18. Katrina

CHAPTER 18

KATRINA

T here was a moment, sometime between my second and third glass of wine, when I realized just how intently Rory had been listening to me that whole time. I told him stories about my time in Guatemala, being careful to leave out any tidbits that might give away too much personal information, and he looked at me like I was the most fascinating person in the world. Nobody—not even Santos, the boy whose crush on me made him do wildly stupid things—had ever given me that kind of attention.

I was a middle child, born to two people who I swear didn’t even want to be parents. This meant I had grown very accustomed to being ignored, slipping under the radar, and finding ways to use such anonymity to my advantage over the years.

But still, it wasn’t until just then that I understood what I’d truly been missing all this time.

It felt so unbelievably good to be truly seen. I didn’t want Rory to ever stop looking at me. In fact, when he tore his gaze away to check the time, I nearly reached out and grabbed hold of his chin.

“It’s getting late,” he said. “If you really don’t want me to spend the night, that’s fine. But that means I need to switch to water so that I can drive home safely.”

“Don’t.” I put a hand on his leg as he started to get up from the couch. “I’ve got something better.” I stood and went to the kitchen, snagged a couple of the little sampler whiskey bottles that Al had received as a gift in his last alcohol shipment from a local distillery. He let me take them home one night after my shift, but I had never been the type who drinks alone, so they had been sitting in the kitchen drawer ever since.

“Here.” I tossed one to Rory. He raised a brow as he caught it. “Don’t worry about driving home.”

He smiled and twisted the little plastic cap off. “Alright then.” He threw the whole thing back in one swig, and I did the same with mine. I brought two more little bottles back to the couch with me and got settled again.

Without much food in my stomach, save a few bites of cheese and a handful of crackers, the alcohol was catching up to me fast. I didn’t care, though. I was relishing in the feeling of letting go—of finally opening up about my life to another human being after years of having to hide various aspects of myself or pretend to be someone I wasn’t.

I tried to come up with other stories I could share, tales that I could safely tell Rory without dropping the bomb on him that I wasn’t exactly who he thought I was.

Or maybe I could tell him… Would that really be so bad?

However, a memory came back to me of something my older sister had said to me before I left Guatemala. I still had no idea how she knew I was leaving. I hadn’t told anyone of my plans to ditch town. But somehow, she knew, and she wouldn’t let me go without at least saying goodbye.

She found me sitting outside the corner market one day, sipping a soda and flipping through a tabloid magazine that the market owner had sold to me for next to nothing. I was acting normal, so nobody figured out that I had plans to leave in three days. Those stupid magazines were one of the few ways I still felt connected to my life back in the United States. Even though I didn’t know any of the celebrities that were being gossiped about, whose pictures were printed on those glossy pages, the magazines still somehow reminded me of home.

Dorothy sat beside me on the bench, and I handed her the soda without saying anything. She took a sip and gave it back.

“When you go back home,” she said. “You’re not going to give us away, are you?”

The question came out of nowhere, and it took me a second to even register what she was talking about. I closed the magazine slowly and looked back at her. “Give you guys away? What do you mean?”

“Just promise me you won’t rat us out,” she said. “I understand the urge to tell everyone the truth—trust me, I do. But… I won’t speak for Mom and Dad, but I’ve found a life for myself out here. I don’t want to go back. I’m happy.”

I pursed my lips and said nothing for a while. I hadn’t yet decided what I was going to do about my family once I returned home to the States. I’d been so focused on getting back on my own that there hadn’t been much time to think about what would happen after. In order to protect my sister and parents, however, I would have to keep my identity a secret.

Which would complicate things even further.

If my parents asked me to do this, I would’ve said no. They didn’t deserve my loyalty. But Dorothy—she did. She deserved that and so much more.

I drew my shoulders back and met her gaze head-on. “Your secret will be safe with me,” I said. “I swear.”

Thinking back on that moment now, remembering the feeling of my sister taking my hand and squeezing it hard—her way of saying goodbye without actually saying it—I suddenly realized that I couldn’t betray her like that.

“Are you okay?” Rory asked, perhaps picking up on my sudden stiffness.

