Bad Hair Day (21 page)

“Yeah,” I croaked. “Thanks.”

I needed help to sit up. Too shaky. But my eyes automatically went to Bryan, looking for the rise and fall of his chest.

He was alive, but totally bald. Like missing-eyebrows bald. If I hadn’t been so exhausted, I would have giggled at that.

Aaron helped me up and tried to sit me on the bed. I still had the stun gun; it was practically fused to my palm by now. I gestured with it toward Bryan. I didn’t waste my breath on speech; Aaron knew what I needed. He swept me into his arms and carried me over.

I checked Bryan’s pulse. Nice and strong. Breath steady. He
even stirred when I poked him. All good things. I sat back with a sense of relief. I could rest for just a moment before I got up and went to find Rocky. She’d be okay. She had to be.

Finally, the whole baldness thing registered, and I groped for my braid in a huge panic. I was so relieved when my hand closed on my hair. I must have stunned myself just in time to avoid complete follicular destruction. And I was pretty sure Bryan’s hair would grow back. If not, I could always argue that it’s better to be freakishly bald than dead.

But still, I was happy to have my hair. I was enough of a social misfit already without being bald on top of everything else.

“He’s going to be okay, right?” Aaron hunkered down next to me, his hand on my elbow to help me balance.

“I think so.”

I slapped Bryan’s cheek lightly, calling his name. His eyelids fluttered, and then he opened his eyes and grabbed me. I wasn’t sure whether he meant to kiss me or beat the crap out of me. I squawked indignantly but couldn’t seem to break his grip.

“Do I smell Doritos?” he asked.

I folded my arms so he couldn’t see my hands shake, but now I could smell them too, and it was heavenly. So I grabbed the bag next to my laptop and said, “Yeah. You want some? I’m starving too.”

We sat among the drifts of hair on my bedroom floor and ate the whole bag while Aaron stood guard.

*

Unfortunately, the cheesy goodness couldn’t last forever. After the bag was empty, I was still so hungry I could have eaten my own foot. We went into the kitchen, where I polished off an entire loaf of bread, and Bryan ate every slice of cheese in the fridge. Aaron went outside to get Elle, who had been hiding in my car the whole time. I wanted to scoff at that, but I really couldn’t blame her. Besides, she was shaken enough to actually be polite to me. I complained that I was thirsty, and she brought me some milk. I drank the whole gallon and immediately felt sloshy-stomached. Maybe that wasn’t my best idea ever.

By that time, the dizzy feeling had mostly subsided. Bryan promptly fell asleep on the kitchen tile. Even in his sleep, he looked surprised. Missing eyebrows will do that to you.

He wasn’t exactly light, and besides, he seemed pretty comfortable where he was. So I covered him with a striped afghan made with loving care in clashing colors by my aunt Margie, and the three of us retreated into the hallway so we didn’t wake him up.

“All right,” Elle said. “What do we do now?”

I looked at her skeptically. It seemed like an awfully abrupt about-face to be throttling a girl one minute and offering to help her exterminate some werewolves the next. But she sounded serious.

“Take this.” I handed her a slip of paper. “This is Detective Despain’s number. Call her once we’re gone and tell her everything. She needs to pass the word that the werewolves are vulnerable to
stun guns. And keep an eye on Bryan for me.” She looked disappointed, but there was no way she’d be able to argue her way out of this one. Someone needed to watch out for Bryan and make sure he didn’t go into cardiac arrest or something. “If there’s any sign of a relapse, I need to know right away. I don’t expect one, though. All we need to do is find Trey, stun him, and feed him some Doritos.”

Aaron grinned. “Are they therapeutic Doritos?”

“I was just being nice,” I said. “Nicer than he deserves. Will you do it, Elle?”

“Yeah. I guess.”

“You’re not just trying to screw with me, right? Because Bryan could get seriously messed up if you are.”

She threw up her hands. “No! I owe you, okay. For saving me. And for … the other thing. I’m sorry, okay?” Then she eyed Bryan skeptically. “Are you sure he’s safe?”

“He’s safe.”

