I shook with fear realizing this was what Cale resembled when he didn’t look human. The werewolf Cale again tapped the fence, as if contemplating what he should do. I nearly breathed a sigh of relief when he turned and looked to be walking away, but I was wrong to assume that was what he was doing. Cale had only started to walk away to prepare. He turned back around to watch the fence. The werewolf gave himself a running start before very easily launching himself over the six-foot fence. It was as if he had pole-vaulted without the use of a pole. He landed on the cement with ease before peering around. Searching…hunting. If he came only ten feet closer, he’d find me. That was when I knew I had to run. I launched myself into a full-blown sprint, careful to avoid tripping in a two-foot kiddie pool in front of me. Even though I avoided falling in one area, that didn’t stop me from accidentally knocking my knee into a kiddie slide that resembled a bear. A shocked gasp escaped me as my knee stung. A throaty grumble escaped Cale’s muzzle, almost as if it was his wolfish interpretation of a laugh.
I continued to run around the park while Cale didn’t give any real effort to pursue me. He merely cocked his head to the side to watch me run, almost as if he felt I was the bizarre one of this scenario. Somehow, I got lucky. I continued my sprint while Cale continued his slow pursuit. I managed to weave and duck my way around water slides and middle pools before making my way back to the fence I snuck in from. I took off in another mad dash toward the back of the hotel, toward the back parking lot that led to a small trail out back. I didn’t dare look to see if Cale was in pursuit as I ran. I only stumbled when I heard a terrified scream occur right after a loud snarling occurred.
I only hesitated for a moment, but I couldn’t figure out who the scream came from. I continued my jog in almost complete darkness, desperate to find help. Part of me wanted to scream my lungs out and hope a security guard or a possible hotel guest heard me. But that was wishful thinking; there was no guarantee I would be heard or found before Cale finally caught up to me. I made my way out of the back parking lot and to the dark trail that led to the golf course in the back of the hotel. It was a decent distance away from everything, but my plan was to go inside the golf course clubhouse to call for help. But before I could make it closer to the building, headlights suddenly clouded my vision, nearly blinding me with the piercing light.
I didn’t realize I was crying and completely panicking until a familiar voice called out my name.
“Everly…?”
Seeing Darren exit the car in the parking lot of the golf club brought me overwhelming joy. He got out of his blue Jeep, his headlights now shining toward me. I only then stopped running. I ran to him as fast as I could, terrified to get away from the scene of all of those werewolves in the parking lot just a couple hundred feet away from us. Darren held out his arms, and I didn’t fight as he pulled me in for a hug.
“W-we need to g-g-go…NOW!” My breathing was shaky. I couldn’t catch my breath as I struggled to make sense of any of this.
Darren came forward to gently grab my face with his large hands. “What happened to you?” The pad of his thumb gently outlined where I had taken the large knock to my head.
“W-we n-need to g-go,” I said again, starting to cry once more without realizing it.
Darren nodded and hurried to undo the passenger side for me. I quickly pulled myself in, and he then went and pulled him into the driver’s side. I didn’t ask anything as he got in and started to drive. I didn’t care where we were going; I was just thankful to get away from the monstrous boy band. Darren was firing questions at me, but I couldn’t find my voice to answer him.
“What happened to your head?” Darren finally demanded as he drove. He was still dressed in a long-sleeved navy polo and khaki pants with The Forest logo on it.
I trembled. “You r-really wouldn’t believe m-me if I told you.”
“Try me.”
I couldn’t reply. No words could come to me as I instantly remembered someone important. Someone that I had gone the last ten minutes without thinking about. “Oh no,” I breathed, only now realizing I had left Matt alone with crazy Erik. Who knew what the alpha was going to do with him?
“Go back,” I murmured, swiping away my tears with my scraped hand. My bottom lip trembled as I remembered Matt having fallen to his knees with blood soaking through his shirt.
“What?”
“I c-can’t,” I stuttered, trying and failing to find my words. I was almost positive two bullets weren’t going to kill Matt; especially after he already told me he had tried to kill the wolf who changed him many years previously. He was probably safe; but the thought of him hurt back in that parking lot had me terrified. “We n-need to go back!”
“Everly, what are you talking about?” inquired Darren as he drove.
“I c-can’t leave Matt behind!” My voice broke. Tears fell as I thought about Matt on the hard ground with a few bullet holes in him. He told me to run, but I felt nothing but harsh betrayal for leaving him behind.
The Jeep screeched to a sudden halt, propelling me forward. I wasn’t buckled in my seat, but I thought ahead enough to brace myself. My hands hit the dashboard in front of me. The movement caused me to accidentally hit open the console, causing items to come cascading out and onto the Jeep floor by my feet. My hand ached as my pinky finger jammed upon impact.
“What?” Darren seethed.
I paid no attention to his alarmingly upset tone. I only had transfixed eyes on one of the many items that had tumbled out of the console I had accidentally hit. The one thing I was specifically looking at was red and bulky, weathered with age but was very familiar. It was familiar because as I held it in my shaking hand, the name glistening on it was my own.
