Second Skin (Skinned) (14 page)

I stared down at fur, claw, and trembling muscles. Ready to kill.

Wake up. Now. Eryn, RISE!
The bedroom window burst open. A roaring wind thundered across the room, knocking me backward.

When I opened my eyes, Alec stood over me, his face pale, his chest heaving. The bedroom door was splintered in half and dangled by the top hinge.

Marie’s body was sprawled on the floor by her chair. She looked dead.

It's all fun and games until
someone loses an eye

Alec rushed to his mother’s side. She lay unmoving, her head tilted at an awkward angle.He put a trembling hand to her neck, checking for a pulse.

I covered my mouth, keenly aware of the claws, fur, and the odd shape of my jaw. In the dream I’d become my wolf, in reality only my hands and face had shifted. My features crept back into their human form. Like popping a blister, the pressure on my skin eased as my wolf drained away.The room appeared larger, my human form taking up less space in the world than my wolf—like I’d returned to myself less than I had been. I struggled to shake off the sense of loss.

“Is she—?” I asked, my voice ragged.

His shoulders sagged. “She’s breathing,” he said, not bothering to glance in my direction.

I held back a sob, my tongue feeling odd in my mouth, teeth aching. What had he seen when he’d burst through the door? What kind of monstrous thing had I become?

What had I done to Marie?

“Mom.” He cupped her shoulders and gave a gentle shake. “Come on, snap out of it.”

Marie groaned, struggling to sit up. Alec helped her to her feet and guided her to the bed. She sat, clutching the spiral bedpost for support.

“I’m fine,” she said. She waved Alec’s hands away and lifted tired eyes to mine. Alec and Marie stared me down. They didn’t say anything. Didn’t need to. Disappointment radiated off their skin.

I backed up against the wall and slid down its smooth surface. “I’m sorry. I never meant to…” I pulled my knees into my chest, buried my face in my arms, hiding. I let their words flow to me from across the room.

“The girl packs quite the punch,” Marie said.

“She hit you?” Thankfully, Alec’s tone was incredulous.

“No. She blocked me. The purpose of this test was to see if she could lucid dream, could recognize she was in the dream realm, and then use that knowledge to wake up. Eventually a lucid dreamer can control elements of the dream. Location, time of day, fashion weapons. But the moment she sensed me, she shut me out.”

“So, Eryn does have some skill.” “Not Eryn,” Marie said. “Her wolf.”

I lifted my head. “My wolf just about killed you. I can’t control it here, but in the dream, it took over. I wasn’t even there. So, if you don’t mind. I think we need another plan.”

Marie pursed her lips. “No. The plan is sound. I felt the presence of the night mare. What did you see before your wolf attacked?”

“One minute you were normal, and I was telling you the dream walk didn’t work and the next you looked”—I shuddered— “demonic. Possessed. And the smell, that sour gas smell oozed off of you.”

Alec wiped a hand over his face. “You’ve mentioned that before. You picked it up from Kate’s dream creatures, but the rest of us couldn’t detect it.”

“Wolven have thirty times the sniffers of humans. I have a nose for trouble,” I said.

“But if you only pick up that scent when the night mare is at work, then I think we have one problem solved.”

I scrambled to my feet, dusting off my jeans. “Which one?” “The bounty hunters. Didn’t you tell us they reeked of sour gas?”

“Yeah.”

“Then it was another attack like at the café. It was the night mare, playing up on your fear that the bounty hunters were coming.”

I crossed my arms. “I’m not scared of some two-bit head hunters.”

Alec and Marie just stared back.

“Okay,” I let my arms drop to my sides. “Maybe a little.” Thinking back to that morning, the smell, the weight of the iron pan, I decided Alec had a good point. “You’re right. I swung that iron frying pan, and they exited the building. Or Marcus and Sammi anyway. Other demons would have stayed to fight, but Kate wove her protection spell around iron. Makes the night mare vulnerable.”

Marie cleared her throat. “You fought off the night mare with a frying pan?”

“You had to be there,” I said, hearing demonic Marcus spew his lies.
Not everyone back at home believes you’re so innocent, Eryn. Did you really think they’d let you go after what you did to your parents?
Those had to be lies.

“What?” Alec said.

I shook my head. “Just the night mare messing with me. Making me doubt myself.”

Marie nodded. “That’s what they do, Eryn. They use your deepest fears against you.”

I straightened. “Then, goody, there’s nothing to worry about.” My stomach clenched, belying my words. Oh, I was worried all right.A girl like me, with secrets aplenty, couldn’t afford to have a demon like the night mare digging around in my subconscious. Who knew what beasties besides my wolf would surface?

“We need to try again,” Marie said. “Facing the night mare in the dream realm is the only way to take it down. We need someone else to enter your mind.”

The hairs on my neck quivered. “Someone with a bit of magic.”

Alec took a step forward,his shoulders stiff with determination. Like a knight stepping forward to do battle for his queen. But this wasn’t about being a hero. This was about staying alive.

“Someone you trust.” Marie’s gaze flickered between us, her brows drawn.

My heart thumped in my chest. I knew exactly who fit this job description.

“More importantly, someone your wolf won’t reject.” And he wasn’t in this room.

Alec held out his hand. His eyes locked on mine.

