Dirty Blood (15 page)

“I’ll be inside,” Fee called, obviously confused but
unwilling to intervene.

I managed a wave and then had to turn to keep from
tripping over leaves and dead branches. Wes led me back into the
yard and around the side of the house.

“What are you doing?” I demanded, jerking my elbow
free of his grasp and taking a step back.

“Saving you.”

“From what? There was no danger.”

“From yourself. I could see the look in your eyes
when you were talking to Fee.”

“What look in my eyes?”

“The look that said you want to hear more, maybe even
get involved somehow. But that’s not going to happen. This is way
more dangerous than what it looks like out in front of a big pretty
fire. It’s not for you.”

I crossed my arms. “You’re just trying to scare me.
Besides, it’s not up to you.”

His eyes widened, and his voice grew louder. “Trying
to scare you? Are you serious? If anything, I haven’t scared you
enough. I’ve sugar coated it or not been honest enough. I’ve been
trying to protect you, keep you out of it. But apparently, you’re
too stubborn to be grateful for that.”

“Apparently,” I agreed through clenched teeth.

His glare sharpened, and he actually bared his teeth
at me. I could see his temper boiling but I didn’t care right now.
I had a temper of my own, just as big, to go with it, and I wasn’t
going to sit on it just because he was a good kisser. Okay, a great
kisser.

“Fine,” he said. “Then here’s the truth. We spend
most of our time doing one of two things: sitting for hours,
staking out a Werewolf or Hunter, so we can learn how best to kill
them, or actually killing them. It’s a war, plain and simple. One
that you’ve only made worse by what you did to Liliana.”

I blanched. I felt my temper flare, like the fire
we’d just left behind. “What I did? She attacked me,” I shrieked,
letting my voice rise to drown out his.

He crossed his arms, apparently satisfied that he’d
gotten to me. “Doesn’t change the fact that we have to do damage
control.”

“Look, I get that you’re mad. I killed your little
girlfriend, mistress, whatever she was. But I didn’t start it. So
whatever damage control you’ve got is because of her, not me.
Probably whoever she was holed up with, in that motel, is who is
after me now.”

Wes’ eyes widened in genuine surprise, momentarily
drowning out the anger. “Liliana wasn’t – we weren’t together.”

“But you said-”

“I said we were working on something… for The
Cause…?” He trailed off like he was waiting for me to finally get
it.

“Oh.” I did feel stupid then, for not figuring out
that connection sooner, but I was mad now, and I wasn’t about to
let him win. “Well, how was I supposed to know that? It’s not like
you made it clear. Just like everything else, you only told me half
the story.” I crossed my arms.

His eyes narrowed and when he spoke, his voice was
lower. Dangerously low, actually. I could see I’d gotten to him.
“What are you talking about?”

“Everything,” I said, with a sweep of my arm. “Like,
for starters, the fact that Sebastian St. John was your
father.”

“Oh.” His expression cleared, and he actually looked
relieved.

“Oh? That’s all you have to say?”

“I just thought-” He ran a hand through his hair and
exhaled. “Look, I tell you what you need to know, to be safe. There
are things you still don’t understand about The Cause. I get that
you would be drawn to something like this. Our group, the idea of
it; it probably seems exciting and noble. But it’s also dangerous
and bloody and violent. People don’t always want to listen to
reason and some of them don’t even want to talk to begin with. They
figure out what message you’re spewing, and they attack you twice
as hard. That’s not exciting or noble, and it’s not something you
can just jump into, with no experience.”

“I get that. But you can’t keep trying to push me out
of it all, either. I’m a part of this world too, apparently. And I
have to figure out for myself where and how I fit into it all. And
I can’t do that if the one person who has promised to help me is
keeping secrets or always ordering me around.”

“Fine. I won’t order you, but I will insist, at least
for now, that you do what you can to protect yourself and stay out
of danger. Which means, staying on the sidelines of our little
group.”

“Whatever,” I mumbled, with absolutely no intention
of heeding his wishes. It wasn’t that I’d already decided to join,
or anything, but I didn’t like being told I couldn’t, either.

