Girls That Growl (20 page)

He smiles and kisses me back. "I'm sorry, too, Rayne," he says. "I should have been more sensitive to your feelings. You were a new vamp, just learning the ropes of unlife. As your blood mate, I was the one who was supposed to teach you, be there for you. And yet I was so caught up with the idea of being able to walk out in the sun, I neglected my duties. I be-came angry and impatient when you floundered on your own, knowing deep inside it was all my fault you weren't adjusting properly. I should have been there for you and I'm sorry I wasn't. I hope you can forgive me."

"Of course I do," I say. "As long as you forgive me for being such a bitch. Vampire transformation, new hormones or no, there's no excuse for how bratty I've been. Especially to you, who I love more than anyone, ever." I press my face against his chest, feeding on his warmth. Suddenly some-thing occurs to
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me. I look up at him. "Jareth? The way you morphed into a bat... do you ... do you somehow have your powers back?"

Jareth blushes. "Uh," he says. "About that."

"You do!" I exclaim. "How did you get your powers back? And when?"

He shrugs. "I've actually had them back for a few months now. Remember when I opened the locker-room door you couldn't and tried to brush it off like it was no big deal? One day I woke up and realized I'd returned to my former self. Well, I can still go out in the sun, but I'm okay otherwise. I can do everything I used to. I'm not sure why or how, but there it is."

"But that's so great! Why didn't you tell me?"

He hangs his head. "I felt bad. You were all 'we're power-less vamps together' and I didn't want to disappoint you. I kept hoping you'd develop some powers, too, but maybe be-cause you already had the blood virus when I bit you ... I don't know."

"Jareth, I can't believe you were afraid to tell me! I'm so happy you got your powers back. That's awesome. Maybe you can go be Magnus's general again."

"I'm so glad you're not annoyed, my love."

"No way. I'm thrilled for you. I love you, Jareth. Forever and always. Let's never fight again."

He laughs. "How about we just say let's always make up if we do?" he suggests. "Seems a bit more reasonable a prom-ise to make."

"Hey, Rayne! When you're done with the mushy crap can you get back here and untie us?"

"Yeah. We want to get the hell out of here, too, you know."

Oh yeah. Lost in makeupville, I almost forgotten about Mike and Trevor.

"The missing football players," I explain to Jareth. "They're here. In the cave."

"Excellent," Jareth says, moving to the back of the cave. "It's looking like we might have our happy ending after all."

I smile to myself and hug my arms across my chest. Hap-pily ever after. I like the sound of that.

But first we have some cheerleader wolves to vaccinate.

23

We untie Mike and Trevor, who are obviously still a bit shell-shocked, and head back to Appleby. We bring the boys to Lupine and he checks them over for signs of lycan-thropy. Sure enough, they've got traces of the virus in their systems. So Lupine sends them into a full-moon simulator shack at the edge of town and once the moon's pull shape-shifts them to their feral forms, they're sprayed with the anti-dote
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and are humanized once again.

The wolves drug them and have a courier escort them back to America before they wake up. The boys won't know what happened to them, they tell us, and so it's better that they don't regain consciousness until they're safe in their hometowns. Sure, people will ask them where they've been all this time—after all, their disappearances have garnered a lot of media attention. But in the end, all that really matters is they're back and not dead.

Unfortunately for me, the cheerleaders are already in America and there's no way to ship them all over to England to put them in the full-moon simulator and administer the antidote on site. But I have an idea of how we might get them to go all hairy and so I take the vials of antidote they made for us, thank the wolves, and Jareth and I head back to America. We spend most of the plane ride in each other's arms and let's just say I'm now a member of a certain exclusive club one can only join when one finds herself mile high.

Mom is overjoyed when I walk in the front door. Says she was worried to death about me and begs me never to run away again.

