Time Mends (5 page)

The boy sitting on the couch was the one
person in the room I should have made every effort to avoid, but I
felt myself pulled towards the only one not in the middle of a
what-are-we-going-to-do-about-Scout discussion.

“
I’m an arctic
wolf?”

Charlie nodded, his eyes focused on his
brother.

Toby is the kind of guy who demands
attention. He has rock-star looks and an attitude to match. Yet, in
the presence of his Pack, he became something more. Even I could
acknowledge that. He was a leader, although a very exasperated one
at the moment. “What am I supposed to do? Force her to leave town?
This isn’t some random lone wolf who wandered into our area. And we
can’t ignore the fact that some members of this Pack may have had
some role in this happening.”

Jase’s head whipped up. “You don’t really
think —”

“
That’s ridiculous,”
Talley’s mother said. “Jase and Charlie had nothing to do with
this. You can’t make Shifters. And she’s turning into a wolf, not a
coyote.”

“
You have to look at the
facts, Vera,” Toby said, becoming the first person to ever use Mrs.
Matthews’s first name in conversation. “One month she gets ripped
in half by a Shifter, and the next full moon she’s sprouting fur
and fangs. There has to be a connection.”

“
It’s not some sort of
infection you can get from a scratch or a little bit of blood,
Tobian. You know as well as I do that being a Shifter is part of
your DNA.”

Toby raked his hand through his hair. “Well,
if anyone has any better theories, I’m willing to listen.”

Fifteen voices started yelling at once, most
of them not painting a very kindly picture of me and demanding my
immediate removal from Pack territory. It wasn’t exactly the sort
of thing a person wants to sit around and listen to.

“
This is fun,” I muttered
under my breath.

“
Come on.” Charlie stood
up and extended his hand towards me. I followed him off the couch,
ignoring the offered assistance. “I’ll take you home.”

No one seemed to notice us as we made our
way to the door, Charlie stopping to lift some keys out of Talley’s
purse.

The morning sun had burned all the dew off
the ground. I could hear farm equipment churning miles down the
road, the smell of the freshly turned dirt working more effectively
than any anti-anxiety medication. I was in awe of how alive the
world was. My ears picked up even the faintest of sounds and layers
upon layers of smells filled my nose.

Charlie was silent and distant the drive
back, which was fine by me. I had no idea what to say to him. The
past month changed us. He didn’t even look like the same boy who
surprised me on Prom night, having driven four hours just to dance
with me. He had lost weight, causing his already sharp features to
become severe. Dark bags hung underneath his tired eyes. He even
managed to grow a scraggly beard, although it looked more starving
artist than crazy homeless man on him. But the worst of it was
something not so easy to articulate. It was a loss of something, a
spark that was uniquely Charlie. It was the dullness in the eyes
that once twinkled, the way his shoulders slumped in defeat.

I lost both of the boys I loved that
night.

He continued his look-at-anything-but-Scout
routine as he brought the car to a stop in front of my house.

“
Thanks for the ride.” A
slight bob of the chin was the only indication he heard
me.

I started to get out of the car, but stopped
with one foot out the door. “Charlie, what is going to happen if
they convince Toby that I can’t stay here, that I’m more trouble
than I’m worth?”

“
That’s not going to
happen.”

“
But what if it
does?”

“
Scout, it’s not
happening. Now, go inside and talk to your father. He’s about five
seconds from coming out here and dragging you out of this
car.”

I could hear the conversation between my
parents inside and knew he was right. Dad had been informed of the
whole Shifter business, but he wasn’t taking it so well.

For that matter, neither was I.

“
This isn’t happening,”
Dad said, not for the first time. “It’s just… It’s not possible.
People don’t turn into animals. Wounds don’t magically stitch
themselves back together.” He balanced on the edge of the old,
battered plaid chair Mom had been trying haul off to the dump for
the past seven years. He sat with his elbows propped on his knees,
his face buried in his hands. From my vantage, I could see a halo
of gray hairs scattered generously in his once blond hair. When had
that happened?

