Chapter Four
CHAPTER FOUR
She didn’t know how she’d managed to fall asleep. She just knew that she had when she woke to find herself curled up on the floor, by the dresser she’d shoved over the hatch. And that she’d done it quite a long time ago, because sunlight streamed through the windows in the kitchen. Good, bright sunlight that warmed her cold skin and her stiff limbs.
And more importantly: it made everything look so normal .
There were her shoes, by the door. The ones she’d worn to pedal into town the day before. She could see the pot she’d cooked the soup in, still on the stove. Her apron, tossed over the kitchen table, smeared with the usual mess she made whenever she tried to cook anything. Bits of garlic skin scattered across the floor; chili oil splashed all over the place. And all of it so mundane that she could barely believe what had happened the night before. You must have imagined things , she told herself. Maybe he just wigged out from wanting weird drugs, and because he’s so big now, it scared you enough to make you see things.
And that all sounded really true and reasonable, it did.
But she still screamed when she heard a thump from below.
Then when the thump turned into the sound of someone obviously climbing the stairs, she couldn’t help it. “You stay down there, Seth Brubaker,” she yelled. And got a satisfying silence in response. No more shuffling, no more coming closer to where she was. Just complete quiet for what felt like a pretty long time. Before finally, finally, it was broken.
With the most ridiculous opener of all time.
“Cassie? You’re still up there?” he called to her.
For reasons she couldn’t even begin to guess. At the very least, he should have started with whatever the fuck happened the night before. But he hadn’t. He had asked an absurd question. So now she had to get into exactly how absurd it was.
“Of course I am. This is my goddamn house now.”
“Well, yeah, sure it is. But I figured after I terrified the bejesus out of you, probably you had fled to someplace you felt safer. Like maybe the other side of the planet. In a steel-lined bunker. Under the ocean.”
“I don’t even think that would do it, to be honest, Seth.”
“Right. And that makes sense. But you know, if I could just explain.”
“Is your explanation going to be that I did not see what I totally saw?”
Silence then. And even through the wood, she could tell it was an awkward one. She could almost hear him shuffling, in a way that said yeah, that was totally what he had wanted to go with. Then sure enough, a moment later: “That depends. What do you think you totally saw?”
“You becoming some kind of hideous thing.”
“Hey, I think ‘hideous’ is a little strong.”
Well, at least he’s not denying it , she thought. But she couldn’t be pleased about that. Mainly because she was too busy sweating over the fact that he’d confirmed it. He’d confirmed that he was some kind… of creature. And he’d done it in the most annoying way possible: with his fucking vanity leading the way. “I cannot believe that is the part you’re objecting to.”
“Well, I don’t see why you can’t. The other part didn’t hurt my feelings.”
She snorted, loud enough that he’d be able to hear. “So as long as your ego doesn’t get dinged, you’re fine being some weird whatever that tries to eat people.”
“Okay, first of all: I didn’t try to eat you. I’m just not used to juicy humans being right in front of me when I’m in that state,” he said, and she could almost see the irritation all over his face. And the firm lines he was probably drawing in the air, to indicate how completely unreasonable she was being. Even though all he had to add was this: “So certain grabbing instincts very briefly took over. But I swear, I would not have sunk my teeth in. And if I had, I definitely wouldn’t have done anything beyond a little light nibbling.”
To which she couldn’t help throwing up her hands.
“A little light nibbling? Seth, have you seen those teeth you somehow grow?”
“Despite trying very hard to not, yes, I have. And I accept that they look bad.”
“ Bad? They look like Freddy Krueger’s fingernails, you dingus.”
“Oh come on. They’re not that grim.”
“I bet your bottom lip doesn’t say that after being whatever that was,” she said, and meant it as a bit of snark. But the problem was, she had started picturing it now. And picturing it was not funny. It was terrifying. It made her shiver and want to grab a weapon again.
Doubly so when he wasn’t in any hurry to reply.
He could be down there planning his next grisly attack, she realized. About ten seconds before he replied, “One time I woke up, and the bottom half of my face was gone.”
She couldn’t help it after that. She shuffled away from the hatch. Then grabbed the hatstand that still lay beside her, before she responded. “And yet you’re trying to downplay what I saw last night.”
“Well, I don’t want you to be scared of me.”
“I think that ship has fucking sailed, Seth.”
“So let me do what I can to bring it back to dry land.”
