Fatal (30 page)

I rolled onto my stomach and started pushing myself up when an awful, sharp cracking sound filled the room. At first, I thought someone had fired a gun down at us.

Then I saw that Adam had fully changed. The noise was him tearing the manacles from the floor. He stood on two legs, his arms ending in hands with wicked claws on each finger.

He still had a few shreds of his shirt and jeans clinging to his body.

His chest and shoulders were thick were muscle and fur, and his lips pulled back to reveal the fangs lining his long snout.

His body heaved as he breathed, taking in his first lungful of air as the monster.

Then he looked at me.

I shrank back against the wall, my body trying to make itself as small and unthreatening as possible even as cold fear ran through my veins instead of blood.

For a moment, our eyes met.

"Adam..." I said.

He growled at me, pulling his lips all the way back. It was a primal sound, rumbling deep in his chest. He hunched low, and I realized he was going to launch himself at me.

Chapter 46

"No!"

It was Vick!

He'd snatched the knife up from the floor. Jumping through the air, he landed on Adam's back and slammed the point of the blade into his shoulder.

Adam roared in agony even as I screamed. I clawed at my face, trying to make my fingers cover my eyes, but they wouldn't. I had to watch; I couldn't stop.

Vick jerked the knife free and stabbed Adam again. Dark red blood already poured from the first wound, matting the thick fur.

The pain in Adam's cries was like an invisible hand clenching around my heart and stomach.

Then Adam managed to grab Vick's wrist as he brought the knife down for another attack. It was Vick's turn to cry out in pain as Adam flung him off his body like a ragdoll.

There was a crunch as Vick hit the wall beside me. He fell down in a heap like he didn't have any bones, the knife dropping from nerveless fingers.

"Vick..." I said.

I couldn't even tell if he was breathing. I knelt down beside him, and he moaned.

I breathed. He was still alive! And the knife was there, within my reach. Only a few flecks of silver shined in the sunlight; most of the blade was dark with Adam's blood.

I could feel Adam watching me. My hand shrank back from the knife.

This just couldn't be the end. It couldn't. There was something different about him. I knew I'd seen him still in there, somewhere, when we locked eyes before Vick tried to save me.

"Pick up the knife! Kill him!" someone screamed at me. I recognized it dimly as the voice of Vick's father.

"No..." I said, "No!"

Adam stood in the middle of the room. Blood pumped from the stab wounds in his chest and shoulder. They were all over the left side of his body. I saw then that Vick had been trying for Adam's heart, looking to pierce it with that silver knife.

He growled at me again.

"Adam, it's me, Stephanie. You know me, don't you?" I said.

I kicked the knife away. His sharp yellow eyes followed the blade as it skittered across the floor to the other side of the room. As soon as it stopped, he brought his attention back to me.

I was so scared I thought I was going to throw up. My stomach kept heaving. It was a race between my heart and my stomach to see which would manage to leave through my throat first.

Adam hadn't hurt Jenn. They'd both been outside at the same time that night. And he'd been the werewolf, then. They were both on the campus. He probably even saw her, or scented her. And he hadn't done anything.

There could have been a million reasons he hadn't done anything. I chose to believe--I had to believe--that it had been a conscious choice on his part. He didn't hurt her, because he didn't want to hurt her.

I had to trust myself. I had to trust him.

I took a step towards him. "Listen to me, Adam. I know you're in there. You know the sound of my voice..."

He watched me with suspicion as I approached him. His nostrils kept flaring, and I knew he could smell my fear.

It was something I had to face down. At that moment, it was a choice between feeling the fear and going through with it anyway, and being mauled to death.

"You know me, don't you?"

I was right in front of him. He was so much taller as the monster. Looking up at him, I got an awfully good look at just how white his fangs were. They gleamed in the light.

"I know you're in there, Adam," I said. I hoped repeating his name so much was getting through to him, forcing him to remember who he was.
And who I was.

Blood still pumped from all the stab wounds. That had to hurt so much.

"What are you doing? Get up! Kill it!"

"Shut up!" I said.

"Dad..." it was Vick. I could hear him behind me, struggling to get up. I had until he managed to get over to the other side of the room for the knife to make this work. If I didn't, either Adam would be dead in the next few minutes, or Vick and I.

Vick's father was really pissing me off. Couldn't he see what was happening?

My outburst spooked Adam, who crouched low and looked around, growling. I was losing him again.

"It's okay! Look at me, Adam, look at me!"

That deep, chesty growl emanated out of him again.

"Look at me!" I said.

He did. Our eyes met, and I could see Adam in there, behind all that ferocity and rage. He was confused and hurting.

I reached for him. He shied back from my hand, growling like the wounded animal he was.

"I won't hurt you, Adam. I'd never hurt you..."

That lie hurt me more than I thought. Adam was here because of me. I was an
integral part of the trap that let Vick capture and bring him here.

Well, I was going to solve my own problems for once.

"It's okay... It's okay..."

I put my hand on his chest. His heartbeat was powerful, pounding against my palm. And he was so very warm. He sighed at the touch, his eyelids sagging with relief. I could feel the tension leaking out of him.

He leaned forward and rested his head against my stomach. Something hot and wet started trickling down my cheeks. I touched my face and my fingertips came away glistening with tears. They were tears of relief, though, coming down from all that fear and tension.

