Lunatic Fringe (40 page)

Lexie gaped at the audacity of her
mistake. “Tonight I learned that she was some shaman, some magical
diplomat.” She chuckled, wiping the corners of her eyes with the
back of her soot-freckled hand. “And yet I still feel like she was
a complete fool.”

Lexie spat the last word as if she
could expel the thought that way. “I’m not going to follow love
like some hungry bloodhound. I don’t want to be anyone’s wife. Not
now. I’m eighteen. I need to be eighteen for a little
while.”

“
I want to have a family
with you.”

“
I know.”

“
I will be the best mate
for you.”

“
Probably.”

“
I will love you and take
care of you. Come with me.”

Lexie grimaced now, unable to sew up
her heartbreak, plumbing its depths to sear its characteristics
into her memory, recognizing the worth of this moment. She tried to
apologize, to look into Archer’s eyes and tell her so, hoping that
would make her understand. But Lexie wasn’t sorry.

“
Blythe was right, Archer.
This situation is out of control. Let me do this for you. Let me
finish what you can’t. Blythe was a tyrant, but she was right that
we can win. I think the Pack is doing it wrong. My dreams were my
mother’s instructions. They weren’t just telling me how to
recognize werewolves, they were telling me how to communicate with
them. I believe that Renee will be a good leader, and I think I can
help. The Pack needs me. “

“
I need you.”

“
No you don’t.”

“
I want you.”

“
I want you,
too.”

“
Please come with
me.”

“
No.”

Archer’s hand tightened on Lexie’s,
squeezing as if to make their bodies merge. “I can change. I will
change for you.”

“
What for?”

“
We could
marry.”

“
You’d become a man to
marry me?”

Archer nodded, her desperation clawing
at her features.

“
That’s insane.”

“
I could, I think. I would.
For you.”

“
Please don’t.”

A solemn silence filled the space
between them.

“
Where will you go?” Lexie
asked.

“
I don’t know. South. Maybe
the desert for a while. I’m tired of trees.”

Lexie kissed Archer gently. They held
one another for long and lonely minutes, Lexie breathing deep to
take in as much of Archer as she could.

“
I love you so much,
Lexie.”

“
I know,” Lexie said. “I
love you, too.”

Chapter 27

The sun didn’t rise that morning.
Instead, the whole sky grew brighter at once, like a lazy
florescent bulb, slowly clicking itself into action. While her
peers were waking with hangovers or pressing snooze on their
alarms, Lexie tried once more to mourn her mother.

She was alone again within the familiar
comfort of her truck, and though she was free to cry or scream,
none of it came. She tried running through the meager catalogue of
memories she had stored in her mind--her mother braiding her hair,
singing her lullabies, zipping up her jacket. The banality of the
memories evoked only cold remove. She wondered whether this
nothingness she felt was reflective of her lack of feelings for her
mother, or whether it boded a hard-heartedness she had never
recognized in herself before.

Staring in the rearview mirror, Lexie
smacked herself in the face, hard, to see what it felt like. The
marks of her fingers swelled on her skin. It felt like nothing. She
did it again, and then once more. Warmth came, then pain. Another
hit, and she drew forth tears. It felt like a small accomplishment,
seeing the tiny tear well at her right eye. It proved she was still
part human, if nothing else.

Lexie drove away from Archer’s cabin,
stopping at the River View Diner. She joined the flanneled
workingmen enjoying their hearty breakfasts and black coffee. She
squinted at everyone in the diner, trying to glean werewolves in
people’s clothing. Instead, she just saw the tired and solemn faces
of third shifters and day-workers. No one paid her any mind, and
she remembered for a moment that to the residents of Milton, she
was just another townie, no one special. She watched them eating
alone, reading the newspaper, or just looking blankly ahead,
chewing. Lexie practiced being like them, complete in her solitude.
She could do that again, or at least she would like to
try.

It was ages since she’d eaten, and she
was forced to blot up a pool of her saliva that splashed the table
as she read the menu.

The sausage and gravy settled heavy her
belly as her truck rumbled to the Den. Frost fought at her
windshield, and she pined for a sweatshirt for the first time in
months. The Den was dark, but she could hear the crying and
murmured conversation of the women from the driveway.

She turned the knob without knocking,
knowing that they all heard her as she pulled up. She stepped
gingerly through the space. The girls sprawled around the living
room floor, not unlike Lexie’s first night in this room. Corwin
dozed as Sharmalee lay on her chest, weeping quietly, clutching at
the flesh of Corwin’s belly. Jenna scratched Mitch’s head as he
leaned forward on the heels of his hands, his bleary, bloodshot
eyes fixed on the square of carpet between his ankles. He looked as
though he were running out of tears and relied on Jenna’s hands to
squeeze out whatever was left. Hazel curled beneath a blanket in
the corner, snoring.