“There’s nothing you can do. And even if there was, I would know that you’re only doing it so I’ll let you out,” she said, and more silence followed. Pretty telling silence. That was broken with what sounded like a lot of throat clearing.
It seemed to take him an age to stumble out words.
“Uh, yeah. Yeah. That’s totally the only reason I want you to not be scared of me and trust me. So you will let me out of here,” he said. She didn’t know why, however. It didn’t do a single thing to help him.
“So tell me how that’s enough for me to believe you’re not gonna eat me.”
“All right. How about: I’m totally normal and human again now?”
“Yeah, I’m gonna need more than your word on that.”
“And what other word do you want me to give? It’s not like there’s a committee down here to vouch for me,” he said, then paused. During which time she could practically hear the cogs in his head turning. “Well, unless you count the creepy dolls. But I’m kind of hoping they don’t have the ability to speak.”
She almost laughed. “Maybe they do. In fact, maybe they’re about to burst out of that box and chew your face off.”
Then, oh, the sound he made in response. It was almost a moan of terror.
And his voice when he spoke again was a haunted whisper.
“Holy shit, why would you say something like that to me?”
“I dunno, Seth. Maybe because you’re my mortal enemy. And also because you broke into my house in the middle of the night. Oh, and finally there’s the fact that a man with the ability to shear through a metal padlock with his supernatural strength shouldn’t be fucking afraid of evil dolls.”
“But I am afraid. Because you dragged me to that movie where they do all that weird stuff I’ve never been able to forget.”
She thought of it then.
Not just the movie itself, but how it had felt to do things like that with him. Both of them scrunched together in the falling-apart seats of the theatre, popcorn usually forgotten by halfway through. The smell of the aftershave he’d pinched from his dad because he figured it made him seem older than eleven. Those plaid shirts he’d always worn, soft as butter against her cheek.
And sometimes, just sometimes, his hand tight around her own. That little sense that maybe, just maybe, he liked her in that way.
Though of course she had never wanted him to. And she certainly didn’t now.
So she shook herself. She shed that sudden bloom of warmth. Then made herself as snarky and cold as he now required. “I see. So it’s my fault that you’re about to feel them touching your face with their tiny porcelain hands. And biting you with their tiny porcelain teeth. And licking you with their weird porcelain—”
“Cassie, stop, please. Just let me out.”
“I told you, you’re gonna need more than begging.”
He let out a desperate sound. And she could hear him shuffling around down there. Almost like he was pacing. Or running a frantic hand through his hair. Before he seemed to gather himself together. “Okay, okay. How about if I prove that I’m human again?”
“And how are you gonna do that? Pass me a recent DNA test?”
“My phone still has some battery. I could FaceTime you.”
“There’s no signal in here, Seth. Probably because it actually is haunted.”
Another pause, filled with what she suspected was him checking up on what she had said. It certainly sounded like tapping on a screen at any rate. And then there was a huff of frustration, and some further rustling, and what might have been an aha kind of sound, before finally, finally, a very breathless Seth gasped out, “I saw a Polaroid camera down here. I think it still works.”
“Well, that’s great, but I don’t know what good it’s gonna do you.”
“Because I could take a snap and slip it to you.”
And okay, she had to concede. That was a good plan.
“Fine. Go ahead,” she said.
Then she heard him thump down, down into that dark space. The one which could actually hold all kinds of horrors now, in a way it hadn’t been able to the night before. Back then it had been spooky, sure. But just a basement. Now it was potentially something else.
Like a portal to another world.
And even though she didn’t like him, it bothered her. She didn’t enjoy hearing him thumping and rustling and wrestling with whatever was down there. Twice he made a sound so stricken she almost called out to ask if he was okay, and only managed to stop herself when she remembered she was not supposed to be concerned about him.
And even then she held her breath.
And she continued to, on and off, until a picture slid through the crack between the trapdoor and the hole it filled, and skittered across the floor. At which point, she tensed up for a whole different reason. Because he’d promised and he’d said and he’d sounded startlingly sincere. But what if it was all a ruse? What if he’d taken a picture of something horrible, as a prank?
It could be , she thought, as she reached for the face-down Polaroid.
Then she turned it over, whip quick, and there it was.
His perfectly normal face, pushed into the goofiest, broadest grin she’d ever seen him make. It was so goofy and broad, in fact, that she could see both of his crooked, too-big-for-his-mouth incisors. The ones he’d never been able to wholly fix with the braces. The ones that had made him stop smiling sometime after he’d gotten the braces taken off, in case smiling gave away that he wasn’t really cool.
