5. Chapter 5
Chapter 5
JASON
I had that dream again. I was having it almost every night now, or any time I napped during the day, like on the train.
Glowing eyes in the dark.
In the trees.
Teeth.
Pain.
So much pain.
And… something else now. Something that didn’t make the creature look as much like a wolf anymore. But before I could tell what I was seeing, I woke up.
I really wished I’d snuck into Ricky’s room last night. Waking up alone sucked after a nightmare, especially when, last time, having Ricky’s head fall on my shoulder had been really nice. And comforting.
Kissing Ricky while not letting myself worry about fangs or the coming storm had been nice and comforting too. Even nicking his stomach hadn’t been too bad, because when I’d gotten down on my knees to lick it like some primal instinct had taken over, I’d been able to smell how turned on he was. I’d been able to see it, the bulge growing beneath his jeans. I would have pulled them down and swallowed him whole if we hadn’t heard that scream.
Now, I reached beneath my covers to palm what was apparently just as normal as any other morning wood despite what I’d dreamt. Sometimes, I woke up half turned. That’s how I knew I could look that way. I was partially turned this morning too. Maybe it was better I hadn’t woken up beside Ricky. I couldn’t be sure if I didn’t fully transform while I slept.
I willed my claws away and slid my hand beneath the waistband of my shorts. Thinking about the good parts of being in the woods with Ricky was better than thinking about the bad. Than any of the bad. Than being a monster who had to practice control or worry I’d slice up my boyfriend. Than hearing someone scream, who’d then vanished in a flash of light, leaving only a scrap of their shirt behind. Than it having happened in a spot already blocked off by the very scientists Ricky would be working with, in the same woods where my dad disappeared.
And in the same spot where I’d become a monster.
Glowing eyes in the dark.
In the trees.
Teeth.
Pain.
So much pain.
I couldn’t keep those images away when I closed my eyes, so I had to snap them open again. My morning wood was swiftly dwindling. Maybe if I just laid there for a while—
“Jason!” my mother called from upstairs. “Are you up yet, sweetheart?”
Not anymore.
“I’m fine! Awake, I mean!” I pulled my hand out of my underwear. “I’ll be up in a few minutes!”
Glancing at my phone charging on the nightstand, I realized how much later it was than I’d thought. Ricky would have already left for his internship. Good thing I’d already snuck that extra note into his shoulder bag while we were unpacking yesterday.
Another twenty-five repetitions of:
I WILL NOT BE A DICK
If only I could follow through.
The scientists had cancelled taking Ricky out for coffee. When he called them back yesterday, they’d still been cryptic and quiet about whatever it was he’d be studying, but the jig was up concerning where they’d be studying it. Ricky was to not return to that spot in the woods without them—same for me—and they’d said they’d send a guard to watch the cordoned off area, not having done so before because they’d underestimated both the danger and people’s interest in going near it.
But what the fuck was it? What was that place, that light? What had happened to the person who screamed? Was it the same thing that happened to my dad? Why was I attacked there? And by what?
I’d dismissed something when Ricky and I were first playing in the woods. Before the scream, before the first roll of thunder, I’d thought I smelled or even sensed something… familiar. Wild animals in the woods weren’t unusual, but we’d never had anything dangerous in there before. Once upon a time, we didn't have monsters either.
I hurried to get dressed. There wasn’t time for a shower. I’d brush my teeth after I ate something and call it good enough. One thing about half-way transforming was that it fluffed my hair better than running a comb through it.
A notification from the Monster Match app blinked at me when I grabbed my phone. I’d messaged Cael last night about what happened, but then I got so turned around and caught up in things afterward, I hadn’t checked to see his response. Ricky and I hadn’t told Mom about any of it. The scientist team had asked us not to, and she never went into those woods anyway. If I told her, she’d only worry.
And think about Dad.
The last thing I’d messaged Cael was to ask if he could pop over and check out that spot in the woods.
slender_01: I am afraid that might prove more dangerous for you and your town. It sounds as if those woods are home to a natural forming portal between realms, one that is not stable. My presence could further destabilize it and have unknown or even catastrophic effects. Use caution and let the scientists continue to study it.
