Wolf Sirens: Forbidden: Discover The Legend (12 page)

“Is she hurt!?” Giny screeched. In hindsight I
wasn’t sure if her concern was for the animal.
“Damn!” Bianca said, kneeling near me and then
she was gone. Giny gulped a sniffle. The immediate
danger was over. “She’s winded!” Sam said, crouching beside me, inspecting my chest. “No injuries,” she
confirmed. Checking for wounds, I realized.
“Calm down.” Sam waved a look around. “Go
and get her!” she screeched venomously at Bianca.
I could see her run immediately out of the double
doors, into the hall, whilst I shuddered and gulped,
trying to bring air into my deflated lungs. I thought
as she bent at my side that she was so calm she might
have wanted to end my misery. She looked angry.
“Just calm down,”she almost whispered. Slowly some
air slipped into my rib cage and I was able to adjust.
I sat up under my own strength. It seemed I was otherwise fine, though shock numbed the bruises. Sam
inspected me. “Come on.” She lifted me up.“Giny,
get the car!” she ordered. I felt the ache in my elbow. I was pulled up and dragged out from under the
furry carcass to the left hall door, rather than the one
into the school. Sam kicked it open. I was sure it was
bolted, some wood from the frame cracked as I was
half carried and dragged out. In my periphery I could
see a girl’s naked body slumped on the floor, red hair
sprayed out and blood splattered across the wall and
pooling at her head. A car appeared on the lawn. It
stopped inches from us and I was plunged into the
back as the familiar acrid smell of Giny’s hatchback
hit me.
“What do we do about the body?” Giny pleaded.
“She caused it, she can clean it up, we weren’t
here! Go! I’ll meet you at the cabin!”
With that the car door was slammed, the tyres
spun and we careered off the school grounds, bumping over the gutter and onto the road.
She drove briskly but as far as I could tell in my
daze we weren’t speeding. I looked back to Sam as we
hit the asphalt. She was taking off her jumper as she
headed back into the hall.
I was notably in shock. I began to shake uncontrollably. “Are you bitten?” Giny called from the
driver seat. What? I thought. “No, I’m not hurt,” I
said through chattering teeth, if that’s what she
meant? She glanced at me, concerned, her brows
were furrowed deep and her eyes watery. “There’s
a blanket at Sam’s,” she gulped. I couldn’t be sure
but I think she was crying. I struggled to breathe, I
couldn’t feel my face or my hands. We sped up the
Agapanthus-rimmed dirt driveway and stopped with
a jolt too close to the front door. It wasn’t locked.
Giny grabbed my hand gently and led me in. She
was panicky. I felt her thin hand tremble. The crack,
it was a gun shot. “Giny, is someone shooting at us?”
It didn’t make sense.
“Um, no, yes,” she winced and then corrected, “I
don’t know.” She frowned, sounding annoyed, but I
saw she was distressed. “Not at us.”
I recalled the wolf. I’d felt its fur and warmth.
“Are there wild animals lose?” I knew my questions
sounded ridiculous, they didn’t make sense to me. We
both just stood stagnant, astonished. The phone rang
loudly for what seemed like minutes. It echoed in the
large empty house.
Giny, still panicky, rushed to answer it. Her words
were fast. “I know - I know. Sam said she’d follow us,
her car is still there, yes I took mine,” she wailed. “I
know!” she retorted with a hint of guilt. She sniffed
loudly and began to sob.“Yes,” she answered and
looked me up and down through tear-stained eyes
“She’s okay, no, no cuts, she was lucky.” Lily wasn’t
and she sobbed. “I will,” she said forcefully, hanging
up the receiver, and hung her head, defeated.
Pale, she looked at me for a moment and then
summoning strength started toward the back of the
kitchen. She disappeared down the stairs to the basement area and came running back, shoving two white
pills in my hand and then filled a glass of water.
Sky rattled the glass door. Giny jumped, visibly
shaken and hurried to unlatch it as he flew through
the lounge up to me, breathing heavily. It was the first
time I’d seen him out of breath. He was shirtless and
his muscles were tense. He was wet as it had begun
to rain more heavily. Water cascaded down his toned
arms and I admired his physique. I noticed my shirt
was wet, though I’d not been in the rain. I looked
down my t-shirt. It was wet through with dark water.
Touching it I looked at my palm. It was dark red. My
breath stopped.
Sky looked at my palm. “Is that hers?” he yelled
at Giny who stood near me. I started to wobble and
I began to slump. I fainted then and warm wet steel
arms grabbed me and held me up. I felt weightless as
he carried me somewhere - upstairs? I faded in and
out of consciousness.
“It’s Lily’s,” I thought I heard her sob. Everything
was black, consciousness reared in on me intermittently. “She’s fainting.” I thought I heard him utter.
He laid me gently on the bed and touched my chest.
“Are you hurt?” He spoke soft and hurriedly. I didn’t
answer, he grasped my palms and opened my hand. I
scrunched it, resisting automatically. I frowned.What
was he taking from me? I gave up my resistance under his warm gentle grip and my fingers relaxed as
his large fingers pinched the capsules from my palms.
Giny followed and sat on the bed.
“What’s this?” he asked her.
“Oh,” she sounded annoyed, “sedatives. I’ve got
to take two as well. I’ll get some water.” She blew her
nose on the way out sniffling. He immediately followed her; I could hear them talking in rushed tones
out in the hall. I faded out again I felt his weight on
the bed as his warm hand pressed my face, feeling my
temperature, I assumed. My head was lifted then and
I woke.
“L- Lila – here,” his fingers pushed two capsules
into the gap between my lips “drink these down.” He
tried to put the water in my hand which didn’t cooperate and fell back to the bed. He held the glass up
to my lips.
“What did I see?” I croaked not opening my eyes
which I realized were wet. I blinked, a little tear rolled
down my cheek, then and I opened them. He was a
blurry shape as he held the cup to my lips and I swallowed. My mouth was coarse and dry, the capsules
went down hard. I rolled to my side then and his
warm hand rubbed my back. I thought to ask where
Reid was and then thought better of it. Tears flowing
from my eyes, I fell into unconsciousness.