I hugged my arms around Adam's neck. His breath was hot against me, and he made deep, contented noises as the air rushed in and out of him.

"You see?" I said, looking at Vick.

Vick,
who'd made it to the other side of the room. He gripped the knife in one hand, his other arm holding his ribs. I knew he was hurt, too, but at least he was still alive.

"You see?" I said, looking up at the skylight and the watchers, then through the bars in the window.

"Stephanie... Move away from him," Vick said.

"It's okay. Look? He's not going to hurt me. He's not going to hurt anyone."

Then Vick's father put his face up to the window.

"Now!
You can kill him right now! Stun him!"

Adam growled, the vibrations of it moving through me, as he shoved me away. It was too late, though. Someone up above fired their
taser, the electrodes latching into his flesh.

The lines buzzed as electricity pumped into him. Even with all his strength, his muscles froze up and he toppled to the floor convulsing.

"Stop!" I screamed up at them, "Stop!"

"Victor, kill him now. Stab his heart with that knife and I promise I'll forget about all this nonsense. Show me you know how to make the right choice!"

The shocking stopped. Little wisps of smoke rose up from the contact points on Adam's furry body. He lay on his back, his tongue lolling out of his mouth. His eyes rolled madly with pain, and little whimpers escaped his throat.

Vick looked at Adam. He raised his knife. I started to move myself between them, but he shot me a look and I stopped.

"I've made my choice," Vick said.

He shuffled over to stand between Adam and the door. Grunting with the pain, he raised the knife up in front of him.

"Adam isn't a monster. He doesn't deserve to die. I'm not going to kill him... And neither are any of you. Unless you kill me first, that is," Vick said.

There was a scuffle up on the roof. I looked up in time to dodge something small and shiny that cracked when it hit the floor. It was the
taser. I shielded my face and looked up again.

Several of the people up there were holding another person back. My heart leapt. They'd rebelled, holding back the person stunning Adam!

"Just let him go! Let them all go!" a woman called down.

"He's not a monster! Did you see what he did?" another man said.

Adam collapsed to the ground then.

"Adam!" I said, running over to kneel beside him.

At first, I didn't know what was happening. He was getting... smaller somehow. Then the fur began receding, the snout drawing back into his face. He was turning back into a human!

The change happened quickly. With the fur gone, all those stab wounds were plain to see. They wept blood for a few moments longer,
then began closing up on their own.

"Well I'll be damned..."

It was Vick's father. He'd opened the door and was looking at us all. Vick raised the knife higher, ready to defend us against his own flesh and blood.

"You can put that down, Victor. No more tricks. I've... I've never seen or heard of anything like this."

In the light, I got a better look at the man. He was built a touch heavier than his son, but they had the same face. I imagine ten years ago they even had the same hair color. But now, Victor Sr.'s hair was mostly grey. He also had some hard lines to his face, doubtless earned through decades of what appeared to be a brutal and unforgiving profession.

I sat down and cradled Adam's head in my lap, smoothing the hair off his forehead. The transformation took a lot out of him, I knew. He probably wouldn't awaken for another hour or so yet.

Vick didn't lower the knife. It seemed he wasn't done yet.

"We're letting him go," Vick said. It wasn't a question.

His dad's lips tightened for a moment, then he nodded.

"And we're never going to bother him again. We're going to leave this house and never come back."

Again, that flash of irritation followed by a nod.

Vick studied his father for a few moments, apparently trying to decide if the older man was being truthful or not. My poor heart started to race again. I couldn't deal with another round of all this.

Vick let the knife slip out of his fingers and clatter on the floor. He turned around to face me.

"Are you okay?"

I was exhausted and starving. My body shook and ached from all the adrenaline that had pumped through it in the last twenty four hours. I'd watched someone get stabbed, and I'd learned who really killed my friend. It was enough to crush anyone.

"I'm fine," I said, trying to hold back the wry grin that threatened to make my cheeks hurt.

"Let's clean up this mess," Vick said, looking again to his father.

"You're the boss," Victor Sr. said.

Chapter 47

"Oh my God!"
I said, nearly dropping my cell.

"I know! Isn't it amazing?" my mom said.

She still didn't sound 100% back to the woman I'd grown up with, but then again, I guess she'd never be that woman again. When you go through something as life-altering and life-threatening as cancer, it leaves its mark on you. Not just physically, but mentally and emotionally as well.

But that was beside the point.

I'd been sitting at my desk, typing up a paragraph on crazy women in literature for my English class. Adam laid on the bed behind me. I could hear the quiet rustle of pages as he through a textbook, trying to catch up.

My fingers still hurt a little from the near case of frostbite going through the woods to his house, but they were well on their way to getting better.

Snow removal expert Jim had been pissed at first about his truck, but we brought it back undamaged. When he saw that we'd filled the tank for him, he was all smiles and "Glad I could help!" type stuff.

But all that was also beside the point.

Adam sensed my change in demeanor. I could feel him standing behind me, tense.

"Are... are you sure?" I said.

"They're already drafting up their articles for all those medical journals!"

My mind still reeled from what she'd said just a minute or so earlier. I couldn't quite let myself believe it.

"But they're certain?" I said, pressing the question.

I could practically hear my mother rolling her eyes at me all the way back in Los Angeles. A shock of apprehensive excitement went
through me again. It felt like someone with electric fingers was stroking the curve of my spine.