Bad Hair Day (17 page)

Something crashed downstairs, so loud it shook the floorboards beneath my feet. It took me about a half a second to get to the basement, or at least that was what it felt like. I’d never run so fast before.

Jonah was belly-down on the puke-colored practice mats.

I lunged forward, tripped over my own foot, and skidded to a stop next to my brother’s motionless body. When I flipped him over, the first thing I noticed was a syringe waggling obscenely from the skin of his neck. The plunger wasn’t pressed; I pulled it out of his neck before I accidentally injected him with whatever mystery substance was inside.

Someone hit me from behind. My teeth clicked together, and my jaw slammed against the floor as I went down. The pain was huge. My attacker leapt onto me, pressing my body into the mats with his weight. I felt his panting breath, hot on my cheek. I tried to heave him off, but he shoved his hips forward, pinning me more securely. It became a struggle to breathe. Black spots danced behind my eyes.

I was going to die. Or maybe something worse.

He snatched the syringe from my hand. Moments later, my neck stung as he jabbed it with the needle. I whipped my head back and forth and shrieked, as if that were going to do any good.

He grabbed my head and ground my cheek into the floor. I could see him in my peripheral vision, or his hair, anyway. It was long and blond and covered most of his bulging, distorted face.
At least I knew it wasn’t Bryan; he had brown hair. That would have really capped off the suck.

Sebastian was blond, though. I couldn’t be sure it was him without a better look, but it was the only logical conclusion.

“Welcome to the pack,” he growled.

His voice was rough and completely unrecognizable. I almost tried to reason with him, because it seemed like the thing to do. Like maybe if I could appeal to his logic, he’d get up and administer the antidote, and everything would be rainbows and fuzzy bunnies. But then I noticed a bunch of glass on the floor, spilling out the door of my laboratory.

I let out another shriek, but this time it was anger and not fear. I couldn’t see much, because my glasses were falling off and my distance vision wasn’t so great without them. But I could figure it out. That crash? All the contents of my workbench shattering because that hairy bastard had flipped it over.

I bucked once, as hard as I could. My legs pistoned out and my body rocketed off the floor. This time, he didn’t expect it. He didn’t go flying or anything, but he did release me. I fully expected him to pounce again, but he didn’t. He fled instead, sprinting up the stairs so fast I could barely track the movement.

It wasn’t smart to follow him, not without a way to cure or contain him. And I had to help my brother. I checked for a pulse. Thank god, he was alive, and respirating too. I quickly discovered a contusion on the back of his head; he’d been hit pretty hard. His eyelids fluttered when I touched the injury. He’d be conscious again soon, and probably regretting every second.

“Rocky,” I murmured.

I knew she had enough common sense not to confront an enraged werewolf, so I wasn’t too worried. Not about her. I was worried about Jonah, and what those nanobots were doing to me right now, and the fact that I was probably way over my daytime minutes and my parents were going to kill me. But not so much about Rocky.

Not until I got upstairs and saw the empty driveway. She was gone.

I
ran to the end of the street, heavy breaths steaming the air. Rocky wasn’t anywhere in sight, so I called her. Someone picked up the phone for about two seconds. Just long enough for me to hear her yelling in the background.

“Let me go, you freak!”

Then it went dead. I called again and got voice mail.

I needed to tell Despain everything. My best friend had probably been kidnapped by a nanobotted boy with werewolf tendencies. Who knew where he’d gone? Or what he planned to do to her? The police needed to be involved, and Despain was one of the best detectives I’d met. And I’d met a lot.

I dialed her number and she answered after half a ring. “What’s up, Kate?”

“Someone just attacked my brother in our basement. We need help.”

“I’ll get an ambulance there right away. Where are you now?”

“In the driveway.”

“I’ll be there in a minute.”

“Thank you.” I paused on my way back to the house. “And Despain?”

“What?”

