Chapter 2
Sam watched Leah drive off to work before he ran to her bathroom and threw up. He was amazed he was able to keep breakfast down so long. His head was killing him. His muscles were trembling. He had to get out of her house. Last week, he'd felt like this, and then the next minute he had found himself naked in the middle of the woods, his clothes in bits as if he had suddenly exploded inside them. He felt like a bomb in a cartoon, expanding and stretching until he popped.
He ran out into her backyard, but he knew he had to keep going. Running, he easily scaled the fence and got to the woods before his first scream.
Sam fell to the ground. His body curled into itself. Had he ever felt this much pain in his life? He was shaking so hard that his screams were choked away. The memories of the first time came back. He writhed on the leaves, his ribs popping into a different form, his bones lengthening, his skull reshaping. His fingernails became claws, his palms paws, his nose a snout. His entire body was on fire, was being slashed open with a dull knife. One last scream, and then the beast inside him took over.
…
When he came back to his senses, he was clutching what was once a beaver in his arms. It was half-eaten, and Sam's own face, chest, and arms were covered in blood. Disgusted, he threw the carcass as far away from him and crawled away. He felt as if he were going insane. Because this time, he remembered everything.
He lay flat on the forest ground and tried to regulate his breathing. With the pounding headache and overdrawn breath, his trying to make sense of what was going on was not very successful. He knew the legend of his tribe: how the Quillettes had bonded their souls to wolves…. But they were called legends for a reason, right? They were stupid stories parents only kept around to scare their kids into being good. They were not real, and he was certainly not living them out.
Sam sat up carefully, then tried to stand. He stumbled, his muscles were so sore and weak, but managed to catch himself.
Or were they just legends?
Leah told him over breakfast he had howled in his sleep. "An actual howl," she'd said, touching his hand, a sly smile on her face.
He was eating meat at a much more rapid pace then he had at any other time in his life. He could smell and hear things he hadn't been able to before. He remembered the eggs this morning, the fire the previous night… And what terrified him the most was that… he liked it.
Sam loved running through the woods, or at least the wolf inside him did. The wind colliding with his massive force… it was like flying. And then hunting, knowing you were the greater one, the hunter, the superior, without a question the thing to be feared.
He closed his eyes and imagined it, lying on the forest ground. He heard the rush of the river far off, and opened his eyes. He saw the blood crusting on his chest. He had to wash himself before he snuck back home. He stood carefully.
The exhilaration inside him washed away as he felt the tension in his muscles again as he walked. He was so very tired.
…
Emily held up her skirt so she wouldn't get it wet as she waded. The smooth river stones felt cool against her feet, and the water rushed between her legs with a greater force then anyone could anticipate. Gathering her skirt in one hand, she reached down and picked up a perfectly circular stone from the river. Then she heard a shout behind her.
She turned in time to see a naked form fall into the river, blood splashed on his chest and arms.
"Sam?" she called out.
He didn't resurface.
Emily ran through the water, the force of the river pushing at her legs until she fell, her clothes soaked. Sam, face up in the water, was floating quickly downstream, where the water churned around the rocks.
Emily swam as hard as she could, her heart pounding in her chest. Sam wouldn't make it through the rapids farther downriver. She had to get him before the river pushed them both too far.
Finally her hand reached his and she clung to it, kicking toward the side of the river, where the water was shallower and the bank was flat enough to pull him out. She could hear the rapids ahead, and the bank was slowly passing. She grabbed at a tree branch but it slipped from her hands. Another branch… she grabbed it, and it held fast.
Using all the strength in her tiny body, she swung Sam from the quick water to the shallow water near the shore. She scrambled to pull him so his head and chest anchored his body on the solid ground.
She put her head on his chest, surprisingly more muscular than she remembered and far warmer than any person should rightfully be, and heard his heart beating. Her hand in front of his mouth, however, signaled that he was not breathing.
She couldn't have been more thankful for her mother forcing her into those Red Cross CPR classes as she was now, breathing in into Sam, trying to revive him. Finally he coughed up river water and took in a breath.
