The wall clock read 2:29. I bit my lip, staring intently at it, watching the second tick by. A breeze from the open window rustled my hair, swinging it around into my eyes. I tucked it behind my ear. 2:29:30.
Thirty seconds. Thirty more seconds, and we were released into a three day weekend. When the day ended, there was no hesitation to pack my things and run out the door. My bag banged against my hip as I walked, and I’m pretty sure there was a pencil stabbing my side, but all I could think about was getting home. I didn’t know why I thought getting home sooner would make the time pass quicker, because the hour and a half that I had to sit and wait for Calix’s Jeep to pull into the driveway was excruciating and stressful.
After all, everything he said to me in the past two days could very well be a lie. He said he wanted to show me the truth, he wanted to reveal to me the things that my parents could never tell me because they never knew.
The thought of knowing something my parents, brothers, friends, and the rest of the world were oblivious to was exciting and intoxicating, and I paid no attention to my brother as he came into my room.
“Akina,” He said sharply. I jumped, not having realized he had walked in, and turned to face him.
“What?” I asked.
Elijah sighed. “You need to stop tuning people out, Akina,” He said in a scolding voice. “It’s rude and disrespectful.”
“Yes, Mother.”
Elijak ground his teeth, and I bit back a smirk. Getting on his nerves was the most fun I’d had in years. “Anyway,” He growled. “Mom wants to know if you’ll be home for dinner.”
“No,” I told him. “Why does she care? It’s not like she’s going to be here.”
“Actually, she is. Her boss gave her the night off, and she’s coming home to make us dinner and spend time with us,” He told me, a softer tone enveloping his words. I could feel the frustration he felt still lingering in his voice. “She might even rent a movie on her way home from work to watch with us.”
“I’m not staying, Elijah,” I said strictly.
“Akina, she—-“
“No! Elijah, she can’t disappear for days on end, not come home for dinner in- what, almost three months?- and then come back and expect me to give up my plans for her.”
“She works so often for us, Akina. She’s trying to support us.”
“Maybe with money. We raised ourselves. I don’t need her. I’m going out,” I told him one final time, as Calix’s Jeep pulled up the street. “And I won’t be back until probably nine. Tell Mom I wish I could’ve been introduced to her over dinner, and it’s very kind of her to drop by for a visit, but I’ve gone out to make an effort to get to know someone.” I slipped into my jacket, and pulled my boots on.
As I started jogging down the stairs, the doorbell rang, and Elijah darted past me.
“Elijah!” I called, and ran after him.
My older brother swung the door open, and Calix was standing on the porch, wearing dark jeans and a leather jacket. His eyes scanned my brother, and a friendly smile broke out on his face. “Hey,” He said, and held out his hand. “I’m Calix. You must be Elijah?”
Elijah hesitated, and then slowly reached out to shake Calix’s hand. “Yeah, that’d be me. You’re here for my little sister?” He sounded confused.
“That would be correct. Unless this is not Akina Webb. In that case, I am at the wrong house,” He was smiling lightly, and extended his hand out to me. “Are you ready?”
I nodded, and squeezed past Elijah. Calix took my hand lightly in his, and I felt heat rise to my cheeks.
Elijah wore an odd expression. He grabbed my arm as we started to walk away, and looked at me nervously. “How old is this guy, Akina?” He murmured.
“He’s sixteen, Elijah. Let me go.”
“He gives me a weird feeling. I don’t know if—-“
“Elijah, he’s fine,” I hissed. “Let me go.” I yanked my ar out of his grip and looked apologetically over at Calix. “Sorry,” I told him, and we walked down the driveway. He opened my car door, and I slid into the seat. “He’s an ass.”
“No need to apologize. He is right in being unsure. Not that I am a dangerous person, but—- Well, you will see tonight.”
I looked at him curiously, but Calix was focused on the slick road. HIs black hair curled at the nape of his neck, and it looked slightly damp, like he had been out in the rain. His eyes glowed sharply, almost like they had light of their own.
“What exactly are we doing? Or, where are we going?” I asked.
Calix sighed deeply, and looked over at me fleetingly before turning back to the road. “I want you to meet some people. There are a lot of them that wish to meet you as well, and they have waited a very long time.”
“For me? Why me? I’m not that interesting.”
“So you think. I told you… Remember… I told you what happened to you. And I know you do not exactly believe me yet, but I am hoping that tonight is what will get you to believe me. What I told you was not lies. There are many people that are after you.”
“Okay, but let’s say this is all true. That I can help people like you. Why? Why didn’t I just become like you?” Rain began to pelt the roof of his car, tapping like fingers on the hood and windows. “And why is it me they’re all after? Isn’t there someone else like me?”
“There is no one else like you. Not that we know of. So many of us have searched the earth for hundreds of years, but ever since two years ago, you are the only living Cure.”
“Were there more people like me before? Not that I’m saying I believe you, because I still think that all of this is a little too much like an episode of “Supernatural” or a chapter from Twilight to be real.
“Yes. There have been three others that we know of.” Calix said after hesitating.
“What happened to them?”
Calix paused, and tightened his grip on the wheel. “Exactly what I am supposed to protect you from.”
“And what is that?”
“I do not think you want to know.”
“Death? If I’m the Cure, why would people want to kill me?”
“I promise, Akina, I will explain everything. I just cannot yet,” Calix said exasperatedly. “I need you to trust me before I can tell you anything more.”
