Beneath the Neon Moon (5 page)

Horror wrapped in some sort of macabre humor squeezed its way up into Zach's throat. He swallowed it back, trying his best not to open his mouth and blow everything.

"Why do you do that? Take the blame for what's happening? They kidnapped us. You didn't do anything. You don't even know them. I'm the one who went with them last night."

Mal pulled back, eyes narrowing, studying him. "Did they tell you anything?"

"I'd have told you. Now stop staring at me and let me look at your ankle. You know I'm not thrilled with this nursemaid duty shit, so stop doing this crap to yourself."

"No, I don't know that. That's all you've been doing, clucking over me."

"Fuck you, I don't fucking cluck," Zach grumbled, hiding a smile when Mal snorted. "Grab the water jug. Ordinarily I wouldn't think this needs saying, but after what I just saw—stay close, okay? No more pulling. I don't ever want to see shit like that again."

"I didn't think you talked a lot. Guess I was wrong."

"You aren't wrong. I just talk to you more."

"Why? You just talk more when you're nervous?"

"Is there something to be nervous about?" Zach said wryly. "Stop with the twenty questions. I know you're hurting like hell. Shut up and let me see the damned leg."

Mal threw him an irritated look and muttered something under his breath. Zach ignored him. They both settled on the packed dirt, side by side. Zach pushed Mal's jean leg up and examined his ankle.

It was hard to make anything out because the white light from the window made the shadows black. Even after his vision adjusted, he couldn't tell anything because of all the blood. He poured water over Mal's ankle and saw multiple gouges shredding the flesh, skin swelling grotesquely tight around the chain. Blood welled in the cuts again as Zach watched. But for some reason it was the blood, dark and thick against Mal's dingy white sneaker, that affected him the most.

This wasn't supposed to be happening to Mal. Zach understood the shit that happened to guys like him, but Mal had family. He was going to college. He was smart and funny, sarcastic and goofy and generous. He was supposed to lead the good life.   

Zach finally gathered the courage to look at Mal's arm. Stared at it. Didn't touch it. The wound there had shrunk, the area in the center rough and reddened but no longer raw.

Mal had been bitten less than twenty-four hours ago on campus. Not by a dog. By a wolf.

Zach's fingers shook. His fingers rubbed compulsively at the blood on the sneaker, smearing it. Thinking. They'd told him the truth upstairs. Even some details.

The first change always came with the waning moon. Chaining the whelps was a ritual that the pack followed whenever possible. The chains provoked their anger and accelerated the change, with the first prey there for the taking. 

It all sounded crazy, easy to deny, but a part of him had believed from the minute they'd told him. And here was proof, or something near enough. Mal's arm would be completely healed in another twenty-four hours.

He didn't know what to do. People wore their humanity like a coat of armor as if it guaranteed rationality, civility, but he'd seen plenty of monsters beneath the facade. Even his father. Especially his father. Zach barely knew Mal, but he trusted himself, his instincts. He believed with everything in him that Mal wasn't a monster, that it would kill him to become one.

"Damn." Mal frowned, held up his uninjured arm. A small brown spider huddled just inside the crook of his elbow. He squashed it between the fingers of his left hand and held them up, absorbed by the blood spot. "It bit me. I barely felt it." He looked at Zach, tried to smile. "Think it was radioactive?" He stared down at his hands, thinking. "I smell them on you," he said softy. "God, I wish I didn't. It makes me crazy. I'm—something's happening to me."

Zach poured more water over Mal's ankle. Blood threaded and twisted in the water trickling to the earthen floor. He pulled the leg of Mal's jeans back over his leg, then sat back on his haunches and look at him. "Tell me. What is it, Mal?"

Mal ran a restless hand through his hair. "I'm—I'm
wired
. Like I took a hit of speed or something. My skin's crawling, too. Jumping, like there's something in under it. Makes me want to scratch it out. And my senses have gone haywire. Even the air tastes, fuck, I don't know how to describe it—
fresher
since they opened the cellar door. Lighter. More life to it when it moves over my tongue. And I'm thinking crazy things." He swiped a forearm over his face. "Shit, this isn't making any sense."

"What crazy things?"

Mal faced him, eyes wide. He looked torn and guilty and very young. "Doesn't matter." He hesitated. "I heard you upstairs. You and them."

"Well, yeah. I hear them moving around sometimes."