I woke to find a blanket wrapped around me.
Drowsily I realized where I was. As I struggled up I
felt the dry blood on my shirt. It was still light out,
although it was dim, either because it was overcast or
because it was late in the day. I cringed as my head
pounded. I lifted myself and I winced as I recalled
with disbelief the body in the school hall and the last
moments at practice. Was this how Cres had lost her
mind? I wanted them to go away. Like a bad dream
I was filled with dread, which dragged through me
like sand.

As though they heard my movements the door
opened. In walked Bianca with a tray of food.
“Oh you’re awake, good, we were starting to
worry.”
She sat the tray tentatively on the bed at my feet.
“Do you want to talk about it?” She didn’t want to
press me, I could tell by her tone, as she was calm but
cautious.
Giny came in. “Here’s a new shirt, oh good, she’s
up.” She sounded even more relieved; she thought
a moment. “Do you feel like a shower?” she asked,
pointing into the doorway behind me. It must have
been the guest ensuite.
I breathed shakily. “Yes,” I croaked nodding.
“We’ll leave some fresh clothes on the bed.”
Bianca patted the bed coverlet and left, then, her eyes
avoiding the sight of the crimson patch on my shirtfront. I peeled the shirt off and gave it to Giny who
pinched it in her fingers and put it in a bag. Her hand
was trembling.
“We’re going to burn it,” she offered apologetically. She shook her head in disbelief. I could tell
she’d only just woken up herself. Her hair was messy
and eyeliner smudged. Perhaps the others couldn’t do
this job. I didn’t fully understand why. “Just go and
shower and come downstairs, Sam wants to talk to
you.” I must have looked apprehensive. “It’s okay, I
was scared, too, when I found out,” she said and then
her mouth pulled down at the corners.
“What about Lily?” I blurted.
She looked at me in horror and the strain of the
last day suddenly became evident in her red-rimmed
eyes. She put her head in her hands. She had all too
much time to process the horror, while I was in denial. I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know what
had happened. Everyone else did.

In the shower I knelt with my head in my hands. Was
I in a nightmare? I contemplated running and hiding
but it would be futile. The visions spun round in my
head of Lily as a wolf, bounding with her fangs out
for my throat. I hadn’t imagined it. Cresida was trying to warn me and it was far too late, though maybe
I’d never had a chance. I recalled the blood on my
shirt and saw flashes of the body, pale, slumped on
the hall floor and the pool of dark blood. I wished
I could reverse it all; take back the last few weeks.
It began to occur to me that I had narrowly avoided
death - I’d felt the animal’s hot breath on my face,
its last breath, touched its red brown fur and I remembered it brushing my skin as it died with its
full weight against me. Somehow someone had shot
it through the head with precise aim, like a sniper
waiting and watching for the creature to threaten my
life. Giny waited for me to finish. She insisted I eat
something, and I was starving. The sight I saw in the
bathroom mirror was macabre. I was so pale I was
green.

