Wolf Sirens: Forbidden: Discover The Legend (18 page)

“Sam influenced him, but he still did it,” he admitted. I knew it was true, he had no reason to tell me
other than it bothered him. I didn’t care, but I could
tell he thought it hurt me. Nothing could hurt me
but losing him.
“Of course I’m fine!” I screeched in a hushed
tone.“I told you it was mutual! Whatever he didn’t
feel for me - I didn’t feel for him! So really, don’t
waste any time being concerned for me, I’ve survived
worse, I was just having fun!” I spat - the last part was
a lie but it was closer to the truth than to say I loved
Sky, his best friend instead. I was relieved to say it
though it sounded like a cruel defence. I wanted him
to know it was he whom I wanted and nothing would
compare. That Reid was just second best, someone to
fill the space that I needed him to fill. We stared at
each other in some strange standoff in which I was
pissed off and tense, though I didn’t quite know why. I
guess it was easier than being desperate or vulnerable.
“Good,” he said again and with that he turned
around and disappeared into the night. Whether he
was shocked or happy about my lack of feelings over
the matter, I couldn’t know. He probably didn’t believe me.
What the hell is going on?
was all I could think in
that moment. I knew it was over. That I would never
see him again – not like that. Why had I ruined it?
Why was Sky so suddenly concerned about my virtue and my feelings? Surely Sam had sent him. I was
still numb, whether it was an after-effect from Sam’s
gift warping my thoughts or just self-preservation; I
was on autopilot, unable to clearly understand what
was going on. I wondered if clearing my head would
have helped at this point. I assessed the damage; in a
heartbeat I had been nearly eaten by my boyfriend,
broken up with him, been brain-washed into calm
agreement and confronted by his best friend, whom
I really loved. Who had seemingly defended my
honour? I still hadn’t realized why they let me in or
wanted me in the first place, let alone why they had
ousted me. I wasn’t needed for the team. I felt lightheaded.There was plenty they hadn’t told me, I knew
it. Since I could no longer talk to them I needed to
get answers from the only other person who I knew
could tell me – Cresida. I would have sought her
then, but I didn’t know where to find her tonight and
I knew I would have told her about Sky, and I didn’t
want to risk him for any reason – not when he had
come so close to me. Would I ever see him again?
Maybe, for a second, I thought about leaving
Shade to live with dad back home, where it would
be safer and simpler. I recalled a more peaceful time
before werewolves and boyfriends and lust, but I
didn’t want to leave, not to go back to the city, not if
Sky’s unexpected tirade had meant he cared, however
small. Perhaps he was pissed I hadn’t thanked him.
Any reaction he gave to the situation pleased me and
for him to come into my room fuelled a burning in
me, that I struggled to control. My feelings defied
logic. Was there any chance he was being irrational
too, for me? He was older than me and if he still
wanted me after all his life experience instead of Sam
the alpha female, instead of any girl he had ever met
- even Cresida, I couldn’t imagine it, but every hour
of the day I did. I lay down to think of everything he
had said to me, every second he spoke to me, every
word and every expression. When I was supposed to
be mourning Reid in floods of tears I was dreaming
that Sky cared. After this night I knew he did. I think
I had to believe it.

Sure enough on a windy day at school Tealy and
Monica talked directly to me, like they could smell
I was not in the in-crowd anymore, or perhaps they
were told? Everything was cool with them as long
as I got the cold shoulder from the pack, the same
way that they were ignored. I was an old glove that
fitted and I drew them in like rats to food scraps. It
was supposed to be a fresh start. I felt like Angie’s
replacement. I knew what she was now though, why
she was gone, and I couldn’t say it. She was either
one of the wolves or dead. Back in the world of the
mortal they wouldn’t have believed me nor did they
hesitate to befriend me. I was sure Sam had a hand
in it, she could turn them on and off like a switch. I
remembered what she had said to me in the car - that
Tealy and Monica would befriend me, about how I
was strong-willed – and if that was true, obviously it
was a talent she didn’t appreciate.

