Nightfall (30 page)

Days and sensations came back to her in ragged flickers. The bite. The fight. She'd dreamed of hunting as a wolf.
How the hell am I alive?

She tried to speak, failed, and wet her lips with her tongue. “Taking advantage of me? Must've been a helluva party.”

His raw laughter rumbled through her. “Jesus, Jenna. How much do you remember?”

“I'm not sure. I think ...” She met his dark gaze as the last clouds lifted. “I did, didn't I?”

Mason gave a somber nod. “You shifted.”

His tone coiled through her and left a spiral of worry in its wake. “Does that mean I'm a monster now? Or I will be soon?”

“I don't know. You didn't hurt me. You nipped my arm, but it didn't hurt.”

“Oh my God. Oh shit. Did I—”

“No.” His jaw slashed to the side. “You didn't draw blood.”

Tears pushed behind her eyes. She struggled to get free, but he wouldn't let go. He didn't caress her either. On a bone-deep level, she knew if he let her pull away, everything between them would end.

They still had this anyway. Jenna took a deep breath and focused on bringing up impenetrable barriers. He shouldn't be tainted by her damage, shouldn't have her disease in his head. When she shifted on his lap, her fingers brushed cold metal on the floor. Blindly, she gripped the object and brought it up. His gun.

Her breath huffed out, an impossible ache in her chest. He'd meant to put her down, if necessary. That should have made her feel better; instead she wanted to scream. No matter how tough he thought he was, he wouldn't have been able to live with that. And fuck the others for letting him carry that weight.

“This is yours,” she said, offering the weapon. “You should keep it with you.”

In case she went rabid, started seeing them as food.

“That's not going to happen.”

“What about the others? You think they'll be willing to take a chance on me?”

He snarled. “They'll do what I say.”

“Or you'll exile them? That's not fair, John. If it comes down to it, I'll go. I can survive in the woods.” She tried a smile but it hurt her sore, dry lips. “I might even be happy there.”

“Can we not talk about this?”

“Fair enough.” But how could she go on, pretending things were normal? “I need to take a shower anyway. I smell like wet dog.”

When she pulled to her feet, her body felt surprisingly fit. Her thigh carried her weight with only a twinge of sharp pain with that first step. Despite the cold, Jenna didn't dress. She'd lost all sense of modesty, it seemed, because she saw no point in covering up when she would just get naked in a minute anyway. After she gathered up her things, she padded down the hall toward the shower. At this point, what did it matter if someone saw her bare ass?

She hadn't expected him to, but John followed.
Watching over me
,
or making sure I don't go after anyone?

He couldn't answer, of course, because she wouldn't let him in. She felt more conscious of her body, more aware of what it could do, and that meant keeping him at a distance. Her muscles felt sleeker, stronger. The bite on her thigh had healed over. Scents rose up and offered themselves like gifts. Herbs in the garden, a hint of dead flesh. Ange was cooking something upstairs. Jenna found it a little easier to see without light too. Every angle had sharpened.

She navigated the maintenance closet, not noticing that she did so in darkness until John flipped the switch. She turned, stepped into the water, and bent to retrieve the shampoo from a basket of toiletries on the floor. John stood transfixed, watching the water on her skin.

That was balm to her uncertainty. If nothing else, he still liked the way she looked.

She played to it, arching her body as she washed her hair. Her breasts came up. She rubbed her hands through her hair to rinse, and then she knelt to look for the soap, offering him a different view. Jenna lathered slowly. Her fingertips brushed her nipples and the slope of her belly. She remembered the way he had watched her wash. He had touched her there ... and there. She still felt the weight of his gaze as she let the water run clear. John stood like a man turned to stone.

“You're the best thing I've ever seen,” he said quietly.

A savage instinct swelled inside her. She wanted to leap out of the water, onto him, just push him to the ground and take him, all teeth and nails. The strength of the desire made her shudder, but she covered it in the pretense of the water growing cold.

Jenna turned off the tap. Instead of looking for cloth, she gave herself a vigorous shake.
Jesus, what did I do?
Too much to hope he hadn't seen it.

She dressed quickly. Making sure not to touch John, she slid by and went in search of the others—in search of food, light, and companionship. Below that need waited fear. She was none too sure how they would react, if they'd shun her.

Still, huddling in bed wouldn't help. And she was hungry. She smelled the food, willing to eat just about anything.

Edgy and restless, she sprinted down the hall, up the stairs, and down the next hall. John cursed behind her. He still hadn't caught up by the time she reached the second floor.

At first, the others didn't take notice. Chris and Ange were setting the table, all secret smiles. Their hands brushed more than once. But more than the visual cues, Jenna could smell the shift in their chemistry. Slightly musky. The scent of attraction. Bickering over some piece of cutlery, Tru and Penny sat waiting.

Jenna cleared her throat and they turned in unison. Everyone froze, staring. Then Chris took a half step forward, as if to protect the kids. Her smile, born of pleasure from the run, died a painful death.

“I'm sorry,” she muttered. Of course they didn't want her around. She must look an awful lot like the enemy right now. “I didn't think. If you don't mind making a plate, I can take it downstairs.”

She spun into the hallway and leaned her aching head against the cool wall. But then two things happened more or less at once: John came toward her, and a small hand slipped into hers and tugged.

She glanced down. Penny's eyes were indigo blue, framed in gilded lashes. Ange had borne an exceptionally lovely child, and right then she was smiling.

Penny never smiled.

“Come eat.” Tug. “Dinner.”

Over Penny's head, Jenna stared at John with soul-deep confusion. But those little fingers twined through hers. Warm. Welcoming. Inexplicably, tears prickled at Jenna's eyes, but it wasn't sadness.

“You heard the kid,” he said. “Let's eat.”

