Wolf Sirens: Forbidden: Discover The Legend (23 page)

“He’s
bad
,” Reid said aloud. Cresida’s face showed
concern as she frowned. This was the first time I had
seen through the mask she donned. Reid picked out
another plastic tube from the first aid box. Cresida
took it from him. She went over to Sky then, armed
with the needle and stabbed it forcefully into his leg.
Cres came back over to me tossing the used needle in the sink and continued bandaging my right
arm, not looking towards Reid. She ordered him to
attend to Sky.
“Check if he’s healing.” She put the bandage clip
in her mouth and used both hands to wrap my arm
tightly. She clipped it on the end to secure it and
turned her attention to the other arm which was less
cut up, drying it with a towel, slathering on antiseptic
and wrapping it also.
“Is Sky alright?” I asked, my teeth still chattering.
I motioned towards him. Cresida over-compensated,
pushing me backward against the wall. “He’ll heal,”
she said sternly, unwrapping a band aid for my fingers.
After painkillers and a shot of vodka, a little later,
poured by Cresida, I was unceremoniously scooped
up by Reid and lugged up the stairs and thrown on
the bed in the same room as the last night I stayed
in the cabin.
“Reid!” I called out but the door slammed shut
behind him. “I’m sorry,” I said, I hoped loud enough
for him to hear with his sensitive werewolf ears, yet
it felt feeble. Sorry seemed a petty thing to utter for
what I’d done to him, and now for what I’d done to
the pack - to Sam and Sky.
I didn’t have to wait long for Cresida to come in
and throw a shirt at me.
“Get dressed we’re taking you to the hospital. You
need stitches,” she urged. When I didn’t instantly
obey, she offered, “Unless you want me to do it?” I
hurriedly threw on the shirt. “I’ll drive you, come on,”
she said.
“Will he be okay?” I asked, unwilling to leave
unless she said yes, whether it was true or not.
“Yes, eventually, we heal fast very fast. He won’t
die - you know how to break up a pack.” Her mood
had lightened slightly; I hoped it meant he was better.
We jumped in Reid’s car. Sky’s pickup was gone.
Bianca had taken it with Sam in the back.
“Does it hurt?” she asked, glancing at me as the
jeep rattled down the road, through the agapanthus.
I noticed she was almost pasty herself.
“It stings a bit, yeah it hurts. So what’s our story?
Did I fall through a window or was it a car accident?”
“How ’bout you didn’t see the glass door closed
and walked full pelt into it.”
“And fell down and crawled in it,”I added, sounding unconvinced.
“Exactly.”
Cresida arranged for my mother to come and get
me. She arrived slightly panicked, comforted me and
drove me home sending concerned glances at me the
whole way. It was pitch dark out now and she was
dressed in her grey Penny Market uniform.
“Did the stitches hurt?” she enquired.
“Mmm,no,not so much.The needle did,though.”
I was now in a drugged lull.
“You’re a tough cookie aren’t you?” As usual she
wasn’t melodramatic even when called from work to
get me covered in blood from the hospital. We told
her it happened at Sam’s house, neglected to mention Reid was there or anyone else, and my mother
didn’t ask a lot of questions. She did however ask me
if I was embarrassed to have walked into a plate glass
window. I feigned nervous embarrassment and she
patted my shoulder blade over my sling.
“Teenagers,”she sighed. And perhaps she smelled
the alcohol on my breath, but she didn’t mention it.
Cresida left with the excuse that her aunt wanted
her home. I knew that wasn’t where she went. Mum
thanked her for bringing me in, and I could tell she
meant it. I was surprised Cresida could turn on the
charm so easily if she needed to.
I called the cabin with my free arm as soon as
I got in; I imagined Sky would still be in pain but
recovering, however rapidly. Jackson answered, he
sounded wired. “Yeah,” he said.
“How’s Sky doing?” I didn’t bother with polite
conversation.
“Wouldn’t you like to know?”
“I would actually; he was hurt because of me.”
“Don’t flatter yourself, kid.”
“I’m hardly any younger than you Jackson,” I
retorted.
“You’ve certainly got or caused more trouble than
most seventeen-year-olds.”
I didn’t want to get into it with him. “Is Cres
there?” I asked, ignoring his insults.
“Yeah.”
The receiver changed hands.“He’s okay, Reid had
to take him to another wolf pack, one that has experience with this sort of bad injury, to check he’s okay.”
“Oh.” It was worse than I had let myself believe.
“Look, if we disappear don’t freak out, okay. He’ll
be back, I know that much.”
I wanted to ask if I could come. I knew I would
just complicate things further and that she would
have one answer: “No.” I knew I had school but how
would I explain the missing clique.
As though hearing me she blurted, “I’ll stay, so
I’ll be here to protect you.”
“Will you be at school?” - As I thought:
protect me
from what
? “Is Sam gone now?” I thought out loud.
“Yes, we have to keep up appearances, things are
starting to look mighty suspicious, and she should
stay away. Sky has overthrown her; everyone except Bianca is with him. This is his pack now,” she
confirmed. “It’s going to be hard to explain all the absences, you’ll be safer here, with me.” They obviously
hadn’t had time to discuss the details. She continued, “Giny’s being filled in, so it looks like you and I,
Jackson and she will be keeping up the school façade
side of things. We are thinking up a plausible back
story. We want to know something, how did you get
here in the first place?”
“I ran.” There was an audible silence.
“Did your mum drop you off somewhere?”
“No?”
“You ran here from your house?”
“Yes, after I got home,” I explained.
“After school? Are you sure?” she asked.
I thought for a moment. Of course I was sure.
“Yes.”
“Are you sure?” Cres insisted.
“Yes, I can’t feel much now, the drugs, vodka…”
I offered as an excuse for my lack of human weakness. This got me thinking but I quickly shut off the
thought. I was just fit.
“I’m not a wolf, Cres, I haven’t been bitten…that
I know of?”
“Oh, well take the day off tomorrow, rest, we’ll
pick you up on Thursday.” The phone hung up with
a clank.
That night I checked my body for possible bite
marks, wondering if Sam had bitten me and I just
couldn’t remember. I went over the events, but there
were no teeth marks, I was just fit. I was human.
Maybe I was a little sad about that. I thought about
Sky and how good it would be when he returned
without Sam.

