✧ 69 | About Ned ✧
Yellow eyes became lost in that alluring shade of green.
They carried him back thirty years, to a magical forest where a younger Billy lay beneath a towering tree, gazing into those same eyes.
Golden flecks shimmered across the emerald irises like scattered stars, beautiful enough to be remembered for a lifetime.
"Billy," a husky voice called. "What are you thinking about?"
For a moment, he thought he was dreaming.
No. Not a dream.
A memory.
The voice was calm and gentle, the kind that had always filled his stomach with butterflies.
The voice of Ned.
Ned played with Billy's brown hair, curling the strands around his slender fingers. It was a delicate touch that had always made Billy feel as though he were floating on clouds.
"I'm thinking," Billy started, then paused to stare deep into those big, trusting eyes. "We should run away together, away from this town."
They were both sixteen. Young enough to believe love could fix anything, and reckless enough to bet their lives on it. Their faces were untouched by cruelty. Their hearts had yet to know heartbreak. Innocent and dreamy.
Ned sat up with a jolt, eyebrows raised.
"What? You want us to leave our families?"
Billy propped himself up by the elbows.
"They'll never understand what we have."
Before Billy or Ned could finish their first argument, air-raid sirens blared.
Ned held onto Billy's arm.
"What's going on?"
"I don't know." Billy stood up and pulled Ned with him. "But we need to go."
The whole town had gathered outside the only hospital for miles.
A government official stepped forward and announced that radiation from the Three Mile Island nuclear accident had reached their town.
Then the mayor addressed the crowd.
"We need everyone to line up for a series of vaccines," he said. "They're meant to protect us from this disaster."
The hospital no longer looked the way anyone remembered.
The renovations had just been completed. Every window had been sealed, every entrance barricaded except for a single reinforced door. It looked less like a hospital and more like a high-security prison, or a laboratory built for dangerous experiments.
At first, the townspeople lined up willingly. The vaccines were presented as a precaution, a way to protect everyone from the disaster.
Then, as the days passed, everything changed.
Russian soldiers arrived alongside a team of doctors. What had once been voluntary quickly became mandatory. One by one, the citizens of Ashwood were rounded up and forcibly vaccinated.
Those who refused disappeared behind the hospital's walls and were monitored closely. Among them were the twins, Maggie and Martha.
Charlie made sure his son, Ned, obeyed the government's orders like the good little boy he had always been.
Billy, however, refused to finish his vaccinations. He'd had enough.
Ned couldn't bear the thought of Billy being dragged into that hospital and locked away with the others who had resisted. So he came up with a plan.
They would run away together.
They were halfway through the forest when the full moon rose.
Billy stopped abruptly. His stomach twisted. His teeth throbbed
But that was not the worst part.
"What's wrong, Billy?" Ned asked, resting a hand on Billy's back.
"I don't know." Billy bent over and groaned. "But it's somethingI've never experienced before. It's like..." He grimaced. "...my bones are moving inside me."
Ned gently rubbed his back.
"Let's rest here. Maybe it's too much for you. All the running and everything."
Billy shook his head, but before he could say another word, a shout echoed through the darkness.
"Ned! Billy!" a rough voice bellowed through the trees. "How dare you take my son away, you faggot!"
It was a voice both teenagers knew too well.
Charlie's.
And judging by the rage in his voice, he was beyond furious.
"Oh, God." Ned gulped. "It's my dad."
"Shit," Billy said. "He sounds pissed."
"Let's go." Ned helped the brown-haired teen to his feet. "We have to keep moving. Come on."
They picked up their pace, but not nearly fast enough beneath the first full moon since the mandatory vaccines.
Charlie's guttural voice was getting closer.
"Shit," Ned whispered. "How did he know where to find us?"
Billy was a heaving mess. He gathered what little strength he had left through the pain to answer.
"It's our footsteps." He winced. "The twigs... the leaves... I can hear every one of them. They're so loud."
Ned paused and stared at him.
"What?"
"I can smell him too," Billy admitted. "Something's not right." He pressed a hand against his throbbing head. "Something's terribly wrong with me."
"Hey. Look at me." Ned stepped in front of him and lowered himself to meet his gaze. "Look at me."
Billy slowly lifted his eyes.
First came the faint smile resting on Ned's heart-shaped lips, small but sincere enough to quiet the panic in his chest. Then his brown gaze drifted to the soft curve of his button nose before climbing higher, where a breathtaking pair of green eyes waited for him.
They sparkled with hope.
Not fear.
Not doubt.
Hope.
The kind that made Billy believe, if only for a moment, that everything would be all right.
"You're OK," Ned said gently. "You're just tired. There's nothing wrong with you. OK?"
Billy smiled.
The eyes behind those messy strands of blonde hair smiled back at him.
In the midst of the sweet moment, something seized Billy from behind and yanked him backward with terrifying force. His hand tore free from Ned's.
The next instant, his back slammed into the trunk of an enormous ash tree.
The impact knocked the breath from his lungs.
Pain exploded through his spine.
Before he could recover, Charlie's towering silhouette stepped into view.
"Damn you!" Charlie roared, but the voice that tore from his throat was no longer human. "Stay away from my son, you bloody queer."
"Dad, stop!" Ned screamed.
Then he backed away with a gasp.
The man who turned around to face him wasn't his dad. Under the full moon's light, they saw who he really was.
An eight-foot-tall wolf walking on two legs.
A werewolf.
Its massive shadow fell over Billy, who struggled to get back on his feet. Every hair on his arms stood on end as those yellow eyes locked onto him. They burned with the rage of the world.
That was when Billy knew; he was a dead man.
The hairy werewolf once known as jolly good Charlie had gone rogue. He raised one massive arm, claws as long as pitchfork tines, then swung them straight at Billy.
Billy threw his arms over his eyes.
Splat!
Something warm splashed across his face.
The forest fell deathly silent.
A wet gurgle broke the stillness. Then came the soft rustle of hair brushing against his trembling arms.
Blond hair.
Billy's heart stopped.
Slowly, against every instinct screaming at him not to, he lowered his hands.
His breath hitched.
His vision blurred.
There, crumpled between him and the werewolf, lay Ned. Red spread beneath his body, soaking into the earth.
Billy's chest rose and fell in frantic bursts. A scream clawed at the back of his throat, refusing to stay trapped any longer.
"Nooooo!" Billy wailed.