Julia finally came back from a lengthy amount of time in the restroom.
“What happened?” she said walking up, dragging her fingers through the ends of her hair. “You two look all depressed.”
Harry and I just looked at each other again and shook our heads.
Later when the streetlights came to life, I decided to head home. Harry offered to give me a ride, but I appreciatively declined. I knew he wasn’t ready to leave and his friend’s weren’t ready to let him take the stereo with him. Besides, there wasn’t a place in his car to put my bike.
I left, feeling a chill in the air as the darkness fell. It was quiet out and that helped bring back my fears of being alone near any wooded area. I rode down one long, winding street and then onto another. I kept thinking that my next turn was just up ahead, but after many more minutes, I knew I had gone too far. How could I have missed my turn? All sorts of things ran through my mind then: What if I end up like one of those teenagers they find murdered in the woods? I thought.
What if those guys find me?
I began to panic then, lost on a dark, tree-enveloped gravel road. Worst of all, I felt the eerie sensation of eyes at my back.
Movement transferred in my peripheral vision, an out of place shadow rebelling against the dark. My head jerked sideways and I froze on my bike as a vehicle came slowly around the curve a few yards behind me. I knew somewhere in the back of my mind that I should’ve taken off right then, but for some inane reason I didn’t. Was stupidity in the face of danger becoming a habit with me? It sure seemed like it.
The headlights were overly bright in such darkness and I couldn’t make out the vehicle, but I knew that it was larger than average. Higher up...like a souped-up Bronco perhaps?
I gasped; the cool air stinging my throat as I breathed in so sharply. My heart sped up in two seconds flat.
The gravel under the vehicle’s tires grinded loudly in my ears as it came toward me. I pushed the bike pedal down and took off as fast as I could. In seconds I felt my calves tightening to the point that it hurt worse with every thrust of my feet. My lungs were working overtime. But no matter how quickly I rode, the vehicle seemed to advance faster and I knew I couldn’t outride it. I kept looking back to watch it, hoping it would fall back, or turn down any one of the few roads that it passed. Back and forth I looked continuously until the distraction finally got me knocked from my bike. I saw the branch out ahead, but not in time to dodge it. It caught tightly in the spokes, sending me flying. I crashed hard onto my hip on the street.
The vehicle slammed on its brakes feet from me and two people jumped out simultaneously.
It was the Jeep.
I wondered if this could get any worse and then cursed myself for wondering because it usually does once you do.
“Are you alright?” said one of them standing over me.
I didn’t look at him and refused his help as I stood up on my own, dusting my hands against my pants legs.
“I’m fine.”
I bent over to get my bike, but the quiet one picked it up with one hand and tossed it in the back of the Jeep between the mounted tire and the seat. He wore a tight-fitting, long-sleeved black shirt.
“We’ll give you a ride home,” the first one said. “Come on.”
Was this guy crazy?
“I’m not getting in your car.” I started to walk away quickly, but the quiet one in the black shirt stopped me. “Please,” he said with a forceful devotion that made my heart jump in my chest. “We won’t hurt you.”
I don’t know why, but I believed him.
“Hi Adria,” the spiky-haired blond girl waved at me from the front seat. She was smiling hugely.
I swallowed an imaginary lump and after a long contemplative moment, I jumped in the back seat, nearly hitting my head on the cover rail above.
4
"COOL TO FINALLY MEET you,” the girl said. “Officially, anyway. I’m Zia.” Her teeth were bright white as if she left a whitening strip on too long. Her eyelashes were thick and black as coal; her skin creamy and flawless.
The clear picture of her face blinked out as the driver got in and shut his door, turning off the interior light.
Introductions were important, but I was expecting explanations first. For a long moment, I couldn’t speak. I heard Zia’s name in the back of my mind, but my awareness hadn’t caught up to it yet. I studied the three guys, the driver who looked the oldest and had a short, black mohawk. The smallest who sat behind the driver near the door seemed to have a permanent scowl on his face. And the one sitting on the other side of me against the passenger door, he was the one who put my bike in the back. He was gorgeous, a little rough around the edges, but so gorgeous that I had to pull my eyes off him so he wouldn’t notice my investigation had turn into gawking. His skin was lightly tanned, his hair black with a messy short cut and longer on top. His dark eyes instantly pulled me in to some kind of abyss, which I recognized right away as an inevitable problem.
“Thanks,” I said, turning my attention to Zia. “I was afraid you were someone else.”
The driver shifted the gear and we pulled away with a jolt. The Jeep’s top had been taken off, so it was chilly as we rode away.
Zia turned around from the front seat to face me. “William and Ashe, from the skate park?” she said, knowing.
“Yeah,” I admitted. “You know them? Who are they?”
