All Hallows' Moon (11 page)

“I
am
a teenager.” His fist sunk into Abel’s gut, but his brother turned at just the right time to send it sliding off his ribs. “What are you doing at home anyway? I thought you were working a hundred hours a week at your new job.”

“The old lady insisted I take a day off. Who am I to argue? I’ve been missing my little brother.”

Abel swung an uppercut that snapped Seth’s head back. The yard flashed with black stars.

He held up a hand to ask for a pause, working his jaw to clear the ringing in his skull. He should have been able to escape that one. His leg was still slowing him down. Abel stood back, fists waiting.

“So now you’re spying on me for Mom? Is that what this is?”

To his credit, Abel looked offended. “I just want to know what you’re up to.” He didn’t need to say that Eleanor didn’t really care what Seth was doing between the new and full moons anyway. They both knew it, and the knowledge stung.

Taking a few deep breaths to center himself, Seth nodded.

They exchanged blows silently except for the occasional grunt and the meaty sound of fist hitting flesh. He gave as good as he got. Even though Abel was almost twice his size, he was fast, and he thought he might have gotten better since his solo hunt over the summer.

But Seth’s calf muscle kept locking up, and Abel knocked him to the dirt more than once.

After getting flattened for the third time, he held up a hand to stop him again. Abel gripped his wrist and hauled him to his feet. “Shake it off, man.”

“Yeah. Right.” All of Seth’s running at school was slowing down his recovery. It was easy to forget that most people would have still been in a cast so soon after the injury. Even someone with his speedy healing should have taken a break occasionally.

But most people weren’t from a family of hunters. Abel and Eleanor weren’t going to give him a break for long.

“How’s school?” Abel asked, giving Seth a little space as he rubbed hard at his calf. He almost made it sound like he cared.

“It’s fine.”

It was torture seeing Rylie hanging out with other guys, though. It made him feel even more beaten than he did after a fight with Abel. But his brother wouldn’t have wanted to hear that.

“Nobody giving you trouble for being new?”

“Nah. What kind of stuff have you been doing at the Gresham ranch?”

Abel’s eyes lit up. Now they were talking about something he was actually interested in. “Working.” He didn’t mean he was working a job—he meant he was hunting. “I’m getting close, bro.”

Seth swallowed hard. His fists dropped a little.

“Who?” he asked, voice hoarse.

“At first I thought it was one of the ranch hands. Migrant workers, you know? There’s been that upswing of attacks in Central America. But the guys are clean. The one in the hospital is healing at a normal speed, and the other one is as much a werewolf as I am a fairy.” Abel bounced from foot to foot, shadow boxing with an invisible enemy. “It’s the girl. That kid. I’m almost sure.”

Seth dropped his guard. Abel’s fist connected with the side of his head.

The world exploded into black stars. He went down, hitting the dirt with a thud that jarred his recently healed leg. His elbow banged against a rock.

“Hey!”

“Hey yourself. What’s wrong with you? Why aren’t you paying attention?”

He cradled his ringing skull and grimaced at his brother. Abel had dropped all pretense of a fight. “She’s kind of young for a werewolf. Teens almost never survive the attacks.”

“Her aunt said Rylie has been getting into trouble at school. And the way she stares at me...” Abel shook his head. “Her eyes are that gold color in the sunlight. It’s a dead giveaway.”

He offered Seth a hand to pull him up again, but he didn’t take it.

“You can’t tell Mom.”

Abel laughed, but it died off when he saw that Seth wasn’t laughing too. “You’re serious.” His gaze sharpened. “Did you already know?”

“Abel...”

“How did you find out? Why the hell didn’t you tell us?”

Seth dusted off his jeans as he stood. “It’s complicated.”

“Complicated? Are you hot for her or something?” The question was half-joking, but when Seth didn’t respond, tension rippled through Abel. He wasn’t smiling at all anymore. “She’s a werewolf.”

