"So what exactly is it you want me to do?" Alex crossed his arms as he stood in the center of the bus.
We'd just take a quick stop at the side of the road so he and Jake could trade off who was driving. Much to Veronica's dismay, there hadn't been anywhere nearby to get food, so she'd gone to the back room alone to pout.
"I want you to try to read my mind." I picked at my peeling pink nail polish. "I mean, not my mind. The mind of my wolf. Maybe if you can communicate with her, you can figure out what she wants and how I can learn to work with her and communicate with her myself."
Alex glanced at where Liz and Reggie were sitting at the table together. Liz gave an encouraging nod, and Reggie shrugged.
Alex ran his hand back through his long hair as he paced the aisle of the bus. Finally, he sat down on the bench across from me.
"All right," he said. "Fine. I'll try it."
He leaned forward, resting his elbow on his knees. His blue eyes were unblinking as he examined me. He clenched his jaw, the muscles in his neck tensing. A chill rushed down my spine, and my eyes watered as I tried not to blink.
"You can blink," he said, giving me a faint smile. "It's not a staring contest."
My eyes fluttered a few times to relieve the sting. "What do I have to do?"
"Nothing," he said. "Just try not to think too much." He closed his eyes and leaned his head back, his chest rising and falling as he breathed. "You're blocking her right now."
I closed my eyes and breathed in heavily, letting a long, warm exhale out through my mouth.
Stop thinking. Stop thinking.
A bead of sweat formed at the base of my neck and trailed down my back. I resisted the urge to fan myself as a wave of heat burned at my cheeks and chest like I was sitting too close to a campfire.
"Relax, Allison." Alex's voice was calm. Soothing.
I opened my eyes to find him staring at me again. I wiped my damp palms on my legs. I tried to focus on the tattoo of Cerberus I had on my right thigh. The three heads of the vicious dog stared out in all directions, forever vigilant. Their eyes were the blank white of my skin, and their mouths were wide and snarling, all teeth and no soul.
The man who gave it to me said it was a brutal tattoo for a girl to get. I told him to make it as sick and ugly as he could.
He did not disappoint me.
The bus swerved in the road, and a dizzying sensation rolled through me. My head felt like it was floating and spinning. The room was too hot.
Relax. Relax.
I repeated the thought, but everything closed in around me. The walls of the bus grew darker as they crept in. Closer and closer. They bubbled and churned, like they were covered in the bodies of thousands of tiny insects. My skin itched and burned. I scratched at it. It felt like spiders were crawling over me.
Are they really who you think they are? Can you trust them?
I tried to shake the thoughts away, but they swarmed through my head, suffocating me. My vision tunneled and faded in and out around me. Alex's face blurred as he stared at me. He was smirking. He grinned, revealing a mouth full of razor-sharp teeth that were far too big for his skull.
"Allison."
He drew closer. Too close. Heat radiated off him as he placed his hand on my neck.
I blinked, but when I opened my eyes, everything was dark. I was submerged in ink.
Screaming.
Pain rippled through my body, like my bones were shifting and snapping. My skin tingled and burned.
More voices.
"Allison! Allison!"
A muted, dark silence swallowed me. I was underwater. Drowning. I clawed around me, trying to find something to ground myself on. Something to bring me back.
My throat burned as a growl escaped between my teeth. My fingers grazed through something rough.
A rip and the release of something thick and wet.
The smell of iron and something else that was sweet and familiar.
More screaming.
"Fuck! Alex, shift now!"
Can we trust them? A voice echoed from the back of my head, speaking through the silence. Have you ever been able to trust them? They abandoned you, didn't they? And not just once. A wave pulsed through my mind, and then a scene materialized from the darkness—a memory.
I stood on the porch of a small, blue house, the door towering over me. A cool, late autumn breeze whipped through the evening air, sending dried leaves tumbling through the yard.
"I don't want to have to stay with Aunt Katie," I whined. "Her cats always hiss at me, and they smell like shit!"
Dad squeezed my small hand in his as he rang the doorbell at Aunt Katie's house.
"Allison, we're only going to be gone for two months, and we'll be visiting you for Christmas." He set down the Scooby Doo printed bag of luggage Mom had packed for me. "And where did you learn that word?"
"What? Shit? You and Mom say it to each other all the time. You should really learn to watch your language around a child." I grinned at him and tried to wink, but I hadn't yet figured out how to get one eye to close without the other following it.
Dad tried to keep himself from laughing as he shook his head.