Since I hadn’t replied, he’d messaged me again this morning.
slender_01: I hope you are not upset by my answer, Jason. Please know that I would help if I could.
brOmance2021: i know dude. its fine. i just dont like that its where i was attacked. whatever attacked me—
The realization of what I was about to type hit me at the same moment as when I was writing it.
brOmance2021: whatever attacked me might still be in the woods
Fuck . And now I had to go and pretend to care about whatever boring gopher shit my mom was going to assign to me at the elementary school—while acting grateful because I had asked her for this.
“Aw, your hair looks so nice this morning, honey.” Mom doted over me at the kitchen island, where I was scarfing down eggs before we headed to the school. She’d made me bacon and eggs, even though she never had more than, like, a protein bar and coffee for breakfast herself. She was seriously the best, while I was the worst.
“Well, ya know, I can honestly say, ‘I woke up like this,’ and it’s true.” I shrugged.
She laughed.
“Ricky headed out okay?”
“Oh yes. Caught him trying to have just plain toast for breakfast though. I fixed that.”
Good. Hopefully, he’d have more info to share once he was done for the day. He’d already promised to tell me everything he learned, even if it was classified. He’d tried to convince me to join him today, but no freaking way. Those scientists would only want to study me, and I was not a lab rat.
“Honey?”
“Huh?”
“I asked if you had any feelers on potential jobs in your field. Not that you have to yet! I just know you’re going to be bored to tears helping me in the office.”
No use hiding that from her then. She knew me too well.
I finished my eggs and last strip of bacon and brought my plate to the sink.
“Feelers as in places I want to apply for, yes. Only, so far, the ones I really want are out.”
“What do you mean?”
“They’re all outside city limits or several towns away. I’m not allowed to leave Elder Ridge right now, remember? My visa, even if I didn’t have Agent As— Whitmore —around, means I have to find a job in town. I’ll probably end up mowing lawns,” I grumbled and let my plate clatter a little too loudly when I dropped it.
“Jason.” Mom came up beside me. “It’s still early days. Very early. They only want to watch you until they feel like they can trust you. And you are plenty trustworthy, so I’m sure it’ll take no time at all before Agent Whitmore gives you the all clear. Besides, what’s wrong with mowing lawns and landscaping? That’s what your father did.”
Shit. There I went being a dick again and still ended up reminding her of him. “I didn’t mean there’s anything wrong with the work, but it’s not what I want to do. Though I don’t really know what I do want, other than to be outside. And yes, I realize mowing and landscaping would achieve that. Let’s wait and see how bored I get at the school first.”
She patted my shoulder. “It’s mostly filing and data entry. It won’t take long.”
“The work or the boredom?”
“Train’s leaving in five minutes!” she deflected, meaning her Elantra.
Supposedly, some people could use tedious tasks to help clear their heads and refocus. I hoped that was true for me, but I was more struck by déjà vu when we finally pulled up to the school and parked in the staff lot. It had been years since I’d been here. Even with Mom working here every day of my life, it wasn’t as if I’d visited after moving on to higher grades.
Yes, it looked smaller than I remembered. I was two feet shorter back then! But the real slap of nostalgia was the smell . Not a bad smell, necessarily, but hard to pin down. Maybe books, steel from the lockers, preteen hormones, but damn, did it bring me back to being twelve, confident and fearless that I would do something monumental with my life and make my mother proud.
Fucking childhood optimism.
“You’ll be using Nancy’s desk. You remember Nancy,” Mom said as she led me into the office. I hadn’t spent much time in here as a kid. No, I’d saved my detention for middle and high school, where my mother wouldn’t be sitting at the front desk when I came in.
It was eerie being in the building when it was mostly empty. Summer school wasn’t much of a thing pre-sixth grade. There were two main desks when entering the office. More like one giant desk that had a section take out in the middle to allow people to get to the farther back desks and the doors to the vice principal and principal’s offices and school nurse. The current receptionist, Nancy, was usually on the left, but it worked out that I could help with summer tasks, because she was on some anniversary cruise with her husband. Mom sat at the desk on the right, and the two back ones were generally empty during the summer.
