| |
After we finished celebrating – if you could even call it a celebration– Mila turned to me from her place on the sofa. “Are you ready to leave? It’s going to get dark soon. I hate driving in the dark.”
“Surprising. Most wolves love it,” Demetrius explained. Then he turned to me and explained, “We’re like cats, you know. We have impeccable nocturnal vision and fast reflexes for speeding around curves.”
“How convenient.” I glanced back over at Mila. “I guess I’m ready.”
“Come on. I’ll walk you out,” Zoe volunteered. To my surprise, Sal rose to his feet, too.
Once we were standing outside in the driveway, I turned to Zoe, suddenly feeling sad. I didn’t want to leave her. I wanted her to come home with us.
“Where will you guys be... living?” I asked, realizing how strange it felt to say that. I was so used to Zoe living in her bedroom, down the hallway from me. To think that she wouldn’t be there whenever I needed her... well, it made me sad.
“Oh, actually, we’re staying here,” Zoe explained. “Demetrius gave us a bedroom.”
“He gave me one, too,” I replied quietly. “I’m supposed to come back on Sunday for a week.”
“See, Camryn? It’s going to be different now,” my sister assured me. “We can call each other any time we want, and we can visit each other, too.”
More like I could visit her, because I seriously doubted there was any way Demetrius was going to let her leave the compound.
“I guess you’re right,” I replied, even though I wasn’t entirely convinced. “I’ll see you soon.”
“Bye.” Zoe flung her arms around me and held me in a tight embrace. We stayed that way until I knew we had to let go.
“Bye, Camryn,” Sal said with a smile.
“Bye,” I replied and then followed Mila to the car, which was parked at the end of the driveway.
“So, I don’t think we’re going shopping tonight, are we?” Mila asked with a pout.
I thought about it for a moment. “Actually, we need to go shopping.”
She glanced over at me. “I always need to go shopping, personally, but what makes you say that?”
“We need to buy dresses. Roxy’s birthday party is tomorrow night,” I explained. Even though I was becoming suspicious of Roxy, it wasn’t like I could just back out now. I’d already told her I would be there, and I had a feeling that there weren’t going to be many guests there at all. Fortunately Jax’s family was so big. I had a feeling it was just going to be them and me.
“Oh, I nearly forgot all about that.” Mila pulled out her keys and unlocked her car doors automatically. “Shopping, it is. There’s a mall not too far from here. It’s not my favorite mall, but there are a few stores that will be great for dress shopping.”
“Um, we have just one problem,” I realized aloud. “I don’t have any cash on me.”
“Oh, don’t worry about it, girlfriend. I got you,” Mila replied as she climbed into the car.
*
“You have to get this one,” Mila said as we stood inside a dressing room at a boutique called Glam It Up inside the mall. The store specialized in dresses and evening attire.
I glanced at myself in the mirror. The dress was gorgeous. It was navy blue with a sheer, glittery layer on top of it. The dress, which was A-line, clung to my hips in all the right places and fell just above my knees.
“I don’t know.” I hesitated for a moment. I knew my reluctance had to do with not wanting Mila to spend money on me. To make up my mind, I glanced down at the price tag. “Mila, this dress costs three hundred dollars!”
“Yeah?” Mila seemed unfazed by the price.
“That’s so expensive. We should go find a cheaper dress,” I said.
“You’re cute.” She laughed. “Not in this boutique. You won’t find anything under three hundred. Really, this dress is a steal.”
“Why would you bring me here if you knew it was so expensive?” I asked.
“Because I want to treat you.” She shrugged.
“Can you even afford to?” I didn’t know what her financial situation was like, but I hadn’t ever heard her mention of a job – not even a part-time job. Actually, none of the Sherwood’s had mentioned jobs or finding jobs.
“Yeah, don’t worry about it. Money grows on trees when you’ve been alive for hundreds of years. Trust me.” Her golden brown eyes slid over to meet mine reassuringly.
“I don’t know. I feel bad.”
“Don’t. Seriously. I want to do this for you.”
“Why?” I barely knew her, and she was just willing to shell out money for a three hundred dollar dress?
“If it weren’t for my idiotic brother kissing you when he knows he shouldn’t have, you wouldn’t even be dealing with... any of this.” She sighed. “I hate it – and not just for you, but for me, too. Every time I get you back, I lose you all over again, just because he’s a moron.”
“To be fair, I am the one who kissed him,” I pointed out. “Maybe he just didn’t see it coming.”
“Yeah, just like all the other times, right?” She rolled her eyes. “In any case, let me buy you an apology dress. It’s the very least I can do.”
“Well... okay,” I agreed. I had a feeling that she was going to push to buy me a dress – or something – if I didn’t let her, so why not? And the truth of the matter was that I needed a dress, and I knew my meager allowance wouldn’t go very far.
“Perfect.” Mila motioned to the dresses in a pile that she’d tried on. “I really liked the gold one, but it was kind of loose in the waist. I’m going to try the next size down.”
“Don’t we all wish we had that problem?” I joked.
“Oh, you will once the werewolf gene activates in you. You’d be surprised by our metabolisms. It’s pretty amazing.”
“Does anything else change about us physically?” I asked as we stepped back into the boutique. “Aside from the hairiness, that is.”
“When your metabolism kicks in, your body will shred all of its fat and you’ll start to become a lot more muscular.”
“Am I going to look like a bodybuilder?” I asked.
Mila shot me a look. “Do I look like a bodybuilder?”
“No.” Not that she looked like the average teenage girl, either. She looked like she belonged in a Victoria’s Secret catalogue.
“The change won’t be too noticeable to anyone but you. It will just look like you’re losing your baby fat,” she explained. “Biologically, it happens that way so that no one will notice. How weird would it be if there were all these people walking around who looked like bodybuilders who didn’t spend a single day in the gym? Our changes are inconspicuous so that we blend in with humans.”
“That makes sense,” I agreed as we approached the rack where she’d gotten the gold dress from.
“Great, there are only four dresses left. One of these better be my size,” Mila commented.
Out of the corner of my eye, I felt someone watching me. I turned around slowly and spotted a guy who appeared to be about my age with dark brown hair, dark eyes, and fair skin sitting on a mall bench just outside the boutique.
He met my gaze, and then he looked away, as if he were trying to pretend that he hadn’t been staring. But I knew he was.
I tried to relax. Guys stared at girls at the mall all the time, didn’t they? They went there to pick up girls. But something just told me that I was wrong, that this was something more.
Looking away from him, I tried to shake the thought away. I was just being paranoid. Ever since I’d found out about werewolves, my mind seemed to automatically jump to the conclusion that everyone was one.
Not everyone can be a werewolf, Camryn, I told myself.
“Oh, thankfully they have it in a size 0,” Mila said, breathing a sigh of relief. She pulled the gold dress off the rack and we got in line at the cashier at the back of the store where she paid for our dresses.
I glanced over my shoulder at the mall bench where the guy had been sitting only moments before.
It was empty. He was gone.