“Brothers,” said Zia. “Don’t have any desire to know more than that, really.”
“I can see why.”
“We’re much nicer,” said Zia, “despite what the school thinks of me.”
I twisted uneasily on the seat, feeling a pang of guilt even though I had never thought badly of her myself. “What does the school think of you?”
Zia laughed. “I’m surprised you haven’t heard,” she said turning around again to face forward. “I’m a devil-worshipper and my brothers accused of being more than brothers, if you know what I mean.”
My face scrunched up in disgust.
“Well, I haven’t heard anything like that,” I said honestly, “and besides, rumors are just rumors anyway.”
“Didn’t say I cared what anybody thought,” said Zia. “Well, except maybe for you. If you thought I was a freak you might not have gotten in the Jeep.”
She made a valid point.
“My brothers are Damien here,” she said nodding toward the driver, “and Joseph back there, who everyone calls Dwarf.” She was referring to the little one sitting behind the driver next to me.
“And that’s Isaac, the quiet one on the other side of you. We live with him and his family—“
“That’s enough, Zia,” Isaac jumped in.
They were the only words he would say, but the tone said much more. Zia fell silent, though her posture seethed with irritation. I was confused and even a little put off.
“Anyway, we’ll take you home,” Zia said, “and some advice: don’t go outside too late around here by yourself.”
I slunk back into the seat, pulling my sleeves over my hands and crossing my arms.
She added then, “By the way, how’s your sister doing?”
How did she know about Alex? Why was Alex mentioned so often by people that didn’t even know me, much less her? This was so strange that I couldn’t hold back anymore. “Ok, now I’m a little freaked out,” I said. “How do you know about my sister? And those guys, they mentioned her by name.”
“Not sure about them,” said Zia, “but I know because Isaac’s oldest brother, Nathan, works at the grocery store with Beverlee. And word spreads fast around here; small town and all. Her name is Alexa, right?”
“No, it’s Alexandra, but she goes by Alex.”
I had to stop being so paranoid about everything all the time. More and more every day I realized just how much ‘the incident’ in Georgia had affected me and that I wasn’t as over it as I thought I was. I thought about William and Ashe then, wondering if maybe I read too much into them. Sure, they were obvious jerks, but a part of me was so afraid of them that I actually, in a small way, feared for my life. That was ridiculous. Would every incident in my life be dictated by the incident? And with each new realization, I reminded myself about what I had seen. What I went through.
It was in this unlikely moment, right there in the Jeep with my enigmatic company that my subconscious decided to accept the truth.
I saw a werewolf.
I witnessed with my own eyes a real, living, breathing, terrifying werewolf much like the ones you see in the movies and read about in books. And when a person comes to such an unbelievable realization as this, when the human in them can’t lie or make up excuses anymore, it changes that person forever.
I changed right there. It took me weeks to believe it, but finally the truth caught up with me. I knew then too that the reason Alex was no longer the sister I once knew was because the truth caught up to her much faster.
The cold of change washed over me in an instant. I heard Zia’s voice and occasionally the voices of Damien and Dwarf, but if they were talking to me, I didn’t know it. I absently looked at my company, one by one, and somehow I couldn’t see them the way I saw them before. What was being human exactly? It seemed everything around me was nothing but a lie and I would have to start over and relearn everything I had learned since I spoke my first words and took my first steps.
Everything was a lie and I had been living in this lie for seventeen years.
Something as heavy as that is a dangerous burden to carry.
“Stop the car,” I demanded.
“What?” said Zia.
“Please, just stop the car. I appreciate the ride, but I can get home the rest of the way by myself.”
“Let us take you home,” said Isaac, laying his warm hand gently upon my wrist as I grabbed the back of Zia’s seat.
I looked at him and for a moment wanted to listen. His eyes were magnetic. There was a sort of intensity and concern in them that I couldn’t place, but there was no time for trying. I wanted to go home and I wanted to do it alone.
“Please....” I said one last time.
Damien stopped the Jeep and Isaac got out. He walked around to get my bike down for me.
“I understand,” said Zia. “Look, I’ll see you in school if you want. I hope we didn’t offend you or anything.”
“No, not at all,” I said. “Thanks again for the ride.”
I looked back once before riding away and when I did the only set of eyes I saw looking back at me were Isaac’s. The red light from the brakes cast an eerie glow upon the street. Finally, the Jeep faded from sight and I could hear the humming of its engine in the distance. I stopped there in the street, one paved rather than covered with gravel, and I held firmly onto this moment. A streetlight burned and hummed gently overhead just feet away. A mailbox shaped like an old-timey red barn was at my left, its owners far up the driveway where tiny white dots I recognized as lights, glimmered through the darkness.
I was cold, but I didn’t care. I was also hungry and had a headache, but none of that mattered either.