Bad Wolf (2 page)

“Do what you want. But if you don’t tell her, I will,” was all he said
before slipping the card key back into the door and shutting it behind him with
a loud click. Trent took in a deep breath, the anger dissipating from his face.

“Let’s just go to bed,” he said, avoiding eye contact with me.

“I don’t have the card key,” I said, not budging from my position on the
floor. “Plus...I want to know the truth. What was that Trent?” I stopped myself
just short of saying, “was that you?”

Again, there was a pause that seemed to take ages. Finally Trent looked
at me and nodded, as if we had come to some sort of agreement. He didn’t look
happy about it, though. He approached me and then turned, sliding his bare back
down the wall to join me on the nasty concrete, facing out to the parking lot.
He sighed.

“How drunk are you?”

“Not drunk enough,” I snorted. Trent laughed, a hard, genuine laugh, and
I couldn’t help but smile.

After a while the laughter faded, and so did the strong edge to the
atmosphere. “Look,” he finally said. “There are some fucked up things about me
you don’t know.”

I turned to look at him, and his eyes were downcast, as though he were
ashamed—scared even. I rarely saw him so vulnerable. I hadn’t seen him
like this since he told me he was going to drop out of college. I could
remember with sharp clarity the heavy air of sadness that hung around him when
I opened my apartment door. I reached a hand out and covered my fingers over
his, giving him a reassuring smile as he looked up to meet my gaze. I was sure
I didn’t want to know. But I needed to understand, and I needed to face my
fears.

“You’re not going to believe me,” he mumbled. I could see fear in his
eyes.

“Try me,” I said, attempting to remain calm as the world turned and
tilted. My heart leapt up in my throat at just the thought of what he might
say.

‘
That couldn’t have been him
,’ I told myself. ‘
You’re drunk
and you imagined everything. He probably hooked up with one of those girls. He
wants to get it off his chest
.’

“Um well—”

“It’s okay, I hooked up with someone at the party too,” I blurted out.
The news didn’t really seem to comfort him. His lips tensed and the worry on
his face was replaced with something harder, meaner.

“I didn’t
hook up
with anyone,” he snapped, turning his head away
from me so that I could only see his strong profile again. My heart sank.

“I’m sorry...I just...I—”

“That was me, back there,” he said, his face still stone cold as he
looked out to the parking lot.

“I don’t—”

“Those gashes on your shoulders are my fault.” He swallowed, and I could
make out the slow movement in his throat.

“Please,” I said hoarsely. “Please don’t mess with me.”

“I told you you wouldn’t believe me.”

 
For a few moments I didn’t
have anything to say. I didn’t know what to believe, or what I wanted to
believe. I opened my mouth, and then closed it, gaping like a fish.

Finally, I said, “It looked like you, Trent. I knew it was you,
but—”

“But it’s crazy, right?” he finished for me.

I nodded, meeting his gaze, and we exchanged a long glance.

“Look,” he said. “I’m not trying to convince you that it’s normal, or
that anything that happened was something that was supposed to happen. I messed
up. I messed up really bad.”

“So, what happened, exactly?” I said, raising my eyes up to greet the
full moon hovering over the trees and slabs of concrete buildings.

“I...changed. And you can’t blame me really.”

“Are you talking about the full moon?” I asked, bewildered. I kept my
eyes on the fixed orb in the sky.

“Yeah,” he said in a hushed whisper. Then he regained his composure.
“Usually I can fight it off long enough. I didn’t want to be a drag about the
party and—”

“Wait, you don’t have to...you
know
, transform on a full moon?
Aren’t you a...werewolf?”

I could see him flinch at the word. “Well, it depends on the
person...but usually, yeah, the full moon is what does it. But we all have
different levels of control over it. I’m not going to pretend mine’s the best,
but I’ve been at it for a while. Usually on the full moon I can hang back a few
hours if I need too, but stress or any kind of really strong emotion can really
do you in.”

“Wait,” I blinked hard, trying to steady my breath. If it weren’t for
the claw marks on my skin and for the image of that snarling beast burned into my
retinas, I would have been sure this was all a joke. “How long has it been
since...have you always...?”

“Since eighth grade,” he said. “I’m not sure I want to get that into it
now...I’m tired,” he said, and the dark circles under his eyes certainly attested
to that.

‘
Eighth grade was when he was attacked
,’ I thought, remembering
that terrible day when I went to visit him in the hospital. His father had told
me it was by a stray dog, that a feral pack of them was known to wander those
campgrounds. But Trent looked at me, something fierce and feral in his
gray
 
eyes, something that I
remember haunted me at night for a whole year afterwards, and he said, “it
wasn’t a dog,” over and over.

“Okay,” I said, wrapping my arms around my shoulders protectively. “Does
Sierra know?” I asked suddenly.

