Red Moon Rising (14 page)

After a while she says, “I know this wasn't exactly your choice, but maybe it's better for you to be with your dad for a while.”

“Why do you say that?”

“No offense, but your mom isn't exactly what I'd call easygoing, and your dad must understand what you're going through.”

“Maybe,” I say, probably not sounding too convinced.

“I mean, there are worse things that could happen than having to live with your dad, right?”

“You mean like going through the Change and having to be locked up every month for the rest of my life?”

“Right. See, if that were…oh, wait. I forgot. That
is
going to happen.” She snaps her fingers and shakes her head. “Oh, well. Too bad for you.”

Only Claire could say a thing like that at a time like this and get me to laugh.

We watch TV with the sound turned down low so we don't wake Dad.

Keeping my eyes on the TV, I say, “Anything new with Virginia?”

“It's
Victoria
. And you know that's her name.”

“Close enough,” I say, trying to keep the smile off my face. This is one area where I definitely have the advantage over Claire. Mention Victoria, and she goes all soft. “So, anything up with her?”

“She's awesome,” Claire says. “I miss her so much when we're not together. Let's see. Right now, she's sleeping. She'll get up in a few hours.”

I don't look at her while she goes on about the awesome things Victoria will do when she gets up—things like brushing her teeth and trying to decide what she's going to wear—because I still find it disturbing to see Claire in love, or whatever it is.

“Anyway,” she says, leaning her head back against the couch pillow, “I'm sure you know what I'm talking about. You think about Juliet all the time?”

“A lot, yeah.”

She laughs. “Who would've thought we'd both get girlfriends at the same time?”

“Not me. I wasn't even sure if
one
of us would ever manage it.”

“It's pretty great, isn't?”

“Couldn't be better,” I say. We watch TV for a few minutes without talking. I'm thinking about it, and if I can talk to anyone, it's Claire. “Actually, it
could
be better.”

She turns and glares at me. “If you say there's something wrong with her, I'm going to hit you so hard in the—”

“Take it easy. There's nothing wrong with her; she's great. The problem is with me: this whole Changing into a werewulf is going to be a real issue.”

“And you can't tell her.”

“I want to, but I can't. And I'm lying to her by not telling the truth.”

“So what are you going to do?”

I lean forward and rub my eyes. “I don't know, Claire. We don't even have a plan for my Change.”

Claire sighs. “If I had a solution, I'd tell you.”

I nod. We just watch TV for about an hour. Dad gets up around five thirty so he can get to the lumberyard when they open, pick up some materials, then get to a work site. We hear him getting dressed and going into the kitchen. The crawl on the bottom of the TV screen turns red and flashes the words
Sunrise in 29:55
, the seconds counting down with each flash.

“I'd better get going,” Claire says.

“I'll give you a ride home, Claire,” Dad says, coming into the living room.

“Oh, thanks. I can take the bus, though.”

He holds a doughnut in his mouth while he puts on his jacket. Powdered sugar snows onto his shirt. I point to it and he brushes it off, onto the floor. “It's no problem. Get your stuff.”

Claire gets her backpack and they leave.

After doing my homework I get bored and start wandering around the apartment. Since it looked like I was going to be staying for a while, Dad put Sol-Blok shields over the windows that he hadn't already bricked over.

In Dad's room there are a couple of paperback mysteries on the table next to his bed. A metal urn sits on top of his dresser. It used to hold the ashes of his father, but he spread them in the woods years ago. Now the urn is filled with spare change.

There's something I want to look at. I open the top drawer, and there it is.

The collar is made of Fibrex that can stretch to triple its size and still return to its original shape without losing elasticity. Almost indestructible, it's tear-proof, with titanium clasps. It's a faded light green, like all of the collars in this region, with faint rust-colored stains that didn't wash out, clearly old blood. “Gray, Edward” and his Lycanthrope ID number are printed on it. It smells like sweat and animal musk.

I put the collar on. It's loose, though my neck will probably thicken a lot when I go through the Change. Feeling with my fingers, I find the embedded plastic square with the computer chip inside. My dad's entire medical history, blood type, ID info, next of kin—his whole life is encoded in there. It also holds the tracker.

“They keep track of where each werewulf is all the time?” I asked him a while back.

“Not every minute. It's more for making sure that nobody stays out on the compound grounds after their Change. And for recovery.”

In other words, if someone gets hurt or killed in the woods or a cave, the tracker in the collar is used to find the body.

I take the collar off and put it back in his drawer.

After a shower I walk around the apartment in my boxers and T-shirt. I sure couldn't do this at home. Mom would have a fit. I feel like a bachelor or something.

The refrigerator doesn't have a whole lot to offer, so I heat up some leftovers and take the plate into the living room. Eating in front of the TV.

I can watch whatever I want, walk around in my underwear, eat when I feel like it, and nobody's going to tell me what to do.

This isn't bad at all.