“We need Wade,” I said, looking away. I couldn’t stand to see the impact of my words. I had no way to soften the blow. I continued to speak though my throat burned raw. “He’s already been in my mind. Many times.”

Alec and Marie froze.

I stymied their objections before they could utter them. “He hasn’t fed off me. It’s not vamp thrall. It’s not anything you’d understand. It’s not anything
I
understand.”

In my peripheral vision, Alec’s hand clenched.

“If this is how we beat the night mare, Wade’s the one I want.” Veins popped out on the back of Alec’s hand. His knuckles whitened.

With nothing more to say, I fled the room.

The next morning, Paige still wasn’t…Paige.

Thankfully, she had the sense to follow my lead and played along with our happy, shiny family act during breakfast. We got out before Sammi and Marcus could generate much conversation beyond the usual,
What are you up to today, girls? Have a great day at school
.

Yeah, right.

After meeting with Matt, Brit, and Paige, a.k.a. the
Girl Who Forgot Too Much
, Kate was working on a damage-control counter spell, but it would take time for her to gather the required supplies. Which meant my day at school would be beyond ridiculous. I’d have to keep one eye on Paige and one on the lookout for anymore of the night mare’s shenanigans.

We’d had an event-free night. No attacks. No dreams. But I knew the calm-before-the-storm feeling and was prepared to hunker down and wait the night mare out.

A power-hungry beastie like that wouldn’t lay low for long. My thoughts were interrupted by bony, vise-like arms trapping me in a death grip.

“Ugh, Paige, please stop with the hugging,” I said when my cousin released me and latched onto a stunned Brit. “You’re not a hugger.”

Paige’s arms dropped. She pouted. “You know, I’m really not much fun, am I?” She gave us an expectant look, brows raised as if waiting for a denial.

We were saved by the bell.

“Showtime. Stick to the class schedule I gave you, and you should be fine,” I told Paige. I gave her clothes a quick once over. I’d helped her to choose her outfit. While not up to Paige’s normal standards, at least today she wouldn’t be the laughingstock of Redgrave High. “Meet us at the cafeteria at lunch.”

Brit and I watched her meander down the hall. She was like one of Sammi’s kindergarten kids on the first day of school, pausing to stare at posters on the wall, pointing up at flickering florescent lights.

“You really think she’ll be okay?” Brit flinched as Paige spun around to give us a whole body wave and then slipped into a classroom. The door closed ominously behind her.

“No, but we can pick up the pieces at lunch,” I said as we walked to class.

“How did it go with the dream thing last night?” Brit asked. A bit too casually. I had a flash of Marie telling Matt what I’d said about Wade and then Matt texting every nasty detail to Brit.

Ugh. No wonder I hadn’t bothered with friends before moving to Redgrave. They expected answers I didn’t want to give.

“How long before Kate can do the counter spell?” I said, putting the pressure on Brit instead.

She held the classroom door open, turned to me, and shrugged. “She said a while. But you know Kate and time.”

Kate had magical skills to spare, and she could control time. We’d spent hours at the café only to discover minutes had passed. Who knew how long
a while
really meant?

Someone killed the lights, the shock of it made Brit and me gasp. We exchanged a mutual eye roll at our edginess.

“Okay guys, we have a short video to watch first,” Mr. Wilson said from his desk.

A glow emanated from the interactive whiteboard at the front of the classroom, then, it began. Muzak and a smarmy voiceover announcing:
The Reality Babes program is the ultimate infant simulator. It digitally records and monitors how the infant is cared for, achieving the best educational results. We give your students a realistic caregiver experience they will never forget.

That couldn’t be good. Experiences you
never forgot
tended to be horrific, awkward, or excruciatingly painful.

Brit slid her foot out from under her desk and kicked me. She leaned across the aisle.

“Can you believe this? We get dolls.” She took in the horror that must have been apparent on my face, even in the low light, and sat back in her chair, her excitement dimmed.

Prozac-smiling teens flitted across the screen cradling Reality Babes protectively in their arms. This was worse than the sex education video they’d made us watch in fifth grade. I had to take a
doll
home and care for it like a child? Me. With a doll so lifelike you had to feed it, change its diapers, and other atrocities, or it would scream its head off? I’d fail the class if I didn’t wear the micro-chip implanted bracelet (a.k.a. high-tech spy device) that chained me to the thing and recorded my lack of parenting skills for the world to evaluate?

Lovely.

Amidst the alternating snickers from the guys and coos of enchantment from the girls—Brit included—I suffered through the rest of the information video, dreading the moment when Mr. Wilson would do the nasty deed. Hand out the Reality Babes.

All my instincts clamored at me to bolt from the room, never to return. But I’d taken this class, Career and Life Management, because it was a no-brainer. Lord knew, I needed the padding to bring up my landslide average.

Going to college might not be in my future, hunting made that highly improbable, but I’d be damned if I wouldn’t graduate. Only one more year of school to get through. As a personal life goal, it probably wasn’t much compared to those who wanted to move on to be lawyers, actors, politicians. But for me, the likelihood of it actually happening was about the same as spindly Daryl Simon bulking up over summer vacation and arriving at school looking like Arnold Schwarzenegger. Simon was seated three desks away, his arms shaking with effort as he slid his backpack straps over his chair.