House of wolves, p.26
House of Wolves, page 26
Cal shakes her head. “There has to be a reason. Do you think it’s because I bit him?”
I shrug. “It might be. Does that change anything?”
She nods and stands, looking miserable. She paces the bathroom in small circles. “I don’t want him to be stuck with me because I bit him. If that story is right and we’re connected, I’m no better than Hallam. I may as well be controlling Matthew. Is that the only reason he’s been so good to me? I sure as hell don’t deserve it.”
“You’re not controlling him.”
“But if we’re not choosing each other, this isn’t real.”
I slide down off the counter, containing a wince when I put weight on my leg. It’s still sore, but it’s better already now that I’ve settled and warmed up. I stand in Cal’s way to stop her pacing, and take her hands in mine to hold her attention. “You did choose each other,” I tell her. I continue before she can protest. “I knew Matthew before you bit him, and I knew you before you were bitten. Even if you met under different circumstances, I can tell you that you would still be the same people. You two work well together – it’s obvious – and that’s because of who you are, not what you are.”
Guilt and uncertainty are evident on her face.
“If he wanted to be with someone else, would you let him go?” I ask. She frowns, but nods. “That’s what matters. You’d respect his choice; you’re not controlling or manipulating him. If being wolves means that you can also feel each other’s pain, then whatever. It hasn’t changed who you are.”
Cal looks reassured, if only a little bit. She lets it drop and doesn’t argue with me again.
Dad comes home a short time later. By the time Liam called him, he was already on his way. I was right: he was mad that we had disappeared. Liam explained what happened and why we left, and all Dad cares about when he walks in the door is making sure we’re okay.
Dad has me sit down in the kitchen to look at my leg, but he agrees that it’s not too bad and nothing needs to be done about it. He does, however, wrap an ice pack in a hand towel and give it to me for the bruising.
He doesn’t need to tell me that I shouldn’t have gone after Hallam and Matthew. I know what he thinks, and he knows I would have anyway. “Are the other two okay?” he asks instead, gesturing upstairs and looking between Cal and I. Cal just checked on them.
“They’re asleep,” she says. “Matt was hurt, but I think he’s fine.”
I’d comment on the fact that the boys fell asleep while Cal and I were down here if I didn’t want nothing more than to go to bed myself. Cal looks like she wants the same thing.
With a ‘goodnight’ from Dad and a silent understanding that Cal and I aren’t ready to let each other out of sight, we both go back upstairs. I head straight for Cal’s bed, catching a glimpse of the guys on the couch on my way. Matthew is curled up at one end, knees pulled up close, and his head smashed into a pillow. With his head at the other end, Jasper is more stretched out, his knees bent so he’s not kicking Matthew. Both of them are out cold.
I make myself comfortable in Cal’s bed, the promised warmth drowning out her protests as I burrow under blankets. It takes a few minutes for her to change into pyjamas and turn out the lights, then she climbs onto the bed beside me. A heavy sleep pulls me under as soon as the lights shut off.
IV
Jasper
I’m woken by sunlight shining bright and directly into my face. I scrub a hand over my eyes and blink as my eyes adjust to the light. It takes me a moment to resister the big window the sun is coming through, amplified by the white snow and ice outside.
I search around me and in my pockets for my phone. I’m bound to have missed a dozen calls from my parents. I stretch out my legs which were cramped and bent uncomfortably, and my feet are met with the solid mass of a person. I crane my neck to find Matthew, curled asleep on the other end of the couch.
I find my phone wedged underneath me and between cushions and turn it on to find only three missed calls and a text from Mom, saying Derek called her and explained, and to sleep well and come home when I wake up.
I also note the time. It is well into the afternoon.
There’s movement on the other side of the room, and I sit up to look around. Cal’s room is in a state of disarray that comes with crashing instead of going to bed. A small pile of clothes sits on the floor on one side of the bed, an ice pack and towel side by side on the other. On the floor in front of the couch are two coats, a pillow, and Matthew’s phone, which has tumbled away and lays a few feet from the rest of the mess.
