Relentless (3 page)

Myles moved to shake his hand.

“Wait. You two know each other?”

“Myles came to visit me a couple of times to talk about the school.”

I narrowed my brows. “What are you now, a recruiter?”

Myles shrugged. “Sometimes. But you were my toughest subject.”

“You didn’t recruit me. I decided to come on my own.”

Myles arched his brows at Jared. “See what I mean? Toughest ever.”

“This is Daryl.” I nodded my head in the direction of the boy who hadn’t said much the whole trip.

Myles reached out and shook Daryl’s hand and motioned for him to follow us.

I grabbed one of my suitcases, and Myles grabbed the other. I’d lost sight of Louise, who had left the boat before I could get my stuff unloaded. We walked to the end of the pier, and Myles put our luggage in the back of a golf cart that had been made to look like a Jeep, complete with big knobby tires. As heavy duty as it was, it still groaned under the weight of the two large guys.

Palm trees lined the shell-covered drive we followed into the tropical forest. Along the way, we passed a couple of buildings nestled among the greenery. After a mile surrounded by trees, the trail opened onto a grassy yard. A three-story building stood in front of us, yellow in color with elaborate decorative carvings and huge columns lining a long front porch.

“This wasn’t exactly what I expected,” I said, leaning toward Myles in the driver’s seat.

He pulled to a stop in the front parking area. “What were you expecting?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know…metal buildings, thatch huts.”

“The island used to be a resort, and this was the main hotel. The other buildings were meeting rooms and smaller guest houses.” Myles got out of the cart and motioned for us to get our cases. He grabbed my extra one. “I say guest houses, though two of them have separate rooms for twenty or so people each.”

We entered a foyer, and there was a large television area to the right with sofas and chairs grouped in front of three huge flat-screen televisions. To the left was a desk that looked like a hotel check-in, but no one was there. Myles went to the desk and flipped open a book.

“You’re in room 216, Alexis. Girls are on second floor, guys on third. You’ll have your own room. Brynna will take you up.” He turned to the television area and shouted, “Brynna, Alexis is here.”

I wasn’t certain if I imagined her groaning or if I actually heard her, but Brynna’s head appeared above the back of a sofa. She stood and headed in our direction. Her deep red hair was as stunning as ever, and she looked as unhappy to see me as I was to see her. Though Brynna had helped in my education as a werewolf, we weren’t the best of friends. We’d agreed to disagree on most subjects, and I was inclined to keep it that way.

“Show Alexis up to 216, Brynna. I’ll take Jared and Daryl up to the guys’ floor and help them get set up.”

Brynna sighed. “Come on.”

“I hate to interrupt you. I’m sure I can find it on my own.”

“Maybe,” she said. “But today is my day for helping new arrivals.”

“Aww and I thought you just wanted to help me out.”

“We both know that’s not likely.”

“I guess we do.” Lugging both my suitcases with no offer from Brynna to help, I followed her to an elevator where the three guys waited. When the silver doors of the elevator slid open, Myles and Jared put my suitcases inside, then we all squeezed in.

The door opened again, and Brynna and I stepped into a tiled hallway. Myles dropped my suitcases in the hall then got back in the elevator. My suitcases in hand, we turned right and started walking until Brynna came to an abrupt stop in front of 216. She took a metal key from a ring, unlocked the door, and handed the key to me.

“Try not to lose it.”

“What, no cards?”

“No, this hotel is older, and they didn’t bother with that when they renovated. Besides, there’s less malfunctioning with this.”

I stepped into the room that would be my new home for… I wasn’t exactly sure how long we’d be here. It was like any hotel room you see in a hundred places, only with a single bed in it, nothing fancy. I glanced in the bathroom. Same thing—nice tile but no wow factor. Dropping my suitcases on the floor, I turned to Brynna.

“What now?”

“I’ll show you around, then you can put up your stuff and get settled in.”

“No classes today?”

“You’ll start tomorrow, but you can go get fitted for your savalin at some point. I’ll show you where.”

“My what?”

“Your savalin, your fighting suit. You know, the coat, torso protector, black pants, boots. The thing you saw in my closet that night you were at my house in Louisiana.”

“Oh, yeah. Louise has one. I’ve seen her wear it a couple of times.”

Brynna was nodding.

“She said I’d get one.”

“You will. Everybody doesn’t, though.”

“Why am I getting one?”

I followed her into the hall and back to the elevator. “Because you’re here to fight and not work in the lab.”

