. “Charlie said you burned it.”
“It’s not that bad.” As long as you didn’t consider agonizingly painful “bad”. “It’s just a couple of blisters.”
Mom peeled back my fingers, the sting so intense my hand itched to smack her for her efforts. “Harper Lee,” she hissed. “What did you do? Grab a hot skillet without an oven mitt again?”
“Slapped my hand down on the hot stove, actually.”
“Why would you…? Nevermind.” She gently spread a cool white cream over the burn, the mixture of her touch and the ointment easing some of the pain. “Any other injuries I need to know about?”
“Nope.”
“Then why did you limp out of the house?”
“Ran into the business end of a kitchen cabinet handle. No big.”
“And the reason you can’t lift your right arm?”
“Just a bruised rib or two. I’ve had worse.”
There was a break in the rhythm of the caresses across my palm. “You know, I honestly can’t remember a time when you weren’t covered in scrapes and bruises. I would blame it on you trying to keep up with the boys if they weren’t always struggling to keep up with you.” You couldn’t miss the sadness in her voice.
“Do you ever wish I was different? That I was more like Angel?” My sister was the living embodiment of “girl”. Mom delighted in her penchant for fashion and socializing.
Mom chuckled as she put the lid back on the ointment. The smile on her face was genuine as she tried to figure out the cup holder, causing a bit of my tension to loosen.
“A girly Scout. Now there would be something to behold.” She brushed the hair from my shoulder and I had to blink back the tears. “Strong. Intelligent. A bit of a smart alec and growing up way too fast for her parents’ comfort. That’s the Scout I love. If you were too busy painting your nails and going on shopping sprees to tumble with the boys, you wouldn’t be you.”
I looked out across the forest surrounding our house, watched as the sun shining through the leaves danced across the grassy floor where two squirrels scampered to and fro. I wondered if Mom could even see them at this distance. I knew she couldn’t smell them, that she didn’t want to chase them down and…
I sucked in a deep breath, shaking that thought from my head.
“I don’t know who I am anymore,” I admitted, my heart in my throat.
“You’re you, Sweetie. You will always be you, no matter what happens.”
“I threw Jase through a kitchen chair. That’s not me. That’s—” I stopped myself, unable to say it and knowing she didn’t want to hear it.
“And two years ago you gave him a black eye with a baseball bat.”
“That was an accident.” I’m really bad at organized sports.
“And so was this.”
I wanted to believe her. Desperately. But I remembered what Talley said. Wolf Scout was still me. She was the Scout who operated off emotion and instinct instead of rules and logic. Part of me, the real me, had wanted to hurt Jase like he had hurt me.
“I don’t want to be a monster.”
Mom turned, her hand warm on my arm. “Then don’t be.”
***
After Mom went back inside and I ceased to be amazed at the cool silver color my hand turned, I found myself wandering in the woods. Going back into the house meant seeing how bad I’d hurt Jase and trying to avoid Charlie, who I found myself aching to be near despite everything. And, of course, that just made me feel guilty and disloyal and whole bunch of other really crappy emotions. Solitude and fresh air seemed like a much better option.
It was weird though, being out in the wild. As kids, we all spent most of our waking hours outside exploring and building forts and all those other normal little kid things, but as we grew up, we found ourselves spending less and less time with Mother Nature. We were too busy juggling a million different activities and full social calendars. (Okay, Jase’s calendar was full and mine mostly involved reading books or hanging out with Talley.) When we did find ourselves with free time, we stayed in the air-conditioning, face glued to a computer or TV screen.
Walking down old foot paths and splashing through the creek, I mourned the loss of carefree summer days spent in the woods. I had forgotten the beauty of wild flowers bursting out of the ground and the pleasure gained from letting the sun warm your face.
Without conscious thought, I ended up at the same patch of forest where I once watched snow fall on Christmas night. My fingers skated across the crumbling bark of a fallen tree. Memories were like a real, living thing in the air around me. A dimpled smile. Laughing grey eyes. A kiss under the stars and snow.
Grampa Hagan died when I was twelve. At his funeral, his sister Kathy flung herself across the casket, screaming and sobbing. When I remarked on the scene, Dad had been quick to tell me not to be so judgmental. “Grief is a power thing, Scout,” he said, his voice still carrying the loss of his first wife. “The pain overpowers all reason. People behave in ways they would never dreamt possible. You never know how you’ll react to someone you love being ripped from you until it happens.”
I silently took his sage fatherly advice, but knew when the day came, I wouldn’t be getting snot all over the casket spray. I never would’ve believed that five years later I would be found face down on the ground, tears turning the dirt to mud.
“His scent has been gone for months.”
I knew he was right, but still I didn’t move. He had stood on this spot and kissed me for the first time. He had been real and alive and mine. Why could I smell the footprints of mice, birds, and rabbits, but not him?
“Come on, Scout.” A gentle hand tugging the hair off my face. A whisper of lips atop my head. “I brought you some food.”
