Chapter Fourteen
We tear through the trees, smacking aside errant branches and stumbling over rocks, until we reach one of the roads that cuts through Rock Creek Park.
Max doubles over, gasping for breath. Even though I can’t hear Tyler behind us and am ninety-eight per cent sure he didn’t follow, I keep my eyes fixed on the tree line.
When Max eventually rises, we both stare at each other for a few seconds before breaking into simultaneous shouting.
‘What the hell was that thing?’
‘Were you following me?’
‘Did you call it Tyler?’
‘You scared the shit out of me.’
‘Why were you giving it pizza?’
‘Okay, stop, stop, stop,’ I say, waving my hands. Max’s mouth clamps shut. ‘First.’ I level a stare at him. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘I followed you after work and saw you crossing into Rock Creek Park,’ Max says. He speaks so matter-of-factly, as though following a lone girl through the woods isn’t the plotline of countless horror movies. ‘You know the park is closed, right?’
‘But why were you following me?’
‘I wanted to tell you Rick is giving you your job back.’
‘What?’ I say. Somehow this is the least expected thing he could say to me. ‘How?’
Max shoves his hands in his hoodie pockets and shrugs. ‘I talked to him and told him I was being a jerk, and that you had every right to yell at me.’
I narrow my eyes.
He rolls his.
‘Okay, fine,’ Max concedes, sighing. ‘And when that didn’t work, I told him how much my dad talks about having compassion for people who’re going through stuff and how cool he’d think it was if Rick gave you a second chance.
’ He grimaces. ‘Rick may or may not think you’re currently going through some kind of emotional breakdown, but at least you have your job back!
’ He points awkward finger guns at me and tries to smile, but it comes off more as a cringe.
I frown. Max Taylor may be very good looking, but he’s also very uncool. He seems to realise this too, and shoves his hands back in his pockets.
‘And you couldn’t just call to tell me this?’ I ask.
Max lets out a long sigh through his nose. ‘I would’ve, except I thought I could catch up with you and then I saw you creeping into the park like a burglar—’
‘I did not creep—’
‘—so, yeah, my curiosity got the better of me, and I followed you. Joke’s on me though, right?’ His chest rises with a sharp intake of breath. ‘Now can you tell me what I just saw?’
A car appears around the corner, its headlights drenching us in white. Max and I hold up both hands to block our eyes from the aggressively bright glow.
The car passes and the stifling darkness returns. ‘We should get out of here before a ranger sees us,’ I say, crossing towards the sidewalk without waiting for Max to follow.
Once we’re out of the park, Max and I are dumped on to a quiet residential street.
We walk in silence for a few blocks, and I know I should be using this time to come up with a logical explanation for what Max just saw, but I’m too on edge, my entire body bristling with nervous energy.
Eventually we find a fro-yo shop that’s completely empty save for a guy who’s sitting at a table by himself and staring longingly into the dregs of his cup.
It’s one of those places that look like they’re lit by a thousand ring lights, the pink tables, the terrazzo-flecked floor, the posters of chocolate-covered fruit tinted in blue-white.
I grab a table on the other side of the shop from Sad Guy while Max stares at the row of fro-yo flavours.
There are at least fifteen, all identified by a cartoon fruit, candy or cake taped above the self-serve nozzles.
It’s clear by the way we don’t discuss our options that neither of us is actually interested in fro-yo right now, but know we need to buy something if we want to stay.
I’m aware that I’m staring as Max circles the toppings bar, but I can’t help it – how, after the day I’ve had, am I actually sitting in a fro-yo place with Max Taylor?
His hands fidget nervously at his sides, pulling at the cuffs of his hoodie.
He looks nothing like the guy I remember yelling at in F’resh, rage boiling in my veins as I swung a mop around like a weapon.
A few minutes later, he arrives at our table with a small cup of chocolate fro-yo. It’s topped with strawberries, cheesecake pieces, caramel sauce and two plastic pink spoons.
‘I just got a bunch of random stuff because I didn’t know what you like,’ he says, sitting across from me.
We both dig into the fro-yo begrudgingly, as though we’ve lost a bet and this is our punishment.
While normally one of my favourite ice cream toppings – a lucky guess by Max – the cheesecake turns sour in my mouth.
I don’t want to tell him about Tyler, but what else can I say?
I accidently found this mutant hell beast and instead of alerting, oh say, literally anyone, I secretly feed him pizza sometimes?
At least with the truth, I sound kind of heroic and not exclusively weird.
I clear my throat and Max places his spoon down on the table, bracing himself.
‘You cannot repeat any of what I’m about to say,’ I say quietly. ‘Someone’s life literally depends on it.’
Max nods.
I pull in a deep breath. I’m about to tell this secret, one I haven’t told my mom or my best friend, to a stranger whose dad I hate. But what other choice do I have? If Max thinks Tyler is just some rabid monster, he could call the police, or the Fish and Wildlife people, or whoever runs Area 51.
