All Hallows' Moon (17 page)

Being told to take deep breaths only made her angrier, but the shock overwhelmed everything else. “Fine,” Rylie ground out between her teeth. “We’re cool.”

“Is your face okay?”

“My face?”

She pulled down the visor to look in the mirror. Blood caked the entire right side of her face from hairline to jaw. It looked like she should have been skinned, but it was smooth and uninjured underneath.

Rylie couldn’t feel surprised or horrified. She couldn’t feel anything at all.

Her hands shook as she pushed the visor up again.

“I hit my head when I was running.”

“You need a doctor?” he asked.

“No.”

“Cool. You can hide out at my folks’ place,” he said. “The whole basement is the Tate Zone. They never go down there, and you can chill as long as you want.”

“You don’t think I should call the cops or something?”

“No! No. Don’t do that. Those pigs aren’t good for anything,” he said.

He probably had a point. Rylie didn’t think they were out to get her—although they might have been out to get Tate, considering his hobbies—but she didn’t think they could help her with a supernatural problem. Would they even believe her if she said she was a werewolf with a hunter chasing her down?

The worst part was that Rylie wasn’t sure who they would side with if they did believe her.

As adrenaline faded, exhaustion took its place. She seldom slept on her nights as a werewolf. Rylie almost passed out in Tate’s BMW before they reached his house.

Like most people, he lived a few miles out of town, but his community was in a gated development on an artificial lake. He keyed in the code and drove up to a huge house with a circular driveway, well-manicured lawn, and topiaries.

“Is this where you live?” Rylie asked. She hadn’t known there were any rich people in her farming community.

“Yeah. Boring, huh?”

He pulled into a garage beneath the house, and Rylie got out on trembling legs. The “Tate Zone” turned out to be more like a roomy apartment beneath his parent’s house than a basement, which looked into their immaculate yard with huge windows.

“What do you parents do?”

“They own half the crappy farms around here. My mom’s the county commissioner.” Tate sounded like he cared about it as much as he would have cared about a sobriety program.

His living space was covered in piles of clothes and marijuana paraphernalia, some of which was arranged on his walls like glass-blown works of art. Cans of empty Red Bull were scattered everywhere, and everything felt like it was covered in a thin layer of grime.

Beneath his mess, though, were platinum fixtures, and he had a chandelier and a baby grand piano that he looked to be using as a laundry hanger.

“This is all yours?” she asked, running a hand over an antique table with a giant sticker of Bob Marley pasted to the surface.

“Yup.” He opened a box on his bookshelf, which was full of classic literature that looked well-read. He took a joint and lighter out of the box and shut it again. “My parents are on some trip to Singapore, so you can do whatever.”

“Thanks,” Rylie said. “Really. Thank you.”

“Yup.” He plopped in a chair in front of a flat screen TV wider than Rylie was tall. “Want to watch a movie and smoke?”

“Actually… is there somewhere I can sleep?”

“Sure. Guest room.” He waved in the direction of the piano.

The room was cleaner than the rest of his living space, other than a couple of guitars propped against the wall. It looked like he never went inside. The bed was clean and curtains kept it dark, so it was all Rylie needed.

She dropped on the bed and immediately fell asleep.

Fourteen

The Tate Zone

When Rylie woke up, it was dark outside, and she felt stiff and dirty. She got out of bed to find Tate unconscious in front of his TV, which was looping a menu on his Star Wars Blu-ray.

She was starving, although the clock showed her it wasn’t as late as it felt. It was barely dinnertime. Aunt Gwyneth was probably starting to wonder what had happened to her, but she wasn’t sure if it would be safe to call.

Rylie didn’t want to call her aunt, who wouldn’t be able to do anything about the hunter on her trail. She wanted to call Seth. She was pretty sure he didn’t have a phone, though.

Searching for a bathroom, Rylie found one near the stairs with a tub the size of a small swimming pool. It was totally gross. The sink was full of hair, and it looked like Tate didn’t have very good aim around the toilet.

She fidgeted uncomfortably in the doorway for a good three minutes before deciding that her need to use the bathroom wasn’t as bad as her need not to sit on that disgusting toilet seat.

Tate snorted in his recliner when she came out.

“Hey,” she whispered, touching his shoulder.

He jerked awake. “Who? What?”

“It’s me. Sorry. I need to know…”

“What are you doing here?” He wrinkled his nose. “We didn’t have sex, did we?”

“What? God, no!” Rylie pulled up on the neck of her tattered dress self-consciously. She tried not to look repulsed by the thought so she wouldn’t hurt his feelings, but unfortunately, Tate looked relieved at her answer.

“Oh. Cool. What’s up?”

“Do you have another bathroom?”

“Yeah. And don’t take this the wrong way, but you could seriously use a shower. You look horrible,” he said.

It was hard to be offended when she knew he was right. She looked like she had been dragged for ten miles behind a motorcycle—which she had.

Tate led her upstairs. It was gorgeous. Rylie’s family did pretty well, but his parents must have been millionaires to afford a house with so much marble. They had the kind of art that needed to be kept behind glass. It looked like they had a maid, too, because there was no hint of Tate’s squalor from the basement.

He took her to a bathroom that was like his, but much cleaner. “Thanks,” she said.

“I think my mom’s about your size. Want something clean to wear?” he asked. When Rylie hesitated, he said, “She has a closet bigger than my basement. She won’t notice.”

“Sure.”

He ducked into his parent’s room and came back with a blue dress that looked like it had been tailored specifically for his mom. It was really pretty, but cut for an older woman with a high neckline and three-quarter sleeves. Rylie fingered the beadwork around the waist and wondered how much it cost. She liked to wear designers, but having people make clothes for her would have been something else entirely.