When I look back to the bed the girls both slept in, Lou is sitting up. She rakes a hand lazily through her wild, slept-on curls with a disappointed look on her face before giving up and shaking her head. She looks at me, the only other awake person in the room, and squints a little to see me. Her glasses are nowhere to be seen.
“Morning,” she whispers, except it sounds more like ‘mornnn’ in her just-woken state.
She tosses her side of the covers back and stumbles out of bed, tiptoeing across the cold hardwood floor toward the stairs.
She stops at the top step and looks back at me to see if I’m following. “Breakfast?” she asks. Again, the word is mumbled, and she drops basically all of her vowels.
I stand up off the couch, and Matthew stretches out to take up the extra space, still asleep. I stretch, and my back pops and cracks, and I decide that I will never ever accidentally fall asleep on that couch again.
I grab my phone and my coat from where it lays on the floor before following Lou downstairs in pursuit of food. She mumbles about being starving on the way down, and as soon as she reaches the kitchen, she searches the fridge until she finds a container of grapes. She takes a handful of cookies from a jar on the counter, presumably for the illusion of a balanced meal.
She offers both options to me, and I take a small handful of the fruit. We sit down at the table and eat in silence for a few minutes. I watch out the front window as it begins to snow outside. Large clusters of snowflakes flurry to the ground.
Having eaten her entire little stack of cookies and woken up a little more, Lou’s fully coherent when she speaks again. “Are you okay?” she asks.
I turn my attention away from the window to look at her. “I guess,” I respond, noncommittal. Disaster was avoided last night, but it was still threatened, and we’re all shaken. “How’s your leg?”
Lou shrugs as she stands up. A large orange cat has wandered into the kitchen, and he weaves between Lou’s feet, meowing and demanding food. “It’s just a bruise,” Lou says. “I’ll be fine.”
I bend down in my seat to get the cat’s attention, calling him toward me rather than letting him continue to be a tripping hazard. I can only distract him for a moment before Lou pulls a bag of cat food from the cupboard. The cat bounds over to her and rubs against her legs while she fills his bowl.
“Yes, yes, Simba,” she coos. “You’ve been starving. I’m sorry.” As soon as she sets his bowl down on the floor, he starts to inhale it.
I see the bruise spreading on Lou’s leg below the hem of her shorts as she makes her way back to the table. It’s dark red now, but it will be violently black and blue soon.
Lou notices me looking. I must look horrified. “It’s fine, really,” she insists. “I’ve tripped and fallen before. It’s just icy and rocky out there.”
I take her word for it and stop worrying. I’m well aware it will be a lot harder to entirely dismiss my guilt that she was hurt, but I can try. Asking for help last night was one battle; not feeling bad about it will be work for another day.
“I have to go,” I say, but I make no move to leave. I feel sluggish, like all of the nerves and fear last night have sucked all my energy. Even excessive sleep wasn’t enough to make up for it. “My cat’s probably getting hungry too.”
“What’s her name?”
After meeting Lou’s fluffy orange cat, suitably named Simba, I realized how awful my taste in naming animals was as a child. There’s no logical reason why I thought my kitten resembled toast when I got her, but somehow, she’s grown into the name. “Burnt Toast,” I say.
Lou giggles.
“I call her Bee Toes, mostly.”
“Ah,” Lou laughs, nodding.
I push back my chair and stand up. As reluctant as I am to move, I do have to leave. Waking up to the reassurance that we’re all okay has settled a little bit of my unease in leaving the others. “I should go.”
Lou jumps up, too. “Wait!” She runs out of the room and down the hall.
She returns a few moments later with a stack of small, square boxes. Each is tied with a different colour ribbon. She sets them on the table and hands the top one to me, rocking back and forth on her feet, giddy, and motions for me to open it.
