“Okay,” I said. “I need you to leave the cabin and make sure no one is around it.”
“What? Why?”
“I’m going to try something, and I don’t want to kill anyone else.”
“Anyone else?”
“Bader, just do it,” I shouted.
“Okay, okay.”
I heard him leave the cabin and walk several feet away in the crunchy gravel.
“All right, I’m out,” he shouted.
“Are you behind something?”
“Yes. A truck.”
Relieved and annoyed that he realized how unpredictable my abilities were, I jumped off the table and crawled under it. Kneeling, I curled my head down as far as I could and held both arms out.
I gathered so much energy into my shoulders, they felt like they were going to explode. I pushed the energy down my arms and out my hands. As the jolts of power hit the walls, another pulse left my body unbidden. The result equaled wedging a foot against the bottom of a door and trying to open it—nothing moved. I tried again with the same result.
I remained crouched for a few seconds just to make sure, but finally gave up and crawled from under the table.
I propped my hands on my hips.
“Huh,” I said.
“Marlee, what happened?”
“Nothing.”
“Why?”
“I blasted it out and pulled it back in at the same time.”
“Why?”
“I. Don’t. Know. I didn’t do it on purpose.”
I rubbed my throbbing temples with shaky fingers. I jumped at movement near the top of the table-wall, but it was just a bright green moth landing on a jutting table leg. Footsteps entered the cabin and stopped outside, and I felt Bader’s energy fizz against my skin.
“Could it be that you don’t really want to come out?” Bader said.
“What, like I subconsciously sent the second pulse?”
“Could that happen?”
I laughed through a knot in my throat. “I usually can’t get this to work the way I want it to, or it acts on its own, so yeah, it could happen.”
“Do you think it would help to try again?”
“Already did. No go.”
“Oh.”
I pulled my feet up on the table and curled into a ball, wrapping my arms around my bent knees. I relaxed my grip a little because I had to go to the bathroom
very
badly at this point.
My abilities had reached a new high point in weirdness. I couldn’t stop using them or the power bursts would get out of control, but it seemed the more I used them, the more unpredictable they became. But what was the answer? At this point, I wasn’t going to make it to my twenty-seventh birthday. Heck, at this rate, next week was looking iffy.
I’d been wavering about getting involved further with Rune, but if he could help me learn to control this gift of mine, maybe he was my answer—for now at least.
“Marlee?”
“Yes?”
“I may have a solution. There is a crawl space under the floor. If you can pry up some of the looser floor boards, maybe you could crawl out.”
Flashbacks of the hiding hold under my aunt’s house smothered me. I felt the dirt walls closing in again as my lungs constricted. A popping noise rent the air.
“Marlee, is that you doing that?” Bader’s voice was high and cracked.
The noise stopped.
“I don’t think so. What was that?”
“The screen door to the cabin slamming open and closed with no one touching it.”
“Is it windy outside?”
“No.”
“Crap. Then it was probably me.” I let my head fall and bang against my knees. “I think that was a big
no
on me crawling under the cabin.”
His footsteps traveled around the enclosure away from the cabin door.
“So what now, wait for Rune?”
“I’m not going to be able to wait until midnight to use the bathroom.”
I crawled off the table and pushed on the wooden floor with my feet. A few of the loose boards squeaked in protest.
“I hate to say this,” I said. “But I might have to pry up a few of these boards and . . . you know . . . relieve myself.”
My face heated.
“Hey, what if I crawled under and passed a chamber pot through the hole?” Bader said.
The screen door banged back and forth a few more times, then stopped.
I sighed. “I think that’s a no.”
“But why?”
“I don’t know.” My voice rose in exasperation. “I’m sorry, I guess maybe I don’t want a werewolf popping his or her head through the floor.”
The door had acted up before I’d even consciously formed that thought.
Bader paced back and forth a few times, then stopped.
“Okay, here’s the plan,” he said. “Pry up the boards, I’ll pull a few facing boards on the front near the door. I’ll place the chamber pot and a box of food in the opening, and you just pull it to you with that thing you do.”
“I can’t do that.”
“Why?”
“I can’t see them. How am I supposed to move them?”
“You didn’t have any problem with the screen door.”
