It feels like only minutes later when I wake to Mom hovering over me. The look on her face tells me I haven't magically healed while I was asleep. Then I remember. That only happens when you shift into your animal form and then back again.
"It's okay," I lie. "It looks way worse than it really is."
"What happened?"
"I got jumped by some guys after school."
For a moment her worry turns to puzzlement.
"I don't understand," she says. "Couldn't your—special abilities—protect you?"
"But that was the whole point. How better to prove that I'm not a Wildling?"
"And you think this was worth it?"
"It seemed like a good idea at the time."
"Who were these boys?"
I shake my head.
"Joshua Saunders. If you think I'm going to just stand back and let a bunch of thugs give my son a beating, you don't know me very well."
It takes me a lot longer to convince her than it did the FBI agents. And then I have to convince her that I don't need to go to emergency. She gets a bag of frozen peas from the freezer to hold against my mouth. I'd protest, but this is a better use for them. I never could stand the things.
By the time she stops grilling me, I'm exhausted. For one thing, it isn't easy talking around a bag of peas. She lets me go to bed, but I can still hear her grumbling to herself from where I lie. Then it all goes away as I fall asleep again.
Sometime in the middle of the night, I wake up from a jumble of weird, vivid dreams with the feeling that there's someone in my bedroom. It takes me a moment to get rid of the fog inside my head to focus on the figure sitting in my desk chair: Cory. He looks the same as he always does—like some street kid around my age, dark skinned, hair almost black—but he's one of those old-school animal people who've been around for a lot longer than the half-year or so that Wildlings have been appearing in Santa Feliz.
I have a bit of a love/hate thing going with him. He was the first to find and help me when I became a Wildling—so props for that—but deep down, I kind of blame him for it all having happened to me in the first place. Not fair—I know. But some things just don't make sense, they just are.
"You look like crap," he says.
"I haven't seen you for a couple of weeks," I say, "and that's how you start the conversation?"
"Well, you do."
I get more comfortable against the headboard, stuffing a couple of pillows behind me.
"I can't argue with that," I tell him. "What brings you around?"
He shrugs. "Nothing much." He waits a beat, then adds, "I hear Auntie Min's looking for you."
"She knows where to find me."
Cory nods. "I get how you're ticked off at all of us old-school cousins, but someone like Auntie Min—she's due some respect."
"I thought you were—how'd you put it? 'On my team.' That you weren't running errands for her anymore."
"I am on your team and I'm not running errands. I'm just relaying some information. Word around the cousins is that you're being disrespectful by not going to see her."
"First of all, I didn't know she was looking for me."
"You do now."
"Yeah," I say. "But as you can see, I'm kind of indisposed at the moment. And secondly, I thought being Mountain Lion Clan meant I wasn't expected to come running at everyone's beck and call. That it was a big deal."
"It is. But that's something you were born into. You didn't earn it. I'm coyote. My ancestors were right here watching raven pull the whole world out of that big black pot of his. But I still give someone like Auntie Min her props. That's how it is with our people."
I shake my head. "Your people, not mine. I don't owe you or her or any of you anything."
"You know it doesn't work that way. Do we have to have the whole conversation again about how this is who you are now and there's no going back?"
"See, that's where all of you are wrong," I say. "I may be a Wildling, but I'm not your people. I'm just a kid who had this mountain lion woken up inside him. Another roll of the dice and I might have gotten cancer instead. Your world, the things you people want, the expectations some of you have for me—none of it means anything, from where I'm standing."
"But—"
"No, I get it. I'm a Wildling. But that doesn't mean I have to be your definition of what that means."
Cory steeples his fingers, elbows on the arms of his chair, and looks at me.
"That's an interesting way to put it," he says.
"What's that supposed to mean?"
He grins. "Nothing. Everything. I just think that it might be instructional to find out what their definition of you actually is."
"I'm still not going to—"
He cuts me off with a wave of his hand. "It's cool. I've got this."
He's always done right by me, but I can't help the flash of suspicion I get. I hate that I've become the guy who has trouble trusting anyone. I guess that's what happens when you get burned enough. But I try not to let any of what I'm feeling show.
"Meanwhile," he says and gives me knowing look.
"What? Stay out of trouble?"
He laughs. "I'm coyote. That's not a piece of advice I'd ever give out. I'm just thinking that the next time somebody comes at you, you might want to get in a few licks of your own."
He's out of the chair and through the window, gone into the night before I can respond.
The next time I wake up, I'm not alone again. This time, I find Desmond sitting at my desk surfing the Net. It's daylight outside, so at least I can be pretty sure he didn't come through the window like my last visitor. He swivels the chair when he hears me move.
"I've seen you looking better, dude," he says.
"I've felt better."
He smiles, but there's no humour in it. "No shit. Who did this to you?"
"Gess and some of his buddies."
"And you just let them."
I don't want to go through the reasons all over again, but I do.
Desmond shakes his head when I'm done.
"You know this isn't over, right?" he says.
"Of course it's over. Gess beat the crap out of me. He won. What else is he going to want?"
