Wolf Sirens: Forbidden: Discover The Legend (24 page)

I was part of their world but not how I wanted to
be. At one point I would have almost welcomed it.
Now I knew why I was in the pack. Sam’s plan had
been to sway me to her side and in a strange way it
worked. But had it not been for Sky they would all
be dead, by Cresida or by me. So what I felt was just
more vicious manipulation. The only one who was on
my side was Cres - then why did I hate her? Sky and
Cres had saved me.

“It’s what he couldn’t do for you, right? That’s
what’s so crazy. He did it to you and I love him and
it’s not real, and I can’t stop feeling crazy about him.”
I looked into her deep blue warrior eyes. “I wouldn’t
kill him. You couldn’t do it, this hunting crap is all
bullshit,” I spat defiant.

I felt deeply that it was no excuse. “But you knew,
didn’t you?” My tone was severe.
“I thought you might be, yes,” she pouted.
“And you didn’t stop me, from any of this.” I
couldn’t believe it.
“My visions change, I tried, you wouldn’t listen or
back off, and you were like a moth to a flame. No one
can stop it, Lila,” she uttered shaking her head.
I waited until I caught her gaze.
“Cresida, I don’t think you did try to tell me! You
let me…you should have tried harder. I would have
seen – God! I would have run!” My voice betrayed
me, breaking. Perhaps I would not have.
Silently she let me rant. Cres swallowed.
“You had to discover it for yourself, I broke the
rules even trying to show you what they were. And
when it didn’t work I had no choice but to go with
the flow, but I protected you,” she assured me.
I glared at her.
“Fine, it’s true,” she admitted. “I should have
trusted my intuition more. I tried to stop you. It’s a
part of me to want you to kill them, you’ll see what
it’s like - it means more to me than anything. I didn’t
fight it any longer, once I had the visions of you. I
hoped you could do something I have been unable
to do. I was just prolonging the inevitable, and besides no one was sure. It was a crazy situation,” she
stated apologetically.
I screeched, “This is all for nothing!” I was weeping again. I sobbed then and she didn’t speak as I
wept, “Tell me Cresida - I want to know it all, all of it
- everything you know.” But mostly: “I want to know
where he is?” I felt a fear he wouldn’t come back, but
I didn’t let myself believe it.
She was at my side. I felt something poke my
shoulder. I looked up at her.
“Look,” she said.
I pulled the paper into my hand and eyed the
document in my lap, through bleary eyes.
It was a shape and eventually it came into focus.
It was a rough scribble of my tattoo.
“What’s this?” I had cried so much I couldn’t
breathe through my nose.
Cresida saw the hole in the wall near the kitchen.
“My mum will be mad.” I shrugged as she eyed it.
“Yeah, well that’s the least of our worries,” she
said relaxing and sliding down the wall sitting next
to me on the carpet.
I emphasized, “
Our
worries?”
“Yeah.” Cres sniffed.
“How?” I asked like a stubborn child, frustrated
and exhausted.
She breathed in and pointed to the crinkled
notepaper.
“This was drawn by me over one year ago.” She
tapped it, remembering, “It’s a sign.”
“I’m not like you,” I interrupted. I blew my nose.
“Fine.” She didn’t argue the point.
“Don’t you see, I love Sky, I can’t kill him - I won’t,
I won’t kill them, you should have let her bite me,” I
blurted angrily. I wanted Cres to know it.
“No, I think that’s why you’ve come to us because
of what happened to me. I’m supposed to be dead,
Lila, or maybe I am supposed to protect you from
repeating what happened to me,” she admitted.
I felt sick.
“So if I am the hunter now – what? - So I just
take the job from you? Kill you - kill them, my only
friends, and end up here alone with blood on my
hands?” I sounded distressed.
“No,” she said quietly.
“Then really explain this to me, Cresida!” I threw
my hands up in frustration.
“I would, if I could. We’re writing the book here.”
After a silence I spoke.
“Where is Sky? Is he coming back? I want to
know and do not lie to me, Cres,” I was vehement
and determined I would find him.
“I never have,” she said, offence shading her tone.
She reached to the phone table above me and pulled
some tissues, then sat back down next to me and
placed the pile in my hand.
I glared at her though I must have looked more
like a spoilt tear-stained child than an actual threat.
Hunters surely didn’t cry - that’s what I was now told
I was supposed to be.
“He is healing with the other pack. They have
a nurse who is a wolf. He knows how to reset the
bones, get x-rays, that sort of thing on the down low,
stuff we can’t do.”
“Sam?” I asked,
“She’s hiding - we don’t know for sure - with her
friends in Paris, France, most likely.” She sounded
unsure.
“Is he coming back?” I asked agitated.
