The Ylem (22 page)

This surprised me. “Have you wondered
before?”

“Yes. But it didn’t take me long to realize
it was hogwash.”

“Why?”

“Kalista,” he glanced at me critically, as if
judging my question. “Humans with the ability to shapeshift into
wolflike creatures under the appearance of the full moon?
Definitely not.”

I sighed again. “I know, but legends always
tend to have something real in them. So maybe,
maybe
, there
used to be creatures like that, wandering around in the forests
like Bigfoot.”

“Bigfoot? You have to be kidding me. You just
need a good furry costume and someone willing to make fun of
everybody.”

“What about a mistake—an experiment that went
wrong?”

He smiled. “Too much Marvel in you. The only
thing I need right now is you telling me Spider-Man is real.”

I rolled my eyes. “Right. No werewolves or
any creatures of that sort.” But I was far from letting it go.

No smoke without fire
, I replayed
Dad’s words in my head. I only needed to find the fire.

My breath burned in my lungs. If someone
would've told me I was going to do this a few days ago, I would've
laughed. Hard. But this wasn’t a normal day. Therefore, my actions
weren’t either.

As soon as we’d gotten to the house, a sharp
need to lighten the pressure of the thoughts in my head had
engulfed me. And only one idea had flashed into my mind: running. I
didn’t have those winged feet some girls had, but I did okay, I
guessed.

I’d rushed to my room, changed into
sweatpants and a red hoodie, and stormed onto the road. I’d been
running at first, keeping a fast, steady pace, but my legs
protested with stinging heat a couple of minutes later. I was
jogging now. Tiny droplets of sweat dotted my forehead and temples,
and some streamed down my back. Though the temperature had dropped,
the sun above was still bright, suffusing the air with warm light.
And together with my burning muscles, the overwhelming heat wrapped
my entire body.

I stopped and peeled off my hoodie. I wrapped
it around my hip, staying only with a white tank top, and knotted
the sleeves in a tight knot. I looked around, panting. How far was
I from the house? I’d kept running straight without taking account
of my surroundings. I’d spaced out completely.
Mission
accomplished
, I thought. The stiff road wasn’t under my feet
anymore. I was on a trail amid a blanket of trees, no houses
around, only the shadows of leaves playing on the ground and a
frightening silence flattening the air.

I gulped. What the hell I’d been thinking?
After reading all those awful things that'd happened in the woods,
I came
here
? I hadn’t been thinking obviously. Maybe I was
having a strong masochistic streak. I looked around again. That
queasy feeling of being watched tightened my chest once more, only
harder. I didn’t know how, but I could sense again someone’s eyes
somewhere behind me. My heart kicked into overdrive. This time, I
didn’t stop to think if it was paranoia or my fearful mind fooling
with me. I pushed my legs forward and started jogging, trying to
look as calm and indifferent as possible. But it was challenging.
The rustle of branches and footsteps against gravel
intensified.

I was being followed.

I hurried my pace. The sounds kept coming,
closer each time. The horror of the situation hit me and within a
second I was overcome with panic and started running. I was too
afraid to turn around, my eyes searched frantically for a way out.
But only striped browns and splaying greens crowded my view. I
didn’t know what to do.

Then, as if sent by heaven, I heard the most
beautiful sound in the world: music. It was the hum of distant
music. I forced my legs to run faster, the sound becoming clearer.
When the shape of a big log cabin came into view, I ran even
harder.

Get there. Just get to the cabin
.

Afraid of being caught before getting there,
I launched myself off of the trail to cut time. I rushed through
the tangle of trees, dodging trunks and branches, and my foot found
a twisted root. I fell to the ground. But my adrenaline was high
and blotted out the pain right away. I pushed myself up and kept
running. It wasn’t until I got a few yards away from the cabin that
I let my burning legs to stop. I turned around and…I couldn’t
believe my eyes.

There was nothing.

Warily, I wiped my hands on my black sweat
pants and turned. But stilled. The weight of a stare fell over my
shoulders again.

Instead of running, I dared to look behind
me.

“I thought I was clear today,” Chloe said,
looking at me through narrowed eyes. Her gaze full of hatred and
warning.

