“Sorry.” Rose’s voice was little compared to their booming laughter. We all stopped, looking at her.
“Uh, no it’s fine. It’s been awhile, right? I’m the one who should be sorry. I should’ve...” Liam stopped, looking into nothing. His eyes became focused again. “They’re gone. They didn’t even try to come close to the house. Nate’s trying to figure out why,” he said, turning to me. At the same moment, the front door opened and once again the house was filled with voices.
“He wanted me to get you. We’re having a meeting, and since you guys all know by now, and well, we know Cole too...”
He didn’t finish his sentence. Looking at the door, he made the first move to leave the room and we followed him.
Downstairs, the couches were full and people were even sitting on the ground. Liam joined Nate, standing by the entrance of the room. We decided to stand awkwardly by them.
“You might want to explain to your friends what happened out there before we go in details,” Nate said to Liam, who nodded and then turned to us.
“They didn’t come alone. There was another wolf with them, someone we didn’t recognize... We don’t know for sure if he’s one of us, or if he’s just a normal wolf. But that means that there’s someone out there, watching out for them, or even helping them,” he took a pause, breathing in and out roughly. “They also didn’t try to get in the house, which is quite strange. They didn’t try to push us, or kill us...” He continued but got interrupted by another man.
“They were just here to make us worry, to scare us. Which barely worked,” he said, laughing.
“Exactly. He only wanted to prove who was the boss. That’s why they got away. As soon as they saw that we became tired and weak, they left,” Nate continued, giving the man a warning look.
“He’s playing with us,” remarked a young girl. She appeared younger than the others, like she was sixteen, maybe seventeen. My age.
“Good, Delia. That’s it. So please, don’t let him win, no matter what. We don’t know for sure why he wants the girl,” Nate made a pause there, seeing Liam’s mouth opened.
“Alicia,” he said. Nate nodded and continued, “Why he wants Alicia. He can block his thoughts pretty well, as you all saw today and Aiden... He’s a different case. Something I haven’t seen for awhile, but not impossible to beat.”
“He’s gonna go after her again. So we need a plan...” Liam was pacing, back and forth.
“Why are we doing this? Why are we even risking our lives to this insane guy for a girl we don’t even know?” Some guy said, looking me straight in the eyes. His were a deep kind of brown, hypnotizing.
“Liam knows her,” Oliver said, from the other end of the room. He was sitting on the floor beside the girl I had noticed earlier, Delia.
“Yeah, but we all know that he’s gonna play with her a little bit and then bite her. It’s not like we can do anything,” the guy said. This time he was on his feet looking around the room for support from his friends.
“That’s my sister you’re talking about,” I heard Ben say behind my back. The guy didn’t turn to him, he pretended not to hear.
“Liam asked us to help him. Now please, Shane, sit down or leave. We don’t really appreciate it when someone doesn’t listen to us,” Nate said. His voice was severe, indicating his bad mood. Shane looked around the room one more time before sitting down again. He didn’t look happy, but then Nate had still given him a choice.
“Thanks,” I heard Liam say. “If there’s someone who still has some... comments, questions, whatever?” I saw a few shaking their heads. We waited a few seconds, making sure there wasn’t anyone who wanted to talk first.
“Okay then, let’s begin. Alicia needs to stay away from Cole, that’s pretty much a no brainer. And Rose too I guess... The problem here is that they’re close,” Liam said, turning to us. I nodded, seeing he wanted us to agree.
“We’re friends, I don’t think we can ditch him, without him noticing and trying to do something about it...” Rose said. Beside her, Ben had a pensive expression.
“He’s gonna know what we’re trying to do. He’s way ahead of us on that one, guys,” another guy said, he too, looked young, maybe a year older than my brother.
“Yeah, but we could leave. There’s like a month and a half left of school. We can fake an early vacation, and ask for our final exams, they’ll give it to us, I’m sure. We can all get in the car and drive to the other end of the country. Cole won’t follow us there,” Liam said.
“Don’t get all worked up Liam. We’re going to think about it. It doesn’t have to be that complicated. Tomorrow morning, we’ll have another meeting, and I would like for everyone to be there, please. We’re a family and we’re all in this together.” Nate was turning to leave the room when he stopped in his tracks. “It’s pretty late; you may want to stay here for the night. Liam, can you...?” He didn’t finish his sentence, and left the room. As soon as he left, everyone started talking all at once, making it impossible to think. Liam took our hand in his and began pulling us away from the chaos when Delia came and blocked the path to the door.
“Hey, Liam,” She called after us when Liam got around her and continued for the door. He finally heard her and turned around. “I don’t think you have enough room for all of them up there. I can share my room with the girls...?” Liam nodded, his face turning a light shade of pink, like he was embarrassed he hadn’t thought about that earlier.