Emily leaned back, exhausted, as Sam continued breathing, trying to assess where he was. Her arms pumped up and down his to keep him warm, though the immense heat blowing off his skin suggested this was not a problem.
"Emily Young?" he asked. She nodded. He recognized her. That was a good.
"Yes. Sam, are you okay?" He tried to move against her.
Her cheeks became heated with her intense blush… Sam was entirely naked, she was more or less on top of him, and their lips had just been pressed together…
…
"Sam, are you okay?" he heard, and looked in her direction.
Emily Young? She leaned back toward him, nodding. She said something, but he couldn't hear or smell anything. Everything around them seemed to disappear. All he could do was look at her, memorize every line of her face. The way she shone to him, like she was the sun. His sun. Had she always been that beautiful? He guessed he was always too preoccupied with Leah most of the time to notice.
"Sorry, what?"
"You were covered in blood… are you okay?"
He looked down at his chest, where spots of dried blood still remained.
"Yeah. Yeah, I'm fine." He couldn't take her eyes off her, the way she moved, the way her eyes looked him up and down… wait, what… Shit!
"I… er… have a blanket in my car…" she said awkwardly as Sam scrambled into the water to hide himself. He felt ridiculous, crouched in the water, his hands pressed between his legs.
"Yeah. Yeah. Sounds good."
She looked at him again, questioning, trying to understand how she found her cousin's boyfriend naked and covered in blood drowning in a river. But she looked away and walked back up the bank, where she had been sitting, where the blanket lay in the back of her car.
Sam's pride and his desire to follow her battled inside him as he watched her walk away. His pride, however, won a narrow victory as he watched her disappear between the trees. He wanted to bolt: it felt as if he was going to morph again, his heart seemed to be ripping apart without her there.
The word "morph" sounded strange. He hadn't ever thought he was changing into anything: it was just a bad headache or sickness that would wear away. But now he remembered changing, the newfound strength he had… the claws, the wolfish reflection as he looked in the river that afternoon, the feeling of his animal legs propelling him without any sort of exhaustion behind the beaver, his prey.
Emily appeared with a textured blanket, one of those her mother made for reservation Indian wares shops, and tossed it to him. He stood carefully, wrapping himself so that she couldn't see anything… again… then followed her back to the car.
…
The ride back to his house was awkward and silent. Emily didn't dare extend her hand nearer to him, so she did not turn on the radio or adjust the air conditioning, though heat radiated from Sam's body next to her. She couldn't rid herself of the way he'd looked at her, as if she were the only thing in the world. Yes, that was how he looked at her! She couldn't persuade herself of anything else.
Finally she pulled up into his driveway.
"Thank you, by the way."
"For what?" Emily asked, still not looking at him.
"You saved my life back there," Sam all but whispered. "Emily." Her name sounded like a prayer from his lips. She shivered.
"No problem."
Complete silence. Emily desperately wished he would get out of her car.
"Look, Emily… there are some weird things going on. I'm not really too sure about them myself. Could you not tell anyone about this?"
"Sure."
"I mean, someday I'll explain everything, but I'm still…"
She gave him a strange look, and he ceased speaking. Leave. Right.
"Right. Thanks. Well, see you around…. Oh, and I'll get you your blanket back… I'll wash it first and all."
"That's fine. Thanks." Emily fiddled with her keys in the ignition.
"Emily…"
She finally looked at him, and the look in his eyes almost killed her. She knew that, she would have paid Sam Uley a million dollars to look at her like that last summer. But that was before she saw how he and Leah were together, how in love they were, how their beauty complemented the other's so well. She thought she had suppressed those feelings for good when Leah told her about… Ugh, she didn't want to think of them entwined like that.
But now, she looked down, and his hand was beginning to stretch toward her. She met his eyes again, and saw the strained look and his open lips. He was trying to say something. Emily was scared of whatever that something was.
"Good bye," he finally said. Emily nodded.
"Good bye, Sam."
He shut his car door and disappeared inside his house. Emily groaned as she knocked her head on her steering wheel a few times before pulling out. She needed to get to Leah's house so she could change clothes. Without Sam there, she was suddenly freezing.
