(Free To Read) Bad Moon chapter 15; fawn

One breath and his body tingled to the scent of pine and wet soil. It was strange how he could smell something so vividly within his own dream. How he could feel the wind hit its skin, hear it slithering beyond tree trunks and trying its might to reach him through the multitude of shaggy hemlocks. His stomach snarled and his face ached from all the times he’d been slapped by the dangling branches of evergreen trees and the thorny stems of foliage.

But he was almost there.

Something in his gut told him. Maybe the emptiness. It’d never felt so empty—a rabid kind of hunger wrung his insides. Like a fire, it licked along all the empty spaces and drove him through the snow-clad mountains, over frozen moss and brush that felt like broken glass underfoot.

That hunger led him to a bluff, where water stretched into rocks and ice below, misting and cracking with every new deluge. He could smell salt and something else. Something that made that emptiness in his stomach twist and thrash and suck into itself with a famine he’d never felt before.

He was leaping down the rocks now—not climbing, but leaping. Clinging onto each narrow bulge of stone by his fingertips. And once he’d hit the round, smooth-washed gravel on the beach below, the pain in his fingers was something of the past. Now he could only feel the icy ocean mist bathe him in its salt. The grit of sand beneath his feet.

And Jaylin was running. He was running, barefoot on sharp stone and beached coral and ice that felt like daggers on his frozen toes. He was running and slipping and leaping over beach wood and polished glass. And then he found that smell. The smell that was calling to him all this time.

On the rocks laid the small brown body of a baby mule deer, guttering with sharp, shallow, upsetting breaths. It looked to him from the corner of its eye and tried to stand, but the creature gave a horrified yowl and laid its head back down onto the bloody stone.

He’d fallen from the cliff, Jaylin thought. He’d die like this.

He ran his hand through the short, soft down of its fur. Felt the creature recoil beneath him. And for some reason, Jaylin’s stomach bellowed in want.

No, he thought. You wait. You find something else. You wait.

But that hunger was drawing closer. It was wrapping its fiery hands around Jaylin’s throat, squeezing until he felt parched. Until he craved the taste of blood and the feel of flesh between his teeth.

He held the fawn beneath the jaw, tighter as it wriggled in fright. Then he leaned down. Down until he felt the feathers of its coat silk against his lips. Until he could hear the heartbeat. The one singular pump that pushed its blood through its veins like a million little rivers in a world so complex, so fragile that might he squeeze any harder, could very well crack beneath his fingertips.

“Jay. Jaylin.”

Jaylin woke with his head in his arms and the taste of pencil dust on his tongue.

“Jay, you alright?”

He felt sick, the smell of blood still strong, the taste of it putrid on his pallet. The thought of biting into a live animal made him shutter and he sat up, wiping his face with his sleeve. “What?” he slurred incoherently with sleep. “What is it, Matt?”

Matt had been playing browser games on the computer last Jaylin had noticed. Now he was sitting there with a worrisome frown and Jaylin’s phone in his hands. “Someone kept calling. You look pale, you okay?”

Jaylin stole the phone from Matt and flicked away the lock screen. “It’s three AM, who the hell is calling me?”

“That’s the thing,” Matt said, “It’s not a number in your contacts.”

In fact, the number wasn’t one Jaylin recognized at all. He set the cracked screen down and shrugged the anonymous caller off as a telemarketer. If it was important enough, they’d leave a voice mail.

Then, before Jaylin could even take a sip of his cold, stale coffee, the phone rang again. The both of them stared in silence, watching the device roll across the checkout desk and into Jaylin’s lap. He held it to his ear and answered slowly, “Hello?”

“Come outside.” It was almost a relief to hear Quentin on the other end. For a split second there, Jaylin thought a throaty voice might answer with a frighteningly vague I know what you did last summer and then he’d be searching behind every bookshelf and under every table for a man with a white mask and a bowie knife.

But despite the fact that it wasn’t a quirky serial killer targeting midnight librarians, Quentin had still gotten a hold of his number somehow, and the thought was sufficiently eerie on its own.

He answered with a blunt no and ended the call. It wasn’t but a second before the phone rang again and Jaylin picked it up in a frustrated haste. “What?”

“Come out or I’m coming in.”

With a growl, Jaylin hung up and shoved himself out of his seat. “I’ll be back,” he told Matt.

“What is it?” Matt asked. “Olivia buggin’ you again?”

Jaylin hesitated, slipping his phone into his back pocket. Olivia had actually gone quiet over the past few days. Jaylin hadn’t heard a word from her. That usually meant that things were better with Tyler—better in terms of less yelling and more sex. Better until their next falling out.

Quentin was just about the opposite of Tyler or Olivia in every way shape and form, but for some reason, when Matt asked that question, Jaylinfound himself nodding.

Just outside the library doors, Quentin was waiting, next to that shiny black luxury car of his. Jaylin didn’t know much about cars. Everything he did know, Tyler had taught him. In that tiny, cluttered, overheated garage, he showed Jaylin how to change the oil in his old T-top Firebird. How to take off a radiator cap without burning your hands and even the basic functions of a stick-shift. But every lesson with Tyler ended the same for Jaylin; on his knees and only partly praying—praying Tyler’s dad wouldn’t come home early.

