The Waking (The Upturned Hourglass) (16 page)

DEFIANCE
 

When Valie woke the next morning, her first thought was that she’d had the worst dream she could possibly have imagined. But when her surroundings came into better focus—the couch she was uncomfortably lying upon, her mass of tangled, frizzy hair and the residual numbness in her extremities—the reality of her situation struck home.

Luci walked into view, already dressed and ready for school. 
“Vaaaaal-ie. Pretty lady, you need to get up.”

Valie ignored the flattery and held up a tangled lock of hair.

“I’m not pretty,” Valie croaked—her voice gravelly from stress and lack of sleep.

Luci shook her head, displacing her glasses. “You are to me.  Now get up. My mom brought you some clothes. I’m not sure how wearing Jonathan’s boxer shorts and tee would go over at school.”

Valie smiled, but didn’t laugh. Luci placed the clothes next to her friend and exited, shutting the doors to the sitting room behind her. Luckily, Jonathan’s entire house was spacious; Valie didn’t feel like having a panic attack.

When she sat up, her core muscles throbbed—she’d never cried so much in her life. Plus, she felt like she was coming down with something.

Maybe wandering around in the wet, cold night
wasn’t
such a good idea
, she thought.

The events of yesterday crowded back into her consciousness. How she wished she could just fall sleep under this warm fuzzy blanket and never wake up.

“You decent?” Jonathan called through the door.

“Depends on your definition,” Valie grumbled, just loud enough for Jonathan to hear.  He opened the door.

“Hey,” he greeted hesitantly, and stuck his hands in his jacket pockets.

“Hey.”

“You don’t look so hot.”

“May I just say—
duh
.”

Jonathan smiled. “At least you have your
attitude
back. It’s better than last night.”

Valie shook her head at his lame attempt at lightening the mood.

“I just wanted to let you know that Luci and I have that field trip to IT today, but we’ll stay at school if you want us to. It’s no big deal.”

“No way.
You guys go on the field trip. I’d prefer to just go about the business of a nice normal boring school day. You guys hovering around and constantly checking up on me is not going to solve anything.”

“You sure?”

“Go.  Have fun.”

Jonathan looked skeptical, but assented. “Okay. But get ready quick. Mom gave me her car for the day. We’re at least giving you a ride to school.  It’s really cold outside this morning.

Valie waved him off and rose stiffly. “Fine. Give me a few minutes.”

“The shower’s open upstairs.”

After letting the hot water flow over her shoulders for several minutes, Valie felt
almost
human. A quick look in the mirror informed her that Alden’s blow to her face yesterday had left only a slight red mark. No one would notice.

“Ready,” Valie called wearily, as she descended the stairs. Luci waited cheerily in the entryway.

“Do you feel better?” she asked.

Valie nodded.
“Yeah.  I’ll be fine.” She forced a reassuring smile.

“We’ll work something out, okay?  Mom said you can stay over at my house after school today, if you’d like. When
Jonathan and I get back, we’ll figure it all out.”

“Okay. Okay. Come on. Let’s just go. We’ll talk later.”

Luci smiled. “All right. Jonathan is already warming up the car.”

The drive to school was spent in huddled silence. To accommodate Valie’s claustrophobia, Jonathan rolled down all the windows without being asked. By the time they got to school, they were all freezing.

“I’ll see you later,” Luci said emphatically, as they dropped Valie at the main gate. “Don’t forget. Wait for us at my house after school.”

Valie nodded and waved as her two friends slowly drove off to find the bus for the field trip—Luci turning in her seat to watch Valie until she was out of sight. Luci blew her a kiss and the girl waved back.

Valie entered the school building cautiously, twenty minutes before school would start. Foremost in her thoughts was Jack Haden and she glanced around for any sign of the boy. She didn’t know if what she had seen the night before was just a horrible hallucination or if Jack was…something else, but deep down she understood that staying away from him was best.

Few steps marked students’ passage through the tile-floored halls; it was almost deserted. Valie wandered to the far corner of the school where her locker was located and began to turn the dial to stash her books, when she felt, more than heard, someone behind her. She turned to find a lanky boy stopped four, maybe five feet away. He had sandy hair and a fair complexion, but even in his obvious youth, he was attractive. His hands were in his pockets as he leaned against the bare wall, just watching her.

“Hi,” Valie greeted uncertainly.  The boy was certainly not who she had expected to find staring at her.

He smiled demurely.

“Hi,” he replied. His voice was muted, but pleasant to the ears. Valie waited for him to say more, but the boy remained silent. Something about the curiosity in his gaze made her feel uncomfortable, like she was being appraised. He just stared at her,
studied
her.

Valie waited, but eventually spoke up. “Do I know you?”
she inquired. She knew the answer was ‘no’, but her discomfort was increasing as the silence deepened. If the boy wasn’t so harmless-looking she would have been more worried. As it was, he was kind of cute, in a little brother kind of way.

“No, you don’t. I’m Noah.” He took one hand out of his pocket and offered it. Valie shifted the books in her arms to shake it. His hand was dry, but warm. It was also bigger than she expected; he wasn’t much taller than she was.

“I’m Valie.”

Noah smiled as if she had just spoken the obvious, but spoke politely, “Nice to meet you.”

