Disclaimer: They STILL don't belong to me, unfortunately. Grrrr!!! Anyway, I really can't think of anything to say on this, except that I want to read more of Mad Cow's Road Lore series (HINT HINT MC...), so without further ado...
Call of the Blood
Chapter 5--Child Of the Wolf
The first rays of dawn were a welcome sight to Jamie Waite. The beautiful, blood red light danced across the floor, turning the dark brown of the carpet a fiery mahogany, and it illuminated the rest of his aunt and uncle's living room with the same crimson colored light.
A smile touched Jamie's lips at the red of the light--it was almost the exact shade of his younger sister's hair, and it always made him think of twelve-year-old Crimson.
A touch of melancholy settled in his heart, joining the desperation and fear and pain that had taken up resident there last night. He hadn't seen his family in almost a year now--he really needed them now, more then ever.
The young man leaned back in the arm chair he was currently sitting in, watching the sun rise slowly over the horizon. So what was he going to do about Caitie? Jade thought he should tell her; she thought that the other girl would understand.
Did he think that Caitie would understand that he wasn't, exactly, human? Would she still accept him? Still be his friend?
He didn't know. And that, more then anything, was killing him.
---==**==---
"Have you seen Jamie?" Caitie asked her best friend, Val Linar as soon as the girl reached her locker later that morning at school.
"Jamie? No, not since last night. How come?" Val asked, tilting her head to the left and looking at the dark haired girl.
Caitie bit down hard on her bottom lip to keep from spilling the entire story to Val. Some little voice in the back of her neck whispered that she shouldn't tell anyone about what had happened last night. Whatever had happened, whatever Jamie had done, the voice whispered, he doesn't want anyone to know about. Don't tell anyone.
"Oh...umm...no reason." Caitie swallowed hard, and turned to her locker, and began to twist the combination, trying to open the locker door.
She twisted the numbers, and then pulled down on the lock. It stayed locked. Blinking, she tugged harder, but the silver bar refused to move. Looking down at the dial on the lock, she winced--the last number of her combination was 14. She had twisted the dial to 41.
Sighing, she ran her fingers through her hair, and put in the correct combination this time, opening her locker. She reached in to grab her History book, her mind still whirling with the events of last night.
After Jamie had left her standing the middle of the sidewalk, she had been so shocked that she couldn't move for almost fifteen minutes. She had no idea what was going one, but one thing was very clear: something important had happened. Something that involved Jamie, something that he didn't want her to know about.
But for the life of her, Caitie couldn't being to fathom what it was.
After she had finally regained the use of her feet and her mind, Caitie had walked home, her eyes darting to and fro like a rabbit. She really wished that Jamie hadn't left--whoever those guys that attacked them were, they had scared her.
When she had finally reached her house, the girl had run up the steps to her room, completely ignoring her parents . She had locked herself in her bedroom until this morning, her mind still replaying the scene from before with Jamie and the gang bangers over and over again. What had happened? Had Jamie done that? If he had, then how?
Caitie wasn't sure. And it was driving her insane.
Sighing, the girl dragged herself out of her thoughts, and checked her lip gloss out of force of habit in the tiny mirror taped up inside of her locker. Her heart skipped a beat at what she saw instead.
Standing down the hallway from her, his arms crossed over his chest, was Jamie Waite. He didn't look any different then he had yesterday, the rational part of her mind realized, but at that moment she wasn't thinking rationally.
It wasn't that he looked different, she realized after a second of looking at him in her mirror. It was more like she had just noticed something about him, something that had always been there, just under the surface, and now she saw it clearly, for the first time. Whatever it was.
Turning slowly, Caitie meet his eyes through the crowded halls of students. For a second that seemed to stretch on forever, they simply looked at each other, dark eyes meeting hazel eyes. A slow chill passed up Caitie's spine, and she swallowed hard taking a step forward.
But before she could take one more step, Jamie was gone, disappearing into the throng of students that milled around the hallway.
Cursing under her breath, Caitie vowed to catch up with him sometime today to ask him about last night.
---==**==---
But Caitie didn't get a chance to ask him about last night's events.
Every time she saw him in the hallway, he went the opposite way as soon as he saw her. The one time she almost caught her, he ducked into the men's room, and stayed there. Caitie had waited until two minutes after the bell rang, but he never came out.
She didn't seem him at lunch, either. He wasn't under the bleachers, he wasn't in the cafeteria. She had finally broken down and asked some of her friends if they had seen him. Brianne mentioned she had seen him heading towards the library, but when she got there, he wasn't there.
He even skipped the two class periods that they had together!
Obviously, Jamie was avoiding her, Caitie had come to realize. And that just made her even more worried and confused about what had happened the night before.
