Silver (4 page)

“
Then why the
rumors?”

I shrugged and ran my finger along a small
rip in the yellow flower print tablecloth that still smelled of our
old home. “It’s their attempt to be thought of as human instead of
monsters.”

Brock gave me a strange look and I realized
I had said ‘their’ instead of ‘our’.

I rose from the table and my chair slid back
with a screech. Brock jumped, but his face was carefully
expressionless, his eyes on mine. “You wanna watch a movie?”

I took a deep breath and let it out with an
exasperated huff. “You aren’t afraid of me?”

He shook his head. “Should I be?”

I glanced out the window in search of an
answer. My reflection stared back. I sighed and turned again to
Brock. “No, not of me. But you’re right about Chet’s pack. I
suggest you start carrying some real silver.”

Brock’s eyes widened. “You mean it really
works?”

I gave him a tight-lipped smile. “Unless you
strike a vital organ, silver won’t kill. But we’re allergic to it.
Especially the weaker members of a pack.” At his questioning look,
I explained. “Alphas have black fur, and the rest of the male
werewolves' fur ranges from dark gray to light gray. The lighter it
is, the weaker they are.”

Brock thought it over for a minute, then his
eyes lit with the question I knew was coming. “So you’re. . .
.”

I nodded.

Brock sat back in his chair. “Wow, an Alpha.
No wonder Chet’s gang doesn't like you.”

I shrugged. “Something I’ll have to deal
with on my own.” I changed the subject. “Any suggestions for a
movie?”

A smile spread across Brock’s face. “How
about ‘Teenwolf’?”

“
Very funny.”

Chapter 4

I stifled a smile at the surprised look on
Mom’s face when she found Brock and I hanging out in the
box-cluttered living room, but she recovered quickly and asked if
he would like to join us for dinner.

“
Absolutely. What are we
having?” Brock shot me a questioning look.

I shook my head. No, my mom was definitely
not a werewolf, and he wouldn’t have to worry about rare steaks for
dinner.

The obvious disappointment on Brock’s face
turned into excitement when Mom mentioned she was making chicken
Alfredo manicotti. She met my eyes, a sad smile on her lips. An
answering pang tore through my chest. It was a dish Dad and I
always requested, one of my favorites. Her smiled firmed with a
determination that said she was not going to let everything
pleasant go. I nodded an agreement that I didn’t feel.

Brock didn’t notice our unspoken exchange.
He followed Mom into the kitchen like a starving puppy and asked
how he could help speed things along. I shook off the heavy weight
I felt and tagged behind.

Brock didn’t seem to mind the time it took
to make the food. He helped Mom cut and clean vegetables, grate
cheese, and prepare the filling. I was put to work with a bowl of
cookie batter. My culinary shortcomings had been accepted long ago,
but Mom said I had a special skill in spooning dollops of batter
onto a pan. Demeaning, yes, but I conceded because it was better
than nothing.

I watched Mom and Brock at the bar and tried
not to remember my tall, confident father who should have been
beside her. I looked down at the mixture I stirred and it was hard
not to pretend that he was with us again, telling his jokes and
stories.

Mom laughed and I stood up so fast my chair
fell over with a crash.

“
Jaze, what’s wrong?” she
asked, surprised.

Brock froze with his knife midway through a
head of broccoli. He looked from Mom to me, but I couldn’t meet
their eyes. “I was just telling her about the cow,” he said.

I slammed the bowl down, angry at myself for
letting my emotions get the better of me. But before I could say
anything, a sound cut through the room.

The howl was deep and angry, like a tin roof
torn open during a hurricane. It was a challenge.

The hair rose on the back of my neck. My
lips pulled back in a snarl. I stepped around the table.

“
Jaze, no!” Mom and Brock
said at the same time.

“
He’s out there!” I was
barely aware that I was shouting. I stared past them toward the
front door. “He knows where we live!” My chest heaved and I fought
not to phase.

“
You can’t take them by
yourself,” Brock argued. He grabbed my arm.

