Chapter 15
The Fission Reactor
No matter how many times I tossed it away, the lighter found its way back to me, polished to a shine and engraved with another threatening message.
I didn’t know how it worked, but I started to understand its purpose.
The last message that appeared had been cryptic, but it made my hair stand up.
Mosavi wanted me to know he was monitoring my every move.
He put on quite a show of dominance, but was Roscoe right about him?
What exactly did anyone know about the elders that ran werewolf society from the shadows, and did anyone really understand the vironoct?
Was any of this kuu stuff necessary, or was it a convenient way to control an entire population?
The conspiracy theories piled up in my mind as I sat in silence on the loveseat, flipping the lid of the lighter over and over.
“I’m going to rip your hands off,” Austin grumbled from the other couch. He had been so quiet while watching television that I’d kind of forgotten he was in the room with me.
“Sounds like you’re in a better mood.” I clicked the lighter closed before tossing it onto the coffee table. Roscoe and I agreed to keep what the mayor said quiet until we figured out what his motives were. The last thing I needed to worry about was Austin melting down again.
“I could tear you apart right now.”
“You won’t,” I said dismissively, kicking my feet up on the couch while scrolling through the messages on my phone.
He gave another glare before turning back to the television screen.
“Adam and Roscoe won’t be back for a couple days, so either learn to get along with me or go hide in your garage.”
Without another word, Austin tossed the remote onto the coffee table and stood.
“Hold on.”
“What?”
“That was more of an invitation to converse. I wasn’t actually telling you to leave.”
The werewolf let out a short hiss through his teeth and opened the door.
“Come on, I’m trying to—”
The door clicked shut, with Austin now on the other side of it.
These planned couple of days were already off to a great start.
Roscoe’s ‘buddy’ had reneged on his promise to pick up the moving truck, so we needed to get it back to the city.
Since Roscoe was the only one that really knew how to drive, he had to be the one to do it.
I would have gone with him, but Adam was about as persistent as a Jack Russell Terrier waiting by the front door.
Instead of telling him no, I’d reluctantly stood aside.
Having Adam out of the picture for a little while allowed me some precious alone time with Austin without having to deal with both of them arguing about everything.
It was hard enough to find a moment Austin wasn’t pissed off, but Adam always exacerbated his bad mood.
If I was going to have any chance in hell of getting control of the situation, I needed to win Austin over—or at the very least, get him to hate me less.
The squirming and rumbling of my stomach reminded me I hadn’t yet eaten lunch. Being cranky and hungry wasn’t going to help, so I’d leave him alone while I got a snack. Maybe I’d also watch a movie and get some chores done. It wasn’t like I had to get this done today, right?
The mayor’s expectations of me seemed egregious.
Roscoe was the oldest and the one actually holding everyone together.
His cooking was what lured Austin out of his hole, and his jokes kept the conversations light when they’d veer off into dangerous territory.
Not only that, he seemed to know exactly what to say or what advice to give when the situation called for it.
Those redeeming qualities were also fused to an infuriating lack of motivation, like a Cronenberg monster of sage-like stupidity.
What was I thinking? I couldn’t trust Roscoe to lead a buffet line, let alone this family.
I rummaged through the pantry, trying to find something I wouldn’t need to cook.
Roscoe bought a lot of sweets, which, oddly enough, hadn’t added more to his waistline.
I hated to admit it, but even with his gut, the werewolf was naturally handsome.
It made me wonder what he’d look like as a human if he had the mayor’s ability.
Could he at least take on half-turn form like Austin?
As I shifted around a bunch of cream-filled snacks with nothing I wanted in sight, I almost considered tearing open a package of saltines. However, something in the far corner caught my eye. It was a black, unopened bag of pre-popped popcorn that looked like it had been purposely hidden.
After grabbing the snack, I headed back into the living room and planted myself on the sofa before turning up the television volume. The bag crackled as I tore it open. I then snatched a handful, shoveling it into my mouth.
The door leading to the garage creaked open, and Austin emerged, sniffing the air.
“Is that white cheddar popcorn?”
I examined the front of the bag. “Yeah,” I said, a bit puzzled as he padded toward the couch. “Do you want some?”