Sighing, the girl continued her walk toward the EMS station. She knew that he was on duty today, and he might just go into work--she seemed to be the only person that he was avoiding; she'd seen him talking to Val and Tyler between third and fourth period. But when she had approached them, he'd left in a hurry, leaving behind only the barest hint of his cologne.
Caitie slowed to a stop as she reached the station. Taking a deep breath, she squared her shoulders and headed for the door. Jamie was GOING to talk to her--he didn't have a choice in THAT matter.
---==**==---
"Are you avoiding Caitie?" Val's question caught Jamie off guard, and he looked up from his History book in surprise.
"What?" Was his intelligent reply, his eyebrows knitted together.
"Are YOU avoiding CAITIE?" Val asked again, lifting one of her eyebrows.
"What makes you think I'm avoiding anyone?" Jamie dodged her exact question with the ease of long practice.
"Well, she thinks you are." The blonde told him, putting her hands on her hips to emphasis her point.
"Who thinks I am?" Jamie questioned innocently, looking back down at his History book.
Val made a noise that sounded suspiciously like a growl, before turning and stomping away. Jamie looked up at her out of the corner of his eye and sighed softly. Thankfully, all he had to do to get Val to leave him alone was to be a difficult as possible.
It was almost too bad that it didn't work on Caitie, Jamie reflected. She never gave up. Of course, that had always been something he had liked about her--no matter how annoying he was, she just kept right on pushing. It actually put him in mind of his mother and his younger sister Crimson.
Jamie let a smile touch his lips at the memory of the several 'wars' that had gone on in his house between himself and Crimson when they had been younger. They had both sworn up and down that they hated one another on more then one occasion, but when the one had been threatened by some one outside their family, the other had been the first one to jump to their defense. Sometimes the only person Jamie felt he could talk to was Crimson, even though there was nearly a five year age difference between them.
The sound of hard plastic shoes on tile caught his ears, and he inhaled through his nose. A soft, spicy sweet smell filled his nose, and he closed his eyes. No, Caitie NEVER gave up...
"Jamie." Caitie's voice, coming from right behind him, wasn't OVERLY hostile, but he could tell that she was mad and a little upset about the way he had been treating her today. And really couldn't say that he blamed her.
Closing his book, he stood up slowly, turning around to face her. But he found, when he got all the way around, that he couldn't face her. Instead, he kept his eyes locked on her feet, wishing with all his heart that last night would just, some how, some way, just disappear.
"Jamie, would you please look at me?" Her voice was more sad now then mad, and it almost gave him enough strength to look up into her beautiful eyes. Almost.
"Fine." Caitie said sharply, and he heard the whisper of the fabric that made up her sleeve brush together. She was crossing her arms over her chest, a move he knew meant she was upset. "Jamie...would you please--"
The blaring of the alarm cut her off, and Jamie snapped his head up, heading for the door. He slipped past her, and she turned to let him. But just as his arm brushed by, she reached out and grabbed it, forcing him to look at her.
"Jamie--please...just..."
"Jamie, let's go!" Hank's voice yelled to his squad mate. Jamie gently detached his arm from Caitie's grip and allowed himself to look her in the eyes since this morning.
"I'm sorry...I...I gotta go."
---==**==---
The ambulance, carrying the four teenagers that made up squad 182, screeched to a halt in front of nice, normal looking house. In the front yard, two adults, a man and a woman, stood with a six year old in between them.
"Ma'am, Sir, my name is Hank, and we're emergency medical technicians. What seems to be the problem?" Hank asked, professional as ever.
"There's...there's something in the back yard! A...a mad dog!" The woman wailed, clutching her daughter and husband tighter.
"A...dog..." Hank trailed off, exchanging looks with the rest of the squad. "Has it hurt anyone?"
"No, but it's going to! I know it! You have to do something about it!" The woman continued to wail, her eyes wide and worried.
"Ma'am, this is really a job for animal control..." Hank tried to explain, holding his hands up in a calming manner.
"PLEASE!?" The woman cried, burying her face in her husband's shirt. He gave the squad an apologetic look, shrugging his shoulders.
"I don't really think it's that dangerous---Carol's just terrified of dogs." The man explained.
"Ahhh." Hank allowed, nodding his head.
While all of this was going on, a soft voice had been whispering at the back of Jamie's mind. Something was trying to tell him...something. And whatever that something was, it was in the backyard of these people's house.
"Look, why don't I check it out?" Jamie volenteered, already heading across the yawn.
"Jamie, come back here!" Hank ordered, sounding slightly annoyed.
"I'll be fine." Jamie called back, already disappearing around the house.
He slowed to a stop when he reached the middle of the backyard. Several trees stood clustered at the far right corner of the house, and his heart nearly skipped a beat. A pair of glowing yellow eyes stared at him from the dark shadows of the small groove.
A FAMILIAR pair of glowing yellow eyes.