Everly Davis shined on the base of the flashlight. It was the same flashlight given to me by my father a few years previously. I hadn’t seen it in months, not since the night I dropped it on the dark road, the very first time I had ever seen a werewolf. I hadn’t given the flashlight a second thought since that night on the dark road. My head slowly swiveled to stare at the occupant of the driver’s seat. The only person who could possibly have this possession of mine was the same individual who was with Simon and me the night I lost it. The werewolf.
More importantly, the alpha werewolf. My mind clicked everything together. The secrecy. The reason Darren was in the conference center “picking up hours.” The reason every one of the boy band respected him but at the same time didn’t dare to speak to him. They were afraid of him.
Darren’s aqua eyes watched me soundlessly for a moment. He did not acknowledge the flashlight in my hands or the look of terrified fear on my face; instead, he looked annoyed.
“Matt?” he breathed in wonder, watching me for a few seconds more. “Matt?” his voice said, saturated with malice.
It was all clicking together then and there. “N-no,” I mumbled, shaking my head in dismay as I watched him. Tears fell from my eyes. “No…you’re n-not one of them. Y-you’re f-from the golf course,” I said stupidly, not wanting to reconcile what was right in front of me. It didn’t matter what department he was from; that was irrelevant. Even after that strangeness involving Erik, this was proof my brother’s friend was never the alpha; it was always Darren.
Darren reached a hand forward to touch my cheek. Repulsed, I leaned as far back as I was able to get away, my back hitting the window of my door. He released a gentle snort. “There’s only so much time you can spend around your children before they deeply aggravate you. Separating myself from them by working elsewhere on the resort gives me a much-needed break from them at times.”
“C-c-children?”
“Yes, children.”
I could only stare at him; I didn’t know what to say. Is that what he called ruining someone’s life by turning them into a werewolf? He called them children, as if his victims were his family?
“I always wanted a lot of kids,” continued Darren almost thoughtfully, a grin lighting up his face. All I could do
was continue to soundlessly watch him in the dark. “Of course, there are a few additions that weren’t meant to be added. So in time, my pack of boys grew larger than I ever could have originally imagined.”
“Matt,” I breathed in horror, recalling his story.
“Yes, your precious Matthew,” snarled Darren. His sudden intensity startled me. It made me brace against the door. But he composed himself immediately. Although, he still looked deeply aggravated. “Did you mate with him?”
“W-what? No,” I said, surprised where this conversation had gone. Although I couldn’t see my face, I was probably blushing at the very idea of being intimate with someone.
This seemed to satisfy Darren, although he still looked upset. “I believe you,” he finally said. The only sound able to be heard in the Jeep was my panicked breathing. His teeth grit together before he spoke again. “But I don’t understand your fascination; what it is about him you prefer over me?”
I hadn’t given it real thought before. It seemed as though I always preferred Matt to Darren, although I hadn’t really given the latter a real chance. But none of that mattered. Who I had feelings for was irrelevant.
“You’re…y-you’re a…” I couldn’t finish my words.
“Spare me the title monster, Everly,” said Darren with a grin. “It’s rather relative, don’t you think?”
My eyes were wide with fear as he leaned forward to grab a loose strand of my hair. I cringed, not knowing how to escape this situation.
“You know, my dear,” continued Darren, “we often make our own monsters. Sometimes, we then fear what they show us about ourselves. You, I feel, are the most frightening creature I’ve encountered in five hundred years. I really don’t like what you make me feel.”
I didn’t know what he was talking about, and I didn’t care to listen to his psychotic babbling. My teeth were chattering; I needed to get out of this Jeep. My left hand that was latched onto the door jiggled the handle, instantly releasing me into the cold night air. I was lucky not to fall right on my back upon opening the door. As soon as I got my footing, I tried making a sprint down the road.
“Where do you think you’re going?” called Darren, lazily allowing himself out of the Jeep. “Where are you going to run, Everly? Where will you hide?”
I didn’t know the answer. I just knew I wanted to place as much distance between us as physically possibly. I still had the flashlight in my hands; it could be used as a weapon if necessary. Perhaps that had been nothing but wishful thinking, nothing more than naïve thoughts from someone nearly out of their mind with fear. I nearly fell as something horrifying happened. I couldn’t explain how or why, but Darren was suddenly right in front of me and blocking my path, as if he had always been in front of me and I was running toward him instead of away from him.
“Put it down,” he purred, too easily grabbing the flashlight away from me.
He grabbed ahold of my forearms, soon attempting to rest his forehead against my own. I struggled to remove myself from his grasp.
“Calm yourself,” he gently ordered. I could have laughed if I wasn’t so afraid. There would be no listening to that command.
I wasn’t sure how he thought simply telling me that would calm me. There was too much fight still left in me, too much will to survive the night. Given I didn’t have the best plan to kill an alpha, I wanted to live; I wanted to be able to make it back to Simon to inform him who was the bad guy all this time. I struggled out of Darren’s hold, desperate to get away. His calm expression wavered. Even in the dark with the only light being a random streetlight overhead, I could see he was bothered by something.
“I don’t understand,” he said slowly, finally voicing his thoughts. “Something’s wrong…You’re not calmed by my presence,” said Darren with narrowed eyes.
