Wolfblood

Detective

Rhydian Morris jolted awake from the den floor to the sound of a piercing scream. It was the full moon the night before, so Emma and Dan had left to get something special for all of them for breakfast. That meant it had to be Maddy who was screaming and no one else was there to go and help her. Rhydian raced up the stairs into the house, knowing that if he was able to help, Maddy would try looking for an excuse to go upstairs with him and cuddle up together.

"What's wrong?" he asked desperately as he raced into the kitchen.

"Someone's been at my chocolate raisins!" Maddy growled, throwing the empty packet on the counter. Rhydian had to physically restrain himself from rolling his eyes. Maddy was like this after full moons. Little things that would normally just annoy her ended up practically reducing her to tears. It concerned him at first, so he'd asked Jana about it when they were alone once. She'd made a joke about female Wolfbloods always being like that. When Rhydian had asked her to be serious, she'd just shrugged and said that the rush of energy could have that effect on some Wolfbloods. Left with no other option, Rhydian just had to take it in his stride and let Maddy hug him close as she tried not to sob into his favourite shirt.

"Okay, so what do you want to do about it?" Rhydian asked.

"Well, we need to find out who did it, obviously." Maddy managed to compose herself a bit and take note of the situation. "Okay, so Shannon and Tom were over. Jana's currently ill, so she couldn't make it and everyone went into the kitchen at some point. That means everyone who was here is a potential suspect."

"Look Maddy, this isn't going to be like the ice cream fiasco is it?" Rhydian asked.

"Remind me." Maddy said.

"You accused your mum and it turned out to be your dad." Rhydian told her. "She grounded you for accusing her and took all your stuff until the next full moon so you spent a month trying to entertain yourself with playing Scrabble, schoolwork and kissing me secretly in the darkroom.

"I remember the Scrabble." Maddy said distantly.

"Oh, charming." Rhydian growled. "Look, if it means that much to you then go to Shannon's and see what she remembers. Tom's probably there so you can talk to them both."

"You know, that's not your worst idea." Maddy said. "Okay, I'll head over and talk to them. If my parents ask where I've gone, just tell her I'm on a personal errand."

"Okay, I'll tell them." Rhydian said as Maddy raced out the front door. Shortly afterwards, Rhydian heard the car pull up. Emma and Dan walked in to find Rhydian leaning against the counter with his head in his hands desperately wishing that he had some aspirin.

"What's wrong, Rhydian?" Dan asked; an expression of concern plastered across his face.

"If you find out, tell me." Rhydian muttered. "Why is it that after every full moon, things that Maddy would normally be a bit upset about have her near-homicidal?"

"What's happened?" Emma asked before noticing the empty bag on the counter. "Oh, don't tell me..."

"She has a long suspect list, so she went to see Shannon and Tom to see if they knew anything." Rhydian said.

"Please tell me you gave her some Rescue Remedy before she left." Emma muttered.

"Emma, we never told him we give her rescue remedy." Dan reminded her. "She was quite self conscious of it so she swore us to secrecy." Rhydian heard Emma swear to herself. Quickly, she barged him out of the way and reached into the top cupboard. She handed Rhydian a bottle of foul-smelling red liquid.

"What the hell is that?" Rhydian gasped, recoiling as he tried to hold it at arm's length without dropping it.

"This is Rescue Remedy. It keeps her calm when she's stressed or hyper like after every full moon." Emma told him. "You pop a few drops under her tongue whenever she feels stressed. Believe it or not, it works."

"So, why does it actually happen to her?" Rhydian asked. "Surely there's a reason this happens after every full moon."

"In truth, there's a lot we don't actually know about the full moon." Dan said. "It could be something to do with her stamina levels, an imbalance between her and her wolf or it could be something to go with having her boyfriend over every full moon. When you think about it, you're both so much more energetic when you're together. How often do you go running without her? She has no way to release that energy in the den. It affects us all differently. I mean, look at you. You're always asleep for an extra two hours after all of us get up."

"Yeah, changing back makes me slightly dizzy." Rhydian explained. "Sleeping it off helps the room stop spinning."

"That's what we mean." Emma nodded. "It affects us all differently."

"So what do we do now?" Rhydian asked.

