Never Cry Werewolf (13 page)

The nearly full moon cast eerie shadows on the trail in front of me, and the gravel seemed unnaturally white in the glow. I stepped into my flip-flops and then down onto the—

Eeeee!

I froze, trying to figure out where it was coming from. Up the trail. Up the trail toward Sapsucker, it sounded like. Flip-flopping as quietly as I could, I moved toward the sound, passing Squirrel, Mule Deer, and Muskrat cabins really stealthily. Well, at least until I tripped over a vine and went crashing into the gravel. Wincing, I brushed the pebbles off my pants and continued moving on in the moonlight.

The evening air shimmered around me, cool and moist, nothing like the dry summer air back in So Cal. I wondered what my friends were doing down in Cabo right then—definitely not worrying about brat camp werewolves.

The trees got thicker, casting more sinister shadows on the bright gravel, so I clicked on the flashlight. It didn’t help much. And after a moment, I realized it probably would give me away, so I turned it off, relying on the moon. The same moonlight that would cause Austin to change against his will in two more days.

Eeeee!
The squeal started up again. Or was it a new squeal? It had to belong to something small, but this time it was louder.

I ducked behind some trees, taking the roundabout way to Sapsucker cabin so I wouldn’t be seen. Ahead of me, behind the cabin, there seemed to be a trail cut in the brush. One of those animal paths I’d seen back in the forbidden forest. All of a sudden, the bushes at the entrance to the path quivered.
Grrrrrrr!

The hair on the back of my neck stood up and my heart shook in my chest.

Eeeee!
The squeal rose from inside the bushes, and then something worse than any noise I’d heard before—slurping. The squeaking victim was being eaten. Oh, man. Forget it! I didn’t want to see that carnage.

I backed up, one flip-step at a time, until I was in the grassy area away from the trail. Then I stepped on something solid yet mushy.

Horrified, I clicked on the flashlight and looked down. All around my feet were what looked like dead opossums. Or what was left of them. Little pink tails, fleshy paws, gray fur balls matted with blood.

I started running. Flip-step, flip-step, flip-step. Then I thought I heard the sound of something behind me, following me at top speed.

I kicked off the stupid flip-flops and ran barefoot on the dirt sides of the trail. Running so hard I felt like my heart was going to explode, I flew down the trail. I was almost there. I was actually going to make it.

And then I tripped on that stupid vine. Again.

That’s always the part in the horror movies when the cute girl gets slashed. She’s clueless, then curious, then dead. I
so
didn’t want to be that girl.

I rolled over and scrabbled backward on my hands and feet, watching for whatever was trying to run me down. I was going to meet the thing head-on, fully aware as I died on a gravel trail in the middle
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of Nowhere, Oregon.

After a few seconds of terror, nothing had killed me. No killer, no creature, no slasher seemed to be around so, heart still pounding, I stood up and dusted off my yoga pants. Something
had
been chasing me. I was pretty sure of that. But now I could only hear the chirp and whir of insects active in the night.

At least, until Austin stepped out of the bushes. “Here you are,” he said, holding out my flip-flops.

I took the sandals from him and whacked him on the arm. “You scared me!”

“Shelby, what did you expect? You startled me while I was feeding!”

“Well, sorry. I didn’t mean to. And, um…what was with the opossums?” I said, wincing.

Austin’s cheeks flushed. “Ah, forgive me. Fresh meat and all that.”

“Dude. Eww! We’ve got to get you the medicine,” I said. “And the chasing me? Not cool.”

“Again, sorry,” he said. “It’s an instinct thing. Running prey. Terribly sorry.” He crossed his arms.

“An instinct thing?” I said with a shiver.

“The wolf’s. Not mine, obviously.”

“Oh.” I stared at his Burning Bridges T-shirt; it was hanging unevenly from the waistband of his jeans like he’d gotten dressed in a hurry. Duh! Of course, a minute before, he’d been…um…naked? I jerked my head up to his face, my own cheeks feeling hot and scratchy. “So, you’ve been snacking. Did it help?”

He shrugged. “It was something, at least,” he said with an unsure smile.

I slipped the flip-flops onto my feet. “So, I checked out the door to the office.”

