First, I'd like to thank all my reviewers- you guys really and truly rock! (And thanks to SilentStorm88- yeah, I feel kinda silly for that mistake, thanks for pointing it out!) Just a quick list in honor of those people who took the time to tell me what they thought:

a.k.a. ettie- Thanks, I'm glad it's interesting 

SilentStorm88- I'm glad you think so; I tried to get beyond the fluff of a lot of Covenant stuff.

Greendoggie- haha, holy ginger snaps- that made me smile. Thanks for your praise!

XBrokenDreamerx- Bwahaha, you shall never know who the mystery woman is! Well, I lie, you will, but… eh, I'll just stop talking now:-D

Breiscrazy- Soon, soon, I promise!

Niffer01- Yeah, me too. I felt bad for him just writing it! But I'm a sucker for angst, so I had to do it…

MagykGurl- Thanks!

addict-4-dramatics- I love your name, and thank you! I love making characters as interesting as possible.

Happy Face21- Only a few days until the full moon! Yay!

Angelnanoo- Thank you!

native-kitten- Thank you so much, I love writing it!

Again, you guys are awesome. On to the story, already!

Chapter Seven

"Hey! Kat, wait up!" I wheeled around in surprise, not expecting anyone to be calling my name. A tall boy with dark hair was jogging towards me. In a second, I remembered his name: Caleb Something.

"Yes?" He slowed until he was walking next to me, and smiled. Unlike Reid's wild, daredevil grin or sly, smirky smile, Caleb's was warm and good-humored.

"Sorry. You probably think I'm some kind of stalker, following you around when we've spoken, like, once before." I smiled. Something about this kid put me at ease, though he definitely had the other-smell about him.

"No, it's ok. Your friend Reid's more of a stalker than you are." It was Caleb's turn to chuckle.

"Yeah, Reid can be… abrasive."

"He's an annoying, reckless punk, if that's what you mean by 'abrasive'."

"Well, I don't like to put it in such blunt terms, but… yeah, sounds about right." I grinned despite myself.

"What, no loyalty?" He shrugged.
"He's a good guy to have on your side, and even if half the time you want to punch him, he does have a better side."

"Huh."

"He likes to hide it. Thinks of it as a weakness, or some kind of bull." I nodded, putting my hands in my pockets.

"I can't see it, but you know him better than me."

"Well, most of the time, we can't see it either. Then, he'll pull something completely out of the blue, or one of us will get in trouble only to have Reid finagle us out of it again, and we remember," Caleb said with a shrug.

"So what's up?" I was having trouble keeping in mind the fact that I was supposed to be avoiding all four of the so-called Sons of Ipswich.

"Nothing, really. Just wanted to find out what Reid liked about you so much." I stopped dead, shocked.

"What?" The dark-haired boy smiled again, but now that I was looking at him dead-on, I thought I caught a glint of wariness, of watchfulness, in that warm gaze.

"Well, he talks about you a lot."

"Saying he likes me?"

"Of course not. He says you're irritating."

"I don't follow."

"Usually, Reid doesn't talk about people. It's not his way. I figured he must hate you or like you, and since I doubted he hated you, I thought it must have been the other one." I folded my arms.

"Huh. And have you figured it out? Why he supposedly likes me?"

"I don't think it's a random attraction anymore. I think you just confuse him, and probably annoy him, too." Feeling oddly disappointed, I started walking again.

"Oh." Caleb caught my arm.

"Don't get me wrong; I think it's great. He needs someone he can't push around or seduce." With that, he jogged off again. I watched him go with a frown. Two more days until the full moon. Someone he can't push around or seduce, eh? Well, because of my heightened state, I knew he wouldn't be able to push me around.

The other one, for the same reason, I wasn't so sure about.

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"All I'm saying is, I don't think she's a threat."

"Oh, and you would know this, right? Because you spend so much time with her, after all." Caleb sighed.

"I talked to her today, and-"

"Wait, you what? I thought we agreed to just keep an eye on her!" Reid was angry. The closer he came to ascension, the easier it was to tick him off, and that had never exactly been a challenge. The whole Kat thing was, in Caleb's opinion, a mere suspicion that was being blown way out of proportion because of how tense the younger boy was. To tell the truth, it was starting to get on Caleb's nerves.

"Well, apparently you haven't adhered to that decision, either! According to her, you're practically stalking her!" Reid snarled at the dark-haired boy. He didn't know why he was so mad, why he'd gotten so mad so quickly when Caleb started talking about Kat. Oh, that was a lie. He did know why.

He was afraid. Afraid and confused and jealous, if he was completely honest with himself, and those were three things he absolutely hated to be.

There were five days left before his birthday, when he would ascend. Ascend as Caleb had done. Five days before everything would change. Sure, Caleb had been fine. He had come through the ordeal stronger and more in control than ever. But Reid? Well, even if he never admitted it aloud, even if he protested vociferously every time one of the other three brought it up, he used more than any of them. Even now, he could feel it like a hot pull in his gut, a silky-soft, seductive call that spoke of power and oblivion. Could he resist, when the time came? Was he strong enough?

Now, at the worst possible time, Kitty Teague had appeared. Strange, fiery, sarcastic, vulnerable Kat who had, in less than a week's time and with less than two hundred words between them, become so much more than just a diversion. He didn't know what to make of her, and he didn't like that. He found himself unable to just give up on finding out her secrets, and that annoyed him, too. Hell, he wasn't even attracted to her! Or was he? He didn't know. There was something about her… she was pretty, but so not his type. And it didn't matter either way, because he didn't like her in the first place, right?

