Silver (12 page)

I grinned. “I know.”

We finished cleaning up the table in amiable
silence. A tremendous sense of relief washed over me at the thought
that at least Mom would be somewhere safe if Mason tried
anything.

‘
Let him,’ I muttered under
my breath. Mom glanced at me and I threw her another
grin.

“
Be right back,” Mom
yelled.

I heard the front door shut and ran down the
stairs. We needed to take off for the airport in about five
minutes. I yanked open the front door. “Where are you going?”
She stopped halfway across our lawn. “Just asking the neighbors to
keep an eye on you, that’s all.”

“
Wait, Mom!” I protested.
She paused, but I couldn’t come up with a way to tell her that I
didn’t want the Hunters next door to know that her werewolf son
would be all alone for the next week or so. I shrugged,
exasperated. “Never mind.”

She shook her head and continued to the
neighbor’s front door. I hurried back to our porch out of sight and
listened. A woman, definitely not Nikki, answered the door.

“
Hi,” my mom said in her
charming way that warmed everyone’s hearts. “We just moved in next
door and I haven’t had the chance to introduce myself
yet.”

“
Oh, yes. I’ve been meaning
to bring you a welcome basket; I’m just not that great a cook. I
didn’t want you to up and move out again,” Nikki’s mom replied with
a self-deprecating laugh. My blood thickened at the sound of her
voice. I waited for her to say something Hunterish. Realizing how
stupid that was, I sighed and leaned against our door.

“
Well, I’m Vicki Carso and
it’s a pleasure to meet you,” Mom said kindly.

“
Meg Valen, the pleasure is
mine. I’m glad that you took the initiative and came over!” Nikki’s
mom sounded friendly, but I knew it was just a ruse.

“
Why, thank you,” Mom
replied. Silence fell for a second and she stumbled over her words.
“I, uh, oh, I almost forgot why I came over!” She and Mrs. Valen
laughed like longtime friends. “I’m leaving on a trip and my son,
Jaze, will be alone. I was just hoping you could help keep an eye
on things.”

“
Oh, most definitely. Nikki
mentioned that a nice boy lived next door.” I snorted a quiet
laugh. “Is everything alright? I mean, is it a family
emergency?”
“My brother-in-law is sick, so I’m going to help my sister with her
kids. It’s not really an emergency, it’s just-“

“
She needs you there,” Mrs.
Valen concluded.

“
Exactly,” Mom agreed. She
sighed. “I just hate to leave Jaze and I worry so much, but he’s
behind already what with the move and everything.”

“
Don’t worry about a thing.
We’ll take good care of him,” Mrs. Valen replied in a sweet voice.
I bared my teeth.

“
Thank you so much,” Mom
said. “I really, really appreciate it. And I hope we can get to
know each other better when I get back.”

“
Me, too,” Nikki’s mother
said with what I assume she thought was sincerity. “I’m glad you
moved next door. We’ll have to get together!”

Mom bade her goodbye and came back across
the lawn. I shook my head when she came into view and held the door
open for her. “There,” she said with a smug smile. “I survived our
first meeting with the neighbor. What did you think they’d do, bite
me?”
They would do much more than that if they knew our secret, but I
let it go. “You’re right, Mom. I don’t know why I worry so much.
Just careful, I guess.”

The laugh lines around her eyes deepened and
she pulled me close in a hug. “You have too much to worry about for
someone your age. Stop trying to protect me and start living your
life.”

“
Yes, Mom,” I
mumbled.

She laughed and mussed my hair.

I dropped Mom off at the airport the next
evening and had to fight back the feeling that it could be the last
time I would see her if things went wrong. She hesitated and paced
by the car, stalling. “I don’t know,” she protested. “I shouldn’t
be leaving you.”

I smiled reassuringly. “Go, Mom. Aunt Sam
will be devastated if you don’t arrive on that plane.”

We both knew it was true and she gave me one
last hug. “Take care of yourself.” She said it as a command. “I
love you.”

“
I love you, too,” I told
her. I gave her an extra long hug, which seemed to surprise her
because her arms tightened around me and she sighed.