“Okay, then.” She started cleaning all the food-related mess off the kitchen table. And I let her.

“So what next?” asked Aaron.

I brought him up to speed in a few sentences, since we didn’t have time for all the gory details. He got really pissed-looking when I told him that Trey had stabbed me with a syringe, but I was already moving on. “So,” I concluded, “my only problem now is that I don’t know how to find Trey. I’d originally planned to hunt him down by smell, but obviously that’s not going to happen
anymore. And I won’t sit around on my duff while he’s got Rocky.”

“Wait a minute,” Aaron said. “You don’t mean
Trey
, do you? Trey Black?”

I nodded. “You bet your sweet bippy I do.”

“Trey Black is the murderous werewolf? No way.” He shook his head. “He buys all his papers off the Internet. He’s not the mad scientist type.”

“He’s Sebastian’s brother. Sebastian is the mad scientist; Trey took the bots from him. He has some delusions of werewolf supremacy.”

“Ah.” He considered this. “Okay. So why not let the cops handle this? Despain will listen to you.”

“Probably, but I’m pretty sure the rest of the cops would think I was batcrap crazy if I sent them werewolf hunting. Trey could kill somebody before they decide to believe us. Or he’ll die. The human body just isn’t meant to operate at that metabolic level.” I swallowed. “I’d rather cure him now and defend my actions later.”

Aaron sighed. “So what’s the plan, then?”

“Finding him is going to be the hard part. You don’t have any idea where he could be hiding, do you?”

“No clue. Why don’t I call him?”

I hadn’t even thought to try calling him. Apparently, I was one of those genius savants who can calculate square roots in their head but can’t function in the real world. It explained a lot.

“Hey, dude,” Aaron said. “What’s up?” His cell volume was
turned down low, so I couldn’t hear Trey’s response no matter how hard I strained. “I was thinking maybe we could lift today. You game?” He listened some more, and then his face changed, his lips tightening into an angry line. “All right. I understand. I’ll be there.” He hung up.

“So?” I prompted.

His voice was ragged. “He wants me to join the pack. Says I can’t resist now that he recruited my girlfriend. And if I don’t show, he’s going to hurt Rocky.”

He stood and paced, his hands clenched so tightly into fists that the veins on the back stood out in stark relief against his skin.

“Where is he?” I asked softly.

“School.”

At first, I was relieved. It was late on a Friday night, football season was over, and basketball wasn’t until tomorrow night. The school would be a nice, empty place to stage our last stand without hurting any innocent bystanders.

And then I remembered. The Rockathon. The auditorium was full of volunteers, and the building would get even busier in an hour when the show choir performed. And they were all doing it because I’d asked them to.

“The Rockathon,” I said. “I bet Trey picked it on purpose. He knew it was my thing.”

“But how is that possible?” Aaron asked. “Bryan could barely put two words together at the end there, and Trey is perfectly lucid. It doesn’t make sense to me.”

“Bryan has had some significant strain on his metabolism. All that healing has to consume some major energy, and as far as we know, Trey hasn’t sustained that level of damage. And that’s why I kept my head as long as I did. If I’d waited any longer, my brain would have melted and dribbled out my ears.”

“That would have sucked.” He pulled me into a hug, speaking into my hair. “I need a plan, Kate. Tell me what to do so we can catch the bastard.”

So I did.

A
aron and I geared up for battle, and by that I mean we each took a bathroom break and grabbed a pseudosword. I already had the stun gun in my pocket. Just as we started walking toward the front door, it opened. My brother walked in, and I promptly clonked him on the head. I couldn’t help it; I was feeling a little trigger-happy.

“Hey!” he yelled, staggering backward and clapping a hand to his scalp.

“Jonah?” I am not usually one for fraternal affection, but I couldn’t help myself. I hugged him.

“I’m fine,” he said, patting my shoulder awkwardly. “Didn’t you read my note?”

“I’m so sorry, Kate,” Elle said, walking up behind us. “I took
the note off the door and I meant to give it to you, but I was distracted by … all the stuff. You know.”

