Six Moon Summer (13 page)

"Oh yeah! Are you taking AP chem next year?"

She stared at Teri. Rylie didn't want to make friendly conversation. She had seen Tyler date a half dozen girls, and none of them had lasted long. Teri wilted under her gaze.

“I'm going to get coffee," Tyler said, oblivious (as always) to the change in mood.

"I'll come with," Teri said, shooting a cold look at Rylie.

Rylie didn't understand why most other girls didn’t like her. She suspected her blonde hair and skinny physique was a contributing factor. A lot of her friends' past girlfriends had hated her for it.

The singer took the microphone and the band started to play. She barely listened. Rylie didn’t want to be at The South Den with Tyler and Teri, or anybody else, for that matter. She wished she could be with Seth instead. It scared her to think of him alone at camp with the werewolf. She wondered if Seth had friends that hated his girlfriends, too.

Tyler returned balancing several cups of coffee in his arms. He set one in front of Rylie and took a seat. Teri draped herself over him like a hungry octopus, and it was all Rylie could do to keep from rolling her eyes.

“It’s a mocha cappuccino,” he said. “Your favorite, right?”

She took a long drink. Her sense of taste had improved with her smell and she could make out all the subtle flavors of the coffee bean. They had roasted it an hour ago at most. Rylie let out a happy sigh. “This is amazing. I haven’t had any coffee all summer at camp.”

“You’ve been at camp, huh? Is it over already?” Tyler asked. She shook her head. “What are you doing back?”

“My dad died.”

His eyes widened. Teri’s hands flew over her mouth. “I’m so sorry!” she cried. “Are you okay? Maybe you should—”

She cut Teri off. “I’m fine.” Tyler looked incredulous, so Rylie repeated, “I’m
fine
. Don’t worry about it.” She wasn’t lying, not exactly. “Fine” may not have been the right word for how she felt, but Rylie didn’t know how else to describe the emptiness between her ribs.

Teri finished off the last half of her drink in one gulp. “Let’s get more,” she said, giving Tyler a significant look.

Mentioning dead family members was the perfect way to kill the mood for the rest of the night. Rylie tried to bring up some of her favorite movies that Tyler also enjoyed, but he was too distracted by Teri’s attempts to suck his face off to converse.

She tried to enjoy the music instead. Rylie liked Black Death, and they were even better performing a small venue. But she just couldn’t get comfortable. The walls of the coffee shop were too close. The ceiling was too low. The music was too loud. Why had Rylie gone to such a place?

Rylie gave up after three more songs. The wolf couldn’t stand it anymore.

“You know what? I’m going for a walk,” Rylie said, interrupting Teri and Tyler in the middle of their make-out session.

“I’m bored here. We’ll come too,” he said, grabbing Teri’s hand and pulling her along.

Rylie knew he wasn’t bored. He was worried about her. Tyler had always been way too sympathetic.

The crowd mobbed them as they left. Hands grabbed for their jackets and tickets, hoping to get into their empty spots. The bouncer pushed everyone back long enough so Rylie could squeeze through, and she ducked further down the underground street.

“Aren’t we going up to the surface?” Teri asked, clinging to Tyler’s arm.

“I thought I’d walk to the subway station from here,” Rylie said. The road underneath the bank building ran a few blocks and emerged right next to the train.

“I don’t think it’s safe.”

“It’ll be fine!” Tyler said. “You can just hold me if you’re scared, babe.” He winked at Rylie and pulled Teri closer with his arm around her waist.

“Tyler, please,” Teri complained.

Rylie groaned. This was even worse than sitting at home with Jessica.

Tyler and Teri followed her down the tunnel. It was marked by yellow lights near the roof every few yards, leaving large swaths of the road in darkness. Their footsteps echoed against the concrete walls. The further they got from The South Den, the louder every little movement became.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Tyler muttered to Rylie when Teri released him for a moment to stare anxiously around the tunnel.

Rylie responded by staring at him. What was she supposed to say? He didn’t look at her longer than a half second at a time, and she wondered if he had finally noticed her eyes.

"I don't want to scare you guys, but I think we're being followed," Teri whispered. Rylie glanced over her shoulder. Three formless men in bulky jackets were down near the curve in the tunnel. Their hoods were pulled over their heads. They could have been anyone.

When Rylie sped up, their followers sped up too. There was no mistaking their intentions. The men were trying to catch up like the werewolf had on the night she was attacked. Rylie, Teri, and Tyler were being hunted.

“They must have come from The South Den,” Rylie said. She surprised herself with how detached she sounded.

“They probably want to buy our tickets to the Black Death gig,” Tyler said.

Everyone knew that wasn’t true, but nobody had to say it. The word
muggers
hung unspoken in the air around them. Teri clung harder to Tyler’s arm.

They ducked down a side tunnel. It wouldn’t take them to the train station, but Rylie thought it might get them to the surface faster. The men rounded the turn not long after they did, speeding their pace.

The thrill of the hunt ran through Rylie, and she had to close her eyes to keep from falling over. She was suddenly so hungry.

"There's a police station three blocks down," Tyler whispered. "If we hurry..." Hurry? Ridiculous. Rylie wasn't going to run. She wasn't prey.

"You're following us!" she called, turning to face them. "Why? What do you want?"