I’d intended to tell her about my Sebastian-related suspicions, but now I was having second thoughts. If she tried to arrest him, he’d probably kill her, too. And let’s say she got lucky and shot him. What if he was the only one who knew how to deactivate the nanobots? I’d be doomed to a life of superfluous hair and locked cages. No med school. No anything. I could deal with the hair, but the thought of losing control of my mind terrified me.

My best choice was to track him down, save Rocky, and make him tell me how to de-wolf myself. I probably had an hour or two before I started wolfing out.

Sebastian had welcomed me to the pack. I was going to take that welcome and shove it down his hairy throat.

“Nothing,” I said. “Just come quick, okay?”

The only answer was a click.

I had just a couple of minutes until she’d show up. Jonah’s car was gone. Mom and Dad were at a bed and breakfast for the night. It was only an hour away, but right now that felt like an eternity. The only car in the garage was my old, cruddy sedan. The crapmobile.

I sped away, breaking about five laws in the process. I didn’t care. My best friend was in danger. Heck, I didn’t even stop to put on my seat belt.

Sebastian’s address was the only lead I had, so that was where I started searching. The house was one of those borderline mansions with a pair of stone lions flanking the driveway. I’d always thought the concept of a stone lion as a status symbol was completely ridiculous. I mean, really. Nothing says success like a huge cat made out of concrete.

I trotted up the driveway, staying alert for any signs of movement on the grounds so I didn’t get surprised again. Now that I was here, I felt like a total idiot. Why hadn’t I gotten the silverware out of Jonah’s car? I had nothing to protect myself with, and I needed to remedy that fast. When I searched my pockets, all I found was a lone mitten, a pocket pharmaceutical guide, and a spork. I had no idea how the spork had gotten in there and no hope that it would withstand a werewolf attack, but holding it made me feel marginally better.

I rang the bell, looking over my shoulder with paranoia. I was ready for anything except for the trophy wife who opened the door. She was scary tan, obviously surgically enhanced, and had glossy black bangs that hung over her eyes, almost completely obscuring her vision.

When I recovered from the shock, I said, “I’m looking for Sebastian, please.”

“Huh?” She looked genuinely confused.

“Sebastian? I need to see him. Now.” I made a mental note to not use any big words and strain the few brain cells she had left.

“You’re blue.”

I took a deep, calming breath. “I know.”

“Upstairs.”

She jerked her thumb toward the stairs, like I needed to be instructed on how to get from the first floor to the second. Then again, idiocy was probably common in her usual social circle, so I tried not to take offense. I stepped into a foyer as large as the first floor of my house, complete with a fountain full of koi.

The trophy wife jiggled back down the hall to whatever cavernous depths she had come from. Once she was gone, I went upstairs and was faced with a long hallway with a row of identical white doors on either side, all of which were closed. I figured I might as well start with the ones closest to the stairs, because I didn’t want to get boxed in by a werewolf. I felt pretty impressed with myself for thinking of that. I hadn’t spent all that time listening to Jonah play DORK, aka
Dragons of Roargan Kross
, for nothing; apparently, I’d picked up some battle tactics along the way.

Of course, this meant I was a bigger dork than I thought.

I took a deep breath and flung the first door open. A millisecond after I committed to this course of action, I realized I could be barging into Sebastian’s bedroom. If I was wrong, if Rocky had been coincidentally kidnapped by a different werewolf altogether, this could be bad. I could accidentally walk in on him in his underwear. I’d need therapy for the rest of my life.

Luckily, the room turned out to be a guest room. A nauseatingly frilly one.

I shut the door on Frillville and moved down the hall. This time, I knocked first. I figured I had a better chance of keeping Sebastian calm if I didn’t embarrass him by barging in. If I could keep him from wolfing out, maybe we could settle this without a fight.

Behind the second door was a bedroom that had obviously been a guy’s at one time, so I entered cautiously. It was uninhabited except for the hordes of scantily clad bikini models staring at me from the walls. And the ceiling. I had the intense urge to get a Sharpie and draw mustaches on them, but I didn’t.

