Not Your Ordinary Wolf Girl (10 page)

“Go home, Harris,” said Marlon. “She's about to get wild.”

“Hey!” said Harris. “There's no need—”

“Leave.” Marlon wasn't joking anymore.

Hurt and confusion flashed across Harris's face.

“Listen,” I said to Marlon, “this is
my
home. I appreciate you returning my bike, but if you don't go away, I'll call the cops.”

“Fine. I'll leave, too. You know how to find me when you need answers. Trust me, Harris, don't go upstairs tonight. I'm serious. Besides, you reek of Marie.”

“It's not news that Harris
just
broke up with Marie,” I said.

“Yeah, well, breaking up isn't the only thing they've been doing today.”

I leaned over and sniffed the air near Harris's shoulder. Sure enough, there was a sour note beneath the musk. Was that Marie? Jules was always saying breakup sex was fantastic. Had they really …? One fact was for sure, Harris's split was too recent for me to get involved.

Fed up with everything, I took out my cellphone and waved it around in the air. “That's it, Marlon. I'm counting to three. You'd better be gone by the time I'm done.”

Marlon opened his mouth to argue, then clamped it shut again.

I began to count. “One …”

“You should leave, dude,” said Harris.

“Two …”

“Why don't you tell him about your bag of
meat
?” muttered Marlon, quietly enough so Harris couldn't hear.

And how did he know about my stash?

“… Three!”

I pushed 911 on my phone, but before I hit Call, Marlon jammed his hands into his pockets and stalked away. His back was rigid. The muscles in his shoulders and upper arms stood out like cords beneath his wet T-shirt.

“That lamb shank had way too much garlic,” he called back to me.

I refused to give him the satisfaction of a response, but couldn't help thinking about the guy in Words of Wonder who'd been sniffing me earlier this evening. My life was getting off-the-charts weird. I slipped the phone back into my bag, next to the books. Why the
hell had I bought them, anyhow? Stupid, stupid, stupid. My life was not a Wolverine comic.

Harris was still gaping and scratching his head. There was no way to salvage this night.

“Do rock stars have to deal with this kind of thing all the time?” he asked.

“More than you know.”

“I swear he's never acted like that around me before.” Harris sighed. He didn't seem drunk anymore, only sad. “This wasn't a very good date, was it?”

“Not Hall of Fame level, no. Maybe we're just moving too quickly. I wouldn't blame you for needing a little time to get over your relationship.”

He scuffed a piece of crumbling pavement with one shoe. “Sam, I really like you, and hope you give me another chance. But I promise I didn't break up with Marie because of that. It's something I've—she and I have needed to do for a while.”

I looked him in the eyes, and I believed him.

“Thanks for the picture,” I said.

Before anything could destroy the moment, I gave him a peck on the cheek, then hurried inside.

When I got upstairs, a lumpy manila envelope was stuck to my apartment door with industrial tape. I tore it off and went straight for the kitchen, where I gnawed
happily on a piece of barbecued chicken. It was a crazy relief to be by myself.

Once I had some food in me, I opened the envelope to find an invoice from the plumber my mother had called to fix the leak, a decomposing rag in a plastic bag, and a note saying he'd identified the cloth as being the source of the blockage. It wasn't the bathtub. The rag was flushed down the toilet. I tossed it on the floor. Come on! Really? Who flushes a
piece of cloth
down their toilet? At least this time I had evidence of the tenants' malevolence that I could take with me to court.

I sat down on the couch with Janis and started picking. The picking morphed into actual playing, which led to a productive practice session. By changing a single chord in the refrain and lengthening the intro slightly, the crescendo in “Dirty Street” got the chance to build a little higher and then swoop down. It would sound awesome when we tried it live.

In a much better mood, I foolishly decided I was strong enough to handle email. After deleting three messages from Jules that began whiny and ended rude, I changed my mind. But I still read one more from Vinnie: “Are you trying to ruin this band? CHECK THIS LINK!!!! Now you HAVE to go on The Wanda Show! HAVE TO!”