The elevator opened, and we went in. “What do the lab people get?”

She arched an eyebrow at me as she punched the button for the first floor, and the doors closed. “A lab coat.”

I sighed. Same old Brynna. At least that was familiar.

In less than an hour, we’d toured the island without actually ever getting out of the golf cart we were riding in. I was certain I’d never remember how to get to any of these buildings. Most were hidden away among the lush vegetation, and even as we rode along the small road made for the cart, leafy branches hung over us. There were a few open areas where Brynna said we’d train. I didn’t have a clue what that would involve. We’d seen other people in the buildings she said were classrooms, but no one was in what she’d called the training areas.

She stopped the golf cart in front of a large, one-story metal building with no windows.  Myles wheeled in beside us with Daryl and Jared in his cart.

The three of them got out, and Myles motioned for us to follow them.

“What is this place?” I asked him as he held the door open for us.

“The lab.”

I nodded. I’d heard them all talk about labs before. They had one at every school site, and there’d been one in Louisiana, though I’d never seen it. The need for the lab really showed the difference between the two werewolf packs and the biggest reason I couldn’t be with the guy I’d fallen in love with. Many, many years ago, the other pack, the Fenryrians, had developed a virus so that when they bit humans, the person bitten would become a werewolf…if he survived. The virus had become part of the genetic makeup of the Fenryrians so that all their offspring carried it, too. The Lycernians, like myself, did not carry the virus. The humans that the Fenryrians infected not only became werewolves but they could also bite others and continue the cycle. I still didn’t really understand it all, but I guess that’s what this school was supposed to do, teach me the history along with a lot of other stuff. I did know that the Lycernians didn’t believe in attacking humans and were constantly at work developing antivirals to give to people who had been bitten. The antiviral would kill the virus and allow the person to return to his normal state.

When Myles let the door shut behind us, we were in a small foyer with a large door on the other side. He went to the door and pressed a button. A voice crackled over a speaker.

Myles bent toward it and spoke. “I’m here with some new people to see the lab. One of them is your new lab partner.”

There was a series of clicking noises, then Myles pulled the large door open. We entered a room with black-topped lab tables that resembled my biology class except the microscopes and other equipment I had no name for looked much more elaborate and expensive than anything my school system had been able to purchase.

Myles waved to someone across the room, and I realized that at last I’d meet Lana, Myles’ girlfriend. The girl got up from a stool where she’d been bent over a microscope and started toward us. She went straight to Daryl and gave him a quick hug.

“I’m so glad you’re here. We’ve got a lot of work going on. You’re going to be so much help. Daryl did all his education and training at the lab-based schools. He even studied overseas, where they’re doing some really cutting-edge research with the Fenryrian virus. We were excited when we met him at a conference and he wanted to come work with us for a while.”

Daryl dipped his head and turned a little red at all the attention. “Thanks.”

Lana’s blond hair was put up in the back with a clip, and she was wearing a standard white coat. When she moved next to Myles, she seemed dwarfed by his and Jared’s size. Admittedly, she was kind of dwarfed by my size, too. She was barely over five feet, and I couldn’t imagine any guy not staring, because she was beautiful. Not just pretty but truly beautiful, much like the girls I’d nearly killed myself to be friends with. Mean girls. But from everything I’d heard, Lana wasn’t mean.

“Hey, you must be Alexis.” She stepped over and hugged me like we’d been friends forever. “I’ve heard so much about you from Myles. I’m glad you decided to come.”

“And you’re Lana.”

She nodded, stepping back. “Myles told me about your adventures this summer.”

“Yeah, you should have been there.”

“Not me. I’ll stick to the lab. You guys can do all the other work.”

“If things here are like they were this summer, I might decide to join you in the lab.”

Lana looked puzzled for a minute then turned to Myles. “Does she not know what you guys do?”

“She doesn’t know much,” Brynna stated from behind me.

I resisted the urge to turn and spit at her. Lana ignored the comment and smiled at me. “Your talents aren’t for the lab. And since they haven’t told you, how you spent your summer is kind of the way life is around here, all the time.”

I glanced at Myles and Jared. I wondered if the look on my face matched the Texan’s. He appeared almost as overwhelmed as I felt.

“It’ll be fine,” Myles reassured us. “Let’s go back. They’ll have started serving lunch by now.”

Lana caught my arm. “I won’t see you during the day. I’ve done all my classes, and I’m here in the lab most of the time. But if you need anything, I’m in room 220.”

