THE BOY WHO WATCHES THE MOON [werewolf]

CH 3

CHAPTER 3

"Three... Two..."

I felt my fingers slip out of their grip on the sill in less than a second, sending me plummeting to the grass below. I landed on my feet, only to soon thereafter fall onto my butt and bounce backward. It was hard to believe I had made it this far in my plan as I looked up at where I'd come from, standing up and dusting my hands off. I couldn't believe it; I lived!

I pulled my mask back over my face—it'd become a little misplaced as I tumbled on the ground— then turned on my heels and sprinted into the woods. I diced my way through, barely slipping past trees, and carefully placed my feet on the ground so I wasn't over-turned by weeds.

Surprisingly, out of the million thoughts bubbling in my mind like a giant brew of soup, the thought that this so-called Dustin kid would actually kill me wasn't really one of them. He was typical to me; they all can talk as much as they want, but all in all, the chances of them actually taking action was slim. All bark and no bite, if you will.

I eventually found myself to be exactly where I wanted to be: the exact place I was night before. The footprints I'd made to get there were still visible in the moonlight leaking through the trees, and an arrangement of them scattered where Dustin and I had our conversation. I peered left, then right, keeping an uneasy focus on my peripheral vision, where I was sure he would pop into at any second.

"Boo."

A chill shot down my spine, causing momentary paralyzation at the sound of his voice. I turned around to see the smirk that I'd been acquainted with last night, his hands buried in his pocket the same way. He looked satisfied, which bothered me so much that I felt my cheeks heating up.

"Cute," I told him.

"If that was cute, things are about to get real adorable." He revealed his teeth conspicuously, smiling as if he was doing it just to show off his shiny white array. He took a few steps closer to me, making my insides feel like they were twisting and turning on their own.

I crossed my arms, unamused. Again with the unending façade. He saw through it. "It's going to take a lot more than that to scare me, Dustin," I uttered his name, and took a few steps forward as well. It was only a matter of who would back down first.

His grin faded into a small smile, and he crossed his arms as well. "I was hoping that you were bluffing yesterday, about coming back. But obviously I was wrong."

I raised an eyebrow. "Maybe you should stop assuming, yeah?"

He took another step closer, so that there was only a mere foot separating us. I could feel him breathe. Intoxicating. "I wasn't assuming, I was hoping. Otherwise I wouldn't have come out here, Chase." He laughed, but this time it was coldly. "Somewhere in me, I knew that you'd show up."

"I came to prove a point, that your threats don't scare me." He shook his head, making me more and more nervous as the end-result of my choice that night was impending. "I guess I'll see you at school," is all I could think to mutter, before starting to turn away—

"Wait, where are you going? The fun just started." He grabbed my arm, and softly pulled me back toward him.

This was a bad idea. Very bad. I don't know you. "Like what?"

"Well..." he started, "I don't think it's right that you should come all the way here in the cold for only a few minutes." I hadn't even been paying attention, but his comment made me self-aware. I was shaking like a dog out of a bathtub. However, he read it that I was shaking from the cold, but I couldn't differ my shaking from the extreme lack of heat and from life-threatening anxiety.

I tried to pull away, but his grip on me remained firm. "I don't have any more business to take care of."

"Stay." I felt a sharp pain in my arm, almost like a knife. I looked down, horrified to find that there was a needle in my arm, and it was taking fast action on my body. Tranquilizer.

"Stop..." I pleaded softly, but it was a worthless cause and he and I both knew it. It was too late. I collapsed into his arms, he picked me up, and that's all I remembered before I drifted to sleep.

. . .

I felt my consciousness bring me back to life, and I slowly brought myself to open my eyes. I looked around. I was in a house. Not my house, but a house I was unversed with; it undeniably cute looking, though. It was a log cabin, and I realized that I was sprawled out on a sofa, a damp, warm towel resting on my forehead. I had a blanket around me, and a glass of water with my mask on the coffee table at my side.

Where am I?

It wasn't until then that I realized there was a pair of eyes that'd been watching me the whole time. They were easy, unforgettable. Brown, with golds and yellows intertwined. They glanced at mine, a hand reaching over and brushing my hair that had fallen my eyes back behind my ear.

"She's awake," he said.

There wasn't a response, so he repeated himself a little louder. "Dillon, Kye! She's awake."

A groan from the room next door. A guy, about the same age as us, trudged into the room, followed by an older looking one, probably about his mid-twenties.

The both of them kneeled next to me on either side of Dustin, who was sitting on the coffee table, hands folded together. The older one gently took the towel off of my forehead, feeling where it was with his rough, calloused palm.

He stared into my eyes. "Why'd you bring here in the first place, Dustin? Her eyes are as blue as the sky, who knows what she is?"

Dustin shot him a glare, then proceeded to speak as if I weren't even in the room, let alone right in front of them. "I don't know, she was staring at me! How was I supposed to know what she was doing? I told her to get lost, but then she came back the next day, I didn't know what was going on."

The man let out a low, deep, growl, and looked back at me. "Whatever. Well, we're stuck with her now." He gives me a sympathetic pat. "Can't have you run home to tell mum and dad about getting tranq'd and kidnapped."

The younger one looked at him as if he were crazy. "Kai, she's... a chick! She's not one of us, she can't stay here."

"What do you know, Dillon? That's right, nothing. For all you know, she could be one of us." Justin uttered, glancing back into my eyes. "I think that there's something about her that she's not letting on."

I hadn't managed to say anything the whole conversation, and they all looked at me, as if they were waiting for some sort of response. I opened my mouth, but I ended up closing it, and squeezing my eyes shut as tight as they would go. After releasing the hard pressure, I was still in the same place, the same house, and the same three boys in front of me. They still looked at me, waiting for something to be said.

"I... I wasn't spying on you, I just didn't want to be afraid, even though I was." I felt tears begin to form in the crevasses. Not here, not now! But this was just getting to be too much. I felt myself talking with no control of my lips. Goddamn tranq. "My parents died over the summer." It took all my concentration to keep from slurring my words. "I convinced myself that there was nothing to be afraid of. But there was," And although I was under the effects of some sort of opioid, I still came to the uncanny realization that all I had said was true.

Kai's lips molded into a straight line. "San Diego isn't a safe place to be fearless. There's scary things out here, kid."

"I don't belong here, there's nothing special about me! Take me home!" I cried out, mistakenly comfortable with expressing my opinion. Kai grabbed my wrist, squeezing a pressure point to the extent of me being near-ill. I hunched into a ball, clenching the pain in my stomach.

"You should've known better. You should've known to stay away in the first place, but of course you kids just love getting yourselves into shitty situations. So you're just going to have to stay, until I figure out what to do with you," And with that, he and Dillon fled, leaving Dustin and I alone to ourselves.

"Happy Halloween," he muttered finally, brushing his hand across my cheek before following them, leaving me lost in my own thoughts.