"There's not much we can do now." Dan replied. Since you did the worst possible thing- through no fault of your own- and let her leave the house, we can't chase her without it looking weird."

"So we've just got to sit here and wait for her to come back?" Rhydian confirmed. Dan nodded.

"Unfortunately, yes. Still though, you can have her breakfast too if you want."

"No, I wouldn't do that to her." Rhydian laughed. "It's bad enough she's had her chocolate raisins stolen. If I steal her breakfast too, you'd need a stopwatch to calculate my life expectancy."

Meanwhile!

Maddy arrived at Shannon's place shortly after leaving her own house. Sure enough, Tom answered the door and invited her in.

"Are you okay, Maddy?" he asked.

"Actually Tom, I need to ask you and Shannon about something." Maddy replied.

"Okay then." Tom shrugged. "Come upstairs and we'll talk privately." Maddy followed him upstairs to find Shannon still lying in bed.

"You're not up yet?" Maddy couldn't believe it.

"I think I've caught what Jana has." Shannon grumbled, rolling over sleepily. Her face was pale and she was visibly sweating. "Tom's been an absolute angel since last night." Maddy felt slightly guilty about going to her friends with questions, but the issue still ate away at her. She had to know.

"Okay, so I need to ask both of you... Basically my chocolate raisins were stolen last night. I just want an honest answer from both of you, did either of you see who did it or was it either of you. If it was, I won't be angry, just please don't lie to me because you know I can't stand it when people do that."

"Hang on..." Shannon hauled herself upright in bed with visible effort. "You come round here at the crack of dawn, risk catching what I've got and bombard us with questions, all over some chocolate raisins? You could have just sniffed the bag to see whose scent was on it! I think you'd best leave for now." Maddy felt tears prick her eyes. She shouldn't have been stupid enough to ask questions when Shannon was in such a bad way. She'd shown no interest in her friend's condition or offered to help in any way like she usually did. What was wrong with her?

"Come on, Maddy." Tom said, leading her out from the room. He waited until he'd closed Shannon's bedroom door and made it downstairs before rounding on her. "What the hell is wrong with you?" he snapped. "She's ill as it is, Maddy! Do you really think she needs offending right now?"

"It's left over energy from the full moon." Maddy whispered so there was no risk of Shannon's parents hearing if they were nearby. "Look, don't tell Shannon, but I always feel like this afterwards. I have to use Rescue Remedy to calm down and that stuff is disgusting!"

"Why should I not tell Shannon?" Tom asked. "I think after the way you just acted up there, she deserves to know."

"Yeah, but then she'll get her nerd on and want to know why it happens when we don't even know ourselves." Maddy protested. "It affects us all differently."

"Okay then, I'll leave sorting things out with her to you." Tom said reluctantly. "But I tell you now Maddy, when you make things up to her, your apology had better be bulletproof."

"I know, and I will make things up to her." Maddy nodded. "Anyway, I'd best be going. I still need to find out who ate my food."

"Maddy, they're just raisins. Can't you let it go?" Tom asked.

"I want to, but I just can't." Maddy said. "When I'm like this, trivial things become very important and the fact that they're only raisins has nothing to do with it. Something's been stolen from me, Tom! That warrants attention in itself." With that, Maddy waved goodbye and left.

"I'll never understand girls." Maddy heard Tom mutter as he shut the door. She chose to ignore it though as she broke into a run back home. Whether she knew it or not, Shannon had just practically solved her mystery for her. The sheer amount of energy she had as a result of the full moon was becoming apparent to her, since even though she'd only just run to Shannon's house, she got back again and still hadn't broken a sweat.

"So, how did it go?" Rhydian asked smugly as soon as he saw her.

"Apart from Shannon being sick and me accidentally offending her, it went wonderfully." Maddy replied sarcastically. "Still though, she did give me one good idea. Can you pass me the bag?" Rhydian threw her the bag and she caught it easily. Opening it out, she inhaled deeply. Scents flooded her nose. Clearly everyone had touched the bag at some point.

"What are you doing?" Rhydian asked.

"I'm trying to see if I can pick out any scents on the bag." Maddy told him. "Everyone's had hold of it at some point, but I can't get a specific one. Can you see if you can tell which one's strongest?"

"Yeah, I can do that." Rhydian said. "While I do that, you can have some of this." As Rhydian spoke, he tossed her the Rescue Remedy.