Something she’d said to me tunneled through
my mind.
Be careful with what you do and say. There are eyes and
ears everywhere, even in the places you least expect
.

“Are you following me?” I asked. It would
explain how she knew about the kiss with Dean and what’d just
happened. And that scared me a lot. No girl had ever taken her hate
toward me to such obsessive levels. There was that time in the
dressing room where someone opened my locker and cut my shirt to
shreds. But it wasn’t like this. Following someone teetered on the
edge of creepiness.

She smirked. “That’s the thing with you. You
play all innocent but deep down inside you’re a narcissistic,
pompous bitch.”

I bit my tongue. I didn’t want to start a
fight. “You didn’t answer my question.”

“Didn’t I? Oh, how about this…what are
you
doing here?”

“I won’t tell you until you do.”

“Why would I answer your petty little
question?”

I sighed. “If you don’t stop following me
I’ll—”

“You’ll what?”she cut me off, looking down at
my fisted hands. “Please, don’t make me laugh.”

I took a step back. “Look Chloe, you don’t
need to worry about me and Tristan, okay? There’s nothing going on
between us.”

“Huh,” she placed her hands on her hips. “You
figured that out, didn’t you? Smart. But then, you need to, right?
A girl like you needs to stay ahead of the game.”

This was getting really tiring. “Stop acting
like the evil twin of a soap opera and just leave me alone.”

“Acting?” She moved closer, fixing her arctic
eyes on mine. “Soon you’ll wish it was just acting. But first, I’ll
give you a valuable advice. Do. Not. Mess. Up. With. Me.” She gave
me her dark grin. Then, she pulled back her hand, splayed it open
and—

“Stop!”

Tristan stepped between us, appearing out of
thin air and holding out restraining hands. His strong back hid
Chloe’s face, but I knew she wasn’t happy with the interruption. I,
on the other hand, let out a breath of relief. I didn’t know what
she’d planned to do to me but it hadn’t looked like a punch.

“And here we are again,” Chloe said, “for the
second time in a row. You do like to protect her, don’t you?”she
told Tristan.

I frowned. Second time? What was she talking
about?

“It should be the other way around, don’t you
think?” he said with a sharp voice. “I thought we talked about
this.”

“Apparently not enough.”

He sighed deeply and turned to me. “You
okay?” His eyes were soft and tender.

It all seemed like a weird déjà vu. “I'm
fine,” I said, realizing the music inside the log cabin wasn’t
playing anymore. And then, the realization of something bigger hit
me. I was sweaty and dirty. And Tristan was right in front of
me.

I looked aside embarrassed, cursing inwardly
for having left the house.

Chloe stepped next to him, arms crossed over
her chest. Her eyes blazing with the promise of revenge.

I stared at her with a lump in my throat.

“We better get inside,” Tristan said.

“Is this…I mean, do you live here?” I asked.
The single level cabin was beautiful. It featured a combination of
stone, bark siding, crafted logs and glass. It blended with its
natural surroundings flawlessly, yet managed to look luxurious—a
perfect place for wealthy werewolves.

Werewolves? Oh God, I was mental. Did I
really believe that nonsense? I only hoped it wasn’t real. The
woods were
the
place to hunt—and kill.

The relief I’d felt before suddenly vanished,
like a puff of smoke.

“No,” he told me with a tight smile. “But my
brother and I spend practically all of our time here. We use it for
fun.”

“Like she didn’t know that,” Chloe snorted.
“Why do you think she’s here?”

“After you, Chloe,” Tristan prompted sharply,
urging her to walk to the cabin. She glanced at me, puckering her
lips in anger, and moved forward.

“Come,” he placed his hand on my lower back
with a soft push. Tingles erupted in my skin under that touch, as
if stars had exploded, sending a sizzling wave throughout my body.
Ignoring that warm pressure on my lower back while walking wasn’t
easy. My coordination didn’t work properly when I was around
him—especially like this.

The doorway had beautiful full-length
carvings of bare branches and some other intricate designs on the
sides I couldn’t make out. Chloe stood beside it, eyeing sourly the
close distance between Tristan and me. “I can’t open it,” she told
him, annoyed. “You know how welcome I'm around here.”