“To be honest with you I don’t think I or anyone
else could stop him.” She swallowed. “He comes at
his own risk,” she said flatly.
I burst then.“Why? You think I would hurt him?”
I accused.
She raised her brows.
“Lila, you are the hunter now, it’s your job, like it
was supposed to be mine.”
“It was your job! And might I remind you that
you didn’t kill him. I won’t do it. If I am supposed to
kill him, then why does he pursue me? Why did they
all pursue me?”
“None of us could risk telling you in case it
wasn’t you. Do you see? We all tried to keep you
close, it was a tug of war and anyway I as good as
told you. I showed you and you didn’t even seem to
flinch.” That was when Cresida had changed tack.
She had seen I was going to go with them and she
had decided to choose her battles, gambling that
soon enough I would be back and she would be
watching.
Cres spoke again, softer. “I don’t know why he
had to have you. Because he’s crazy, because they
wanted to keep you close.” She shook her head.
“Why me?”
She took me literally. “We don’t know. It seems
like he has a talent for finding hunters and subduing them with lust or something?” She shook her
head. “You pull him in and vice versa.” She pulled her
stubby fingers, which now began to show the signs of
nail growth, through her hair. “It’s like he’s a venomous flower, you know the ones, that attract the insects
with their nectar?”
And slowly suck the life from them,
I thought, but
Cresida didn’t say it and neither did I.
“So he felt the same way about you,” I said
defeated.
“No, not quite. Not as strongly,” she admitted
with her fingers upon her temple.
“
For you or him
?” I looked at her, I was jealous.
“Me and
him
. I never felt like you seem to.” Cres
offered.
I tried to stay logical.
“Sky is attracted to hunters?” I whispered bitterly.
“He doesn’t do it on purpose.”
“So that’s it, it’s all manipulation.” A tear rolled
down my cheek.
Cresida swallowed. “If you had a choice could
you leave him?”
“No.” I didn’t want to elaborate because it was that
simple. “Not before and not now he wants me to.”
She shook her head again.“It seems like maybe if
you weren’t what you both are - a wolf, and a hunter
- that you would maybe have feelings for each other
and that’s like added together.” This unfortunate admission made me happy.
“Does all that cancel out the killing part?”
“I hope so.”
“Cres, why didn’t he tell me?” I gazed at her with
bloodshot eyes.
“Why didn’t you ask?” she huffed, tired. “I don’t
know, Lila.” She then admitted, palms up, “Like
I said, we hoped you weren’t as big a threat - you
seemed not to know anything - we all thought we
were wrong, that you were a decoy…”
“I wasn’t a threat,” I retorted. “I just don’t understand why no one, especially why he, didn’t tell me.”
I felt maybe I knew why, because like me, when
he had a chance, he didn’t want a reason to break the
brief moments we had. We knew they were brief, I
felt it; maybe he denied it as much as I had.
I was a threat to his life and that of his pack, his
family, and he loved me. I knew I didn’t want this to
be the truth and at the same time it all made sense,
more than any other explanation.
Cresida informed me it was all a dangerous
chemical cocktail which had dazzled me like a
hypnotized rabbit to the slaughter. He had inadvertently compromised me and all the while this
spun in my head. I replayed the moments we’d had
together. Surely he loved me, needed me as desperately as I needed him? I felt like I would pine to
death, but I didn’t tell Cresida, I didn’t tell a soul.
She seemed confident I would get over it soon and I
did not go out of my way to convince her otherwise.
At that time I believed I still had a choice. And she
was quiet for my sake.
The front door opened. My mother’s keys jingled
in the lock. She attempted to call out when she saw
us, my head rested on Cresida’s bent knees, her arm
over my back, her opposite hand entwined in mine,
and I lifted my head.
There was no point in hiding the fact that I had
been crying.
“Oh,” she exclaimed upon seeing us, “I didn’t
expect…”
“Mum, this is Cresida James, my friend.” I unwound my fingers and sniffed, wiping my eyes with
my sleeve.
“Hello,” she said.
“Hi, Mrs Crain.” Cres smiled courteously, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.
“Sophie,” Mum corrected hiding a cringe at my
father’s name, with a soft smile, though she had
only just returned to her maiden name, Knight. She
turned her attention to me. “Have you been crying?”
she asked, matter-of-fact, as we stood up from our
strange position on the carpet. I was certain she was
relived someone was comforting me, so she wouldn’t
have to. I pulled the wrinkles from my clothes.
“Um, Sky’s been transferred to a hospital for
some further testing, on his bones,” Cres offered as a
rationalization for my tears.
Sophie looked at me. “Oh, I’m sorry I didn’t realize how bad he was?”
