Wolf Sirens Night Fall: What Rises Must Fall (Wolf Sirens #3) (14 page)

She snapped to
attention. “What? No. I told you, he’s cool.”

“Good.” I
nodded and watched the scenery ahead. “To be hunter you have to be
independent, there is no other option. We can’t be too
careful.”

She let it sit
a moment. “Should I ignore all my friends now, too?” She said
brusquely. I could see the frustration as her cheeks coloured.

“Yes.” I
answered doing my best to sound matter-of-fact. But my jaw
tightened.

“So you have to
dislike humans in general then, as well as wolves?” she said
unhappily. I guess she wasn’t as ready yet as I had thought. I had
a feeling it would be the last time she would get to be a kid, so I
let it slide. Soon her level of dedication wouldn’t be up for
negotiation. I worried C.J had bitten off more than she could chew.
But it wasn’t me who had cursed her. I pulled over. She got out
without speaking.

“C.J?” I
called.

She
stopped.

“Don’t forget.”
She bent to look at me questioning, “Training Sunday.”
You are
the next huntress.
She didn’t answer as she closed the car
door.

I took the fork
in the road driving into Shade and found my dear friend reading in
her bed. She didn’t look at all surprised to see me. I put the
charm back in my pocket, seeing she was in. She spoke without
removing her eyes from the page of the book she studied.

“How’s your
protégé?”

I wondered if I
should regret telling her about C.J. “Fine, only, we were attacked
by a lone wolf.” I frowned. We had to get her a gun.

Cres sat up and
folded the page of her book. “What?” she said sharply. She looked
surprised enough.

I smiled
momentarily at her concern. “She stabbed it through the heart; I
put a couple bullets through it. The thunder should have covered
the noise.” There was a smile in the corner of my mouth.

“Are you sure
it was a loner?” she enquired as her brow furrowed.

I shook my
head. “No, we’re not sure. That’s why I’m here.” I could hear her
Aunt snoring down the hall. Cresida’s door was still held open with
the doorstop. I went over and slid it further closed. We hadn’t
been attacked yet, so something was up.

“What did she
look like? Who was it?” Cres asked alert, her eyes anticipating. It
seemed that maybe it wasn’t to do with her then, which put me more
at ease.

I shrugged. “I
don’t know. I didn’t have my camera phone on me,” I said
sarcastically. “It wasn’t anyone I recognized from the Cult
line-up.” In truth I was amazed they hadn’t ambushed me yet.

“Have you
checked the online missing persons register?” Her book was
evidently forgotten.

“I haven’t had
time. We buried it, I got Caro – I mean C.J, home and I came
straight here.” I rubbed my face.

Cres wrinkled
her brow “What’s Ceejay?”

I resisted
laughter. “Yeah,” I breathed. “Don’t ask. It’s a nickname she
likes.” I aired my misgivings uneasily. “I saw the News, Cres.” My
face met hers, “Was it you, did you infect him?” I asked with
heaviness.

There was a
momentary silence. “You mean Lovett?” she replied with a stoic
expression. I got the impression she knew I would find her out as
though she had waited for me to confront her.

“You turned
him, didn’t you?” What was to stop me thinking she hadn’t turned
others? “Tell me the truth.”

She was quiet.
“Reid did it. We needed to distract you.” Her lips were rigid.

Maybe I had
hoped it wasn’t her fault. I frowned incredulous. “So you infected
a human on purpose?”

“He was a
bastard.” She solemnly shook her head. “He would have gone to court
and been let off…” she said with a distant resonance to her tone,
the colour drained from her cheeks.

“So you turned
him?” I accused.

“We got rid of
some scum.” She admitted it with a blank stare of guilt. “You were
getting bored, Reid infected him, my venom didn’t seem to do it.” I
turned away momentarily in disgust. She pulled off her sheets and
sat up. “He injected him with a hypodermic needle and made sure he
kept out of trouble when he turned. The guy was bad.” I shot her a
hostile glance. She looked up at me. “Yes we turned him, no I’m not
proud of it,” She admitted dolefully with a shake of her head.

