Blood Moon (25 page)

It took a while for me to remove most of the
twigs, grass, and bits of dead leaves from my tangled hair, but I
managed to make myself look at least partway presentable. The
entire time I groomed myself, I tried to come up with so many
other—and much more realistic—scenarios that could have happened to
me last night. I hoped this might help kick-start my memory and
prove Nick to be as crazy as he sounded, but all I remembered were
the wolves.

When my cab arrived, Nick walked me out to
it. There was a slight chill in the air, but I could smell and feel
the arid warmth that would greet us come noon. Something I would
have learned from the weather channel on a normal day.

“You have my number, Brooke. Call me if you
need to talk about
anything.
We should meet up in a few
days, though. Once everything settles down with your folks…and
David.”

Still not sure what to say, I nodded once
more. I probably looked like a bobble-head.

A sad smile played at his lips, and before
he closed the door, he sighed. “I really am sorry about what
happened,” he said. “You didn’t ask for any of this.”

The question left my lips before I really
thought it through. “Did you?”

Laughing dryly, he tucked a strand of hair
behind my ear. The gesture was so gentle and familiar that it
invited those same feelings from before that I shouldn’t have been
entertaining. “How about we save that story for next time?” he
suggested, his thumb moving softly over my cheek. More tremors
rippled beneath my skin, and I smiled for the first time this
morning when I recognized the playful glint in his eyes. “You know,
leave you salivating for answers so you keep your word to come back
to me.”

I inhaled sharply, my breath shuddering, at
his choice of words. He likely didn’t mean it the way I’d
interpreted it, so I let it go without questioning or correcting
him. “Deal.”

“One last thing,” he added, this time
stopping me from pulling the door closed. The playfulness
disappeared from his face, with no sign of it even existing
lingering in his expression. His eyes suggested that what he was
about to say was to be taken seriously. “You can’t tell them
what
you are. It’s dangerous, and they won’t be able to
handle it…and that’s
if
they even take you seriously.”

I looked at him, so many questions still
begging to be asked, and before he shut the door, I stopped it with
my hand. “Nick, I don’t even know if
I
believe you.” With
that, I pulled the door shut, and Nick slapped the roof a couple
times to tell the driver that it was safe to go.

As the cab pulled away from the curb and
onto the street, a nervous roll swelled in my belly, and my palms
grew sweaty with increasing anxiety. Nick’s last words repeated
over and over in my mind, and while I wasn’t sure what really
happened last night, I did know that I was worried about how I
would try and explain any of this to my family—to David.

How did one even begin to explain a
twelve-hour disappearance, a body covered with unexplainable
wounds, and clothes that weren’t theirs?

I was willing to bet that nothing about this
would be easy…

E
ven though we were
still five houses away, I asked the driver to pull over. I still
wasn’t quite ready to face whatever awaited me. If anything even
did. For all I knew, David was still in Phoenix, looking for me. If
I had my cell phone, I’d have tried to get a hold of him before
now.

When I did see him, I knew David was going
to ask a hundred questions, and I wouldn’t blame him; I’d been
missing for well over twelve hours. Honestly, I would be worried if
he wasn’t freaking out.

After what had to be a half hour, the driver
turned around and looked at me expectantly. “Hey, lady, I’ve got a
living to make, and your boyfriend only gave me thirty bucks. Your
time’s up.”

“He’s not my boyfriend,” I muttered, opening
the door and stepping, barefoot, onto the sidewalk. The cold fall
air attacked every inch of my exposed flesh as another bout of
unease swept over me. I wrapped my arms around my middle as my body
quivered. I tried to ignore the feeling as I refocused on how to
explain myself, and I headed for home.

Much slower than one normally would.

