8

“The Howls? Let’s just say that they won’t be bothering people in this town again,” I said.

“I’m all for a walk,” she said.

“Let’s go down to the park. There’s a lake where we can throw pebbles and watch the ripples,” I said.

“Let’s humor my thought process for a little while, okay? So, I saw you turn into a wolf. One doesn’t get over that sort of thing. I’m still processing it. This date was supposed to help me understand it, but we’ve barely talked about it. You mentioned that I might be a werewolf, too. What’s the deal with that?” she asked.

Oh boy, here it came. I breathed deeply and decided to stop skirting around the subject.

“A wolf can see more vividly than regular people. To us, other wolves stand out from humans by their auras. I guess, what I’m trying to say, Alice Hawkins, is, that you shine like a wolf. See that guy walking his dog? To my wolf senses, the guy is a big old gray blob. His dog is somewhat of an orange aura, hopping about. Now, you, on the other hand, you’re the whole freaking rainbow.”

Alice blushed and averted her gaze, smiling.

“First time someone’s compared me to a rainbow,” she whispered. I smiled at her and wrapped my arm around her shoulder as we walked side by side.

Neither of us had anticipated staying out this late. Alice confided that she thought it’d just be a cup of coffee and then she’d head home. I told her that I wasn’t even sure if she’d show up for coffee, let alone extend the date to the park, the baseball diamond, and the waterfall.

“You threw me from there!” Alice jumped excitedly from under the waterfall as she finally found the hill on the horizon where last night’s events had taken place. “How did you know I wouldn’t die?”

“Because I’ve been swimming in this river all my life. Everyone I know at the reservation has at some point jumped off there into the river. It’s sort of like a rite of passage. Also, the river seems dangerous, but according to the belief system shared by the Creed, it’s a living thing and doesn’t want to harm anyone. So I took my chances,” I told her.

“How are we standing right under the waterfall and not getting wet?” Alice squealed happily as she reached out and touched the waterfall.

“We’re not standing under the waterfall. We’re standing in a cove behind it,” I said. “Ergo, dry.”

“Okay, Mr. Pedantic,” she chuckled. “Hey, thanks for bringing me here. Everywhere, I mean. I had the best time, hand to God.”

“I am glad,” I said. “Does it make us even for yesterday?”

“Oh, barely. You’ll have to let me throw you off a cliff for us to be truly even,” she said. Then, Alice suddenly got quiet, breathing intensely as she walked up to me. “Or maybe this will,” she said and reached up to kiss me.

There, in the cool and dark of the cove, shielded by the crashing waterfall, I kissed Alice for the first time. My lips touched hers as my arms coiled around her body. She parted my mouth open with her tongue and pressed herself closer to me, driving me insane in a frenzy of emotions.

I coursed my fingers through her hair as I deepened my kiss, letting my tongue find hers. She moaned as she kissed me back, grabbing onto my shoulder as she clung to me. I could feel her breasts on my chest, the rhythm of her heartbeat against my own, and her sweet taste on my lips.

5

Alice

Magic did not hold a candle to the kiss. It was beyond anything that my wildest fantasies could conjure. Then again, it was my first kiss ever, so there might have been an exaggerative element to my feelings.

But Brandon’s dexterity with his lips, with the way his tongue swiveled in my mouth, made me feel jealous, thinking that he must have had some practice with girls before me.

I had never felt sexual desire such as this before. It was as if someone had melted my insides and molten lava was flowing from my mouth to my legs. I could barely breathe but breathing seemed trivial in the face of us professing our profound emotions through this passionate, deep, warm, wet kiss.

I was arched against a wall of the cove, with Brandon’s body resting ever so gently on mine. I wanted more of him. I wanted to touch him all over. The rest of my body was feeling pretty jealous of my lips right about now. I wanted him to kiss my neck, suck my breasts, wrap his arms around me, push himself against me.

It was pure carnal bliss.

Right up until chaos chose to gatecrash the party. The same chaos that I had been running from. The reason why we had moved from Chicago to this town. The catalyst behind my madness. The chaos that would not let me sleep at night and haunted me the moment I opened my eyes at the start of each day.

I wasn’t in the cove with Brandon anymore. The kiss was a distant memory in the wake of this terrible waking nightmare. There I stood, vivid as ever, in the bright night of the full moon, next to a derelict shack that might have been a cozy cottage in another age. Right in front of me, a pace away, stood Brandon, looking at me with horror transfixed on his face. His mouth was leaking viscous blood. He was shivering as he stood helplessly, holding his arms against his chest. It was then that I noticed how his torso, his legs, and his arms were all riddled with big bullet holes and gashes, all of them spouting mucky crimson.

“Help me!” Brandon gasped as he collapsed to his knees. As he fell, I saw the shadows behind me. Low men in black uniforms, holding firearms smoking from the barrel.

“Alice…” Brandon whispered as more gunshots rang through the otherwise silent night, lighting up the forest with angry red bursts, piercing through Brandon’s falling body.

He crashed onto the forest floor, unmoving, lifeless.

Before I could so much as scream or move a finger, the lasers from the guns held by the dark men landed on my body, lighting it up like a Christmas tree. Time slowed down to a halt as their fingers pulled the triggers. I could see with clarity that only impending death can grant. It was almost as if I was witnessing everything from an astral perspective, noticing how each bullet left each barrel with a loud roar and a bright explosion. I watched as the flurry of bullets flew my way.

“Alice!”