“Did you turn
this one?” I scowled referring to the red-headed rogue. “To
entertain me?” I was growing infuriated, but my voice was cold.

“No. Lila, no.
He was the only one.” She was firm. Either Cres is a good actor she
was telling the truth. I glared at her.

“No more
secrets, Cres,” I said frustrated. “Don’t you think I have a right
to know who I kill or why? Did you think I’d never find out?”

She looked
pained as her stubby fingered hands rested helplessly on her white
night dress. Her Aunts snores snuffled loudly.

I turned my
attention back to more important matters, my voice lowered. “Cres,
I need to know, right now are we safe?” My eyes asked her with more
desperation than my words could express. I asked what I knew I had
to. “Can I trust you?”

“Yes,” she
pouted defiantly. “You can.” With a troubled expression that
indicated she was pondering the implications, she added, “And I
don’t know.” Her eyes filled with grave honesty. I stared into her
face. I was at her mercy. But I knew her.

Finally I
remembered that I understood her…I believed her. Maybe I had no
choice. “Then we have to attack soon, before they find me, or find
out about C.J. You need to get Reid and Jackson, even Giny. Don’t
mention C.J,” I warned. She was a secret. I wanted to keep it that
way. I neared the window and looked out into the dark. I had no
option but to trust her. It pained me. I hoped I wasn’t on a
sinking ship.

“Where should
we meet?” she asked as I readied to leave.

I looked out at
the night sky before me. The breeze brushed my face. I was pensive,
until I realized we had somewhere.

“Lily’s house,”
I suggested with confidence. “I’ll be back in a few days.” I threw
my legs out the window and jumped.

Jackson was the
target of Narine’s next attempt at inserting a more reliable spy
into this rouge territory, since Reid was unreceptive to her gift.
Jackson had wisely lain low since Sam’s attack on Lila, since his
friend Sky had been brutally wounded and taken away to die. His own
impending destiny became all the more real.

When a few
weeks passed after Lila’s disappearance, with no direct word from
anyone, Jackson felt he was to blame and all the while he knew
something was brewing. The time he had left with his human family
was as precarious and limited as ever before, menacingly drawing to
a slow end.

His little
brother let him into the house on nights when he was locked out. He
would begrudgingly nudge the latch open as if for an imaginary
visitor. He no longer looked at his brother, in a display of
disappointment and disgust at his deliberate disobedience which
hurt their parents so. Jackson was a ghost in his own home
already.

He wasn’t
accustomed to neglect; he dropped out and spent time in the cabin
alone during the day. Once or twice he had smelt Reid there and
another bitch, though the scent was different and he realized it
was Cres, that strange half wolf, half deadly hunter zest which
should have repelled Reid also. It was inevitable he would head out
to the pack, but he needed time.

Jackson had
learnt his lesson about spying. The last time he had done it, Reid
had bitten him and his life as he knew it had been taken in one
day. He had died and he remembered the bite, the sting - even
though he never mentioned it to Reid. He didn’t relent to impulse
so easily any longer, though it was probably more depression than
once bitten twice shy which compelled him to hide out these last
two weeks. Also he knew a time was coming closer when he would be a
changed creature, completely wolf, once he joined the Cult pack in
Key Inlet for good. Then everything would be different.

One
particularly dim day he crawled into his bed with a razor. With
heaving sobs he grimaced like a coward and pushed the point of the
blade into his skin, running it up one wrist with two burning
strokes. He repeated speedily on the other with a shallower
scratch. He was bleeding to death quickly and it was to kill
himself perhaps, but also to feel alive.

As quickly as
blood seeped and pooled from the lines in his pale olive skin and
stained the sheets crimson, the wounds began to heal, evaporating
into smooth skin. Soon, the only evidence of brutality and
desperation was the thick blood stains- like clouds on the sheets,
which to his mother’s horror stained the mattress. She grabbed him
and searched him for cuts, injuries, and scrapes frantically, when
she found the stains weeks later, changing the sheets.

“Mum, mum!” he
grunted. She proceeded to then pull up his shirt in search of the
offending wound. He protested loudly when she didn’t stop.
“Mum!”

