Disclaimer: Crimson is mine (like anyone else would WANT to claim her) and the rest of the hoodlums belong to Disney. (Whose park I just walked all over. Lord, my feet hurt--still!!) Anyway, that's all I have to say, except I'm sorry this took so long to get out this part--hopefully, the other parts will be along shortly. Anyway, without further ado...
Chapter 7-"You're a WHAT!?"
For a long minute, no one spoke. Caitie slowly stood up from her seat on the front steps, brushing the back of her skirt off and eyeing Jamie carefully. He stared back at her, his throat and mouth suddenly going dry He should have expected this. He should have KNOWN that Caitie wasn't just going to give up and let it go. Crimson, for her part, stood next to her, waves of confusion rolling off of her.
He peeked at his sister out of the corner of his eye, and noticed her eyeing Caitie in confusion. The younger girl caught his expression, and shoot him a questioning look. Jamie shook his head almost imperceptibly, giving her a look that spoke volumes.
Clearing his throat, Jamie turned his attention back to his friend, meeting her eyes for the barest of seconds before dropping her eyes back down to his feet. He couldn't look into her eyes--not yet. But he had to talk to her. So, taking a deep breath, he forced the words past his throat.
"Caitie...Caitie, what are you DOING here?" Jamie asked, trying to hold on to his composure and not doing it very well.
"What do you think I'm doing here, Waite? You OWE me an explanation, and I'm not leaving until I get it." Caitie told him firmly, her eyes locked firmly on his face.
"Caitie..." Jamie trailed off, swallowing so hard his Adam's apple bobbed. "Caitie, I..."
"Explain what?" Crimson asked, looking at her brother in confusion.
Caitie jumped, startled, before turning her eyes from Jamie to his younger sister. Jamie could read the expression in her face quite plainly, and he swallowed, gesturing toward the little red haired girl carefully.
"Caitie, this is my sister, Crimson. Crimson, this is my friend Caitie." He introduced them, hopping that maybe he could throw Caitie off the scent for a little while by introducing a new variable to the equation.
Boy, was he wrong.
"Yeah, whatever. So, listen, are you gonna tell me what's going on or not?" Caitie demanded, not even looking at the petite redhead next to him. It wasn't that she meant to be rude, Jamie was sure--Caitie could just be extremely single minded at times.
"Yeah, hi." Crimson allowed, eyeing the girl again, this time in distrust. Turning to her brother, she lifted her eyebrows. "What's she talking about Jamie?"
"Umm...well..." Jamie trailed off, looking down at his feet.
"What, you're not even going to tell you're own sister?" Caitie questioned. Suddenly what her mouth was saying caught up with her brain, and her mouth dropped into a perfect 'o'. "And since when do you have a sister?"
"Since always." Crimson shot back. "AND I'm sure he's ALREADY told me, I'm just not sure exactly what it is." She smirked at the older girl, noticing the way she bristled.
"Crimmie..." Jamie warned, his tone one that she knew not to mess with. Crimson obediently shut up, but not with out a girl in her brother's direction. That small problem was taken care of--he really didn't relish the idea of getting caught in the verbal onslaught that he had sensed coming on between his little sister and his best friend. Turning to Caitie, Jamie opened his mouth, and hoped that whatever lie came out of his mouth was the tinest bit plausible.
"Caitie...I...ummm...I..."
Okay, so that was obviously not going to work. Swallowing hard, the young man ran his fingers through his hair, and tried to meet Caitie's gaze.
Her dark eyes swallowed his gaze, and he winced, a shot of pain knifing through his chest. Her beautiful eyes were glimmering with the need to understand what had happened, the need to understand him. And he couldn't do it. He couldn't look into her beautiful eyes and tell her that he was...a monster.
Turning his head away, dropped his gaze to the brick walkway that lead to his aunt and uncle's doorway. He could feel Crimson's gaze shifting between him and Caitie, and knew with out any doubt what she was thinking.
Caitie watched him turn away from her, and her heart twisted. Why wouldn't he tell her what had happened? What could be so bad that he couldn't tell her? Weren't they close? Didn't he trust her? Before she could stop her self, those words were out of her mouth.
"Why won't you tell me Jamie? Don't you trust me?"
