The Frenzy (11 page)

I wanted to feel our lovemaking more and I decided that the more sex we had, the safer I was from the frenzy. I had thought that making love would trigger it but instead being with a boy who loved me and whom I loved had seemed to calm me. So I stopped taking my meds. I felt more when Corey was inside of me and I always cried. But it was a good cry, a release.

“Are you okay?” he asked over and over, kissing my face.

“Yes. It feels good to feel,” I would tell him. I needed to cry as much as I needed to feel pleasure.

“Well, I guess my music mixes are finally working on you, baby,” he said.

Maybe I should tell him
, I thought. But I could never bring myself to do it.

I liked to pretend that I was cured; maybe love had cured me.

We stopped going to the woods. I was afraid that Sasha or the boys might find me so we went out into the cornfields instead.

I missed the woods. I longed for them, actually, the
way you want to taste certain delicious foods you’re deathly allergic to, or the way you touch someone you love when it has been too long. I dreamed about the woods at night and it felt so real, as if I were running through the darkness with my scary, beautiful brothers, following the scent in the air that would lead us to our prey. I woke with the ache in my hips and teeth and had to touch myself to make sure I hadn’t changed. I sniffed my skin for the scent of the forest and felt for leaves in my hair, wondering if I had wandered into the old grove in my sleep and found my way back to bed. But I knew I could only go in my dreams. And besides, I had Corey’s body and his sweet words to help me forget.

Corey didn’t question the change of location. He just seemed happy to be alone with me. There was an abandoned barn on the outside of town and we made love there as the last light of the day slanted through the broken beams.

On the Fourth of July we climbed all the way up onto the roof and watched the fireworks from the
show at the college field cascade down the sky. There were big booms of red, white and blue and explosions of poison green but my favorite ones were the pale white-gold shimmers like something angelic.

I told Corey and he said, “You’re my angel.”

“I’m so not,” I answered.

“My fallen angel, then.”

“No doubt.”

Sometimes if I’d had an especially hard day I’d be distracted by the faint scent of farm animals in the barn and I felt a weird urge—a frantic stirring that started in my stomach—but then I only kissed Corey harder and forgot my appetite and was satisfied that way. I got home by dark so my mom and dad stayed off my back. Sometimes I took a chance by sneaking out at night through the window, locking my door from the inside behind me. I figured my mom and dad trusted me enough, now that I was in therapy and keeping up an act of following all their rules. I think my dad was ashamed about the time he hit me so he gave me more
space than he had before. Maybe Nieberding had had a talk with him. Sometimes on weekends I could get away with staying out later legitimately, if I told them I was with Pace. He always covered for me.

But during that time I shut Pace out, too. I was so dizzy with love for Corey, and fear that it might end, that I might change, that I wasn’t there for my best friend. After whatever had happened with the guy, Michael, Pace had kind of shut down on me but I guess I also had pulled away from him a little when our relationship seemed to bother my boyfriend.

We saw each other only a few times, Pace and I. The last time, we went back to the house on Green. He asked me to go with him but I wish I had told him not to go.

“Why are we here?” I asked. “I thought you didn’t want to go back.”

“It’s okay now,” he said. His voice was soft, too soft, resigned, but I didn’t understand what that meant then.

We sat inside there, just looking around at the shadows, shivering with cold, and he took off his button-down—the kind he always wore with under-shirts—and gave it to me to put on over my tank top. He insisted. He said it looked good on me and when we left he made me keep it. I wore it home even though I was hot by then. I hung it in my closet and forgot about it.

I forgot about the shirt in the same way I had neglected one of the only people who accepted me as I was when maybe I could have helped him.

Full Moon

I
had even started avoiding Joe Ranger. But one night crossing the plaza on my way to meet Corey, I saw the rushing shadows of skateboarders—Carl Olaf and his friends. To avoid them, I turned and found myself in front of Joe’s prosthetics shop. He was drinking from a can of Red Bull and wiping the sweat off his brow.

“There you are,” he growled.

I had trouble looking at him. “Hi, Joey.”

