Innocently Evil (A Kitty Bloom Novel) (23 page)

I smiled half-heartedly at him, feeling a little silly and mad at myself for both letting the situation escalate so
far and for stopping right in the middle of things. Either way, both halves of me were proud of Max for taking the situation so well and so calmly. It was a side of him that only one side of me thought existed and that both sides of me were happy to discover was real.

I wrapped my arms around him and pulled him into a hug, resting my head against the top of his chest. Max
didn’t fight my embrace, but held me tightly and placed his head lightly on the top of mine. I found it odd, with my ear pressed firmly against his body, that the absence of a heartbeat should actually help to calm me. For some reason, the silence inside him comforted me and did little more than intrigue me into wondering whether he might be feeling exactly what a quickened heartbeat might betray.

After a while, we both pulled back from each other and I smiled contentedly up at him. A moment of happy silence passed between us and then I began wondering, once again, why and how he’d come to my rescue earlier.
A few haunting suspicions began to circle in my mind and my expression turned serious. I bit my bottom lip, fighting with myself, angry that I would suspect him of foul play and annoyed that I was going to ruin the moment. I gathered my courage and decided that I had to know the truth, a vague answer like the one he’d given before, wasn’t enough to sate my suspicions.

“Max,” I said, looking up into his dark amber eyes.

His face had turned anxious as though he sensed the coming question. He forced a closed mouth smile at me and waited for me to continue.

“Why did you really
come here tonight,” I asked, quietly.

Max’s smile wilted
slightly and his hands slipped from where they had been resting on the outside of my thighs down to the tops of my knees. “I came to see you,” he said, his eyes still staring deep into mine.

Although
it was a decent answer, it still didn’t properly explain why he’d come. I frowned, once again angry at myself for wanting to know more. Why I couldn’t just let it go and be happy with the moment as it was, I didn’t know.

“I gathered t
hat,” I said with a small smile. “But, why did you come to see me?”

Max’s smile dropped and his hands left my knees as he took a step back. His eyes left mine and he stared off into the darkness beyond the closed window on our right.
“It doesn’t matter now,” he sighed, sounding frustrated.

I pushed myself off the basin’s tiled edge and took a step towards him. I reached out for his hand, but as my fingertips touched his, he jolted his hand away.

“Stop,” he said, anger filling his voice as his bright amber eyes returned to mine. He glared at me, trying hard to hide the honest pain spreading in his eyes. “Why do you think I came here, Kitty,” he said aggressively, “because chances are, you’re right.”

He took a step towards me and I retreated back a step.
“You know who I really am and I’ve no doubt you can guess at my intentions so why Kitty, why do you think I was here tonight just in time to save you?”

I wanted to be mad at him. His hostility
made me want to be so, but as I looked up into the sadness and loneliness in his eyes, I just couldn’t be. “I don’t know,” I said, firmly and calmly. “Tell me.”

Max shook his head in frustration and stepped away from me towards the window. His body hunched slightly and went tense as though he was preparing himself for something. Then he straightened and turned to face me. He took a powerful step towards me and grabbed my
bare upper arm tightly. “Come with me,” he said, furiously, “and I’ll show you.”

He dragged me towards the bathroom door
and over to the crumpled body in the hallway. It had now returned back to its human form; fur and claws no longer covering its body. Max let go of my arm and crouched to the floor, then grabbed the dead human’s shoulder and pulled the body back until I could see its face.

I gasped, completely unable to stop myself and I moved away from the body and Max.
“It’s the werewolf from this morning,” I said, shocked. “The boy that Sam shot. But how—? Why is he here? Why did he come into the city?”

I looked at Max
, unsure if he had any answers, but sure that he knew more than he was letting on.

Max let go of the body and stood up to face me.
“They found him this morning,” he said matter-of-factly. “My father’s dogs always patrol the perimeter outside the city walls during the day. They heard a gunshot and found this animal lying on the ground with a bloodied hole healing in his side. When they brought him to my father, he decided that there was a better use for him than caging him and making him one of his own, so he gave him to me.”

I shook my head lightly from side to side as I tried to make sense of what Max was telling me. But, I just couldn’t seem to take my eyes off the poor, naked teenager lying in a broke
n ball on the floor. Slick, sharp edges of bone protruded horrifyingly out of his gaping wounds, while dark crimson blood congealed tightly around them on his light, tanned skin. His dark auburn hair hung limply from his scalp and I noticed for the first time the cause of death. Besides having his throat torn out and hanging in a messy, fleshy clump from the side of his neck, it was clear to see that Max had broken his spine. A glittering rod of blood spattered bone jutted awkwardly out from the cavernous hole in his neck and pointed angrily into the skin of his chest.

A hot
, wet tear slid down my face as I looked from the body to Max in disgust. Rage shot adrenalin into my blood and my throat threatened to close at the thought that this young boy’s death might have somehow been my fault. A part of me had been piecing together the truth of tonight’s events ever since Max came to my rescue and although I had tried hard to ignore her, I now knew her intuition was right.

I fought back my burning, guilty tears as I focused my attention on Max and tried hard not to let my body shake in shock as I glared at him.
“What do you mean your father gave him to you,” I said, my voice violently deep, but steady.

Max stared at me and for an instant I could have sworn I saw
the agony of guilt and regret cloud his vision, but it was gone before I could be sure. His posture changed again and he was back to his arrogant and egotistical self. He tilted his head to the side at me as he clasped his hands together in front of him, looking as though he was trying to feign pity. A hateful smile curled his lips up and he forced a laugh in my direction.