“
We’re going to be okay,”
she said quietly.

“
Yes, we are,” I agreed; I
hoped with all my heart that it was true.

She took a deep breath and stepped away,
luggage in one hand and her ticket in the other. She gave one last
longing look toward the car.

“
Go, Mom,” I said with a
laugh.

She shook her head, smiled, and walked
through the sliding doors. I watched after her for a moment, then
got in our beat up car and headed home.

The lights were dark when I pulled up to our
tiny house. I went straight to the backyard. I punched the bag and
smiled grimly at the familiar bite of cloth on my ungloved
knuckles. The moon’s rays drifted conspicuously through the trees
as if to remind me that tomorrow I would have to submit to its
will. I punched two quick low jabs followed by an uppercut, then
stepped back and kicked it high. The bag rattled on its chain.

“
Have some pent up
frustration?” a voice asked from the next yard.

I turned, dismayed I had let my guard down
enough to not even check if anyone was around. If it had been a
werewolf or a Hunter, I could be dead. I stepped closer to the
fence. “Just feeling a little antsy, that’s all.”

“
Something a good game of
hockey could fix?” Nikki asked.

Her skates hit together with an inviting
clack, but I shook my head. “I’m not really feeling it
tonight.”

Nikki stepped on the board across the bottom
of the fence and levered herself up so that she could look into our
yard. She smiled when she saw me, though it was too dark for her to
make out my features. “What’s wrong, Jaze? You’re never down.”

I smiled bitterly at that. “As far as you
know.”

She paused for a moment, then levered
herself to the top board of the fence. I hurried over and helped
her down on my side. She studied me for a moment, her hands on her
hips. “You seem different.”

“
Oh, really,” I replied,
wondering why I couldn’t shake the harshness of my tone. “And you
know me so well?”
She pursed her lips in a small smile as though she was trying not
to laugh. “I think I do, tough boy. And I think you need to
talk.”

I shook my head. “I’m not the talking
type.”
She grabbed my hand and led me to our back porch. “Well, I am, so
you’re gonna have to loosen up sometime.”

She sat on the cement step and pulled me
down beside her. We sat in silence and the city sounds surrounded
us. Cars honked and a siren sounded in the distance. Crickets and
cicadas each fought to sing louder than the other. A slight breeze
moved the leaves above us and tickled through the grass. Far away,
a lone wolf howled at the night. I felt the call of the change, the
call that would be impossible to ignore tomorrow. My muscles
tightened.

Nikki was still holding my arm and glanced
at me. “What is it?”

I shook my head. “Nothing.” I stood up,
making her let go. “I’m sorry, Nikki. I’m not very good company
tonight.”

She rose with me and tipped her head toward
the back door. “I understand if you don’t want to talk, but being
the good friend that I am, I can’t let you wallow away with your
frustrations all alone. Let’s watch a movie or something.”

My heart stuttered and I glanced at her
house. “Your parents won’t care?”

She shrugged and a hurt expression swept
across her eyes. “They won’t notice I’m gone.” Then she smiled past
it. “And anyways, I’ve never seen inside your house.”

I laughed despite my foul mood. “It’s the
same as yours. The real estate agent said all the houses on the
block were made with the same floor plan.”

She shook her head teasingly. “I’ll bet you
don’t have the same color scheme.” She slid the door open and
stepped inside, leaving me standing on my own stoop.

I stared after her for a moment, then shook
my head and followed her in.

“
So this is what the house
of the impenetrable Jaze Carso looks like, huh?” she asked when I
found her sorting through movies in the living room.

I watched her in silence, unsure what to
say.

She ran her fingers down the stack I had
left by the television since I hadn’t unpacked the stand yet. “Hmm,
pretty good taste here. You cover most topics, though a bit slim on
the chick flicks.” Her finger stopped and she threw me a look. “Bed
of Roses?”

“
That’s my mom’s,” I
protested. A faint blush touched my cheeks at her
scrutiny.

“
Okay, I’ll give you that
one.” She got to the bottom of the stack. “You have all the
Rambos?”

