Chapter Six

CHAPTER SIX

There were a lot of things wrong with having your werewolf mortal enemy pass out in your hallway. But top of the list had to be the fact that werewolves should not exist. That to most people, they absolutely didn't. And so there wasn't really much she could do about it. There was no first aid book to quickly skim that told you how best to solve his medical problems.

And she couldn't call 911.

But despite this—and the fact that she'd vowed only five seconds earlier to not get invested in his problems—the urge to fix this was getting hold of her anyway. Something clenched in her chest whenever she glanced at him all spread out on her floor, looking pale and sweat-slicked and sort of crumpled. Not to mention more like her friend than she could remember him being in years.

His face seemed almost soft and sweet—and young, too.

Put some glasses on him, and he'd almost be the boy she'd known.

And that really helped her do what she had to do next. She took some deep breaths and knelt beside his gargantuan body. Then she just reached out to him. She touched him, somewhere incredibly innocuous like his arm. Shakily, gingerly, but she managed. She got to a point where she could push him into the recovery position.

No big deal , she thought.

But it was, because the moment she did it she felt the enormous swell of his biceps, pushing back against her palms. She got the thickness of it, the firmness, the solid weight of his body that was almost too much for her to heave over. And oh god, the heat that rolled off him as he went. It was so lush and intense she would have called it a fever.

If she hadn't known it was something else.

Animals run hot , her brain threw out.

And just as she was busy hating her brain for it, she got a hit of his scent. That sweet bubblegum scent—the one she remembered from when they were kids. Only now it was mingled with something else, something like warm fur or skin made shimmery by the sun, and okay no, no this was too much. This was all too much.

She didn't like it. She had to stop touching him.

It was actually starting to make her feel a bit weird to carry on. Like it sometimes had when they were teenage friends, and she'd accidentally brushed something she hadn't meant to. Like that time when she'd gone to pass him a book from a low shelf at the library, and somehow slid her hand inside those little shorts he had loved. All the way up, right to the highest point of his thigh.

And just as she was thinking this, she glanced at his face.

And saw that his eyes were wide fucking open.

"What the heck are you doing?" he asked, and god the way he sounded when he did. It was like he'd caught her molesting him. Or seen the flush she knew was all over her cheeks and assumed that meant something other than what it did.

Even though it didn't. It fucking didn't . I'm just not used to big dudes who smell like great sex , she found herself thinking at him, frantically. Then was incredibly grateful to know that (a) her brain was only saying something so ridiculous because it was very stressed right now, and (b) he could not hear it doing so.

All he got was her words. And she had the perfect ones.

"I was trying to make sure you didn't die."

"By groping my biceps and my butt?

"Hold on a second, I didn't touch your butt."

He tilted his head to one side. "No, but you were getting pretty close to it."

"I didn't even know I was. Probably because your big, immovable body just barged right into my tiny hands. And before you make any crack about how tiny my hands aren't, remember that I was trying to save your life."

She shoved herself to her feet then. Angrily, and with the intention of stalking away from him. But here was the thing: he got up too. Like he was just fine now—or at least fine enough to continue making her life a misery. And sure enough, here he was, following her into the kitchen, expression all outraged.

"Okay, first of all, I wasn't gonna say anything of the kind. Your hands are cute as heck. I don't even know what you're talking about," he said, all exasperated. Then just as she was processing that weirdness, just as she was thinking, he thinks my hands are cute, he burst out with more: "And second, were you seriously trying to save my life? As in, you were actually super worried that I was dying?"

At which point, she wasn't quite sure what to say.

Because he sounded like… she didn't know what he sounded like. Hopeful , she wanted to say. But she couldn't let herself believe that. He was probably just all mixed up from being mangled, she decided. Then turned her back to him, so she could appear convincingly casual.

"Well, yeah. Anyone would be. You just fainted."

"I didn't faint. I just ran out of energy."

"Oh sorry, I didn't mean to suggest you were anything like the weakling you used to be. Lemme just reassure you that you're still an enormous, macho machine who can crush absolutely anyone or anything with the blink of one eye."

Okay, that was way too far, and now he's gonna bite back , she told herself.

But no, he apparently still didn't feel like it. Instead, he sighed wearily.

"Cassie, that's not what I meant. And that's not what I want to be."

"Okay. Cool. So then tell me exactly what you do want to be, Seth."

"I don't know. I guess whatever made you like me enough to be so tender."

She could hear the shrug in his voice. Like it was no big deal to say what he just had.

Even though it made her spin back around like a cartoon character doing a double take. And she knew why too: because he had meant it that way. The good way. The way that suggested he liked her being that way with him.

Or at least hadn't been mad about it.

He had maybe just been surprised. Or pleased.