"I heard more. I heard you
with
them. Mostly like ... a murmur, low and indistinct, so that I couldn't make it out. And movement. Like I could hear the energy of it, or sense it. But there was this big hole, this silence from you. You weren't making noises like they were. Like you were gone, or dead, but I knew you weren't. That's when I knew they hurt you. I wanted to kill them." He clenched his fists. "Want."

Zach looked away. "They didn't hurt me. It doesn't matter, okay."

"It does. I would have stopped them if I could."

"Listen to me. Don't let whatever this is take you over, Mal. Don't let it make you do things you don't want. Look at me." Zach put a hand on Mal's arm. His skin was scorching. "So okay, something's changing in you, but you need to remember what's important. This crazy stuff in your head isn't you."

Mal climbed to his knees again and put some distance between himself and Zach. The chain lifted off the floor and hung in a curve between them.

 "Cut it out." Zach moved closer again.

"Don't. Move back." Mal's voice was rough.

"Why?"

"I don't want to—just move back."

"You know I didn't want to be with them," Zach said softly. He raised himself on his knees at an angle in front of Mal.

"I know." Mal looked down miserably, hair hiding his face.

Zach leaned forward, raised a hand to Mal's shoulder and rubbed, firm muscle beneath his hand, then touched his face and felt the hard, high curve of cheekbone beneath skin. "C'mon, Mal. Look at me."

Mal raised his head slowly. His skin was so hot. Zach rubbed it, felt stubble beneath his hand. This close, he could see a freckle by Mal's nose, saw the dark pinpricks of stubble, the dryness of his lips. Zach leaned closer and brushed his mouth over Mal's. It was electric.

Mal leaned back, breaking contact, chest heaving. "Stop."

"I didn't want them. I want you."

Mal stared at him. "If you say it, if you tell me that, I don't know if I can stop."

"I don't want you to stop."

"Aren't you listening? Something's wrong with me. It's getting worse. I might—fuck, I might do something."

"Do what? Can you fight it?"

Mal didn't answer.

"Don't you want—"

Mal's gaze settled on Zach's mouth, his eyes heated and dark. "You fucking know I do. It's burning me up but I can't."

"Didn't want them. Want you."

"Fuck—" Mal cursed, deep and jagged. "No."

"I don't want you to say no to me. I'm not afraid of you," Zach breathed, leaning in, touching his mouth to Mal's again. Mal made a sound, something wretched and wanting, and his body pushed closer, heat and want pulsing from him so strongly it felt like something physical.

Mal pulled away. "I might hurt you, okay? I might hurt you." 

"You wouldn't, Mal. Not me." Zach's body curved into Mal's as he leaned close and whispered in Mal's ear. "I want you to get their smell off me." He kissed him again, pressure light. Asking. Mal opened his mouth against him, slowly, as if he were still trying not to, and Zach pushed a little closer, the kiss deepening. His hand cupped Mal's arm, moving down, feeling the swell of muscle beneath skin, soft hairs brushing over his palm.

Mal put a hand to the small of Zach's back and pushed his thumb against his spine, rubbing back and forth, moving slowly upwards. Zach shivered. Mal gripped the back of his neck, forcing him to look Mal in the eye. "You don't know. It's bad, it's fucking insane. I'm losing my mind." His voice broke.

Zach couldn't move away from the vise around his neck if he tried. "No you're not," he whispered. "Being with me, that's what you want, that's nothing but you."

Mal's grip loosened. Zach moved so that his body touched Mal's from shoulder to knee, long line of heat. He breathed against Mal's exposed neck, mouth lowering. Felt the tension there in bone and muscle. Flicked the skin with his tongue and tasted salt. He sucked a bruise there, then bit down.

Mal stopped breathing. Everything seemed to stand still when he turned and looked at Zach, eyes too slanted, pupils too wide, black, something savage in his face, the bones gone sharper, leaner. He gripped Zach's head in his hands and slammed his mouth onto Zach's, pushing inside with his tongue. Zach's breath damned up somewhere in his windpipe, felt only the need and heat beating into him from Mal's mouth. He pushed back and their teeth clicked together. His lip stung. Blood.

Mal made a sound in his throat, desperate, choked, licking the blood from Zach's mouth, the sound going continuous, low and vibrating in his chest, sinking into Zach. Somehow they were on the ground, Mal looming, heavy over him. For a minute fear competed with arousal, then mixed together uneasily. Zach grabbed at Mal's belt buckle, got distracted by the skin beneath, thumb tracing over it, feeling the line of hair from his bellybutton down. He followed it, smooth skin, muscles bunching under his touch.