The short walk to the house offered me a few
more minutes to figure out what to say. Not that it helped in the
least. I hated the idea of lying to David, but I was still so
confused about what may or may not have happened that I didn’t have
much of a choice. Even if Nick was telling the truth—big
if
—it wasn’t like I could just open the conversation with
“So, when I took off last night it was actually because I was
turning into some kind of werewolf, even though I didn’t know it at
the time.” Nick made that perfectly clear, and I was pretty sure
that would get me locked up and fitted for a straightjacket anyway.
Even if he did believe Nick’s bullshit story, I still couldn’t tell
David that I was with him. He’d lose his mind.

Remember when I once thought that a club for
vampire wannabes sounded ridiculous? I missed that. Somehow in the
course of these last couple weeks, my life turned into some kind of
horror movie, and I had no clue how I was supposed to process it
all.

Two houses from my own, and no closer to
piecing together an explanation, I heard a door open and my name
being shouted. While I’d kind of hoped to make it to my front door
undetected, I should have known this wasn’t going to happen. I
closed my eyes when the voice registered as David’s, and I braced
myself for the impact of his body against mine, my anxiety spiking
and the tremble in my hands increasing.

“Thank God you’re all right,” he breathed
into my ear, holding me tightly in his arms. I tried to be strong,
to not fall apart on David, but when his hands moved over my body,
probably checking for injuries, I cracked. I pulled my arms from
between us and wound them around his neck and inhaled deeply,
noticing how David’s natural scent was laced with fear and
desperation.

“Where the hell have you been?” he whispered
softly, and I nuzzled my face into his chest as best I could,
unable to answer. His warmth—while a noticeable few degrees cooler
than my own—was comforting, and I sensed his fear beginning to ebb
the longer we held each other.

“David, I—”

There was no chance to respond before I
heard my parents cry out their own relief, and David released me
from his hold to allow them to embrace me next. It was hard for me
to make sense of everything happening as they assailed me with
questions, but I tried to sort through it all as best as possible
so I could maybe try to answer some things without looking
crazy.

“We had everyone in Phoenix out searching
for you,” my dad said.

“We checked all the hospitals from here to
the city,” my mom sobbed at the same time, running her fingers
through my still-matted hair.

“Everyone was so scared,” David informed me,
holding my hand so tight, I was certain he’d never let go of it
again.

They ushered me inside the house and David
closed the door behind us. “I found your phone on the side of the
road,” he said, reminding me of the exact moment I threw it to the
ground. “I kept calling you and calling you, and when you didn’t
answer, I went off looking. I heard it ringing, and…” The pain in
his voice cut me deep, and I tried to offer him a silent apology
with just a look because I still didn’t know what to say…

…what I
could
say.

Tears streamed down Mom’s face, and the
guilt of my disappearing on her weighed down on me, making my knees
buckle slightly. Her fear thickened the air I breathed, and I
suddenly heard Nick’s voice in my head:
“Craving red meat?
Increased sense of smell? Taste? How’s your eyesight and
hearing?”
Swallowing thickly, I tried to slough it off. It
proved to be more difficult than it should have been, and it all
started to fall into place and make sense: why I’d been so
sensitive to people’s emotions…my heightened hearing…impressive
vision…

In the living room, I sat down in the middle
of my couch, pushing down my revelation for the time being and
mentally filing it in a box I decided to call
“Questions for
Nick.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to alarm you
all.”

“You just
took
off
from an
active investigation,” my dad spoke up, anger and fear obvious in
his tone. I wasn’t sure if he was more pissed about his daughter
going missing, or his detective leaving a crime scene. Logically, I
knew it was probably the first one, but I felt fairly confident it
was a little from column B as well. He wasn’t finished laying into
me, yet, and I let him. What else could I do? “David finds your
phone, discarded and shattered, on the side of the road and your
clothes…”

Inhaling sharply, I covered my mouth,
remembering how Nick told me that my clothes were shredded and in
the woods. It didn’t take a genius to know how this looked; I’d
worked with the department long enough to understand what they must
have thought given the evidence they’d found.

Before I could rush to explain in whatever
way possible, my mom’s eyes scanned me from head to toe. Panic
gnawed at my insides when she held her breath, her eyes widening as
they fell on the familiar-looking T-shirt, and I shook my head
once, hoping more than anything that she wouldn’t say anything
about who it belonged to.

