Chapter Twenty Four
I slept like the dead.
You might think that means I slept well, or that I was at least feeling rested, but you'd be wrong. My sleep was dreamless and very discomforting, and I felt like I'd barely slept at all by the time Tiffany burst into my room like a wildebeest on steroids.
"Good morning, Aerin!" she yodeled. "Get up! Come on! Up, up, up!"
I moaned into my pillow as the bedroom lights were flipped on, but jumped, startled, when a bundle of cloth landed on top of me. I blearily opened my eyes and squinted at the fabric, then looked up at the object of my grumpiness and scowled.
"What time and day is it?" I hoarsely asked. "How long was I asleep?"
"It's Monday, about eight in the evening," Leo supplied, poking his head around the corner and peering in as the blonde woman walked over to my bedside. "You slept a good sixteen hours."
"Indeed you did," Tiffany added, grabbing my blankets and dragging them off of me, "and now its time for you to let loose and forget about your problems. Come on! Get up and get dressed!"
I sat up and swayed in place, unable to open my eyes all the way, and groggily peered in the direction of the doorway. Sebastian was standing beside Leo, beefy arms folded, looking down at me with an unreadable expression. I peered at everyone with squinted eyes, confused.
"Why do I need to get dressed?" I asked in a gummy voice. "Am I going somewhere?"
"We all are," Tiffany chirped, beaming excitedly; she made a shooing motion. "Get dressed!"
"You should do as she says," Leo drawled, swaggering over and sitting down beside me; I watched, half asleep, as he unraveled the cloth ball, which soon turned into a pair of much-too-large denim pants and a huge black tank top, complete with a pair of black sandals.
A belt was lying on top of them.
"Get dressed right now!" Tiffany repeated, even as she whipped a cell phone from the pocket of her jeans.
"Will someone please tell me what's going on?" I complained as Leo pulled me out of bed and onto my feet. "Hey, easy, I'm tired."
"Well, there's no time! We've got a cab already on the way!" Tiffany said, just as a ringtone filled the air; startled, she pulled out a cell and flipped it open with a crisp, "hello?"
I'm sure you're thinking, wait, didn't flip phones die out in the early 2000s? The answer is yes, yes they did, but you know how people say trends go back in style? Yeah. That's true. History does, in fact, repeat itself. See, in the year 2022, flip phones came back onto the market but bigger, better, much more capable, and far more resistant to damage.
The trend died out again in 2035, but in 2056 it came back bigger, better, and harder.
There were some major differences, though, since the newer two-piece phones flipped sideways like the hand of a clock instead of going for a vertical straight-out flip. If you wanted to activate the cell phone itself, you needed to twist it open in a perpendicular manner, sort of like you would the blade of a pocket knife. Then again, I personally couldn't figure out who Tiffany was talking to since she and the other wolves seemed isolated from the world.
Who would be calling a werewolf? I vaguely wondered, staring at her face; a pause followed.
"Excuse me?" she suddenly scoffed, face turning mean. "Oh, don't give me that crap, I know it's a long way out, but we have more than enough money to pay, and—"
"Tiff's got Sebastian's credit card," Leo suddenly whispered in my ear, and I twitched, listening more intently. "Last night, he agreed to let her take you shopping. It may not be able to replace everything you lost, of course, but you'll still have far more than you came here with."
I immediately felt confused and, more than that, upset.
"Shopping?" I groggily asked, looking at Sebastian, who was staring right at me with an inscrutable expression. "Yesterday you made it seem like this was going to be a bad thing. Do you hate shopping or something?"
"Well, if it's a trip run by Tiffy, we all hate it," Leo chuckled mischievously. "It sucks hardcore."
My mind connected everything in that moment: boys meant pack mules, and a girl like Tiffany probably meant lots and lots of shopping bags, but more importantly this also meant they would be my shopping bags. Clothes? Shampoo? Stuff?
Then a deeper sense of confusion hit me.
"Why are you calling a taxi, then?" I gummily asked, giving them a strange look. "You guys clearly have enough money for a car considering Sebastian literally spent several hundreds of thousands of dollars on renovating my old apartment and replacing some of my things after he destroyed them. He also got a luxury RV from somewhere, and this house is incredibly huge, which probably means that you guys pay an insane amount of property taxes."
