Never Cry Werewolf (21 page)

My raffia bird.

I’d never got a chance to burn it in the bonfire, to signify the birth of a new, stronger Shelby. But that was okay. Somehow I felt I’d done it. I’d made it through the forest with Austin. I’d risked myself to save him. I’d released the me that wanted to run from consequences somewhere between that night in the forest and eating my way through four packages of gummy worms.

I’d made decisions that had saved Austin. And you know what? Sometimes the price you pay for making those hard choices is totally worth it.

I turned the lopsided bird over and over in my hands, checking out my sloppy artwork, then I set it down on my sleeping bag and pulled a single sheet of folded white paper from the box.

Dear Shelby,

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You are going to make it. Just remember to use your wings.

Love and Light,

Mr. Winters

I pressed one hand over my eyes, not wanting anyone in my platoon to see me break down, because I felt tears coming. Mr. Winters was corny, maybe, but he kind of got me. I mean, he’d begged my dad to let me stay at Camp Crescent. That might have been okay, you know? I could see myself talking things out with Mr. Winters and it didn’t seem like it’d be weird. He really did care about me. And apparently, he wanted me to make it.

My heart swelling, I folded the note back up into the perfect rectangle and placed it into the box with the bird. If Randi swiped that treasure, she was gonna be sorry.

“Hey! Are you all right, Shelby?” Vanessa asked.

“Yeah, yeah. Thanks. I’m okay.” I swabbed my arm across my watery eyes, trying to suck it up and be normal.

“Sure?” Vanessa gave me a skeptical look. “Well, come on, then, or we’ll miss it.”

Thinking she meant the showers, I gathered up my stuff and followed her out the door. But she didn’t walk toward the head, which is what they called the bathroom. Instead, she led me to a group of girls from my platoon who giggled by the corner of the mess hall.

At the front of the pack, Randi had a pair of binoculars trained on the front gate. Where she’d gotten them, I didn’t even want to know. “New arrivals,” she said, lowering the glasses to wink at us.

“Hot ones.” She handed the binoculars to Vanessa.

Vanessa whistled. “Oooh, that one in the leather jacket is fine.”

“Hold up. Leather in the desert?” I said, thinking of the only person I knew who brought a leather jacket to brat camp. But it couldn’t be him. Lots of kids probably have the rebel rocker streak in them, right?

“If he gets heatstroke I’ll be his nurse!” Vanessa said with a hearty laugh. Randi and Vanessa slapped each other a high five.

I didn’t even want to hope, but I dropped the bundle of clothes I was carrying and said, “Give me the glasses, Randi.”

“Fine.” She frowned at me as she handed them over. “Go for it. But I got dibs on the leather jacket guy.”

I raised the binoculars to my eyes and saw one of the uniformed counselors leading a small group of boys across the main square. The blond boy in the back had a brown leather jacket over one shoulder. Not my leather jacket guy. Not by far. I let out a little sigh and moved on to scoping out the front gate and the desert road where billows of dust danced off into nothingness, just like my hope.

“See anyone you fancy?”

Huh
? I swung around with the glasses, coming to rest on a sudden darkness. The darkness of a black T-shirt with yellow and red flames. Slowly, I lowered the glasses.

And found Austin in front of me.

Smiling and tan, he seemed as healthy as the first day I’d met him on that bus. “Private limo drop-off, three o’clock,” he said, cocking a dark eyebrow. “Your platoon was out on a jaunt, I believe?”

The desert heat shimmied around me. This had to be a mirage or some kind of heatstroke hallucination. Was he really standing there? Man, it was hard to breathe! I managed to choke out, “What are you doing here?”

Before he could respond, I shoved the glasses in Randi’s hands and told all the girls to get lost.

They ran off, promising not to ever breathe a word to anyone, a code of silence that would last about five minutes.

I quickly pulled Austin to the colonel’s private patio on the side of the building and jumped into his arms. It was like some kind of movie. Him swirling me around and around in a hug, narrowly missing the cactuses the colonel had planted all around his patio.