“I’ll be downstairs,” Tate said, disappearing.

She scrubbed herself clean in the shower, using every type of body wash. The dirt and blood swirled around the drain in red-black clouds. She had to shampoo her hair three times to get all the sticky stuff out, and by the time she was done, her entire body glistened red from having been rubbed too hard.

Rylie tried not to remember being dragged behind the motorcycle. It made her want to start crying again, and she was done crying.

What was wrong with Eleanor? Who would do something like that?

Her chin trembled with the beginning of tears, but she closed her eyes and took deep breaths until it stopped.

The towels on the shelf were so fluffy that Rylie could have slept in them. By the time she combed out her hair with her fingers and pulled the dress over her head, she almost felt human again.

Tate’s mom was shorter than Rylie, and her chest was bigger too. The skirt was a little too short and it was baggy at the top. It was still a pretty dress. There wasn’t even a mark on her leg where she had gotten shot earlier.

She plucked at the beads as she studied herself in the mirror. Seth had told her the only way to escape his family would be to run. But where was she supposed to go? Going to live with her aunt had been how she ran away from her old life. She didn’t have any other ideas.

Tate was moving around the kitchen when she got out. It looked like he had showered, too. He was wearing a clean polo and khakis, and his eyes weren’t as red as usual.

“You hungry?” he asked, grabbing a loaf of bread and sandwich meat out of the fridge.

Her stomach gave a sharp cramp at the mention. “Starving. But could I borrow your phone first?”

“No problem.” Tate took a phone off the wall and tossed it to her. “How high was I this morning?”

“Pretty high.”

He laughed. “I must have been a ten. I think that new stuff was laced with something. My head weighs, like, a million pounds.” He dropped the food on the counter and went back for more. “Are you John Connor? Why did she want you dead?”

“It’s probably better if we don’t talk about it.”

“Cool. Whatever.”

Rylie took the phone out to the garden to call. Gwyn picked up on the first ring.

“Rylie?”

“It’s me,” she said. “I’m okay.” Gwyn sighed with relief, and Rylie immediately felt guilty. “I’m sorry I disappeared.”

“Where have you been?”

“It’s a long story. I’m with one of my friends now.”

“A boyfriend?”

“No. Um, something kind of bad has happened, and I don’t want you to panic or anything, but I don’t think I should come home right now.”

Her aunt’s voice sharpened. “What is it?”

“It’s really hard to explain.”

“Did you get into trouble with that stoner friend?”

“No, it’s… I don’t know. You wouldn’t believe me,” Rylie said. “I want to tell you. I do. But I can’t come home. I’m going to hang out here for the weekend, and I’ll…” She swallowed. “I’ll give you a call later.”

“Tell me where you are right now. Don’t hang up.”

“I’m sorry, Gwyn,” she said.

She stared at the phone in her hand long after she disconnected. The truth was, she hadn’t given a lot of thought to what she would do after the call. Rylie couldn’t stay with Tate forever. His parents would come home eventually, and it wouldn’t be a safe place to transform on the next moon anyway.

Inside, Tate had set up a sandwich factory on the counter, and he was in the middle of constructing his third sandwich. There were crumbs everywhere. He handed Rylie a plate without asking any questions, for which she was grateful. She had been on the verge of tears since she woke up, and she was afraid that talking would get her sobbing.

Rylie got a heaping serving of meat, and they sat at a dining room table that looked like it was meant for fancy dinner parties to eat.

It was the first time she had ever seen Tate sober. He actually looked like a normal guy.

“I hate this room,” he said. “I’ve had to go to a hundred stupid fundraisers here. Politics is my mom’s whole life. I think she wants to be president someday.”

“Sorry,” Rylie said.

“They think I’m embarrassing. They don’t invite me to their parties anymore. I’m supposed to shut up and stay downstairs.” He laughed. “It’s probably better like that.”

“I don’t think I’d enjoy dinner parties with politicians anyway.”

“No kidding.” Tate put the rest of his second sandwich in his mouth and swallowed it down. He practically inhaled his food. It was the one thing that all of her guy friends had in common— they all ate like starving hyenas. “You’re really weird.”

Rylie paused in the middle of shredding some turkey. “Uh… thanks?”

“I just downloaded some new games. Want to play?”

The idea of doing something so casual in the middle of hiding away from a murderous hunter was so ridiculous she had to laugh. “Yeah. Sure.”

They took their food downstairs. Rylie had never played a video game in her entire life, so she died about a hundred times in the first hour. They connected with Tate’s other friends online, and all three of them proceeded to tease and insult her for hours. The controls were awkward. Rylie’s hands felt more like paws, so she was too clumsy to maneuver properly.

She had to admit she was really awful and gave up around the time the sun rose, but Rylie hung out on one of Tate’s leather couches with a headset to watch and laugh with them.

It was dumb, but it was so relaxing. It let her forget about silver bullets and black motorcycles for a couple of hours.

By the time they signed off, Rylie was perfectly comfortable in the Tate Zone. She half-wished she could hide in his basement forever.

But dawn reminded her of Gwyn, and all the work that needed to be done around the ranch.

Tate noticed that she was getting antsy. “Maybe you should call your aunt again,” he suggested. “You can stay here and all, but I bet she misses you.”

“Yeah. I guess.”

“Want me to take you home?”

Rylie nodded reluctantly. She didn’t want to go back—she imagined Eleanor waiting for her there with those black ropes. But if she was going to have to leave, she needed to pack some of her clothes. She couldn’t run off with all of the county commissioner’s wardrobe.

Tate was yawning as he drove her out to the ranch. Gwyn met them at the bottom of the hill.