“Thanks.” I turned and followed Brynna from the building.

“She’s nice,” I said as we got in the golf cart.

“She’s unbelievably smart.”

“That’s what Myles said. He said she spent the summer at a university working with some scientists.”

“She does that every summer. She’s helped develop all kinds of drugs, and she’s worked in several labs that manufacture treatments for other conditions that humans have. It’s the way the werewolf school and community make most of their money.”

“Is that where the money for this island came from?”

“No. Many of our pack members are very wealthy. Remember, we age much more slowly so we live longer and have more time to accumulate money.”

“I wondered how you all did the things you do without seeming to work.”

“We work.”

“You know what I mean, a normal eight-to-five job.”

She laughed. “Yeah, not so much of that around here. But there are pack members who function normally in the world. They don’t work to stop the Fenryrians, but they support us in other ways.”

I leaned back in the seat as we bumped along the road to the hotel, or dorm, as most people called it. So far there was next to nothing around here I’d call normal, not even myself.

The alarm clock on the bedside table rang, and the orange numbers glowed six a.m.  I turned off the noise without hitting the snooze button. I’d been awake for a few minutes already.  I pulled the sheet over my head, shutting out the early morning light beginning to come through the window.

Last night in the dining room, I’d begun to meet the people I’d be spending the next few months with. The names and faces had become a blur, and I’d become a nervous wreck.  There were so many of them. When my aunt had explained that she and her friends were all part of a group that traveled to different places and homeschooled their kids along the way, it hadn’t been such a hard thing for me to believe. Louise didn’t have kids of her own, but she’d said she was one of the teachers. The explanation had made sense. But all that had been before I’d found out that we were werewolves and what they were doing wasn’t really home schooling at all. They’d only called it that because back then it was something I could understand. A concept I could grasp. What they really did was travel to different schools and train the packs’ young protégés. I wasn’t exactly sure what made me a protégé, but I guess that’s what I was here to find out. The idea of joining The Project, as Louise called it, hadn’t really seemed so bizarre. This, however, wasn’t what I’d imagined. I’d expected we would all live in a campground, take random academic courses together or online, and practice fighting in some grassy spot. Instead we were on a private island that was more like a tropical resort than a school. I had to admit it was a nice surprise.

I threw the covers back and swung my feet to the floor. Putting it off wouldn’t make this go away. I had to meet these people and go to class. It had been my choice to come. I went to the dresser and pulled out shorts and a T-shirt.

I glanced in the bathroom mirror as I walked by to turn on the shower. My black hair hung straight and slightly rumpled like it always did. The image in the mirror was exactly the same one I’d seen all my life. The mirror lied, though. I was different, completely different, and if I stared at my inky dark eyes long enough, I could see the change there. I wasn’t the weird kid who had no friends. The one who desperately tried to fit with the popular crowd just to keep from continuing a life of invisibility. Since I was technically a werewolf, I probably had to keep the weird part, but here, I seemed to automatically fit, and I already had Myles as a friend and Brynna was kind of a friend. I ran the brush through my hair several times. So Brynna wasn’t really a friend, but we usually ended up spending time together. Whatever our relationship was, it seemed to work. I tossed my nightclothes aside and stepped into the shower. I had to stop putting off the inevitable. It was the first day of school, even if it wasn’t a normal school, and I didn’t want to be late.

***

“Alexis Miller.” 

I stared up at the man standing in front of my table. I cut my eyes to the side, where Jared was sitting stiffly in the chair next to me. He and Daryl were the only people I knew in this class. Myles and Brynna had taken it years ago, and most of the other people were much younger than the three of us. From the very corner of my eye, I could see Bailey, Brynna’s little sister, at a table on the other side of the room.

“Do you know anything about history, Ms. Miller?”

“I…umm, I’ve had some history classes.” I cleared my throat. The thin man in front of me arched his white eyebrows and ran a hand through his equally white hair. If he was a werewolf, which I assumed he was, he must have been one hundred and fifty years old. “What part of history are you asking about?”

I thought I heard a snicker, and I was pretty sure it came from Bailey’s direction.

“I’m talking about werewolf history, Ms. Miller. What do you know about werewolf history?”

“That, oh, well.” I paused, trying to collect my thoughts. “Nothing, I guess. I don’t really know anything about werewolf history.”

He put both hands on the tabletop in front of me and leaned across until we were practically nose to nose. “Just as I imagined. You know nothing. You’re not so special after all, are you?”