Thankfully, she remained quiet, and I
relaxed minutely. Unfortunately, this was the only reprieve to be
granted, because there was still so much tension between the three
of them. I took it, though, because, no matter how small the
victory, I figured I’d dodged at least one silver bullet.

This is no time for jokes
, I inwardly
chastised myself before slowly raising my eyes to David. He was
still watching me with a combination of relief and expectance.
“So?” he asked. “What happened?”

“I—” I started, taking a deep breath and
trying again. “I walked around, trying to get some fresh air like I
said I was going to…and then I guess I blacked out.”

“Brooke, I found
pieces
of your
clothes near the outskirts of the city…in the desert—
miles
from the club we were searching!” David’s voice rose, and I looked
to my dad, afraid—and maybe hoping?—that he might step in and tell
David to calm down.

He didn’t; he also watched me and waited for
my explanation.

“Not to mention your badge and your gun,”
David tacked on.

“I don’t know what to say,” I whispered,
suddenly feeling trapped; I never liked being on the receiving end
of an interrogation, and this was no exception.

Mom still looked upset and confused, but she
seemed a little less concerned than Dad and David as she sat beside
me and held my hand. Maybe the fact that she knew I was with Nick
assuaged her fear? It was a question I couldn’t find in myself to
ever ask her, because I was still pretty ashamed of how I felt when
I was with him this morning.

I still worried she might say something to
allude to where I was, but she surprised me by staying quiet and
offering me her silent support while David and Dad continued to
overwhelm me with questions.

“I’m just glad you’re okay,” she said, her
voice cracking with emotion, and she wrapped her arms around me
again. “We all thought…”

“I know,” I told her softly. “I’m sorry for
putting you all through this.”

“Your clothes are being tested,” David
interrupted, drawing my focus back to him.

“What?” I demanded. “Why?”

He thrust his hands through his disheveled
hair, frustrated, and I grimaced when I noticed the same lines of
worry etched into his face and the dark circles under his eyes that
had been missing for several days. “They looked like they were
ripped
from your body, Brooke. You
blacked out
. Don’t
tell me that doesn’t scream ‘sex crime’ to you.”

“David,” I said, pulling free of Mom and
crossing the room to where he paced. “I wasn’t attacked. Don’t you
think I’d know if I had been?”

He was skeptical, and I didn’t blame him.
I’d think the same thing given the circumstances. I placed my hands
on his cheeks, coaxing his eyes to mine. I hoped he’d see the truth
in my eyes, but I wouldn’t hold my breath. “I’m fine,” I whispered.
“Just…a little confused.”

“We should get you to a hospital. Run a tox
screen,” Dad suggested.

“Keith,” Mom interrupted from behind me.

“What, Laura?” he countered. “She was
probably drugged!”

Suddenly, my head pounded. It was all too
much, and I started to feel faint. “I think I need to lie down,” I
whimpered, my hands slipping from David’s face and down his chest
where he captured them in his and turned them over.

When I followed his gaze, I realized that I
hadn’t gotten all the dirt and grass stains off of them, and he was
freaking out all over again. I yanked them from his grasp and
clenched them into fists in front of me as I stepped back.

“Brooke…” he started. “Maybe your dad’s
right…”

With a sigh, I conceded defeat. “Fine. I’ll
go. Can I use the washroom and change, though?”

David looked to my father, who nodded his
assent, and then tilted his head toward the bathroom. “Yeah. Go
ahead.”

The minute I closed the bathroom door, I
pressed my back against it and slid to the floor as I listened to
them talk about me. “Maybe I should take her alone,” David
suggested in a voice just above a whisper. I probably shouldn’t
have been able to hear him, but with my newly heightened senses, I
could hear the couple three doors down discussing what to have for
lunch. This only forced me to question everything Nick told me
again, but I continued to convince myself that it wasn’t
possible.