Kissed By Moonlight (30 page)

"Why... Why am I chained down?" Adam said, looking at the thick steel manacles on his wrists and ankles.

Vick grabbed fistfuls of his hair and squeezed. Then he pounded against the door again. When his father didn't let us out, he came over to me, kneeling beside Adam.

"Let's get him out of these chains," Adam said, reaching for the little metal pegs holding the manacles in place.

Something metallic flew between the bars in the door and clattered sharply against the floor. Vick turned at the sound, rushed over, and picked it up.

I
t was a knife. A silver-bladed knife. I watched the light reflect from the precious metal.

"I'm not killing him, dad! I'm setting him free!" Vick said, flinging the knife away.

"You don't have a choice, Victor. Either he dies, or he kills you and the girl. Make the right choice, son."

"What is he talking about?" I said, struggling to pull out the metal pin in the manacle holding his right arm down. It was really jammed in there.

There was a sharp noise from the skylight. Instinctively, I recoiled back as something flashed by my face. My eyes scrunched shut.

Adam screamed.

Chapter 45

When I opened my eyes again, he arched his back high in the air. Two electrodes from a
taser had buried themselves in his chest and stomach. The current hummed through them, into his body.

It let up for a moment and his body relaxed. I reached for him, but then the
y gave him another jolt.

Vick ran over and yanked the electrodes out. There was blood on the barbs, and dark spots formed on his shirt where those little steel claws dug in.

Tears leaked out of his and down his cheeks.

"Stop it!" I screamed at the silhouettes in the skylight looking down at us. The leads from the
taser led up to one of them, and I thought I could just make out the evil little device in the person's hand.

"
Steph... I... I can't hold it back. You need to get out," Adam said.

At first, I was so shocked (I hate using that word to describe my feelings, but it fits better than any other) that I didn't grasp his meaning.

I knelt down beside him, holding his face in my hands, wiping his tears away with my thumbs. He squeezed his eyes shut.

"
It's okay, Adam. We're getting out."

"You have to... go!" he said.

When his eyes opened, they were yellow. He'd lost control. His body already trembled, the chains rattling on the floor, as it changed.

I held his face, putting mine close to his.

"No! You can stop it. Listen to my voice, Adam, use it. Follow my voice, let it lead you out of that place," I said, repeating myself to him.

From the corner of my eye, I noticed Vick pick up the knife. I couldn't say anything, though. I had to save all my words for Adam.

At first, I thought I was helping. Then he arched his back again so hard that he held his body up with his heels and the back of his head.

He howled in rage and desperation, unable to contain it. I wanted to move back to his side, but the hot fear coursing through my body balked at that command.

He was going to transform with us in the room, and Vick's father had locked the door.

Something tore, the noise setting my teeth on edge. At first, I thought it was Adam's flesh. It wasn't; the arms of his jacket had split off from the rest of it as his shoulders expanded.

The next was his shirt, splitting open to show his bare stomach and chest. His ribs shifted under his skin, cracking and bending into a new shape. I closed my eyes, but the sound of it churned my stomach almost as bad as the sight.

I backed up until I hit the wall. Clutching at myself, I watched him.

It was as fascinating as it was awful. The proverbial train-wreck people couldn't tear their eyes from. His nose and mouth elongated, forming a snout even as long, cruel fangs jutted out from under his still-human lips.

His eyes
were the worst, though. He kept looking at me. I knew what he wanted. He wanted to scream at me to run, to get out of there. But I guess he no longer had the correct anatomy to talk anymore.

Thick black fur began sprouting all over his body even as his shirt ripped farther and his jeans split up. It erupted from his skin, covering him.

The steel bolts holding the chains to the floor shuddered as he wrenched at his bonds. They wouldn't hold, I knew. They weren't designed to hold.

Vick shifted the silver knife so that he held it with the point facing the floor. He wrapped both hands around the handle. His eyes were wide with fear and confusion as he looked up at me, and down at Adam. It wouldn't be long until Adam was fully transformed and strong enough to break free from his bonds.

"Kill him, Victor. Now, before he has a chance to kill you!" Vick's father yelled in.

Vick looked at the window, then at me.

"No, don't. You can't," I said.

"He'll kill us, Stephanie!" Vick said
, his fingers shifting on the knife handle.

"Adam won't hurt us!" I said. I could hear the terror in my voice.

"He won't be Adam much longer! He'd want us to do it. You know he would!"

Vick started walking towards Adam's writhing, groaning form. Adam's voice had changed into a deep, feral growl. When he saw Vick, he strained against the manacles. The bolts all came an inch out of the floor.

Vick went to one knee beside Adam and lifted the knife up high so that the sunlight caught on the blade.

Before I could give myself the chance to think about it, I rushed forward. I jumped over Adam. Vick threw an arm out reflexively, wrapping it around me as my inertia carried us both to the floor. I heard the knife clatter out of his grip.

"Get off of me, Stephanie! There's nothing we can do, now. We have to kill him before he breaks free!" Vick said, his lips inches from my ear as he spoke.

I couldn't hold him down for very long. He pushed me off, sending me rolling across the floor to stop against the wall.

I rolled onto my stomach and started pushing myself up when an awful, sharp cracking sound filled the room. At first, I thought someone had fired a gun down at us.

Then I saw that Adam had fully changed. The noise was him tearing the manacles from the floor. He stood on two legs, his arms ending in hands with wicked claws on each finger.