He’d spoken so softly I wasn’t sure if even Jared or Daryl, who were sitting on either side of me, could have heard him. I opened my mouth to tell him I was one hundred percent certain that I wasn’t special at all, but he’d spun away and walked to the front of the room. I glanced at Jared and thought he might have mouthed the words “holy shit.” I slid down in my seat, hoping to be ignored for the rest of the class.

Mr. Jardin began to speak, and others around me started to take notes. I forced my stiff hand to pick up my pen, and in one minute, I was scribbling notes faster than I ever had. Occasionally, my hand would stop as I got so caught up in what Mr. Jardin was saying that I forgot to write. His earlier actions were forgotten as I realized I did know some of this history.

“So when history talks about wolves being at the feet of Odin, the wolves were actually the ancestors of the Fenryrians and Lycernians?”

“That’s correct, Ms. Miller. I see you actually do know some history. You simply didn’t realize it.”

“It was part of a literature class I took in school. But all that was way before the virus. When did that start?”

The previously evil Mr. Jardin’s lip twitched, and I thought he might smile. Maybe he wasn’t so bad after all. “It will be a few weeks before we get to the time of the virus.” He glanced at the clock on the wall. “Class is over for today. We’ll meet again day after tomorrow at the same time.”

Others started to leave, and I looked at him. “We don’t meet every day?”

“No, Ms. Miller. If you look at your schedule, you’ll see we meet on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.”

“Oh, yeah, the schedule. I haven’t really figured it out yet.”

He frowned. “Obviously.”

I gathered my notebook. The evil Mr. Jardin had returned.

Leaving the room, I entered a hall. This building had several rooms, which had likely been used for conferences or meetings at some time or another. I hadn’t seen Myles or Brynna since breakfast, but Jared was waiting for me in the hall, which was thankfully air-conditioned.

“What now?” I asked.

“I think we have an academic class. It looks like we’ll spend a few hours learning the usual high school stuff, biology, advanced math, and English.”

“Well, at last, it’s something I’m familiar with.” I sighed.

“Yeah, I know it’s really weird.” Jared adjusted a backpack on his shoulder.

“So you haven’t known about this werewolf thing for your whole life?”

He shook his head. “I was adopted. My parents didn’t know. My real parents were killed, and probably a few months before all the changes started, a member of the Lycernian pack came to talk to my adoptive parents.”

I glanced in the room where my next classes would be and saw Myles in the back at a table. He was turned away talking to someone else but seemed to be holding a couple of chairs—hopefully for me and Jared. Daryl had disappeared, but I was certain he had a different schedule because it had only taken a few minutes of conversation to realize Daryl was really smart and not likely to be in any academic class I’d be assigned to.

I leaned against the wall, waiting for class to begin. “I guess that was a shocker. I mean, what did they say? ‘Hey, you might want to know that some really weird shit’s about to start happening’?”

“It’s not like they sprang it on them at once. They said they were related to my biological family and met with us over a period of months. In time, my adoptive parents were able to accept the truth, especially after I transformed to wolf state in front of them. It wasn’t on purpose. I hadn’t planned to. It just happened. I couldn’t control it.”

“Yeah, that’ll do it every time. You can’t really not believe it after you see that once.”

Jared laughed. “I guess that’s true.”

I shifted the strap on my backpack. “I’d have thought the werewolves would have made sure some other werewolf family adopted you when your parents died. It seems like a family from your pack would have taken you in.”

“They would have if they’d known about them. But my parents had separated from the pack years ago and were living like regular humans. They didn’t run with or associate with other werewolves. They hadn’t since before I was born.”

“Why?”

He shrugged the shoulder that wasn’t leaning against the wall. “I don’t know. No one ever really said. Mr. Branton said some werewolves just choose to do that sometimes.”

“How did they end up finding you?”

“One of my mom’s sisters decided she wanted to find her. That finally led them to me,” he said.

There were only two packs, the Fenryrians and Lycernians, and I hadn’t heard of werewolves “choosing” to live separately from the rest of their pack. I’d heard of them “having” to live separately, in hiding.  It was something I’d learned when I found out Eric was Fenryrian, and because I was Lycernian, our packs would never allow us to be together. If two people wanted to be together and one was Lycernian and the other Fenryrian, they’d have to leave both their packs behind and live secretly among the humans, never contacting their werewolf families again. The Lycernian pack would ignore them unless they found out the Lycernian was killing humans. But the Fenryrian pack would kill its own pack member if he or she went against its ways, especially if that pack member was important. If the Lycernian member wanted to become Fenryrian and join their pack, then they could both be Fenryrian. But, like me, many Lycernians were against killing humans and changing them to werewolves. If you were going to be a Fenryrian, you’d have to do that. If the Lycernian was against killing, then the couple would have to go into hiding. Was that why Jared’s parents had been living in secret? Had one of them been Lycernian and the other Fenryrian? Is that why they had died?