I stared at him for a moment without seeing
him. Blood pounded in my ears. I wanted to phase, wanted it more
than anything I could remember. The anger that I had tried to keep
down the last few weeks boiled through me like hot tar. I needed to
rip into something, to tear it apart to match my soul.

The howl sounded again, but it was mixed
with many others, a whole pack of werewolves that circled our front
yard.

“
Jaze?”

The fear in Mom’s voice broke through the
dissonance of my mind. I blinked and saw Mom and Brock in front of
me, their eyes on the front door. I realized what I had almost done
and steadied myself with a shaky hand against the table. “They’re
leaving,” I whispered. The slight change in the tone of the howls,
too subtle for human ears, renewed the threat, then faded; they
left into a night which had become much darker.

I fell into a chair and put my face in my
hands, my elbows on the table. I closed my eyes and waited for my
heart to stop hammering in my ears. The howls echoed in my head and
refused to fade.

The oven chime sounded and I jumped. I took
a deep breath and pushed down the urge to run after the werewolves,
to defend my territory and my family against all the hatred I heard
in their voices. I grabbed the bowl again in an effort to calm my
mind. “I’m not quite ready with the cookie dough.”

“
What was that?” Mom’s
voice shook.

“
A new territory,” I
replied in an even tone. I met her eyes, my own carefully
concealing my thoughts. “We knew this would be coming.”

She shook her head, a spark of anger in her
eyes now. “No, not like this. Not at our own house.”

“
They’re not happy I’m
here, and they want to deal with it like animals.”

“
Then we’re leaving,” Mom
said. “There are too many of them.”

“
I’m not leaving.” The edge
in my voice surprised us both. I tried to sort out my conflicting
emotions. “What’s to say it won’t be like this at another school in
another city? We have to try to ride it out here.”

“
And what if they don’t let
you?” Mom asked with a frustrated gesture toward the front
door.

“
I’ll work it
out.”

“
And he won’t be
alone.”

I had forgotten Brock was there. I stared at
him with a faint spark of amusement at the thought that he would
watch my back against the wolves.

Mom looked at him with a hand on her hip.
“Are you a werewolf too?” She glared at me. “Are you inviting
strangers into this house who could turn on us?”

A laugh burst out of me at the thought of
Brock as a werewolf. Mom’s answering glower only made the situation
more hilarious.

After his initial surprise, Brock laughed
too. “I’m definitely not a werewolf,” he said when he stopped to
catch his breath.

I shook my head. “Far from it.” Brock threw
me a grin.

I stirred the batter again, feeling somewhat
better. I could still sense Mom glaring at me and gave her a
placating smile. “It’s okay, Mom. They’re not going to kill me.
They’re still held to the Law.”

“
But there are so many of
them.”

“
All the more reason for
none of them to cross the line. They won’t want their pack broken
up by force.”

I could tell she wasn’t satisfied, but she
let the argument go. She grabbed hot-pads and carried manicotti and
steamed vegetables to the table.

Brock took a seat next to me and, at Mom’s
invitation, helped himself to the food. He raved at each bite about
how good the food tasted.

Mom smiled despite the concern that furrowed
her brow. “Doesn’t your mom cook?”

Brock nodded and said around a mouthful of
broccoli, “Yeah, she cooks the same thing every night. It’s amazing
how many kinds of frozen pizza there are!”

Mom laughed, then embarrassment colored her
face when she realized it wasn’t a joke.

“
Don’t worry, Mrs. C,”
Brock said, mistaking her expression. “Your manicotti’s better than
frozen pizza any day.”

I burst out laughing.

At Mom’s insistence, Brock let us drive him
home. Though he put on a brave front, worry showed on his face at
the thought of school tomorrow. “I get bored walking by myself. Do
you mind if I swing by and get you on the way? You’re only a few
blocks down,” I offered before he left the car.

“
You mean it?” he asked,
his eyes bright.

I nodded and he gratefully accepted, then
ran through the dark to his front door without looking back.