“Ben can still sleep in my room though,” he said, nodding at Delia. We started walking again, toward the door.
“I bet you guys are hungry,” she said, looking back at us when we had finally escaped the chaos in the living room. The guys had disappeared upstairs to talk a little bit, leaving us alone in a crowded house with close to nobody that we knew.
“Whoa, it’s already nine thirty?” Rose whispered by my side.
“Yeah, it took a little bit longer than we had planned, sorry,” a guy said. I thought I had heard someone say his name was Ryan. He had heard her whisper from across the hallway... So the werewolves hearing must have been pretty good.
“There’s plenty of food in the kitchen. With this much guys in the same house, we tend to overdo the groceries,” the guy continued to say.
“Yeah, you bet. Sometimes I swear we could supply the entire town for a month. Ryan can you... help them with that?” Delia said, confirming his name.
“Yeah, no probs. This way, ladies,” Ryan said, leading us to the kitchen. He opened the refrigerator’s door and roamed inside of it for a couple of minutes, leaving us time to check him out. He seemed like an okay guy, with light brown hair spiked up in front and a gorgeous butt. I caught Rose looking and nudge her shoulder.
“Is a sandwich good? I’m afraid that’s all we can afford to do tonight,” Ryan turned back to us, offering a spotless smile.
“Yeah, that’s great,” my friend said, taking meat and bread from Ryan’s hands. I got to my feet to help unload all the food. By the look of it, our sandwiches were going to be enormous.
“You guys look tired,” he said while buttering the bread.
“We are. It was a... pretty long day,” I put the meat in and noticed there were four sandwiches when we were only three. I decided to keep my mouth shut.
“Yeah I bet. You go to the same school as Liam, right?” He asked, passing us the completed sandwiches. The other two remained untouched on the counter.
“Yeah we do, but we’re a year younger,” Rose answered.
“You guys are...?” he left a gap for us to fill in.
“Seventeen, turning eighteen next year,” I nodded.
“And what about you?” Rose asked him. She was looking intently at him, waiting for an answer.
“Which school I go too, or how old am I?” A smile was creeping on his lips. I heard my friend sigh heavily.
“Both of them,” she was smiling too now. She knew he was flirting with her, and she liked it.
“I don’t go to school anymore. Graduated a few years back,” he finally said, looking down at his hands. My breath caught in my lungs. He looked young, maybe our age, and he graduated a few years back? That meant that he didn’t want us to know how far back he graduated from high school...
“You look young. I would have given you eighteen, maybe nineteen, to be generous...” Rose’s voice was shy; she was coming to the same conclusion as me. The sound of someone walking behind me made me flinch and I turned around to see Liam and Ben enter the kitchen. They each took a plate that was on the counter, their sandwiches. They sat beside us on the island in the middle of the kitchen. Not a word was spoken, until Liam finally broke the silence.
“You can tell them. They already know a bunch of shit, so I don’t think they’re gonna freak out...” He said, talking to Ryan, in front of him. He took a breath and looked up at us.
“I’m kinda a little older than what look like...”
“What he’s trying to say, is that he’s actually more like twenty seven, but he looks like he’s eighteen, ‘cause he was bitten at eighteen,” Liam rushed out, and then took a bite out of his sandwich. We all stopped eating around him, starring.
“You have to learn how to take things slowly, kid.” Ryan gave Liam a meaningful look, leaning toward us. “We don’t age when we’re changing regularly. We just freeze... it has to be like two years without any changes for our body to continue his cycle. It could be more or less, really ‘cause nobody actually tried it, or if they did they wouldn’t talk about it with us,” everything around us was silent, everybody on the edge of their seat.
“Shocking eh? I actually think I reacted worst then this, did I?” Liam said, totally out of place for this moment.
“Yeah, I think you did. But that’s not the problem now,” Ryan said.
“So, you’re actually twenty-seven?” Rose asked, but she didn’t get her answer since the words in my head streamed out of my mouth.
“Is anyone in this house what they seem to be?” the silence was following my words, creeping toward the never ending.
“Well... Some are much older than what they looked like, like Nate, he’s the oldest of us. But some are pretty close, since they have been bitten not long ago, a year, a year and a half,” Liam was looking at me, searching my eyes. He was probably reading my thoughts, making sure I was okay.
“Wait. So you can change into big wolves, read minds, telepathy, whatever... and you don’t age? That’s seriously the sickest thing I’ve ever heard,” Ben said. His eyes were illuminated, like a little child’s.
“It’s not all fairy tales and happiness. But I’m gonna leave that speech for later, ‘cause I’m getting tired, with all the fighting and all. Goodnight everyone,” Ryan waved before he disappeared at the end of the hallway and climbed up the stairs. The room was silent for a while, everyone eating or starring in the emptiness.
---> 
Gender:
Points: 22451
Reviews: 498