Eternity (10 page)

There were
always a few teachers or staff patrolling the halls at night to
make sure students were in bed, and I unfortunately did not have
the gift of invisibility, so I was forced to be careful. I had to
sneak by Ms. Hughes in the front foyer, but once I got to the
cafeteria, my way was free.

I took the
stairs down to the pool, which looked eerie in the dark, and from
there I found the second set of stairs that led deeper underground.
There were still lights on by the stairs, though I suspected that
they were only on for the one day of the month when there were
people passing by.

I was a little
surprised that the thick doors were unlocked and unguarded, but I
managed to get through the first two without any trouble. I found
trouble at the third door though, since that one was guarded, and
by Mr. Ramirez. To say he looked surprised to see me would be an
understatement.

“You’re not
exactly allowed to visit your friends down here, Juliet,” he said.
“You should get back to bed before you get in trouble.”

“I didn’t come
to see Jack,” I replied. “I came to see Adrian.”

“I don’t care,
and trust me, he’s the last person you want to see right now. That
kid has no control yet, so he’s extremely dangerous.”

“Well, maybe I
can help,” I suggested.

“No. Go back to
bed.” It didn’t seem like he was going to change his mind. I
decided I would have to take drastic measures.

I suddenly
moved past him to the door. He wasn’t expecting it, so he was slow
to react, and by the time he did it was too late. I was through the
door.

The sounds that
met my ears when I opened the door scared me. I could hear howling,
clawing, snarling, and growling. Some of the doors to the
individual rooms were rattling.

“Juliet, get
out of here. This isn’t the kind of place you want to be in,” Mr.
Ramirez was saying.

“I suggest you
go back out the door and shut it,” I told him. “I’m going to open
one of these doors, and I don’t know what will happen when I
do.”

“Then I’m
staying where I am. I suppose you don’t know this about me, but I
can create energy fields around people that others can’t get
through. Unfortunately I can’t create fields that prevent
determined young women from opening doors that they should stay
away from.”

“I don’t think
I’ll need your protection.” I didn’t think Adrian would hurt me,
though I couldn’t be sure. I had never seen a werewolf up close
before.

I found him in
the third room on the right. I don’t even know how I could tell it
was him, but he somehow seemed familiar. He was also the most out
of control, as Mr. Ramirez had said. I didn’t hesitate to open the
door anyway.

I realized
right away that I had made a mistake in believing that he wouldn’t
hurt me. The first thing he did when I opened the door was come at
me. He wasn’t in his right mind, and he didn’t even stop to see who
he was attacking. He went for my throat.

Chapter
14

It was a good
thing Mr. Ramirez was there, because his shield was the only thing
that kept me from being killed. The large wolf hit the shield,
which sparked with blue light at the contact, and he fell to the
ground, momentarily stunned. I was a little stunned as well, but I
moved toward him anyway.

It took him
only a few seconds to get back to his feet. He snarled at me, but
then he stopped. Some change came over him, like he was waking up
from a dream. He stopped snarling and he backed away from me, back
through the door to his room. I followed, and he growled at me, but
I didn’t stop until I was kneeling in front of him. He was backed
into a corner, so he had nowhere to go unless he went at me again,
but I could tell he didn’t want to. He had recognized me.

I went back to
the door and closed it, but there was no way to lock it from the
inside. Mr. Ramirez’s face appeared in the window and I thought he
would open the door and force me to leave, but he just shook his
head and walked away. I then went back to Adrian, who was still
cowering in the corner. There were pieces of debris scattered
around the room that were covered in claw and teeth marks which I
had to step over.

His eyes met
mine, and I reached forward to feel his fur. He didn’t move at all,
but he continued to watch me. I ran my hand down the fur on his
side, which was coarse and long, and then I moved my hand to his
head. The fur there was much softer.

“See? It’s not
so bad,” I said. “You can handle being around me.”