And I was sure the opposite was true of Tealy
and friends.They were under Sam’s spell and she had
seemingly managed to impose her will on them and
by the time they came too, I would be their new best
friend.

I knew then sadly that she must have persuaded
them not to befriend me in the first place, so that
she could swoop in, freely monopolizing me into her
clique because it suited her then and when I didn’t
suit, she could throw me back like a ball that they
would catch without thinking. Reid was right, Sam
didn’t blame me for Lily. But it was why she wanted
me in the first place that remained a mystery. Was I
an experiment to her? She didn’t seem to be fascinated with me or even to like me. I wasn’t useful like
Giny, or obedient. But all their manipulation made
their friendliness more false and hollow than Sam’s
somehow and despite myself, I missed Giny. We had
at least had our love of the wolves in common. Their
terrifying beauty – I eyed them in the halls to no
avail. It was as before, I was invisible and previously
that would have suited me fine. It was like they didn’t
exist anymore but I could see them across the lunch
area. Tealy and Monica hid their stares but I wasn’t
afraid of them. I knew what they were.

I felt as though a promise had been broken.
Everything I had come to expect was just not there,
but at the same time just out of reach, where I could
see. One minute you’re in and the next you are out.
Why me, why not Tealy or Monica?

Thoughts plagued me, was I so uncoordinated?
Were they worried I’d talk or that I would be a danger to them because of some trauma they imagined
I held over Lily’s death. Had I really acted so poorly
that they thought it safer to ditch me? I began to
think the reason the pack had collectively agreed to
drop me like a hot potato was because I was in love
with Sky. My love and need to be with him, disguised
as fear, was the very thing which had cut him away.
They smelt something was wrong, I knew it.

Strangely I knew I was a danger to them, though
I may not have known why. My feelings for him
made me act so strangely I was convinced they felt it
necessary to rid the team of me. My bruised self-esteem sank lower. I thought not even the supernatural
would befriend me.

Days passed, I concentrated on essays and exams.
The experience, which had changed my life, slipped
further and further away. I wished Sam would kill
me, make it all fade away. Lily was shot but I was
hit, too. I never really had been part of the pack, and
now I fitted in school less than before. I was between
their world and the human world, in a kind of dazed
purgatory. I could no longer find company in those I
couldn’t understand. Was it so crazy to believe Sam
had done it on purpose? I needed to piece things together. I didn’t like this life I had been returned to, a
cold reality, while immortality dangled in front of me
on a string I couldn’t reach. Every morning I hoped
it was a bad dream, and that it would be like it was.

I missed the school dance, even though I suspected they wouldn’t go, and spent all my nights in.
A few days apart felt like weeks, such was my infatuation with the wolves. I let Tealy and co involve me
in idle school gossip, petty arguments and even went
to the movies on two occasions, but when I was there
I looked around for Reid or Cres, who was also lying low. Reid had been, and remained, missing from
school. They were all as good as gone. I knew he was
still in town somewhere. I would have liked an explanation from him, but really I didn’t care enough
to find Reid either, only to confront him so that I
could feel like I was still involved with them and not
some disposable thing they had used and deemed
faulty. If I did see him alone I would have only inquired about Sky, to see if he really did care. To know
that was why he visited me, though I was grasping
at straws, for evidence that he could feel something
for me too. I imagined it would make everything like
it was, but better. Despite the quiet sting, I was in a
hole but it was different from the depression I’d been
in before. This was something I had the will to climb
out of. There had to be an escape. Sky had been right
about Reid. He didn’t care enough about me to explain in person or otherwise and I didn’t feel strongly
enough to find him either for an explanation. And if
he thought he broke my heart he was very misguided.
Reid had never glimpsed my heart let alone held it.
And Sky was sure he didn’t feel much for me, but
that didn’t explain the fight. I would have willingly
ripped my heart from my chest for Sky and I wanted
to believe he fought for me, but I knew it was more
likely Reid had been fighting for me. At least Sky
was still there where I could see him. If he were to
have disappeared I would have crumpled. His existence had become more powerful in my life than I
cared to admit. At nights I dreamt of him, and if I
heard their devil calls through the hills in my bed at
night I wanted them to be his calls for me. I left the
window open, the latch always unlocked.