“No, and I’d appreciate it if you didn’t tell her.”

“What about Lola?”

 
“Yes,” he said after a brief
pause. For some reason that stung.

“Nick and Brandon know.”

Trent was quite for a minute. “Yeah. They know.”

“Why did you tell them and not me?” I said, hurt welling up inside of
me. How could he not trust me, after all these years?

“It’s...not as simple as that,” he said, turning away from me yet again.

“What do you mean?” I said, the hot anger bubbling from my lips like
lava. I couldn’t stop the eruption. “When were you going to tell me about all
of this? Or were you ever going to?”

“Well when were you going to tell me that you started hooking up with
random guys at parties?” Trent snapped, his cool gray eyes on my again, but
this time the glare was vicious and unrelenting.

“What the hell does that have to do with
anything
?” I cried out,
sure that everyone on the second floor of the hotel could hear us. But I didn’t
care. I was furious. Who did he think he was, throwing something like that in
my face? “It’s not like before Lola you weren’t the biggest man whore on
earth!”

“Well at least I didn’t cheat on my boyfriend,” he spat.

“We broke up, and what do you care? You don’t even
like
Jason!”

Trent looked away, his lips pursed in anger. But I wasn’t finished. I
was boiling with rage.

“No. You don’t get to control me like that. Nobody does. I already got
enough of it from my Dad and enough of it from Jason. I’m sorry that you
regularly turn into a beast that wants to attack your closest friends, I truly
am. But that doesn’t give you license to tell me how to run my life,” I
snapped, pushing myself up from the floor with my palms. I wanted to make a
dramatic exit, but I just managed to stagger drunkenly towards the door, avoiding
eye contact with the person I just threw verbal daggers at. But he didn’t try
to stop me, he didn’t say anything.

It wasn’t until I was lying on the hard hotel bed alone, next to the
space where Brandon had set down his night shirt and pillow,
 
that I realized what I had done. I had
thrown into his face that he was a monster. I buried my face into the hotel
pillow that smelled of Clorox, while all the confused, raging thoughts battled
in my mind, fighting back the impending tears.

Chapter
Two

The next morning I awoke early, my phone buzzing with a text message. It
was from Aamir. Simultaneously my heart skipped a beat and my stomach filled
with dread.

“Are u OK? Also, found you a house show in Tally. You down?”

Suddenly the post-coital conversation came rushing back to me. So much
had happened since then that I hadn’t even given it a second thought. Besides,
the particular details of the hook-up were a little fuzzy just then, with my
head pounding furiously and all. I mostly remembered that it was awesome. I
looked around at the guys deep in sleep: Brandon next to me with his arm
hanging off the bed, Nick and Martin with their backs turned against each other
in the bed across from us, and Trent on the floor in our alternating sleeping
bag. I groaned as a searing pain in my head reminded me of the amount of
alcohol I had consumed.

‘
Trent
,’ I thought, ‘
Oh God, he probably hates me
.’

Then I reminded myself that I still kind of hated him too.

I looked back at my phone and sighed. It seemed like the perfect opportunity,
but a part of me wondered if it would piss of Trent further.

‘
There’s no logical reason,
’ I told myself. We were planning on
camping out at Lake Okeechobee anyway, and while I would do it, I wasn’t
especially fond of camping. I just didn’t care for it either way. I planned it
as a money saving strategy.

I looked through my missed texts and realized Aamir had sent me few, all
asking if I was okay. I also had a dozen missed calls from him. My heart
fluttered at his concern.

“Sorry I missed ur texts! I am OK. And totally. Tell us when and where
:).”

I waited only a few moments before my phone buzzed in my palm, loud in
the relative silence.

“OK. Will do. Also I had fun last nite : ). Maybe we could hang out
again? Go out for lunch?”

I smiled, both disbelieving and thrilled that he actually wanted to hang
out again. Part of me had expected it would remain a drunken fling.

‘That would be nice :).” I texted back. I was smiling like a dork,
sitting on my own cloud nine until Brandon stirred, mumbling himself awake.

“Hey,” I whispered with a goofy smile as he opened his eyes.

“Hey...”he sniffed the air and groaned, shoving his head into his
pillow. “Mfrggghhh.”

“Um...what?”

“You stink,” he groaned as he lifted his head up momentarily only to
drop it back down.

I looked down at myself and realized with dismay I was wearing the same
dress from last night, covered in dirt and dark blood stains. I lifted my
armpit to take a whiff and I startled myself with my own pungent scent.

“Oh God,” I moaned.

Martin stirred, his sandy blonde hair flopping around as he tossed. “Get
up!” I barked, lifting my body out of the bed to skip over to the bathroom.
“We’re going to Tallahassee!”

“What the hell?” Martin said before a long yawn. “Why?”