“
I know it sounds crazy,
but it’s true.” I lifted up the edge of the cover-up to expose my
newly-healed stomach. “How else can you explain this?”

Dad gave me the exact same look he gave Jase
when my brother tried to explain how a tree jumped in front of him,
causing our first car to be totaled. “I think I can come up with
something that doesn’t involve werewolves, Scout.”

“
A little help?” I tried
to appeal to my mother, who sat silently curled up on the couch.
After doing a more extensive physical than any of my doctors ever
subjected me to, she retreated to her little corner and stayed
there. I wasn’t even certain she was listening to my desperate
attempts to explain where I had been and what happened to me. I bit
back a growl of frustration as she continued to stare at her hands,
not even acknowledging the fact I had spoken.

“
I have a book,” I finally
said, realizing it was the only way he would ever truly accept this
whole Shifter business. In many ways, he and I are very much alike.
“It explains the science behind Shifters, what happens to
their…
our
bodies
during the Change.” Although, it didn’t do the excruciating pain
justice.

“
There’s a book?” The look
Mom shot me made me wish she would go back to not participating in
the conversation. “No one ever told me there was a
book.”

I sat down on the edge of the coffee table.
The fact I was able to get away with it spoke more to my mother’s
current mental state than anything else. “It’s really rare. I don’t
know if the Hagans even know it exists. The copy I have belonged to
Alex’s dad, and—”

“
Alex?” Dad’s voice held a
dangerous edge. “Alex Cole? That boy…” He took a deep, calming
breath. “He was one of these Shifty things?”

Crap. Was I supposed to be keeping that part
a secret?

“
Shifter, Dad. Alex was a
Shifter.”

My father practically shook with rage. “Did
he do this to you?” he asked, looking pointedly at my stomach.

“
What? Alex?” I wrapped a
protective arm around myself out of habit. “No. Alex would never
hurt me.” Tears threatened at the mere mention of his
name.

“
But it was one of them,
right?” Dad asked. “It was one of those
Shifters
who attacked you and made
you…” I could see him struggling with how to end that sentence.
“Different,” he finally finished.

“
I don’t know why I became
a Shifter.”

“
Who hurt you, Scout?
Which one of those bastards attacked you and left you alone to die
in the woods?”

My eyes fixed on the Oriental rug that hid a
grape juice stain. It had been there so long, I couldn’t remember
is Jase or I was the culprit.

“
Scout, tell me. Who was
it?”

The edge of the carpet was starting to fray,
and the colors were looking washed out. I would have to suggest to
Dad we buy Mom a new one for her birthday.

“
Scout,” Mom chimed in,
her voice thick. “Please. It wasn’t…”

Some tears fell, making an ironic smiley
face on the pajama bottoms I liberated from Talley’s bedroom.

“
No…” She was crying, too.
I could hear her sobs, smell the salt of her tears, but I couldn’t
bear to look at her. “He’s your brother. He loves you. He would
never…”

I couldn’t take it anymore. I bolted from
the room and ran up the stairs, away from the truth.

***

The lake’s shore was the same, yet somehow
not. The colors were wrong, too… bright? Intense? Green? It
reminded me of the way things look right before an epic summer
storm.

It was the exact same way things looked last
night after the Change.

And Alex wasn’t alone. A puppy with grey
human eyes bounced excitedly around his legs.

“
Everything is different,”
I said as I made my way to the place where Alex skipped stones
across the lake’s surface. Or, at least, he was attempting to skip
stones across the lake’s surface. In his defense, what he lacked in
form he made up in persistence.

“
Change does that,” he
said, sending another rock to its watery grave. “I think it’s part
of the definition. ‘Change. A verb. To make different.’” He flashed
a smile, dimples and all, but it was wrong, too.

