“Seven hundred is too much,” Adam said. “Four hundred.”
“Seven hundred,” I repeated.
“Five hundred.”
“Seven hundred,” I said slower, emphasizing each word. “And I’m about to go to eight if you keep being a cock about it.”
After a brief pause, the half-turn finally relented, nearly tearing his pants as he jerked out his wallet. “I hate you.”
“Keep pushing me, and you can find somewhere else to live.”
Adam slapped the money into my hand before storming to his bedroom.
After licking a finger, I thumbed through three hundred dollars before stuffing the rest of the cash into my wallet. “Here,” I said, handing the money to Roscoe. “This should be enough, right?”
Roscoe leaned in, whispering, “That was kinda hot.”
I looked over at Austin, who seemed too preoccupied with the door to care about what was going on.
“What did you guys talk about?”
“Later,” Roscoe said, rubbing my shoulders before heading toward the front door. “Still wanna come with?” he asked Austin.
“Yeah, sure.”
The two pushed their way outside, closing the squeaky door behind them. Austin seemed calmer than usual, which made me even more curious about what Roscoe had said to him. Between that and Adam’s secret, I needed something to occupy my mind before all of it drove me nuts.
The floorboards groaned under my feet as I walked down the hallway. Everything in this place seemed to make some kind of noise, even with the slightest agitation. It had been annoying at first, but the place was kind of growing on me. This was the first time I’d actually lived in a halfway decent house. Even as a kid, we just lived in run-down mobile homes, so I couldn’t help but feel a sense of pride at how the place was shaping up.
I stepped into the backyard, and an idea hit. Since I didn’t know much about fixing things to help out more, I did like to get things clean and orderly. Maybe the yard could be my project.
I cleared a path through the tall grasses and vines with a sickle from the shed. The tool worked surprisingly well, and the pendulous swinging was calming in its own way. Before I knew it, half an hour had passed and the entire backyard was a little less unruly. I’d already cleaned the weeds out of the pit, but I’d need to gather firewood if I was going to get any use out of it tonight.
There weren’t any dead limbs in the yard, and I didn’t have an axe. The only option was to take a little stroll through nature, but I had the herculean task of talking myself into it first. Any time I wandered too close to the trees, I’d think about all the rumors and warnings I’d heard. Was it ridiculous to believe the woods were haunted? Being a half-turn had opened up a new world I hadn’t thought existed, and the kuu was proof of that. If magic existed in these earrings, it could exist in those trees.
After minutes of working up the nerve, I found my confidence and crossed the forest’s edge. I was a goddamn werewolf—well, almost—and these were just trees. Half-turns could be just as dangerous, so what the hell was I afraid of?
My confidence evaporated as I hiked deeper into the dense brush. Something felt off; the farther I went, the darker it got. There weren’t that many trees, and while it was only a little after five, it might as well have been dusk the way the canopy swallowed the sunlight.
“This was a really dumb idea,” I whispered, turning to backtrack, but I didn’t know which way I was going anymore. As a human, I had a terrible sense of direction. As a half-turn, I didn’t even have a werewolf’s sense of smell to guide me back.
Branches snapped in the distance and what little sunlight was left disappeared. Was this a repeat of what had happened at the hardware store? Maybe if I closed my eyes, everything would go back to normal.
“Hello?” I called, trying to keep my voice calm. A sharp, chilly breeze disrupted the stillness of the air, and a black shadow raced by me before disappearing into one of the many surrounding bushes.
Fear immediately settled into my chest—not a normal terror, either, rather something almost primal. I instinctively settled into something like a defensive stance, the red hue returning, giving a bit of light to the darkness. Maybe this was more than just an uncontrolled rage. Maybe it was a survival instinct.
The drive to fight suddenly faded as a dozen or so sets of glowing eyes closed in from the trees. Once again, my body behaved strangely, calming.
“Hello?” I said, quieter this time, my voice trembling as I stepped back.
Whatever creatures these were didn’t make a sound at first, but furious sniffing broke the silence. Werewolves?
When my back hit something solid, I jumped and turned. A tall figure stared down at me with orange, glowing eyes. A werewolf, though he somehow looked more beastly. His feet were paw-like, and he wore a frayed leather rope around his waist from which hung about six fist-sized sacks. That was about all I could make out as my temporary night vision faded.
He held out his large hand, not breaking eye contact. Roscoe told me half-turns were like catnip to werewolves, and I wondered if I’d just run head-first into something I’d regret. Were these the feral werewolves I’d read about in Darryl’s book?
“Can you talk?” I asked as more of these strange looking wolfmen emerged from the shadows. All I could make out were silhouettes and furry faces lit by glowing eyes of different colors. The taller among them, the one with the sacks tied to his waist, held up his hand and the pack dispersed back into the woods.