“What is…happening? What happened after we
left?” I recalled Sam heading back into the hall as we
sped away.

“Sam dressed her and took away the rags,” she
whispered.
“What?”
“Lila, Lily’s dead,” she whispered touching my
back gently.

After I had washed the dried blood from my
chest and hair, cried and shook, dressed slowly in
the pile of clothes left for me on the bed and forced
down food I could not taste. I found my way to the
lounge area down the hallway. I could hear shuffling
and the murmuring of voices. It all felt surreal. They
were all there, minus Lily, waiting for me in various poses of grief; some part of me hoped it was a
still a sick joke. And that she was still alive and that
werewolves didn’t surround me like a scene from a
horror film.

I was standing freshly showered, waiting for
some kind of explanation for our dead friend and a
giant wolf lunging at my throat. I wanted to ask them
if I was crazy.

I braced myself. “Give it to me straight- are you
going to kill me?” I swallowed trying not to look
stunned at the bravery of my own words.

“No Lila,” Sam replied from the opposite corner of the room. Muffled giggles and then laughter
spread through the group.

“Reid!”Sam scolded glaring at him for a moment.
It was the kind of mad awkward laughter you’d hear
at a funeral. “Come in,” Sam said warmly coaxing me
closer.

“I’ll stand, thanks,” I replied pale-faced and
serious.
She looked annoyed but not surprised as she
huffed, “Fine, let me fill you in and, remember, there
is nowhere you can run to hide from us and no one
will believe you - you will end up crazier than Cresida
- or you can stay here, learn the truth.” She looked
around. “We won’t hurt you. We are werewolves.” She
said it so simply to me, like she had asked me to pass
the salt. I thought I imagined the word werewolf.
She gestured casually to the rest of the group. “All
of us are.” They all let it sink in. I looked for signs of
humour, waiting, as I searched their expressions for
anything but the soft stares of truth.

“Come, sit.” She patted the lounge seat beside her.
Bianca, Reid, Sky and Jackson, all watched wideeyed for my reaction.