I hadn’t, had I? Maybe I could move the boxes without seeing them.
“I guess it’s worth a try,” I said. “I mean, what else do I have to do right now, right?”
“Right. I’ll be back in a few minutes.” His footsteps faded as he left the cabin and ran across the gravel.
Several minutes later, I heard more footsteps, and I recognized Bader’s energy near the cabin door. I’d never realized how distinct energy patterns were or that I could differentiate them until this week. It was like voices, some were similar, but most were recognizable. The werewolves had an erratic, prickly, energy, which I knew I’d felt before. It was driving me crazy trying to figure out where I’d felt it.
Boards squeaked near the door. I had already pried up a few floorboards to expose a hole roughly two feet square.
After more squeaking and popping of wood, a beam of light swept past the hole in the floor.
“Marlee, can you see my flashlight beam?” Bader called through the crawlspace.
“Yes, I see it.”
“Tell me when it’s directly under you.”
I knelt with my back to the front door and poked my head through the hole. The beam swept slowly toward me then was directly in my eyes.
“Ah, there you are,” Bader said. “Okay, I’m going to leave the flashlight just like that. The chamber pot’s right next to it. Pull it toward you.”
“Is it breakable?”
“Yes, but it’s very thick crockery.”
“Is it empty?” Somehow hurtling an un-empty chamber pot toward myself seemed like a bad idea.
Bader laughed. “Yes. It’s empty.”
“Okay. Here goes nothing.”
I sat up a little and stuck my hands through the opening. I pictured the chamber pot in my mind, which was tricky since I’d never actually seen one in person. I sent energy out with my right hand and tracked it with my left. When the energy stream hit something, I let it flow past the object then pulled it back with my left hand. Now that the lasso was complete, I pulled the object toward me by pulling harder with my left than I was emitting with my right.
“No, stop.” Bader shouted. “That’s the flashlight. The pot’s right next to it. Closer to the door.”
I released the flashlight and managed to grab the pot and pull it under the opening. I whooped with glee and relief.
“I did it,” I shouted and pulled the large brown vessel up through the hole. It had a round wooden lid encircled by a rubber seal in the opening.
“Why do you have this thing? Don’t you have indoor plumbing?”
“Yes we do, but a few of us are plumbers. We loan them to clients when their septic systems fail.”
“Thank goodness,” I muttered.
“Okay,” Bader said, “I’ve placed a box in the same spot. Pull that over.”
I snagged the box on the first try and felt myself grinning. I pulled it through the hole. It was a relief to make my powers work for me for a change.
I tried to keep the surprise and excitement out of my voice when I told him I had the box.
After I’d used the chamber pot, I lowered it down into the floor opening. That way I wouldn’t accidentally trip over it, and if it moved, I’d know someone was trying to creep up through the hole.
The supply box contained sandwiches, a container of salad, soda, bottled water, beer, a crossword puzzle book, newspaper, and a paperback. I turned the paperback over and read the title.
“Dracula, by Bram Stoker. Very funny, Bader.”
His laughter filled the cabin, and I jumped.
“Geez, I didn’t hear you come in. Good thing I’d already used that chamber pot.”
“My people can be very stealthy when we want to be,” he said. “Do you need anything else?”
“No. I’m fine. You’ve sent more than enough. Thanks for thinking to throw in the crosswords and stuff.”
“You’re welcome. I don’t do well in confined spaces, and I’d want something to do.”
I sat on the table and unwrapped a sandwich. “Is that another side effect of your condition?”
“It’s a trait of what I am, yes.” His voice held a tinge of anger.
“Sorry. I didn’t mean any offense,” I said.
“It’s okay. It’s just odd for an outsider to know.”
I bit into the sandwich and thought of his reaction as I chewed.
“You’re not bothered by being . . . you know . . .” I couldn’t figure how to phrase it without offending him again.
“I’m proud of being a lycanthrope.”
“You are?” I winced at the surprise in my voice, but to my relief, Bader chuckled.
“Yes, I am. Why shouldn’t I be? I’m better than a commoner. I’m faster, stronger, hear better, see better, have a far superior sense of smell. Why wouldn’t I be proud of that?”