“He was supposed to be a means
to an end,” he said, pompously dissatisfied. Max unclasped his hands and raised them up, imitating scales. “The life of one helpless puppy,” he said, lifting up his left hand. He grinned at me, clearly pleased with himself as he dropped his left hand and raised his right. “For the trust of one powerful Kitten.”

My bottom lip quivered as I fought back more tears and tried hard to ignore the stiffening
pain clamping down hard around my heart and suffocating me. It was not as if I had not seen a betrayal coming or that I’d totally and utterly trusted Max. He was right after all, I did know him and to some extent, a part of me I knew that he’d come to my rescue just to gain more of my trust. But I had not immediately suspected, nor had any part of me wanted to assume, that the innocent werewolf had been an integral part of his plans.

Another burning
tear slipped down my face and all I wanted to do was scream. I forced my lips tight together, trying hard not to let my bottom lip or jaw tremble in front of him. I stared daggers into Max’s dark amber eyes and I clenched my hands into fists. “Get out,” I said slowly, through firmly clenched teeth.

Max’s smile dropped for a second and that painful face returned. His eyes seemed to plead forgiveness and then suddenly
, they hardened and became icy cold. A smirk returned across his lips and he took a cocky step towards me. “Oh, Kitty,” he purred at me. “Don’t be like that. You don’t really want me to go now, do you?”

I
clenched my fists tighter, tensing my whole body, as I tried to fight back my fury and I curled my top lip up at him in a snarl of disgust. “Get out,” I screamed at him, as all the pain and anger inside me radiated from my voice.

Max looked at me, his face returning to an almost more empathetic, although serious expression. He took a step back from me and bowed his head slightly.
“As you wish,” he said quietly. His body shimmered and then he was gone.

I glared into the empty space that remained behind and lost the will to
keep fighting back my emotions. I sobbed out loud, a heart-tearing and pitiful sound as warm tears flooded my cheeks. Slumping to the ground, I hit the floor hard and then pulled my legs up tight into my chest. Hugging my knees and with my head resting on top of them, I felt my body rock softly back and forwards as my chest shook with each painful sob.

The night was silent once more and only my cries pierced the cool, empty air around me.
While the broken and breathless corpse in the corner watched me carefully from frozen dead eyes and listened quietly through deaf ears to my whimpers, waiting patiently for me to calm.

Seventeen:
Giving Up is Only the Beginning

When there were no more salty tears to shed and my body was finally dehydrated and numb enough for me to move without crying, I decided to get up. I stood slowly, steadying myself on shaky legs and I stumbled forward a couple of steps until I started to get the hang of it. I stepped towards the crumpled corpse in the corner and then thought better of it. Instead, I walked towards the bathroom and once I was inside, I shut and locked the door. Turning, I relaxed my body against the hard, wooden door, completely exhausted after everything, and then I tried to find the strength of mind to focus clearly on one thing at a time.

What I really needed now, I decided
, was not to smell like Sam or Max or werewolf blood. I desperately wanted and needed a shower and that’s all I had to worry about for the next few minutes. Pushing myself off the stable security of the bathroom door, I took a few wobbly steps towards the basin, careful to avoid Max’s shirt and my singlet still piled together on the floor. Then, I looked in the mirror. My face and body were drained of color and my wide, sapphire and emerald eyes looked dark and damaged. There was dirt and a few drops of werewolf blood on my white sports bra and my burgundy black hair had all but fallen out of its ponytail.

Ignoring the disturbing state
of my appearance, I turned around, ripped out my hair tie, then undid my bra and slipped it off. I kicked my blood-spattered sneakers off my feet, pulled down my shorts and knickers and stepped out of them into the bathtub. Crimson droplets of blood had dried on the sides and the floor of the bath and I tried my best to avoid standing on them. I pulled the shower curtain closed behind me and then reached over and turned on the hot and cold taps one at a time. I adjusted the heat and then closed my eyes, leaning into the soothing warm water.

With a soapy blue sponge
, I scrubbed my body hard, trying to rid myself of all the adventures of the day and I let my mind fall silent as I did so. I needed to wash every painful minute from my skin, every caress from Sam, every touch from Max and every spot of blood from the poor, innocent werewolf boy who had died because of me. Once my body was red and raw, I stopped scrubbing and glanced down. Rose collared water churned around the floor of the bath, catching the drier blotches of crimson blood on the outer edges and creating darker swirls as it dragged them down towards the plughole.

A nauseous feeling came over me and I had to shut my eyes.
But even in the dark sanctuary of my mind, the dead werewolf boy’s body haunted me. I saw his violent injuries in 3D and Technicolor and a wave of self-hatred and misplaced anger caused a suffocating sob to escape my lips. Almost as soon as I’d let it slip, I recovered, then shook my head and let out a deep sigh. I had to pull myself together. I had to get through this. ‘We,’ my other half agreed, ‘had to get through this.’

S
ubconsciously, I poured some shampoo into my palm and then lathered up my skull until I could feel the bubbles popping around my fingers. The self-massage seemed to calm me slightly and I felt my stomach start to settle and the tension in my neck begin to loosen. Turning my body to face the shower curtain, I lent my head back into the flow of warm water and used my fingers to wash the shampoo bubbles from my hair.

Finally, I opened my eyes and
tried hard to keep my mind blank as I reached for the conditioner. The soft, sweet-smelling lotion seemed to surprise my senses and I hadn’t realized until that moment how much the bathroom smelt like blood. It was a relief to smell something else, something normal. I took a deep breath and sighed, beginning to feel more relaxed and revived. I let my head fall back into the shower of water that was plummeting down onto the small of my back and I washed my hair free of conditioner. Eventually, satisfied with my cleanliness and feeling a little stronger, I turned off the water and pushed back the curtain to grab a towel.