He felt Mal's strangled intake of breath and the fear receded, leaving a confusion of sheer physical want coupled with a desperate need to make both of them forget this fucking black cellar they were trapped in, swallowing them alive. He jerked his hips up, sheer reaction, feeling Mal's cock hard against his, both of them straining, rubbing mindlessly together, needing more.

Zach's hand pushed in between them, rubbed the hard ridge of Mal's dick from the outside of his jeans. Mal grunted and grabbed his hand again, pulling it back to his waist. Zach fumbled at the belt, cursing, and Mal's hand shoved his aside, thumbing the button open, unzipping, grasping Zach's hand again and thrusting it inside.

Zach pushed further in and wrapped fingers around the head of Mal's cock, swollen and slick with precome. Zach closed his eyes and rubbed his fingers in the slick wetness, spreading it. Mal arched, breath hissing between his teeth while Zach's fingers traced over Mal's cock, felt the swollen veins, the thickness of him. He wrapped his hand around him at the base. He felt so good, big and hard and perfect beneath his fist.

Zach stroked up hard and rough, rolling his grip a little when the smooth head of Mal's cock caught beneath the circle of his fingers, then repeated the motion just to feel it again, the slickness of the ridge riding under his wet hand. Mal made a keening sound in his throat, straining into his touch, his whole body shaking.

Zach pushed at Mal, wanting him to lie on his side. Mal rolled over and Zach followed, both of them facing each other, leaning in to kiss again, open-mouthed and urgent. Mal's tongue curled over Zach's, then pushed further inside. His hand came up to Zach's waist, quickly unbuttoned his pants and slid down, grabbed his dick. Zach yelled and took a shaky breath, trying not to lose it. His cock throbbed, unbearably sensitized, threatening to come at that first touch.

As if he sensed it Mal released him, dick slapping up hard against Zach's stomach. Mal encircled his balls in a loose grip and then pushed a finger behind them, rubbing over the thin skin there. Mal breathed into the shell of Zach's ear, murmured, "Want to fuck you so much, Zach," and kissed him again, lips slippery and swollen.

"God," Zach groaned, couldn't help himself, spreading his legs wider, the teeth of his zipper pressing sharp into his skin as the material pulled tighter over his hips. Mal's hand was around Zach's cock again, and Zach put a hand over his, made him stop moving. Mal's lips curved over his in response.

"You're coming first, fucker," Zach murmured against Mal's open mouth and bit him, this time the tender skin of his lower lip, teeth sinking in slow and hard. He jacked Mal quick and rough, felt him throbbing, felt his cock tighten and harden even more. Mal cursed, stiffening, his heels scrabbling in the dirt, cock jerking a bare instant later in Zach's hand. Zach held his breath, felt the strong pulsing of Mal's cock, the low moan vibrating against mouth as they kissed, Mal spilling wet and hot into his hand.

It sent him over the edge. Zach closed his eyes, coming helplessly into Mal's grip, the remnants of fear and a need he could barely face combining into a sharp, brutal climax that broke him apart, had him yelling, jamming his mouth against Mal's shoulder to block the sounds he made.

When he opened his eyes again, Mal was watching him. Zach couldn't tear his eyes away. He opened his mouth, not sure his voice would work just yet. "What?"

"You're beautiful, you know that?" Mal said quietly.

Zach's instinct was to deflect it, make a joke, but he looked at Mal and the words died. He squeezed Mal's hand, hoping it was enough.

He drifted, jerking awake only when Mal spoke, hushed and close to his ear. "Think we can spare enough water to wash up a little? Let me rephrase that. I don't care if we do or not, I'm not lying here with jizz in my pants."

Zach cracked open an eye, grinning when he caught the look of faint distaste on Mal's face. They cleaned up best they could and then lay back down, arms and legs tangling slow and sleepy as they shifted together, trying to get comfortable.

Zach's eyes closed. He felt Mal's lips against his and he kissed back sleepily, their mouths moving lazy and warm against each other for awhile. Gradually they fell still.

Zach fell asleep first, breathing slow and deep, dreaming of summer and crushed mimosa blossoms melting under his feet like spun sugar, of air so humid it felt like a warm, wet sheet wrapped around his body.