"Stop it," hissed Tyler. Teri clung to his arm. "What are you doing? Are you trying to get us killed?"

Rylie saw a flash of silver and smelled the tang of gunpowder. One of them was armed. His words smelled like ammonia to her sensitive nose. “Give us your wallets and jewelry. Everything.”

The wolf grew still within her.

“Oh my God, oh my God,” Teri whimpered, starting to empty her pockets. Rylie didn’t move.

“Did you hear me? Money! Jewelry! Now!” he snapped. His friends flanked him. She didn’t smell any other weapons, so she knew they were only meant to be intimidating. The three had one firearm between them.

“Rylie,” Tyler said urgently while he set his cell phone on the ground.

The man with the gun moved forward to pick up what Teri and Tyler had dropped. The gun wavered.

“You too, blondie,” rasped the man on the right. He was trembling. The wolf smelled sickness on them, the kind of weakness and disease that came from drug abuse.

Rylie flared her nostrils and sniffed. The gun had been fired recently, but she didn’t smell fresh gunpowder. It wasn’t loaded. They were being mugged by a gun without bullets. Her lips pulled back to bare her teeth in what must have looked like an uncomfortable smile.

He shoved the gun against her forehead. “You want to die, kid?”

Teri wailed.

Rylie’s hand lashed out and her fingers raked down his gun arm. He shouted, dropping the gun.

Everyone was too shocked by her reaction to move. Rylie rammed her shoulder into his gut, shoving the mugger against the wall, and his head cracked against the concrete.

She jerked him back and flung him to the ground. The wolf pounced, pinning him beneath her knees. “Hungry,” Rylie murmured, and his eyes went wide.

Her fingers tightened on his throat. Meat. Fresh and hot. She could already imagine it spilling across the asphalt and steaming in the cool night air. She could imagine the tang of blood, the satisfying tear between her teeth.

Like the fawn.

She wavered above him, lip sliding down over her teeth.

“You’re crazy, bitch!” one of the other men shrieked. Their feet pounded as they fled.

The wolf registered the odor of feces—the man she pounced had soiled himself—but Rylie wasn’t listening to it anymore. What had she done? She attacked a man with a gun. She could have been shot.

He shoved her, and Rylie didn’t fight back. She sat down hard on the asphalt. The mugger scrambled to his feet and fled in the same direction as his friends.

“Are you guys okay?” Rylie asked, but Teri was pulling on Tyler’s arm.

“Let’s get out of here!” Teri urged.

Rylie turned to Tyler, hoping to find some kind of sympathy or gratefulness, but he looked just as pale and terrified as his new girlfriend. “What’s wrong? I saved you two from those guys. Why are you—?”

"Jesus Christ, what is wrong with you?" Tyler asked.

"She's a freak! Tyler, please—hurry!" There it was again: freak. The word made Rylie's hair stand on end.

They ran too, leaving her alone in the tunnel. She drew her knees to her chest and hugged them, burying her face against her legs.

Her shoulders began shaking, and before Rylie could stop herself, tears poured down her cheeks. Her entire body shuddered. All the stress and pressure of the summer flooded out of her at once. “Oh God,” she whispered into her arms.

Rylie was truly alone.

The grief struck her a moment later. She had been trying to block it out ever since Louise told her what happened to her dad, but it finally crashed into her.

He was dead. Rylie’s dad was really dead.

She wept. Her cries echoed down the tunnel and bounced back to her magnified a thousand times over, like the howl of wind through trees on the peak of the mountain.

Rylie sat in the tunnel until her tears turned into dry sobs and then into silent trembling.

There was nothing left in her an hour later.

Rylie took the train home, leaving Teri and Tyler’s valuables in the tunnel. Jessica was still awake when she entered the condo.

“Did you have fun?” she asked when Rylie passed her.

“Yes,” Rylie lied.

She locked the door to her bedroom and didn’t come out for a long time.

The funeral service wasn’t for three more days.

Earlier in the summer, Rylie would have leaped at the chance to come back to the city. She had missed the art galleries, the theaters, and the parks. Now she didn’t even want to leave her room.

Rylie hated to admit it, but she missed Gray Mountain. The big city park wasn’t the same. The trees were too far apart. The bushes were too manicured. The brook really was a brook instead of a broad river. It babbled over smooth, colorful rocks instead of roaring over cliffs and crashing into boulders.

The wolf in her didn’t think much of the park, either. Rylie couldn’t keep herself from growling at a pigeon when it landed near her. A mother with a stroller hurried past, shooting her looks out of the corner of her eye.

Freak
. She could almost hear Teri spitting the word at her.

Her room was like a cage, but it was better than the city.

Rylie avoided Jessica until the morning of the service. They had to ride to the cemetery together. They met at the car, and Jessica gave her a brief appraisal before getting in. “You look good,” she said.

“Thanks,” Rylie said, staring pointedly out the window.

“Has something changed? Are you wearing contacts now?”

“No.”

Her mom dropped the subject, and they went to the cemetery in silence.

The day was too sunny and windy to be properly mournful. Rylie stood by the grave while the pastor read his eulogy. He said that Rylie’s dad had been a wonderful influence in the community, and a loving family man, and something about ashes and dust and God. Rylie wondered what kind of terrible God would curse her and kill her dad in the same summer.