“It’s for you,” she exclaims when I don’t move fast enough. I remember that, for the rest of the world, it’s Christmas morning. Well, day. The morning ship has sailed.
It doesn’t feel like it. It hasn’t felt like the holiday season all week, and the winter has just felt cold and dark and imposing.
I untie the bow on top of the box and let the ribbon fall to the table. When I lift up the lid, I find a thick, braided black leather bracelet on a bed of tissue paper inside. The bracelet has a few beads in black metal and silver, and I take it out of the box to investigate further.
“I didn’t know what to get for you guys, and then I found someone that does leatherwork and engraving and stuff, and I thought they were neat,” Lou explains as I look at the bracelet in my hand. As excited as she was to give me the gift, now she sounds nervous. There's a narrow metal plate between geometric grey and silver beads threaded onto the leather cording. This one is also black, and lays flat where it’s strung onto the bracelet. My name is engraved on it in a delicate, looping script.
“Do you like it?”
I realize I haven’t expressed anything either way. I do like it, but I also feel guiltily empty-handed now.
I mirror her grin and nod as I tighten the leather straps around my wrist with my teeth. “You didn’t have to get-”
“Psh,” she interrupts. “I wanted to.” She gestures at the rest of the matching boxes on the table. There are three more. “I got us each one so we can match.”
“Friendship bracelets?” I ask.
Her nerves that I don't like the gift fall away, and she beams wider. “Exactly, but classy.” I watch as she opens another of the boxes – which she wrapped up for herself – and takes out a similar bracelet to mine. It’s black too, but with one of the leather cords in pink instead. The simple bead charms on hers are the same shape as mine but in silver and pink, and the engraved plate is silver. Her first name, Darylyn, is inscribed in the same font as mine, instead of Lou. I point it out.
“I couldn’t decide, at first,” she says. “I’ll always go by Lou. But Darylyn is growing on me. It’s my name, and in a way, I think it suits me. It’s unique. Plus, it looks prettier engraved in fancy letters than ‘Lou’ did.” She laughs, shrugging off the topic as no big deal. I can tell it was important to her. She had nothing but distaste for her first name when I met her. Claiming it as her own, even if she still chooses not to use it, seems like a symbol of a greater sense of self-acceptance she’s been working toward. She seems leagues more confident now than she did two months ago.
When I finally head toward the door to leave, she follows me to see me out.
She peeks out the window while I tie my shoes and grabs a set of keys from a hook on the wall. “You’re blocked in,” she explains. “I’ll move my dad’s car so you can get out.”
I pointedly glance down at her bare legs between her fleecy shorts and the running shoes she pulls on. “You’re in shorts,” I protest.
She pushes at my shoulder. “I’ll be quick.”
I concede, with no other option than to let her come outside in the snow if I want to go home. I start my car as she runs carefully on her toes past me to her dad’s, avoiding the ice and deep snow.
The car blocking me into the driveway rumbles to life just a few seconds before Lou backs it carefully out onto the road. I follow suit, and we switch places. Once she has parked her dad’s car back in the driveway, I remain idling at the side of the road, watching to make sure she gets back inside without slipping on ice.
The bruise on her thigh looks so much worse in the daylight, and I wince in sympathy as she pads up the front steps. Even from this far away and with flurries, I can see how angry it’s gotten.
I remind myself to breathe. I have to recite a script and tell myself that it was an accident. I didn’t cause Lou to slip and fall. She’s okay.
Only when she waves goodbye and shuts the front door behind her do I drive away.
Bradley is quiet. All the shops in town are closed, and the schools are empty. I don’t pass any other cars driving on the street. It’s nice, even if it feels wrong. The sense of peace and the big red and green ribbons tied in bows to all the lampposts are an odd juxtaposition to the panic and fear leftover in my veins from last night and the sense of impending doom that I can’t shake.
I’m afraid to make the turn onto my street when I come to it. Just last night, Hallam’s truck was parked there, like a predator waiting in the trees for the night to fall so it can hunt down its prey.
