The Beast (11 page)

“Look at your feet,” he said.

I didn’t respond, too focused on filling and emptying my lungs now that the pressure was off.

“I’ll be right back.” He left the room and came back armed with a spray bottle of hydrogen peroxide and a first aid kit.

“Thank you,” I breathed.

“Shh, don’t try to talk. I’ll get this cleaned up for you.”

He went to work with a big pair of tweezers. I didn’t felt the glass going in, but it hurt like hell coming out. I wrapped an arm around my face so he wouldn’t see me cry. When I tasted blood, I forced my jaw open to release my tongue.

“Have you eaten?” Simon asked, alternating spritzing my feet and plucking glass, like I was in some kind of demented day spa.

I shook my head, still covered by my arm.

“Have you eaten at all today?”

My face, guided by my elbow, went side to side. He gave a final spray to both feet and started to wrap them.

“Have you been taking your pain meds?”

I nodded my elbow.

“I’m going to run out and grab something to eat,” he said, cutting the gauze. He started to stand up.

“No!” I tried to reach for him, but I fell back down and screamed in pain instead. I clenched my teeth and pounded my fists like an angry child.

“Shh, shh,” He stroked my hair and put his face close to mine. “I won’t go anywhere. I’ll call for a pizza. You should eat something. It only makes everything worse to not eat.”

I grabbed his wrists and some far off part of me heard his voice like a whisper, telling me to calm down, an echo of something he hadn’t said yet.

Jade, poor Jade. Calm down little fighter. You’ll heal and then I’ll leave you forever. I want to kiss you and stay with you now, but I can’t keep letting you get hurt. 

I squeezed, digging my nails into the skin of his arms.

“Calm down, little fighter. I’ll go order some pizza and sweep up. You don’t want anyone else to get hurt, do you?”

It will hurt us both, but I’d rather hurt us both than kill you.

I released him with a whimper. It didn’t make sense. I was delusional and I should have listened to Sandra and even Jessica and stayed home to heal. Now the pain and the drugs had me hearing things.

He called for three large pizzas from the kitchen and came back with a plastic cup full of water and a prescription bottle.

“Here, if it’s time, I think you’ve earned some drugs. We’ll get food in you soon enough.”

I swallowed one huge pill at a time; each pull of my throat echoed into my chest and made me feel sick.                   

He left the room again and I heard the tinkling of glass being guided by a broom, and finally the clatter and thump of it all going from dustpan to trash can.

By the time the pizzas arrived, I felt much better. The drugs had taken hold and started to numb my pain. After about half of a pizza, I felt well enough to stand up.

“Don’t try to get up,” Simon’s deep voice grumbled.

I turned my head to him in slow motion. “Why? I feel fine.”

“You are on pain killers. You aren’t qualified to make these decisions for yourself.” He climbed into the bed and laid on his side, looking at me. "How are you feeling?"

"I feel fine.” I yawned.

He reached out to me with his fingertips and started to massage my face. I giggled at first, but after a few seconds of his fingertips stroking my brow and rubbing my temples, I felt relaxed and drowsy. No one had ever done anything like it before and I felt the stress and pain washing away. I made a sound that could have been a purr or a moan and felt him stir beside me. It only encouraged me to keep making sounds of appreciation and pleasure. He moved from my face to the sides of my throat, which I exposed to him. He let his fingers sweep across my collar bones and make little circles across the hard plate of my breastbone. I sighed and shuddered when he cupped a breast in his hand and kissed my throat.

"Are we in vampire territory?" It didn’t come out in the friendly, gentle way I’d intended. It sounded more like an accusation. 

Simon wrapped his hand around mine. His gloves were back. I wondered if they were the same ones as before, and when he retrieved them from my room. How far apart did the vampire and werewolf visit my sleeping body?

“What makes you ask?”

“A little vampire told me you were in their territory.”             

"He’s partially right. We are forbidden from forming a pack and hunting here. I'm a lone wolf, so to speak, and I do all my hunting in the grocery store, so I’m not actually breaking any rules." Simon gave me a smile that I did not return.

"Do you have a pack somewhere else?" I tried to imagine him with a group of other people who could turn into wolves.

"No," he said sadly. "It's pretty much always been only me. When I was fourteen, going through puberty and all that, my parents told me that I was special. I thought they were joking, or they were about to tell me that I had some kind of developmental disorder or that I was adopted or something."

"What did they tell you?"

"Nothing then. They just told me I was special and that our family was special. They took me on a pack hunt that month, on the full moon."

"They didn't prepare you for it at all?"

"They only said that we were all special and that we were designed to help people, and that's what we were going to do."

I tried to imagine what it would be like, surrounded by family that were all turning into beasts. When I thought harder about it, it didn't seem much worse than seeing a vampire and a beast fight over you without any prompting at all.

"What did you do?"

"That was the first time I changed. My mom and dad took me out to the woods and told me to strip down." He laughed. "That was the weirdest part for me. I'd never seen them naked before. But everyone who was there, maybe twenty of us, and I was the youngest, were all naked. I tried to tell them they weren't being funny, but they just told me they weren't kidding. I mean, they weren't being creepy about it, but it was so different from everyone's normal behavior."

"What was it like? Your first time?" I worked my fingers between his and he kissed my hand.

"It hurt. A lot. I was one of the first to start changing. It was like everyone else was just waiting for me. The next youngest was maybe sixteen, and she started the change right after I did. I think she held it off as long as she could. Once I was fully changed and we started moving, I felt so free. Like I was finally released from a cage I didn’t even know was there."

"What did you do?"