“Oh, he’ll be fine.” I laughed wiping my eyes. “It’s
just…upsetting, you know.”
Sophie nodded. She was holding groceries, which
she looked at then, as though reminding herself of
what she had been doing when we had startled her.
Mum wouldn’t want to pry further, I relied on this.
She went into the kitchen, the bags rustled as she
untied them and pulled things out onto the counter top. “It’s a shame about the practice,” she called
- aimed at us both.
We walked after her.
“Were you in the group, Cres
eeda
?” She stopped
unsure of her name.
“Cresida,” Cres corrected. “Like in Shakespeare’s
play, but with only one S.” She sounded like she was
used to it.
Neither of us answered my mother’s comment on
practice.
I helped her unpack a few things on the island bench and asked Cres if she wanted a glass of
juice. We sat in the kitchen drinking from tumblers
as I helped my mother with dinner. Cres sat on a
stool and leant on the island countertop, while my
mother cooked. These ‘normal’ family scenes were
something I felt now, more than ever, were fleeting.
Despite everything that simmered below the surface
façade we stayed and ate dinner with my mother.
Cresida seemed as glad as I was for some moment
of normality.
Maybe it wasn’t Cresida I saw in my dreams,
maybe it was I. I sat naked in my room tracing the
healing cuts up my arm, which would become silvery
scars, and the ink shape stained in my skin.
I wondered if Sky would be scared as well from
the millions of pieces of glass. I thought about it, the
shower of shards falling over the carpet like a rain
of ice. The beautiful wolf teeth bared and snarling,
gliding at us, throwing Sam down as she morphed. I
could remember it clearly now, every detail like a video recording, only clearer and sharper. Feel the force
with which I hit the glass-scattered carpet, as his side
knocked me hard and yet I hadn’t been bruised from
the hit or the fall. I had instantly struggled up and
dragged myself on my forearms like a Navy Seal to
the nearest cover and then after Cresida had dragged
me into the room and locked it, I had immediately
thrust it open and walked out despite the danger. In
between I’d had moments of weak vulnerability but
the changes were starting to appear and soon they
would dominate. As I concentrated I could feel the
texture of my skin, hear sharper and see clearer with
more detail. If this is half of what the wolves felt or
half as sharp as their senses, what must their world
be like? I felt the energy surge in me then, again, but
stronger now as though the conscious realization of
what it was sped the painfully slow transformation
like rain on a seedling. I got up and did more sit-ups
and then something I’ve never done before. I went
for another jog but it was dark and I climbed out my
window onto the roof. I baulked at the jump down,
when I saw a tree within reach. I backed up on the
roof, which pitched up, and I ran towards it, determined. Jumping onto it, hitting the bark too hard,
scraping myself on the branches and losing grip over
the limbs and trunk, I tumbled onto the ground with
a thump.
“Ouch.” I thrashed about in the dirt. As I looked
up my heart jumped ten feet; a face was looking at me.
“It took me weeks to start doing that kind of crazy shit.” Cresida, laughed. She was dressed in black. I
could see she had something strapped across her back
as my eyes adjusted to the dim night.
“Let me guess. You saw me out tonight in one of
your visions?” I remarked, recognizing the shape of a
muzzle silhouette behind her shoulder. I tried to hide
my surprise at seeing the rifle.
“Are you dizzy?” She peered into my face.
I lay in the dirt and shook my head; I was more
amazed at my own brass stupidity than hurt.
“I’m like a stupid teenage boy,”I admitted shamefully, easing up.
“Welcome to the life of a hunter,” she said helping me up with a firm outstretched hand.
“What else can we do?” I asked unperturbed, examining the minor injuries to my elbow, brushing off
the gravel.
“Please, don’t try to hurt yourself. You’re game for
a non wolf, I only tried stuff as nuts as that
after
I was
bitten.”
“I’m kind of shocked, myself.”
I imagined Cresida as a dog, jumping from the
roof, gracefully.
“Since you’re out, let’s go hunting,” she said, smiling wryly, grabbing the strap around her shoulder.
“Well, training anyway,” she added, eyeing me.
I wondered momentarily why I should, but it was
hopeless. I had energy to burn and I was insatiable. If
nothing else, this would burn off some of this insane
electricity, which invaded me. I couldn’t fight it, I felt
like I could do anything. We jumped about Parkourstyle, through the grey forest, though I couldn’t keep
up with Cres. No mere mortal could. But I was a
natural and I didn’t seem to tire easily.
“You know, I was just here to keep an eye out for
Sam, just in case, and here you come, all GI Jane!
Jumping from the roof in the night – you’re lucky
I didn’t shoot you.” Despite the trash talk, I could
tell she was glad I had become what she had waited
many months for – perhaps hoped for, maybe even
prayed for.