Midnight Serenade

Chapter 8

"So, why don't you know my name?" I asked as we sat together at the table I'd previously run from. When I returned, my burger had been waiting for me and another had joined it at the opposite place setting.

Weird, but not nearly the strangest thing to happen today.

Sawyer tried to get me to go somewhere private to talk, but I refused to leave the safety of a public place until I had some answers that made sense. Even if people stared. Although, they seemed to be doing it a little less now.

He frowned, puzzled again. "I have no clue. I was so sure your name was Savannah. Dreams aren't supposed to be wrong like that. Yours weren't. My father might know, if you'd agree-"

I shook my head. "Not happening. At least not yet. I just met you and I'm not convinced that you're not some vivid hallucination."

Amused, he leaned over to the next table, grabbing the middle-aged man's attention. "John, would you please confirm for my friend that I'm really here?"

The man smirked and then looked at the woman across from him. "Sandy, did you hear something?"

Sawyer punched him in the arm.

John laughed before looking at me. "He's here, though I must offer my sympathies."

Unable to help it, I smiled.

John winked and returned his attention to the woman with him.

"So?" Sawyer asked, looking amused.

"Fine, you're not a hallucination, but that still doesn't explain anything."

He sighed. "I told you, we're shifters. That's why you feel so comfortable here. You're part of the pack."

"Then why don't I have any idea who any of you are?"

He frowned. "I don't know. That's the other part that doesn't make sense."

I snorted. Of all the things we'd talked about, that's the only thing that did make sense. At least if you rejected the crazy talk about shifters.

"So, by saying I'm a shifter, you're telling me that one day, I'm just going to be something else?"

He shrugged. "Basically."

"And why haven't I changed already?"

"Because you haven't matured yet."

I wasn't sure how to take that as anything but an insult and I scowled.

Sawyer chuckled. "Not like that. I mean physically. Your body has to mature to a certain point and then the change happens. Kind of like puberty."

I blushed a little at the comparison. "And when is that supposed to be?"

"It's different for everyone, but typically for girls, it's around sixteen. For guys, closer to eighteen."

I watched him, thinking, and not liking what I was thinking. If this change was supposed to happen at sixteen, that would completely explain why I started feeling so weird lately. There was the obvious with the dreams and the strange sensation in my limbs, but there was also my recent love of red meat, as well as small subtle things I'd largely ignored. Like slightly better night vision and improved hearing.

"Are you sixteen yet?" he asked.

I shook my head. "Not for another few days."

"And you've been feeling different lately?"

I bit my lip and didn't answer. He took that as confirmation.

He glanced at my half-eaten burger which was so rare, it was hardly able to be described as cooked. "Clearly you like the diet already," he said. "With the full moon on Friday, I'd say you should expect it then."