And now Caleb was talking to her. Caleb was befriending her. Reid hated the fact that he had, for no reason at all, become so stupidly possessive of the girl. He felt like he was the only one who could figure her out, like he had sole rights to her. I'm the one who saw her first. I'm the one who teased her, and I'm the one who sensed whatever's weird about her. She's mine, damn it! What exactly she was his for, he didn't know. Didn't really want to know, actually. It was the ascension. He was sure of it. Caleb had become practically obsessed with Sarah right before his ascension, and he'd been so testy and emotionally charged, too. Now, the same thing was happening with Reid, only he didn't have a girl to fall madly in love with, so he was instead obsessing about figuring out what bothered him so much about Kat Teague. There was nothing he could do about it.

Still annoyed the hell out of him, though.

So now, when Caleb started his 'Kat's-not-a-threat' spiel, Reid wanted to hit something.

"Stalking her? I am not stalking her! I ran into her in the library, that's all!"

"And said what?"

"Nothing!" He threw his hands up and stalked over to the fridge of Caleb's kitchen, pulling out a Coke.

"I'll grant you, she's not the most open person out there. She doesn't take any shit, and maybe she's a little caustic at times. But you know who that reminds me of? Oh, that's right, you!"

"You don't know what you're talking about," Reid muttered. There was a long, heavy pause as he downed half the soda in one swallow. Caleb narrowed his eyes: the blond's hands were shaking, visibly shaking. He took a closer look at Reid's face, for the first time noticing the circles under those sharp blue eyes and the way his normally light, quick features seemed to tighten with tension and fatigue.

"Reid," Caleb said hesitantly, in a much quieter voice. "If you want to, you know, talk about what's going to happen five days from now, I'm here, okay?" The younger boy shook his head.

"I'm fine, man," he said, equally calmer. "Just drop it."

"And Kat?"

"I won't do anything stupid, Oh Great One. I promise." The old, not-quite-unfriendly sarcasm was back in Reid's voice, and Caleb couldn't help the rush of relief. It was startling, really, how true what he'd told Kat actually was. Reid was the obnoxious one, the risk-taker, the prankster… and he was, too, a brother. They all were. Looking again at the younger boy's drawn, defiant features, Caleb suddenly wondered what it would be like it Reid weren't there; what life would be like without his embarrassing, usually hilarious (if they weren't on you) tricks, his caustic, wicked humor, his rebellious, live-for-today attitude, and his powerful (if generally unspoken) loyalty. "I doubt Sarah would like the way you're looking at me, old boy," Reid said suddenly, obviously uncomfortable with Caleb's thoughtful gaze. "Not that I'm not flattered, but…"

"Oh, shut up," Caleb retorted. The cabinet behind Reid's head blew open, smacking the blond in the back of the skull before closing again. Reid yelped, snatching his hand to cover the bump, glaring at Caleb.

"And you yell at me for using?" Caleb grinned.

"It was a worthy cause."

"Yeah, I'll remember your definition of 'worthy cause'. Six days from now, you're gonna be in a world of pain, my friend." With that, Reid shot a last look of mock resentment, and headed for the door.

"Where are you going," Caleb called as the younger boy reached for the knob of the kitchen door.

"Back to the house. I gotta get some stuff." Caleb noticed how Reid deliberately didn't say 'back home'. "See you."

"Yeah," he responded, watched the door bang shut. "See you." Suddenly, Caleb jogged to the door and leaned out. "Reid!" The other boy was halfway down the front steps, and turned.

"What?"

"You can stay here tonight if you want. I'm moving some stuff around tomorrow morning, and I could use some help." There was a pregnant pause, in which Reid stared the older boy hard in the face. Caleb could almost see the debate going on: accept Caleb's charity, masked though it may be, or have another silent, no-heating-bills-paid weekend night at the house he no longer could bring himself to call a home.

"Maybe. I gotta go."

"Okay. Later, man."

"Yeah."

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Friday night, I didn't sleep. Well, I did sleep, but I got no rest from it. I lay in bed, staring at the ceiling and trying desperately not to look at the window for the first few hours, and then fell into an uneasy doze for a while. Tossed and turned, the works. Dreams? Thank God, there were none. If I dreamed so close to the full moon, I don't think I would even bother sleeping. I know what would be in them.

Too well.

What Caleb had said rung in my ears, about the Sons. About Reid. It only made me more curious. What bound them so closely? Were they just long-time friends? All with the same otherworldly scent that made the animal in me more alert than I'd been since that time in California that I wasn't thinking about ever again? Riiight. And I had not imagined the way Caleb had looked at me, had not imagined that wariness. They knew something. Or at least suspected. How? How was that possible?

Worrying about that kept me from really sleeping, as did the pull. It was near constant now, putting me on edge both at night and during the day. I wanted, needed to Change. And even if I did, it wouldn't matter… the pull would be just as strong until after the moon waned again.

And, to add to my problems, I'd thought I'd seen something… something out of the corner of my eye, which could have been anything at all: a car slowing, a parent stopping by, maybe even a student arriving late. Still, even as I explained it away, the flash of long, black car I'd seen idling outside the Academy gates on my way to History earlier that day, with the barest glimpse of a woman leaning out the passenger side door, her red hair glinting in the sun… it was bringing back memories I'd much rather have forgotten. About that time. When I almost, almost got caught.

Shuddering the memory away, I rolled over again and told my body to sleep.