HORNS (BoyXBoy)

Chapter 58

Warning: slight sexual content in this chapter. Read at your own risk.

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Chapter Fifty Eight

A lot of people tell me that I worry too much.

My overprotective nature probably comes from a combination of things, realistically... me being an alpha werewolf with possessive instincts and an inherent desire to protect my loved ones, for example. There was also the fact that I had satyric instincts, too, with wanting to comfort others who looked sad and bursting into empathic, helpless, annoying tears when I couldn't. There was also the fact that I never really forgot anything.

When I got to know someone and they made a mistake that could have easily been avoided, I had trouble not thinking back on it when they tried to make decisions that didn't seem very smart or wise. The people around me made mistakes constantly, so you can guess where my mind went whenever I was confided in about something they wanted to do. I was a worry wart, through and through--and as a direct result, I was pretty much the King of anxiety dreams. 

For example, when Erika and Kip had both first started learning how to drive when we were kids, I'd begun having hyper-realistic nightmares of being in the car with them when the brakes failed, car careening out of control down a residential street, getting faster and faster as I desperately clung to the seat and screamed at pedestrians to get out of the way or die. 

The dreams were so real, so full of heady fear and anxiety, that I'd found myself saying "This had better be a dream or my life is over" in the middle of the action, begging whoever was listening to just tell me if the dream was real or imagined, because even if I couldn't wake up, knowing the terror was just a dream would provide me at least some comfort. I'd felt absolutely helpless, like my will and emotions didn't matter no matter with whom I pleaded.

That same feeling—the feeling of wondering if I was awake or asleep, and feeling about as useless as a knife in a gunfight—descended upon me the moment my father's phone rang.

It was like, every part of my body had turned to frozen vomit. I felt sick. So sick, like I was gonna puke, but I couldn't even do that. I looked at the holo-clock to see that it was 3:52 A.M. 

"Hm," my dad chuckled, staring at the person calling him; he glanced at me, sheepish. "It's Sam... if he chews me out for staying here all night, I'm blaming you. I hope you know that."

"Okay."

I couldn't even force myself to smile at him, which he noticed, but I just kept my eyes on the phone, heart pounding so fast and hard that it had me shaking. I squeezed my blanket when he frowned at me and answered the call, putting the phone to his ear. 

Bile rose up my throat when he said, "Hello?"

I heard nothing but breathing on the line... even though I didn't have super hearing like other werewolves, my ears could pick up things far better than a human. I swiveled them forward, trying to hear better, but there was only that ragged breathing.

"Sam?" my dad demanded, looking concerned and very unsettled. "Sam, are you all right?"

"Jak..." he finally croaked, and my heart skipped, drawing my father's eyes to me with a snap since he clearly heard it. "Jak... come home... there was an attack."

"Attack?!" he demanded, face going blank. "What attack?"

"Vampires... attacked," Sam whimpered. "There were... hundreds of them."