Werewolves Rule (The Rule Series) (5 page)

A dark shape leisurely walked into the open where the porch light could reach her.
 
It was the girl from his dream; it was Isobel.
 
She had her thumbs in the belt loops of her jeans.
 
Jutting her left hip out, she watched him watching her, a beguiling look on her face.
 

What did she want from him?

“Go away,” he said in a harsh whisper.
 
Somehow he knew she would hear him.
 
Before she could respond, he shut the window and locked it.
 

She was a hunter.

He used to be a vampire.

It was a bad combination.

******

Chapter Three:

REALITY

The next day, late in the afternoon, Jack stood over his snoring brother and considered his options for waking the kid.
 
Billy, looking way too comfortable, was hopelessly tangled in the sheet.
 
He had worn a gray sleeveless T-shirt and boxers to bed.
 
At least he wasn’t naked.
 
That could have added another ounce of awkwardness to their already strained relationship.
 
It was bad enough that Jack had to wake him to ask for advice without being traumatized for life by seeing him in the nude.

Tired and frustrated, Jack cleared his throat.

One of Billy’s eyes popped open.
 
When he saw Jack hovering over him, he shot out of bed and fell to his knees on the floor.
 
Fighting against the sheet to free himself in a comical wrestling match, Billy yelled as he jumped to his feet.
 
“What the hell…” Billy glared at Jack from the other side of the mattress.

Jack could read his brother’s mind.
 
No doubt Billy had been having nightmares about opening his eyes to find Jack standing over him.
 
He was probably expecting Jack to sprout fangs and kill him.
 
Jack sighed in frustration.
 
He was not in the mood for Billy’s paranoid crap.

“I need your help,” Jack said as he sat on the edge of the mattress.
 
“Silver is busy, but even if she wasn’t, I don’t want her to know about this.
 
You’re the only one I can turn to right now.
 
Do you think for five minutes you can forget I was a vampire and just be my brother?
 
Do you think you can manage that?”

Billy blinked.
 
“Uh... sure.
 
What do you need?”

“Principal Hardwick called me to his office after school today.”

“What did you do this time?”

“I didn’t
do
anything.
 
This is your fault, not mine.
 
The idiot you hired to make my fake transcripts screwed them up.
 
He miscounted credits.
 
I don’t have enough to graduate.”

“Oh man, I’m sorry.”

“The one thing I wished for as a vampire over and over was to graduate from high school.
 
Now it’s not going to happen.”

Billy grabbed a pair of discarded jeans and struggled into them.
 
Then he found a fresh T-shirt in the dresser.
 
He started talking again while pulling it over his head.
 
“Isn’t there anything you can do?
 
You still have a couple of months before the big day.”

“Hardwick says no.
 
He told me I can take a class during the summer if I want, but he won’t let me graduate with everyone else.
 
I want to graduate with Silver, and you know she’s a big nut when it comes to education.
 
I can’t see her sticking by an idiot who can’t even finish high school on time.”

Jack couldn’t sit still anymore.
 
He wanted to kick something, but he restrained himself because he was in Billy’s bedroom.
 
After pacing the length of the room several times, he fell back against the door with his fists clenched.
 

Billy said, “I don’t think Silver is going to dump you over this, man.
 
For some reason she’s crazy about you.”

“I told you we aren’t dating right now.”
 
Jack shrugged.
 
“But I’m hoping to rectify the situation soon.
 
What can I do about graduating?
 
Can your guy fix this, fix the transcripts so they say my last school made a mistake?”

Billy shook his head.
 
“Too late for that.
 
If we try to fix it now, Hardwick will personally contact the old school.
 
Then they’ll tell him they’ve never heard of you.
 
Better to graduate in a few months than not at all.”

Jack squeezed his eyes shut and banged the back of his head softly against the door.
 
“I can’t believe this is happening.
 
My life was supposed to get easier when I lost the fangs.”

Billy chuckled.
 
“Welcome to reality, bro.
 
Maybe you should just be honest with Silver.
 
She’s pretty good at talking Hardwick into things, and she knows all about a student’s rights.
 
She might be able to help you out.”

Jack had already considered telling her the truth and dismissed the idea.
 
He didn’t want to look like a loser.
 
He and Silver were already having problems.
 
She had little time for him these days, and he hadn’t been supportive or understanding of her choices.
 
She always seemed to have her nose in a book. The only thing she ever wanted to talk about was college.
 
It seemed to be all she ever thought about.

And all he thought about was Silver.
 

“There has to be another way,” Jack mumbled.

“Extra credit?
 
Ask if there’s a class you can do some fancy footwork in.
 
You can pass with a ‘D’ I think.”

A flicker of relief brought a smile to Jack’s face.
 
Extra credit was a good idea.
 
Why hadn’t he thought of it?
 
There had to be a teacher somewhere in that school who would take pity on him.
 
He was willing to work hard.
 

Now that he had a plan, the tension eased in his body.
 
He approached Billy with a teasing smile.
 
“So what did you think I was doing in your bedroom when you woke up?
 
Did you think I was going to bite you?”

“Shut up.”

“You did.”
 
Jack took a playful jab at Billy’s gut.
 
“Admit it.
 
You thought I wanted to drink your blood.”

“Knock it off, jerk.”
 
Billy gave him a gentle push.

Their good-natured fight escalated.

Jack grabbed Billy around the neck, putting him in a wrestling hold Tucker
Binn
had shown him.
 
Although he’d had a fight with Tucker on his first day of school, the two of them had become friends.
 
