The Wild

-13- Busted

Copyright © 2014. All Rights Reserved.

Since it seemed Mary and John were highly against a mature conversation between a male and female who had issues to discuss (AKA telling Tyler off in person), I was left to debate other options. When I sat out on the dock for an hour, the serene atmosphere left me homesick for my cabin, and for once in a long while I was reminded of my home back out east with my parents. For all I knew a letter of theirs was waiting in my mailbox back at the cabin, and despite all the troubles we had when I lived there, we acted like friends now that I was away. But I knew the friendship would only last until we met back up, so moving back home was out of the question.

I continued these thoughts as I sat by the empty fire pit. As much as I loved and adored my cabin in Stillwater, and I had work to do at the diner, and I had people I'd grown connected to as a result of that, picking up and moving would be hard to do. Besides, it would be suspicious if Tyler's gang saw a moving truck pull up along side the road.

But did I have to move? Wasn't there something I could do? Stillwater was being infected by the dreadful illness that accompanied transformation and here I was planning a getaway trip. With a frustrated groan, I stood up and walked back towards the garage to have a word with Brad.

I found him in the same place as before, wearing dents into the ground by scraping the heel of his shoes against it. He looked up when I walked to the entrance of the open garage door. We stared at each other long and hard until he finally sighed.

"What do you want?"

"How do you break the... connection?" I asked, folding my arms over my chest to show I meant business. He glanced at me through narrow eyes before looking away, furrowing his eyebrows. "What? What is it? I swear to God if you aren't telling me-"

"You shouldn't be thinking that, though," he retorted, as if the very thought made him disgusted enough to start dry-heaving. "I don't know what kind of crap they put in your head, but it's an honor."

I scoffed under my breath and turned my head away so I could smirk. "Bullshit."

He was about to smart-mouth me, and I could see it clear on his face, but the front door to the cabin open and out of the corner of my eye I swore it was John who'd come to drag me back into the house for conversing with the prisoner. Only, once I caught his eyes, I recognized him to be Bennet.

"What's going on?" he questioned, stepping down from the front porch. His eyes were flickering between Brad and I, uncertainty on his face. I didn't say anything, so Brad spoke up.

"So you're their son." He sounded like he wanted to say something that was on the tip of his tongue, but thought better of it and kept his mouth shut.

Bennet shared a look with me and shrugged. Before a conversation could arise, he waved me out of the garage and said, "Come on, Amaya and I were gonna go out on the lake."

I shot Brad the dirtiest look I could muster, but he only stared at me with wide, knowing eyes as if whatever I did couldn't possibly get me out of this werewolf situation. I refused to believe that my normal life was falling to the clutches of fantastical creatures and strange new customs.

Amaya was waiting at the shore for Bennet and I, making herself useful by toting ores out from the shed and tossing them to the ground beside the rowboat and kayak. I instantly knew who'd be stuck in what flotation device, but just as I was sure Amaya was going to drag Bennet onto the rowboat with her, she claimed the kayak and started scrambling into it before I could beat her to it. She stuck her tongue out at us and gave us a wicked look as she pushed off from the dock and coasted farther and farther from shore.