Anger, if not restrained, is frequently more hurtful than the injury that provokes it. -Seneca
Over the next month the Kyle situation becomes progressively better. By groundhog day I only get death threats every other day, and the glares have turned into menacing scowls of hatred rather than true death glares. At least it's kind of an improvement.
I can take it, and surprisingly, so can Kyle. I thought he'd resent me or something, but instead he's taken the whole thing in stride. He admitted to me the other day while we were running that he never really liked being popular. On the inside, he's an introvert like me. I guess that's why we're such good friends.
It's my night off, and by some miracle of miracles I have no homework. I haven't slept in two days, so I really need tonight. My plan is to grab a snack, catch up on some TV, then go straight to bed after dinner. The whole idea sounds heavenly.
Alex beats me to the pantry, and when I get there all we have is canned cream of chicken soup and breadcrumbs. "What happened to all the food?" I moan.
Elbow deep in a bag of chips, Alex grunts, "I don't know," and proceeds to shove a huge handful into his mouth.
"Did you just eat that whole bag?" I gasp as he crumbles the now empty bag into a ball.
"Yeah, so? You do it all the time," he snaps.
Yeah, but you're not a werewolf. "Is that all we had?" I ask. Looks like I'm having breadcrumbs and soup. Yum.
"There were some cookies," he says.
"Were? You ate those too?!"
Alex shrugs. "I'm hungry. Maybe I'm going through my growth spurt."
He can't be. He's not old enough! Unless it really is just a normal growth spurt. I take a closer look at my brother. He's definitely taller, and his short-sleeved shirt (even though it's twenty degrees outside) exposes arm muscles that were not there a week ago.
My phone rings. I pull it out of my pocket and see Kyle's name. It's already dark, and he and Ben are out running. Why is he calling? Crap.
"What's up?" I ask in a voice of barely-controlled calm.
Kyle loses no time in saying, "Ben found a trail. It's pretty faint, so it's probably been there for a while, but Ben says it's not the same vampire. What do you want us to do?"
"What do you mean it's not the same? And if it's been there a while, how come we haven't noticed it before?" I swear we haven't found anything since that night I followed our friend to Forks, and now our friend has a friend? How could we miss this?
"It's not on the immediate path, Ben went a little further in because he thought he heard something. It turned out to just be a stray cat, but that's where he found the trail. Should we follow it?"
"No, I'll be there in a minute." So much for a night off. I hang up my phone and look at Alex.
"Tell Mom I might be late to dinner," I say, already halfway towards the door.
"What are you doing? What's wrong?" he demands.
"Don't worry about it," I say. Since when does he care what I do?
I stomp back home an hour later in poor spirits. The trail was too old to bother with, but I still ran a tighter perimeter for a while, just in case there was a fresher trail. Nothing. I told Ben and Kyle to run the tighter perimeter tonight, though. Just in case.
Maybe I missed a snack and TV, but at least I can have dinner and then go to bed. I walk in on my family finishing their spaghetti. "Hey, I'm back."
"Everything okay?" Dad asks casually.
"Yeah, nothing exciting," I grumble. I help myself to a huge plate and sit down.
"What did you do?" Alex asks again.
"Why do you care?" I snap back.
"Boys, be nice," Mom scolds.
I shut up and eat my dinner, but of course Alex can't do that. "He never tells me anything!" he snaps.
"It's none of your business," I snap back. I can feel myself getting angry. I guess this is what I get for going two nights without sleep.
"Can I be 'scused?" Molly asks.
"Brian just got here, honey," Mom says.
Alex grumbles under his breath. "Brian just got here. It's always about Brian."
I take a deep breath and try not to let Alex bother me. Dad notices, and says, "Go ahead, Molly."
I slurp down the rest of my spaghetti and say, "I'll done too. I really need to get some sleep or I'm going to flip on someone." I try to laugh on the last part, but I know my parents see right through that.
"Okay, good night, honey!" Mom says.
Alex swears under his breath and has this awful look on his face, like he wants to murder me. I shrug it off and head towards my room. I immediately jump into bed and try to ignore the muffled voices coming from the kitchen. I'm about two seconds away from sleep when I hear my Mom shriek, "Brian!"
Swearing into my pillow, I push myself out of bed and go back out of my room and towards the kitchen. There I am faced with a sandy-colored werewolf.
I say a few words I've never said before. It doesn't matter that my mother is in the room. I am furious.
"Brian!" Mom gasps, but I'm too upset to care. I can already feel myself shaking.
"Are you freakin' kidding me, Alex?" I shout, at least taking care to use the other f-word this time. "This was my night off!"
Alex doesn't act like he hears me at all. He's freaking out, probably because he can hear Ben and Kyle and doesn't know what the heck is going on. I try as hard as I can to take pity on my little brother. I take a deep breath and say to Dad, "Help him get outside." Then, taking my shirt off as I go, I run outside myself.
