The Ballad of Aramei

  “I feel like Adam and Eve,” I say, “well, Adam and Eve written by Seth Grahame-Smith, anyway.”

  Isaac smiles over at me, but doesn’t say anything.

  “What is it?” I say.

  “Nothing.”

  I narrow my eyes at him and he gently grips my hand as we make our way over a large fallen tree branch.

  “Isaac,” I say, though watching my footing more than looking at him now, “I’ll just start digging around inside your head if I have to—Oh! That’s right! I can do that now, which means you can’t hide anything from me anymore.”

  His lopsided grin deepens.

  “I already told you that I don’t care if you ever listen to my thoughts,” he says.

  He reaches out and pushes away a dense patch of low, thin tree limbs that jut out over the path so that I can walk through them.

  “But you know I don’t want to,” I say.

  He walks in behind me, letting the limbs snap back into place afterwards.

  I see the creek out ahead now.

  “It’s just that I’m glad you’re taking to this so easily,” he says.

  We make our way to the edge of the creek and I step right in, letting the water come up to my waist and I begin to wash. Isaac sits on a large tree limb sitting low near the ground. The tree that it comes from is awkwardly shaped, rising over the top of a small ridge that surrounds the creek.

  It really doesn’t feel so weird bathing in a creek. Not that I’ve ever done it before, but I spent my childhood swimming in ponds and creeks and rivers and lakes, so it doesn’t bother me. Of course, I’d love some soap, shampoo and conditioner. A lot of conditioner.

  I look over at Isaac sitting on the limb as I scrub the blood from my elbows and say, “Define easily.”

  God he looks good naked…I force myself to look away.

  Chapter 2

  I HEAR ISAAC JUMPING down from the limb and I wait to look up when I hear the water move as he steps into it. He comes up behind me and guides my body back so that he can wet my hair.

  “I tried to prepare myself for this,” he says, combing his fingers gingerly through my wet, tangled locks. “I expected you to be completely traumatized by the whole experience, to wake up after a shift like right now, and maybe hate yourself, hate me for what you’ve become.”

  He works his fingers through another section of my hair, never pulling it.

  “I told you that I would never hate you,” I say, “I promised you the night you changed me.”

  I feel his breath on the back of my neck as he sighs deeply.

  I turn around to face him.

  “Isaac, what’s wrong? And don’t lie to me.”

  He gazes into my eyes, searching for something, though I’m not sure what, but he seems concerned. I study his face for a moment and then it hits me. I don’t need to probe his thoughts to know what he’s thinking.

  I let my head fall slightly to one side and I reach up and rest my fingertips on his cheeks, water drips from my hands and runs down the length of my arms.

  “You think I’m forcing myself not to hate you because of my promise?” It discourages me that he would even consider that, but I can’t bring myself to criticize him for it.

  Isaac looks right into my eyes, but doesn’t answer.

  I lean up and kiss his lips softly and he knows that words aren’t needed to assure him now. He knows that I would still love him even if the promise was never made.

  “So,” I say, looking around at the trees on all sides, “exactly how do we get back…you know…being naked and all?”

  Isaac turns me around again and scoops water into his hands, pouring it on my shoulders and neck and gently scrubbing the blood away that I had missed.

  “That’s the tricky part,” he says, “but it should be fun.”

  “Fun? How could anything about that be fun?”

  I hear him laugh softly behind me and then he leans around and kisses my cheek.