He gave an awkward half- shrug. "Ran, mostly. Some of us hunted a deer. I didn't find out until later that some of the older ones hunted a man. He was a known killer. It was their way of helping the human race and keeping their humanity at the same time, I guess. It's in our blood to help people. I don't know how they managed to kill one. He must have been really bad."

"In your blood to help people?"

"Yeah. We can't just walk by someone who is in trouble. It's against our nature. A fact that some vampires who moved in nearby used against us. They started picking our den off, one by one."

"Your parents?" 

“My mom was so freaked out that she sent me away to live with my aunt Sarah. In Elkhorn, Wisconsin.” He smiled fondly. "But, not too long after that, my parents were both killed."

He put my hand to his face again and breathed deep. I turned my face to him and kissed his forehead, the only part of his face I could reach. He looked up at me and kissed me on the mouth. It was so long and so sweet that I almost forgot what we were talking about. I sighed, feeling the numb throb that would have been pain if not for the magic of chemical science.

“How'd you end up a lone wolf out here?” I asked. “You’re a long way from Wisconsin.”

“I wanted to be an actress,” he said in what I assumed was supposed to be his “girl” voice. “I was just a naïve little Midwest girl with big dreams and a bus ticket.”

I rolled my eyes. “You don’t have to tell me.” 

He sighed. “They wanted me to marry some distant cousin who I’d never met before. I refused so they gave me a few chances and then they kicked me out.”

“Why did they want you to marry your cousin?” I tried to face him, but my body was very, very heavy.

“To propagate the species,” he said coolly. “I can’t stay long tonight. I have to do something.”

I sighed. “Sorry this wasn’t a booty call.”

“It’s not that,” he said. Then he took my other hand in his. “Are you sure you’re feeling okay? You’re acting a little strange.”

I gave a short, cruel bark of a laugh. “You don’t even know me. You don’t know what normal is.”

“Acting like this isn’t going to help that. If something is going on you can tell me.”

“It’s nothing,” I said. Everyone wanted me to tell them everything, if only I knew what the hell was going on. “Goodnight Simon.”

He hesitated like he would say more, but the sound of Sandra’s car into the driveway echoed too loudly. He leaned in and kissed me.

"I should go," he whispered against my neck.

I squeezed his hand, still entwined with mine. "Just try to get away."

"I don't think she'd like to see me here.”

"Fine," I pouted. "Go. I'll miss you."

He kissed me on the mouth and on the throat. "I'll miss you too. I- I have to go somewhere, Jade."

“I know,” I said. “You already said bye.”

“No, I mean-.”

The front door closed and Sandra called, “Jade? You here? You okay? It’s suspiciously clean in here.”

Simon left through the window. I wanted to follow him. It seemed so unique, so right. It seemed like what I should be doing. Why would I keep using doors, walking across the entire house, to leave? The window was right there, and there was no glass in it. All I’d have to do was go through it. Everyone else did.

Sandra cracked the door open. "Hey, babe, how are you feeling?"

"I had a little accident and broke a glass. Or a few glasses. I don’t know. I'm really sorry. I think I just reached too high and had a muscle spasm. It’s all cleaned up though." I pulled the blanket up to my waist, careful to keep my bandaged feet out of sight.

She came into the room and put a hand to my forehead. "Don't worry about it, it's just a glass. You're burning up. I think you have a fever again. I'll get you some a thermometer and some aspirin."

"It's not
aspirin
." I smiled. 

"Yeah, well I can't say it right so it's aspirin. You know it's not really aspirin, I know it's not really aspirin, just deal with it."

She brought back two pills, a thermometer and a full glass of water.

“I checked with the pharmacist in case you think I’m trying to kill you,” she said. “It’s fine to mix these if we need to.”

My temperature was 105, but I didn't feel feverish at all. I felt fine. I refused the pills, but I drank the water anyway.

"Where's Jessica?"

Sandra snorted. "Oh sure, you have a personal slave for two days and suddenly she's your best friend."

"No way," I said. "I'm just curious. I thought she would have been here."

"Yeah she said she had to go home and feed her dogs or something. She'll be here later."

"Oh."

“You weren’t hungry? You got pizza, but there was only one slice missing. Usually you eat two. We told you that you weren’t ready. Will you please listen to reason next time?”

“Fine,” I grumbled. After a few more slices and a dose of acetaminophen, which Sandra insisted on, I fell asleep.

In the morning I got up for a cup of water, taking the plastic cup Simon left with me to avoid breaking any more of Sandra’s already sparse glassware collection.

"Morning!" Jessica blinked up at me with big green eyes and smiled from the couch.

"Morning."

She yawned and stretched, a pale leg tipped by a bandaged foot slipped out from under the covers.

"What happened to you?" I asked. I gave a stretch and yawn of my own. I felt great.

"Just a blister from running around in heels all day." She sprang off of the couch and bounced into the kitchen. "Eggs?"

My stomach growled, fully at attention. "Yes, please."

She started heating a skillet and started some water for the French press. Sandra came into the kitchen, gave a sleepy wave of greeting, and threw a handful of coffee beans into the grinder. I smiled. It was all so blissfully domestic. So perfectly normal. All that was missing was a newspaper to read. 

Jessica set the pepper grinder down just as Sandra reached for the coffee cups and the grinder hit the floor in the scuffle. I bent down and scooped it up when it rolled under the table.

I stared at the grinder. Jessica stared at me. Sandra stared at all three of us. 

I bent down again.

"It doesn't hurt at all," I said. "Not even a little bit."

"Well don’t push it!" Sandra scolded when I started to bend down again. She rushed forward and put a hand to my head. "Your fever seems to be down too. Please tell me you're going to do the responsible thing and stay home and rest."