Maybe if I keep telling myself that, I'll start to believe it.

T
he loud buzz of the doorbell wakes me up. The clock says 7:43 p.m., which means I'm going to be late for school. It takes a second for me to remember that it's Saturday. There's another buzz. Who's here at this time of night? And where's Dad? Then I hear the sound of the shower.

One more buzz and I'm out of bed. I pull on a sweatshirt and go to the front door.

“Who is it?”

“It's your mother.”

What? This is impossible. She has never, ever come to Dad's place.

“Really?” I call through the door.

“Yes, really. Could you please let me in? I'd rather not stand here and talk to you through a door.”

Dad is standing in the living room, his hair wet. He has jeans on and is putting on a long-sleeved Henley shirt, which has wet marks on the shoulders. “Who's that?” he asks.

“Um, it's my mom,” I say, still not able to believe it myself.

He raises his eyebrows and comes to the door. “Kat?”

“Would one of you
please
open this door? I'm standing in a disgusting hallway.”

We look at each other for a second. “Fine. Let her in.” Dad has what I guess is called a “wry” smile on his face.

She looks like she's been holding her breath in the hallway. She hurries in, then exhales loudly. “Thank you.”

I lock up behind her.

“To what do we owe the honor of your presence in our humble home?” Dad asks.

She takes a look around. “Humble. I suppose that's one word for it.”

Dad sits on the couch. “Have a seat, Kat. Unless you're afraid the furniture will soil your outfit.”

“You know, you aren't making this easy.”

“Making
what
easy? Why are you here? Want to tell us more about how ashamed we make you feel?” Dad asks, not exactly shouting, but not in a regular speaking voice, either.

She sighs. “I've been thinking. Thinking quite a bit,” she says. She takes a few deep breaths. I'm not sure, but it looks like her lower lip is quivering.

Good. Go ahead and cry. You should.

She turns and walks to the window, facing away from us. The light from the streetlamp makes her blond hair glow like a halo. “One thing we always agreed on, Ted, was that we both wanted what's best for the children.”

“That's true,” Dad says.

“We may not have always agreed on
what
was best, but we did always want them to be all right.”

“What's your point, Kat?”

“Well, argue all you want, but we both agreed for many reasons that we didn't want them to Change. We gave them the treatments to spare them pain. So forgive me for being just a little bit upset that it didn't work.”

He holds his hands up. There isn't much to say. “Katherine?”

Her shoulders are moving in tiny little jerks. She's crying.

He goes to her and touches her back. “Kat.”

I figure she's going to turn and smash him in the mouth with her fist. Instead, she goes into his arms and he holds her as she cries into his chest.

Hell just froze over.

It's too awkward to watch. I go into my room and lie down. What is going on here? Can things get any weirder?

A few minutes later there's a knock on the door. “Come in,” I call.

She comes in and sits on the edge of the bed, while Dad stands in the doorway. She looks at me with red eyes. I don't think I've ever seen her cry.

She takes a breath. “I just wanted to say how deeply, deeply sorry I am about the way I behaved the other day. I want you to know that no matter what, I would never be ashamed of you. I love you.”

We don't get along most of the time, but she's my mom, and I do love her. Oh man, I'm losing it. I've been so up and down over the past few weeks I keep feeling like I'm about to burst into tears or maniacal laughter. This time, it'll be tears. I guess she sees this, because her eyes well up again.

I sit up and we hug.

“Let's all go back to the living room,” Dad says. “Then we can talk.”

“Would you mind if we went back to my house, instead? I'm sure we would be more comfortable there.”

He laughs. “I'm sure
you
would be. But that brings up another problem.”

“What's that?”

“Troy. We can't have people knowing about this,” Dad says.

“Look. He's my husband,” Mom says. “He's in this as much as we are.”

Dad lets out a heavy breath. “You're sure you can trust him?”

Her lips press tight. “I married him. Obviously I have confidence in him.”

“Yeah, well, you married me, too.”

“Good point,” she says, and her mouth loosens in a smile.

“You're right. He's entitled to know. But maybe we should have the first conversation here, so we have a plan. We can eat and talk.”

“Eat? Do you even have anything in your refrigerator?” She raises an eyebrow at him.

“Well, not
much
.”

“Let me guess: half a jar of mustard, ketchup, three hot dogs frozen to the bottom of your freezer. Oh, and milk, with an expiration date from around when Danny was in elementary school.”

“You think you still know me.”

“Am I wrong?”

He shakes his head. “The expiration date on the milk is within this past year. Definitely.”

“All right, then,” she says. “If I recall, I have leftover duck, filet mignon, grilled vegetables—”

“Okay, okay,” he says. “Your place is fine. I'll be ready in five minutes.”

They say food heals all wounds. Okay, they say
time
does that, but I say food does it, too. As soon as we got home, we opened the refrigerator and took out everything that looked good, and as always there was a lot that looked good. We sat at the kitchen table, going at leftover pasta and shrimp and duck as though we hadn't eaten in weeks.