I let out a breath of relief when I turn the corner and find the street empty. There are no vehicles parked on the side of the road or around the cul-de-sac. Only one or two cars are parked in each house’s driveway. None of them are Hallam’s truck.
I pull my car into the driveway in front of the house. Emma is standing on the porch when I pull the key out of the ignition, clearly annoyed. She rants at me as soon as I open the car door.
“Mom and Dad made me wait all day for you!” she yells. “They said I can’t open any presents until we’re all here because we can’t do it without you. Do you know what time it is?”
When I get to the steps, she takes my hand and drags me through the front door and into the living room. Mom and Dustin are cuddled up together on the couch, amused by Emma’s impatience as she drags me to sit down on the floor. The tree, still lit and with unopened presents underneath, feels surreal.
“Can I at least change first?” I ask Emma. I’ve been wearing the same clothes since yesterday morning. She turns to me with her eyes full of rage at the suggestion. She’s been shaking, about to burst, since she met me outside.
“No,” she growls, looking to Dustin for backup.
Before he and Mom can tell her to let me get cleaned up, I give in, so Emma doesn’t explode from having to wait even longer. “Never mind,” I tell her, and she settles just a little.
Despite it being so late in the day, and although I thought yesterday that Cal or I or both of us would disappear again, it feels almost normal. Hallam is gone, at least for now. He didn’t find us last night, and hopefully, nearly being caught scared him off again.
I can hope, against all odds, that we’ll be able to go the rest of the year without him catching up to us. I don’t know if he’ll let us out of his grasp a third time.
Chapter Thirteen
I
Stephen
Asa is nowhere to be found.
My parents asked me to convince him to at least make an appearance for the holiday, even if there was no other family involved but us and them. He disappeared in the middle of the night. Of course, he isn’t answering my calls, but he doesn’t reply to any text messages either.
I remind myself that he couldn’t care less about any festivities, but my patience for his utter disregard for my parents after they agreed to take care of him so he could stay is running low. I don’t blame him for not caring about the time of year, but my parents made one request to see us both this morning, and I have no idea where he is.
I give up on waiting for Asa, and I round the house to the front door to join my parents for breakfast. I smell bacon when I let myself in, and I find Mom and Dad sitting together at the kitchen table in matching pyjamas and with matching snowman mugs in front of them.
Mom greets me with a hug and then looks around behind me.
“He’s not here,” I tell her.
She steps back, clearly disappointed. Despite everything Asa does to send the clear message that he can’t be bothered to interact with anyone, Mom just wants to get to know him.
She doesn’t let her disappointment take over for long before it shifts into concern. “Is he alright?”
I should tell her that he bailed. I should tell her exactly how little he cares that my parents were kind enough to let him live here, in my apartment with me. I should tell her that Asa hasn’t spoken in ages just because he doesn’t want to, and he doesn’t care that I asked just once that he be here today, and he does whatever he wants when he wants to with no regard for anyone else.
I don’t tell her any of those things. “He was out late last night. He’s dead to the world.”
Mom breaks into a smile and laughs. “Oh, well then. Let him sleep. Will you both come over later?” she asks as she directs me further into the kitchen to eat.
I sigh, then force a smile. “Yeah,” I chuckle. “If Asa ever wakes up, I’ll drag him over here.”
It’s not going to happen. I can keep pretending like I’ll try, but I can’t convince myself that Asa will.
It’s afternoon when Asa finally shows up. I recognize Amala’s car pull into the driveway and leave again. When I hear the back door to my apartment open rather than my parents’, I leave Mom and Dad in the living room and go in search of Asa.
He’s in the bedroom, changing into clean clothes from the duffel bag he keeps under the bed. I’ve told him to put his things in the closet, but he refuses to unpack his bag and make himself at home.
He keeps his back turned to me, and I watch the pale white spots of burn scars scattered down his spine and across his shoulders contort as he pulls his shirt on over his head. He tosses a glance at me over his shoulder.