Desmond sighs. "Dude, now you're just playing dumb. He's going to be in your face every time you run into him in the hall. He'll want to go all public about putting the little black dude in his place. You know that. It's the way it works."
I sit up and swing my feet to the floor, wincing. Every part of me still hurts—maybe more than it did yesterday.
"Promise me you won't do anything," I say.
Desmond shakes his head. "I can't do that. And you better hope I get to Gess before Chaingang does."
Chaingang's built like a mountain and he's got no patience for idiots. He's also my friend, though given his status as an Ocean Aver, I don't really hang with him like I do with Desmond.
"Chaingang's not going to do anything," I say. "It's not like I'm in the gang."
"No, but you're both Wildlings and he told you he'd have your back. Bet that goes a lot deeper than gang loyalties."
"Crap."
I put my head in my hands. I'd kill for something to stop my head from throbbing.
"I didn't think of that," I add.
When Desmond doesn't answer, I look up to find him studying me with a puzzled look on his face.
"What?" I ask.
"I'm trying to figure out why you still look so messed up."
"Hello? Five guys jumped me?"
"Yeah, yeah. But I thought you Wildlings had some kind of magic healing powers. Didn't that guy in the lab with you have his leg come back"—he snaps his fingers— "just like that?"
"I have to change into the mountain lion and then back again for that to work."
"So why don't you?"
I sigh. "Because then I won't have a mark on me and everybody'll know something's weird with me."
Desmond shakes his head. "That is crazy, dude. Really. Listen
to yourself."
"I'll heal up," I tell him. "Nothing's broken."
"Well, maybe this'll cheer you up," he says and swings the chair back around to the computer. "News feed says that the dude who ran the security at ValentiCorp got himself killed." He turns to look at me. "At least there's some justice in the world, right?"
I get a bad feeling. It's not that I care one way or another about Clint Gaillard. He wasn't the one experimenting on the kids that got taken like I did, but his Black Key Securities team did grab us and bring us in. When I think of what happened to those kids in there—what almost happened to me—it's hard to keep the mountain lion from roaring its rage. So I'm not sorry he's dead. But this feels ominous, like it could have repercussions.
"Does it say how he died?" I ask.
Desmond shakes his head. "The cops are being tight with the details." He gives me a once-over, then adds, "Your mom said you want to go to school today. Are you sure you're up for it?"
"Yeah. Just let me grab a shower and some more painkillers."
I was always the kid who kept his head down at school. You don't get noticed, you don't get into trouble. But now it seems like every couple of days, I show up as the main attraction.
And now it's happening again. I'm the center of attention, with everybody hanging around outside the school talking about me, staring at my swollen and bruised face, whispering about Gess and me, and how the Feds happened by to break things up. I want to run and hide, but that's not an option. For once, this is exactly what I want: for everybody to look at the mess I am and really believe that I'm just some unlucky kid who got beat up. They're not thinking I'm a Wildling.
I walk up to the door and see Chaingang sitting in his usual place on a picnic table under the palms, shades hiding his eyes. He just shakes his head and looks away. I can't tell if he's disappointed or pissed off.
Desmond and I have almost reached the front door when it bangs open and I blink in surprise. Marina's standing there and I don't have to guess about her feelings. From the way she's glaring at me, she's furious.
"You and me," she says. "We need to talk."
"We've got class …"
"Screw class. Right now, Saunders."
She stalks by without waiting to see if I'll follow. I look at Desmond and he shrugs.
"I've no idea, dude," he says.
Another glance at Chaingang shows a big smirk on his face. Great. Happy to amuse you.
Sighing, I set off after Marina.
"Maybe you should let me get this on my own," I tell Desmond when he falls in step beside me.
"Right, sure."
Marina's in Wildling mode, walking faster than a human could. It takes me a block to catch up to her. When I do, she stops abruptly, turns, then bangs the palm of her hand against my shoulder.
Wildlings are faster and stronger than human beings, but we're not invulnerable. I've got a bruise the size of a grapefruit and the colour of a plum under my T-shirt and when she hits it, I feel it. It's all I can do not to cry out with the pain. She doesn't even notice.
"How could you let this happen?" she says.
"Hey, it's not like I started it."
"Those guys could have killed you."
Her concern seems all ramped up out of perspective. I mean, guys get into fights all the time. Granted, I'm not usually one of them, but what do you do?
"It got out of hand," I tell her. "I thought I had it under control."
"But you didn't."
"No. I'm lucky those FBI agents are still following me around."
That stops her for a moment.
"They are?"
"Well, they claim they aren't, but how else could they show up just in the nick of time?"
Now she looks more worried than mad. I guess bringing up Matteson and Solana has calmed her down a little. And now that I've got her on my own, without kids jostling by us in the halls, I figure it's a chance for us to talk a little bit.
"I know I screwed up," I tell her. "Before, I mean. The way I went all postal when I found out you were a Wildling and that you'd never told me."
She shakes her head. "No, you were right. I should have said something right away."
"Maybe. Probably. But I still had no right to get all pissy about when, or even if, you ever did."