  I don’t like that mischievous feeling I’m getting from him right now. Okay, maybe I like it just a little bit, but something tells me this is going to be an interesting morning.

  ~~~

  Apparently, we ended up nearly three hours away, north of Hallowell and when Isaac told me this on our trek through the mountain, I could hardly believe it. I just couldn’t understand how I had traveled so far away on foot (as a werewolf, but still) and hardly remember anything but bits and pieces of my kill.

  We walk for an hour before I finally see and hear signs of human life and it all starts coming at me like a whirlwind of noise: the sound of traffic, the thumping and rapping of something trapped inside a wooden box trying to get out. I hear someone humming and someone else whistling in the shower.

  I hear two people having sex and I instantly reach up to plug my ears with my fingers.

  Isaac stops in the forest before we make it onto a trail that leads into a small town.

  “You didn’t hear anything unnatural when we were at the creek,” he says, placing his hands on the sides of my neck.

  Now that I think back on it, he’s right. I look up at him, searching for answers.

  “You were able to block it all out because your mind was only on me,” he says. “It’s all about focus and discipline. You have to know that you’re the one in control of your mind and not the things around you.”

  I nod heavily, fully understanding yet at the same time not so sure of my ability to pull it off.

  “It’ll come natural to you soon enough,” he says, “but you have to stop fighting it.”

  “How am I fighting it?”

  “You’re trying too hard. Just let it go. Don’t think about how you need to do it; just don’t think about it at all.”

  I nod once more.

  It’s true; when we’re having a conversation the noises around me seem to naturally fade into the background unless I’m trying to push them into the background.

  He takes my hand again and says with an I-hope-you’re-ready-for-this sort of expression, “Just follow my lead. Don’t say anything if we’re spotted, alright?”

  I swallow hard and nod. “Okay.” I’m hoping he’s going to explain exactly what we’re about to do, but as he starts to walk away, pulling me along beside him, I realize I’m not going to get an advance briefing.

  We head down the path and when we come to the end minutes later, instead of stepping out into the wide open of someone’s backyard, we stay hidden in the veil of trees on the outskirts. The back of the old house comes into view. There’s a high deck perched against it and a sliding glass door covered by thick, long curtains. I catch the scent of bleach and Pine-Sol from the raggedy mop that hangs stiffly over the deck railing. The house sits on at least two acres of land where just outside of it, off in the distance, a few other houses are scattered about the hilly landscape.

  Isaac pulls me farther around the back of the house and we come to a barn, fairly new. I can smell the heavy scent of freshly cut wood and paint which the red door had recently been painted with.

  “Do you hear anyone inside?” Isaac says, crouching with me still in the cover of the trees.

  “In the barn?”

  “No,” he says with a hint of laughter, “the house.”

  I listen for voices and movement, but all that I can hear this closely is the purring of a cat.

  I shake my head no.

  Isaac points toward a part of the back of the house, just off to the side near the deck that looks like a small add-on room.

  “Do you smell it?”

  I look at him confusedly, wishing he would start elaborating his questions more.

  “Coming from that room,” he says, “do you smell the detergent?”

  I inhale deeply and shut my eyes, thinking only of that room and I do smell detergent strongly, along with fabric softener and dryer sheets. Normally, stuff like that always gives me intense headaches, but not this time. It’s as if I’m immune.

  “Yeah, I do smell it,” I s
ay and I’m starting to understand what his plan is.

  “Come on,” he says, taking my hand again.

  My heart is pounding in my chest as I follow him out into the open and toward the back of the house where the laundry room waits for us. We duck behind a large tractor, stop to look around to make sure no one is outside and then when Isaac feels it safe to continue, we dash across a long stretch of yard and make it to the high deck. I hear the cat purring inside more clearly now and I look up to notice a white fluff-ball curled up inside next to the window, sleeping. We inch our way around the deck and make it to the laundry room. He tries the knob, but it’s locked. I hear both the washing machine and dryer humming inside.