“I’m not hungry.” My heart hurt too much to eat. Whoever said God wouldn’t give you more than you could handle was a liar. Alex. Changing. Talley. Charlie. Jase. It was all too much for me.
I expected him to either keep badgering me or leave, but instead Jase just sat on the ground beside me, uncharacteristically silent. Eventually the tears stopped falling and I began to feel ridiculous wallowing on the ground. Jase passed a bottle of water without comment after I pulled myself up.
“What are Charlie and Talley doing?” I could sense them somewhere nearby, but not close enough to actually scent or hear them.
“They’re giving us much needed sibling bonding time.”
“Talley’s words.”
“Verbatim.” He offered me a Snickers, but I refused.
Jase’s lip was split open and bruises were forming all over his face, neck, and arms. He was wearing shorts, so the huge bandage covering his leg was evident, as was the blood which had managed to soak through.
“This is were I’m supposed to apologize, isn’t it?”
“What? No. What do you have to apologize for?”
“Jase, I literally tried to rip out your throat.”
“One, I deserved it. Two, dominance challenges are a normal part of Shifter life. And three, you’re my Pack Leader, and I questioned you. You’re supposed to do that. Toby once broke Makya’s arm because he disagreed with our dinner selection.”
“Toby broke Makya’s arm just because he wanted a pizza?”
“We had pizza. Makya wanted barbecue, and he was being more than a little obnoxious about it.”
I didn’t doubt the obnoxious part, but even that didn’t warrant a broken append
age. I took a swig of water to wash down the bile in the back of my throat. “That’s insane.”
“That’s Shifter politics. A Pack member doesn’t question the Pack Leader. Ever.”
“And if the Pack Leader is wrong?”
“Worst case scenario? People die.”
Crawling back onto the ground and burying my face in the mud for the rest of eternity was an appealing prospect. “Jase, I can’t do this. I can’t decide what I want for lunch half the time. How am I supposed to make choices when the wrong one might end up with you dead?” Even with the problems between Jase and me, the thought of him still and lifeless was unbearable. “What if they come for Talley and take her away? How will I be able to live with myself then?”
“You’re seventeen years old,” Jase said. “You’ve been a Shifter for all of two days, and yet I swore my allegiance to you over Toby. Want to know why?”
“Because you’re certifiable?”
A smile I hadn’t realized I missed until it spread across Jase’s face wormed its way into my heart. “Because I know you’ll always do the right thing. You’re like some crazy do-right robot. The moment someone so much as suggests doing something different you’re all ‘Does not compute. Does not compute.’”
I laughed at his sad attempt at a robotic voice, but the sound was hollow. My eyes skirted to the felled log to my right. I wanted to be the girl Jase was talking about, but I wasn’t. I was all too familiar with making the wrong choices, with the consequences of those choices.
“I’ll tell Talley to go back to Toby.”
“Good,” Jase said, then dropped his head with a sigh. “No, don’t. You were right the first time. It should be her choice. She’ll never forgive us if we send her away.”
I looped my arm through his and rested my head on his shoulder. “She’ll understand we’re just trying to protect her.”
“Sometimes when you try too hard to protect the people you care about, you end up hurting them instead.”
“Jase—”
“No. Let me say this.” He pulled away from me, turning so we were face to face. “I know it doesn’t change anything, but I’m sorry. I never meant to hurt you. Seeing you lying in the hospital bed, knowing I did that to you…” Tears clung to his dark eyelashes. “I’ve never hated anything as much I hated myself for hurting you.”
“It was the coyote, not you,” I said, grabbing his hand. It broke my heart to see him so shattered. He was Jase. Strong, confident, annoyingly arrogant Jase. He should never look like that. Guilt sat heavy in my stomach from the knowledge that I had let him suffer for weeks out my own selfishness. “I didn’t understand before, but now I do. What our animals do, it’s uncontrolled. Unpredictable.”
“God, if only I could use that excuse.” He rubbed his eyes with the heel of his free hand. “But Coyote Jase and Human Jase merged into Jase the Screw-Up a long time ago.”
That could happen? The wolf and I could merge? I couldn’t even fathom what that would mean.
“I know you didn’t mean to hurt me,” I said, leaving out the other half of that statement, the half that acknowledged what he had intended. That half would take much longer for me to forgive. “I should have said so earlier, I was just so—”
“Do you hear that?” Jase bounced up, tugging me with him. “Charlie and Tal are probably ready to send out a search party. We should go.”
“Jase—”
“Talley is probably frantic. You know how she gets.” He flashed another classic Jase smile, tinted with mischief and arrogance. “Ready to see how fast you can run, Pack Leader?”
I needed to say my apologies, but it was clear he wasn’t hearing them, so instead I got into position. “Ready…”
“Set…”
“Go!” we screamed in unison before streaking across the forest floor.
***
“Why don’t we all just agree it was a tie and move on with our lives?” Talley peeled what appeared to be a hundred year old gym sock off the ground and added it to the pile of limbs and other debris she and Charlie gathered up off the lawn. Somehow I forgot Dad’s decree that today we were supposed to do yard work while I was traipsing through the woods.