But apparently, he didn’t care about giving that away now. He’d even given her a thumbs-up in the picture. As if for this brief moment, her trusting him mattered more.
And it was this idea that got her up, off the ground. That made her shove the dresser until it slid off the hatch, muscles protesting all the while. Then she dealt with the mangled but still movable padlock, and lifted the trapdoor. Heart in her throat, but holding.
And there he was. As human as she could imagine anyone being.
More human than that, in fact. Because, man, he looked wrecked. Exhausted. Maybe even a little vulnerable—to the point where it probably would have affected her. It would have played on her heart strings. If it hadn’t been for one other tiny detail about him that she simply had to focus on instead. “Are you actually wearing one of my grandmother’s nighties?” she asked.
Because god, he was. He totally was. And it wasn’t even one of the simpler ones either. It was a huge, flowery tent, with ruffles on the ends of the voluminous sleeves. Then more ruffles on the hem, and around the middle.
He looked like a display in a cake shop window.
And he obviously knew it. His sallow face flamed red the second she spoke. “Don’t say it like it’s nuts. It was either this or emerge completely nude.”
“But you had loads of clothes on last night. There must be some of them left.”
She waved in the direction of where the clothes should have been, as he clambered out into the hallway. But he just sighed and rolled his eyes. “All that tells me is that you haven’t fully grasped what just happened.”
“I totally have, okay? Your face went weird.”
“Yeah, and the rest of me followed.”
“So your whole body grew fangs?” she asked. And, okay, she loaded it up with deadpan. But she was pushing it now, and she knew it. Worse: he knew it too.
He gave her such a withering look.
“Oh come on, you can guess better than that. You’ve seen this movie a million times before. Heck, you’re an expert on movies like this. You once told me the entire plot of one of them, when my mom wouldn’t let me watch.”
She pictured herself telling him, even more strongly than she had envisioned the memory of the movie theatre. She saw his face getting increasingly more disgusted as she went into all the gory details. Saw him trying to scoff as if he wasn’t scared, even though his eyes had always given the game away.
Then later on, he’d snuck up to her window. Like in the movies, where the guy comes to cop a feel. Only instead of anything like that, they’d hidden in their usual place: her closet. Before falling asleep while talking about all the ways they’d save each other, if the plot of Ginger Snaps ever happened to them.
And now it was, kind of.
But she wasn’t doing half as well with it as she’d thought she would.
“Right. Yeah. But that’s when it’s not real. And if I say it out loud now, then it’s very real. It’s extremely real. It’s too real for my apparently fragile brain to cope with,” she said. But he just shrugged. And plowed on.
“So then I’ll just say it.”
“Okay, but break it to me gently.”
“There’s no way to gently break this.”
“Sure there is. Use some nice-sounding euphemisms.”
“What, like once every full moon Uncle Hairy comes to visit?”
He said it in the same slightly desperate, kind of exasperated tone he’d been using for the last five minutes. But the thing was, he’d gone with those words. And those words were funny, she couldn’t deny that they were funny. So now on top of trying not to put too much trust in him, and going all soft over flashbacks to their once-was-friendship, she had to force her immediate response to that down.
She pressed her lips tight together. And when that didn’t work she glanced away. But it was too late. It was too late and she knew it. She could see it all over his face. He looked delighted .
And he sounded delighted too. “Hey, you’re almost laughing,” he said.
Damn him. “I am not. This is my horrified face.”
“You may be able to get away with claiming that with other people. But not with me. I was your best friend for like ten years, remember? I know your amused expression when I see it.”
“Well, maybe it’s changed since then.”
He shook his head firmly. “Nothing about you has changed since then.”
“Wish I could say the same for you right now.”
“Because I became the kind of person you can’t ever like?”
Fuck , she thought. Then almost had to clutch at her stomach, it hit that hard.
She couldn’t fault him, however. It was the truth. He had become the kind of person she couldn’t ever like, and that was how she felt, and there was no getting around it. And yet somehow, at this moment? She kind of wanted to.
And that felt so weird and so mixed up that she didn’t know how to deal with it. For a moment she was split—between the resentment she knew she should still feel toward the man he’d become, and the urge to go easy on this seemingly vulnerable creature in front of her.
And it made her cock one eyebrow. Voice as dry as the Sahara somehow. “Well, that,” she said. “And the fact that you’re apparently a fucking werewolf.”