“Rylie is different.”

“Different?
Different
?”

He was starting to get loud. Seth kept an eye on the street, holding his hands out to soothe him. If Eleanor chose that moment to come home, Rylie would be done for. “Quiet down, man. I can explain. I’ve known for awhile, okay? She’s my... friend.”

Abel stared at him in stony silence. There were gold flecks in his eyes much like Rylie’s. Even though he had never become a wolf, he looked more animal than she ever had.

Seth wasn’t afraid of his brother like other people were. They watched each other’s backs. He would have given his life for Abel a hundred times if he could have. But that look was terrifying, and he had to swallow hard to keep the bile from rising in his throat.

“This summer,” Abel said finally, carefully enunciating every word as if to make absolutely sure Seth understood him. “You didn’t kill the wolf at Camp Golden Lake, did you?”

“The werewolf is dead, but that’s kind of why it’s complicated. I didn’t kill him. Rylie did it.”

He folded his arms. They were so muscular that they couldn’t lay flat on his chest. “Sounds like you’ve got a lot to tell me.”

“Yeah. I’ll tell you everything.” Two trailers down, someone hauled a bag of charcoal out to their barbecue, and Seth lowered his voice. “But not here. Can we go for a walk?”

His brother nodded stiffly.

They left the mobile home community, walking along the side of the empty road away from town. His sweat made the wind feel chillier, so Seth patted his chest and underarms dry with his shirt. Thunder rolled in the distance.

“Well?” Abel demanded.

Seth pulled his shirt over his head and smoothed down his hair to give himself time to think. “The werewolf at camp was trying to make a pack. He’d already turned one other girl before he bit Rylie. I tried to save her. I wasn’t fast enough.”

“So what? You feel responsible for her?”

“Well, I just thought I could help her. You didn’t change when you were bitten. But… on the last moon, the other werewolf almost got me. So Rylie chose to change. She wanted to save me.” Seth stopped to face Abel. “She changed for
me
.”

Abel’s expression froze. “They lose their souls after they transform. She’s not the girl you knew.”

“But she’s
different
,” Seth insisted. “She had a chance to kill me after she changed, but she walked away. My leg was a wreck. I couldn’t have fought her. Have you ever seen a werewolf walk away from easy prey?”

“No, but a werewolf under control wouldn’t eat living cows, either.”

“You would do it if they held still long enough.” Seth tried to make himself smile, but he couldn’t put any feeling into it. “You can’t tell Mom. She’ll blow her lid.”

“Are you going to feel this way when she starts eating people? Do you want to be responsible for those lives?” he asked.

“She won’t do it. I’m serious, Abel.”

“I am too! I’ve been studying up on your little girlfriend. Did you know she got into a fight on her first day at school here? And she attacked a ranch hand with a shovel.”

“She has it under control,” Seth said stubbornly.

They stared each other down while the wind blew and the sun slowly set. He would have given a lot of money to know what Abel was thinking.

“Come on, bro,” he finally said. “A werewolf? At least cheerleaders aren’t going to rip out your throat when you take them on a date.”

“You only think that because you never went to high school. Promise, Abel. Promise me you won’t tell Mom.”

He could tell he won as soon as Abel’s gaze dropped.

“Fine.” He held up a finger. “But I’m not going to lie if she asks me, and when she goes out to hunt on the new moon, I’m going to go with her. And you have to stay away from Rylie.”

Seth nodded reluctantly. It was the best he could ask for.

Abel stalked back to the trailer park, leaving his brother alone by the road.

Ten

The Process

Abel showed up at the ranch late on Friday. When he finally arrived, he didn’t even look at Rylie even though he passed right by her. He immediately joined Jorge in the fields and got to work.

She climbed to a ridge overlooking the fields, shaded by the half-bare branches of a tree, and watched him walk through the pasture. Having him ignore her didn’t make her feel any better. Instead, she wondered what he was planning to do next.