The sarcasm in her voice had been clear.
Whoever was behind the door didn’t like Chloe. I looked aside and
spotted three cars sitting there—a colorful patch of orange, black
and yellow.

Yellow
. It was the car that'd nearly
hit me, the speedy deathtrap. My curiosity perked up. I knew the
twins were inside, but who was the owner of the sleek SUV?

Tristan pulled the door open and strode
inside. Chloe looked at me with exasperation. “What are you waiting
for? Get in. Your dreams are about to come true.”

I shook my head and followed Tristan.
Be
patient. Don’t let her get to you
. I was starting to really
hate her. I knew it was a vile feeling, but I couldn’t help it.

Once I noticed my surroundings however, that
dark feeling melted away, as if by magic. The lighting inside was
low—due to the slight tinted windows dotting the walls—but there
were flashing and blipping colorful lights everywhere, shedding
glimpses of cheerful lights all around. Video games, dart and
pinball machines, air hockeys—the cabin was cramped with a myriad
of arcade games. Lava lamps hung from the high vaulted ceiling, and
black and silver rugs lay on the floor in case one of them decided
to take a dive. In another room, a pool table and a foosball sat
peacefully under the steady light of a quiet oval lamp. It was like
a big game house.

Definitely something I wouldn’t have expected
in the middle of all that greenness.

We kept walking, moving through a long narrow
hall, the lighting getting brighter, and veered into a large open
living area. A head-turning fireplace, escorted by tall windows on
the sides, rose at the far end of the room. It had stone-shaped
metal tile all over, catching and casting soft natural light onto
the oversized L-shaped couch. A thin, giant plasma screen with
various game systems beneath stood a couple of feet away. And on
the opposite side of the room, an entire wall of video games and
movies stretched out.

But that wasn’t what widened my eyes in
surprise.

“Hey Kalista,” Elan said with his lively
voice. Silent Mingan was standing next to him, both of them
sporting those cool cargo pants they loved to wear. “Long time no
see,” Elan continued, smiling as cheerfully as I remembered.

“I'm afraid I can’t say the same thing,” the
guy next to Mingan said. He was good-looking, in his mid-twenties,
I guessed. He had messy, curly hair of a stunning mahogany color,
and his eyes were a light honey. A lazy smile played around his
lips. “She had a suicidal streak a few hours ago.” He looked at me,
amused.

I frowned. What was he talking—oh. The sleek
yellow SUV. He was the driver. And most certainly, Tristan’s
brother. They had the same strong jaw and high cheekbones, and
there was something similar about the way they held themselves, so
self-assured and strong.

“Yeah…I'm sorry about that,” I told him,
embarrassed.

“Vincent drives like his pants are on fire,”
said a female voice. A beautiful girl, coming from the adjacent
room—the kitchen I figured since she was holding a tray with
sandwiches—stepped into the room. She had the coolest hair I’d ever
seen, a sleek deep purple that fell down to her shoulders, framing
a striking heart-shaped face with impossibly large violet eyes.
Yes, violet. She looked around Vincent’s age, with a
to-die-for-slender body and pale-white skin. She seemed as if she’d
popped out from an anime series.

“You don’t need to apologize for anything.
I'm sure it was pretty much his fault.” She stopped next to
Vincent, who was looking at her with a funny face.

Yep. He was definitely Tristan’s brother. The
speedy thing ran in the family, apparently.

“Well, thanks a lot, Lamia. So much for being
my girlfriend,” he crossed his arms over his chest.

“Babe, I know you. I don’t need to be psychic
to figure out what happened.” Lamia turned around and her eyes
tightened, pinning Chloe with a glare. “What the hell is she doing
here by the way? This place reeks of her.”

Chloe scoffed. “Excuse me, but if this place
reeks of body odor, it’s not because of me. I'm not the one with
the shirt soaked in sweat here.” She glanced at me.

My cheeks burned. It was one of those moments
where you wished the earth could rip open and swallow you
whole.

“Oh, that’s why I can see your bra,” Vincent
pointed out, looking at my chest. “Nice boobs by the way.”

I looked down and almost had a heart attack.
In the haste, I’d put a white top over a black bra. Stupid. Stupid!
I threw my arms around me, my face matching the red shade of my
hoodie.