"I'm sorry about David," she says, sitting me down at the kitchen table and handing me a big bowl of some kind of unidentified food stuff. Even starved me isn't about to take a bite of that. "It was selfish of me to have him move in before you two were ready. This is a new experience for all of us and I have to be more considerate of you and your feelings. After all, this is your house, too. And the last thing I want is for you to feel uncomfortable in your own home. I should have talked to you two before making my decision. Especially be-fore kicking you out of your own room. I don't know what I was thinking. We're a family. A democracy." She swallows hard. "If you want me to stop seeing David, I will. You girls are the most important thing in my life and if you're not ready for me to date, I won't date."

I think for a moment. In a way it would be great to have Mom back to ourselves. To get rid of the stranger invading our space. But I take one look at her face and realize I could never do that to her. She loves him. Like I love Jareth. And yet she's willing to sacrifice everything she wants to make us happy.

But that's not fair. She's Mom, not some tortured saint. She de-serves to have her own happiness. And even if David is kind of a dork, he's her dork. And I'm suddenly okay with that.

"Oh, Mom," I say, trying to sound all business. "David's not that bad, I guess. Could be a lot worse.

And he can cook. We need someone in this house with some culinary expertise."

Mom's face lights up like Christmas morning. "So you . . . you don't mind if he stays?"

I shrug nonchalantly. "Yeah, might as well. I'm getting pretty used to sharing a room with Sunny and we wouldn't want the extra bedroom to go to waste."

Mom reaches over and pulls me into a hug. "Oh, Rayne," she whispers in my ear. "Thank you, sweetie.

You're the best daughter a mother could ever hope to have."

"Not really," I say, hugging her back. She smells like cin-namon. Like Mom. I'm so glad to be home.

"But I'm work-ing on it."

+++

I return to school Monday morning and sneer at all my teachers who give me attitude for missing my classes without a sick pass from the office. I may be working toward a kinder, gentler Rayne, but
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teachers are so exempt from that status. Unless they want to bribe me with good grades, that is, though sadly I've never gotten any of them to take me up on my oh-so-generous offer.

Cait finds me in the hallway and throws her arms around me in a hug. I step back, surprised. This is not the reaction I was thinking she'd have when we met again. After all, the last time I saw her she was telling me to leave her the eff alone. Here's hoping she isn't carrying any concealed weapons to stab me in the back with.

"Oh, Rayne," she cries. "I've been looking all over for you. I have to thank you!"

"Thank me?" What did I do to deserve thanking? Last I heard, I'd ruined her life.

"For being honest with me. About my, well, you know." She blushes as she steals a glance down at her arms. "I real-ized you were right. I couldn't go on hurting myself like that. And to tell you the truth, it wasn't really working anymore anyway. It started out making me feel better, but after a while I just felt so guilty and ashamed I ended up feeling worse. And I was so afraid all the time—worried that someone would catch me doing it."

"So did you... ?"

"I went to the school counselor. And she told me she could talk to my mom for me. And she promised me she'd be able to do it in a way that my mom wouldn't get mad. At first I didn't believe her, but somehow she did. My mom was really worried, of course, but she never yelled at me once. It turns out she's been suffering from an eating disorder most of her life. She's in recovery now, but she still totally gets where I'm coming from. Over the weekend we found this great therapist who's going to start teaching me what she calls coping mechanisms so I don't feel like hurting myself again. I'm sure it's not going to be easy, but it's worth it."

"That's great, Cait. I'm so happy for you!" I exclaim. "And um, what about the cheerleading thing?" I add, almost afraid to ask and spoil her good mood.

Cait shrugs. "My mom decided it was a good idea for me to drop out. You know, until I get back on my feet. Which surprised me. I mean, it was always her dream for me to become a cheerleader. I never thought she'd let me quit. But she told me my health is way more important to her than a pair of pom-poms." Cait smiles sheepishly. "She's actually pretty cool, now that we're talking again."

I smile. "I'm so glad for you. Did you tell the others?"

"Yeah. And that's the weirdest thing. I mean, I went into it assuming no one would give a care. You know, since I only made the team because you blackmailed them?"

I cringe. "Well..."