“You did?” He looked the happiest I’d ever seen him. It kinda freaked me out. I took a step back. “Shelby, I—”

“Shh!” I said, pointing at the cabin door about twenty feet from us. I was nervous Cynthia would wake up and come looking for me.

“C’mon,” he said. “This way.”

We walked over to the abandoned campfire pit, figuring that way we would see anyone coming.

As we took seats on a log bench, Austin reached into his front pocket.

“Ariel told me, you, um…”

“No way! Gummy worms?” I took the little bag from his outstretched hand. My heart started a skippy dance in my chest.

Austin shrugged. “Gummy
bears,
I’m afraid. The nurse thought I needed something to cheer me up.”

“Yum!” I tore open the package and handed him a few. “You have no idea how much I missed gummies.”

“Rather good,” he said through a mouthful of candy.

“The best.” I ate three, chomping the heads off and then popping the squishy bodies into my mouth. I could tell from the sweet fruity taste they were the red ones.
Yum
. I sighed as the sugar cleared my head. I tossed back the last of the gummies, relishing the silky texture. “So how are you going to get your serum? Your dad’s manager can’t help, right?”

“Definitely not. Winters and I called him on speaker phone and he said, ‘I’m the best manager in the UK because I don’t put up with any band’s crap addiction issues. Why, before I came to work for your father, I saved a diabetic drummer from his self-destructive sugar cravings.” I laughed at the thick cockney accent Austin poured on. “‘Not to mention the pop star I saved from frittering away her royalties on her shoe-shopping binges,’” he said. “‘A personal crusade, it was.’”

“Nice.”

Austin nodded. “Unfortunately, Graham knows nothing about the family situation. Dad’s only just hired him. The last guy, he didn’t work out.”

“Did your dad, um…”

Austin gave me a disappointed look. “He sacked him. He didn’t eat him. My dad prefers wild meat. That’s why he chose the hunt in Kenya for his holiday. We don’t eat people, remember? Well, unless they’re really, really naughty.”

I gasped.

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“Joking, only joking. Anyway, Dad’s chemist is the only one outside the family who knows the truth.”

“If you could only get in touch with the chemist dude, you’d be set.”

“Exactly,” Austin said, sounding defeated. “But every bloody phone in this place needs a code.

And I’ve looked everywhere for a cell phone.”

“Okay, that’s what Ariel saw you doing, that day in the nurse’s office….”

He smiled grimly. “I wasn’t after her lipstick. I need a phone.”

“Or you could steal the serum from the office—which has a security camera.”

He nodded. “Right. I’d be caught on tape. Forget Charles and his nonsense—the real paparazzi would be on my family like a plague of locusts. If anyone found out about our family’s hairy little problem, my dad would be…”

“You don’t want to lose another parent.”

He looked at me cautiously. “You know about my mother?”

“Ariel told me.”

“She died on a night hunt with my father in Scotland six years ago. Quite a scandal. Dad went through an inquest—but he was proven innocent. Of course, what the papers didn’t say was Mum was shot as a wolf but died in her human form.”

I recognized the pain in his voice. It was all too familiar. “Um, listen—”

“It’s quite all right,” he said, holding up a hand. “Sympathy gets to be old hat after a certain point.”

“No, um…” I swallowed past the lump in my throat, the taste of candy gone. “My mom. She died three years ago.”

Austin lowered his hand. “Oh. I didn’t know.”

“No one here knows,” I said.

“I’m sorry.”

I shrugged. “Like you say, sympathy gets old. I don’t tell people anymore.”

Neither one of us said anything for a while, but somehow it was okay. We were just together but alone on that bench. After a while, I felt Austin’s hand reach for mine. His fingers were warm, and when they squeezed mine, it didn’t even occur to me to pull my hand away.

“Now you know all my secrets,” he said.

Actually, I didn’t know all his secrets. I still couldn’t bring myself to ask him about Jillian Montrose, but after being chased tonight, I wondered just how much control Austin had over the wolf.

“It’s only fair that you tell me yours,” he said.

I wrinkled my nose at him. “I don’t have any secrets.”