“And since you don’t have the ability to protect
yourself, I’m going to also insist on guarding you, like we
discussed at the meeting.” His eyes flashed, challenging me to
argue with him.

Suddenly, the idea of him spending every waking hour
with me didn’t sound so good. Especially if he was just going to
act like my mother the entire time, lecturing and telling me what I
could and couldn’t do. “I managed just fine with Liliana.”

“And what about next time? Metal piping going to
become your weapon of choice?”

His tone was mocking and meant to make me feel like
an idiot, but I was too angry to give in. I didn’t need him. I
could handle myself. Probably.

“Next time I’ll be ready,” I shot back. “I have
weapons. See.” In a swift move, I reached behind me and yanked out
the plunger handles, angling them downward in my palm, in what I
hoped was a stance that made me look battle ready.

Wes’ eyes widened in surprise. I got a certain
satisfaction out of that. Then his eyes narrowed as he got a closer
look at my makeshift weapons. “Where the heck did you get
these?”

“I made them.”

“Out of what?” He was still staring at the splintered
ends, obviously trying to figure out what it had been before.

I hesitated, already regretting showing them to him.
Finally, I sighed. “A plunger.”

Wes bit down on his lip.

I glared at him. “Well, I had to protect myself
somehow,” I hissed. “Especially that first day. I had no idea where
you were taking me or how Jack and Fee would react to me.” I knew I
was rambling but I kept it up anyway, hoping the sound of my voice
would drown out the laugh I could see building in Wes. When I was
done, I shoved the wood pieces back in my pockets to get them out
of sight.

Wes snickered, and looked like he was trying to hold
in something louder. He managed to keep mostly quiet, probably from
the murderous look on my face. “Okay, so help me understand,” he
said, a little breathlessly. “You’ve actually been carrying these
around since last week?”

“Every day.”

“Wow. That’s actually kind of impressive in a
strange, disgusting, unexpected sort of way.”

“Whatever. Laugh it up. But I can protect
myself.”

Wes’ face turned red from the pressure of holding his
breath. Finally, it whooshed out of him, along with loud, knee
slapping laughter. I glared at him a second longer - wondering if
now might be a good time to test out the durability of my plunger
handles - and then abruptly turned on my heel and strode away.

~ 14 ~

In the end (after Wes stopped laughing), I had no
choice but let him agree to babysit me. Well, I could’ve said no,
but he would’ve done it anyway, and then I would feel like I had a
stalker or something. It was going to take a few hours for him to
help Jack switch the patrol schedule around. They were short handed
as it was. But Jack said they’d make it work and Wes had promised
to be here after school. Whether I liked it or not.

I stood in the kitchen eating a muffin while the car
warmed, and the windshield defrosted. Every morning, I made a
mental note to myself, to come out early and start the car, so it
would be warm and clear by the time I needed to leave. And every
morning, as soon as I drove away, I forgot the note to self. It was
a vicious cycle, and now I was running late.

Luckily, though, the roads were clear; no
precipitation to go with the cold. It snowed in Frederick Falls
only about three or four times a winter; usually the last good
covering happened at the end of February, or beginning of March.
Just when you thought spring might have sprung, a snowstorm would
blow through and crush that dream underneath six inches of powdery
white. I figured we were due for that anytime, but for now, it was
clear.

I took the back roads to avoid traffic, and police,
and sped my way to school. Screeching into a space, I slammed my
car door and hurried towards the side entrance before the final
bell made me officially late. Once inside, I skipped my locker and
began weaving in and out of bodies. There was still time to avoid
the tardy bell – and hopefully George.

He’d texted me last night, more than once, to remind
me that he wasn’t giving up on “us”. The last one had come at one
in the morning. And even though sleep eluded me, it had nothing to
do with our breakup, so I hadn’t responded to any of his attempts,
and I had a feeling there’d be even more of them today. I felt kind
of guilty that I’d given so little thought to the relationship
ending. The truth was I really did care about George. We’d known
each other forever and had a lot of shared history and what you
might call growing pains, but none of that made up for his behavior
these past few months, or the way he’d become totally engrossed in
himself. And none of that was enough to hold my attention when you
compared it with the double life I was now leading. Or the kiss.
Dang that had been a good kiss. I’d never felt like that when
George kissed me, not once. I’d never even known it existed, that
kind of heat. Now that I did, I wasn’t sure if I could go back to
‘comfortable’ and ‘nice’. Because what I felt for Wes couldn’t be
described as either of those things.