“I don’t get it,” I said, when my feet were back on the ground.

“I promised I wouldn’t forget you,” he said. “I gave my word.”

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The world was still spinning. I didn’t know if that was from the happiness or from the swirling, but that kind of dizzy felt good. “Are you okay?” I asked. “How’s your shoulder—and, you know, your little problem?”

He nodded. “I managed to phone the chemist before they took away your PDA. He pulled some strings and smoothed things out with Camp Crescent. My shoulder’s healing fine.”

I bit my lower lip. “Okay…but if things are smoothed out and everything, then what are you doing here?”

“Ah, all these questions!” Austin said, his amber eyes sparkling, like he thought it was all funny.

“Dude, you don’t understand. This place is horrible. Really horrible!” I gestured around at the colonel’s so-called oasis, where the only living things besides the cactuses were the horny toads sunning themselves on some of the larger rocks. “You’re a Londoner. You can’t do the desert. I mean, what are they thinking sending you here?”

“Shelby, relax. It was my idea. I
asked
to come here,” he said.

My mouth dropped open. “Are you
insane
?”

“Some might say so,” he replied. “However, there happens to be this girl, this woman, really, I wanted to see.”

I blinked at him. “You…came here on purpose?” I said, the words falling out of my still gaping mouth. My legs got a swoony feeling, and I seriously hoped I didn’t land on a cactus if I fainted. He’d come for me? It was so stupid it was almost romantic. Unless…

I took a deep breath, steadying myself. “Austin, I don’t need rescuing, if that’s why you’re here. I can take care of myself.”

Austin nodded. “Of that I’m well aware. But everyone needs a little rescuing now and then.”

“I don’t.”

Austin pulled me into his arms again. “You rescued me and you saved my life. The least I can do is help ease your suffering.”

“You…want to ease my suffering?” I repeated, just to make sure the hot sun wasn’t melting my brain. He’d come through on his promise to remember me, and now he was going to put himself through boot camp hell, too? Actually, that was pretty hot.
Oh, great. Now I’m turning red
. I patted at my burning cheeks.

“Do you think I’m the kind of guy who’d skip off into the sunset without you?”

“No. I wouldn’t use the word
skip
, but—”

Austin took my hand. “My worst day with you is better than one spent alone. And,” he said, “I happen to think you’re worth a few hundred marches in the desert.”

My gaze traveled from Austin’s eyes, all golden in the sun, to his beautiful mouth. From here, his teeth looked totally safe. Safe enough to…

“Wait, wait,” I said, pushing back from him and keeping him an arm’s distance away. “You have your serum this time, right?”

“Yes, and a doctor’s note,” he said with a grin. “I’m to report to the infirmary at eighteen hundred hours every day”

I rolled my eyes at the stupid military time thing. It still confused me. “Well, I guess if—”

“Come here,” Austin said, wrapping me in another hug. “It’s so good to see you.”

“You, too.” It was so good to see him I felt faint. Resting my head against his strong chest, I reached up to run my hands through his hair. “They’re going to cut this off, you know. They did it to this one guy whose hair was, like, down to his butt. He cried.”

Austin glanced down at my forearm. “Shelby? What happened there?”

I shrugged. “Just a bad scratch.”

“A scratch with puncture marks?” Frowning, he kept staring at my arm.

“Those aren’t puncture marks!”

He dropped my arm, still not looking satisfied. “You ought to have the nurse look at that.”

“She gave me some ointment. That’s what they do even if you have a broken leg around here.”

Just then, I saw movement over Austin’s shoulder. Vanessa was back, hiding out behind a pair of
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saguaro cactuses. Well, kinda hiding out. The cactuses were pretty skinny compared to her curvy body.

“Having fun spying?” I called out.

“Randi sold you out for an extra five minutes in the shower,” she said, motioning us over. “You better say your good-byes and run.”

Austin slipped an arm around my shoulders and whispered, “I’ll see you ’round, love. Don’t worry.”

