Intertwined

He grinned, remembering. He wanted her mouth on him again. Only this time he wanted her to linger. Wanted her to wind her arms around his neck, to shift her head so that her tongue flicked inside rather than outside.

What are you thinking about? Eve asked. I can feel our blood pressure rising.

“Nothing,” he muttered, embarrassed.

He showered and dressed and gave himself a once-over. Thankfully, after a few washings, the writing on his T-shirts had faded. That didn’t lessen his pleasure over punching Ozzie for it.

When he entered the hall, Ozzie was waiting for him. One of his eyes was swollen shut, his lip was cut and a lump the size of a golf ball jutted from the side of his jaw.

“Say a word about what happened,” he hissed. “I dare you.”

Victoria had kept her promise, then, and returned his memory. Well, probably not about her or what she’d done to Casey. “I’m not afraid of you.” He grinned and leaned down as if he had a secret to share. “You couldn’t win a fight against a sleeping toddler.”

Ozzie’s mouth floundered open and closed.

“And anyway, we’ll have to tell Dan we fought. There’s no way around that.” Because there was no way Dan would miss their wounds. “We just won’t tell him why, when or where it happened.”

“And the…stuff?” Ozzie spoke from the side of his mouth, gaze zooming down the hall to ensure the bedroom doors were closed and no one could hear. “About Casey?”

“I don’t plan to say anything.” Ozzie relaxed—until he added, “Unless you mess with me again. Then I have a feeling every little detail will come spilling out. Understand?” Aden didn’t mind blackmailing the dreg. He was tired of being pushed around, abused, and being unable to do anything about it for fear of being sent away.

Ozzie cursed under his breath. “You even think about narcing and I swear to God, you’ll regret it.” He whipped a steak knife from his back pocket, one he’d obviously stolen from Dan’s kitchen, and waved it in front of Aden’s nose. “Do you understand?”

Aden rolled his eyes, bent down and withdrew one of his daggers. It was bigger and sharper, specks of corpse blood staining the silver. “What I understand is that I could slice you to ribbons. You have no idea how mental I can actually be.”

Speechless once again, Ozzie backtracked into his room and slammed the door shut.

Oh, I’m so proud. Eve sounded like a beaming mother. You stood up for yourself without endangering your circumstances.

Way to go, Ad! Caleb said. We need to celebrate. With girls!

I wish you could have at least punched him again, Julian said. I hate that kid.

Don’t encourage him, Elijah replied. We don’t want him in jail. Believe me.

Did Elijah remember being in jail in a past life or had he seen Aden in jail and knew how terrible it would be for them?

There was no time to ask. Shannon peeked his head out of his door, probably wondering what the noise was about. He surprised Aden by entering the hallway.

“H-here.” He handed him a stack of papers. “Ozzie came in l-last night and told me he was going to t-take these. I snuck in first and took them myself.”

His English paper, which was due today. Aden hadn’t even realized it was gone. All the work he’d put into it…if Ozzie had succeeded, he would have received an F. He popped his jaw, wishing he had punched the dreg again.

“Thanks.”

Shannon nodded. “Owed you. For—” His gaze fell to Aden’s shirt. “Y-you know.”

When he turned, intending to head off, Aden grabbed his arm. “Wait. You’ve hardly spoken to me all week, but you just saved me from being kicked out of school. What gives?”

A muscle ticked in Shannon’s jaw. He ripped free of Aden’s grip, but he didn’t race off.

“You might as well tell me now. I’ll just hound you till you cave. In the forest. At school. After school. During chores—”

“Th-that day in the forest,” was the growled response. “You were right behind me, man. Then those k-kids showed up and you took off, leaving me on my own. I know we haven’t always been the b-best of friends, but we had reached a t-truce.”

“So you really were in a fight?”

Another nod, this one stiff.

Shannon wasn’t the werewolf, then. That left…who? Victoria’s bodyguard, maybe? No. Couldn’t be. Victoria thought werewolves were vicious. She wouldn’t want to be guarded by one.

Aden thought of everyone else he knew with green eyes. A lot of names came up. What if, when a human shifted into werewolf form, his eyes changed color? Aden was living proof that eyes could change hues in the blink of, well, an eye. If that was true, anyone could be the werewolf.

“I’m sorry,” he told Shannon, realizing the dreg was waiting for his response. “I didn’t know you were ambushed. I didn’t see the guys. If I had, I would have stayed with you. Maybe. I mean, I heard Mary Ann scream and rushed to see what was wrong.”

“She okay?”

“Now she is.” He hoped. Somehow, some way, he had to corner her today and force her to talk to him. “So what made you decide to forgive me for bailing on you?”

“Hard to be m-mad at the guy who kicked Ozzie’s ass.”

They shared a grin, then gathered their sack lunches from the counter beside the front door where Mrs. Reeves always left them.

Shannon can’t be the werewolf, Julian said. He did you a favor. The wolf would have chewed the paper up, spit it at you and laughed.

Then lit you both on fire, Caleb added.

Since Aden hadn’t spoken his thoughts about this very subject aloud, they couldn’t know that he’d already reasoned this out.

Unless this is a trick to throw you off, Elijah said thoughtfully.

Not a trick, he wanted to say, because he didn’t want to believe it. His life finally seemed to be on the right track. He’d ruin that himself if he allowed suspicions to poison him. After all, suspicions led to paranoia, and paranoia was classic schizophrenic behavior. He’d be gift-wrapping his doctors’ diagnosis when he’d been struggling so valiantly to disprove it.

He has enough to think about, boys, Eve said, probably sensing the intensity of his thoughts. Let’s give him some peace this morning.

Yes, Eve, everyone said at the same time Shannon said, “You need a good story for your f-face or you’ll get kicked out. And maybe don’t bring up Ozzie. Do, and h-he’ll have the others plan a sneak attack.”

Took Aden a moment to sort through the voices and pick out what Shannon had uttered. See? The guy hadn’t been faking his gesture of friendship; he was still trying to make things better.

“I can’t leave Ozzie out of it because Ozzie has the same beat-up face that I do. We deny it, and Dan’ll know we’re lying. We’ll be in worse trouble.”

“Maybe you’ll get to put it off. Maybe he’s gone.” Some mornings Dan was up doing chores, but a few lucky mornings, he slept in or was off running errands.

For the first time since starting school, they headed outside together. The air was cool, the sky overcast. Dan was at the truck, about to open the door when he spotted Aden and froze. As if Aden were cursed, the sun broke through a wall of clouds and spotlighted him, seeming brighter than ever. He had to blink against it, his injured eye burning and tearing. Guess he wouldn’t be putting off the conversation, after all.

“Where’d you get the bruises, Aden?” Dan only used that hard tone when he was fighting his anger.

Here goes. He squared his shoulders, even as his stomach clenched painfully.