“I’m…”

I couldn’t tell him who I was.

But there was another secret burning me up inside—one that I had been dying to talk to someone—anyone—about. Rory had made it very clear tonight that he wanted to get to know me. He had treated me with a level of respect and given me the kind of attention I didn’t even realize I’d been craving my whole life until I got a taste for it.

If there was anyone in my life right now that I could trust with this secret—it was him, right? Nobody else had worked this hard to see past my armored exterior. To get to the real me.

So yeah, I couldn't tell him who I was, but maybe I could tell him what I was.

Or rather, what I had recently become.

Worst case scenario, he thought I was crazy and ran for the hills. It would hurt, sure, but I’d get through it. I’d been through worse.

“I’m actually not okay,” I said, finally getting around to answering Rory’s question after a few seconds of tense silence. “There’s something that I’ve been going through lately that I don’t really know how to talk about. I’m not even sure I should talk about it. If I don’t explain myself well enough, you might call 911 or something. Try to have me institutionalized.”

He shifted on the couch slightly and put his mini bottle of whiskey down on the coffee table. “You have my attention,” he said with a chuckle.

“I thought I might…”

Instead of putting my second bottle next to his, I opened it and swallowed its contents without a second thought. Liquid courage. I winced as the warm alcohol crawled down the back of my throat but thankfully managed to hold everything down. I gripped my fingers tightly around the empty plastic container and sat up a little straighter.

“Something happened to me while I was in Central America,” I began. “Something… magical. At least, that’s one word to describe it.” I groaned. “If only that guy from the psychic shop was here. He would know how to get through this better than me.”

“Psychic shop?”

I waved a hand in the air. “Nevermind. That’s not important. The thing that I really need to say is this—I’m pretty sure I was cursed. Not on purpose. I think that this group of people was trying to curse someone else, and I just sort of… got in the way? My friend was giving me a ride to the bus station, and he told me to stay away from the house, but I heard someone screaming, so I went to make sure everything was okay. I ended up getting hit with something. A spell.”

“A magical spell?”

“Yes,” I said, wanting to get through everything before he had a chance to tell me how nuts I was. “I didn’t think that anything had really happened to me at first because once the initial feeling of being hit wore off, everything was fine. Then, a few days ago, I experienced the first full moon since I was hit by the magic. Now I know that the spell did something to me.”

I paused for just a second, waiting to gauge Rory’s reaction to the first half of this tale. He wasn’t shaking his head or getting up off the couch in a disbelieving huff. Instead, he was sitting there with a curious but not dubious expression on his face. I decided this was a good sign and powered through.

“The psychic,” I went on. “He gave me a warning, but I thought he was full of shit at the time. Then, that night, I went upstairs on my break at the bar and looked outside the window. I saw the full moon and…”

“And what?”

I looked away from him. “God, I wish I had another bottle of whiskey.” He didn’t laugh, and I was worried I might be testing his patience too much by stalling. “I don’t know how to say this in a way that doesn’t sound absolutely insane, so I guess we’ll just rip the Band-Aid off. I looked up at the full moon, and I turned into a werewolf.”

I made a point not to look at Rory when I said the last part. I didn’t think I could handle whatever his expression would be. Even on the off chance he did believe me, the only logical response would be to scream for help. If he truly was able to accept that I turned into a bloodthirsty monster once a month, then he should be terrified of me.

This was a mistake. One that it was too late to take back, so all I could do was sit there and try not to panic.

He was quiet, and after what felt like a lifetime, I managed to sneak a peek in his direction. His brow was furrowed in thought, but he didn’t look scared. Really, if I had to guess, I would’ve said he looked almost… mad.

“You think I’m making this up,” I said. “I can tell. You’re mad at me for making you think I was going to open up, and then, instead, I said something ridiculous. But I’m telling you, this is the truth. I?—”

“I know.” He put a hand up to stop me mid-sentence. “I know you’re telling me the truth.”

“Wait—you believe me?”

He nodded, then got up off the couch and started pacing back and forth across the room. “I knew this could happen to people, although I hadn’t heard of a case of lycanthropy in a very long time. It’s very rare.”