He still had a few shreds of his shirt and jeans clinging to his body.

His chest and shoulders were thick were muscle and fur, and his lips pulled back to reveal the fangs lining his long snout.

His body heaved as he breathed, taking in his first lungful of air as the monster.

Then he looked at me.

I shrank back against the wall, my body trying to make itself as small and unthreatening as possible even as cold fear ran through my veins instead of blood.

For a moment, our eyes met.

"Adam..." I said.

He growled at me, pulling his lips all the way back. It was a primal sound, rumbling deep in his chest. He hunched low, and I realized he was going to launch himself at me.

Chapter 46

"No!"

It was Vick!

He'd snatched the knife up from the floor. Jumping through the air, he landed on Adam's back and slammed the point of the blade into his shoulder.

Adam roared in agony even as I screamed. I clawed at my face, trying to make my fingers cover my eyes, but they wouldn't. I had to watch; I couldn't stop.

Vick jerked the knife free and stabbed Adam again. Dark red blood already poured from the first wound, matting the thick fur.

The pain in Adam's cries was like an invisible hand clenching around my heart and stomach.

Then Adam managed to grab Vick's wrist as he brought the knife down for another attack. It was Vick's turn to cry out in pain as Adam flung him off his body like a ragdoll.

There was a crunch as Vick hit the wall beside me. He fell down in a heap like he didn't have any bones, the knife dropping from nerveless fingers.

"Vick..." I said.

I couldn't even tell if he was breathing. I knelt down beside him, and he moaned.

I breathed. He was still alive! And the knife was there, within my reach. Only a
few flecks of silver shined in the sunlight; most of the blade was dark with Adam's blood.

I could feel Adam watching me. My hand shrank back from the knife.

This just couldn't be the end. It couldn't. There was something different about him. I knew I'd seen him still in there, somewhere, when we locked eyes before Vick tried to save me.

"Pick up the knife! Kill him!" someone screamed at me. I recognized it dimly as the voice of Vick's father.

"No..." I said, "No!"

Adam stood in the middle of the room. Blood pumped from the stab wounds in his chest and shoulder. They were all over the left side of his body. I saw then that Vick had been trying for Adam's heart, looking to pierce it with that silver knife.

He growled at me again.

"Adam, it's me, Stephanie. You know me, don't you?" I said.

I kicked the knife away. His sharp yellow eyes followed the blade as it skittered across the floor to the other side of the room. As soon as it stopped, he brought his attention back to me.

I was so scared I thought I was going to throw up. My stomach kept heaving. It was a race between my heart and my stomach to see which would manage to leave through my throat first.

Adam hadn't hurt Jenn. They'd both been outside at the same time that night. And he'd been the werewolf, then. They were both on the campus. He probably even saw her, or scented her. And he hadn't done anything.

There could have been a million reasons he hadn't done anything. I chose to believe--I had to believe--that it had been a conscious choice on his part. He didn't hurt her, because he didn't want to hurt her.

I had to trust myself. I had to trust him.

I took a step towards him. "Listen to me, Adam. I know you're in there. You know the sound of my voice..."

He watched me with suspicion as I approached him. His nostrils kept flaring, and I knew he could smell my fear.

It was something I had to face down. At that moment, it was a choice between feeling the fear and going through with it anyway, and being mauled to death.

"You know me, don't you?"

I was right in front of him. He was so much taller as the monster. Looking up at him, I got an awfully good look at just how white his fangs were. They gleamed in the light.

"I know you're in there, Adam," I said. I hoped repeating his name so much was getting through to him, forcing him to remember who he was. And who I was.

Blood still pumped from all the stab wounds. That had to hurt so much.

"What are you doing? Get up! Kill it!"

"Shut up!" I said.

"Dad..." it was Vick. I could hear him behind me, struggling to get up. I had until he managed to get over to the other side of the room for the knife to make this work. If I didn't, either Adam would be dead in the next few minutes, or Vick and I.

Vick's father was really pissing me off. Couldn't he see what was happening?

My outburst spooked Adam, who crouched low and looked around, growling. I was losing him again.

"It's okay! Look at me, Adam, look at me!"

That deep, chesty growl emanated out of him again.

"Look at me!" I said.

He did. Our eyes met, and I could see Adam in there, behind all that ferocity and rage. He was confused and hurting.

I reached for him. He shied back from my hand, growling like the wounded animal he was.

"I won't hurt you, Adam. I'd never hurt you..."

That lie hurt me more than I thought. Adam was here because of me. I was an integral part of the trap that let Vick capture and bring him here.

Well, I was going to solve my own problems for once.

"It's okay... It's okay..."

I put my hand on his chest. His heartbeat was powerful, pounding against my palm. And he was so very warm. He sighed at the touch, his eyelids sagging with relief. I could feel the tension leaking out of him.

He leaned forward and rested his head against my stomach. Something hot and wet started trickling down my cheeks. I touched my face and my fingertips came away glistening with tears. They were tears of relief, though, coming down from all that fear and tension.

I hugged my arms around Adam's neck. His breath was hot against me, and he made deep, contented noises as the air rushed in and out of him.

"You see?" I said, looking at Vick.

Vick, who'd made it to the other side of the room. He gripped the knife in one hand, his other arm holding his ribs. I knew he was hurt, too, but at least he was still alive.

"You see?" I said, looking up at the skylight and the watchers, then through the bars in the window.