Cait holds up a hand. "But when I told them I was leav-ing, they got all upset. Turns out they really like having me on the team. Said it won't be the same without me and whenever I'm ready to come back I should." She grins. "So though you may have helped get me on the team originally, I've managed to do well enough to stay on it."

"Inever doubted that for a second," I say. "You're the best cheerleader on the squad by far and everyone knows it."

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"Thanks, Rayne," Cait says. "I'm sorry I was mad before. I was just freaked out and scared. But you know what? I think I'm going to be okay."

"You know what, Cait? I think I am, too." I pull her into another hug, happy the troubled girl has found some peace. Happy that I have, too.

"That's what I hate about this school. Too much PDA in the halls. Girl hugging everywhere you look!" I turn to see my sister walking down the hall, backpack slung over one shoulder. She waves hello and approaches Cait and me.

"So you're back, I see," she says.

"And you've managed to talk your way out of my you-know-where prison cell."

"Meh, that was easy. When you're dating the head guy you can pull in a few favors every once in a while."

"Well, thank you for doing so. I'm pleased to say I got the antidote and operation Save the Cheerleaders is in effect."

Cait raises her eyebrows. "Save the cheerleaders?"

"Um, yeah, you know. From turning into . . . what they turned into the other night."

"So you believe me about that?" she asks, sounding sur-prised. "You don't think I was just hallucinating or some-thing? I mean, they seem so normal now. I figured maybe I was just under a lot of stress or maybe lost too much blood ..."

"Nope. You were right. And while they might seem nor-mal now, by the next full moon . . . arrrooooo!"

I howl. "Unless we stop them."

"How can we do that?"

"Antidote." I grin."Iwent to England to get it."

"Wow. That's, um . . . wow." Cait stammers, sounding not quite sure whether she should believe me or not.

"So what's your daring plan?" Sunny asks. "How are we going to trap the wolves to turn them back?"

"Thank you for asking," I say, pleased to discuss my oh-so-clever strategy. "Well, according to the pack I talked to, there are two ways to get an untrained wolf to go feral. One is the full moon, of course. The other is to get them all hot and bothered."

"So, uh, basically you need to either wait 'til the next full moon or figure out a way to get the entire squad turned on at one time?" Cait asks.

"Yup. And I'm not one for waiting." I pull out a magazine cutout from my bag and unfold it. Race Jameson, rock star extraordinaire, grins back at us from the printed page. "Meet my secret weapon."

"You're going to show them a magazine cutout?" Cait ex-claims.

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"Not exactly," I say, flashing a grin at Sunny. She nods, knowing right where I'm going with this one.

"But you'll see soon enough. First, I need to get all the cheerleaders in one place." I turn to Cait. "And that's where you come in."

24

It's seven P.M. and I'm pacing the living room floor of my house, waiting for my mom to leave. She's taking her damn sweet time getting ready for her date with David. I glance over at him. He's looking at his watch, too. He knows timing is everything and for once I'm glad I have him on my side. He may be an annoying future stepfather figure, but he's still an operative of Slayer Inc. and has operation Get Mom Out of the House under control.

"Sweetie, our dinner reservations are in a half hour," he calls up the stairs. "We need to get going."

"Just a minute, David. I'm putting on lipstick."

"Gah, before she met you she didn't own a tube of lip-stick," I mutter.

He laughs. "Hey, she looks gorgeous wearing it. I'm not going to fight that battle."

"Yeah, yeah. Tell her to apply it in the car. The cheerlead-ers will be here any minute now and we can't let Mom know we're staging a save-the-town party in her living room on a school night. She'd absolutely kill me."

"Are you sure everything's in place?" David walks over and rechecks the front door. "Automatic locks working?"

"Yup. I tested them a few minutes ago. You did a great job putting them in." I press a remote control and the entire house seals up. I release the button and it's an open house again.

"Thanks. I used to be an engineer before I joined Slayer Inc. So I'm pretty handy with rigging up this kind of stuff."

"Yeah, well, I. . . appreciate it. I couldn't have set this up without you." It kills me to compliment the guy, but he did put a lot of work into this plan.