“I trust you.”
“You are just saying that because you want me to tell you more.”
“Busted,” I sighed, feigning disappointment.
“You will know soon enough. I promise that if you prove loyalty, I will tell you everything you should know.”
“If I should know, then why don’t I?” I asked.
“You are quite difficult, yeah?”
I shrugged.
“It actually wasn’t much of a question, darling.” Calix chuckled. “More of a statement.”
I smiled, and shrugged again. “I try.”
It took about twenty minutes to get to a big house, tucked in the back corner of a gated neighborhood. Calix drove up the driveway and into a big garage. There was an old BMW parked in one spot, it’s red paint still sparkling in the bright LED lights of the garage.
“That’s Damien’s. It’s his baby, so no touchy.”
“Wow, ‘no touchy’. Mature.”
“You know it. Come on inside. I will introduce you you to Damien, and then we will go see everyone else.”
“Sounds good,” I said, swinging out of the car. “Who’s Damien again?”
“The… leader, I guess. My best friend.”
“Aww, your best buddy.”
“What, a teenage boy cannot have a best friend?”
“No, they can. I was just being weird. When I don’t know what to say or do, I just get weird.”
“There are worse things, I suppose.”
“You suppose correct, pal.”
The garage door opened into a warm, dark hallway, with no windows, wall art, or decorations of any time. Simply a midnight blue paint spanned the walls.
“Wow, it’s, uh, dark.” I said, honestly.
“I know. I have no idea why he insists it be so dark. My room is not. If I had it my way, this place would be bright and cool, not dark and… kind of boring,” Calix said. He leaned into the kitchen, but there was no one there. “I always check the kitchen first, because there is hardly ever a time you will not find Damien scavenging the fridge.”
“Hey hey hey,” A deep voice said from behind me. “Don’t start talking smack about me before the girls even meets me.” I spun around, my heart slamming in my chest, and my eyes met the dark cotton of a man’s T-shirt. I looked up, and there was a kind looking man, with soft blue eyes and a dark blonde ponytail. “It’s nice to finally meet you, Akina. I’m Damien, the Alpha.”
“The whatta?” I asked, shaking his hand. “Alpha? As in…”
“The leader of the pack,” Damien finished, flashing me a toothy grin.
“The pack as in the…”
“Yes, the werewolf pack.”
“Werewolf…” I repeated. It all seemed to become more and more believable, but I was still not convinced.
“As in man shift into wolf,” Damien chuckled. “I know it’s a lot to take in. Calix didn’t you prepare her at all.”
Calix said nothing, and instead gave Damien a look. Damien shot the same one back and then broke out into a grin. Calix shook his head slowly, narrowing his eyes, and Damien chuckled.
They continued on like that for a few moments before I spoke up. “This is really awkward.”
Calix snapped out of his Damien-daze, and the two boys turned to me. “Sorry, Akina. That is just one more thing I will explain to you later.”
“What, that you two seem to have telepathic powers? Because that was really weird.”
“You have it too,” Calix reminded me.
“Do not,”
“You do too!” He said. “Remember when Kelly came up to me, asking for my name? And I told her you knew it. You did, did you not?”
“Yeah, but… I could’ve just heard someone say it before that and only then remembered. I don’t think—“ I cut off. What did I think? All I knew was that I heard Calix’s name in my head.
“And I have spoken to you before through mind-speak,” He told me. “You probably simply thought you were hearing things.”
“Because I was. Mind-speak isn’t real. Werewolves aren’t real.”
“But we are.”
“We?”
Damien held a hand up to silence Calix. “You have to prove it first. Then tell her. It’s the only safe way, Calix.”
“She deserves to know.”
“She’ll know as soon as we know it’s safe, Calix. Remember who’s Alpha, and remember who’s Beta. Yeah?”
Slightly ashamed, Calix nodded. “Sorry,” He mumbled, and turned back to me. “Come upstairs, Akina. I will grab you a thicker coat; we have to go out to the woods.”
“The woods? My woods?”
“No. The ones here. The rest of the pack is there.” Calix opened a closet in the hallway, and handed me a thick maroon coat. It was lined with wool, not fur.
“The rest of the pack?”
“All 150 of them are in the trees right now, waiting for you. Are you going to be alright?”
I shrugged. “I sure hope so.”
“I have a question for you.”
“You deserve a question.”
“Do you want to believe me? Do you want to believe this is all real?”
“I… I don’t know. I think so.”
“You have to want it to be real, Akina. You have to.”
After a moment, I looked up into his eyes. Calix set his hands on my shoulders, looking down at me expectantly. “I do. I want it to be real.” I told him.
“Then it shall be, darling.”
A/N: YAYAYAYAYAYAYAY WE'RE AT 111! I'm so so so so so so so so so so so so happy!
This is so exciting for me! However, I have been noticing that on the individual reads, there's sometimes less than ten per chapter:( So for this one (Chapter 7) it's either 10 reads THIS CHAPTER or 150 reads overall before an update.
Questions:
Why do you think it is that everyone (Elijah, Lindsay, etc.) seem to get a weird feeling towards/about Calix? Do you think they're right in thinking that there's something dangerous in him? Why do you think that Calix is just now deciding to tell Akina about the past, even though she was bitten three years ago?
Thanks again! Y'all are the best:)
<3, Libbi Lace