JUST NOT THE GOOD ONES. 5 page

They laced fingers and walked on. The sun was nearly down. It wasn’t a full moon tonight; at least he had that on his side.

“I wondered what happened with the detective,” she said. “Poor Lydia. She was so worried about Jackson. He could have at least checked in earlier.”

“Yeah.” Scott couldn’t tell her that he wasn’t convinced Jackson was okay. The fact that Jackson had texted Lydia but she hadn’t actually heard his voice was still preying on his mind. Besides, he didn’t want to suggest that they keep looking for Jackson. All he wanted to do was get her back to her car and keep her safe.

From the wild wolf, and the darkness, and himself.

• • •

I shouldn’t have texted Lydia that I’m okay, Jackson thought, catching his breath, because I’m not.

Sure, he’d left Gramm standing in the shadows. He had just turned and split without saying a word, because Jackson Whittemore didn’t explain himself to anyone. Well, except to Lydia, to keep her happy. It was so much easier to deal with Lydia when she was happy. Plus . . . benefits.

But now he was lost.

And things still felt wrong.

He’d thought maybe the detective (if he really was a detective) had brought someone along and he was so mad at himself for taking such a huge risk. It was just . . . the picture of that guy looked so much like him. And not Photoshopped, unless the detective had bothered to make it look like an old picture.

That’s not so hard, Jackson thought. Any dork in Graphic Design 1A can do it.

He took the picture out of his pocket and aimed his flashlight at it. His eyes, his jawline. Was it his real dad?

Biological father, he corrected himself, but something deep down still said “real.”

His parents had made him see a therapist a couple of times during the summer before ninth grade. He had been spending every waking hour at lacrosse practice, and had just gotten back from a private camp, in fact, when one evening, just out of the blue, they informed him that the next day he was going to see Dr. Taggert.

“Just for a checkup,” his dad had said. And his mom had smiled her tight little smile that meant things were not totally okay with her, and given Jackson a reassuring nod. Like he was some kind of moron who wouldn’t notice that they were trying to pass off this “checkup” as something normal.

He spent the entire night tossing and turning, wondering if he had said or done something that had thrown down a red flag. He went back over every single moment he could remember at camp. He’d hung with a tight bunch of guys he’d known from other camps, and yeah, okay, there were a couple of boys who tried to mix it up with him and he’d set them straight. But that was normal stuff, guy stuff. Guys who played lacrosse were tough—they had to be. Lacrosse was a very aggressive sport. Some people didn’t know that, and sometimes, watching their first lacrosse practice, they got freaked out.

It had to be something like that.

But he didn’t say anything about going to see the therapist because part of him didn’t want to hear that they were somehow disappointed in him. He wondered about it all night—he wouldn’t say that he worried; it was just on his mind—and he was feeling draggy when his mom drove him to the office.

They went into together, everyone sitting in big comfy chairs. There was a wall of framed college degrees and a mountain landscape like you’d see in a hotel room. Jackson’s mom kept saying over and over that everything was fine; they just wanted to make sure that Jackson was ready for high school. It felt like the two adults were speaking in some kind of code that Jackson didn’t know. And that they knew he didn’t know it, and were talking right in front of him about him and weren’t telling him.

That was the first visit. It turned out they had to go again, so Jackson could talk to Dr. Taggert alone. At first Jackson thought that was a dirty trick, but then he wondered if he’d said or done something wrong during the session with his mom present that had triggered the request for a private chat. It pissed him off because the appointment was scheduled during a scrimmage he and his best friend, Danny, had set up.

His mom drove him again but this time she stayed in the waiting room, head bowed over her e-reader. Dr. Taggert just chitchatted with him forever, about his hobbies, his interests, his life, which made him even more freaked out, and then the dude started talking about being adopted.

He told Jackson that different adopted kids felt differently about being adopted. For some, it was a heart-wrenching loss, a wound that never healed. For others, it was no big deal. They were philosophical about it and just moved on with their lives.

Jackson figured that philosophical was the way to go. Only wimps sat around and cried about their lot in life.

Others kicked ass on the field.

“So how do you feel about being adopted, Jackson?” Dr. Taggert had asked him.

“I’ve got nothing,” Jackson had replied. “I don’t think about it.”

Dr. Taggert unwrapped a peppermint and popped it into his mouth. He had an amazing amount of candy in his office. Not an apple or a banana in sight.

“Everybody thinks about it at least a little bit. How about you, Jackson? What are you thinking right now?”

Jackson had looked blankly at Dr. Taggert, then glanced at his wall of diplomas.

I’m thinking that I’m not telling some guy who went to a bunch of state schools anything, Jackson had silently replied. Even though it completely weirded him out that his parents had decided to send him to a psychologist, he was insulted that they’d gone so low rent. That was not the Whittemore way. It was the best for the best.

“I’m fine. I’m good,” Jackson had said aloud.