"Yes...yes! I trust you...I just...I just..." Jamie stuttered, before turning fully away from her, giving him his back. "Caitie...please...don't...ask...please?"
"Um--time out!" Crimson's voice broke through the tension that had risen between the two older teenagers. Caitie jumped--she had almost forgotten that Jamie's little sister was standing there, watching the by play. "Would some one PLEASE stop and REWIND for the confused little twelve year old who would really like to know what was going on?"
"Crimmie...it's nothing." Jamie told his sister, and Caitie knew he was lying by the way his left eye ticked.
"Liar." Obviously, Crimson knew her brother as well as Caitie did.
"Crimson..."
"Jamie..."
"She...umm...Caitie..." He clarified. "Sorta...um...saw...me."
"Saw you? Saw you what? Naked?" Crimson made a face. "No wonder she wants to know what's going on."
"CRIMSON!" Jamie groaned, trying to fight the small smile that was trying to make it to his lips. He really had missed his loud mouth little sister, except for the times that she purposely tried to embarrass him.
"What?" The red head asked innocently, turning her attention from Caitie to her brother. "What?"
"Nothing." Jamie groaned, putting his hand up to his head.
"Okay, seriously now, what did you see him do? Did you see his tongue trick?" Crimson was really on a roll now.
"Tongue trick?" Caitie couldn't help but ask.
"Yeah it involves--mmph!" Jamie clapped his hand over her mouth to keep her from continuing, his cheeks suddenly bright red.
"Don't ask." Jamie begged Caitie. She lifted an eyebrow, a ghost of a smile pulling at her lips. But then she remembered what she had had come her for, and the smile disappeared.
"I don't want to know about the tongue trick. I wanted to know what you did the other night." She was getting really tired of repeating herself. \
"Yeah, I wanna know about that too!" Crimson decided, giving her brother one of her patented "you'd-BETTER-tell-me-or-I'll-embarrass-you-even-more!" looks.
"Crimson...she...umm...saw...the...thing that was got from mom." Jamie hedged, hoping his sister would understand his meaning.
"Our...eyes?" Crimson asked, confused.
Jamie shook his head. "The other thing."
"The...other...YOU MEAN SHE FOUND OUT YOU'RE A WEREWOLF!?"
Jamie winced, just as Caitie's gasp of shock filled his ears. Turning around to face her, he winced. Her skin was gray, and her eyes were very dark in her face. But then her faced cleared, and she glared at him and his sister.
"Very funny. Now tell me the truth." Caitie demanded, crossing her arms over her chest.
"Umm...that is the truth." Jamie told her, surprised at the relief that was suddenly flowing through him. Caitie was screaming hysterically yet, and she hadn't tried to kill and/or hurt either him or his sister, so this might actually work out for the best.
"Werewolves don't exist." Caitie told him, but her shaky tone took the validity out of her statement.
"That would be--incorrect!" Crimson informed her, doing her best impression of a game show host. "I'm SORRY, but you've just lost fifty thousand dollars!"
"They don't." Caitie ignored Jamie's sister, her eyes locked on the young man's face as though if she looked at him long enough, she could get him to take back his previous statement.
"You're wrong." Jamie told her, his voice soft and shaking.
What was he doing? A little voice screamed in the back of his skull. Why didn't he just tell Caitie that both he and Crimson had been kidding? Why didn't he agree with her? Was he out of his mind!?
Yes, he was. Well, not really--he was just tired. He was tired--exhausted of running away from his past, worn out from hiding what he was from Caitie, just weary of hiding period.
"You're lying." Caitie needed desperately to believe that what he was saying wasn't true. Werewolves--werewolves weren't real. Werewolves were inventions of writers and directors, figments of some reality impaired people's imaginations. There was no way that her best friend, her Jamie, was a...werewolf. Just no way. "Tell me you're lying."
Gazing up into Jamie's dark brown eyes, her heart lurched into her throat.
There was no tick.
There was no mistaking the truth in his amazing, ethereal eyes.
He was what he said he was.
Her best friend, someone she thought she knew inside and out; some one she loved very much; someone she had always thought was perfectly normal---was anything but.
The world spun around in front of her very eyes, and Caitie Roth crumpled to the ground, unconscious.
