cell and hurried up to my room.
“Hello?”
“It’s good to hear your voice.”
“Yours, too.”
“I miss you,” Brandon said.
His words melted my heart.
“I miss you, too. How have you been?”
“Better. I’d prefer if I could see you at school — and after.”
“I know — but you can. We can,” I insisted.
“It’s too risky. I’ve been overhearing students—”
“But if it’s not a full moon, it can’t be you.”
“But what if it is? I dream I’m a wolf every night,” he said, his voice filled with concern.
“It’s only on a full moon that I’ve seen you turn. I’ve recorded everything in my notebook. You haven’t tried to harm or scare anyone on the other nights.”
“But I can’t remember the other nights. So how do we really know?”
“What if it’s a hoax? Someone trying to cash in on the werewolf folklore?”
“Or what if it’s another werewolf?”
“Another one?” He sighed. “I’d hate for anyone else to be going through what I am.”
“I don’t want anyone to hurt you,” I said.
“Me? That’s not what I’m worried about.”
Brandon was always concerned with others before himself. It was one of the traits that made him so alluring.
“I saw you with Nash. He’s been doting on you lately.”
“I’m not dating him,” I assured Brandon.
“Yeah… but just seeing you together. It’s hard. I want us to be the ones hanging out together.”
“You do?” I wasn’t totally sure of Brandon’s wishes. I felt like he kept me at a distance, and I was afraid to stick my neck out too far.
“Of course I want to be with you. It’s just… we have a few obstacles.”
“If I hadn’t gotten lost that day—” I lamented.
“I didn’t mean that in any way—” he said sincerely. “I know for some reason you blame yourself. I thought knowing Mr. Worthington’s story, and getting my family’s history, would make you feel better.”
“But if I hadn’t been lost in the woods, then you wouldn’t have been bitten.”
“And then I wouldn’t have gotten the best brownies of my life.”
A smile broke free from my frown. Brandon was brave in many ways. I admired his strength, and it felt impossible for me to feel anything for him but adoration.
My encounter with the Westside fortune-teller entered my mind. “Dr. Meadows… she might be coming for you.”
“With a cure?”
“She keeps saying she has to see you first.”
“Then that means she doesn’t have one.” He couldn’t hide the disappointment in his voice.
“I just wanted to let you know. You might have a psychic stalker on your hands.”
“The only stalker I want is you,” he said.
“I’m doing my best.”
“I have to go. It’s almost sundown, but I wanted to call and let you know…”
“Yes?”
“That I can’t stop thinking about you.”
“Me, too. I want us to have that date in the woods again,” I said.
“I do, too.”
“You remember?”
“No, but I jotted down as much as I could when I woke up. I wrote down that the snow sparkled like diamonds in your hair.”
That was all I needed. If Brandon took the time to jot down notes about me at the same time I was recording my memories, then it confirmed to me that our connection was real.
We got off the phone and I reveled in the fact that he was even more creative and dreamy than my overactive imagination could have imagined.
Before English class started, Ivy and I chatted together as Dylan and Jake whispered to each other and acted like werewolves. Nash hung back and laughed.
My classmates snickered as the jocks roared and snarled.
“Have you seen the werewolf?” I heard someone ask Hayley Phillips.
“Doesn’t seem like he’s hitting the Westside,” she retorted loud enough for Ivy and me to hear.
Dylan and Jake stopped showing off when Abby bolted into class.
“I was almost attacked last night,” Abby said. “First my dog. Now me.”
“What happened?” Ivy asked.
“Are you okay?” I wondered.
“After volleyball practice, I left the school gym and this
“What thing?” Ivy asked.
“A thing! A creature.”
“You have to be kidding me,” Ivy said. “A creature?”
Dylan sat by her and consoled her. “Abby, it might be best if you kept quiet.”
“Did it touch you?” I asked, concerned.
“No—” she said. “I screamed so loud I think I scared it away.”
“What did it look like?” I asked.
“It was evil, that’s all I know. All I saw was dark hair and fangs.”
I turned to Brandon. Distress showed on his face. He put his head in his maimed hand and flipped through a textbook.
Mrs. Clark entered the classroom. “Everyone, take your seats. You’ll be reading your essays aloud in class today.”
“Abby says she saw the werewolf last night here at school,” Heidi Rosen said.
Abby turned to her in horror.
“Is there something you’d like to report?” Mrs. Clark asked.
“Yes,” Abby said. “Just like Heidi, I saw the Legend’s Run Werewolf.”
Heidi glared at Abby as the rest of the students snickered again.
I couldn’t concentrate on any of the murmuring in the classroom. Brandon wouldn’t be so brazen as to scare Abby. And if he did, what would I do? I wasn’t sure I should feel affection toward a guy who was scaring my friends. But Brandon never hurt me or posed a threat when we were together, so why would he do that to others? It just didn’t make sense.
After class was over, I tried to catch up to Brandon, but he snuck out quickly and slipped away into the crowd of students. I seemed to be the only one at Legend’s Run High who couldn’t spot the werewolf.
Later, Ivy and I were in the library gossiping during study hall.
“Do you believe Abby really saw a werewolf?” Ivy asked me.
Really, I thought she did. But how could I tell Ivy that?
“I’m not sure,” I said instead. “I think she thinks she saw something. But do you really think a werewolf is running around Legend’s Run?” I asked her.
“I still think there was something bizarro about that wolfman Brandon Maddox and that incident with the wolves. Maybe it’s him.”
I paused. “Does Brandon have fangs?”