"I have more money than I need," Sebastian growled, sounding irritated. "I have a garage the size of a flight hangar built beneath this house with hundreds of vehicles from every single era, but I personally prefer to spend money on low-budget services. It helps the economy, and it allows me to tip normal hard-working people stuck in mundane, low-paying jobs."
I didn't react to his words. Mostly because I couldn't really imagine him doing something that nice for other people, considering how badly he'd treated me. I wondered, momentarily, why they were even bothering to take me on a shopping trip but decided not to think about it and to just go with the flow since it was a change from the unpleasantness, and it would give me a good distraction. Lord knows I needed one after everything that had happened recently.
With a sigh, I slid my sweater over my head and tossed it on the bed, running a hand through my disheveled hair. Leo snorted when I slid out of bed and started unbuttoning my denim shorts, but Tiffany visibly balked, quickly turning around and covering her eyes with her hands.
I studied her for a second, then snagged the clothes and walked over to the bedroom closet. I hadn't looked at it until that moment, but when I pushed the sliding wooden door aside, I was relieved to see that it was just big enough for me to step in and change.
"The closet?" Leo asked, raising an eyebrow. "You're going to change in there?"
"I spent my childhood in one of these," I sarcastically croaked, stepping in and shutting the door behind me. "I can handle a few more minutes inside one."
I heard a muffled snicker but paid it no attention and slid my shorts off. Standing in nothing but my underwear, I pulled the insanely large jeans on and slid the belt through the loops, but unfortunately, the belt itself was also too large and there was no hole where I needed one.
I frowned for a few seconds, then remembered I had fangs — duh — and proceeded to manually puncture a hole through the leather. Once the pants were properly fastened, I cuffed them so I wouldn't trip, then wiggled my skinny waist to make sure they wouldn't fall.
Satisfied, I dragged the mammoth-sized tank-top over my head.
To my dismay, the hem hung almost down to my shins, and the drop-off from the heaving neckline revealed far too much of my chest. It couldn't be helped, though, so as an afterthought I finger-combed my hair and pulled most of it over my shoulders so it would hang across it.
"I'm just lucky I have thick hair," I muttered, rubbing my eyes. "Fuck my life. Whatever."
Satisfied, I slid the Velcro sandals on and made my way back into the room.
Tiffany, of course, burst into laughter at the sight of my appearance.
"Oh, wow!" she gasped, cackling like a madwoman. "Bash's clothing is way too big for you!"
"See? I told you some of Jun's things would work better," Leo sighed, casting the Italian an amused grin over his shoulder, "but did you want to listen? Nope."
"I actually think it suits him," Sebastian stoically rumbled, and both werewolves promptly fell silent, staring at him blankly; his sharp amber eyes flitted up and down, taking in my appearance with something that looked like approval. "At the very least people might realize he's a man."
"Are you high?" Tiffany scoffed, running a hand through her hair. "Women have flat chests, too, Bash! And its not even his figure that makes him look like a girl, its his face."
"I second that," Leo chuckled, rolling his eyes. "Plus, you have to remember that his hair comes into play with that, too. You'd be very hard pressed to find even a girl with length like that."
"Can we not talk about my looks?" I sleepily complained. "If we're going to do this, let's just go."
It made me uncomfortable because they were absolutely correct, and I didn't know how to handle it, so I wouldn't.
Nobody could blame me for being a weenie, though.
"Yeah, you're right," Tiffany sighed, waving me along. "Come on. The cab will be here soon."
I followed her out the door, keeping my eyes on the floor; as I passed Sebastian, I felt something brush against my shoulder, but I didn't look up and I didn't stop to see what. One step at a time, I made my way down the hall, wondering what this was going to be like and feel like.
To be honest, I needed some major cheering up as well, because... well, you know.
I did my best to avoid thinking about it, and I probably would have managed if I hadn't rounded the corner behind Tiffany and come face to face with Richard himself. The blonde woman stopped in her tracks and a bracelet-clad arm with a perfectly manicured hand barred me from going any further.