  I start to say something about needing a key, but just before the suggestion leaves my lips, the doorknob cracks and falls into Isaac’s hand, broken.

  “Isaac!” I whisper harshly. “Why’d you break it?”

  He turns at the waist to look at me. His gaze strays up and down my naked body, the grin on his face getting bigger. “As much as I like what I see,” he says, “if we don’t hurry and get dressed we run the risk of being found like this.”

  “Oh, right,” I say, now wanting to speed this theft up.

  The laundry room door creaks open and we slip inside the tiny room barely large enough to contain both of us at the same time. Isaac pulls open the dryer and a mound of clothes tumble round and round before coming to a full stop. A few pieces of clothing fall out and onto the floor. We both crouch low and start sifting through the items, which I’m glad are fully dry already.

  Isaac jerks out a pair of tan slacks and holds them up, but he doesn’t examine them long before he’s slipping his naked legs down into them.

  “Hurry up,” he says, motioning toward the dryer.

  Gah! It’s mostly old lady clothes! One by one I pull out something hideous and flowery, not to mention oversized by at least two sizes. Holy shit, is that a moo-moo? Embarrassed to even be holding something so un-sexy in front of Isaac, I shove it deep into the dryer.

  “Someone’s here,” Isaac says peeking around the door. “Hurry up!”

  My heart beats even faster now and the nervousness is starting to make me a little nauseous. I’m not sure which scares me more: getting caught stealing someone’s laundry, or getting caught butt-naked stealing someone’s laundry.

  “Adria,” Isaac says from above, still watching from the door, “this isn’t a fashion show. Doesn’t matter what it looks like, just grab something, quick.”

  Without thinking about it, I reach inside and yank out whatever my hand touches first, hoping like hell it’s not the moo-moo.

  A cream-colored granny slip-gown. Great. Just great. It’s almost as bad as the moo-moo, but Isaac’s right, there’s no time to be picky.

  I practically throw the gown over my body and feel how it literally engulfs me, falling past my hips and stopping just above my ankles.

  Isaac glances back at me. “Damn, you’re sexy,” he says, trying to hold in the laughter.

  I glare at him, letting him know I won’t forget that and he’ll be paying for it later.

  As we go to leave, the back door opens up onto the deck and an old lady with bluish-purple hair steps out, looking right at us. I sort of freeze and so does Isaac.

  “What—Hey! What are you doing with my clothes?” The woman’s eyes dart around the deck and then she waddles quickly over to the mop and takes it into her hand.

  “Time to go,” Isaac says, dragging me along.

  We take off running across the yard and back toward the forest.

  “Stop! Bring those back! I’m calling the police!”

  I can hear the old woman trying to run after us, but she gives up and stops once we dart into the cover of the trees.

  I’m laughing manically. I can’t help it, but that kind of rush does weird things to a person.

  We run a good distance through the forest and I realize that I should be out of breath by now. I should be sweating, or feeling something to indicate I’m overworking my body, but minutes later and I still feel the same as I did before I started running. Finally, we come to a stop near another makeshift trail that looks to lead right toward a highway; the sound of cars passing over an exit bridge seems closer. And with my keener sight I can see a set of railroad tracks far out ahead.

  “Never thought I’d be the one to figure it out first,” I say, holding the thin fabric of the ugly gown at my back hoping to make it look tighter around my form.

  Isaac looks at me curiously and I just grin.

  “Werewolves have been the cause of missing clothes on laundry day all this time,” I say. “All of those frickin’ socks!” I shake my head.

  Isaac rolls his eyes and laughs under his breath.

  “I don’t think socks are going to help cover much,” he says, “so I doubt that explains the Great Sock Disappearances.”

  “Oh yeah?” I say, cocking my head to one side. “I take it you’ve never seen a Red Hot Chili Peppers concert before then?”

  “Can’t say that I have,” he says, and judging by the grin, he’s fully aware of the sock-wearing-capade I’m referring to.

  We leave the path and make it to the railroad tracks. The highway stretches southeast out ahead and it’s obvious we’re closer to a town by all of the houses, churches and various other sorts of buildings I see just past the highway. Cars buzz by every few seconds.