During dinner, Chris watched Ange to see if her wariness returned. But no. Jenna's ability to lure Penny to speak seemed to ease that tension. The girl had found her appetite, munching on saltines and wordlessly offering them to her teddy bear. Ange passed the hour wearing a bright smile that did intriguing things to his heart rate.

“You seem distracted,” Mason said, his eyes narrowed. “Something you want to share?”

Chris spread his hands flat on the tabletop.
Never used to be a nail-biter
. But the proof was in his ragged, reddened cuticles. “I think we need to talk about this. About Jenna.”

She flinched. “What about me?”

“No need to get defensive,” he said quietly. “I'm not here to judge. I just want to figure out what we're dealing with.” Years of training made what he was about to do very difficult. Chris wasn't a man who just ... guessed. “But remember, I wouldn't be able to prove anything, not outright. I don't have a control group. I couldn't write a paper—”

“Talk,” Mason said bluntly.

Chris grabbed a legal pad from a nearby cabinet. “Okay, so what happens when a population is exposed to a new virus or bacteria? No, wait, smaller than that. What are the possibilities when an individual is exposed?”

Tru snorted. “You get sick.”

“No, faster. What's the easiest option?”

“Death.” Ange glanced nervously at Penny.

Chris offered her an encouraging smile. “That's right. The body doesn't have the resources to cope. Think about the Aztecs when the conquistadores landed. Wiped out. That's the first one.” He drew a stick figure man on the yellow paper and then a line down to the word
death
. He drew another line and consulted his unlikely students. “What's another option?”

“Resistance,” Mason said.

“Good.” He penciled in the word
fever
at the bottom of the second line. “The body develops a fever. The white blood cells go crazy and create—if they're lucky—new antibodies. Fever breaks. And then recovery.”

Ange paled. “Edna had a fever.”

While the others nodded, Chris licked his lips. He shouldn't be so eager about this, but the rush of putting the pieces together had him breathing fast.

“Her body tried to fight back,” he said. “So maybe we were mistaken in assuming that the fever was part of an inevitable progression toward death. We're assuming now that people like Edna were trying to change. What if they died because their bodies got it wrong? Maybe death came when their bodies turned inside out, trying to heal.” He paused and looked at Jenna. “But you got it right.”

“So shifting saved my life?” Jenna's eyes moved from Chris to Mason and back again with sharp, quick movements. She was certainly not the same woman. Fascinating. And freaky. “And all those people we saw in town—half cat, half pig—they died from the cure?”

Chris nodded. “That's my guess.”

“Then why'd I live?”

“Well—here's where it's different, right? You shifted, and the fever you developed in the woods never came back. You went into a coma instead, like your body was realigning on the inside. As for the timing ...” He sketched two more lines down from
fever
, one ending with
shift
and the other with
death
. “Jenna, do you think you could shift at will? Right now, if you had to?”

Ange looked panicked—not fearful exactly, but like Chris had just thrown up on an expensive rug during a dinner party. Almost embarrassed that he'd do such a thing.

But Jenna only grinned, a little wild around the edges. “I don't know.”

“Can you try and describe it?” Chris asked.

She frowned, as if looking into herself. “You know in the old days, you'd be in the grocery store and someone would cut in front of you in line? You'd let it pass because it's not worth it to lose your temper.” She shrugged. “It's like I'm holding my temper.”

Chris nodded, feeding off that rush of discovery. “What triggered it the first time?”

Jenna darted another look at Mason, but this one was so thick with emotion that Chris averted his eyes. “I was worried about John,” she whispered.

“So extreme emotion—trauma, like I thought,” Chris said. “Do you think you would've been able to do the same thing twelve hours later? Two days later?”

“No,” she said firmly. “I was already pretty tired. My leg hurt.”

“Then your friend Edna, five days in—maybe she hadn't received that jolt of trauma.” Chris shook his head. “On the other hand, maybe it's exposure. The catalyst could be in the air right now, in tiny particles, and more concentrated in the dog bites. We've had weeks of exposure to it. Maybe that potential finally came to fruition. But whatever the combination—Jenna, your timing was
really
good.”

“Why didn't you mention all of this when she was unconscious?” Mason asked.

“Why would I?” He glanced down at his lame drawing. “I told you, I can only guess. I didn't want to get your hopes up. We had no way of knowing if she'd awaken or how she'd behave.”

“She behaves just fine,” Jenna said sourly.

Tru perked up. “Wait, so all of us could be shifters? That'd be awesome.”

Mason grunted. “Don't be an idiot.”

“Hate to throw a wet blanket on the idea,” Chris said. “But you'd have to stick your leg out there, get bit, then hope you managed to shift. Not to mention surviving the coma afterward. Oh, and I'd have to be one hundred percent right about all of this. Long odds, kid.”

“Especially that part about you being right,” Tru said, grinning. “But wouldn't that kick ass?”

“It might not require a bite,” Jenna said. “You're talking about everything like it's science. But it's time to face facts. This is
magic
, and we don't know all the rules.”

Chris hated that word. Hated it.

Ange had been sitting there, pale but attentive. Had to give her credit for sticking it out. “But what about the monsters? Why are they different?”

“Don't know.” Chris drew one more line off of
fever
. He wrote
monster
. “Brain chemistry? Maybe the way the change affects people already prone to violence.”

“What did Mitch say?” Jenna asked Mason. “That evil is faster at adapting to magic?”

“Magic,” Chris said woodenly. Back to that again. Ignoring it wouldn't make it go away.

“That's right.” Mason's gaze held a challenge. “Unless you have an explanation for those blackened cells.”

Tru grinned. “Or shapeshifting.”

“Forget it,” Mason said roughly, standing. “It doesn't matter. None of this bullshit explains the other weird changes in the world, does it?”