"Dick, what are you doing here?" she asked, gently pushing me behind her. "I thought you--"
"I finished early," the bald man said in a low, threatening tone. "Don't underestimate my skills."
"Oh," she murmured. "That's good news! Still, for everyone's sake, listen to your orders. I think you should start trying to keep an open mind from here on out, okay?"
"Oh, I will," Richard said slyly, swaggering forward; Tiffany tensed, but I didn't even look up as he stopped right beside me. "You don't need to worry, Tiff... I won't do anything to him. After all, the look I got out of the little vampire when I burned all his precious books was priceless to me."
My heart squeezed and my eyes immediately blurred over with tears, but he was already gone.
Walking away.
The level of hate that welled up from the core of my being was unlike anything I'd ever felt, even during the moment I'd lost my temper and gone after Sebastian with a knife. He'd ripped the last connection I had to my family away from me, and was smug about it. I wanted to turn around and be the one to attack him this time, so... I did.
I snapped.
I turned around, hair fanning out around my shoulders, and started walking after him.
Every part of me was burning, but I kept my head lowered, red-hazed eyes fixed on the back of his neck. I was going to bite him. I was going to make him pay, tear into his neck and hear him scream no matter the cost, and I was going to enjoy it. I had nothing left to lose.
I was empty, and angry, and there was nothing stopping me. I closed the distance, almost gliding across the carpet, and I lifted my hands, tensing, preparing to leap onto his back and go right for his throat like an animal. I was only three feet away from him when Tiffany realized I was no longer behind her.
"A-Aerin?!" she squawked. "What are you doing?!"
Richard paused, but just as he turned to look back, I hummed deep in my chest and lunged, exploding off the ground and flying at him with outstretched hands.
For a second, it was like I was floating through the air, trapped in time.
I saw his eyes, saw the way his pupils expanded, and then I was smashing into him so hard that he was sent flying. It hurt. I felt the jolt through every part of my body, but then it was over, and he was lying on his back with me on his chest. He seemed stunned, but before he could move, I straddled him and latched onto his shoulders, digging my hands into them.
I bared my fangs, glaring down at his rugged, bearded face, at his wide, snubbed nose, at the scars decorating his tanned flesh, at the pupil that even now looked somewhat cloudy. I heaved for air, breathing harshly and rapidly, practically hyperventilating with the force of my hatred.
I wanted to make him hurt.
I wanted to torture him, drain him dry, make him scream, and beg, and cry...
"So, you finally show your true colors?" he sneered, grinning wickedly. "Red-eyed leech."
I wondered at that for moment in some deep dark recess of my mind. Were my eyes really red? I wasn't blood starved, or even thirsty. I didn't know, but I didn't care, either, I was too angry.
"You made me this," I hissed, maliciously, and brought my face close to his; I glared at his unblinking yellow eyes. "I want to hurt you. To bite you, to tear your skin, to make you bleed, suffer, and I've never wanted anything more in my whole fucking life. If these are my true colors now, then guess what? You're responsible for painting them across my heart."
"Aerin!" Tiffany shrieked. "Get off him!"
A smile slid across his bearded mouth, but he didn't move, he didn't do anything, just lay there looking at me as if he were daring me.
I looked at his throat, staring at it through an enraged red film, and imagined ripping it out.
I could, too--all it would take was a bit of singing and I could put him into a trance to paralyze him completely. My voice worked on Sebastian, which meant it would work on him, too: I could kill him and he'd be helpless to stop me.
I squeezed his shoulders one last time and prepared to sing him into the trance but just as I was about to lose myself completely, for whatever reason, a mental flash of Sebastian's eyes from the previous evening seared behind my eyes and — like a soap bubble — my anger popped.
I froze, immediately coming to my senses.
My mouth was open, breath caught in my lungs, and it was the weirdest experience of my life because I still hated Sebastian and didn't understand why he would come into my head. Or, more confusingly, why the thought of him would stop me from getting even at the last possible second.
Anger festered inside me, but I fought it back and slowly pulled away until I was sitting tall.
I would have gotten up, but Richard sneered at me as if he'd won something. Rage flooded through me, but you know what? I didn't have to bite him to get even. Then and there, I did what any man would and should have done: I hauled back and I punched him in the nose as hard as I could, and when he let out a howl of pain and fury, I spit on him like the trash he was.