He'd been trying to get me on Wanda Kalamata's talk show for the past six months. Wanda was this artsy comedian who'd snagged a daytime TV slot and interviewed New Yorkers who piqued her interest. She'd mentioned casually in an article that she was a big Puffs fan and would love to have me on her show. She could help us reach beyond a teen audience, but she terrified me. She was notorious for taking people to task on television. I clicked on the link and discovered the dreaded photo of me eating chicken in the park—and, crap, there was actually grease dripping down my chin! The caption on Wanda's website read, “Call PETA police, NYC, cuz Sam ‘Veggie Girl' Lee is back on flesh in a serious way.” I clicked the browser shut a bit too hard, which was better than smashing the whole damn computer. The entire world was apparently out to get me.

A few minutes of deep breathing allowed me to get back to fiddling with samples for “Dirty Street,” inspired by sounds of the city partying at night. I'd collected background noises for weeks. When I finally stopped for a break, I called Malika. It was almost one, but she'd still be up.

Sure enough she brushed off my “Sorry for calling so late.” She also brushed off my apology for the shoot.

“I'm just glad you called. I saw that
awful
photo on
Wanda's site. God! What's wrong with people? How are you feeling?”

“Better.” To convince her, I told her about my ride to Long Island, my disaster of a date with Harris, and how Marlon showed up at the end with my bike. By the time I was done, she was guffawing. “I'm glad someone finds my misery funny.”

“Oh
poor
Sam,” she drawled. “Two hot guys are making asses of themselves over you.”

I snorted.

“You've been lusting after Harris forever,” she said. “Now he's available. Who cares if the breakup's messy?”

“Yeah, but—”

“And if it doesn't work, you've got a new guy waiting in the wings.”

“Mali!” Something made me hold back from telling her about my stranger experiences with Marlon.

“Well, he's got your attention, doesn't he?”

“Not in a nice way!”

“So he wants to do naughty, naughty things to you.”

I laughed at her sexy voice, and tried to shut down the mind movie she'd created. We hung up shortly after that, and I went back to working on the song. My goal was to mimic the slow click of high heels with Malika's steady ticka-ticka drumbeat, then add the screech of car brakes, horns, heavy dance-club
bass, and the distant whine of police sirens. Digital percussion and a synthesizer would have to approximate real-life instruments for now. By looping the urban noises on top of one another, I created a wall of sound that Jules's voice could dance over, hitting high and low notes and imitating the cacophony of wild, drunken night chatter.

The next time I stood up to stretch it was three in the morning, and my body demanded food and exercise. I did jumping jacks for a few minutes, then tucked into the last piece of chicken and half a pitcher of lemonade. That's when I noticed the big old window above my stove was wide open. What the hell? That's why the apartment was cooler than normal. And I wasn't sweating like a dog. But who'd opened it and when?

I climbed onto the counter and wedged the pane shut with a mop handle. When I'd bought the building all the windows were sealed shut with layers and layers of paint, and after getting central air installed, I'd never bothered to unseal most of them. Like this one. It would take a crowbar and a lot of strength to crack that window open from the outside. Plus, my place was high off the ground.

I started to panic. Could someone jump from the fire escape that ran up this side of the building to the six-inch window ledge? If he lost his footing and fell
to the street, he'd be a pancake. There were plenty of desperate people in the city, but it was hard to believe the average criminal would go through all that trouble to rob me. There were much easier targets.

A more logical explanation was that my mother had come over to let in the plumber and opened the window for some reason. Fumes?

It was really hard to convince my brain that having a full-blown panic attack wasn't helpful. More than anything, I wanted to dash over to my mom's place and huddle in her guest room. But my mom was leaving for her show this morning, and I wasn't ready to unleash all her worries.

I changed into pyjamas, grabbed
How to Pick a
Mate,
and climbed up to bed. I flipped on the lamp and almost had a heart attack. Marlon was lying there with his arms folded behind his head, looking completely relaxed.

“Nice book.” He grinned, wiggling his eyebrows as he looked at the cover.

I threw it over the side of the bed and opened my mouth to scream, but before any noise could come out he'd jumped across the bed and clamped a hand over my lips. I'd barely seen him move.