He shook his
head and got up and paced back and forth across the room. He
stopped to look at me, but only for a second before resuming his
pacing. He did not like being in there with me.

I ended up
staying the whole night. I hadn’t really intended to, and I was
surprised that Mr. Ramirez hadn’t kicked me out. I guess when he
saw that Adrian was done trying to kill me he decided that I would
be safe. Adrian and I ended up sitting next to each other, and I
was leaning against his warm body. I don’t even remember falling
asleep, but I woke up in the morning and was still there. I knew it
was morning because Adrian was sleeping next to me, and he was no
longer a wolf. He was also completely naked, which I tried to
ignore. I elbowed him to wake him up.

“Good morning,”
I said when he opened his eyes. He blinked a few times before his
expression changed.

“I don’t think
‘good’ is the word I would use to describe it,” he replied. I could
tell by his tone that he was angry. I didn’t even need to see the
swirly torrent of color around him, which was good, because I was
avoiding looking at him.

“It’s the
weekend; of course it’s good.”

“You’re insane.
I almost killed you last night, and you’re acting like nothing
happened.”

“Well, the way
I see it, you didn’t kill me. Of course, I don’t have you to thank
for that. You should try looking before you attack. Or maybe you
should try not attacking at all.”

Adrian was
really angry now, and almost shouting. “You don’t know what it’s
like! I wasn’t really myself, and you came out of nowhere. It was
instinct. You should never have come here in the first place.” He
got up and left, completely ignoring his nakedness.

When he was
gone I stood up, and I realized that I still had the rose in my
pocket. I pulled it out gently, but it was already crumpled. The
petals fell off in my hand, and some of them fell slowly to the
floor. It made me sad to see such a magnificent flower ruined, but
when I held it up to my nose, it still smelled beautiful. When I
closed my eyes I could imagine that it was still whole. I opened my
eyes and it was still a mess, so I laid it on the floor, not
wanting to look at it.

I snuck out to
get back to my room. Mr. Ramirez was helping the werewolves get
some clothes, so he didn’t notice my escape. A few of the students
did and they eyed me with interest, but they didn’t say anything to
me. I was glad that I didn’t see Jack, though he’d probably hear
about my being there from someone else anyway. He definitely
wouldn’t be happy about it.

I thought for
the rest of the day that Mr. Ramirez was going to come find me and
get me expelled or something, but it didn’t happen. The next time I
was in his class I stayed afterward to ask him why he hadn’t
reported me. He told me that there weren’t actually any rules
related to what I had done, other than being out of bed at night,
so I hadn’t broken any that were important. Apparently no one had
ever tried to sneak in to see a werewolf during a full moon
before.

Adrian stayed
mad, though I didn’t think he was mad at me, even though what I had
done wasn’t exactly smart. He seemed to be mad at himself. I saw
fear when he was around me, which grew to be less often. He stopped
sitting by me in Calculus, which was pretty much the only time I
saw him anyway. It hurt me, but I didn’t let him see that. I hoped
things would change, but a part of me knew things wouldn’t go back
to the way they were.

If Jack had
heard about me being down in the rooms that night, he didn’t say
anything to me. He acted completely normal, so I figured he hadn’t
heard. It bothered me to be keeping so much from him, since I never
really had before. It was one thing to do it to protect him, but
this time I was doing it for myself, and I felt guilty.

***

The holiday
season came faster than I was expecting it to. By that time I felt
as if I had been at Winterwood for such a short amount of time,
even though so many things had changed in my life since I had
arrived. I had become really good friends with my roommates,
especially Heather, who was a genuinely good person. I spent a lot
of time with Melissa as well, who was always a bundle of energy,
though I hadn’t started working on my fire resistance with her yet.
She did know about my ability though. She learned about it before I
told her, when she accidently sent a shoot of fire into my face. It
caused quite a panic until people realized I was fine. Mr. Ramirez
almost always partnered us together after that, deciding it was the
safest thing to do.