I grinned. “Only the best movies for my
lady.”

She laughed and pulled out the set. “Well,
then we’re in for a movie marathon night. You up for it?”

“
You want to watch Rambo?”
I asked skeptically.

“’
You are not expendable’,”
she quoted with the beautiful smile that showed her perfect teeth.
“How romantic is that?”

I laughed. “Okay, okay. But I’ve never known
a girl who thinks Rambo is romantic.”

She nodded as if satisfied and threw herself
on the couch. “Well, then you’ve never met a girl like me.”

“
You got that right,” I
agreed wholeheartedly.

She slapped my arm and I took the movie from
her and put it in the player. When I sat down, she kicked off her
shoes, curled her legs up underneath her, and lifted my arm around
her shoulders so that she cuddled against my chest.

My heart pounded at her proximity and I
wondered if she could hear it.

When the concluding credits rolled past, I
realized I had missed the entire movie by watching her instead.
Nikki jumped up and grabbed the case. “Next one?”

I shrugged and fought back a smile. “Why
not?”

As she put in the next movie, I wondered how
on earth I had gotten so lucky. She curled back under my arm and
leaned against my side. “Jaze?”
“Yeah?” I asked.

“
Thanks for moving next
door.”

I smiled. “No problem.”

She rested her head against my chest and
turned to watch Rambo’s next conquest.

Chapter 12

“
When you say movie
marathon, you mean it,” I said into Nikki’s hair.

She laughed sleepily and pushed herself up.
She had fallen asleep on the couch, her head on my shoulder and me
against the corner where one of Mom’s books stuck painfully into my
back, but I couldn’t bear to wake her so had ignored it.

I sat up and gave her a teasing smile.
“Rambo didn’t hold your attention?”

“
After the three-hundredth
kill I sort of dozed off,” she admitted with a smile.

“
That’s okay, me too,” I
lied. I couldn’t fall asleep, not with her so close, trusting me
with everything even though I didn’t feel worthy of that
trust.

She stood up and brushed her hair back from
her face. It stood up in places from sleeping, but I didn’t tell
her. It made her all the more adorable and I imagined this is what
it would be like waking up with her every morning.

I shook my head to clear it of such
impossible thoughts. I would never get married. Dad’s death had
devastated Mom to the point that she was no longer the same person
she had been before. She walked the house like a shadow, as if she
saw our old place and then wondered why we were here instead. When
she thought I wasn't looking, she stared at the picture of Dad in
the hallway, the one where he stood next to a smoking barbecue
grill, a lighter in one hand and a bottle of lighter fluid in the
other. The smoke billowed so heavily you could barely see him, but
the grin on his face was the one I remembered, the one that showed
in my mind when I thought of him.

I shied away from wondering who I had become
since he was killed. I knew I wasn’t the same, and would never be
again. Being a werewolf was not glamorous or beautiful. It was a
life of danger and death and I would never bring a family into
it.

“
What are you thinking
about?” Nikki asked quietly, studying my face. “You look so
sad.”

I rubbed a hand over my eyes to clear away
the dark thoughts. “Unhappy things,” I replied.

When she saw I wasn’t going to expound, she
gave me a sweet look that made my heart stutter. “You can let me
in, Jaze. It helps, trust me.”

I shook my head, my walls grudgingly rising
back up. “Not with this.”

She smiled in understanding. “Okay then,
whenever you’re ready.”

“
Thanks,” I said, though I
knew that I would never be.

“
I guess that’s my cue to
go.” She went to the door and I regretted my standoffish
mood.

“
Nikki, I’m
sorry.”

She turned, her hand on the doorknob. “It’s
okay. I know how it is to hold things inside. Sometimes you feel
like you can’t talk to anyone, like the whole world is against
you.” My heart rang true with her words. She smiled sadly. “But you
have to trust someone, Jaze. You can’t carry the weight of the
world by yourself. You helped me, and I’ll be there to help you if
you’re ever at that jumping off point.” She opened the front door,
threw me one last smile, then closed it behind her.