“I need to go check on Zeke and Chloe,” I suddenly exclaimed. “I’ll do that while you guys bind the true werewolves since I can’t touch them anyway.”
“Go ahead,” Lex said. “I will help tie them up, but first I want to call the Royals, see if they have any suggestions as to where we should take them. Though it will be difficult, I think that we should load them into a van or something while they are still asleep. They will be easier to deal with if we wait to wake them someplace not so public especially with daylight threatening.”
“Even though it will take some effort, luckily none of us need as much sleep as humans either, so we can bind and load them. I know a guy with access to delivery trucks. He owes me one and said if I ever needed a favor to call him. So I will. Let’s get this project started,” Nira said. “Go Christina. Check on your friend. We have it covered here.”
I nodded before I turned to walk over to find where my clothes had dropped in my transformation. Chloe didn’t need to see me naked. That would shock the hell out of her before I even got to explaining anything. I smiled, hope shining down on me like the first rays of light that snuck through the orange and purple bands across the horizon. It had not rained. Right now, the emerging sun seemed to dry up the clouds as they thinned and all but disappeared from the sky.
“A good sign,” I sighed as I slipped into my clothes.
Chapter Eleven
As I headed toward the SUV, I heard Chloe’s voice, to the point of breaking over tears, in the high pitch of panic, yelling, “No… No… Stay away from me. Please let me go. No. Don’t touch me.”
Dressed now, I took a small leap toward the vehicle, pulling open the back hatch as soon as I got there. Chloe sat huddled in a corner, her arms wrapped around her legs, face paler than I had ever seen it. She kept shaking her head, repeating herself for Zeke to stay away from her. Poor Zeke, on his knees, had his hands out in front of him, both promising her safety as much as begging her to stop.
He’d been answering her cries with, “I won’t hurt you. I promise. You are safe. Christina is here,” when I had thrown open the door shocking them both into silence.
“No,” Chloe screeched this time, seeing me. “Don’t you come near me!”
I stood there, taken aback by the reception I’d just gotten. With confusion contorting my face, I looked to Zeke for explanation. The poor vampire looked beside himself as to what to do next.
“I’m so sorry, Christina. She woke up suddenly. She freaked out instantly being in a car with a stranger, and she jumped up to escape as I went for something to make her sleep again. Unfortunately, she saw you right as you changed into that half wolf, half human thing that lit up like some sort of firework. She saw the magic, and everyone fall,” he rambled on, moving so Chloe couldn’t try to escape again, though she looked too afraid of me to try to even move.
“It’s okay Zeke. It’s not your fault,” I offered him.
“I thought at that point it might be better to just let her watch, rather than try to explain what even I couldn’t at the moment. In fact, I still really can’t though I at least see our people up and moving which is a relief. I didn’t know if they were all dead or not myself. Not that you would have wanted that, but I thought you lost control of your magic. I mean who could blame you… oh, never mind. You know what I am trying to say. Anyway, she saw you go to Lex, saw him shift from wolf to man, and then she just passed out again. I held her and watched, at that point a bit afraid myself, not of you of course, but of what was going on. Right before you got back here, she woke up again, and since has cowered in that corner, too afraid to even listen to me. I’d hoped she would at least listen to you.”
At this point, Chloe had been watching us interact, still white as a ghost, and looking more afraid than I had ever seen her. I didn’t know where to even start to begin to explain all of this to my friend, to take away that look on her face that spoke volumes. She thought me some sort of monster, just like I’d been thinking myself until just a few moments ago. Sadly, the moment that changed everything for me, had made me feel like a worthwhile contributor to the cause, had made my best friend scared to death of me.