I saw Jack
pretty much every day, which I was happy about. Even though we
spent a lot less time together than back in Washington, we managed
to stay as close as we always were. I really didn’t know what I
would do without him.

There was a
break in classes during the holidays, and a lot of the students
went home to see their families. By the time they were all gone I
was the only one left in my room, since all of my roommates had
families to go home to. I thought I would enjoy having a room to
myself for once, but I missed them. Jack was still there, of
course, since he had no more home to go to than I did. As far as I
knew he was the only one left at school who I knew, but I was happy
to get to spend some quality time with him.

“Do you like it
here?” he asked me one day as we sat in the south wing common room,
drinking hot chocolate and watching the light snow that was coming
down outside. We were the only ones there, so the room felt oddly
empty.

“Of course,” I
answered. “Why wouldn’t I? At least we actually have friends here,
and we don’t have to live with a bunch of crazy little kids who’ll
break anything they get their hands on.”

“True. I like
the independence we have here too. We always had to ask Ms. Holland
whenever we wanted to do anything back at Pembrook.”

“Plus there’s
so much more to do here, and the library’s infinitely better.”

Jack laughed.
“You and your libraries. You could live in one and be perfectly
content.”

“Only if you
were there with me,” I said, laughing as well.

I managed to
convince Jack to go with me to the library then, though he grumbled
about it. He said it was unnatural to spend time in a library when
one was on break, but he came on the condition that he was allowed
to bring his hot chocolate, which I agreed to as long as he put a
lid on it to prevent it from spilling on any precious books. That
just made Jack laugh at me more.

He sat at a
table and looked through a book about Russia, though only because
it was full of pictures. He wasn’t quite as fond of reading as I
was, to say the least. I went looking for books about auras, though
I was pretty sure I had read all of the ones in the library
already.

I finally found
an ancient one that I hadn’t read yet that was on the wrong shelf.
It sat in between two books of crochet patterns. I had no idea what
those were doing in the library.

I found what I
was looking for almost right away, though I was disappointed that
it didn’t say more. I had flipped to a random page and it was right
there on the top. The author had written that the only known white
auras were those of the two gods, Amun and Isadora. Both were
rumoured to have bright white auras that were almost blinding,
though they were rarely seen and often hid their auras to escape
detection by those who could see them.

“Find what you
were looking for?” a voice asked from behind me. It startled me so
badly I actually dropped the book on the floor. Adrian reached by
me and picked it up before I could do so myself. He looked at the
cover. “A book about auras? I can’t say that I was expecting
that.”

“Well I can’t
say that I was expecting you to be here,” I said, trying to calm my
suddenly frenzied heart. “I thought you’d gone like almost everyone
else.” I tried to grab the book from him, but he held it out of my
reach, flipping through the pages.

“I guess you
didn’t bother to ask your friend over there if I was still here.
I’m curious, was that because you didn’t care, or was it because
you didn’t want him to know that you were looking for me?” He
asked. He grinned at me in a way that made me want to hit him,
which was unusual for me, since I didn’t have violent tendencies. I
glared at him instead.

“Have a nice
day,” I said sarcastically, and tried to stalk off. I couldn’t
because he had grabbed my arm when I turned away, and he had a
strong grip.

“Juliet, wait a
second. You never answered my question.”

I shivered
slightly when he said my name. It was the first time I ever heard
him say it. “Which question?” I asked angrily, trying to hide my
reaction.

“The first
one,” he answered. “Did you find what you were looking for?”

“Hey man, back
off,” I heard Jack say from behind me. I jumped at the sound of his
voice. Adrian, however, did not let go of my arm. He continued to
wait for an answer.

“What
difference does it make to you?” I snapped. “You stopped talking to
me weeks ago.”

“Juliet, come
on,” Jack said. “Let’s go see if lunch is ready.”

Adrian
continued to ignore him. “I was angry, and I still am, but that
doesn’t stop me from being curious.”