“Not true. There’s something there, something sad in you that I sensed from the first time I saw you on that bus.”

“Duh. I miss my mom.” I gave him a weak smile.

“I miss mine as well, but beyond that.” He squeezed my hand again, only this time, instead of the butterfly feeling in my stomach, I felt a warmth spread all through my body. Austin pulled me a little closer, until my head was almost resting against his shoulder, and said softly, “Your secrets are safe with me. I mean, unless you’re planning to run off and scream ‘Werewolf!’ at this very moment.”

There was a smile in his voice, but I didn’t look up because I had the feeling the second my face was close to his I was going to do something really stupid like kiss him. What would it be like to kiss Austin? To kiss him under the half moonlight. Him, someone I should probably run from, but the one person who seemed to really get me.

“Come on, what’s your secret? Tell me.”

In an embarrassing gush of honesty I said, “I’m afraid I’m losing my dad, too.” Then, what was totally worse, I actually started crying a little.

“It’s okay,” Austin said. He kissed the top of my head and let go of my hand so he could wrap an arm around me. “He’s not going anywhere.”

I brushed tears from my cheeks with my right shoulder, fully humiliated for him to see me like this.

“I haven’t seen much of my dad this past year,” I said. “He’s got this stupid new wife. I hate her. All he
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does is chase her around and take her advice, and it’s like Mom never even existed. I can’t even remember the last time the two of us did anything together. No, wait, we hung out with the principal when I got suspended.”

“The headmaster of your school?”

“Yeah, there was this whole skirmish with the freaking debate team captain, but it was totally her fault.”

Austin smiled. “You’ve got serious
joie de vivre.
”

I felt a fluttering feeling in my stomach again. Was he actually complimenting me on my bad decision making? I smiled, but then I realized I’d totally forgotten about that whole don’

t-get-close-to-his-face rule I’d made up. My lips were only millimeters from his lips.

Wait…a few minutes ago he’d been killing little creatures. He’d been an animal with sharp teeth.

An animal that had chased me down the path. My heartbeat quickened, but I forced myself to relax. This was Austin. He was just a guy sitting with me in the faint glow of the moon. Just a guy. My gaze traced the curve of his lips. He was only a boy…a boy I shouldn’t be—

I moved back before my lips did something stupid. “Let me think of something. Okay? There’s got to be a way we can keep you safe.”

“Thank you.” He cupped my cheek with his hand, and I saw a flicker of silver in his eyes. I fought down a shiver of fear mixed with something else. I really was scared of what he’d become when he changed. What if he was sugar-coating the truth and I was in trouble? Well, me and the whole camp full of kids.

He moved his hand away, like he’d sensed the fear stirring inside me. “I should go,” he said. “Can you find your way back to the cabin all right?”

I nodded, and he strode off toward the path to the cabins without looking back. So much for near kisses and gummy bears. I bit my lower lip, a strange feeling growing inside me as he faded in the distance. How could I want to protect someone I was scared of at the same time?

I stood up from the log and moved toward the path, the beam of the flashlight the only thing keeping me from being alone in the dark.

“Out for a stroll?” A voice cut through the night a minute later as I made my way back to Spotted Owl.

I whirled around and saw Charles leaning against a tree on the side of the trail. My breath caught in my lungs. “I, um—”

“Moonlight is so peaceful,” he said. Half in shadow, his face took on sharp angles, making him look less like a squinty-eyed Brad Pitt and more like a blond Joaquin Phoenix. “What are you doing out here?” he asked, moving into the light.

I shrugged, trying to look casual as I took a step back from him.

Charles crossed his arms against the chest of his T-shirt. He was dressed in all black like some kind of burglar from a bad movie, which was a far cry from his usual outfits of layered polo shirts and khaki shorts.

I consciously smoothed out the wrinkles in my brow. “What are
you
doing out here?”

He gave me a smug grin. “Not very good security at this place, is there? If the two of us can be out and no one notices.”

“Hello? No security? There’s a huge fence around this place.”

He nodded. “Yeah. But you could smuggle all kinds of stuff in. I mean, look at your friend, he had quite the stash.”

“What did he ever do to you?” I said.