Apart from them all stood Renee. She
leaned over the kitchen sink beneath a solitary incandescent light,
blotting at a wound on her left arm. It was deep and ragged, the
gap showing all shades of red. She had dressed the wound once
already, the old bandages lying in a rusty heap on the counter top.
Her hair was charred, divots of it missing like a pillow short on
stuffing. She turned as Lexie entered, digging her fingers into her
hair in a vain attempt to fix it.

They looked at one another like
survivors and wished for one blessed moment for the sisters to be
out of ear-shot. Lexie felt like a traitor, and in Renee’s
exhausted eyes, she could tell she felt the same way. In that gaze,
Lexie felt as if she were pardoned by a crooked judge. She had
given up on the lifelong embrace of her love to stand in a cold
kitchen among sobbing women at seven a.m. on a Sunday.

Their shared silence was a show of
solidarity, though Lexie’s nerves were frayed by the pool of women
in the other room. She desperately needed to be alone, but her
unawareness of the fact was magnified by her need to be scratched
behind the ears and told that everything would be okay. So, she
stood with her sisters to hide among the shell-shocked.

“
Things will change,” Renee
said, exhaustion stealing the elan from her voice. “Blythe was a
hypocrite. I won’t make her mistakes.”

Lexie nodded with a half-hearted
smile.

“
Take my room tonight,”
Renee said. “I’m sleeping in Blythe’s. Always wanted an eastern
view.” She laughed without humor. Lexie didn’t join in. “Thank
you,” Renee said. She didn’t smile, but Lexie felt the words’
truth. Lexie’s bleary eyes burned. She nodded.

In Renee’s room, Lexie squeezed her
eyes shut as she stripped, trying to feel the fleece beneath her
cheek, the wood grain ripple against her fingers. She thought of
that night at the Full Moon Tribe, experiencing her last few
moments of pure humanity, and the events that made up her life
since. Frost clung to the window, not yet burned off by the
morning. It looked like it might snow again. Somehow it had become
winter and Lexie had missed it entirely.

The cotton sheets scratched her skin.
She sighed, bitter at her discomfort. Stretching and squeezing,
trying to make herself comfortable on this unforgiving bed, Lexie
kicked off the sheets and buried her face in her hands. The cool,
still air of the room crept over her skin, its chill easily
mistaken for the crispness that filled her head each morning as she
awoke in Archer’s arms.

Lexie feared she had made the wrong
choice, even as she knew in her heart she hadn’t. In saying no,
Lexie had sent a glorious love away. Yet, as she lay in the
brightening room, she realized that in saying no to Archer, she was
saying yes to something else. She struggled to hold that in her
mind, to play with the possibilities of that yes.

As sleep came to steal her from the
turmoil of her mind, her back shivered, craving the curve of her
lover’s body to rescue her from the coming chill.

Acknowledgements

The existence of this book is due in
part to the silent and bawdy support of my extraordinary community
of friends, lovers, peers, family chosen and family
borne.

Great thanks to those who read and
commented of various drafts and sections of this book: Tatyana
Brown, Julianne Carroll, Katie Lippa, and friend Jeff.

To the Goddess of Track Changes and my
knight in shining corsetry, Alyc Helms.

To Jon Imparato, for your generosity of
spirit and keen artistic mind. You have been like a father to me
for years, and I love you.

To Matt Walker. If Jon is my spirit
dad, you’re my wacky uncle. Thanks for lending me your eagle
eyes.

To the extraordinary community of
people at the LA Gay & Lesbian Center. Thank you for the work
you do and the home you gave me while I nurtured my artistic
self-expression.

To Caryn Solly, for your tough love and
grounded enthusiasm.

To Professor David Higgins for your
love, respect, and wisdom. You, sir, are a gentleman and a
scholar.

To JP for your boundless creativity and
generosity. Thank you for creating such a gorgeous image to go with
my story.

To Kara Wuest for sound judgment and
guidance.

To Mom and Dad, who told me I could be
whatever I wanted when I grew up, and meant it.

To Adrienne and Ken, for putting my
coming-out article on their fridge.

To the women of Camp Beaverton, who
showed me what a righteous group of babes looks and feels like. You
are my inspiration.

To the supportive community of online
readers and fans, for cheering me on and sticking with me over
years of development and postponements.

To the legion of couch and spare-room
owners who happily housed and fed me when I decided that the thing
to do in a down economy was quit my job and write a
novel.

To all the acquaintances who said
“Lesbian werewolves? I’ll totally read that.”

And beyond all, love and thanks to Reid
Mihalko, my cheerleader, my pace car, my powerful exception, and my
biggest champion.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Allison Moon is a founding
member of Camp Beaverton for Wayward Girls. She grew up exploring
the woods of Ohio, and now she's exploring a different kind of
wildlife in the California Bay Area. In 2011, she was named a
Lambda Literary Foundation Emerging LGBT Writers Fellow. Lunatic
Fringe is her first novel. Learn more at
http://www.TalesofthePack.com