“I got us a gig. I call dibs on the shower!” I shut the door behind me,
ready to wash away the thick layer of filth and hangover that had accumulated
on my body.

I forced Brandon to drive since the lucky bastard wasn’t hung over.
There was an uncomfortable silence in the van, which was only exacerbated by
all our raging headaches. We drove in silence because no one could handle even
the idea of listening to the radio. I briefly wondered how many times the band
would be too beaten by alcohol to handle music. I forced everyone to eat from the
loaf of bread we had in the back because they refused to get breakfast.

It was five long, excruciating hours, and by the third, I had to force
Brandon to pull over so I could up-chuck in a quaint little Texaco station. I
fell asleep for most of the rest of the drive.

Brandon woke me up as we entered the city, filled with oak trees covered
in moss and a strange combination of old, quirky antique shops, dirty looking
bars, and giant, well-kept grocery store parking lots. We weren’t in Orlando
anymore. It was almost like we weren’t even in Florida anymore, with its palm
trees and flashy cars crowding the streets.

“Hey, we need to get an oil change because I guess no one did that
before we left. Can you look up an auto center on the GPS?” Poor Brandon looked
incredibly tired and irritated. Just as we passed by a dumpy Irish pub and a
foreboding strip mall, my phone buzzed with a message from Aamir.

“Um, hold on,” I said to Brandon. 
“Want 2 get some pizza?” The
text read. An explosion of nerves burst forth from my stomach. I wondered
suddenly if the guys would resent me for ditching them and going off to get
some grub with a hottie.

“Where at?” I texted Aamir before turning my attention back to the GPS.
I searched for an auto center and found one less than a mile away.

“Pizza Haven, on Tennessee St next to McDonalds,” he typed back.

“Um, Aamir wants to discuss some things concerning the show tonight,” I
bluffed, a blush creeping over my cheeks. I turned my face to hide the
incriminating evidence of my lie. “Why don’t you drop me off at this place
called Pizza Haven? He’ll meet me there and I’ll order you guys some food while
you get the oil changed.”

“Sounds good, I am getting hungry,” Brandon said, giving me the side
eye. I knew he knew what I was up to. I averted my eyes back to the GPS and
typed in “Pizza Haven.”

“Take a left here,” I said, pointing up at the intersection. I tried to
keep the giddiness from my voice, but it wasn’t like it really mattered. Nick
and Trent were asleep, and Martin was in a hung-over daze.

He dropped me off at Pizza Haven, and I walked into the quaint little
pizza parlor; it had an adorable, checkered floor and red plastic tables. If it
weren’t for my queasy stomach, the over-powering smell of garlic and cheese
would have been very welcome.

“Bailey!”

I looked over to the back to see Aamir sitting in front of large pizza
pie, a sheepish grin on his face. He was wearing a tight, blue t-shirt that
complemented his dark complexion (and of course, showed off his toned body).
His hair was gelled back like it was when I first met him, and I remembered
with distinct clarity how it looked last night, disheveled, falling in thick,
luscious curls over his forehead.

 
I approached him, my heart
racing at the sight of his gorgeous upturned lips. For a moment, I almost
convinced myself that I had just imagined the hook up. It couldn’t be real.

“Hey,” I said as I pulled out the seat across from him and sank down
into it. He stood up while I sat down, which was both awkward and totally cute.

“You aren’t hurt from yesterday, are you?” he asked, a deep concern on
his face as he scanned me for evidence of bodily harm.

“I’m fine,” I blushed. “Who knew there were wolves in Florida?” I
offered with my palms turned up in a questioning gesture.

He shook his head, solemn-looking. “We called animal control and they
said they’d be on the look out. I followed the wolf to see where it was going,
but by the time I got back you were gone. I’m just really glad you’re okay,” he
said, offering me a sweet, small smile.

“Oh, it’s...yeah, I’m fine. Thanks for caring,” I stuttered, mentally
cursing myself for being so awkward.

“Of course I care,” he gave a small laugh, as though we had been close
friends our whole lives. “Sorry, I went ahead and ordered a pizza. I was just
so hungry. I hope cheese is okay?” I noticed that his plate was still clean and
the pizza was untouched. It was completely adorable how thoughtful he was.

“Oh, that’s totally fine!” I said, feeling a blush come over my cheeks.
“Cheese is great. Honestly, I love pizza, whatever kind.” I pulled at my
carnation-colored cardigan, suddenly self-conscious of the red tinge that might
appear across my pale chest.

“Great,” he said, offering me the wooden handle of the pie server.
“After you.”

I felt the fire in my cheeks blaze as I reached for the handle, his
fingers grazing mine and sending a spark of lust up through my arm. It was
ridiculous how much I wanted him again, his thick, dark hands against my milky
skin.