The story went that Sky was injured motorbike
riding, so that was the final blow to the team. As a
result Bianca and Sam decided to take some time off
and transferred to sunny Baronia Beach interstate,
where Bianca’s parents were holidaying as far as
anyone knew. Reid was working as a labourer fulltime and Sky was in hospital in the city, recovering
from his injuries. I managed to cover-up my injuries
as it was still early spring and I was used to keeping
my sleeves down in the act of concealing another scar
(my tattoo), so we didn’t have to make yet another
plausible excuse.

We became the new popular clique at school. I had
inadvertently become queen B, in Samantha’s wake.
No other group challenged us, even in Sam’s absence. Tealy and Monica kept to themselves, now
that I hung with Cres, though we were a considerably rougher bunch without Sam and Bianca.
Because of this we fitted in better, which was only
a good thing.

Cresida began to open up to me for the first time,
about her parents, though she didn’t say how bruised
she was from the loss.

Cresida had decided to take me for a walk after
school. I thought it was sweet she wanted to keep my
mind off Sky. When we reached a bunch of boulders
amongst the bracken, I stopped and sat.

“Cres.”
She looked at me.
“How did you know when I would go to Sam’s?”
She pressed her lips together. “I saw it,” she said

simply, sitting beside me.
“How?”
“She took a deep breath and wriggled a bit, before answering. “It happened to me, so I guess I was
tuned to it.”

“When did you tell Sky?”
“I saw it, I found him, and we went to the cabin
and …there you were.” She shrugged. She was oversimplifying it. “Come on,” she called, getting up and
walking back towards my house.
She showed me pictures of her parents. A tanned tall
thin man and woman stared at me. Her mother had
long blonde hair and blue eyes, and they were dressed
in shorts. They looked like good people. I felt privileged to be witness to her more vulnerable side, and
though I couldn’t relate to the loss, I felt the extent of
her pain or thought I did. But my empathy was dry,
and inside I knew it.

Two weeks later Sky was still away healing reset
bones. I wasn’t told where -apparently with a more
experienced pack that could help him set his bones
straight, which was something we could not do accurately. Reid kept in contact with Cres. I wondered
how bad Sam was if, she had so badly hurt Sky. Was
she crippled? Healing badly? I knew that was something that would bring back a flood of old emotions,
for her to be crippled. I didn’t want to ask, I was glad
she was gone.

Cres offered to take me to get my stitches out.
She held my opposite hand as they were plucked; her
hand was warm and dry. My own mother wouldn’t
have displayed such affectionate support, and it felt
strange to me. So I told her I was fine, with an embarrassed smile. The nurse commented to Cres that
she might have a career in healthcare. I thought I saw
pain in her still eyes as she nodded in reply.

“Cres,” I asked on the way home in the rattling
jeep, “did you want to show me what you are? That
day at school, when you pulled the alarm.”