“You been avoiding me.”

“No, I just see Corey a lot lately. He’s leaving for New York soon.”

Joe nodded and took something out of his workshirt pocket. It was a tiny rabbit. He petted it gently with his thumb. I couldn’t help smiling when I saw it.

“Who’s that?” I asked.

“Stella. She’s like a kitten, huh?”

“You do have a way with them,” I said.

“I used to have a way with them but one won’t come chat anymore.” He gave me a knowing look and I avoided his gaze again.

“One,” meaning me. But I’d meant animals when I said “them,” and Joe knew it, too.

“They get skittish around the full moon,” he said. “Know why?”

I shook my head. Didn’t really want him to tell me but I knew he wouldn’t stop now.

“Predator and prey. They know they’re more visible, more in danger. When it wanes they can relax a little.”

He was right to use the word
skittish
. That’s how I felt. “I have to go meet Corey,” I said.

“Yeah. But don’t be a stranger.” Joe winked.

I nodded and waved to him.

“Watch out for those woods,” he called. “Full moon coming.”

And it did, as it inevitably does. They say it can make you mad.

Maybe that is what happened with the full moon murderer.

Maybe that is what happened with Pace.

I only know that when I got home at sunset the next day, after making love with Corey in the barn, my mom was on the phone and her face looked pale and tight. She was standing at the sink, holding on to the counter for support and her voice was low. When she saw me her eyes flashed and I knew it was something bad.

“What?” I kept saying it until she got off the phone.

“Pace.”

“What about Pace?”

She came toward me and I backed away. “Come sit,” she said.

“No! What is it? What happened?”

“Olivia. I need you to breathe.”

“Tell me!”

“He passed away,” my mom said.

“What? He what?”

I watched myself clawing my fingernails along my arms like they belonged to someone else.

“Liv!” She tried to hold me but I wrenched myself away and she stumbled in her high heels.

“What?” I kept saying over and over. “Passed away? What is that? You mean dead? He’s dead?”

“He took his life,” she said, and I thought I saw her crossing herself, but very quickly.

I forced my teeth into my lip, trying to break the skin, to taste my own blood. I thought about how little I’d seen him for the last month, how sad he had been about Michael, how I hadn’t been there for him. I kept trying to rewind the sequence of events in my mind, go back to when we were talking on the phone and he was telling me about the hottie he met in the house on Green. If I could stop it there, then redo
the rest. He had said, “Maybe things are changing for us, Skirt.” But he hadn’t meant this way. Pace, my brother, my best friend. Playing
Little Earthquakes
for me. Writing Tori lyrics on my blue jeans. Letting me comb his hair, soft and gold as the silk inside a cornstalk. Watching him at football practice pretending to be tough and straight and then we’d go home and sing our favorite songs in my room and paint each other’s toenails. I had to take the polish off of him afterward, though, because someone might see in the locker room. Weird the things you think of so you don’t see the images in your mind of how he actually did it, took his life. With a rope. Around his neck. With a rope.

I wanted to scream everything at my mother. You don’t know who I am! You don’t know who Pace is! Everything is a lie—everything! It’s all your fault! It’s all your fault!

But I knew it was just as much my fault. For not calling Pace more. For letting him hurt alone. For not seeing the signs. Maybe even for being born.

I smacked my lips together, saliva accumulating
in the corners or my mouth. My skin itched and my skull and hips ached. I had my period and it felt like blood was pouring out of me, all of my blood, leaving me drained, a lifeless corpse. I backed up, glaring at my mother. I could hear Sasha’s voice whispering in my mind.

Kill your mother. Kill her.

“Stop it!” my mom shouted at me. “You’re scaring me. Stop hurting yourself.”

I looked down and saw streaks of blood on my arms. A salty taste burned on my lips. Soon the hair would grow, my limbs would change, the monster would appear.

I had to flee.

Before I could think anything more I was out the door, heading toward the woods.

News travels fast in small towns and Corey was already on his way to me. I’d left my phone at home so I didn’t get his call but as I rounded the bend toward
the woods he was there. He had known somehow that this was where I was going. But I couldn’t let him see me. I was already changing.