  “We can’t walk two more hours back to Hallowell dressed like this,” I say, looking down at myself. “Well, you could get away with it, but me…not so much.”

  Isaac is still trying so hard to hold back his laughter, but he might as well let it all out and get it over with because he couldn’t be any more obvious, really. And he does look hot, even wearing some old guy’s khaki slacks. They fit him perfectly and rest at just the right measure down low on his hips, revealing the sculpted curvature of his waistline, six-pack abs and bellybutton where a little happy trail hides below the top button.

  But me, on the other hand, I am about as mortified and embarrassed as I’ve ever been dressed in this gown and looking like I just spent a rough night in the woods.

  “You stay here,” he says and instantly my brows crease with objection, “and I’ll go over to that gas station and call Nathan to come pick us up.”

  An hour and a half later, Nathan is pulling up along the side of the road and we’re hopping in the back seat of his FJ Cruiser. Harry is with him, as I had a feeling he might be.

  “Damn, girl,” Nathan says after turning around in the front seat to see me sitting in the middle next to Isaac. “Not even you can do that gown justice.”

  “Shut up, Nathan,” I say, gently hitting the back of his seat.

  Nathan grins back at Isaac. “We were starting to get worried, bro.” He puts the Cruiser in gear and we pull away.

  “That’s an understatement,” Harry says from the front passenger’s seat. “How did she get out, anyway?”

  Isaac sighs heavily next to me and I feel his arm tighten around my waist.

  “She just did,” Isaac answers and I can hear the irritation in his voice.

  Harry was sort of overprotective of me even long before he found out that he’s a Praverian and that I’m his Charge. But now, ever since he went through his Becoming not even a month ago and everything was revealed to him, that overprotectiveness has definitely gone up a few notches.

  “You all know I’m sitting right here, right?” I say. “How did I get out—you’re talking about it like I’m an animal or something.”

  All three of them look right at me with grins and raised brows—Nathan from the rear-view mirror—and I shrink back into the seat. An animal. Of course. Talk about sticking my foot in my mouth.

  Oh my God…I’m an animal. I’m a werewolf. It’s already my second time shifting, but I think I still have a long way to go before all of this will completely sink in.

  Isaac pulls me closer. “How do you feel?” he says, and I can sense the
gentle smile in his voice because he knows I must feel fantastic.

  I tilt my head to see his eyes. “I feel…powerful.” It seemed a little weird to say that word, almost as if it were ridiculous, but it’s absolutely true. I feel like I can do anything: scale a high wall with ease, rip a phone book in half with my bare hands. I feel like I can fight anyone with no fear, but instead with complete and total confidence that I will win…well, humans anyway. I’m nowhere near confident when it comes to other werewolves. But I’m not the slightest bit afraid of the prospect. And that in itself is amazing to me.

  Fear. That’s it…I have absolutely no fear. None….

  “Powerful and crafty,” Harry says with a little playful mockery in his tone. “It’s only her second time and already she’s outwitting the Alpha boyfriend.”

  I notice Isaac’s eyes narrow and I squeeze his hand, looking up at him with eyes that say, Baby, it’s just Harry. What do you expect?

  He smiles faintly back at me, knowing I’m right.

  “While we’re all alone,” Nathan says, “we need to get this whole thing about who Adria can talk to straightened out before we get back.”

  “Yeah,” Harry says, “they’re all starting to talk—most of them aren’t buying the story about how Adria just needs time alone to deal with her new existence.”

  “Rachel, for example,” Nathan says, “is coming up with all kinds of crazy stuff.”

  “Like what?” I say, raising up and holding onto the back of his and Harry’s seats.

  I hate Rachel. The feeling has always been mutual, but before, back when I was just a ‘weak, ghastly freak of a girl with a fantasy’ (that’s what Rachel called me the day I caught her with her tongue in Isaac’s mouth), I couldn’t say anything because she might try to kill me. Now that I’m on her level, I can defend myself and I’m looking forward to it.

  You know what they say about paybacks.

  “Something about you getting knocked up,” Nathan says and he’s grinning hugely in the mirror at me.

  “But the main rumor,” Nathan adds, “is that the Blood Bond is still making you loco.” He swirls his finger around the side of his head in a circular motion.