After Mom explained what she needed me to do, the boredom was real not twenty minutes in. Filing and data entry were my kryptonite. I needed sun. Fresh air. Space to run. I had been called a golden retriever long before anything canine was a literal part of my body chemistry. The monotony did start to clear my head, but instead of career path options, all I could think about was…
Glowing eyes in the dark.
In the trees.
Teeth.
Pain—
Patchouli slapped me in the face, overtaking the book, locker, and hormone smell for what felt like minutes before I heard footsteps announcing someone approaching the office.
“Good. You’re here.” A man, maybe early to mid-30s, in a business suit and no tie with the air of a car salesman about him, strode in and didn’t give any greeting or introduction before saying, “It seems I need to express my concerns in person to get concrete answers about next year’s enrollment.”
He had addressed my mother, and one glance at her told me she knew exactly who this was and was already aggravated by his arrival. I vaguely recognized him, certain I’d seen him around before—it was a small town—but I wouldn’t have been able to guess from where.
“I think it perfectly reasonable to demand that all enrollments be available for public viewing—”
“Mr. McPherson.” My mom held up a hand to stop him which, according to her, was an exceptionally rude gesture that should only ever be used on rude people. “As I explained in my emails and over the phone, student directory information is publicly available—”
“But parents have the option to opt out!” he interrupted back. “How can I be certain whether my daughter will be safe next semester, if some monster family decides to wait until day one of the school year to be upfront about enrolling one of their spawn?”
I snorted. Spawn? Seriously?
McDickhole ignored me and focused on Mom.
“As I have explained,” she said again, “it is district policy—”
“I came here on my lunch break,” he blew right over her, slamming his hands on the desktop, which made my hackles raise because this was no longer funny, “and you still won’t answer my concerns directly?”
The way he was so clearly blowing off that he’d already communicated with her multiple times and had received direct answers was starting to piss me off.
“They have that one registered at the high school, despite the scandal already about human children licking its skin to get high.”
“ What ?” I choked on another laugh, because, okay, that was funny again.
“Mr. McPherson—” my mom was a paragon of patience “—as we’ve discussed, that rumor was proven false—”
“Propaganda,” he dismissed. “There are two known monsters who will be attending the middle school as well. At least that information was made available to me.”
“Because those parents chose to leave the information public—”
“It shouldn’t matter what the parents think if there is danger involved!”
“Then it shouldn’t matter what you think if there isn’t any.”
I snorted again. Go Mom .
Only this time, McDickhole looked at me. He pushed away from her desk with a lurch and took a step backward—back and to his right—as if to get farther away from me.
“Well, I can see that I might need to speak to someone in higher authority, given you are clearly compromised in your opinion.” He slid his eyes back to Mom like he wanted to melt her. “You have a habit of hiding information and cannot be trusted to give straight answers about the monster presence.” He leaned toward her again with his voice lowered. “And I personally do not think it appropriate to allow an unsanctioned monster into this building.”
“Unsanctioned?” Now I was done with this guy and stood. I was several inches taller and broader than him, and frankly, I liked seeing him cower when he realized that. “I have a visa. And my mom didn’t hide anything. She didn’t know. I hid that I became a monster. Bad move on my part, I’m aware. But there aren’t any kids here right now, are there? So the only person I could possibly be a danger to is you.”
“ Jason ,” my mother hissed.
“Already spewing threats!” McDickhole stood taller.
Bad move again. Crap. Come on, Jason, get it together . “I just meant—”
“This is exactly what that article warned us about, which you dismissed as editorial.”
“It was editorial.” Now Mom stood, and I had to backtrack through the conversation because how did this guy know I was a monster? Not word of mouth but there’d been an article?
“You clearly cannot share my fears when your son is one of them,” McDickhole continued. “How can I not be concerned? Sometimes they look just like us! You could be one of them. If we don’t keep accurate records and put in place the right precautions—”
“I assure you, Mr. McPherson, that we are all about record keeping,” my mom tried to assure him. “I am not a monster, but yes, my son is. He is not the issue here, however. The government is very tight with those visas. They are taking every necessary precaution.”