And now he was so pleased that he was willing to… what? Be different, so she would do it again? God, it sounded like it. So much so, in fact, that she couldn't bring herself to shrug it off or say something wholly dismissive. She had to go with something half kind, and at least somewhat accepting of who he appeared to be now.

Even if she was scared to do it.

"It wasn't anything in particular that made me be tender. I would have done it anyway. I still want to do it, in fact. I mean, your arm continues to look incredibly gross and horrifying. I feel like something needs to be done. And hopefully before it rots right off your body," she said.

That didn't help, however. He just looked like he'd been electrified.

"Oh my god . You think that's an actual possibility?"

"Dude, you're the one who's supposed to be telling me that."

"Yeah, but this arm thing has never happened to me before, in all the times I've changed. And you were always so good at figuring stuff like that out. Remember that time I came off my bike and thought my leg was gonna fall off?" he asked, and she tried not to, she really did. But it came over her anyway. The raw-meat color it had become. The gritty feel of the asphalt under her hands. Him not wanting to look; her telling him she would for him.

But she couldn't concede the point, she just couldn't. Not when it meant actually talking to him about soft and loving things they'd experienced together. "I didn't do anything about your leg falling off."

"It seemed like you did, to me."

She shook her head. "All I did was hold your hand."

"That wasn't all. You called 911."

"Yeah, and anyone on earth would have done that."

"Would anyone on earth have known it was only broken?"

"I didn't know for sure. I just guessed and happened to be right."

"You happened to be right a lot about things like that."

His gaze was steady now. Fixed on her. Like he was trying to make her see something.

Though she couldn't imagine the something was anything good.

So she stepped away. Casually, she thought, like she was just going to the sink. But of course she didn't have anything to do once she got there. And she was pretty sure he'd caught the flicker of emotion that had moved across her face before she'd turned, anyway.

She could almost feel his reaction to it, before it came.

Then it did.

"I guess all that feels like a waste of time to you now, huh," he said, and oh wow the way it hit her. Because, truthfully, she hadn't thought he could understand something like that. Yet, somehow, he had. And now she had to face it.

Even if she couldn't look at him, as she tried.

"Waste of time wouldn't be the way I would put it."

"So how would you then?"

"I don't know. Just the way stuff goes, I guess. Things are good and then they're not. People you love turn out to be not what you thought. Or they get tired of you and leave you behind. Sometimes you're just not enough."

Don't cry , she thought at herself. Don't you fucking cry .

But all she could manage was not letting him see it happen. Because, yeah okay, maybe he was a little better than she thought. And true, he was going through a lot now. But he was not good enough or wounded enough to have earned anything like her tears.

He wasn't. He wasn't. He just wasn't safe.

Even though his next words were these: "Cassie, god. Is that what you think happened?"

"That is what happened. And it's fine, okay?"

"It isn't fine for you to think you weren't enough."

"Why not? It's obviously true. I was a boring dork, and you wanted something cool. And I don't blame you for that. I don't blame you for grabbing it when you had the chance. I just wish, you know. That you—"

"Hadn't treated you like shit?"

God, the way he just keeps copping to it , her brain hissed at her. As if she didn't know. As if she wasn't feeling it—and so hard now that it was making her want to do some very inadvisable things. Like maybe yelling, you didn't treat me like shit and anyway I forgive you and then let's be best friends again . Even though she definitely didn't want any of that.

And there was no way he did.

He was wanting her help, that was all. So that was what she needed to focus on.

After she'd wiped her eyes, and firmed up her voice.

"You know, we should really get back to important stuff. Like what you need to stop any potential arm rot so you can leave me in something like peace," she said, as she turned back to him to see exactly how convincing she'd been.

And judging by his relieved expression, the answer was: convincing enough.

"I think I just need my medicine."

"You mean the herbal remedy you were searching for last night."

"Yep. That's it. That's exactly what I'm talking about. You got it." He snapped his fingers and gave her some finger guns.

"Right. So then it's the one my grandmother made for you."

"That's totally it. She totally did."

"Because she knew you were a werewolf."

"Well yeah, of course she did. What else were you thinking?"

"Oh, I dunno. That my grandmother wasn't apparently a witch ," she said—and even managed to do it pretty calmly. But not so calmly that he didn't wince in response. Like it was just hitting him that she hadn't known or understood any of this.

And he was breaking most of it to her really badly.

So of course he tried to calm things down. He put his hands out, like, easy, easy. "Well, she wasn't exactly a witch. She was more like a cobble," he said. Like a total fucking dipshit.

"And you think some weird supernatural term I don't understand is going to make this new piece of information any less shocking? That just makes this whole thing seem even more enormous than it already is! I mean, it has terminology ."

"Cass, it's not terminology. It's just a description of someone who can sort of half make spells. Like, they can repeat what a real witch made up, and it will kind of work. As in—they cobble together some magic."

