Chapter Eight
Amelia
I was huddled up in bed, still thinking about Kali and Andriy, when Nathan pounded on my door.
“Get up! We have to see Joey before school.”
Grumbling, I did as I was told because I couldn’t bear an argument, although I dreaded the reception we’d get from Perdita’s cousin. I couldn’t think straight while my head was still full of my dreams of Andriy and the mistakes a dream girl was making, mistakes that felt as though they might be my own. Not all parts of the dreams were clear. I couldn’t remember every detail when I awoke, but his face was burned into my memories. Now that I knew his name, I couldn’t forget him if I tried.
On the way to school, Nathan seemed wound tight with tension. I could have choked on it. Didn’t he realise I had my own problems to deal with without having to worry about his?
“Any idea where Joey might be?” he asked, slightly calmer once we were inside the school grounds.
“How would I know?” I asked. He wanted me to check the classrooms. “Ugh, fine.” Anything to get away from him.
With Nathan following, I searched some classrooms for Joey. Nathan would have a better idea than me where the kid was, but he couldn’t do anything for himself when he was stressed out. Werewolves. Always needing girls to solve their problems.
I eventually found Joey, alone. I could almost hear him mentally swearing when he caught sight of me. His eyebrows rose at Nathan’s slightly aggressive entrance.
Joey stood, looking entirely put upon. “I don’t have time for this.” He gestured to his books.
“It won’t take long,” Nathan said. “Tell me what’s happening. Please.”
A bitter glare. “If you cared, you’d have already gone over there to find out.”
Nathan clenched his fists in frustration. “Joey, please. It’s complicated. Trust me. I want nothing more than to go over there, but I can’t right now, all right?” He took a deep breath. “Just tell me he’s okay. That she’s okay.”
He stared at Nathan steadily, different emotions crossing his face. “Whatever. You’ll hear about it from someone else anyway. He’s not okay, not exactly. He woke up yesterday.”
“Woke up?” I blurted. Was it really that bad?
“Yeah. He was in some kind of a coma. They had no clue what was happening. They gave him a blood transfusion, and they think his body reacted badly to it. He’s pretty sick, but nothing the doctors give him seems to help.”
Nathan twitched visibly, and my stomach churned with apprehension. Not good, not good.
“They think maybe he was already sick, and the attack triggered it, because no way would he be this sick over a dog bite. He has to stay in for a while.” He shrugged. “They don’t know what’s wrong, not really.”
“And Perdita?” Nathan asked weakly.
Joey took his seat again. “She hasn’t gone home yet,” he said, opening one of his books.
“Is she at the hospital alone?” Nathan asked, his voice harsh and accusing.
Joey didn’t seem impressed. “Sometimes. But her mother turned up yesterday.”
The way he said it chilled me. I would give anything to have my mother turn up. “Is that such a bad thing?” I couldn’t help asking.
He turned his face full of scorn toward me. “Sounds as if you don’t know Perdy at all.” He picked up a pen and flicked through a couple of pages of his book, clearly dismissing us.
“Can you give her a message?” Nathan asked. I had to hand it to my brother. He was definitely persistent.
Joey shook his head without looking at us. “Tell her yourself. Won’t matter if it comes from me.”
Nathan’s face flushed such a deep shade of fuchsia that I felt sure he would hulk out and flip over a table or something. I cringed, waiting for him to explode.
“I don’t want to make things worse.” His voice had tightened, coiled up with pain.
“I’ll tell her to call you. That’s all.” Joey’s wall was back up. There was no way we were getting through to him. Nathan wouldn’t follow me out of the room, so I grabbed his arm and pulled him after me, surprised by how easy it was to move a werewolf.
“What’s wrong with her dad?” I asked to try to distract him from the whirlwind of emotions obviously spinning in his head. He looked tortured. That wasn’t good for a werewolf. Even I knew that.
“I don’t know, but I need to see her.”
“You can’t,” I reminded him, instantly regretting it. He let out a grunt of rage and slammed his fist into a locker, leaving a significant dent in the metal and sending my heart straight into my throat. He rushed off, but I couldn’t move; I was shocked by the force of his anger. I had never seen him so unhinged.
I knew with certainty that he needed Perdita now more than ever. And there was nothing I could do to help him or me. My own temper was scaring me. What hope was there for me if even Nathan couldn’t control himself?