“And yet I had no idea your son would be on school grounds this summer.” He glared at me. “I think this is something other parents would want to know, just like we had every right to demand that audit of your… character.”
“ What ?” I stepped out from behind my desk. “What is he talking about?”
“Did his eyes just glow?” McDickhole squeaked.
Shit. Had they? I had to calm down.
But they tried to investigate Mom?
“Mr. McPherson,” she somehow managed to remain calm, “my son is simply getting on his feet and doing his due diligence as a recent graduate who spent his entire life in this town and should always be welcomed back in it. Now, if you have a formal complaint you would like to make—”
“Oh, I intend to—”
“Then take it up with the school board!” she finally yelled, and when my mom yelled, that was the end of a conversation.
“Sandy, is everything all right out here?” The principal peeked her head out of her office. I hadn’t even known she was here. So was the vice principal, I realized now, because I could see him peering through the glass of his office door, wondering if he should get involved too. “Ah, Mr. McPherson, I see. Do we need to have another discussion—”
“Unnecessary. Apparently, I’ll be speaking with the school board next.” McDickhole left in a huff, while I was left feeling like a grade-A moron.
“Ms. Greystone, I am so sorry,” I started, but the principal was a paragon of patience too and had a genuine smile for me. I guess people who worked at schools sort of had to overflow with patience or drown in a million other emotions.
“It’s okay, Jason,” she said. “Mr. McPherson has been a thorn in our side for weeks. Honestly, I’ll be happy to have him be the board’s problem for a while. It’s good to see you.” She came over and extended her hand.
She’d been the vice principal when I went here and had been a favorite of the students, and of my mom’s, so I’d always liked her. She said a lot with that handshake. It told me she was on my side. On Mom’s side. It hadn’t dawned on me that obviously Mom would have needed permission for me to work here for the summer, so everyone here had to know what I was.
But what was all that McDickhole had said?
“It’s good to see you too, Ms. Greystone. But what did he mean by audit?” I looked from her to Mom. “Did you get in trouble because of me?”
“No, honey.” Mom joined us at my desk. “Ronald and a few of the other parents just stirred a little fuss after the paper ran a very one-sided opinion piece about Elder Ridge becoming a tester town and the reveal of your… change.”
“His name is Ronald McDonald?” I joked.
“McPherson.”
“Still a clown.”
Mom and Ms. Greystone snickered.
“So the whole town already knows about me?” I asked.
“Not everyone read that article,” Mom said, “and most care more about being in a tester town at all. The past few weeks have been a little tense.”
“And there are going to be monsters at the middle school? And one at the high school?”
“Yes. But no one was licking her to get high!” Mom scoffed. “We don’t think.”
At least that would be a fun monster to hang out with. “ Are any monsters coming to the elementary school?”
“Eventually, it’s inevitable,” Ms. Greystone chimed in. “But whenever that does happen, the dissenters will have to get used to it. Thank you for handling that, Sandy. It’s good to have you here, Jason.” She went back to her office, and the vice principal wasn’t glued to the other side of his door anymore.
“I am so sorry, Mom—”
“Don’t be sorry,” she stopped me. “Be better. You are the one who will get in trouble if something happens.”
“I know. And I will be. Better . Not in trouble.”
“Thank you.”
“Seriously, though, Mom, what did McDickhole expect you to do if there were monsters being enrolled?”
At least my apt nickname for him got another snicker out of her. “Beef up security to keep an eye on them? As if they were criminals,” she muttered. Her eyes met mine just as we took our seats again, and she had to be reminded that I was basically being treated that way now. “I suppose it could come to that, couldn’t it?”
“It won’t. I’m an exception. I’m… an anomaly. Those monster kids know what they are. What did the article say I was?” I asked.
“You don’t need to worry about that.”
Which meant I was absolutely going to look it up. Now. In a separate browser from my data entry. The fact that I found it super-fast on the paper’s website because the title read “LOCAL MONSTER HIDES IN PLAIN SIGHT” did not bode well.
I just hoped Ricky was having a better day than I was.