I dodged a group of kids huddled outside my English
classroom, waiting until the very last second to dart into their
assigned class, and managed to slide into my seat with a total of
three seconds to spare. I peeled my jacket off and shook out my
still damp hair.

“Seriously?” Came a shrill voice from directly beside
me.

I glanced over and then away again in disgust.
“Cindy,” I muttered.

“Keep your slimy hair in your own space,” she
snarled.

I rolled my eyes and did my best to ignore her. It
helped that I was now very aware that with one punch, I could
probably knock her nose a few inches further into her face. It
helped a lot.

Mr. Knowles walked in, just then, and began his
lecture, so any further comments were halted. It was probably a
good thing, too. I’d never been prone to fighting but the more I
thought about it – and the longer Cindy glared at me – the more
tempting it was to shut her up once and for all. The idea must’ve
plastered a pretty smug grin on my face because Cindy’s look of
disdain turned into a heated glare.

“What are you looking at, troll?” she hissed, when
Mr. Knowles turned his back to write on the white board.

My smile turned hard around the edges and I pulled my
lips back, baring my teeth at her in a way that reminded me of my
argument with Wes, and the way he’d basically snarled at me. I
wondered if it made me look as wolf-ish as it had him. “Cindy, I’m
getting seriously irritated with your snarky little comments. If I
were you, I’d shut it. Now. Before I ruin that slutty, charcoaled
eye shadow of yours with my fist.”

Cindy stared at me open-mouthed for a few seconds,
clearly in shock that I’d actually stood up to her. Up until now,
I’d mumbled retorts and exchanged dirty look for dirty look but
nothing like this. I watched her glance around, for witnesses, no
doubt. Plenty of people were staring. Okay, pretty much the whole
class was staring, but no one was willing to admit they were
listening; in other words, none of them came to Cindy’s aid.

Cindy looked back at me and snapped her jaw closed.
Her glare leveled into a wary stare but she didn’t offer a retort
of her own and finally turned back to the front of the room. I
could practically see her wheels turning, as she thought of new and
twisted ways to get back at me for telling her off.

I tried turning my attention back to Mr. Knowles, but
I couldn’t concentrate. The entire lecture went in one ear and out
the other. I couldn’t believe it. This was great. I’d never have to
deal with Cindy’s crap ever again. Or anyone else’s for that
matter. I could feel some of the other kids glancing over from time
to time, probably just as shocked as Cindy about what I’d said, but
I ignored them and spent the rest of class enjoying the fact that
Cindy didn’t so much as look at me after that. This Hunter thing
might just have its perks after all.

By the end of my next class, word had obviously
spread. Sam was waiting for me at my locker, tapping her foot
impatiently. Angela stood next to her, looking just as antsy.

“What the hell?” Sam demanded, as soon as I got close
enough in the sea of bodies. “I heard you went ape shit on Cindy in
English this morning.”

I grinned. I couldn’t help it. “Maybe.”

“How are you not suspended or something?” Angela put
in.

“Suspended? For what?” My smile disappeared, replaced
by confusion.

“You punched her in the face, in the middle of
class,” said Sam.

“What? No, I didn’t. I told her to shut her trap or
I’d replace her charcoal eye shadow with a black eye.”

“Damn. High school gossip does it again,” Sam
muttered. “Still,” she said, grinning, “That’s pretty badass. What
happened? Did you finally snap under the strain of her bad haircuts
and horrible fashion sense, or what?”

“I guess you could say that.”

The warning bell rang, and we all scattered to class.
I caught a glimpse of George rounding the far corner as I walked
away, and I increased my pace to keep him from catching up to me. I
really didn’t want to deal with that right now.