“
I feel the same way,” Mom
said quietly. She waited to make sure Brock shut and locked the
door before she drove away.

“
He’s had quite the rude
awakening,” I agreed. “He’s brave though.”

Mom drove down the street in silence, her
lips pressed together in a tight line. I turned to look out the
window, but changed my mind when a shadow detached itself from the
others to run alongside our car.

“
I’m enrolling you in
karate lessons.”

“
I can’t take karate, Mom.
I’m too strong. It would be obvious.” I forced myself to look back
out the window. The shadow was gone.

“
Then how else are you
supposed to defend yourself?”

“
Dad taught me, remember?”
I tried not to sound bitter. “I can take care of myself. I already
won one fight today.” I threw it in as a jab, but regretted it the
moment it left my mouth.

Mom’s eyes widened and she stared at me.
“You fought today? With werewolves?” Her voice rose. “Were you
hurt? Was anyone killed?”
I shook my head quickly to cut off her barrage of questions. “Three
werewolves tried to get information from Brock about me. They would
have killed him if I hadn’t stepped in. They’d already phased, Mom,
and in broad daylight.”

Her mouth fell open. “He saw them? He saw
you?”

I nodded. “If I hadn’t phased, he would’ve
been a body in an alley. It makes me wonder how often that happens
around here.” Mom’s jaw tightened and I could tell she was about to
begin her argument about moving away again. The car inched slowly
toward the other lane of traffic as she focused all her attention
on me.

“
And that’s why I can’t
leave,” I pressed, the thoughts that had been racing around my head
finally settling into a semblance of order. “Something’s wrong
here, and until I find what's at the bottom of it, I can’t go.
There’re too many innocent lives at stake.” I grabbed the wheel and
eased the car back onto our side of the street. Luckily, it was
late and no one else seemed to be out. Mom had a tendency to go
under the speed limit anyway, and I doubted we would do much harm
at 15 miles per hour.

Mom opened her mouth, then closed it again
and turned to face forward. I let go of the wheel and sat back.
That was it, what had been bothering me. There were too many
werewolves here. The general population had some notion that they
existed; otherwise, why all the silver at school if not to prove
that the wearer wasn’t a werewolf? But werewolves could tolerate
thin grades of silver; the plated metal on most jewelry wouldn’t
cause more than a slight rash after being worn for a day.

My bigger worry was the fact that Chet would
send his pack after a student without fear of repercussion. Had
this happened before? Or was this wolf pack thicker into the city’s
politics than I imagined?

I figured the best place to start would be
the files at school. Even if the principal didn’t know what was
going on, there had to be some mention in the files of abnormal
activity.

Chapter 5

The wolves didn’t come back that night, but
I was jarred from sleep time and again by howls that echoed all too
real in my dreams. I didn’t feel at all rested by the time I got
up. I found a discarded silver wristband with spikes in one of my
junk boxes and put it on. I felt Mom’s eyes on it when I came down
for breakfast.

“
Going to meet up with
Brock?”

I had to give her credit for the effort. I
could tell by the lines around her eyes that she had been up
worried all night. “Yeah; otherwise, I think he might skip school.”
I didn’t mention that I toyed with the same idea. I sat down at the
table and forced myself to eat a few bites of the cereal she had
poured for me.

Mom walked behind where I sat and surprised
me by leaning down and putting her arms around me from behind.
“Take care of him, Jaze,” she said quietly. “Take care of you both.
I can’t pretend to be okay with this, but I know you have your
reasons. Just give me the option to say enough if it goes
overboard.”

I could hear the pain in her voice, the fear
of losing another member of her family. A lump formed in my throat
and I nodded. She squeezed my shoulders, then let go with a
sigh.

A smile tugged at the corners of her lips
when she walked around the table to face me. She rested her hands
on the back of a chair. “You have so much of your father in you. He
never would back down from a fight. I think it’s the Alpha in
you.”

I grinned at her. “That’s what you get for
marrying the toughest werewolf in town.”