“Liv!” He shouted at me to stop and picked up his pace.

I ran faster, sure I could outrun him. But Corey was pumping his arms and legs, adrenaline bursting through his body, and he caught up just as I dove in among the trees.

I stopped in my tracks and looked over my shoulder. “Leave me alone! Go away from me!” I snarled.

Corey watched me steadily, concerned but not afraid, even though I knew my eyes must have looked like the eyes of a demon. My teeth were cutting my gums. Drool spilled from the corner of my lip. My ears twitched, turning this way and that, listening for signs of danger. The sounds and smells were starting to overwhelm me, banging in my ears, burning my nostrils. My skull hurt, lengthening as it filled with too much sensation. I lowered my head to the ground.

I tugged off my shirt and then struggled out of my jeans. Night was coming on fast and I could feel the pull of the moon rising slowly above the forest.

“Liv,” Corey said softly.

“Pace! Oh my God, Pace.”

“I know, baby.” He reached out his hand.

“And I’m changing, I’m going to … You can’t see me like this.”

“Liv.” His voice reminded me of the one he used with the animals at the vet’s. “Don’t be scared. I know what you are.”

I couldn’t speak anymore. I just looked up at him and my eyes felt like they were on fire in the sockets. I cocked my head, trying to ask him the question.
How do you know?

“I chased after you that night last month when we fought.” It was as if he’d read my thoughts.

I glared at him.

“I’m sorry. I wanted to see if you trusted me enough to tell me yourself. And I saw that you didn’t.”

My mind raced back over the events of that night.
You mean you saw me change?
He nodded.

He had seen me. And he was here now. “I saw you change and I saw you change back. I followed you again to make sure you got home safely. You were naked. I was worried about you. But I didn’t want to let you know I was there.”

This was Corey. The Corey I had known for years. Corey who would never judge me or leave me, even if I changed into a monster in front of his eyes. Even if I ran naked through the woods and lay on the ground eating freshly killed meat. It made no sense and yet it made perfect sense to me because I knew him. But I had not trusted him.

And now I had to run. My limbs were changing. They refused to stay still. Pain shot through me; the only relief would be to move.
Go home, leave me
.

He didn’t listen. As I ran he followed, deeper
into the woods. I heard him struggling to keep up—the ragged sound of his breath—and sometimes he would gasp out my name. We came to a glade and the moon shone brightly through the trees on my monster body.

I stopped to look up at the round white light in the sky. Corey slumped beside me, his sides heaving.

“Since when you outpace me like that?” he gasped.

Outpace.

We both stared at each other as the shock returned. Corey turned his head away and to the side, bit his lip trying to keep back the tears. My heart was pounding pain through my veins. I looked up at the sky and howled my grief to the moon.

When I could make no more sounds I looked around me. A circle of golden eyes watched us from the darkness. Fourteen golden eyes. My brothers.

I got to my feet. The transformation was complete now and I wasn’t weak from it anymore. The ache and pain had turned to strength, a feeling of great power.

I could have run all night with my pack. The moment had come.

But then I looked at Corey, who had moved so that he stood behind me. He had followed me here. He had made love to me for a month, even knowing what I was and that I would not tell him the truth about it. Corey was my family now, the only one I had. Pace was gone, my parents would never know me and the seven wolves watching in the darkness wanted something I could never give them. I thought about the deaths in the woods and wondered who was responsible, what these creatures could do to a boy in the woods at night, no matter how brave or compassionate he was. All this went through my mind and I turned slowly in a circle, making eye contact with each brother. Amorus. Gregory. Frederick. Marcos. Felix. Sebastian. Victor.

Leave us! He is mine.

Victor, the largest wolf, snarled, his eyes glowing like golden mirrors in the darkness as he looked at

For now
. There was a sneer in the wolf voice.

I didn’t understand what he meant but I knew he was not done with me yet. And I also knew I had won, at least this time. He lowered his head in submission, then turned and slunk into the woods. The others followed him.