From inside the room, the instructor called for the class to start and asked those of us in the hall to come in. As we made our way to the seats Myles had saved for us, I decided those were things I wouldn’t tell Jared, but sooner or later he’d hear it and probably be thinking the same thing I was. But then again, I didn’t know everything about werewolves. There might be fifty other reasons a werewolf couple would live in secret away from their families. Maybe they’d just wanted to.

“Again, Alexis, only this time, move your weight more forward on the balls of your feet.”

Sweat dripped from my brow, and I raked at the dirt stuck to my bare legs and arms. So much for normal school. After the rudimentary academics had been crammed together into one class, I’d followed other students to a field outside the building. Even though we were shaded by trees, it was still sweltering. A younger girl and I grappled and wrestled, learning how to throw an opponent who had you in his grasp. The other girl obviously had more training than me, and I’d hit the ground countless times, but that wasn’t going to continue. I concentrated and saw the moves in my head, then suddenly my body flowed into action, and it was her turn to hit the ground.

“Excellent, Alexis. Jessica, come over.” He motioned to a different girl standing on the sidelines, and the exercise began again. Only this time I didn’t hit the ground once. I bested every person the instructor called up. He’d occasionally make suggestions on how to improve a move I’d done, and I listened carefully then put his suggestions to good use. I only knew that I’d nearly been killed on more than one occasion, and above all else, I had to learn to protect myself. Besides, being a skilled warrior could only be a bonus when the time came to try and prove myself to the other pack.

“That’s enough for the day.” The instructor patted me and my latest victim on the shoulder. “Go get cleaned up. It will be time for dinner soon.”

I followed the shell-covered path back to the dorm and hurried up to my room. An envelope was on my bed. I glanced around, wondering who the heck had a key, then I realized that the room smelled fresh and smiled. Thank goodness. We had housekeeping, which meant I wouldn’t be cleaning my own bathroom. But why the sealed letter? My name was printed on the outside, and I sat on the edge of the bed, ripping it open. It was short, and my breath caught as I studied the boxy writing.

I’m in Key West. Get yourself here as soon as possible. Can’t wait to see you. Eric

Below this was printed a set of numbers I figured had to be a cell phone number.  Luckily when I’d returned home from living with Louise this summer, my mom had gotten me a new phone and paid for me to have great service so I could call the friends I’d made in Louisiana.  Now that I’d left home, it would really come in handy.  I pulled out my phone and started to dial the numbers but stopped. Looking around the room, I felt a little uncomfortable. As happy as I’d been that someone was cleaning my bathroom for me, the thought that they’d left me a letter from someone that I probably wasn’t supposed to be getting a letter from made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. Did that make the person who cleaned my room a spy for the Fenryrians? I wasn’t so sure about that. A part of me felt like I should report it, but I knew I wouldn’t because whoever had left the envelope was a link to Eric and, other than this phone number, the only link I had.

I showered so I’d be ready for dinner then grabbed my phone and went outside. I’d entered Eric’s number in my phone with no name just the letters SE, his last initial then his first. I couldn’t take the chance that Myles or Aunt Louise or even Brynna would borrow my phone and see I had a number for Eric. We’d all been friends this past summer, but that was before we’d found out Eric was a Fenryrian werewolf, a very important Fenryrian werewolf. In the beginning, he’d been lying to us to get information about the Lycernian pack, but then something had happened between the two of us, something I couldn’t explain. We were connected, were meant to be together. But all relationships and friendships had had to end when we’d found out who Eric was. I understood that he’d only been doing what his pack demanded when he’d hidden who he was in the beginning. Myles and Brynna weren’t so forgiving. I think the betrayal stung Myles most of all because he and Eric had been such good friends. Eric seemed to understand Myles’ anger better than I did. He didn’t hold it against Myles or Brynna that they wouldn’t have anything else to do with him. But then that’s how they’d all been brought up, to hate each other. That wasn’t something that just went away. I walked along the path toward where we’d gotten off the boat yesterday. It seemed like a week ago. I dialed the number and heard ringing on the other end.