Troy came down and put his hand on my shoulder. “Are you coming back home now?”

“I think so.”

“I'm glad to hear it. It's good to have you back, my brother.”

Dad shook hands with Troy. “You're looking fit, Troy. Hitting the gym, are you?”

“Squash. How are you, Ted?”

“I've been better.”

“What's wrong?”

Mom looked at Dad. He shrugged. “All aboard, I guess,” he said.

She nodded. “Troy, have a seat. We have a lot to tell you.”

And so we told him everything. He listened, he nodded a lot, and he asked a few questions. He called in to work to say he would be late and might have to take the whole night off.

Then it was down to business.

“I'm not sending my son to one of those compounds,” Mom says. “Absolutely not, under no circumstances.”

“No argument from me,” I say.

“Okay, agreed,” Dad says. “So what are we going to do?”

“I think we should find the best doctors and try a rest center,” Mom says.

“Even the best doctors can't always avoid the…problems,” Dad says. “And the other thing is, we can't just
try
it. He has to be registered to get admitted. Once he's registered, then he
has
to go to either a rest center or a compound every month. He's on the radar and there's no way off. Not while he's alive.”

I nod and push my plate away.

Troy leans back in his chair and drums a paradiddle with his fingertips against the tabletop, deep in thought.

Everyone is thinking. The silence is going on too long, and it's getting loud. “Well, then. What do
you
want to do?” Mom asks me.

“Me?”

“You,” she says.

I can't believe it. She's asking my opinion?

“This is your life,” Dad says. “What do you think?”

The truth is, I'm not sure. “Well, the compound seems like the worst choice in every way. And I'm not too excited about the idea of blowing a circuit in my brain, so the rest center doesn't appeal, either. If I become a moonrunner I'll probably get shot to death by the LPCB. The only thing that sounds at all tolerable is finding a place to make a chamber.”

“We'll do it in the basement,” Troy declares without missing a beat. He pushes his chair back about a foot and crosses his right leg over his left. He doesn't look any more concerned than if he had just offered his house to host an anniversary party for friends.

“You mean here?” Dad asks.

“Of course here. Where else?”

Dad and Mom look at each other, then at Troy.

“I think we're all in agreement that we're not going to send him to a compound,” Troy says. “The medical route is obviously too dangerous. The best idea—the
only
idea that's feasible—is completely clear. We'll take care of him at home.”

Again, the three of us are pretty much dumbfounded.

“Harboring a fugitive wulf is a felony,” Dad says. “It's a big deal.”

“This whole situation is a big deal,” Mom says.

“We're going to have to tell the girls,” I say. “Right?”

“I don't see any way around it,” Dad says.

Troy nods. “We'll make sure they understand how serious this is and that they absolutely cannot discuss it with anyone.”

“One other thing,” I say. “What about school? If I'm out during the full moon every month, they have to report it to the LPCB.”

“How many times before they make the report?” Dad asks.

“I don't know the exact policy, but I heard about Millbrook reporting a kid after he was out two full moons in a row. That was the last anyone saw of him. So what are we going to do after two months?”

There's a silence, then Dad says, “We can't worry about that right now. Let's just get through this Change.”

Mom shakes her head. “Why move forward with a plan if we know we'll run into a serious problem in two months?”

“Because we don't have any time to lose,” Dad says. “We've got thirteen days to figure something out. At least he'll be safe, and we buy ourselves another month to think.”

Troy starts nodding to himself. “Okay. I know a fellow. He's the brother of Stanford Chase.” Troy turns to Dad. “A colleague of mine at the firm and a close friend. So Stanford's brother comes to play golf with us a few nights a year. He runs a private school in the city. And I've heard tell from Stanford that his brother has done favors for people—wulves, specifically—for whom he has some kind of affinity. I have a feeling what he was alluding to is that this school has been a haven for some who choose alternatives to registration.”

“You're saying I would go to that school?

“It's a possibility. I'd have to look into it.”

“What kind of school?” Dad asks.

“Top notch. Very wealthy and influential alumni—and consequently, the government doesn't audit their attendance or personnel files.”

A private school? “So wait. I'd have to drop out of Carpathia and go there?”

“I know it's not ideal,” Troy says, clapping me on the shoulder. “I'm hip to that. But it's better than going to a compound, wouldn't you say?”

“That's true,” I agree. This would mean I'd have to leave my friends. Claire. And Juliet. We'd never see each other anymore. Would I have to break up with her?

“Are you still with us, bucko?” Troy asks.

“Huh? Yeah, I am. I was just thinking about how complicated this is going to be. Especially with my friends.”

“Don't worry about it yet,” Dad says. “Maybe down the road we'll think of another way.”

“So what do we do now?” Mom asks.

Dad pushes his chair away from the table and stands up. “Let's take a look downstairs.”