You know what they say about paybacks.
“Something about you getting knocked up,” Nathan says and he’s grinning hugely in the mirror at me.
“But the main rumor,” Nathan adds, “is that the Blood Bond is still making you loco.” He swirls his finger around the side of his head in a circular motion.
“Let’s not elaborate on the details of Rachel’s rumors,” Isaac says next to me, already sensing the anger it’s causing me and the inevitable retribution.
“No, I want to hear this,” I say, leaning up between the front seats even farther. “What has she said, Nathan?”
He glances back at me once before putting his eyes back on the road.
“It’s just Rachel,” he says, “and they’re just rumors—don’t stoop to her level on account of childish rumors.”
“Oh, but they’re not childish,” I say, “and you know it. Harry just said that most of them don’t believe our excuse anymore. This could cause problems.”
I feel Isaac’s hand rubbing my back, trying to soothe me and it’s working. He switches from his palm to his fingertips and chills attack my body all over.
“Let them believe what they want,” Isaac says, now moving his fingers to the back of my neck and I practically wilt.
“I agree,” Harry says. “This could buy us some more time.”
“But I can block my thoughts,” I say, though my tone isn’t as abrasive as it was seconds ago.
“Yeah, doll, you can,” Nathan says, “but you’re still new and it might be easy for a Praverian to penetrate your thoughts regardless of how strong your mind wall is.”
“Well then let’s put it to the test,” I say, rising up fully again.
Isaac’s hand stops in the center of my back.
I look over at Harry. “Try it. Read my mind.”
Harry just looks at me for a brief moment, shrugs and then gets down to business. I actually feel his mind trying to penetrate mine and it’s very different from another werewolf. A wave of heat energy begins at the top of my head and spreads down the back of my neck leaving my skin feeling warm and tingly. My right eye begins to twitch, but I manage to calm it only to have all of my focus concentrating on a tiny growing spot of painful cold in the very center of my forehead. The spot begins to spread outward and my vision doubles, but I still manage to hold Harry’s intrusion back. I’m struggling, but the longer I hold it, the less I feel Harry’s power and eventually it fades away completely. When I feel my mind is light again, I release my focus and just stare at him, hoping he won’t tell me that he still got in regardless of my efforts.
I look at him, waiting impatiently.
“Well?” I urge when he doesn’t answer fast enough.
“You have a strong wall,” Harry finally says and then he puts his back against the door of the Cruiser so he can see Isaac sitting behind him. “I couldn’t get in.”
Isaac nods absently a few times as if in deep thought.
“I’m not saying that I should go back to being the social butterfly,” I say, “but I think getting back to some normalcy is better at hiding our secret than keeping me away from everyone and giving anyone reason to wonder what’s really going on.”
“She’s right,” Nathan says. He pulls onto an entrance ramp and the Cruiser speeds up as we hit the freeway. “But you have to be careful,” he adds looking at me through the mirror again.
I rest my back against the seat and snuggle up closely to Isaac.
“I know,” I say, “and I will.”
“So…any clues as to who might be the traitor?” I say.
Harry turns around to face the front again, but it seems more out of disappointment than for comfort. “Nothing,” he admits. “So far, everybody checks out. I haven’t stopped invading their minds since this all started and still nothing.”
Isaac reaches over and pulls my legs onto his lap and I curl up even closer to him, resting my head in the wedge of his arm.
“But this situation is a lot different than the one with Genna,” Harry goes on. “Genna was hiding her presence from everyone. The traitor I doubt is doing the same thing because Adria would probably have seen him or her, too. This person is right out in the open and considering the fact that there are no humans in your house,” he looks over at Nathan briefly, “I think it’s safe to say that the traitor is a werewolf.”
“Wait,” I say, “you mean like an actual werewolf? No illusions or anything like that?”
Harry leans slightly around the seat to see me and he nods. “Yep,” he says. “Our bodies are human; we can still become what you become. Being what we are doesn’t make us immune to anything but disease and old age.”
Nathan laughs. “Apparently, you’re not immune to old age, either—who do you feed on anyway, Harry?”
“That’s a good question,” Isaac says.
I just look back at Harry without verbally adding my own obvious interest in his answer.
“I go to the hospital,” Harry says and then looks right at me and adds, “And the nursing homes—you’d be surprised how many elderly people are willing to let us drain them.”
I shudder at the thought of it and then I say, “You tell them?”
“Sometimes,” he says with a slight shrug, “can’t hide from them because they’re already so near death and I personally don’t want to lie to them and tell them I’m an angel—most of them think that at first.”
But then Harry cuts the conversation off abruptly and I get the feeling it was bothering him a little.
Harry goes back to the important matter, “But since disease and old age are also two things that werewolves are immune to, if one of us were to become werewolf, we wouldn’t need to feed as often to stay young.”