Occasionally I saw Cresida, though she seemed
to be incognito, like a ghost in the halls disappearing
from my sight around corners through doorways, but
not even she came to call. When I found my mother
had locked my window twice in a row I took a hammer from the shed toolbox and pulled the latch from
the wood.

“God, I wish I didn’t have to go to any classes,”
she exclaimed in a hoity tone.
“Yeah, and
still
graduate!” Tealy replied.
“Guys, her parents are dead,” Danny chimed in.
He was a boy in twelfth grade who was currently dating Monica.
I liked him; he didn’t seem to like to bitch. “If
my parents were dead, I wouldn’t even make it to
school,” he added with a touching hint of admiration
or empathy.
“Well, I think it’s a cop out.”
Following a scolding look from me, Tealy then
argued, “What? They’ve been dead ages.”
Monica giggled, uncomfortably, I thought.
I felt less and less there every time they opened
their mouths, but it wasn’t just the wolves that had
changed me, it was something else pulling at me. I
only felt like I could breathe when I was out alone
in the open. I walked through the grass and stood
behind our house past curfew in the dark facing the
trees. I challenged them.

That night after a frustrating day of predictable life
in the teenage world, I longed to be free again like
I used to be with them, near him. Why I kept at
it I don’t know, I tried forgetting, but nothing was
as it had once been. Cresida was rumoured to be
doing most of her work at home. After losing two
parents and two friends she was shown leniency. She
had avoided classes, she came in to collect books,
I imagined at those times she also checked on me,
though I never caught her. I had to find a way to
speak with her. She was avoiding me the way I had
avoided her, only now I knew she wasn’t insane, but
I understood why she didn’t bother to even try to
integrate.

That night I dreamt of Cresida. The scene flickered before me. She was in an empty room; olive
green paint peeled off the walls, she sat on a crate,
partly covered with a thick grey blanket, underneath
which she was naked, and it fell about her exposing
her breasts and torso. Tattoos were sketched all over
her body, spaced evenly in different shapes covering
most of her, from her shoulders down, intricate stories of places she’d been and kills she had acquired. A
cigarette spilled a thin strain of smoke, which trailed
up in the breezeless room. She looked at me, expressionless, her face hardened further from the life
mapped out on her skin in scars and ink.

I woke up in the morning with the image of the
dream fastened in my mind. I saw she was melancholy and covered in ink and healed scratches, her
cheekbones more sunken. It was a strangely erotic
vision. I felt she was damaged from war, that she
had nothing but memories etched on her body of
the kills, the wolves, and the adventures that had left
their mark. She was a reject too, only worse with no
family and no home.

I wanted to find her then. If I couldn’t be part
of their gang, I would beat them. I would join forces
with Cresida. I had tried the straight and narrow, returning to things more or less as they had been before.
I had even made friends, but I had tasted something
more and now it was taken from me I desperately
wanted it back. If I had to choose between a life of
monsters and adrenalin or relative dullness, I knew
the choice I was making, although perhaps I wanted
to make it too hastily. Even then, I knew I had no
choice. I would still choose the same and the reason
is still the same: never settle for anything less, because you’ll live with regret.

I had had a taste, however brief, of excitement
and I liked it too much to return to the goldfish state.
I had woken up and I wanted in.

If I joined Cres somehow I believed I could close
the void - even though both lives were filled with
pain for me, because they were absent of him, one
more so than the other. At least if I was with her
I would be part of his world and there would be a
chance I would be in danger at least, more so than
if I stayed at home safe inside the four walls. Maybe
I would be lucky and get bitten. The venom would
course through me and I would be part of it. If that
didn’t grab his attention – that I hung around with
the hunter, and then the fact that I could be bitten
which was even more thrilling – then I would be like
him, closer to him with hundreds of years to make
him mine.