He called me
love
? A smile I couldn’t hold back took over my entire face while my heart did flip-flops. I gazed at him, feeling like nothing else mattered—not the boot camp, not the whole supernatural thing. It
was
the most perfect moment ever.

“Shelby! Kiss him and let’s go,” warned Vanessa. She put a hand on one of her thick hips and stood there watching us.

I rolled my eyes at her. “A little privacy please? I’m not going to kiss him while you’re—”

Austin’s lips covered mine. There in the sun-drenched courtyard, surrounded by prickly pears, sagebrush, and the most pathetic gravel work I’d ever seen, he finally kissed me. And I wasn’t scared.

His lips pressed against mine, warm and lush, and his hands smoothed my hair while drawing me closer. As the kiss deepened, I breathed in the smell of his soap and skin, a combination as intoxicating as ever. I slipped deeper into his arms, wrapping my hands around his back, the feel of his T-shirt smooth beneath my fingers. Then his lips pressed slightly harder, and he teased the inside of my lower lip with his tongue. I sighed, kissing him back until I lost all sense of my surroundings. Nothing existed but me and Austin. And the kiss, which made my body tingle all the way down to my toes….

The kind of kiss that certain sergeants arriving on the scene found objectionable between two reform cadets….

The kind of kiss that made scrubbing burned gravy pots after dinner that night almost pleasant work….

The kind of kiss that made digging a new latrine hole the next day almost fun….

Then again, I figured out that really good kisses make all things bearable. Really good kisses and believing you’re the kind of person you were meant to be.

And maybe, if you’re lucky enough to have someone who really cares about you, someone you can trust, someone who reminds you to believe in yourself, you can survive anything—a crazy family, a forbidden forest, or even the worst desert boot camp.

Moonlight might have special powers, but love works the real magic in the world.

Only love.

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S
pecial thanks to my wonderful agent, Stephen Barbara, for his encouragement and unflagging support, and to my wise editor, Anne Hoppe, for her insightful and gentle guidance.

Much love to Brenna Davis and Daryl Bunce, who welcomed me home to the city; my dear friend and writing mentor Pat White; Jen Sanders, my first new best friend in ages; Tonya Reichl, my very own Ariel; and Kevin Davis and his charming friend, Paul Walchenbach, who were a huge help. Many thanks to all of my beautifully unique family and friends—you helped me navigate through my very own, incredibly dark forbidden forest.

Thanks also to my supportive and talented critique partner, Dona Sarkar, and my YA sisters—the Buzz Girls: Stephanie Hale, Tina Ferraro, Simone Elkeles, Marley Gibson, and Tera Lynn Childs. A shout-out also goes to GSRWA, Jennifer Hoffman, Melissa Norris, Robin Wood, and Mardi Jones, who saw me from first draft to first sale. Thank you so very much.

I will also be eternally grateful to Barb Hawkings and the amazing staff at the Concrete School District, who gave me a day job that led me to writing for teens. This was all meant to happen! And last but not least, I send my deepest appreciation to my former student Emily H. Thank you for reading my first young adult chapters, Emily…now go write your own.

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HEATHER DAVIS:
At first glance, I don’t seem like an outdoorsy person, but somehow I’ve spent a lot of time in the woods, including working as a chef in remote Alaska and teaching school in a tiny logging town in the North Cascade Mountains.

NEVER CRY WEREWOLF is an homage to both those rugged adventures and all the fun times I’ve spent singing stupid songs about lunch meat (eww!) and gobbling down s’mores (yum!). I didn’t set out to write a book about werewolves, but I fell in love with the idea that everyone has a side of themselves that’s shown to the world and one that’s kept hidden.

These days, I’m enjoying big city life in the Pacific Northwest. When I’m not writing YA novels, I’m haunting my local movie theater and spending time with a colorful cast of friends and family (who do occasionally howl).

You can visit me online at www.heatherdavisbooks.com.

Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins author.

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Jacket art © 2009 by Gene Mollica

Jacket design by Ray Shappell