“I don’t know.” I ate more of the sandwich and drank some water. “So you have no regrets? You never wish you were normal?”
“Common,” he said. “We went over that, remember?”
“Yeah.”
“The only thing I regret is the inability to have children.”
“Oh. You can’t?”
“It’s not likely. Very rare, in fact. I was born a lycanthrope, but I am one of only three naturals that I know of. Gestation rarely occurs for our kind.”
“Oh, I’m sorry.”
He grunted.
“Will you feel secure if I leave?” he asked.
“Yes, I’ll be fine. Please make sure the others don’t try to come in, though. I don’t want to accidentally hurt anyone.”
He was silent for a moment, and I could feel his hesitation and worry by the prickly spike in his energy.
“What is it?” I said.
“Marlee, please don’t be frightened, but it’s full moon tonight.”
Full moon. Werewolves. Great. Just great.
“Oh,” my voice squeaked. “So that’s not a myth huh?”
“Not really. We don’t have to turn, but it’s very uncomfortable if we don’t. I was going to stay in human form if you released yourself, but if you aren’t . . .”
“Oh, that’s okay,” I said. “I’ve already been enough trouble. Go ahead and . . . you know. Will the others stay away from here?”
“I’ll try to keep the younger males away, but a female in season is a female in season, lycanthrope or not. I’ll be outside, but I’ll be in form. Keep the barricade tight.”
“Oh, don’t worry.”
The screen door slapped back and forth a few times.
“I’ll protect you the best I can,” Bader said. “Rune will be here in a few hours. None of my people will challenge him.”
His voice deepened and took on a gravely edge as he moved to the door.
“I really must go. You will be safe.”
His footsteps retreated quickly from the cabin.
I climbed off the table and placed the box of supplies on the floor. After some wrestling and maneuvering, I turned the table over and positioned it over the hole in the floor to block the opening. I sat on the table between the upturned legs and pulled the crossword puzzle book out of the box.
Halfway through my second word search, the energy outside built to an un-ignorable level. I closed the puzzle book and clutched it to my chest.
A howl split the night air. A chorus of answering yips and howls followed. Goose bumps tightened the skin on my arms.
The next few hours crawled by with me sitting in terror in the enclosure. Several times wolves came into the cabin and threw themselves at the makeshift walls or dug at the wooden floor, trying to gain entrance. The walls that I’d cursed earlier, I thanked God for now. About three hours in, one brave wolf tried to break in through the crawl space. Its raw energy sizzled against my legs and butt. The chamber pot scraped the ground as it was pushed aside and strong scratches resonated on the wood beneath me. I screamed as energy shot from me down through the floor. Howls of pain and scrabbling movement shot up through the floorboards and faded as they moved through the entrance and out of the crawl space. A scorched hair smell wafted through the wood planking a few seconds later.
They left me alone after that for about an hour, then all hell broke loose. I sat trying to concentrate on a crossword puzzle that only had two lines filled in after a half hour of working on it. The hair on my arms rustled, then stood painfully on end. Raw energy surrounded the cabin and closed in on stealthy feet. Garbled thought and snippets of words bombarded me—
intruder, kill, female, mate
. Waves of emotion rolled in—anger, curiosity, lust.
I sat up, and the enclosure creaked as it tightened. Floorboards creaked as otherwise silent paws crept forward. Movement stopped and silence stretched out for a dozen heartbeats, then, on some silent signal, they charged, hurtling their bodies against my enclosure. Scrabbling claws scratched their way up the stacked tables, trying to find an opening.
Werewolf energy stung against my skin as my body absorbed it. I fought to contain my spiking power, fearing if I let it go, it would flatten the walls—my only protection.
A wolf bounded in and growled. I recognized its energy as Bader’s. Other wolves answered his growl, and a snarling, snapping fight ensued, and spilled outside under the trees.
“Stop it, stop it, stop it,” I screamed. I stood but held fast to one of the table legs for support so my shaking legs wouldn’t dump me back to the ground. My heart hurtled itself against my breastbone with each beat.
One of the tables fell away on the outside of the enclosure. I was clamping down too tightly on my power—effectively dissolving the energy-glue that kept the makeshift walls together. I let up on my power. It instantly tried to jump free and out of control. I reined it back.