"So some real witch did what, exactly? Leave her spell book here?" she asked, one eyebrow raised as sardonically as she could possibly make it. But he just carried on being as exasperated as he already plainly was.

"There is no spell book. Your grandmother just had everything written down in a journal. Like stuff from memory, probably. She was once buddies with Gertrude the Great, and Gertrude the Great told her a thing or two, and there you go."

"Well, can we call this Gertrude the Great?"

"Of course not, she doesn't exist. I made her up for the purposes of this demonstration." He glanced at the ceiling for inspiration. For some sort of way to explain this that made sense. "Look, Cassie. I just need those books she scribbled everything in. You don't even have to give me them. I can simply jot down the recipe and, you know. Try to make it myself."

"So you're a cobble now."

"I'm not anything. I just have to give it a shot."

"Fine," she conceded. "So then tell me what they look like."

"I don't know. They're little notebooks."

"That doesn't really narrow it down, Seth."

"Okay then, these ones were blue. Pale blue. And leather, I think."

She went to say something scornful, like, well, that could be anything . But suddenly there was a sound like the wind rushing in her ears, and a million memories were clicking into place, and then she snapped a look at the mess on the kitchen counter next to her.

The mess, and the thing that lay between them.

The thing she snatched up, before she turned on him.

"You mean this blue leather-bound journal? As in, the one that probably led to her telling me I should never make anything again because I was terrible at it and would probably kill someone? And that I made soup from, last night ?" she somehow managed to gasp out.

Only he didn't say no. He didn't say of course not. He looked immediately to the pot that was still on the stove. Then he practically leapt to his feet and launched himself at it.

"Oh my god. That's it. That's my stuff," he said.

And oh no, oh no, oh fuck, what had she done? What had she made?

Something nightmarish , her brain screamed at her. Then she didn't even think twice about it. She jammed herself between him and the probable hell soup. "Whoa, what do you think you're doing? That is not your stuff. That is most likely a magic bomb."

He peered into the pot. "It doesn't look like a magic bomb. And honestly I don't see how it could be."

"Dude, did you not just hear me? I was seriously bad at doing whatever is in that book. So bad in fact that my Gram said I should never cook or bake again at all. Most likely to make sure I never accidentally cobbled some nightmare spell."

"Maybe she was just worried about food poisoning."

"And you think poisoning someone with magic food is better ?"

Yes he did, she suspected, if his reaction was anything to go by.

He was still trying to get at the pot. And she imagined that the only reason he wasn't managing was that thing she had noticed the first day he'd come to her door. That hint of stress over the idea of being aggressive with her. Like he needed to be extra careful, and not even so much as touch her or even get in her way, no matter how much he needed to.

Though she supposed that made a lot more sense now.

He was a goddamn werewolf. He probably had the strength of ten men. One flick of his hand could most likely break her bones—so of course he wound up fumbling, and only sort of half grabbing for the pot in her hands. And when she moved it before he could get a hold, he didn't try again. He just stepped aside. Almost politely.

Even though his face was a picture of the purest frustration.

Please , that face said. And that pleading was in his voice, too.

"I'll just put some on my arm," he said, as he held said arm up. To have an effect on her, she thought. Which it did, of course. It made her guts twist and her breath catch in her throat, to a far greater extent than it had before.

Because now you're really starting to warm to him , her brain singsonged at her.

And she hated it for doing so. And him, for making her really feel it.

"Oh don't do that," she said. "Don't play on my anxiety about what that looks like."

But he just gazed at her, half irritated and half that other thing, again.

That soft, soft thing, like she'd done something that felt so good. Rubbed a hand through his hair, maybe. Or told him that everything was going to be okay. And after that, she didn't just think about how long it had been since she had cared about him. She thought about how long it had been since anyone—her grandmother aside—had cared about him at all.

His parents never really had. In fact, it was the reason he'd spent so much time at her house when they were kids. Because although her parents didn't much care about her either, they had let her watch and read most of the things she wanted to. And they hadn't punished her forever if they even suspected she'd done anything devil-like. She remembered him once wearing some strong aftershave, and getting grounded for three months for drinking alcohol because of the smell.

It was undeniable that they would never have wanted to look after him now.

And last she'd heard they were in the ground anyway.

So who did that leave? Some buddies, maybe? People like Jason and Tyler? It was at least a little possible that they were still his friends. Though, somehow, she couldn't imagine them giving a shit. Most likely they would find it funny, then cut out on him.

He must have been so lonely , her brain whispered, in this far too sympathetic way.

And that was before he spoke.

"See, I don't think anybody this concerned about someone who fucked up their life could make some poisonous potion. So maybe you should trust me. And trust in yourself. You're better than you think you are, Cassie. You always were," he said. And that was how she wound up letting Seth Brubaker walk away with a Tupperware container full of nonsense.

Oh, and magic that would most likely liquefy him from the inside out.

Then quite possibly destroy the world.