I stared at her and then started giggling. When I couldn't stop, I realized something was making me laugh and I looked at her with tears in my eyes. "It's you. You're doing this to me."
"Doing what?" She frowned.
"You're tickling me! What are you? You're a werewolf!" It was their constant sniffing. They sniffed out everything in the air, even if they didn't know they were doing it. It was as natural to them as breathing.
Her eyes bulged out. "I smell vampire on you, but you're not. What are you?"
I bent over, giggling.
"What can I do? This has never happened before.” She looked panicked as more giggles erupted from me.
"It's because—" I couldn’t even talk.
"Should I leave?"
Still giggling, I nodded with tears running down my face. The door slammed shut and almost immediately the laughing fit lessened so I was able to stand upright. I breathed out and wiped the tears from my eyes.
"Are you better now?" she called from the hallway.
"Yeah," I called back. "How far down the hallway are you?"
"A few doors away. I'm sorry?"
"That's okay. It's not really your fault."
"I feel ridiculous talking like this. What's your phone number?" Her voice trembled.
My phone? I felt in my pockets and tried to remember the last time I had used my cell phone. "My phone's in my room. Leave your number on my board. I'll call you when I can. I have to check on Emily first."
"Okay. I'll do that."
When my eyes stopped tearing up, I finished mixing the sleeping pills with some orange juice and headed back to my room. There was no werewolf lingering in the hallway and when I got inside, I woke Emily enough until she drank the juice. As soon as she was done, she groaned and rolled over. Snores came from her soon after.
I heard a knock on my door and a piece of paper slid underneath.
'My name is Pippa. The number is 555-918-0044. Call me!'
I didn't recognize the area code. I frowned at the paper.
"Are you going to call me?" she asked through the door.
"My roommate's fine. I don't have to explain anything to you."
"What? Something's wrong with her. I need to know."
"No, you don't. I'm not hurting her. I'm helping her. She'll be as good as new in two days. You can ask her yourself then."
Good luck getting a real answer.
"What? Come on. Please! I need to know." Her voice hitched on a note, like she was about to cry.
An empath could only deal with so much. I sighed and crossed to the door. I pressed against it and whispered, "I am not trying to be mean. I just can't do this right now. Leave, please?"
She whimpered on the other side. "I have to know…"
"If you don't leave, I will have this building streaming with vampires. I know your kind doesn't like them." As far as threats went, I thought it was a solid one.
She was silent for awhile. "I have to know what's wrong with your roommate. If she doesn't get better in two days, I'll call my pack."
I had no doubt she would. "This isn't your business."
Again, she was quiet for a little bit. "My inner wolf is telling me otherwise."
Oh—ugh! I was tired of everything supernatural. "Whatever. Just go away."
I felt her leave. I didn't feel the slight tickling anymore. But I knew she'd be back. Anything supernatural always came back. They were always ominous. Then I watched Emily snore into the floor.
Nope. Nothing supernatural with her.
She wouldn't wake again for a long time, so I fell into my bed. At last.
Halfway through my first dream, a bloodcurdling scream woke me up. I bolted upright
in bed
and saw Emily in the middle of the room. She was pulling at her hair. Her hands had formed fists and were entangled in her hair. "AHHHHH!"
As screams went, hers could've been in a horror film.
"Hey, hey!" I tried to soothe her. "It's okay."
"It's not okay! What's wrong with me?" Tears cascaded down her face and she looked at me. The pain was so powerful, it staggered me back. "What's wrong with me, Davy? I am going crazy, aren't I?"
"No, no you aren't." I hugged her close and made soothing sounds. I rocked her back and forth.
"Do something. Make this stop. I can't handle it anymore," she sobbed into my chest.
I closed my eyes and held her tighter. Then I took a deep breath because I already knew what I was going to do. God help me, I went inside of her. I didn't control it like I had before. I didn't have the time. I went all in and choked on the emotions. It felt as if a bucket of vipers had been let loose. They were everywhere. Slithering. Biting. Angry.
Once I managed to stand my ground in the midst of the madness, I reached out and grabbed one of the emotions. It was hopeless. I gathered it to me and reached for another. I kept going until I had enough clasped to me that she could calm down. I wasn't sure how long this had taken, but then I enveloped the emotions into me. They passed the barrier of our bodies and I'd taken them into me.
As they bounced around inside of me, I opened my eyes and saw that Emily had calmed. I managed out, strained, "Go to the bathroom and come back to bed."
Emily nodded, still trembling. I'd taken what I could, but there was still Bennett's madness inside of her. When the door opened, I wasn't shocked to see Pippa there with concerned eyes. She looked from Emily to me and her eyes widened. She knew what I'd done and then she nodded.
They had never met, but Pippa extended an arm to Emily and she went to her. The two walked together.
I knew it wouldn't be long until they came back and I tried to hurry and get another potion of sleeping pills ready for Emily. My hands were shaking
,
butI only spilled a little bit before the door opened. Emily came in. She was calmer than when she had left.
I looked at Pippa and saw she must've done the same thing I did. I had no idea wolves could do that, but it didn't matter at that moment. I held out the glass to Emily. "Drink!"
She did and it wasn't long before her eyelids started to droop. When she curled into her bed, I looked at Pippa who had remained in the hallway. She watched me in sympathy.
"What are you?" she asked.
I jerked a shoulder up. It looked more like a twitch. "Does it matter? How'd you help her?"