Satisfied, I rose and dusted myself off before making my way towards Tiffany.
"You little bitch!" he snarled, and I stopped; spun on my heel. Glared at him. He was still on the floor, muscles cracking and popping, clutching his nose. "I'll fucking kill you!"
"No you won't," I coldly, sweetly informed him with the meanest little smile. "You'll just sit there and take it like a man, because you and I both know you deserve far worse."
That being said, I tossed my hair over my shoulder, faced forward, and slinked past Tiffany with my head held high, ignoring the way she gaped at me. I heard him rising with a growl, and I wondered, momentarily, if he would try to attack me again before I mentally shrugged it off.
A part of me was hoping he would so I'd have an excuse to entrance and kill him. Hell, I'd fucking make sure I ripped his eyes out and blinded him forever, at least. Only, nothing happened since Sebastian, Kyle, and Leo all walked around the corner just as I made it to the door.
"Whoa, Dicky, are you all right?!" Kyle immediately gasped. "Your nose is blee--"
"Kyle, not now," the man quietly interrupted; his voice was shockingly gentle. "We'll talk once I'm not seeing red. You just go and have fun on your shopping trip, all right, Babe?"
"O-okay," the ginger murmured, and I glanced back just in time to see him disappearing around the corner; Tiffany immediately gripped my wrist and pulled me outside onto the front porch before I could see more, and I glanced at her face to see that she was furious.
"What were you thinking?" she hissed through her teeth. "Are you insane?!"
"Depends," I coldly deadpanned.
"Don't get lippy!" she barked, shaking her head. "Seriously, you're in huge trouble! Why did you go out of your way to attack Richard like that?! He was baiting you, Aerin!"
"And it worked," I irritably informed her, dragging my hand out of her grasp and defiantly making my way around her; I kept my eyes on the ground as I walked down the steps as I added, "but you know what? I think you should be thanking me for my self control."
"Self control?!" she shouted, running after me with frenzied eyes. "What the fuck do you mean, self control?! That little stunt you pulled was a complete lack of it!"
"No, it wasn't," I baldly called back. "When I tackled him, my first instinct was to sing him into a state of paralysis and rip his throat out with my teeth while he was frozen. I would have done it, too, if I hadn't caught myself in time. I was angry enough to try murdering him on the spot."
"W-what?" Tiffany squeaked, and I heard her stop. "Are you serious?"
I paused as well and turned to face her, staring directly into those wide eyes.
A breeze rustled through the trees and lifted my hair across my cheeks, tickling them.
"I have nothing left to lose," I muttered, looking at her with stark baldness. "He made sure of that when he threw my life into the fire. Those may have just been books to you people, but they were the only thing keeping me going. I'm only here, now, because of those albums."
"What do you mean?" she asked, and I swore I saw her face change. "Aerin..."
"Those photos were my life, and as I told Sebastian yesterday, I'll never be able to forgive any of you for what was done."
"But... but we want to make it up to you!" she stammered. "We do! We never wanted this!"
"That's funny, considering you were the one who held me back when it mattered the most," I sneered, relishing in the way her face went slack with shock. "They could have been salvaged if you hadn't stopped me from getting them out of the fire. I could have saved them."
"If you'd gone over there, you'd have been killed!" she cried. "The guys would have ripped you to shreds!"
"I'd have preferred that," I shot back; the look on her face didn't sway me. "Either way, no amount of shopping can replace what was stolen from me."
Behind her, the others came into view, so I turned back around and kept walking. The RV was still parked beyond the trees, but I ignored it and followed the gravel driveway. I didn't know where I was supposed to be going, but I figured they'd stop me if it was the wrong way.
Still, it hit me as clearly as the sound of the ocean beyond the trees that I no longer cared about anything the way I used to. Where my heart had been only two days before was an empty hole that had started eating away at my insides, spreading numb poison throughout my body.
I'd never felt anything like it before.
It was like the world had changed.
The anger, the pain, the feeling of wanting to lash out, it was strange. If I had to put words to it, I felt like I was disconnected from my emotions... like I was watching them hurt me instead of actually being hurt, from a numbed little hollow place inside myself. I felt only muted crests and tugs of my emotions even though, simultaneously, I was being crushed beneath them.