"My parents told you about that?" To say Maddy looked angry was an understatement.

"Your mum thought I knew and then had to tell me everything." Rhydian explained. Oh, and she says your breakfast is keeping warm in the grill." Maddy passed him the bag back and downed some of the Rescue Remedy while he breathed the scents in just as she did. Once she'd had the Rescue Remedy, she got her breakfast from under the grill and sat at the table to eat. Rhydian joined her, their ankles locking under the table.

"I can't believe my parents did pancakes for breakfast." Maddy said. "It's not even my birthday."

"Do you feel any calmer?" Rhydian asked as Maddy poured chocolate sauce on her second pancake. Maddy nodded, unable to talk with her mouth full. Rhydian waited until she'd swallowed before she continued.

"Did you get an ID on the scent in the bag?" Maddy asked.

"You say that like we're doing a full forensic investigation." Rhydian laughed. "Seriously though, Tom's was the strongest scent."

"What?" Maddy couldn't believe it. And yet, she actually could. The whole time she was there, Tom had been atypically quiet. When Shannon told her she wanted her to leave, he got her downstairs as quick as possible and apart from taking time to tell her off for offending Shannon (which was a clever distraction move on his part) he'd been pretty eager for her to use the door once she'd seen it.

"Let me guess: You're going to kill him, aren't you?" Rhydian muttered. "Just be gentle on him, Maddy."

"I suppose he deserves mercy since he's taking care of Shannon right now." Maddy said quietly to herself as she downed another pancake. "And the cunning thing was: he didn't lie to me about whether he did it because he didn't say anything when I asked them to be honest. Shannon got offended before he could." The teen wolves sat in silence as Maddy ate. Once she'd finished, she went to grab her plate and take it t the sink, but he stopped her and grabbed it instead. He took it to the sink and then walked back over.

"So, what are you going to do about Tom then?" Rhydian asked.

"I suppose since he's taking care of Shannon, I'll have to confront him at school and get Shannon a get well soon card at the end of the day." Maddy shrugged. "There's not much else I can do right now. Shan's probably going to need time to cool off and get better, so going back to her house today wouldn't be the best idea. Since there's nothing more anyone can do, do you want to head upstairs and pass the time a bit?"

"I was wondering if you'd ever ask." Rhydian ginned, going over and wrapping his arms around her gently. He leaned in, their lips meeting briefly.

"Come on." Maddy said, leading him to the staircase. Normally Rhydian would have carried her upstairs, but the extra energy she had meant he ended up having to chase her upstairs instead.

"This is a nice change of pace." Rhydian muttered, before she practically dragged him into her room and shut the door. He didn't even have time to register what happened before she literally grabbed him and threw him onto her bed, her eyes burning yellow. Maddy climbed on top of him and sat straddling his hips, their lips meeting again.

"God, I love you." Maddy said eventually as she rested her head on his chest, feeling exhausted.

"I love you too." Rhydian replied. With that, he wrapped his arms around her as they drifted off into a contented sleep together.

The Next Day!

Maddy and Rhydian met up outside the school gates and headed onto the main playground. They walked to the main entrance to see Tom there waiting for them.

"How's Shan?" Rhydian asked.

"She's still about the same." Tom replied.

"I'm getting her a get well soon card after school from Rhydian and me." Maddy said. "By the way Tom, you were very quiet when I was over yesterday. It was a clever way to cover up the fact that you can't tell lies, and trying to get me to let it go as I was leaving was ingenious, but actually putting your hand inside the bag and getting your scent in there instead of using a bowl or just asking me if you could have some, that was sloppy."

"I don't know what you mean." Tom protested, but his heart rate quickened. Maddy knew he was lying.

"Let me enlighten you then!" she said, pacing forwards and smacking him with her satchel. "You stole my raisins you arsehole!" Maddy kept repeatedly hitting him, yelling abuse as he tried to run away. Rhydian smirked as he watched, relieved that Maddy was too hyper at the time to take in the scents properly. Tom knew better than to tell on him as well. It was true that both Shannon and Tom had a few of them, but it was actually Rhydian who ate most of the bag. But why would he tell her that? Incriminating himself was borderline suicidal if she was playing detective.

End!