Was he kidding? Was he truly that delusional? I couldn’t hide the panic on my face, and he could see I was genuinely terrified of him. Darren pulled me roughly into him closer, as if he felt that action of being closer would calm me immediately.
“You didn’t imprint with me,” he accused with hatred behind his eyes. His grasp on my arms tightened and hurt. He threw my arms down forcefully.
“I d-don’t understand,” I mumbled as Darren slowly stalked closer as I backed away.
“We imprint,” said Darren slowly, “our care for another; we’re bonded to that person, imprinted,” he again insisted, as if this was terminology I should understand.
It was then that I was seeing that not only was Darren a homicidal alpha wolf, he was also insane. He was growing angrier as the silence ticked by. My not understanding the madness he was spewing was only making him angrier. It was my slow backstepping that got him even more irate. “After everything, I’m not the one you imprinted on?” He snarled, absolute rage saturating his tone.
Running was useless; I tried propelling myself into a sprint in the opposite direction, but again he was too fast; Darren was right in front of me, his body as solid as a rock as I knocked into him. I fell backwards and smashed the back of my head against the hard ground. A strange, inexplicable rage and confusion filled me. I couldn’t explain how or why, but my world suddenly went black as if I fell unconscious.
CHAPTER 24
My body was stiff when I awoke. Almost as though I had been asleep for a few hours and was only now starting to stir awake. My dreams were the same as they had previously been, full of darkness and mayhem, filled with people screaming, along with blood and gore. Thoughts of coffee started filling my head as I forgot about the dream. I gave thought to pulling myself out of bed to make some before I realized something important. I wasn’t in my room, let alone my home.
I blinked awake. Dim lights were around me, as were stacks of chairs and boxes. A familiar smell of dust and paint was around me, and I recognized a familiar sight of different sizes of tables and chairs. I was at the hotel, in the basement of the conference center. A head of red hair was sitting nearby. It was Cale.
He was playing on his cell phone with his back toward me.
“G’morning, troublemaker,” he greeted in a bored voice. He didn’t need to be looking at me to know I was awake. I was having a very hard time processing these new developments. Last night I had discovered who the alpha was. Darren had somehow knocked me unconscious. I hadn’t thought I had hit my head that hard after I knocked into him. Now, I was lying on a couch in the musty basement of the conference center. Nothing was making sense.
I wasn’t thinking rationally. I bolted up from the couch and jumped over, determined to get away.
“Polite people reply good morning to someone,” mocked Cale, again his voice bored. I stopped my mad dash to get away when I found we weren’t alone. More members of the boy band were around. They weren’t doing anything overtly menacing; the majority of them were on their cell phones, as if it were merely any other day at work and I hadn’t been unconscious on the employee couch just a few feet away all this time.
Nico was telling Bobby about some Japanese anime that was playing on his phone. Chaz was laughing, saying they watched the dumbest things. Jamie was texting on his phone while simultaneously using his vaper.
I looked behind the boy band toward the door out of the basement, prepared to make a run for it.
“Just stay in one place until we hear from the others,” chastised Cale. He sat on a stool that was near the couch, never once looking up at me as he played on his phone. He muttered absentmindedly under his breath that he was sick of babysitting.
I didn’t understand what was going on. Nothing was making sense. I went to swipe away a few strands of flyaway hair from my cheek until I realized they were stuck to it. Congealed, hard to remove. But once I did remove my hair from my face, I realized there was some type of substance still there. There was something on my face, something that was ridiculously hard to remove.
“Am I bleeding?” I didn’t know who I was talking to.
It was a question I wasn’t necessarily asking anyon
e specifically. Cale snorted, but when he locked eyes on me, he could see I was panicked and terrified. All the time I had known the obnoxious young man, never did he show any care or concern toward anything. But as I started crying, it seemed to have an effect on him. Heavy sobs escaped me. Cale’s mouth gently fell open as he watched me for a few moments. He didn’t seem to know how to answer me as he looked at Nico.
Nico wiped at the cheek that held his jagged facial scar, but he looked away from me as soon as we locked eyes. He didn’t know what to say, either. No one said anything for a few eerie moments of silence. For the first time ever, it seemed as though most of boy band was at a loss for words. It was enough that it got me slowly backstepping toward the door once again.
It was Jamie who finally broke the agonizingly long silence. “You really don’t remember anything, do you?” He too looked worried.
My teeth were chattering as I looked between the boys, bewildered by what was going on. I tried to control my crying, but I couldn’t. “Suddenly this explains so much,” said Cale slowly, his eyes wide as he watched me.
“Is that normal?” asked Nico while looking among the others. I couldn’t tell what they were talking about.
“Not like we have much experience to go off of,” said Chaz coolly. “We’ve never dealt with this before.” They all looked amongst each other, surprise on their faces. I hated how they all answered each other without giving away too much information.
Cale easily jumped off his stool to approach me. He watched me with analyzing eyes, almost as if he were afraid to approach me.
“What do you remember?” His voice was soft, patient. This was the kindest I had ever seen him.
The Wisconsin Werewolf Page 18