I don't know. It's hard to explain.
I came out of my head when I walked around the bend and found myself looking at a cab emblazoned with blue and yellow writing waiting at the end of the driveway. The driver did not look pleased at having to come all the way out to Sebastian's place to pick us up, but when Tiffany trotted past me and waved a fistful of cash in his sweat-streaked face he lightened up considerably. I had no idea where the money came from, by the way.
She must have had an ATM built into her boobs or something.
Tiffany sat in the front seat, and I sat in the second row squashed between Kyle and the window, with Sebastian and Leo taking the far-side. It was a tight fit, particularly since both men were so damn large, but we somehow made it work and eventually took off.
Tall trees and winding roads streaked along beside us, and I spent most of the drive with my face pressed against the window in awe. I had no names for the foliage streaking by; I'd never been a nature boy, but I could see that they were uncommonly lovely just the same.
Pines were about the only trees I recognized, and they were abundant everywhere.
I had never seen scenery so beautiful before in all my life, and my wonder and gasps of surprise at the nature around us pried more than a few chuckles from my captors. The cab driver kept muttering things about city-folk and tourists, but I just ignored him as we—almost three hours later—neared the outskirts of what appeared to be a medium-sized town. A somewhat threadbare residential section skipped by; city lights began to streak past.
"Where are we?" I asked as we pulled into the parking lot of a small shopping mall. Well-groomed trees lined the brick building's exterior and floor-to-ceiling windows gave the structure a sort of modern vibe that stood at odds with the town's sleepy atmosphere.
"Asheville," Kyle told me. "It's a common tourist city. A lot of people come here on vacation."
"I normally shop in a bigger city that's a long way from here," Tiffany said as she paid the driver and we all got out of the car. "The selection is better, but it's too far for a single night trip. We'd have to take one our vans, then get a motel or a hotel, and we don't have that kind of time."
"Don't malls close after eleven?" I asked, puzzled.
"Oh, God," Tiffany gasped, looking at me in sympathy. "Where did you live again?"
"Michigan," I bluntly informed her. "Born and raised."
"Oh, God, you poor thing!" she squalled, clutching her cheeks. "No wonder! See, in most states, malls are usually open twenty four hours, but Michigan, Illinois, and Ohio don't do that!"
Oh, I mutely mumbled. Well, whatever.
"Well, here we go," Leo chuckled, and in sync, he, Tiffany, Kyle, and Sebastian pulled sunglasses out of their pockets and slid them onto their faces. "Time to go incognito."
"Fat chance of that," I snorted, eyeing their hulking physiques; I noticed, then, for the first time that Sebastian was wearing the same black leather jacket he'd had on when we'd first met with an equally black shirt that clung to his chiseled body beneath it.
A pair of baggy blue jeans hugged his hips.
Leo, on the other hand, was wearing a dark green turtleneck sweater and a pair of beige dress pants, long blonde hair pinned into a stylish man bun. My eyes drifted to Kyle, who was wearing a button-up blue T-shirt over a normal white one with skinny jeans, and Tiffany... well, she was wearing a black mini skirt, a rather revealing black crop top t-shirt, and some flashy heels.
I glanced down at myself, realizing how ratty I looked in comparison.
Dismay flooded through me, but I figured nobody would be at the mall this late and let it go.
Still, expectations are funny things. I hadn't been inside an actual mall since I was sixteen years old, and at a first glance, the mall they'd brought me to looked pretty much like a typical one from the outside, and I was expecting the inside to reflect the same mold. It was anything but that, however, and my jaw dropped when we went in the big glass doors.
So many shops were crammed inside the building that my skin immediately began to crawl with a touch of claustrophobic panic; the ceiling had been set low to allow the addition of a second floor, and neon signs and flashing lights advertised the items available for purchase in a miasma of loud colors and bright strobe.
More people than the empty parking lot had hinted at roamed the tile hallways and poured in and out of shops. Most were young people, teenagers more intent on socializing than shopping, and our group got more than a few stares as we walked into the depths of mall.