“That’s really great,” Dr. Taggert had replied. “That’s great to hear, Jackson. Because . . . sometimes little questions or small concerns that we have about issues in our lives can start to grow. Like weeds. They can manifest in different ways, affecting our grades, athletic performance . . .” He’d looked at Jackson. “You’re on your way to high school, and we want to start out on a level playing field, yes?”

And in that moment, Jackson realized the reason he was there. His parents wanted to make sure he did well in high school. “Excellence” was the Whittemore family motto, and this was their insurance policy to keep things excellent. What, hadn’t he been performing at capacity? Was there something he’d messed up on? He tried to think through everything he’d done in the last year. Middle school was history, and he’d gotten straight A’s. Captained his youth division summer lacrosse team, hung out, read To Kill a Mockingbird for freshman English, stuff like that.

He felt a tightening in his stomach, the same way he felt when someone scored a point off him. Or he missed some really obvious answers on a test.

He was here because his parents didn’t want him to screw up. Which meant that they thought he might screw up. He stared at Dr. Taggert’s big glass bowl of peppermints like it was a crystal ball and he could see his future. There was no way he was going to screw up anything. He had everything under total control.

He grabbed a peppermint to have something to do. Fill the silence. But he didn’t unwrap it. He just held it in his palm.

“Jackson?” Dr. Taggert had queried. “Is there something you’d like to say?”

Why don’t my parents just set three hundred dollars on fire and be done with it? Jackson had thought. If that’s what this is about, it’s a total waste.

“It’s all good,” he’d told the shrink.

• • •

But now, in the woods, he was turned around. The marks on the back of his neck were bugging him and he put his hand over them as he stopped and looked up at the treetops. Who could tell one tree from another?

Where the hell am I? he thought. He looked down at his superexpensive smartphone and swore at it. All that money and he still had crappy reception. They really needed to get more cell towers in Beacon Hills. Maybe his text hadn’t gone through. If she’d texted back, he hadn’t gotten it.

Maybe she’s punishing me for not showing last night, he thought. It wasn’t as if it was their first night alone in his house or anything. His parents traveled a lot. And she had done the same thing more than once—found something to pout about and stayed home. It wasn’t as if they had to seize the moment on those few and far occasions when there were moments to be had. They had lots of moments. Great ones, if he did say so himself.

And I could be home right now having another one, if I hadn’t fallen for this total scam.

Still, the guy in the picture looked like they could be related. Maybe like father and son.

Maybe Gramm had had something to sell. Maybe Jackson’s alarm bells had gone off because there was some predator in the forest. Where there was one mountain lion, there could be two.

Or something else altogether.

“Hey?” Jackson called. “Gramm?”

He ran his flashlight over the trees as he waited for an answer. He didn’t know how far he’d run. It felt as if he’d been going in a circle.

The beam of his light landed on something poking out of a tree trunk. It looked too straight to be a branch.

He walked up and squinted at it. Long, straight, wood. It was an arrow. Curious, he tried to pull it out. By the looks of the wood around the hole it had made, it was fresh.

Is someone doing archery around here? he wondered. Then a feeling of icy dread squeezed his heart. Are they shooting at me?

He heard a funny little screech, like something that should be scary, only wasn’t because it was too soft and high pitched. It was definitely an animal, and it sounded like it was on the ground.

Giving the arrow another anxious glance, he ran his flashlight beam over the ground. There was still a little daylight out, but the trees grew so closely together that they blocked out the setting sun. He kept thinking about Gramm, wondering if he’d made a mistake to walk away.

Yeah, right. First he makes me spend the night in a trashy motel and then he meets me in the middle of a forest. If he’s really got something for me, he knows how to find me. And I’m setting the terms of when and where we meet.

Gramm had caught Jackson in a weak moment. He hadn’t thought about being adopted in, like, forever. Until Scott McCall started showing some skills on the field and Jackson got to wondering about his own physicality. Did he run as fast as he did because of his father? Was there anything he should know about himself, like did people in his family have trick ankles, or—

This is a bunch of crap, he thought. Things like that would never have occurred to him, except that his parents took him to see that fraud, Dr. Taggert, back when he was younger and more impressionable.

He heard the screech again and looked back down at the ground. Bushes ahead and to the right shifted and jittered, and Jackson slowly crept up on them. The screech sounded again.

“It’s just some stupid animal,” he said aloud, but when he reached the bushes, he cautiously pushed them this way and that, inspecting them.

Two black eyes peered up at him. Startled, he jumped back slightly, then crept back toward it to have another look. It was a baby bird, a hawk, by its look. It gazed directly up at him and screeched again.

Jackson studied it. Maybe it had hurt itself and couldn’t fly away. Or it had fallen out of its nest and was too young to fly. Had the mama bird abandoned it?

Then it opened its wings as far as it could, hemmed in as it was by the bushes. Jackson reached in and broke off some of the branches on the right. The bird made a terrible racket and fluttered its wings.