“What do you want to ask?” she inquired; I shifted uneasily in my stance, but didn’t reply.
Reid met my eyes.“It’s alright.” He smiled reassuringly. He stood up and moved towards me. I let
him hug me, he was so warm, but more rigid than
normal.
My eyes looked at the carpet as his voice rumbled, “I thought you’d never wake up, you were out
the whole day.” He sounded concerned, he smiled
tentatively. I looked at the rest of their faces and at
Sky’s sultry sapphire eyes as he sat watching, obviously troubled.
“Can I show you something please?” Reid said
breathlessly in my ear. Loosening his arms he gestured. “Come outside, don’t be scared, just watch.”
“But, Lily?”
“-Lily tried to kill you,” he interrupted sternly, on
his way to the open sliding door. He turned when he
got out onto the slate patio, wanting to reassure me.
When Sky passed me, he jumped down the stairs and
walked out toward the lawn. Leaping in the air down
the next row of stairs he morphed into a huge animal
and landed on all four enormous paws. He turned
from the distance and looked at us, through blue canine eyes. Reid smiled. “Stand here.” He squeezed
my hand. As he let go he ran a few wide steps leaping
into the air and jumping over Sky as he did, landing
transformed. They were enormous. Sky was golden
brown and Reid was a dark brown shaggy velvet.
Sam came out then onto the patio as far as possible
from me. She took her dress off over her head; naked she watched me from the corner of her eye as
she shivered and burst into fur. Bianca joined us already formed. Her hair was wavier than the others
and tanned, Sam was white like snow. Her large blue
eyes contained smatterings of gold brown, still. Giny
came to stand beside me; all around us were giant
furry wolves with their sharp glowing eyes watching
for my reaction. The hair on my arms stood on end.
Reid and I walked across the manicured lawn.
“Why is Sam so rich?” I asked.
“What makes you think that?” he replied.
I shrugged.
“She’s old,” he confessed.
I swallowed. “How old?”
“I don’t know exactly.” He smiled. “Fifty or a
hundred, probably.” He squinted. “Eighty-ish,” he
guessed. Due to his newness himself to the situation
he failed to be as accurate an adviser on the subject
as he would have liked. I was later to learn Reid was
just a pup.
“Well, she looks great.” I made light.
He chuckled under his breath and hugged me,
resting his chin on my head.
“I guess her parents won’t be showing up anytime
soon?”
He laughed.
“This is all far - way too weird for you.” He
sounded apologetic.
And, really, I didn’t know what to say. It was.
“It’s all going to be alright.” He sighed.
I looked up at his sympathetic eyes.
“Tell me about her.” I wasn’t frightened.
“Who?” he asked.
“Sam,” I said. We walked to the gazebo at the far
corner of the back yard.
He continued, “I know this from Sky and Lily.”
Reid instantly spoke about her. “Miss Thompson was
a teacher in 1976. She taught English and coached.
Her twin sister Amy had been in a wheelchair since
an accident in her teens, water skiing or something.
She never went anywhere her entire life after that.
She was stuck in a wheelchair. She and her sister had
been dancers, before her Amy was crippled. Sam was
a champion medal winning gymnast. Her sister had
to watch her win as she sat there unable to participate -she was confined to her chair, it’s not like now,
where technology allows you to get about and play
sports. Back then being crippled meant confinement.
Amy told Sam to win for her; they lived together
when they were older.
“Lily was on the team that Sam coached, a long
time ago. Bianca was her friend- Amy died from the
bite, the wolf venom. Sam had to quit teaching because she looked so different, youthful.”
He pressed his lips together. “The rest of it I don’t
know much about, they holidayed and did everything
- Europe, bungee jumping…there’s a picture of them
in France, New Zealand, India, America - with rock
stars. They had to be careful though not to become
too known or famous - someone famous painted Lily.
I guess in the end, like everything, they got bored.
Sam always wanted to finish the dream, she never
forgot her sister, so now they’re here-” Reid’s mouth
shrugged- “Doing Sam’s thing. Next was Bianca’s
turn and then Lily was last - she would have had
to wait the longest. They drew straws, they had five
years each.” His voice shook with remorse.
“So, now they are living Sam’s dream?”
“For her sister who never got to win or perform,
this is her chance to do it and next fake life time - it
will be Bianca’s.” He smirked and then he shook his
head. “Now Lil’s gone I guess Sky or I might get a go.
We’d do something wild though, like they did first,
so it’s all for one and one for all, but we keep to ourselves, for obvious reasons.”
“Are there others?” I whispered, as we sat on the
bench under the gazebo. I looked out at the ripples
on the surface of the pool.
“Yes, I guess but I haven’t seen one yet.” His brow
wrinkled. I felt then that he was younger than the
rest of the pack. “We hear them.” He looked out at
the tree covered mountain ridge.
“Do you kill people?” I asked as my heart fluttered nervously.
He huffed. “No, most of us have a conscience.”
I was relieved; he was like me, just thrown into this
world, still innocent. I wasn’t brave enough or ready
to hear if the others had ever taken a life.
“Oh, and you still live with your parents?” Which
is what I had understood, but I now felt the need to
check facts to see if the lies covered anything I was
now meant to know.
“I’m young, but I am just as good as Sky, he’s only