"Bash and I are going to head to the electronics section," Leo chuckled, looking at us. "We've got a few things we need to buy. Kyle wants to snag something at the book store, too. It'll just be you three while the two of us are shopping, but we'll meet up in the food court once we're done."
"Got it," Kyle said, giving a salute. "See you guys later."
"Ah, well, there's a general store up around this corner," Tiffany chimed, leading the way forward with a spring in her step. Crowds parted for her as if she were a queen or something, although she kinda was considering she had two incredibly handsome, butch men dogging her heels.
Kyle hung back with me, giving my slower gait silent support despite his long-legged stride.
"Are you going to be okay?" he asked me when I stumbled over the sandals I'd been given. They were much too large despite the adjustable Velcro straps caging the shoes' rubber soles to my feet, as were the pants that kept threatening to fall down and pool around my ankles.
"I'll be fine," I mumbled as I hiked up the belted pants with my free hand. "Should get a pair of shoes in my size, though."
"Yeah," he said, smiling. "Be sure to tell Tiffy. She might not think of it unless you say something. She's like that."
With that, he trotted over to the Barnes and Nobles on our left, leaving me to follow Tiffany around the corner and into the shopping center she'd mentioned. The general store seemed very much like an American Walgreens or CVS: a small food section with mostly canned and boxed goods and candy, makeup galore, a small toy section, and a pharmacy counter.
I stood rooted in place for a few minutes, not knowing what to do or why we were here when there wasn't really any clothes. Tiffany stood next to me, hovering for reasons I didn't really understand, and I glanced at her after a moment to see her eyeing my face.
She'd lowered her sunglasses just to stare at me, too.
"What?" I grumped.
"You're gay, right?" she instantly asked, and I blinked since it had come from left field.
"Yeah," I deadpanned, frowning. "What of it?"
"So, you're the effeminate kind?"
"Uh... well, I'm not flamboyant or anything, but I do fall on the effeminate side, I guess."
"Good, because I was thinking," she said slowly, carefully, "would you, like, you know... have a possible interest in letting me give you a totally hot makeover once in a while?"
I blinked, then blinked again, then did a double take and gawked at her in shock.
Of all the things I'd been expecting her to ask, that had NOT been on the long, long list!
"Wait, what the fuck?!" I scoffed, raising a hand. "A makeover? Uh, but I'm not even a gi--"
"I know, that's the whole point!" she gushed, grinning. "You already look like a girl and I think it'd be fun to see what I could do with it! I mean, think about it: you have the perfect figure and on top of that you're, like, hella cute! And you definitely know it, too!"
"Really?" I deadpanned, although my face twitched since there was some truth to her claim; I knew how I looked and I was well aware that my face could probably have put a real girl's to shame, but... it didn't make me feel any less uncomfortable or awkward.
"Yeah, trust me," she said, smirking. "You're girlishly hot and you know it! I've been itching to do stuff with your face since I first saw you! Like, you don't even know how bad!"
"Cross dressing is like lying to people," I flatly informed her. "I may look like a girl, but I never said I wanted to be one. Yes, I'm gay, and yes, I can be a bit of a sassy queen sometimes, but I'm perfectly happy with my manly bits, thanks."
"Oh, but that's the best part! You don't have to lie!" she gushed, and I paused. "Even if I give you a makeover and doll you up now and again, it doesn't mean you have to pretend to be a girl."
As much as I hated myself for it, I actually started thinking about it. The answer should have been an obvious and clear "no fucking way" but a part of me was undeniably curious. I didn't have to put the work in since she would do it for me, and I'd never worn makeup of any sort.
Ever.
I mulled over it, staring at the linoleum tile floor with sightless eyes, chewing on my cheek.
The idea made me uncomfortable, but hell, maybe switching shit up in a way I normally wouldn't would be a good distraction. I certainly needed one, so maybe stepping out of my own shoes and looking like someone else would help me forget my troubles, even if only for a bit.
In the end, I shrugged, finally deciding I didn't care.
"Whatever," I muttered. "Knock yourself out."
"Oh, hell yeah!" Tiffany squealed, and before I could blink she gripped my wrist and dragged me along behind her, right down into the cosmetics section.
What the hell did I get myself into? I wondered.