My body began to shake. I wasn't sure if I was more angry or scared. I struggled to get loose, tearing my
pyjamas. He was strong. Really strong. My rage took over. How
dare
he break into my apartment! How
dare
he make me feel unsafe in my own bed! A growl tore from my throat. Flailing randomly, my fist made satisfying contact with his chin—then I kneed him hard in the gut. He squeezed my arms against my sides so I couldn't move at all.

“Sam,” he hissed, “I'm not here to hurt you.”

I cursed into his hand. My head flipped from side to side like a fish on a hook, but he didn't let go. I channelled all my fury into my eyes.

“Sam, calm down. Please. You're going to hurt yourself.”

I opened my mouth enough to chomp down on his palm and draw blood. A salty taste filled my mouth. He yelped. I ripped at his shirt and arms, feeling fabric and flesh give way. I didn't care how much damage I did, all I could think about was my freedom. I catapulted away, panting, but couldn't get off the loft bed because he was blocking the way down.

Marlon gripped his bleeding arms. “Sam, please don't scream, okay? Whatever you do, don't scream. No one can see this.”

I shook my head and felt hair moving on my cheeks.
Hair? What the—
I touched my face and gasped. There was fur. On my forehead. On my neck, too. There was
hair everywhere! And my fingertips ended in claws, not nails. Oh, shit. I began to whimper.

“Guess surprising you up here wasn't the best plan. Sorry. I actually fell asleep listening to your music. I just really needed to talk to you.”

“How long have you been up here?” I demanded. My voice sounded strange, like a series of barks.

“A while. I'm really sorry for breaking in.”

“You're sorry?” I wasn't shouting. I was too confused. What was happening to me?

“Sam, you don't have to go through this alone.”

I crawled toward him. “Get out of my way.”

He hesitated, then moved aside.

Swinging over the loft's edge, I jumped down and ran to the bathroom. In the mirror, a ghastly beast stared back at me. My face was covered in dark fur. When I yanked at the hair on my chin, it hurt!

Running back to the base of my bed, I shrieked, “I am a monster!”

He nodded. “You were bitten by a werewolf, Sam. You're turning into one yourself.”

My brain stopped functioning. I closed my eyes. When I opened them, Marlon was hanging over the side of my bed, looking concerned. My hands were still paws. My face was still hairy. Clammy sweat broke out beneath my fur. My
fur
.

“I know it seems insane,” he said.

“Because it is!” I yelled—but my words still sounded more like barks. My fur
moved
whenever I did.

He didn't respond. I realized Marlon hadn't fought back … and he looked totally miserable. He didn't care that I'd scratched him. It seemed like he didn't want it to be true any more than I did.

I sat down in the middle of the floor and dropped my head into my claws. I was a wolf girl. Half-wolf, half-human? Whatever. Fully freak show.

Somehow sitting there helped me calm down a little. As soon as I did, my paws began to change back into hands. My skin felt weird and itchy. It was like an elastic band was being stretched tight and then, suddenly, loosened. Over and over. Everything was intensely painful for a moment, as the fur appeared to get sucked back into my follicles. Then my body was normal again, right down to the peeling black nail polish I'd applied a week ago. And all I was wearing were the tattered remnants of my pyjamas. I jumped up, yanked the sheet off my bed, and wrapped myself in it.

“Take some more breaths and relax,” said Marlon. His voice was reassuring, like a cat's purr. “Your body will always want to shift when you feel threatened, but you'll learn how to control that.”

“How do you know all this?”

“You can guess.”

“You think you're a werewolf?”

“I don't
think
I'm a werewolf, Sam. I
am
a werewolf.” In front of my eyes, his human shape began to waver and change …

“Stop!” I yelled. “Please, stop. I can't deal with any of this.”

His body stopped changing and he just sat on the bed, watching. Did this explain everything that'd been happening to me? But … if I allowed myself to believe in werewolves, what did that mean? Suddenly an endless number of ideas became possible. Enough to fill every shelf in Words of Wonder. What else lurked in our world, disguised as human?