She looks me right in the eye.
"You shouldn't have told me everything was okay when it's not," she says. "I know you don't trust me anymore."
"I was stupid. I do trust you."
She doesn't say anything.
"Come on, Marina. Can't we wind back to before all the crap? To when we were friends?"
"We are friends," she says.
"Then why does everything feel strained between us?"
She glances back in the direction of the school and sighs.
"It's complicated," she finally says.
"I don't get it. What's so complicated?"
She looks down at her feet. "Things just are."
I'm not sure what she means, but it feels like she's still hiding stuff from me. Maybe I don't trust her. Maybe it's too much to expect things to go back to how they were—not with everything that's happened since I first changed into a Wildling. I can't not be a Wildling and neither can Marina. This is what we are.
I shove my hands in my pockets.
"Okay," I tell her. "Whatever. I'll be cool about it. Just let me know when you want to talk."
She nods. I turn to go back to school, but as we walk away, she hooks her arm into mine and puts on her trademark swagger. How many times have we walked like this, her and Des and me? Me on one side, Des on the other.
So maybe we can get through this.
Chaingang lowers his sunglasses to look at us as we come up the walk to the front door. I smile at him, but he lifts his glasses back into place and looks away.
I can never read that guy.
The bell for the end of the period rings when we go through the door. Marina gives my arm a squeeze, unknowingly sending another shock of pain up that limb, and heads off to her locker. As I start for my own, Erik Gess steps in front of me, blocking my way. A couple of his buddies stand behind him. If I had hackles, they'd be standing up straight right now. As it is, the mountain lion in me wants to crush his face in its jaws and spit it out.
"You're in my space, Saunders," he says.
I remember what Desmond said this morning.
He's going to be in your face every time you run into him in the hall.
I really didn't think things through.
"What do you want now?" I ask.
He smirks. "Well, an apology would be good for starters."
"An apology for what?"
"Yeah," Desmond says, suddenly appearing beside me. "For what? For getting beat up by you and four other pussies because you don't have the balls to face him on your own?"
Marina is on my other side. I thought she was at her own locker, but obviously her Wildling hearing picked up on the trouble and she came back.
Erik looks from her to Desmond before his gaze finally settles on me again.
"Don't know that you picked the right bodyguards," he says, "but you're going to need them if you don't start showing a little respect to your betters … boy."
I can hear the sharp intake of breath from around us. It's not exactly like calling me a nigger, but when it's said like that, it's really pretty much the same thing.
Inside me, the mountain lion rumbles a warning growl. I'm pretty sure it wasn't audible, but Erik takes a step back and Marina takes a firm grip of my arm.
"Not in school," she says.
Erik backs up another step, but he's managed to hold on to his smirk.
"Better listen to your little puta," he says.
Marina holds me back as I start to lunge forward. But she's too far away to stop Desmond. Moving fast as a Wildling, he punches Erik in the face with enough force to knock him flat on his ass. Before Erik's friends can move in on us, the crowd suddenly disperses and we see Mr.
Cairns, our English teacher, striding down the hall in our direction. Erik's friends wait a beat, then take off as well.
I can see Mr. Cairns assessing the situation as he draws near: my bruised face. Erik on the floor holding a hand to his nose from which blood is pouring. Desmond, me and Marina standing over Erik, with Marina holding me back. Desmond has his hand in his pocket, hiding his bloodied knuckles.
"Who's going to tell me what happened?" he asks.
Nobody talks. We stare anywhere except at him, giving each other quick glances.
"Somebody?"
"Erik tripped and fell," Marina finally says.
"Is this true, Erik?"
Erik's eyes are full of hate for us, but he nods. Mr. Cairns studies him for a long moment, then his gaze settles on me.
"And what happened to you?" he asks.
"A bunch of guys jumped me yesterday."
"On school grounds?"
"No, sir."
"And did one of these attackers happen to be Erik?"
"I didn't see who they were, sir. They jumped me from behind."
Mr. Cairns sighs.
"I should send you all to the office," he says. He gives us a last once-over, then sighs again. "Erik, go see the nurse. The rest of you, get to class."
"Yes, sir. Thank you, sir."
Mr. Cairns rolls his eyes. We scatter before he can change his mind.
"Nice one," I say to Desmond as we hurry down the hall.
"Come on, dude," he says. "I know you didn't want me to do anything, but the jerk was begging for it."
"I wasn't being sarcastic. I was two seconds away from ripping off his head. Literally."
"Sweet."
"No. That would have been a disaster."
"But we have to do something about him."
"Maybe I'll beat him up," Marina says. "That'll do wonders for his image."
Desmond and I look at her in surprise.
"What?" she says. "You don't think I'd love to do it?"
"Yeah," Desmond says. "But you're usually the voice of reason in our little gang. We are a gang again, right?"
Marina and I look at each other. I smile. The three of us against the world—like old times.
"Sure," she says. "The gang of three."
Des grins, happier than I've seen him in a long time. I have to admit, I'm feeling a little giddy myself.