Tucker was a good guy, obsessed with wrestling.
 
Jack had Billy’s head locked under one arm.
 
Billy struggled to get free.
 
It took him a few seconds.
 
Then he spun around and knocked Jack on the bed.
 
They wrestled on the mattress until Jack’s foot kicked wildly and knocked the lamp off the bedside table.

The loud crash made them leap apart.

Their gazes traveled to the shattered lamp.
 
Then they looked at each other.
 
Billy’s expression mirrored Jack’s as they remembered the same event, the time they’d broken their mom’s favorite vase while wrestling downstairs.
 
Spontaneous laughter erupted in the small room.
 
Jack laughed until his stomach hurt and tears flooded his eyes.
 
He rolled around on the bed, holding his stomach, unable to stop the laughter.
 
Billy couldn’t seem to stop either.
 

For the first time in years it felt like he had a real brother.

******

A few hours later Jack found himself alone with nothing interesting to do.
 
He was bored out of his mind.
 
Billy had gone into town to see his girlfriend and wouldn’t be home until morning.
 
After walking aimlessly through the house several times, Jack picked up a worn copy of
Tolkien’s
Lord of the Rings
.
 

Lying on the couch, feet elevated on the back and a throw pillow beneath his head, Jack slid another page over.
 
He lost himself among the hobbits and his problems melted away, small in comparison to Frodo’s.
 
Time passed quickly.
 
He barely noticed when the sun stopped peeking through the parted curtains.
 
Instinct on automatic, he reached up and turned on the lamp so he could continue to read.

A car’s engine rumbled closer and closer.
 
It stopped a few yards from the living room window.
 
Jack wondered if Billy had returned early for some reason.
 
He kept reading with the hope that Billy wouldn’t want to watch television.
 
Jack didn’t feel like taking the book to his bedroom, but he wouldn’t be able to read with loud noise in the background.

The front door opened.
 
He didn’t bother to look up from the engrossing story until a hand grabbed his sock-covered foot and gently pinched his toes.
 
Silver smiled down at him.
 
He immediately tossed the book to the coffee table and jumped off the couch, happy to see her.
 
He rounded the brown suede sofa to give Silver a quick hug and a kiss on the cheek.

Blanca, who’d been sitting in Billy’s favorite chair, jumped down with a hiss.

“I don’t think your cat likes me,” Silver said.

“Don’t worry about it.
 
She gets jealous sometimes.
 
Why didn’t you tell me you were coming over?
 
I thought you were studying tonight.”

She shrugged.
 
“I had to see you.”

He liked the sound of that.
 
“You want a drink or something?”

“No thanks.”
 

Silver seemed agitated.
 
Jack sat back down on the sofa, but Silver walked around the room, twisting her fingers.
 
Her eyes rarely touched upon him.
 
In seconds she was dusting off a table and rearranging the stuff on it.
 
Her actions didn’t surprise him.
 
Silver cleaned when she got nervous.

“What’s wrong?” he finally asked.

“There’s a rumor floating around school that you had a huge fight with Hardwick today.
 
Please tell me it wasn’t true.”

Jack smiled, relieved.
 
“It was nothing.”

“That’s not what I heard.
 
They say you threatened to tear his head off.”

Actually he had threatened to rip Hardwick’s face off, but that didn’t mater.
 
He smiled and shook his head.
 
“Totally untrue.”

“Hardwick didn’t kick you out of school then?”

“Of course not.”
 
Principal Hardwick was enjoying watching Jack suffer too much to suspend him.
 
“If he had, I would have called you.
 
You are my attorney, you know.”

A smile brightened Silver’s face.
 
She finally crossed the room to sit next to him.
 
Her arms slid around his waist, and she hugged him tight.
 
The side of her face pressed against his chest.
 
“I am so glad to hear that.
 
I’d be crushed if we couldn’t graduate together.
 
Please don’t do anything to screw that up.
 
Okay?
 
Promise?”

“Don’t worry.
 
I’ll be good.”

He hugged her back.
 
Her words reinforced his belief that he should keep her in the dark about his serious lack of credits.
 
Somehow, he vowed, he would find a way to graduate with her.
 
He was not going to let her down, not when she was getting so close to leaving him for college.
 

She pulled away and asked, “Are you keeping something from me?”

“Why do you keep asking me that?”

“Because I can tell when you’re holding secrets back.”
 
She stood, putting distance between them.
 
“You get a funny, far away look on your face.
 
I thought we agreed not to lie to each other anymore.”

It was time for a fake-out.
 
He could throw her off the trail of one secret by exposing another.
 
It was an old trick he’d used with his parents, old but effective.
 
He took a deep breath, hoping he wasn’t making a horrible mistake.
 
“You remember me being stabbed by the werewolf and not healing as fast as I usually do?”
 

She nodded, her expression growing more concerned by the second.

Quickly he added, “There was a crew of vampires waiting here for me after the fight.
 
I was tired and in pain, and I didn’t think there was any way I could handle them by myself.”

“But you did.”

“Not exactly.”
 
He stood slowly.
 
“A hunter saved me.”

Silver frowned.
 
“A hunter?
 
Who?”

“Her name isn’t important.
 
The thing is, I dreamed about her before I saw her.”

“Really?”
 
Silver crossed her arms over her chest, and her facial muscles tightened. “Is she pretty?
 
What kind of a dream was it?
 
It wasn’t like our shared dreams, was it?
 
She wasn’t really there with you, right?”

He shook his head furiously and held his hands up.
 
“No
no
no
no
no
.
 
It was nothing like that.”