"I did what you did. Wolves can go inside of other wolves. We can take their pain too."
I frowned as I still twitched. "Emily's not a wolf."
"Her soul
is
entwined with one."
"What does that mean?"
She gave me a sad smile. "You'll see."
Then she left and I closed the door. As I slumped on my bed, I shook my head. That was weird, even for me.
CHAPTER SIX
The next few days were the same. I went to class, the hotline, and checked on Emily as I could. At first I'd been reluctant, but Pippa won me over. Her wolf's sniffing didn't tickle me as much and she wanted to help with Emily. She made a good argument. There was something unnatural about Emily's willingness to go to Pippa that night. I wasn't sure what to believe about the wolf thing, but I couldn't sense any bad intentions from Pippa. So Emily found herself with one more friend when she finally sat up three days later, weaned from Bennett's lovespell.
"Who is she?" Emily asked an hour later after Pippa had come with coffee and left again. "She lives on our floor? I've never noticed her before and I notice everything."
Well, not everything.
I shrugged and reached for a coffee. "I don't know. She likes you."
Emily went still at my words. "What do you mean?"
I frowned at her. "I don't mean that!"
"Oh." She relaxed in her seat.
"I just meant, I don't know. She likes you. I think she needs friends and can tell you're one of the good ones." I hurried towards the door since I was late for the stupid empath meeting that Blue kept making me promise to go to.
"Davy." Emily halted me when my hand reached for the handle. I glanced back and she smiled. "You're one of those too."
Awkward. "Sure. Have fun with your new girlfriend!"
"She's not my girlfriend," Emily shouted after me as I rushed down the hallway.
I couldn't stop my grin, but it vanished as Pippa came out of the bathroom. Judging by the look on her face, she'd heard Emily's comment. "Girlfriend?"
I slammed on my brakes, right in front of her, and spoke in my mind,
'If you hurt her, I will hurt you and trust me, I can. If you tell her anything about this, I will come after you and your whole pack. I don't need a slew of vampires. I can do a whole lotta damage by myself.'
Pippa's eyes widened when she heard my voice.
'You don't know what you just did. The Mother Wolf knows about you now.'
Then she spoke, "How can you do that? What are you?"
A part of me regretted my impulse, but I covered it up and gave her a smug smile. "I think you should be asking 'who am I?' Don't say anything to Emily."
Pippa turned and watched when I started to inch towards the hallway's door. "It's not for me to say anything. She's linked to another wolf. It's his place to say it."
I paused in the doorway. "Good then…" Was it? As I turned and left, I knew I needed to learn as much as I could about werewolves. I knew they repressed their emotions, but they were different from vampires, a lot different.
I'd gotten as far as my car before my skin started to tingle. Talk about annoying and then everything rushed at me. I'd been about to open my car door when the Immortal took over. Everything flew around me and I was lifted into the air. My eyes narrowed as I looked out and saw another approaching vampire group. There was no captured Wren with them and these vampires didn't seem bent on war. I hoped not. Then I closed my eyes and found myself in Roane's office. Everything still circled around me, but I saw him and Wren at his desk. Their voices were muffled when I heard her say, "—for her. Why can't we let that happen?"
Roane straightened. "If you're loyal to me, you're loyal to my decisions. Are you not, Wren?"
She stepped away from the desk and sighed with her head bent. "You know I am. You know what I gave up."
Roane narrowed his eyes. "Then trust me."
Gregory swept through the door in that moment. "They're here."
Wren's eyes widened and Roane shut down. He clipped out, "Let's get ready."
Gregory and Wren left the room, but Roane stayed behind for a moment and scanned the room. His eyes were narrowed and lingered where I stood, but then he left with a guarded look over his face.
When his door shut, I was back at my car. I gasped and bent over to rest my forehead on my car. What had just happened?
"You're transitioning."
Saren materialized on the other side of my car. Her eyes were still the same smoldering flames, but she was dressed as a normal college student in a white sweatshirt and jeans. The black hair was swept up in a simple braid.
"You look normal except for those things." I pointed at her eyes.
They burst into flame, but quickly sizzled as if someone had thrown a blanket over
the
fire. "I'm not here to play with your mind. I'm here to help you."
"What's the catch?" I eyed her in suspicion.
She held up her hands in surrender. "I'm here to help. What did you just see?"
"Really?" There was no catch?
"I'm to help you."
"What'd you mean when you said that I'm transitioning?"
"Your powers. When you accepted the Immortal before, it was only the start. Everything molded to your body, but you don't know your full power. You don't know an eighth of your powers and you have to learn them one at a time. You can't learn it all at once. It's too much. Your mind would be overwhelmed. I'm here to help and explain things to you."
"So what was that just now? Any time that I've been around Roane, even when I slowed time, he always knew I was there." And why did she seem so much nicer than the last time?
Saren smiled. The flames lit again, but they were small embers. "I'm not nicer. I'm here to do my job and that's to tell you what's going on. When I need to make you angry, I won't hold back. You need gentle guidance and answers right now."
I still didn't like her. "About what just happened?"
"The Immortal sensed something that you needed to know. It/you sent yourself there."
"Why didn't he know I was there?"
"He's powerful, too powerful, but if you don't want him to know you're there, he won't. That was you, not the Immortal. You didn't want him to know you were there. What did you see?"
"A group of vampires are coming to town. Roane is going to meet them."
She nodded. "What does that mean to you?"
"They're coming for me. I'm guessing that they'll try to kill me."
"Try."