I propped myself up on my elbow and peeked out over the side of my tissue bed.
"Why are you apologizing?" I asked him. "How have you possibly twisted this up in your brain to make yourself responsible?"
He turned to face me, his eyes bright in the darkness and so, so huge. I could probably drown in them for real, though that would be disgusting for me and painful for him.
"You don't think it strange that all this magic stuff started happening to you after I came back into your life? You don't think there's some connection?"
"You aren't the only werewolf at this school," I said. "I'm more inclined to blame Tennyson Wilde. Or, you know, the person actually behind all this. It wasn't a werewolf who put this curse on me."
He shook his head. "But why are you always in the middle of it? It only makes sense that it's because you're linked to me."
My face grew warm at him saying that we were linked. I felt that way too, of course, but I never knew what he was thinking anymore. Sometimes it seemed as if he'd forgotten all about me, that he'd moved on. I felt like I was stuck in the past, standing still and watching as he walked away from me, growing smaller in the distance. But if we were linked, no matter how far away he walked, he could always find his way back.
"I mean, it's not as if you have any other ties to the supernatural community."
He said it as if the very idea was absurd, but his words made an alarm bell chime in my head. I did have other ties. So did he. I'd never told him about the book I'd found in the library. The book on werewolves, which had been co-written by my father and his mother. I should tell him now. It was the perfect moment. But the words sat at the base of my throat, hovering and reluctant to pop out. Any mention of the past, of his family, was like a trigger for Sam. He did seem to be doing better lately though, even Tennyson Wilde had said so. Maybe it would be okay. I took a deep breath and kept my eyes fixed to a spot on the wall.
"So, about that, that's not exactly true … "
Sam didn't move, but I could somehow feel him become tense. How was I supposed to put this?
"So, you know your mom?" Yeah, I didn't sound stupid at all. "And my dad? Well, I mean it might be a massive coincidence, but I'm fairly sure it was them … "
His eyes began to glow. "What are you trying to say, Lucy?"
"Relax, we're not like secret siblings or anything. But there's this book that I found. I'd show you but I left it in my backpack, out in the snow. It's a book on werewolves, facts and sciencey stuff. They wrote it together."
I wasn't sure if Sam fully grasped what I was saying, what it meant in terms of his own past and mine. It meant that on the night Sam had first turned, the night his family had died, the night he had disappeared, his mother had known that was a possibility. That the lives we thought we'd lived at children were lies. Our parents weren't who we thought they were. I didn't know if Sam grasped any of that, because within the blink of an eye, he had transformed.
He wasn't a full wolf. He still retained his human form, just with added wolfy bits, like fur and claws and teeth. And wow, those claws and teeth were scary enough when they weren't bigger than me. He growled, so deep and low that it made my tissue box bed rumble like an earthquake.
"Hey, Sam? Buddy?"
But Human-Sam had left the building. His nose switched as he sniffed in my direction. Oh man, to the wolfy part of Sam's brain, I probably smelled tasty like a bunny. Talk about an extreme reaction to bad news. It wasn't even particularly bad news, just new information, really, but I supposed if you believed you'd murdered your whole family, no news was good news.
"Let's think this through rationally," I said to him. "We were having a conversation, remember? Everything is fine and we're all good and safe, and we're just having a bit of a chit-chat."
He growled. Yeah, logics did not work on the wolf. Logics seemed to annoy the wolf.
He lunged for me, swiping his arm out and knocking my tissue bed. Luckily, I didn't go flying off the nightstand and end up a crumpled heap on the stone floor. I fell out of the tissue box in the other direction, rolling until the bed lamp stopped my momentum. Sam's face was right beside me, so close I could see every detail. I stayed as still as I could, not breathing. I knew his wolfy senses would find me, but maybe I could use that to my advantage. He wasn't thinking like a human. The drawer of the nightstand was open, just a crack, but if I could just get in it, I didn't think he'd be able to get the drawer open to crunch on my bones.
With all my might, I pushed my tissue box bed and it clattered off the night stand and onto the floor. While Sam was distracted by it, I dove for the drawer.
The drawer was dark and I couldn't see out of it enough to know if Sam had seen where I'd gone. I had no clue where he was or if I was safe. I crouched in the darkness, staring up at the thin sliver of light as I listened and waited. There was some thumping and sounds like things being knocked over but maybe Sam was just clumsy as a wolf. Eventually, I relaxed. If he hadn't found me, maybe he'd given up looking, or forgotten, or fallen asleep. I sighed and tried to make myself comfortable. It was a little difficult - I didn't know what Sam kept in the drawer of his nightstand but figured it was probably personal stuff and I didn't want to invade his privacy by going through it. Before I could settle in too much, the drawer was pulled open and cold blue eyes stared down at me. It seemed to have become a recurring pattern.
"What are you doing in there?" Tennyson Wilde asked. "Where is Sam? What have you done?"
I didn't answer him. I thought the answer was fairly obvious and I didn't even have enhanced senses.
"You upset him again?" He huffed. "Why do you have to be an endless source of trouble?"
"Oi!" I got to my feet and waved my fist at him angrily. "Don't victim blame me, you big giant jerk! I'm the one who keeps getting attacked, and cursed, and bullied. Don't make out like I'm the cause of any of this when you're the one who can't keep your little wolf pack under control!"
He rolled his eyes and plucked me up out of the drawer between his fingers. No matter how I struggled, he kept tight hold of me.
"Do you want me to drop you on the floor?" he asked.
I stopped struggling. It was a long way down.
"You obviously can't be trusted so until this situation is resolved, I'm going to keep watch on you."
Before I could say anything in response, he dropped me into his pocket and buttoned it up.
Chapter 8
As much as I hated to admit it, being looked after by Tennyson Wilde was far more comfortable than being looked after by Sam. He squished a cushion inside his sock drawer for me to sleep on, which was both comfortable and safe, and then vanished into the night. I assume he went to find Sam, and while I was worried, I knew that Tennyson Wilde was the best person to sort it out. Mostly, I was happy to be left alone to sleep.
I was not happy, however, to be woken up by a big wolfy face staring down at me the next morning. Its cold, wet nose nudged me. I squealed and ducked under the fluffy sock that I'd been using as a sleeping bag. When I peeked back out, it was to see Nikolai Volkov laughing at me.
"Ah, why am I so hilarious?" he asked, wiping tears of mirth from his eyes. "Anyway, I'm first on tiny commoner-sitting duty. Tennyson's drawn up a whole color-coded schedule for us and I made this to carry you around in." He held up a mustard-colored bowler hat with a hideous big sunflower pinned to the front. "See, there's a concealed section in the top here behind the flower, and this front part is actually one-way glass so that you can see out, though the fabric covering it will obscure your vision a little. It will make our heads look a little big but it's still rather stylish, don't you think?" He looked at me, squinting his eyes as if he was trying to figure something out. "You really need new clothes but we'll worry about that later."
He sat the hat down on my cushion and flipped the top of it open for me to climb into.
"I don't like that you're talking as though this is a long term situation." The hat room wasn't big enough for me to stand up but I could sit down and stretch out quite comfortably, and it felt very secure. I could even see fairly clearly through the fabric, though everything was in a mustard-colored haze. I was fairly impressed at Nikolai for making it so well at such short notice. He always acted as if he was playing around in C&C club but obviously he took it more seriously than I thought.
"Well, being unprepared never solved anything." He reached out toward me. "Okay, hold tight. And remember, I can hear you if you whisper, but I won't be able to respond."