The final door on this side of the hall. No answer to my knock. But when I cracked it open, I immediately knew I’d found the right place. I could sense the geekiness before I could even see inside. It smelled like stale Mountain Dew. I pushed the door open the rest of the way, and it was like walking into my own room, only done in darker colors and about twice the size. There were books and papers strewn across every available surface. On the desk beside the door sat a copy of my favorite anatomy book, balanced precariously atop a rack of test-tube-shaped lights, and I automatically moved it. Fire hazard. Besides, that book was too good to go up in smoke.

I didn’t see Sebastian or Rocky. It was probably too much to hope that he’d be sitting on the bed, waiting for me to show up so he could surrender and return my best friend safe and sound.

“Sebastian?” I called, pitching my voice low.

There were two doors on the left-hand wall. I arbitrarily picked the one on the left. But by this time, I was sick of the whole door-opening production. I didn’t exactly fling it open, but I didn’t knock, either.

It was a bathroom. Sebastian stood in front of the foggy mirror in his underwear, shaving. When I barged in, he immediately sliced his cheek open.

“Ow!” he yelled, clapping his hand to the cut.

“Superfluous hair!” I shouted, pointing at him. “I knew it!”

He didn’t seem to know where to put his hands. One was on his cheek, staunching the blood. The other hovered between his tighty-whities and his concave chest, trying to cover them both but completely failing. Finally he grabbed a towel, smearing blood all over the pristine white cotton, and wrapped it around himself.

“What are you doing here?” he demanded.

“Where’s my best friend, you bastard?” I shot back.

“Who?”

He only looked confused. I could sympathize; I was a little foozled myself. I’d expected him to go all werebotty, but he was mousy, as usual. Maybe his bots were broken.

“You abducted my best friend from my house. Or don’t you remember?” I said.

“What? I don’t—What are you talking about?” he sputtered.

“Give me your hand. I want to see something.”

He held out his hand automatically. I bet I could have gotten him to jump up and down on one leg and make chicken noises
if I’d wanted. He was just that spineless. I found it increasingly more difficult to picture him as any kind of killer, even an accidental one.

I didn’t see any signs of abnormal hair growth, but he had fine white-blond hair, so it was hard to tell. He snatched his hand back before I could feel for stubble.

“Well?” he asked, growing a spine at the most inopportune time. “Are you satisfied now? Because I’d like you to go so I can put some pants on.”

“I … you can’t …” I couldn’t stop stammering. I tell him my friend got abducted, and he’s concerned about his pants? I didn’t understand what the heck was going on in his head, so I went on the offensive. “I’ll go as soon as you tell me what’s up with the nanobots.”

“How did you—the—what? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

It wasn’t the most convincing act I’d ever seen.

“Nanobots.” I enunciated the word carefully. “I know you have them, and I know they got Holly killed. And the other guy—that’s her brother, right? And now my friend got taken by someone affected by the bots. So you can either spill the whole story or I’m telling the police. By the way, my friends know where I am, so getting rid of me isn’t going to help your situation.”

Yeah, that last bit was a blatant lie, but he didn’t even seem to notice. Apparently, I was better at lying to werewolves than I was to my parents. Not like I tried to lie to them often, but it happened from time to time.

“You’re crazy,” he said.

“No, I’m not.”

He didn’t respond, so I pressed my advantage. I got right up in his face, even if it did put me uncomfortably close to his underwear. I had no time for prissiness.

Although I reserved the right to barf retroactively.

“How exactly did it go?” I asked, pinning him with my eyes. “You got sick of all the jocks picking on you and figured you’d show them for once? So you injected yourself with untested nanobots. That’s not smart, dude, and you know that. The potential side effects are staggering. I mean, you’ve seen Spider-Man, right? You should damn well know better.”