Well, here we are: the end of arc one. Thank you all so much for your support and encouragement, and I hope you enjoy the way this ends. I'm still not entirely sure if I'll continue into the other arcs, so we'll see. For now I'll leave it here. Thanks again, everyone, and I hope to see you around.
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"Oh my god." Tori is leaning against the door, trying to hold it closed even though she knows that she's no match for a werewolf. She may be a bloodline hunter but she's still only human, and if the werewolf – Jade, she reminds herself – really tries to break out, she's not going to be able to stop her. A mournful howl starts up, chilling Tori to the bone. Since Beck had first told her about her being a hunter and werewolves being real, she'd been imagining what seeing her first werewolf would be like. And never, in any of the scenarios, did it involve her friend staring at her with such hunger in her eyes. Tori had never been so scared in all her life.
As she leans against the door, listening to Jade howl, she tries to come up with a plan. She was wrong, so very wrong, and she knows that she can't handle this alone. Her first thought is to talk to Trina, but then she remembers that her sister is out of the house tonight. Her next best option is Beck, although she really doesn't want to give him the satisfaction of an I told you so. But as Jade starts to pace and Tori can hear sounds like shattering glass, she realizes that she may not have a choice. She reaches into her pocket for her phone –
- and comes up empty.
Her breath catching in her throat, she searches in all her pockets – jeans and jackets and even in her bra – but her phone is nowhere to be found. And then she remembers leaving it downstairs, forgotten on the table in her haste to find out what was wrong with Jade. Damn it. Torn between going downstairs for her phone (thereby running the risk of Jade getting out) and staying where she is (which is risky enough in itself), Tori does nothing, her mind spinning and her heart racing.
She wonders what Beck, a trained hunter, would do in this situation. And she realizes that she has no idea. She's had absolutely no training, and apparently the bloodline hunter instincts that had helped her take him down the night he'd surprised her in her room don't extent to situations like this. Because her instincts are all screaming at her to run, and she knows that that is not what a hunter would do.
After what seems like forever, during which time Tori decides to stay where she is until she's sure it's safe to move, she hears a knock at the door. Thinking it must be one of the neighbours, she ignores it. Even when it continues for a full minute, getting more insistent by the second. None of the neighbours would be that incessant. And then she hears a familiar voice.
"Jade? Tori? Are you here?"
Cat. Oh no. Tori squeezes her eyes shut, as if by doing so she might be able to stop what's about to happen. But she can't. There's a final knock, another shout, and then she hears the door open. Cursing herself for leaving it unlocked, Tori braces herself. It doesn't take long for Cat to find her, and then the red-haired girl frowns, taking in the sight before her.
"Whatcha doing?" Cat asks, and Tori realizes that her manner isn't as carefree as usual. And if she weren't so busy worrying about Jade and what Beck will do when he finds out, Tori would ask Cat what's wrong. As it is, she just wants her friend to leave.
"Um," Tori says, knowing how strange this looks, "I'm just… you know, hanging out."
It's a flimsy excuse, and Cat doesn't buy it for a second. Her frown deepens. "Have you seen Jade?" she asks, catching Tori entirely off-guard. Then she remembers the phone call Jade had taken earlier; she must have told Cat she was here.
"Yeah," Tori says, her mind scrambling for an explanation, "she's um, she had to leave. I mean, she's not here."
For someone as easily distracted as Cat, she does have a certain determination when it comes to things she really cares about. "Really? Because she said she was here, and she wasn't feeling well."
That's an understatement, she thinks grimly. Then she pauses. Why would Jade have told Cat she wasn't feeling well? She would have known Cat would come over, and surely even she would notice that her friend was a giant black-furred wolf?
"What exactly did she say?" Tori asks cautiously, still up against the door and listening carefully for sounds from within her room. It sounds like Jade is still, almost like she's listening to them. Tori wonders how much Jade can understand as a wolf. Is she still a human in a wolf's body, or does the wolf take over? She makes a mental note to ask Beck about it the next time she sees him, because for all his pop quizzes and information dumps, he seems to have neglected some of the essentials.
"Um," Cat says, "just that she was feeling kind of, um, under the weather."
Tori surveys her friend carefully, trying to figure out what's going on. Then, testing the waters, she says, "Yeah, she did say something about being sick. You could say she was sick as a dog."
Cat's eyes widen, and Tori knows she's onto something. And then a memory hits her, something that had seemed innocuous at the time but carries so much more weight now. That night when she'd gone over to Cat's to work on a project. A large black dog. A dog called Jade. Tori mentally kicks herself for not realizing sooner: it wasn't a dog. It was Jade.
"It was her, wasn't it?" Tori asks, giving up on subtlety. If Cat knows, maybe she can help, but they have to make sure they're on the same page first. "That night at your house. That was Jade."
"My dog?" Cat asks after a confused frown. "Yeah, she -"
"We both know she's not a dog," Tori says gently. And then, "I know, Cat. It's okay. You don't have to protect her secret anymore."
After a long pause, Cat sighs, looking suddenly smaller somehow. "You know?"
"Yes," Tori says. She jerks head head to indicate the door behind her and says, "Jade's in there now. I saw her… transform, I guess?"
With a sad kind of resignation, Cat sinks down to the ground beside Tori. "It's called a Change," Cat explains. "It happens almost every month. But… It's already happened this month."
At this, Tori looks away, suddenly embarrassed. Cat catches onto her discomfort and raises an eyebrow in a silent question. "I maybe gave Jade a potion," she admits reluctantly, causing Cat's eyes to widen again. "It's only temporary, though. She'll be fine in a couple hours, I think."
"You made her Change?" Cat asks in disbelief. Then she gasps. "So you are a hunter?"