“Because I won,” I said between pants. The run had been long and hard. Not only were we both injured, but between bad thunderstorms and the Ice Apocalypse a few winters back, there seemed to be more limbs on the ground than in the trees. There was an intense amount of jumping and dodging.
I loved every single moment of it.
“No, you didn’t.” Jase was lying flat on his back in the middle of the grass. “I crossed into the yard first.”
“But I reached Talley first. That was the finish line.”
“No, it wasn’t.”
“Yes, it was.”
Talley leaned against the porch where Charlie seemed to be taking a stare-off-into-space break. “Remember two days ago when they weren’t speaking to each other? I’m already missing that.”
“It certainly was quieter,” Charlie agreed, a response that got him a hand gesture form Jase while I showed my feelings on the matter by extending my tongue in Talley’s direction.
“Were you running full speed?” Charlie asked, his question clearly aimed at Jase since he refused to look in my direction.
“No. I’m breathing like a freaking freight train as I lie on the ground dying because I held back.”
“And she still beat you.”
“I crossed into the yard first!”
Charlie focused his attention on rolling a blade of grass between his fingers. “That’s impressive for just after your first Change. Usually it takes a couple of times for your body to adjust and reach its full potential.”
Talley raised a perfectly shaped eyebrow. “Maybe she hasn’t reached her full potential.”
“Or maybe it’s because I could’ve outrun Jase before I got super-powers,” I added helpfully.
Jase rose up on his elbows, leveling us all with a cool green stare. “I crossed into the yard first,” he said, carefully enunciating each word.
“Seriously, there is no way to to know what it is Scout might grow into,” Talley said, turning around, which resulted in her back receiving the full brunt of Jase’s glare. “Fate obviously has special plans for her. She wouldn’t have Changed otherwise.”
I grabbed the rake someone left propped against the house, unable to just sit around and watch as Talley once again began to rid the grass of all the treasures which found their way into the yard over the course of the winter. The boys, however, didn’t seem to have the same issues.
“So, since we’re without a real, logical explanation as to why a non-Shifter is Changing, we’re going to blame Fate?” My tone was a little nastier than I intended, but I couldn’t help it. Destiny. Fate. They were just stupid words people threw out when they didn’t want to take the time and effort to find the real cause of something.
“Maybe the old legends aren’t legends after all,” Charlie said, still lounging on the steps as Talley and I tried to work around Jase’s supine form. “Jase’s scratch —”
“Haven’t we already been over this at least a hundred times? I’m a coyote. Scout is a wolf. Contrary to uneducated belief, they are not the same animal.”
“Did A… Did another Shifter scratch or bite you?” Charlie asked the spot just over my left shoulder.
I tried to swallow around the lump in my throat. “No.”
“Are you sure?” Talley tapped her chin with the business end of a stick-cum-Slayer-stake. “That night was chaotic. It might have happened without you knowing it.”
“No.”
“But you don’t remember—”
“I remember everything.” At first it was only bits and pieces, but over the past month it all came back. I could remember every swipe of claws, every struggled breath. “Alex’s claws and teeth never came anywhere near me.” A half-truth, but they never broke the skin, which was all that mattered. No one else needed to know the detail
s of the hours Alex and I spent together before all hell broke loose.
“What about the blood transfusion?” Talley asked. “Maybe the Shifter DNA had a viral effect of some sort.”
“That sounds very scientific and all, but I’m still a coyote.”
I stopped raking leaves out of Mom’s now mutilated flower bed. “What blood transfusion?” I received lots of blood while I was unconscious, but this was the first time I had heard about any of it coming from Jase.
“Lake County was the closest hospital,” Talley said, referring to the small rural hospital which had a grand total of four doctors and fifteen patient beds. “They had to stabilize you before transporting you down to Vandy, but they were low on blood because of a boating accident that afternoon. From the way everyone was acting, I’m thinking it was really against the rules, but Rebecca went all Tiger Mom and made them take some of Jase’s blood and give it to you on the spot.”
When Jase and I had to do blood typing our Junior year, we were delighted to discover we shared the rare AB- blood type. We joked about how it proved our status as twins. Of course, that was the same day we discovered Jase had an adverse reaction to needles. It took a solid week for people to stop offering to fetch him smelling salts.
“You gave me blood?” The last tendrils of betrayal loosened from my heart.
“Yes, I gave you blood. Coyote blood. If you need to write that down so you won’t forget again, it’s c-o-y-o-t-e.”
“You let them stick you with a needle? For me?”
Jase sat up the rest of the way. “No needles. Sexy vampire. She bit me, then made you suck on her wrist. It was all very sexy and disturbing, but it probably explains why you’re a Shifter now since one supernatural creature can create a totally different kind of supernatural creature and all.”
Conversations with Jase were like lessons in hyperbole and sarcasm, and I had missed them more than I thought possible.
Time Mends Page 7