Unfortunately, I realized as soon as I had my slice on my plate that I
really wasn’t hungry. I took a tiny bite and smiled at him, forcing the
nauseating bit of food down my throat.

“Everything alright?” he asked.

“Yeah, sorry,” I said. “Pizza is totally my favorite food...it’s just
that, well I’m still hung over from last night.”

“Oh, I understand,” he said before taking a big bite into his slice. He
chewed thoroughly and swallowed before speaking, something I had never seen a
guy do before. It was weirdly sexy, seeing a guy my age being so well mannered.

“I just can’t avoid eating at my favorite pizza place,” he said with a
small laugh, a twinkle in his chocolate eyes.

“So you’re familiar with Tallahassee?” I asked, trying to force myself
to nibble some more of the pizza. A cheery waitress came over and I ordered a
water and a large, pepperoni pizza to go for the guys.

“Well, you could say that. I grew up here.”

“Oh, wow. So what brought you to Orlando?” I asked, sipping my water and
clearing the pungent taste of pizza from my mouth.

“School,” he said. “If you’ll believe it, I was going for a Master’s in
Religion.”

“Wow,” I said, truly impressed. Some of my friends didn’t find guys with
degrees in humanities attractive because they said that there was no money in
it. I on the other hand found it wildly attractive; I had a secret dream of
marrying a sexy, sensitive intellectual who spent his evenings brooding over
books.

And I dated Jason. The only book he ever finished in his life was a
self-help book called, “Get Rich Today!”

“Don’t be impressed I dropped out pretty quickly,” he laughed. “My
parents really wanted me to be a professor, but I obviously found another
calling.”
“My parents weren’t too happy about my career choice either,” I
laughed, recalling my mother’s horrified face when I told her I was going cross
country with Trent’s band.

“
Mija
,” she had said, her spatula waving wildly in her hand,
“Trent is a good boy, but you can’t follow him around expecting to build a
future with his music!”

We shared stories about our immigrant parents, their funny sayings and
strict rules. It surprised me how much we had in common even though his parents
were from Iran and my mother was from Mexico. He was also apparently
brilliant—he admitted to speaking French, Spanish, and Farsi fluently.

I was falling for him and his insanely hot, dulcet laugh.
Hard
.

When the bill came he insisted on paying, even for the pizza I was
bringing to the guys.

“That’s absurd!” I said, reaching for the bill.

“No, it’s smart. That way you have to take me out later,” he said, a
devilish grin creeping up on his generous lips.

I think that’s when my heart stopped beating.

“Well there’s no reason for you to buy the pepperoni pizza!” The words
tumbled clumsily out of my mouth.

“Consider it an offering. I really wanted to congratulate them on their
performance last night, but things got disrupted...anyway, I wanted to ask them
to be on our next promotional E.P.”

My jaw dropped. “Are you serious?”

“Of course, Bad Moon is great!”

I nearly died right then and there. “When did you want to record? Which
song should they do?”

Aamir laughed at my eagerness, but I was too stoked to care. This was
success at its sweetest—networking with benefits! “Well honestly we were
thinking of doing a live, lo-fi kind of E.P. It would be on our website, free
for promotional purposes more than anything. What if we got together after the
shows tonight? We’re staying at a friend’s place not too far from Raucous Riot,
the venue we’re playing.”

“Oh God, that would be perfect. Can you text me the address? Also, to
the house show you hooked us up with? Brandon’s going to pick me up soon,” I
said, furiously texting to Brandon in all caps, “OMG BEST NEWS EVER.”

“Sure,” Aamir said, pulling out his phone to text me.

“OMG WORST NEWS EVER.
 
GET
OUTSIDE WE NEED YOU.”

“Crap,” I interjected, scooting my chair back against the tile. “I’m
sorry, I guess Brandon is here already. And he said he needs me right now,” I
said, frowning down at his text.

“Oh, okay,” his beautiful gaze turned sad for a moment, and I nearly
melted onto the floor right then and there. He got up from his chair and met me
around the other side of the table. “I’ll see you tonight then?”

“Absolutely,” I said, trying to keep my knees from wobbling as I stared
him in his perfectly chiseled face.

“Bailey,” he started, a strong, piercing look overcoming his normally
soft expression. The air that hovered between our faces was wrought with an
unbearable tension, tight and hot with the breath passing between us. “I don’t
know what’s going on with your boyfriend, but I really want you to know that
I’m falling for you. Hard.” He closed his fingers around my wrist, and lifted
my hand up to his lips, closing his eyes as he brushed my knuckles against the
fold of his perfect mouth. I stifled a gasp as my fingers came alive with a
tingling sensation. I could hardly breathe; there was a tight hold on my chest,
like someone had gripped my lungs with an invisible hand.