“What happened? Are you okay? Where’s Despain?” I fired off the questions so fast that there was no way he could answer, but I couldn’t make myself stop.

“I regained consciousness just as you were leaving. Other than a headache, I’m fine. And she’s at Nanotech Industries trying to find out what the heck they know about this nanobot thing.” He paused. “Did I miss any questions?”

“No.” I shook my head. “Well, we’re en route to kick Trey’s ass. You want to come?”

“Heck to the yeah!” Jonah said, sounding geekier than ever. He pumped his fist when he said it too. Lame.

Elle didn’t seem to think so, though. She sidled up to him and tossed her hair. “I don’t think we’ve met. I’m Elle.”

He nearly piddled. “Um. Hi. I’m Jonah.”

“Come back safe, okay?”

She stood on her tiptoes and kissed him on the cheek. I wondered if she’d find him so attractive after she learned that in order to date him, she’d have to change her name to Firestorm and join his harem.

He blushed and muttered something. I had to get out of there before I puked.

“Let’s kick some werebutt,” I said. It sounded a lot better in my head.

*

We took Aaron’s car back to the school because it was the only one that was undamaged. There was a neon pink Post-it stuck to the dashboard. Elle had that round balloon handwriting that screams, “I’m chipper! I’m perky! I have the IQ of a walnut!” She’d given him her cell number, her home number, and two email addresses. It was totally unsurprising to me that she dotted her I’s with hearts. I tore it off the dash, ripped it into little pieces, and threw it out the window. Aaron smiled at me and held my hand the rest of the way there.

The parking lot was overflowing. I was torn between feeling pride that the Epilepsy Foundation would get lots of cash because of an event that I’d established and being afraid that half the student body would get killed in the process. So I started running through our weaponry to distract myself. I had my stun gun. Jonah had a pseudosword, and Aaron had a really cute butt. Not that his butt would be useful in de-botting Trey, but it’s always good to have a full catalog of your strengths before going into battle.

“All right, guys,” I said quietly. “Jonah, I want you to find Kiki and get her to quietly start pulling people out of the building. Emphasis on quiet, please? We don’t want to tip Trey off.”

As I expected, he nodded emphatically. Kiki would always be his dream woman, especially since she’d taken him to homecoming. I was pretty sure nothing had happened between them, but pretty sure wasn’t all the way sure, and the only thing she would tell me was that my brother was really sweet.

“Aaron, watch my back?” I squeezed his hand and then let go.

“No way.” His jaw set in what I was learning to recognize as his stubborn look. “I’m going first.”

“But—”

“Please.” He got out and stared me down over the hood. “If you won’t agree, then we’re not letting you go in there at all.”

“Yeah,” Jonah chimed in. “What he said.”

I let out a long, slow breath. “Okay. If that’s what you want.” But I didn’t say what I was thinking, which was that the back entrance wasn’t any safer than the front. If Trey had inducted more werewolves into his so-called pack, we might have a problem.

As a precaution, I borrowed Aaron’s cell and left Despain a voice mail telling her where we were and what we were doing there. If we disappeared, she’d know what to do.

There was only one set of doors that served the student parking. One of the doors in the middle was propped open. That made me nervous. It was the kind of bottleneck that would make for an ideal attack point. And once again, my grasp of battle tactics surprised me.

Well, I wasn’t going to fall into that trap. I pointed toward the open door and shook my head.

“What?” Jonah asked in a too-loud voice.

“Shhhhh!” I hissed. “Try the one on the end.”

At least Aaron figured out what I was trying to say. He bypassed the open and inviting door and grabbed the handle of the one farthest to the side. I followed him inside holding the stun gun loosely in one hand. Aaron and Jonah fanned out to either side of me, pseudoswords at the ready.

“I’ll go find Kiki,” Jonah said.

I nodded, looking down the hall toward the auditorium. A cluster of students stood outside the doors, but I didn’t see Kiki. She was probably off somewhere plotting my death because I’d left her high and dry with the Rockathon. Hopefully she’d understand that I’d had to go on a mission of werewolf extermination.