I hunch over the table. Max does the same.
‘He’s a beast, not a thing. And his name is Tyler.’
‘You named it …’ Max shakes his head. ‘Him … Tyler?’
‘I didn’t give it to him, that’s just his name.’
When Max’s puzzled expression doesn’t change, I pull my phone out of my pocket. Within seconds, I’ve found Tyler’s Instagram.
‘This is Tyler when he’s not a monster,’ I say, setting my phone on the table and swivelling it around so Max can see.
‘Wait, that beast was a person?’
He taps Tyler’s top post; it’s a bunch of blurry pictures of Tyler and his bandmates walking in Adams Morgan, their fuzzy edges ringed by blobs of red and yellow light. Max scrolls through the rest of Tyler’s grid, squinting with concentration.
‘Is a person,’ I insist. ‘He only turns into a monster sometimes, and then he becomes himself again, usually after a couple days.’
‘But how does …’ Max glances around the room as though searching for the right words. ‘What?’ he eventually blurts. ‘How does something like this even happen?’
I swallow. While Max learning more about Tyler felt like an inevitability after he appeared behind me at the cave, he cannot know why Tyler turns, much less that his dad is involved.
Max could tell him, ruining any chance I’ve got of getting close enough to Austin to break the curse.
That, and ‘doomed in love’ isn’t exactly a label I’m trying to flaunt.
‘I don’t know.’ I slide my phone away from him and tuck it back in my pocket. ‘But I’m trying to figure out how to stop it.’
The shop door dings. Sad Guy is leaving with a different bowl of fro-yo, this one full. He looks considerably happier.
Max picks up his spoon and swirls it around our quickly melting fro-yo. ‘Stop it?’
‘Tyler turning,’ I say. ‘That, and – whatever’s made him this way.’
‘Whatever’s … made him this way?’ Max shoves a strawberry in his mouth and chews slowly. ‘Like a … machine?’
I hunch back down again and wave my hand, gesturing for him to do the same. Once Max’s eyes are level with mine, I whisper, ‘Magic.’
‘Magic,’ Max repeats, his voice flat.
‘Yes, magic.’ I fold my hands under my chest. ‘I know you probably don’t believe me, but whatever did this to Tyler is some really dark stuff.’
‘Are you …’ Max blinks rapidly. ‘Are you actually saying magic is real?’
‘You saw him.’
‘Well, yeah,’ he says. ‘But how do I know that wasn’t just some guy in a costume?’
My jaw drops and the room around me seems to shrink. Why didn’t I just say that?
I sit up straight and try to look flippant, to laugh, but the sound is brittle. ‘Okay, fine, you got me,’ I say. ‘It was my friend Sam—’
‘No, no, no, don’t you dare.’ Max points his empty spoon at me. ‘I saw how scared you were back there. You didn’t know I was following you. I’m just trying to wrap my head around all this. So, this guy you know—’
I sigh. ‘Tyler.’
‘—Sure, Tyler. He magically turns into that freak show and now you, what … see him during visiting hours?’
I scoop another hunk of cheesecake on to my spoon and dunk it in caramel sauce. It tastes much better this time. Less tainted with anxiety.
‘I check up on him when he turns. Bring him pizza.’
‘Is that safe?’
I bite my lower lip, picture Tyler crouched down in the cave tonight. Growling. ‘I’ve never seen him get mad like that. He’s usually just an oversized poodle.’
‘He was protecting you,’ Max says easily. The statement makes me blink. Could that be true? Max sweeps his hair off his face with the back of his hand. ‘And he doesn’t know why he keeps changing into … whatever he is?’
No, Max – Tyler doesn’t know about the love curse your dad put on my mom and that somehow got passed down to me.
‘No,’ I say. ‘I mean, I don’t know. We don’t actually … know … each other. I just kind of … found him. Once. Accidentally.’
Max frowns, but says nothing.
A curtain of disobedient curly hair falls across his forehead. Max repeats the gesture from before, brushing it away. The movement allows, if only briefly, a full view of his eyes. They’re not as dark as I originally thought. Around his pupils is a ring of red-gold to match his hair.
I rise abruptly, pushing back my chair. ‘So, there you go,’ I say. ‘You know the whole story.’ I grab my backpack and sling it over one shoulder. ‘Now, if you don’t mind, I need to go home and wash the smell of Rick’s cologne out of my hair.’
As I pass him walking towards the door, Max glances over his shoulder and says, ‘Tomorrow, same shift time. You’ll get your uniform back too.’
Eyes locked on my feet, I nod and say, ‘Thanks.’
The air outside is thick and warm, a small taste of what’s to come with summer’s humidity.
Still, goosebumps prickle my arms. I hug my jacket tighter around my torso and walk away from Max and the fro-yo place.
As I stand on the Metro escalator plunging down, down, down into the earth, it occurs to me that I only ever asked Max how he’d gotten my job back for me. I never thought to ask why.