Bad Wolf Read Free

in his throat.
    “Please,” I said hoarsely. “Please don’t mess with me.”
    “I told you you wouldn’t believe me.”
      For a few moments I didn’t
have anything to say. I didn’t know what to believe, or what I wanted to
believe. I opened my mouth, and then closed it, gaping like a fish.
    Finally, I said, “It looked like you, Trent. I knew it was you,
but—”
    “But it’s crazy, right?” he finished for me.
    I nodded, meeting his gaze, and we exchanged a long glance.
    “Look,” he said. “I’m not trying to convince you that it’s normal, or
that anything that happened was something that was supposed to happen. I messed
up. I messed up really bad.”
    “So, what happened, exactly?” I said, raising my eyes up to greet the
full moon hovering over the trees and slabs of concrete buildings.
    “I...changed. And you can’t blame me really.”
    “Are you talking about the full moon?” I asked, bewildered. I kept my
eyes on the fixed orb in the sky.
    “Yeah,” he said in a hushed whisper. Then he regained his composure.
“Usually I can fight it off long enough. I didn’t want to be a drag about the
party and—”
    “Wait, you don’t have to...you know , transform on a full moon?
Aren’t you a...werewolf?”
    I could see him flinch at the word. “Well, it depends on the
person...but usually, yeah, the full moon is what does it. But we all have
different levels of control over it. I’m not going to pretend mine’s the best,
but I’ve been at it for a while. Usually on the full moon I can hang back a few
hours if I need too, but stress or any kind of really strong emotion can really
do you in.”
    “Wait,” I blinked hard, trying to steady my breath. If it weren’t for
the claw marks on my skin and for the image of that snarling beast burned into my
retinas, I would have been sure this was all a joke. “How long has it been
since...have you always...?”
    “Since eighth grade,” he said. “I’m not sure I want to get that into it
now...I’m tired,” he said, and the dark circles under his eyes certainly attested
to that.
    ‘ Eighth grade was when he was attacked ,’ I thought, remembering
that terrible day when I went to visit him in the hospital. His father had told
me it was by a stray dog, that a feral pack of them was known to wander those
campgrounds. But Trent looked at me, something fierce and feral in his
gray   eyes, something that I
remember haunted me at night for a whole year afterwards, and he said, “it
wasn’t a dog,” over and over.
    “Okay,” I said, wrapping my arms around my shoulders protectively. “Does
Sierra know?” I asked suddenly.
    “No, and I’d appreciate it if you didn’t tell her.”
    “What about Lola?”
      “Yes,” he said after a brief
pause. For some reason that stung.
    “Nick and Brandon know.”
    Trent was quite for a minute. “Yeah. They know.”
    “Why did you tell them and not me?” I said, hurt welling up inside of
me. How could he not trust me, after all these years?
    “It’s...not as simple as that,” he said, turning away from me yet again.
    “What do you mean?” I said, the hot anger bubbling from my lips like
lava. I couldn’t stop the eruption. “When were you going to tell me about all
of this? Or were you ever going to?”
    “Well when were you going to tell me that you started hooking up with
random guys at parties?” Trent snapped, his cool gray eyes on my again, but
this time the glare was vicious and unrelenting.
    “What the hell does that have to do with anything ?” I cried out,
sure that everyone on the second floor of the hotel could hear us. But I didn’t
care. I was furious. Who did he think he was, throwing something like that in
my face? “It’s not like before Lola you weren’t the biggest man whore on
earth!”
    “Well at least I didn’t cheat on my boyfriend,” he spat.
    “We broke up, and what do you care? You don’t even like Jason!”
    Trent looked away, his lips pursed in