Rylie couldn’t stand to watch. She went inside the house.

The smell of nutmeg and ginger wafted through the air. Gwyn was using butternut squash and the last of their eggs to bake pies. There was already one in the oven and another cooling on the counter.

Her aunt was hunched over her barstool, slowly rolling out the dough for the next pie. She looked terrible.

Rylie felt a tremor of worry. Gwyn never sat inside for long. “What are you doing?”

“Wash your hands,” she ordered. She may have looked bad, but she sounded just as authoritative as ever. “You know, your dad made great pumpkin pies when we were kids. Nobody made crusts better than Brian. They came out even flakier than your grandma’s.”

“He said the secret was ice water and careful math.” The thought of her dad’s smiling face gave Rylie chest pangs. “Pie was the only thing he could make… and extra crispy bacon.” Her voice caught on the last word. She swiped at her eyes with the towel while she dried her hands, hoping Gwyn wouldn’t nice.

“I could sure use Brian’s magic for these pies. Why don’t you make the next batch of dough?”

Rylie pulled on an old apron to protect her denim skirt from flour. “You didn’t come to his funeral,” she said, trying to make it sound casual. A tear plopped on the counter.

Gwyn sighed and set down the rolling pin. “I’m sorry, babe. I’ve been waiting for you to ask about that.”

“Why?”

“It’s hard to explain. You gotta trust me when I say I wouldn’t have missed it if it wasn’t for a real good reason.”

“My mom told me that it was because you were busy selling your old ranch and forgot,” Rylie said. “She thinks you’ve always liked your work better than your family.”

“Jessica doesn’t know anything about me.” Gwyn’s voice slashed through the kitchen. “Got that?”

She gave a sullen nod to the bag of flour. “Then why?”

“I’m not ready to tell you.”

Rylie chewed on her lip as she retrieved ice from the freezer, setting it in a half-filled bowl of water. She knew she should leave it alone, but the questions were bursting inside of her, and she didn’t know how to keep quiet.

“Was it a new girlfriend?” she asked, setting the bowl down. “Were you fighting with my dad? Was it—”

Gwyn smacked her hand on the kitchen island to silence her.

“Shut up. You don’t know what you’re asking.”

“I can’t know unless you tell me,” she said.

“I love you, kid, and I love your dad, but it’s none of your business. Got it?”

Rylie forced herself to shut her mouth. Her aunt’s cold blue eyes lit up with fire, and that expression left no room for argument. The threat of getting sent back to the city hovered between them. She couldn’t forget she was only at her aunt’s as a favor.

She changed the subject. “So why did you say you’re not working outside with the guys?”

“I didn’t. The men are doing fine on their own.” Gwyn laid the crust in a glass pie dish and pressed down the edges with a fork. She shot her niece a sideways look. “Is that Abel bothering you? I’ll get rid of him if you want.”

The offer surprised Rylie. She hadn’t expected Gwyn to notice the tension, much less care enough to fire Abel. There was too much work to be done before the winter. It was tempting, though, and Rylie kneaded the dough as she considered it.

The wolf didn’t want him to go. The wolf liked having Abel where they could watch him.

“I don’t know,” Rylie said, and she was surprised when the words came out in a half-growl like it did before she changed on the full moon. She coughed to clear her throat. “I thought you were his number one fan. You’ve practically written poetry about him.”

“I’m nobody’s number one fan but yours,” Gwyn said. She managed to make even that compliment sound half-insulting. “Give it some thought. Say the word and he’s gone.”

She slopped the pie mix into the dish, and they shared a smile. Rylie’s was much toothier than her aunt’s.

Once the remaining pies were cooking, Rylie went down to the pond and sat on a bench the last owner’s had left behind. It was covered in ivy. She plucked at the brown leaves as she mulled over the idea of firing Abel. Seth’s brother terrified her. It would be much safer to keep him away.