School started and in class, Ger kept asking me questions, but my mumbled monosyllabic answers soon silenced her. I liked her well enough, but I couldn’t focus. Nathan’s anger had knocked me off balance, too, though deep down, I knew my dreams had more to do with my imbalance than I liked to admit. Everything about the dreams bothered me now. In my dreams, people were used for the gain of others, and two people wanted comfort from the one person they were supposed to avoid. Kali’s situation seemed so disastrous and tragic and as hopeless as my brother’s relationship. To feel that connection with someone must be amazing, and I had a little taste of it every night.
I was late to lunch, but made it in time to see Aaron towering over Nathan. They weren’t speaking, just staring at each other. Aaron stepped back a little, a look of alarm on his face. Maybe he saw the wolf behind Nathan’s eyes, or maybe he realised Nathan wasn’t backing down. Of course, Aaron also wouldn’t want to back down in front of everyone, so he made a pathetic little smirk and threw a punch.
I flinched as his fist flew toward Nathan, who blocked it easily, then sharply struck Aaron twice in the face before anyone could react.
Aaron fell back, but Nathan grabbed the back of his shirt before he landed, forcing him to turn and face the ground, his body held up only by Nathan’s grip. Everyone gasped as one, unable to break the spell. Nathan said something to Aaron, but his face was ugly, with more than a little of his animal side showing through. I took a step, half-afraid he would suddenly phase and rip Aaron apart, but I stopped. What on earth could I do to stop him? Shame flooded me once again. I was afraid of my own brother.
I could have sworn Nathan’s shoulder blades jerked out of place, but the principal arrived, and called out my brother. He snapped out of it, reining in his wolf. I saw the horror on his face as he realised what he had done. Blood ran down Aaron’s chin and neck, while half of Nathan’s friends glared hateful daggers at him, and I… I was more shocked than anyone. Nathan had control, but he’d totally lost it, all because he wasn’t close to Perdita. His actions only reinforced what I already knew. That curse had to go.
The principal and Nathan left, and all hell seemed to break loose. Everyone spoke at once. Excited, hyperbolic comments filled the room. The incident had looked bad enough without people’s overreaction making it sound worse. Aaron, soaking up the sympathy, was escorted out, and he looked back at me with an unmistakeable sneer on his face. I wished Nathan had saved a punch for me.
A girl grabbed my arm. She was someone I didn’t remember ever seeing before. “Oh, my God. Your brother is so going to be expelled! I heard he was kicked out of his last school for stabbing someone. Is that true?”
“I… what?” I asked, barely able to get out the words.
“She’s busy. Get lost,” said Tammie as she accompanied me from the room.
“I… that…”
“Yeah, I know. Keep out of there, or they’ll never leave you alone. Trust me on that one.” She shook her head, smiling. “Your brother’s not so quiet, is he? They always say they’re the ones to
watch, eh?”
I rubbed my temples, unable to figure out what kind of parallel world I was in. Nathan almost turned into a werewolf in front of people. Tammie was helping me. What on earth was going on?
As if she realised the same thing, Tammie made some excuse and left me alone. No longer hungry, I decided school was a bust and went to the office to complain of a migraine. They didn’t send me home, but they let me sit in a dark room until school ended. The principal nodded knowingly at me. Why did life have to be so complicated in normal ways when it was already so complicated in a dozen abnormal ways?
After school, I worked up the courage to talk to Nathan.
“You okay?”
“Sorry about today. I’ve been all over the place lately.” He rubbed the back of his neck, and looked a little sheepish.
“I know. That’s another good reason why we should be looking to get rid of this curse.”
He stared at me. “I know that, Amelia.”
“Did they kick you out of school?”
A rare grin lit up his face. “No. The principal told me to take the rest of the day off, basically. She’s pretty cool, for a principal.”
“At least that’s something. Why did you go off like that, though?”
Groaning, he paced in front of me. I could almost taste his stress and realised that Aaron had been lucky as hell. “It’s not as if I planned it. I’ve been on edge lately, and Aaron’s been asking for a hiding since I got here. You know that, right?”
“I might know it, but I thought you were over the fights. You know fighting with you isn’t fair because you have this advantage that they don’t. Besides, you’ve kept your cool for ages. I thought you could control it now.”
“So did I. Guess you can never trust a wild animal.” He gave me a watery smile, and I felt a pang of something in my chest. I knew he suspected our father of murdering our mother. And I knew he had always felt as though he himself could never be trusted. But this was the first time I had seen the evidence of his lack of control in front of my face. I often felt left out because I wasn’t a werewolf, but I was becoming ever more certain that I didn’t want to be a werewolf after all.