“Whoa, whoa, hold on a second.” I stood up as well. “You know about this stuff?”

“A little.”

“Tell me everything!” I begged, feeling a rush of relief wash through me. “Please! I’m completely on my own here. Well, okay, that’s not true. The psychic helped me a little, but?—”

“Did he give you stuff to control the shifting?”

“What?”

“Or chains to tie yourself up with so you don’t hurt anybody?” Rory walked over to me and put his hands on my shoulders. “Do you know what happened the night you first changed into the wolf? Did you leave the apartment?”

“I—I think so. But I don’t know for sure. I woke up here, naked, with… With blood on my face.”

He scowled. “This isn’t good.”

“If someone had been attacked by a wolf, we would’ve heard about it, though, right?” I said. “I’ve been paying close attention to the local news, making sure that nobody saw anything. I think it must’ve been animal blood.”

“You better hope so,” he said. His fingers pressed into me a little too hard. I shrugged out of his grip.

“Ow! What’s wrong with you? Why are you so pissed off all of a sudden?”

“I’m not pissed off. I’m just trying to think.”

“Think about what?” I demanded. “If you know more about this than you’re letting on, you have to tell me. Do you have any fucking idea how scared I’ve been? I thought—I thought I was all alone in this. But?—”

Rory looked at his phone, and I sensed he was completely ignoring me. “I have to go,” he said. “We can talk more about this later.”

I scoffed. “Are you joking? You’re really going to leave right now?”

“I’m sorry, but there’s something I have to do.”

I’d chosen to tell Rory the truth because I thought he would listen. But now he was being dismissive, saying he had to go even though I knew he had been planning to stay the night. I thought I was prepared for what it would feel like if he rejected me—if he ran in fear—but I wasn’t.

It hurt way more than I could have ever imagined.

Tears stung the corners of my eyes. “Fine,” I hissed. “Go. What the fuck do I care? I don’t need you!”

“Katrina—” he said, but his voice was low and hoarse with frustration.

“Don’t talk to me like that, all patronizing. Get out,” I snapped. “I don’t want you here. You said you had something you needed to do, so go do it!” I went to the door and held it open for him. “And while you’re at it, why don’t you go ahead and lose my number. Forget my name, forget everything I told you about myself because I never want to see you again.”

He headed for the door but stopped with his hand on the doorknob. “I understand that you’re upset. I just?—”

“You have no idea what I’m feeling,” I said with narrowed eyes. “Now go.”

He stared at me for a moment longer, then hung his head and left. I slammed the door closed after him, but the anger dissipated the second he was gone. I wasn’t even halfway back to the couch, and tears were already rolling down my cheeks. I threw myself down on the cushions and ended up crying myself to sleep.

It was after midnight when a noise outside the apartment ripped me from an unpleasant dream. I had been running on all fours in the dream, barreling down the streets of downtown Solara Bay as a wolf, terrorizing the town’s folk and causing a scene. I was pulled out of slumber right as I was about to collide with a woman walking out of the market with arms full of grocery bags.

In a way, I was relieved to no longer be asleep, but the sound, which I heard again upon waking, gave me pause.

Creaking floorboards. That’s what I’d heard.

At first, the sound had been somewhat distant, but perhaps that was because I was mostly asleep when the noise echoed through the small apartment. Now, however, the sound was much clearer. My chest tightened when I heard it a third time.

Someone was inside the room with me.

I whirled out of bed and got to my feet as quickly as I could. “Who’s there?” I shouted.

All was quiet for a second. I stared straight ahead at the door leading to the outside staircase and was about to make a run for it when a flash of movement made me spin around on my heel. As I did, a strong arm wrapped around my waist while something soft and wet was pushed against my nose and mouth. In the dark, I couldn't see who my assailant was, but as my eyes rolled back into my head, I saw ringlets of long, silky hair and the spark of a gold earring.

I couldn’t be sure, but if I had to wager a guess, I would’ve said the person who was about to knock me out was a woman. Before I could think to look for any more clues, however, my vision started to blur, and within seconds, I blacked out.