forty,” he said.
“Forty? So Sam’s a cradle snatcher then?”I teased.
“Reid,” I asked, “when people are changed do they
get younger? You said in the story that Sam became
youthful and had to leave her job?”
“Yeah, it kind of turns back the clock. Except if
you are too old to take the venom, then you die,” he
shrugged.
“How young does a bite make you?”
He thought about it. “It seems about, like your
age, if you are like over 30 you become younger -say
20. But if you are under 20, you age a little, become
adult-but stay as you are, just sort of more mature.”
“And more shiny?” I offered.
“Do you think I am shiny?” He preened humorously, looking at his body.
“No, but there is something glowing about you,”
I offered seriously.
He nodded in bashful agreement.
“I’m worried,” I said rebuffing his attempt at
lightning the mood.
“We won’t hurt you. What are you thinking?” He
held my hand, looking into my eyes. I thought about
Cresida and if this was what had sent her over the
edge.
“Who shot Lily?” I asked as calmly as I could,
reserving all my emotion for the next blur of words,
once I had the answers. I couldn’t help but look
around as if I thought the sniper might be watching
us now.
“She shot Lily ’cause Lily got out of line.”
“Who?” I blurted.
“Cresida,” he said, sounding surprised I didn’t
know.
“Is she one…of you?” I followed quickly.
“No, and yes - she’s what we fear most,” he
breathed out. “A hunter.” I must have looked puzzled.
He added clearly, “The kind that hunts
us,
Lila.”
“A werewolf hunter?” It felt strange to say the
word. “Then why aren’t you all dead?” Would they
be soon?
“We step out of line and she pops a cap in our
ass. She doesn’t hunt us all because we have a truce.
She has a deal with Sky, because she’s one of us now,
a wolf also, but it’s complicated, it’s not all black and
white.” I was to learn nothing was.
“Because they were together?” I puzzled.
“Yes and other stuff,” he explained. “
That
,” he
replied,“and she understands what it is to live like
this; she’s actually a walking contradiction. Cresida
is a wolf that was meant to be a hunter. Sam had
a one in a million chance that whoever she turned
would be a hunter - sometimes I guess you get unlucky, or lucky.” He raised his brows as though still
blown away by it all. I watched and waited for him
to speak, to tell me more. “There’s so much you don’t
know, yet, she wants to kill all of us. If she wasn’t half
wolf she would have slain us. This turn of Sam’s has
been a bit of a nightmare and now she’s lost Lily….
who was with her from the beginning.” His voice
almost cracked. “We have risked exposure, we have
awakened this instinct in Cresida and maimed her at
the same time and she can’t reconcile the two parts of
herself. We should probably get out now, Sam wants
to finish it up and leave, but she won’t – can’t, let go.”
I said, “Because of her sister?”
He cleared his hoarse throat.“Yes, and she doesn’t
know when she’ll get another chance.”
“How long do you have?” I swallowed.
“Too long, some of us are hundreds of years old.”
He looked for a reaction in me to see how far he
could press me.
I spoke quietly. “How old are you?”
He breathed, “Only as old as you.” He was happy
about this I saw, relieved to tell me this. When I perhaps didn’t return the same relief he continued, “You
have to understand it’s like Sky has told me, there
is no limit on how long we live, except that limit
which we place on ourselves – most of us at one time
or another don’t wish to be immortal, can’t take it
anymore…”
“Do you? Want to be immortal?”
“I’m still young, but once I’ve lived my life, who
knows?”
I wondered silently how he would do it, remembered how quick it had been for Lily, and closed the
thought off.
“Are you sad that Lily’s gone?” I hadn’t observed
the same devastation in him over her sudden death,
which seemed to torture the others. He seemed more
concerned with me, my reaction to him and the others rather than in mourning her death.
He looked pensive. “I’m not sad she was killed to
save you.” He looked at me, his jaw tensing. I knew
he was in pain over it and that the words didn’t come
easily.
“I’m so sorry she’s dead.” My voice cracked.
He put his fingers to his forehead and sniffled. I
could see tears, large and heavy, roll down and drip
onto his jeans.
I put my hand on his hot back and rubbed his
shirt. I didn’t speak. It was my fault their friend was
dead. The wound of her death was fresh.
After a while he looked up and spoke. “You’re not
frightened now, are you?”
“No.” I thought then to ask myself why I wasn’t
scared. I was in shock. “And anyway you said Cres
had my back,” and I had seen what she could do. I
knew now she was not crazy, she had tried to help
me.
“Do you want to go back inside?” He noticed me
shiver from the breeze. I was fascinated by them and
I told myself Reid had told me all he could when he
could, without terrorizing me. But I wanted more.
I nodded in agreement.
“You have the least to fear, Lila,” he said, guiding me back inside the house. But that wasn’t true. I
wasn’t worried about being shot or eaten, I was afraid
they would leave or that Cresida would kill him.
“Will Sam finish her dream? - Of winning? Or
are you going to leave?” I swallowed, bravely awaiting
the answer as we approached the sliding door.
“Yes, and no,” he promptly assured me, his hand
on my neck. He pulled me in as we walked and kissed
my head.
“But we are going to have trouble cleaning up the
aftermath, you’ve missed it all, L.” Reid could manage to be sanguine in almost any situation.