“What makes you think it was me that pulled it?”
“Wasn’t it you?”
“Yes.”
“Were you ….going to show me?”
“Yes.” Her eyes widened.
“Why?”
“Because, you’re like me… I knew it, but I wasn’t

She pursed her thin lips.
I was confused. “How?”
She didn’t answer for the longest time.
“When I said think about ‘
who
you are’, did you?”

she asked intently.
I had to admit I had been rather distracted. “No.
I’ve been occupied.”
“Exercising?”
“Yeah.” I laughed a little; I wondered where this
was going. In Sky’s absence I had decreased my
workouts slightly.
“I think you are like me,” she said pulling over
near my driveway and turning off the engine.
My mind was blank, I knew what she was saying was important but I wasn’t able to compute the
information. I knew this was serious and perhaps I
knew it would change everything again, between Sky
and me especially. My mind protected itself. I smiled
inappropriately as if I wanted it to be a joke.
“You think I’m a hunter?” But as I looked at her
my nervous smile faded.
She looked at me with a deadly serious expression; a nervous tickle surged down through me.
She was more than serious, she more than
thought I was like her.
“You know this?” I frowned, concerned.
She simply nodded. My blood ran cold.
I closed my eyes and put my palm over my eyelids, as if to block out the trauma of the realization
from entering my mind. But it came from the inside
out. I went quiet.
I remembered Reid’s words spoken so long ago,
emotion rising in me. ‘You were born to it’. If you
were a hunter it chose you. Cresida hadn’t chosen it
and I didn’t want it.
“No, no I’m not. I can’t be. You’re the hunter, it’s
your job,” I said desperately.
“I’m not meant to do it anymore.” She seemed
resigned to her failure. “I think you, or your body’s
waiting for me to end, and then you’ll be the hunter,
Lila,” she uttered.
“Stop it, stop it.” I glared at her.
Her eyes were gentle. “We’ve seen it coming for
some time.”
“No.”
“None of us chose this,” she admitted.
I ignored her miserable sympathy. “Since when?”
“What?”
“Since when did you all see it coming?” I retorted.
“The first day you arrived,” she said calmly.
My blood curdled. I pulled the handle. “Shut up
Cresida!” I reefed open the car door.
“Just think about it,”she touched my arm; I shook
it off, grabbed my bag and shot her a vicious look.
Why was she saying this? How could I be a hunter?
If I was anything I was going to be a wolf, not a wolf
killer.

Once inside I tried to call Sky, then Reid, who I
usually avoided. No answer, still. Only now I was
concerned.
I left voice mail.
“Call me now, did you know about this and for

I hung up and kicked a hole in the wall with my
boot; the plaster fell about the floor like breadcrumbs
exposing the space inside it. Sophie would crack
when she saw it, which made me angrier. The gaping hole stared at me as proof of my strength and the
force of the hunter.

“No, no, no, no,” I screeched, crouching in a squat
with my hands over my face in the hallway, my fists
clawing through tufts of hair.

Finally I called Cresida’s phone. She answered on
the first ring. “When did you know it?” I ordered.
“Lila, the night you ran nine kilometres to Sam’s
cabin was a clear indicator… but there were so many
other things - the exercise, the determination, the
mark, resisting Sam’s charms, and mostly the pull Sky
felt for you - the draw I held for you, your appeal to
Reid - all very clear signs.”
“How long have you known this?” I hissed.
“We didn’t know for sure, you have to know that.
I had dreams, there was the symbol.”
“And he knew? How long did he know?”
“I think since he went up to your room he was
sure, when he could no longer resist, despite Sam
and Reid.”
“So what we feel isn’t real - none of it? Because
I’m a hunter and I actually just want to kill him.” I
didn’t let her reply, the truth rolled out of me like
an overflowing drawer unlocked for the first time. “-
Like a black widow! You’re telling me this is all a lie,
my entire life, my life with them, at school - my life
with him - loving him. My own feelings are all wrong
and he knew it, you all knew it - you saw me change
and none of you told me.” I sounded distressed, disgusted; the last words were a whisper.
“I did - I tried, you didn’t want to see it, you
should have seen it - I didn’t have another hunter
trying to warn
me,
Lila.”
“You didn’t warn me - you just acted crazy, you
knew I couldn’t stop it just like you - and you fed me
to the wolves!” My chest began to hurt.
“You took so long to get even to this point, Lila.
I’m still waiting for it to hit you; it’s happening
slowly, we can’t deny it. When nothing happened we
thought: ‘Right, it’s not true, it was just a fluke - and
we all gave up - but then you started to act like a
hunter, it became obvious, even though we all denied
it. Sam saw it and wanted to turn you, like she did
me, to fix her problems. Sky and I saved you,”she said
certain of the fact.
“What now, Cres?” I gulped through tears. For
me it was over. My dreams were smashed, irreparably so.
“I’m coming over, wait, please.” The phone hung
up. I lay on the floor against the wall like a frustrated and exhausted tantrum-throwing child, my face
puffy from crying tears, which continued to slowly
ooze from my tired eyes.
She knocked softly to announce herself, which
surprised me.
“Come in,” I called.