He plopped down on the sofa, stuck his nose in the bag and began to salivate. “Yes.”
I passed the popcorn, and he tilted the bag above his mouth, scarfing down nearly half of its contents. Bits fell into his lap as he chomped away, licking his fingers afterward before shoving his slobbery hand in.
“Keep it, I guess,” I said. Austin wasn’t even listening to me anymore. It was as though nothing else mattered but that popcorn. “If you’re hungry, I could make you something.”
He stopped chewing, and his eyes went wide. “Roscoe told me to keep you away from the stove. He was like, serious about it.”
“For fuck’s sake, I’m not a child! I know what I’m doing now.”
Austin licked his fingers again, his expression pensive. “I could go for a sandwich.”
I gave the almost empty bag of popcorn a glance. “You like grilled cheese?”
His tail thudded against the cushions, and I could barely hold back a smile. Roscoe might have unintentionally saved the day with his junk food habit.
“Got any canned tomato soup?”
“I don’t know. Let me look.” I jumped off the couch and hurried into the kitchen. “Is that really what you want?”
“If we got any,” he responded, crinkling the empty bag into a ball. “You never had grilled cheese with tomato soup before?”
“I don’t like tomatoes,” I said, moving the canned goods around. “Bad news, there’s no soup.” I walked over to the fridge and pulled out a block of cheddar wrapped in cellophane.
“What are you doing with that?” Austin asked, creeping up behind me.
“I told you. I’m making grilled cheese.”
“That’s not the right cheese,” he snapped, looking at the loaf of multigrain bread I’d pulled out. “Where’s the white bread?”
“This is all we’ve got. Does it really matter?”
He flashed a disgusted look and turned away before heading back toward the garage. “Never mind. I’ll eat something later.”
“Wait…” I was going to lose him again. “Why don’t we go to the store and you can pick out what we need?”
He stopped, seeming to give my request some consideration.
“Nah,” he grunted before disappearing back into the garage.
This was going to be much harder than I’d thought, but at least we were getting somewhere.
The usual clanking and drilling from the garage was oddly absent as I walked up to the house carrying ingredients for Austin’s lunch—plus more of that white cheddar popcorn to lure him out again.
If I was going to get Austin to tear down his walls, this seemed like a decent first step.
After all, food worked great at gaining the trust of stray dogs.
I headed toward the kitchen and unloaded the groceries. Two packs of American cheese, a loaf of white bread, butter, and several cans of tomato soup lay before me on the counter. I set to work washing my hands, then placed the frying pan on the burner before turning the stove on high.
A stick of butter softened for a few seconds in the microwave, which I then slathered on the bread before putting the cheese on the other side. Everything was going much better than it usually did. Then again, who could mess up a fried sandwich?
While the pan heated, I mixed the condensed soup with some milk in a saucepan, then placed it on the back burner.
A glint of light caught my eye next to the microwave, hidden behind the toaster.
There sat that strange opal I’d forgotten to put back on my dresser the other day.
I grabbed the gem, slipped it into my pocket, then plopped the buttery cheese sandwich onto the pan with an alarmingly harsh sizzle.
The directions said to leave it on one side for about three minutes, then flip it over.
Simple enough…
“What the hell are you doing?” Austin shouted over the smoke alarm as he dashed into the kitchen.
“Everything’s fine,” I said calmly, trying not to cough as I poured a cup of water over the smoldering remains of lunch. More smoke and steam billowed to the ceiling and spread throughout the house. “It’s just a little well-done.”
Austin disappeared, running from room-to-room, opening windows while I chiseled the sandwich onto a plate before cooling the pan under running tap water. It hissed and made an odd pinging noise, and when I placed it back onto the burner, it wobbled, no longer able to make full contact.
“Damn it. I forgot to turn the burner back down,” I said, twisting the knob to five. I had destroyed Roscoe’s good frying pan and would have to use one of his smaller ones to try again.
Austin stomped back into the kitchen and picked up the plate to slide the solid black briquette that was once a sandwich into the trash.
“A little well-done? Are you from Venus?” he asked, grabbing my wrist as I spread more butter on another slice of bread.
“You’re not going to be satisfied until you burn the whole fucking house down, are you? ”