Her violent
reaction and tears scared him, and she began to beat his chest. It
tore at his heart until he felt her begin to flail and he held her
against him. With her fists rolled up, she bawled like a grieving
parent crying for a deceased child – only that child held her, as
she mourned him fiercely. They were certain he was taking steroids
and perhaps now something worse. He couldn’t take it much
longer.

In the end,
when she offered him the excuse of it being from a nosebleed, he
had sorrowfully agreed that’s what it was; despite the fact he
wished for a moment in time that he could tell her the truth. He
wished the burden of the secret would kill him, weigh him down into
the dirt for the grief he caused them.

He knew it was
better for them all round if he left for the “Cult” soon. Never to
have his life even resemble normalcy ever again. Like a kid leaving
for college, but he was leaving to become a stranger. It would be
more like a death than a transition.

And worse
still, he would far outlive them, watch them die one by one. He
couldn’t stand it, he couldn’t change it, and it seemed to push
more pain and discomfort on them all for him to deny it. He
couldn’t help what he was and he couldn’t hide it, not well enough.
Certainly not much longer, and relations with his step-father were
almost irreparable.

No matter how
much he wished it away, it troubled him, took him over at night and
he woke up in hell every day. Lila was the only hunter he knew who
could end it for him, but she was incognito. Cres was almost
converted to the wolf side and from what he could tell she posed no
threat – not even if he asked her would it have ended it. He knew
Reid wouldn’t have any part of it. Though who knew if he even cared
anymore.

He had to drag
the blood blotched mattress out into the cement dominated court
yard at the back of the house, that his step-father had fashioned
as some sort of homage to the homeland – one he had never seen.

It was there in
the sun with the hose spouting water like a fountain, scrub brush
in hand, that Narine and her female companion Angele, complete with
limp, finally located him.

She was puzzled
as to what exactly he was doing, but having taken too long to find
him Narine was anxious to unload her companion and get back.

“I think it’s
best if you stay here, Angele, and make friends with Jackson –
don’t turn up back at the compound – until you are called for.” The
voice was sweet and authoritative, and Angele knew not to disobey.
She had felt the bite behind those soft words before quite
literally.

“The pack is
dependent on your loyal work.” Narine looked at her face with a
motherly tenderness; her fingers stroked her cheek. “We are all so
proud of you.” She kissed her cheek and fled.

“Hey
Jackson.”

He turned and
almost dropped the hose. Appearing in front of him was a shapely
short girl with thin dark lips, pale face and tanned limbs. Her
cheeks glowed an unnatural dazzling peach and her eyes were as blue
as little round sapphires.

She giggled at
his lack of reply. “What you doing?”

He positioned
himself so his body obscured the stains.

She bent
herself to look around him and with a bemused look said, “Had an
accident?”

He stiffened.
“Who are you?”

“Angele,” she
replied, swaying casually and giving an awkward shrug.

They looked at
each other, him too shocked and embarrassed to respond or to know
what to say.

Unsure of how
to broach the obvious fact that she knew what he was – and that she
was one too— they stood. The water from the hose splashed the
cement.

She raised a
pale brow. “I’m well,” she beamed teasingly - answering an unasked
question. She wasn’t sure if he would recognize her, he hadn’t
seemed to. She took off into the trees and sprang over the high
back wooden fence like a lithe animal, a fence that a man twice her
height would have difficulty climbing.

He stood there
gob smacked with the hose still running over the cement and
spilling into the thin strip of grass that made up the back lawn.
All he could think was, ‘What was that?’

He puzzled over
the blonde in silence, and after dinner, he dropped his plate on
the sink. Exiting the sliding back door, he jumped the fence as she
had done hours before, feeling the difficulty of it for himself,
and confirmed with a thud that she was indeed not human.

He smelt the
fence for traces of her that may have lingered. He heard his mother
call out through the door but ignored her and ran off into the
scrub behind the row of houses in his street. He kept to human
form, but by 9pm he had circled the area and decided to head to the
river. Transformed, he lapped up the water, quenching a dry mouth
from the swollen bank.