But even without Tyler’s grease-monkey knowledge, Jaylin wasn’t so much of an idiot that he couldn’t decipher a rich man’s car from all the busted lawn ornaments crusting over his ugly little neighborhood. And watching it—watching the way the city night lights caressed the unconventional body of the vehicle—Jaylin couldn’t help but wonder just how much cash Quentin had at his disposal. Just how rich was this guy? No, this wasn’t about that. This was about the woman in his basement.

“What do you want?” he asked, arms crossed, hands in the crook of his elbows. And yet, it was so difficult to hold his firm expression. Not when Quentin looked the way he did tonight—his athletic physique bound in a square suit, a tie falling down his sternum, tugged loose around the neck like he’d just unwound for a drink. This was the Quentin Bronx from the paintings on the wall. And when he grinned and his smile crashed so brightly against his black ensemble, Jaylin nearly felt like turning around and running back inside. Hiding behind anything that could shield him from the blinding airborne barrage of Quentin Bronx’s bullshit good looks.

Quentin didn’t answer his question. Instead, he twisted around the plastic bag that hung by his hip and said, “How are you feeling?”

“Like shit.” Jaylin thumbed the holey sleeve of his sweater. “If you’re trying to bribe me with cake or something, don’t worry. I won’t tell anyone about her. And I’m too nauseated for sweets.”

“Because you believe me?” Quentin lifted his chin. Streetlights glinted in his eyes.

“Because I know you’ve got money and I don’t exactly feel like being turned into a social pariah.”

“That’s not it,” Quentin said lowly. “You’re not afraid other’s won’t believe you. That’s not why. Part of you knows it’s true, don’t you?”

It wasn’t that Jaylin knew it was true. It wasn’t that he believed werewolves existed. It was that something, deep inside of him, couldn’t look Quentin in the eye and honestly believe he was lying.

But Quentin didn’t wait for an answer. He relaxed his shoulders and said, “I brought something to help you feel better.”

“I’ve already taken cold medicine.” Jaylin wrapped himself up in his arms. “But thanks.”

The edge of Quentin’s mouth rose into not-quite-a-smile, but something close. “Hasn’t worked though, has it?”

Almost on cue, Jaylin let out a sneeze. Nothing had worked. Cold relief, flu relief, allergy relief. He hadn’t gotten a good night’s sleep in days.

“This will work,” Quentin promised and gestured forward with the bag. “With the sore throat and the congestion.”

Jaylin reached out for his offering, careful to loop his fingers through the handle without making physical contact. “I don’t have a sore throat.”

“You will.”

Jaylin choked on an incredulous laugh. “Do you tell fortunes too?”

“No, I’ve got a lady that does that for me.”

“What don’t you have?”

Quentin pondered for a moment, then he said with a grin, “A boat. I don’t have a boat.”

“Is that something you want?” Jaylin asked. He wasn’t sure why he wanted so badly to keep this conversation going. Maybe because a conversation with someone like Quentin was a rare commodity. Maybe because Jaylin was still trying to figure him out.

Quentin tilted his head back to view the faint stars in the sky. “Nothing money can buy me. And you?” he asked, eyes still on the sky. “What do you want?”

“I dunno,” Jaylin said. “A six-pack? Universal health care? Peace in the middle east would be great, but I’d settle for a college scholarship.” It was a mindless comment, but it ground Jaylin back into his harsh reality. He would go. If that was what his mother really wanted, he would go to college. But now that he knew Eduardo had ulterior motives, paying for it was a whole new nightmare. “I’d take a grant, or an acceptance letter, or even just…an end to the application essays. Pipe dreams.”

“They don’t have to be”, said Quentin. “You always have a chance.”

“Nah,” Jaylin replied. “Chances are for rich guys with boats.” He’d started to turn and make his way up the first step toward the library doors when Quentin’s voice rocked the earth under him.

“If it was college you wanted, we can give it to you. UW, right?”

Jaylin gripped the railing and whipped around. “What? How did you know about—”

“Felix,” Quentin said. “He’s been keeping an eye on you.”

“He’s been stalking me?”

“No,” he said at first. Then admitted, “A little. A little bit of stalking.”

The look on Jaylin’s face must have conveyed it all because Quentin raised both hands in the air. “He’s guarding you. Granted I probably chose the worst person to put in that position. I swear, that’s all he’s doing. Keeping an eye out for scouts. If you want a college education, we’ll give you a college education. We’ll pay for your tuition. Anywhere you want to go, we’ll make it happen. Just let us help you.”

Quentin didn’t wait for a reply—probably because he knew there wasn’t one coming. He gave Jaylin a smile and rounded the sheening hood of his car to the driver door. Jaylin watched him drive away and once he was out of sight, he cracked the plastic bag open and took a curious look at its contents.

A large mesh bag of dried tea leaves, and a little metal steeper.