"Why can't I come with you?" I asked. "I want to go on the tour, too!"
He sighed and crouched next to me to be at eye level. "Honey, you know I wish we could take you, but your mom says you have to stay here so you can go to school."
"School is dumb. I want to be a rock star like you and Mom, and rock stars don't have to do homework."
"One day, when you are older, maybe you can come with us."
Suddenly, the door to Aunt Katie's house swung open. "Allison!" she exclaimed with a huge smile. "Wow, look how big you've gotten."
"Hi Aunt Katie." I forced a smile for her.
"Did you pack everything for her this time, Chris?" Aunt Katie glared at Dad, crossing her arms and narrowing her eyes.
"Mom helped me pack," I replied.
"Of course she did. All right, get inside." Aunt Katie picked up my bag of luggage and carried it in.
"Be good, okay," Dad whispered to me as he pulled me into a tight hug. "Don't let the cats pick on you." He kissed me on the side of the head, right above my ear. "I love you very much."
"I love you, too." Tears stung my eyes, but I didn't want to cry in front of him.
"I'll see you again very soon."
The vision faded to darkness, my ears ringing like I'd been standing in front of a blasting speaker all night. My entire body ached. I lay on something hard and cold. A warm puff of air covered me, followed by a growl.
My eyes snapped open, and I was greeted by a snout and two piercing red eyes glaring back.
"What the fuck!" I scampered to my hands and feet and scrambled back a yard, my shoulders hitting the base of the bench seat. I pressed myself against it, heart racing.
An enormous wolf stood in front of me, its jowls drawn to reveal a threatening set of sharp, white teeth. Its fur was a mix of grey and white, and patches of black framed its glowing red eyes. A strip of deep grey ran back over its forehead between the ears. Its nose twitched, letting out a puff of steam as it snarled at me.
"Allison!" I heard Liz shout. She rushed out from behind the wolf and took me by the arm, pulling me back from it.
"Alex, stand the fuck down," Reggie yelled.
With a growl, the wolf turned his attention from me to where Reggie stood.
"Alex!" Liz shouted at the wolf.
The wolf paced a few steps across the bus, his nails clicking and scrapping against the plastic floor. My stomach turned when I saw that one of the front paws left behind heavy footprints of blood.
Then, the wolf's fur retreated, and his body contorted, the awful crunch of bones echoing through the small bus. Alex's human form was left, still crouched on all fours.
"What the fuck!" I shouted, pulling against Liz's arm to lunge toward him, but she held me back. "Did you attack me?"
Alex pushed himself to his feet, not even glancing at me. He paced a few slow steps, and then he crouched again, leaning so his back was against the bench. He panted as his right hand moved to hold his wrist.
That was when I noticed the blood running from his arm. A long gash sliced the side of his wrist open. Dark red ran down his skin and dripped onto his jeans. His T-shirt was torn open on one side, revealing three more scratches across his ribs.
Finally, he turned his head up to look at me and grimaced. "I didn't attack you."
His words stung like fire when he spat them.
"Alex," I whispered. "Oh my God. Did I . . ."
I pushed myself to my feet to go over to him, but he turned from me.
"It's okay," he said. "Fuck. You didn't mean to do it. I'm fine."
But he didn't look fine. His wrist was bleeding a lot. My stomach turned just looking at the wound I'd inflicted.
"Alex," Reggie said, "let me look at it. You're hurt."
"I'm fine!" Alex snarled at him. "Back the fuck off."
Reggie put both hands up and took a step back. We were silent for a moment, all too afraid to approach him to do anything to help.
"What happened?" I finally asked. "I don't remember any of it."
"Your wolf must have taken him trying to read her mind as a threat," Liz explained. "You shifted and attacked him. He had to shift, too, to protect himself."
"I should have had more control over myself." Alex leaned his head back against the bench. "I should have expected that something like this could happen. I could have hurt you."
I clenched my teeth. I didn't know what else to say to him.
"Did you hear anything, Alex?" Liz changed the subject, filling the silence. "Were you able to communicate with Allison's wolf?"
He pinched his eyes shut and shook his head. "No." He glanced at me, and when our eyes met, I saw a look of fear in his. "Nothing."
A chill rushed over me.
Is he lying?
Alex quickly looked away, pushing himself up to his feet. The bus swerved, and he stumbled forward, just barely catching himself against the table.
"I'm going to talk to Jake." Alex glanced at Reggie and Liz before finally looking back to me. "Change of plans. We aren't going to Denver anymore. We've got a new destination."