“So what are you saying?” I ask.
“Just that if the traitor is also a werewolf, it knocks out another tool I might’ve been able to use to find out who he or she is.”
“Leaving you no bread crumbs,” Isaac says.
Harry nods. “Exactly. Two of the ways in which I would’ve been able to pinpoint the traitor—feeding patterns and someone Adria could see that no one else could—are useless.”
“So then what’s left?” I say, feeling more and more defeated and exposed.
“Sheer luck if we want to smoke it out safely,” Harry answers with heavy abandon. “And we have to smoke it out safely.”
I sigh heavily and meet Isaac’s gaze. He looks as concerned as I know I do.
Chapter 3
BACK AT ISAAC’S HOUSE, the first thing I do is hit the shower. We had gotten all of the blood off my body in the creek, but by the amount of reddish-brown flowing into the shower drain, we only managed to wash away about five percent of the blood from my hair.
I think about my two transitions as I stand in the shower and let the hot water batter my skin. I remember the excruciating pain, the way my skull literally split in half. How my ribs each snapped one by one in fast succession and how I thought I was going to pass out from the pain. But I couldn’t. I remember trying, holding my breath for so long, hoping to cut off the flow of oxygen to my brain so that I could just collapse and not feel the pain anymore. But I know now that I’ll never be that lucky.
And I also know that I’ll do everything in my power to keep from shifting between moon cycles. I’ll be damned if I ever let anger or lust get the better of me, sending me right back into that violent and cruel and unforgiving transformation. I may not be able to control a full moon shift once a month, but I won’t let it happen when the rest of the month it’s all in my hands.
Of course, I say that now, but deep down I know it won’t be easy, to hold back the rage, to refrain from being seduced by lust. If it were easy, everybody would be doing it. This makes me wonder just how much easier it will be for me to stay calm in angry situations. I know there’s more to it than just doing Yoga or converting to Buddhism.
This worries me a great deal.
I get dressed, thankful to toss that hideous granny gown in the garbage and head to Isaac’s room to find Daisy sitting with him. It’s obvious that I walked in on a conversation because their words cease in an instant and Daisy’s face lights up when she sees me.
I try to act nonchalant, but at the same time I’m way too curious to let it slide.
I hug Daisy back as she slips her arms around me and at the same time I say, “What were you two talking about?” I’m looking right at Isaac standing next to the bed.
Daisy pulls away and smiles at me, tilting her blond head gently to one side, which makes her look all the more innocent. “Oh, honey,” she says, letting her fingers fall away from my elbows, “it’s nothing really to worry about.”
I smile back at her, but I’m not giving up that easily and she knows it. “Well then there shouldn’t be any reason to keep it from me then.”
The two of them glance at each other as if to say quietly, Guess she got us on this one.
Isaac moves over to me and he’s half grinning, half concerned and I don’t know whether to be worried, or not.
He nods toward the bedroom door and hooks his hand around my elbow. “Come on, we’ll show you.”
I look back at Daisy once, hoping her expression might reveal something more telling than Isaac’s, but she’s even better at hiding the severity of a situation than he is.
What is this all about? I really hate this….
I walk with them down the stairs and into the large den where Rachel and five of her minions meet us halfway having come from outside. Rachel sneers at me as I pass, but I ignore her as usual. She really isn’t worth my time and now that I have to discipline my anger more than ever, I probably should just stay away from her altogether. I’m not scared of her. I’m scared of the transformation.
Isaac takes me past the kitchen and into the back hallway where the door leading into the basement sits. I catch the scent of funky moisture and mildew and rotting wood before Isaac even opens the door. I hate it down there. It’s like being locked in an eighteenth century dungeon, complete with shackles and rats and thick rock walls dripping with filthy water and every creepy-crawly one can imagine.
The wooden stairs creak and moan underneath our steps as we descend into semi-darkness. The air is always cooler down here, but I would take the sticky heat of a Georgia summer over this dank, raunchy air any day. It’s not until we make it down the last step that I realize it’s not as dark as it should be. There’s an out of place swath of light coming from somewhere in the large basement far behind the staircase, bathing the partial stone and wooden floor in a dense, eerie gray glow.
Daisy comes around in front of us and smiles at me sort of…apologetically. But before I have the chance to make my impatience known any more than it already is, we step farther into the room and I see where the strange light is coming from.
“What the—?” I start to say, but I just cut myself off and stare out at the massive hole in the back of the basement, the massive hole in the so-called thick rock wall that I always thought of as the equivalent of reinforced steel. The hole is…well, probably about my size in werewolf form and leads right outside into the back area of the house. It’s the only spot in the basement wall not surrounded by earth.