“You, too.” Valie turned back to her locker, half expecting the boy to walk away. He didn’t. She glanced at him, but continued to open her locker. “Did you want something?”

“Jack sent me.”

Noah watched passively as Valie abruptly stopped and her eyes widened in sudden anxiety. Without turning, she spoke.

“You can tell Jack that if he has anything to say to me, I don’t want to hear it.”

“He said you might say that…”

Of course he had. Since when did Jack become the all-knowing? Valie stopped unsuccessfully fumbling with the locker and turned to the pale-faced boy. Her annoyance at Jack for sending an errand boy helped to mask her fear of what he and the boy might want to tell her.

“It’s Noah, right?”

He nodded. Valie paused. To her, this seemed like an awkward, unpleasant situation, but this boy seemed as calm as could be, perfectly at ease. In fact, Valie could see a little of Jack’s self-assurance behind the long-limbed, almost gangly frame of the boy in front of her. It made his delivery of Jack’s message more believable, but it also told Valie something else: this boy was
not
just an errand-boy. He was Jack’s friend and he held the same inexplicable draw that Jack and Shane did—not a physical attraction, but a mental one. Valie suddenly had the urge to
know
him.

“Well, Noah. What did Jack want said?”

“He says he’ll meet you after school at the coffee shop. He said you’d know which one.”

So Jack
had
noticed her that day at
Steam
! That day she’d first laid eyes on him. . . .Valie had to stop herself before she smiled at the thought.

He’s not the same boy I thought he was
,
she reminded herself. She put on her best poker-face with which to address Noah and said, “I do know which one. But why should I meet him?”

Noah gave Valie a smile that made her feel very small; it was so
patronizing
. The mature mannerism didn’t match the young boy. He had to be younger than her, but somehow, in that moment, she felt immature compared to him.

Noah was unmoving as he spoke. “It’ll explain some things.”

Valie’s brow furrowed as flashes of Jack and a big, brown wolf ran through her mind. She couldn’t help but ask, “Are they things. . .that I want explained?”

That shook him out of his steadiness. Noah looked troubled for a moment, his cool, gray eyes suddenly sympathetic.

“Maybe not,” he said, looking down at his feet that seemed much too large for him. When his eyes reached Valie’s again, they were grave. “But they are things you need to know. Desperately.”

The bell rang suddenly and Valie quickly glanced at the clock behind her. 

“After school. The coffee shop,” Noah’s quiet voice reminded. “We might be able to clear up reality for you.”

Those words made Valie’s heart stop.

When Valie turned round to question him, Noah was gone and she had a major case of the heebie jeebies. She stared at the spot where the boy had stood for awhile, carefully reflecting on the words he had spoken, before gathering her things. All the way to English class, Valie felt as if she was being watched; it wasn’t until she was seated and surrounded by a bunch of chattering students that she really breathed.

No one seemed to notice or care about Valie’s agitation and she faded into the background as usual. Even Candace seemed to forget her existence, probably because she had what looked to be a killer hangover. Though, despite her sickly look, the
cheerleader seemed disappointed that Jack wasn’t there. A fact that definitely made
Valie’s
day run smoother.

Mrs. Ables boring lecture did nothing to distract Valie from the blaring questions before her. She could only reflect on what she had witnessed the night before and what Noah had said…

After school. The coffee shop.

All through her classes, she never forgot the message the boy had given her or the appointment she had later that day.
Appointment.
That was a nice way of putting it. Was she really willing to go? She could feel her curiosity getting the best of her. Last night she had been terrified because what Jack had revealed was…well, not what she had expected. But, if she
believed
him, that opened the floodgates for a plethora of questions that she wasn’t sure she could deal with.

In the middle of history, her last class of the day, it finally hit her…

She might know a werewolf, a werewolf who was stalking
her.

Valie excused herself from class as she began to hyperventilate, playing it off as one of her claustrophobic attacks.

In the bathroom, for the last twenty minutes of class, Valie repeated one phrase over and over in her head—
I do not believe in werewolves. I do not believe in werewolves.
But she could feel herself start to adjust. She was completely unwilling, but she was adjusting—adjusting to the thought of knowing werewolves. A part of her found the notion fascinating; the other thought it terrifying and the two battled in her mind as she tried to decide if she would go to the coffee shop. God only knew which part of her would win out in the end….

“Curiosity killed the cat,” Valie muttered to herself as she walked toward the front gates of the school with the intention of doing what she believed could prove to be the stupidest—if not the
last—
action of her young life.

“Hello, sweets.”

Valie almost jumped out of her skin at the sound of the velvety voice behind her.             

She whirled. “Jack! You have
got
to stop
doing
that! What are you doing here? I thought I was supposed…you were going to be….” Valie struggled for words as she realized who—or what—she was really talking to. She still didn’t know how to reconcile what she had seen the night before
and
reality. And, either way, she found no comfort in the presence of Jack Haden.

Jack’s polite smile faded and the boy suddenly seemed unsure of himself. His desperate eyes bore holes in Valie as he said in a low voice, “We couldn’t risk you not coming. I know how scared you must be, sweets, now that you know I am a….”

Before Jack could finish, Valie abruptly cut him off by flinging out her arms and clamping a hand over his mouth.  At the same time, the word ‘No!’ involuntarily escaped her lips.

Jack removed her hand from his mouth. “Valie, I
am
a…”