“
Thanks, Obi-Wan. Where
would I be without your guidance?” The wolf pup noticed my
existence for the first time and bounded up to my side. “Hey there,
boy,” I said as I scratched behind its ears. “Aren’t you a handsome
fellow?”

Alex laughed and the pup growled. “She is
quite cute, but Nicole won’t think twice about biting you if you
call her a boy again.”

I looked at the tiny gray wolf who abandoned
threatening me for the joy of having her belly scratched by
Alex.

“
But she’s a Shifter,
right?”

“
Yes.”

“
But girls can’t be
Shifters.”

Alex looked up at me through a curtain of
bangs in desperate need of a trim. “How did that theory work out
for you last night?” I double-checked, just to make sure… Yep. He
was smirking.

Asshat.

“
What happened to
me?”

He leaned back on his heels, wrapping his
long arms around his knees. Nicole glared at me, as if it was my
fault her belly-scratching came to an end. “Last night you
successfully completed your first Change. I thought you would
figure that out when you grew a tail.”

“
How, Alex?
How
did I Change?
How
did I grow a tail?”
I screamed. “I’m not a Shifter, so please explain to me how this
happened!”

“
Of course you’re a
Shifter.” He came over to me, cupping my cheek in his hand. It was
the first time he had touched me since I arrived, and I nearly
collapsed at the warmth and reassurance radiating through me. “This
has always been your destiny. It’s who you are.”

“
I only think it’s fair to
tell you, I don’t believe in destiny.”

“
That’s okay,” Alex
smiled. “She believes in you.”

I knew there was someone in my room before I
even opened my eyes. I could hear her breathing and smell the scent
of her baby shampoo. Of course, even someone without canine senses
could’ve achieved the same thing with Talley leaning over them, her
face an inch away.

“
Are you planning on
waking up today or not?”

“
Not.” I had no idea what
time it was, nor did I care. I was accustomed to twelve to eighteen
hours of sleep a day. My all-nighter totally wiped me
out.

A tap against my arm. “Scout.”

“
I’m sleeping.”

A shake of my shoulder. “Scout.”

“
Go away.”

The covers jerked back, exposing my legs to
the chill of the room. “Scout.”

“
I hate you,” I said,
sitting up to retrieve the blankets now pooled below my knees. I
was just awake enough to marvel over the ability to do so without
pain.

“
You love me,” Talley said
as she flounced down behind me so I couldn’t lay back down. “You
know how I know?”

“
Cause you stole it out my
head just like you did my graduation speech?”

“
Because you’re all growls
and no bite. A Shifter attacks anyone who invades their den unless
they consider them family.”

“
You make me sound like an
animal.”

Talley dug a pair of pajama bottoms out from
under a pillow where they had probably been cowering for weeks. “A
convincing argument could be made.”

I grabbed the pajama bottoms, which kind of
reeked, and went in search of the hamper I knew was somewhere in my
room. Maybe.

I expected my legs to do that weird rubbery
thing they always did after I pushed myself too hard at the dojo,
but they held firm without even a hint of soreness. In fact, once
the sting of the Change wore off, I felt amazing. Not only was pain
completely and totally absent for the first time in a month, I was
hyper-aware of my body, as if I could feel the individual muscles
beneath my skin. I wouldn’t go so far as to say I was happy to be a
Shifter, but there were advantages to be had.

By the time I found the clothes hamper,
which had magically folded itself up so it could hide under my bed,
Talley had rounded up an armful of dirty clothes, including a Super
Mario Brothers shirt I’d been looking for since October. “So,
what’s the verdict?” I asked.

“
They should come clean
with a bit of soap and water, but be sure to use the hot cycle so
you kill anything that may be growing.”

“
Ha, ha. Very funny. I was
talking about the Pack. What did they decide? Have I been voted off
the island?”

Talley twisted a strand of hair around her
finger, the first sign of bad news.