Now it's Tori's turn to be surprised. She thinks about denying it, but there doesn't seem to be any point to it anymore. "You know about that?"
"Jade figured it out a while ago," Cat says. Then she giggles. "She also thought that you and Beck might have been seeing each other."
For a moment Tori's so startled she doesn't know what to say. "Why?" she asks after a while, the most eloquent thing she can come up with.
"She said you smelled like him," Cat says, seeming slightly embarrassed. "Which either meant that you were a hunter or you were, you know…"
The thought is so ridiculous that Tori actually laughs. She and Beck might have had a few almost moments, but they're not dating. They probably never will. "Well, sorry to disappoint," she says finally, "but I'm not seeing him."
Cat seems to relax at this, although Tori isn't entirely sure why. A few minutes of companionable silence pass by, and then Cat says, "So what are you going to do?"
"About what?" Tori asks, dragging herself out of her thoughts and focusing on her friend.
"About Jade," Cat responds, hooking a thumb over her shoulder to indicate Tori's room. "Now you know she's a werewolf, and you're a hunter…"
"Are you asking if I'm going to turn her in?" Tori asks in surprise. Then she shakes her head and admits, "The Alliance already knows about her."
"And Beck knows too, doesn't he?" Cat asks.
"Yes," Tori says, and then she frowns. "I mean, no. He's convinced she is, but – other than the Alliance's word – he doesn't have any proof."
"But he'll believe you, if you tell him," Cat points out. She's twirling a strand of hair around her finger and staring straight ahead, clear signs that she's upset. Tori wonders how long she's known about Jade, how long she's been helping her. And how she'll feel if Tori does hand Jade over to the Alliance. "Are you going to tell him?" Cat asks, still not looking.
"I don't know," Tori answers honestly. "I don't know what I'm going to do."
They fall silent again, each lost in their minds, and the next hour passes quietly. Jade stops pacing and seems to settle, but Tori isn't brave enough to open the door. She and Cat just sit side by side, not speaking, simply thinking. Tori's still trying to process everything that's happened this past week, trying to figure out how much she's changed and what she's going to do next.
She likes to think she's dealing well with the whole being a bloodline hunter thing. There's just been one breakdown, the day when Jade had invited her out to the courtyard for coffee. That had been a bad day, when everything had just caught up with Tori and she'd just needed a break. Nothing in her life seemed stable anymore, nothing was safe, and she was struggling to come to terms with how everything had changed. She had never wanted to be normal, exactly, but when she said she wanted to be extraordinary she meant that she wanted to be a famous pop star, not a bloodline werewolf hunter.
And yet here she is.
A little after midnight, after it's been silent for a long time, there's a faint whimper from Tori's bedroom. Both girls turn around, on alert at once.
"Jade?" Cat calls out cautiously.
"Yeah," comes the faint reply, and Tori is surprised to hear how tired her friend sounds.
"Is it safe to go in?" Tori asks, turning back to Cat.
"Yeah," Cat says, already getting to her feet and reaching down to pull Tori up. "If she can talk, it means she's human again."
A moment passes, and then Tori steels herself and opens the door. Jade is sitting on the end of her bed, looking beyond tired. There's no energy to her at all; it's like everything that makes her Jade has just been wiped away, leaving nothing but a shell.
"Are you okay?" Cat asks, her voice soft with concern.
Jade lifts one shoulder up in a shrug, and Tori feels her heart go out to her friend. The Change must be an exhausting process, and it's her fault that her friend had to go through this. Jade looks at Cat, switches her gaze to Tori, and then looks back to Cat. "Can you give us a minute?'
"Of course," Cat says quickly. "I'll be downstairs if you need me."
When she's gone, the two girls simply look at each other for a moment. Tori doesn't even know where to begin, whether to give precedence to apologies or explanations, whether they should talk it all out now or go their separate ways to recover. To her relief, Jade takes the lead.
"I'm sorry I lied to you," she says quietly.
Tori shrugs, sitting down beside Jade on the bed. They're both looking at the floor, unable to meet each other's eyes after all that's happened. "I'm sorry I gave you a potion that made you Change."
"I guess we're even then." Jade exhales slowly, like she's trying to find the energy for this conversation. "Listen, Tori -"
"It's okay," Tori interrupts gently, and Jade falls silent. "Let's just… Let's not talk about it, okay?"
Jade nods, but then she frowns. "I read the letter that the Alliance sent to Beck," she says, and somehow Tori isn't surprised. "It said to take any action necessary. Normally that means… I mean, they only do that if the werewolf is a threat, right?"
Tori nods. "It's kind of like a kill order, from what Beck told me."
"Exactly." Jade clasps her hands in front of her, leaning her elbows on her knees, looking deep in thought. "But I haven't… I mean, I'm not dangerous. Why would they send a hunter after me?"
Taking a deep breath, Tori explains, "Beck says that the Alliance thought you were…" she swallows, then continues, "you know, trying to kill me."
Jade's eyes widen in surprise and she looks up at her friend. "What? Why?"
"I don't know," Tori admits, holding up her hands in response to Jade's sharp tone. "He said something about you seeming… interested in me? Which Beck said either meant that you wanted to kill me or you wanted to kiss me."
She laughs, aiming for levity, but when Jade doesn't join in she quickly cuts herself off, confused. There's no way… right?
"Well, I might," Jade admits, her gaze returning to the floor.
Tori's entire body stiffens. "Excuse me?"
Jade doesn't answer, but her smile is enough. So Jade doesn't want to kill her. But, Tori thinks apprehensively, the alternative somehow seems almost as terrifying.
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Don't forget to review, I'd love to know what you think, and feel free to get in touch if you have questions or comments. Bye for now, guys!