“Hold on. I’m helping you,” he said.

Maybe he should leave it. Maybe this way nature’s way. If there was something wrong with it, somebody higher on the food chain should have a crack at it, right?

Pursing his lips, he broke off some branches on the left side of the bird. The bird tried to peck him and he chuckled at its ferocity.

“You want me just to leave you?” he asked it.

“Hey,” said a voice behind him. Jackson turned.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Standing behind Jackson was a striking girl with blond hair about his age, wearing a lot of kohl around her golden brown eyes. She wore a silver jacket with a fuzzy hood and a pair of jeans. He didn’t recognize her, which meant that if she went to his school, she was beneath his notice.

“Hey,” he replied. He gestured with his head toward the tree. “Is that your arrow?”

She jerked, probably looking as startled as he had when he’d seen it. She moved away from the tree, toward him.

“No. Is someone doing archery?” She swiveled around. “Are we going to get, like, shot?”

“I don’t know. Hey, do you know how to get out of here?” he asked. “I’m in the parking lot.”

“Yeah, sure,” she said. “What are you doing?”

“Come look,” he invited.

She minced toward him. He caught himself touching the wounds on the back of his neck with his right hand as he held back the branches with his left. The bird started going completely psycho. “I think it’s trapped.”

She was wearing the same Vera Wang perfume Lydia wore. Pricey. “Oh, it’s a hawk,” she said. “A predator.”

It sounded like a strange thing to say. She took a couple of steps back, and the bird seemed to calm down the merest little bit. Jackson was about to leave it so he could get back to the parking lot and find Lydia, when the bird screeched again and he looked down at it.

“It thinks you’re its daddy,” she said, grinning at him.

“Well, I’m not.” He watched the bird bobbing its head up and down, up and down, like some kind of cartoon. Squatting down, he broke away more branches, half expecting it to take off. It kept bobbing and screeching, and the girl looked upward.

“Mama’s not coming,” she said. “It’s probably hungry.”

“Do you go to Beacon Hills?” Jackson asked her.

Her lips curved upward in a little grin. She shook her head. “But I’m here with some people. I can take you to the lot and then I should get back. I’ll be missed.”

Jackson looked down at the hawk. Stupidly, he was concerned about it.

“You said it might be hungry,” he ventured. “These things eat meat, right?”

“Yes, so unless you have a dead mouse on you, there’s not much you can do for it.” She shifted her weight. “I kind of have to make this quick.”

“What’s your name?” he asked her.

“Cassie. You?”

“Jackson.” He realized he was waiting to see if she recognized his name. But she’d already said she didn’t go to Beacon Hills.

“Hold on a sec,” he said.

Jackson yanked out more of the undergrowth on either side of the excited bird, really going for it. The bird flapped its wings and took off, aiming straight for Jackson’s head. Jackson cried out and flopped onto his back, and the bird curved upward, soaring into the trees. Cassie burst out laughing and Jackson did, too. It was just so crazy after a horrible, crazy twenty-four hours.

“Here, let me help you up,” she said, reaching out a hand. He took it. Her grip was amazingly strong. He pushed himself to his feet and suddenly he was standing facing her. She was tall, but not as tall as he was.

She had a funny look on her face, like she was about to say something but wasn’t sure if she should. He couldn’t read it and he surreptitiously checked his nose for souvenirs by pretending to cough and ran his tongue along his teeth. Everything was fine. But he didn’t need to be so careful. She hadn’t even noticed. She was looking at the ground, and Jackson looked down, too, half expecting to find another baby bird or something at her feet. But there was nothing.

“I don’t want to keep you,” he said, hinting. She was pretty, but he had a life to get back to.

She went very still, almost not moving. Something was up with her, but he didn’t know what it was. And he didn’t have time to find out. He’d already done his good deed for the day.

“You said you were in a hurry,” he reminded her.

She inhaled a deep breath and held it. Then she let it out slowly. “Yeah. Come on.”

“Oh. Do you have a phone?” he asked. “Mine isn’t working. Which is ironic, because it’s a very expensive phone.”

“I’m sure it is,” she replied. That confused him. He had no idea what she meant by that, so he just waited for her answer. “I don’t have a phone, actually,” she said. But her face went red, and he knew she was lying. Maybe it was a cheap one, and she was embarrassed to let him use it.

In a few minutes it wouldn’t matter. He’d be back in his car and on his way to extreme makeup passion with Lydia. The sooner he was out of here the better. And he was never coming back here or getting scammed by some two-bit guy who thought he’d siphon off some of that great Whittemore money. He’d watch The Notebook with Lydia for twenty-four hours straight before he did anything this insane again.

“Thanks for doing this,” he said to her. “I appreciate it.”

She went silent again. Then she turned her back and said, “No problem.”

They began to walk, she in front of him, and he behind. He smelled her perfume . . . and smoke. He jerked, anxious that they might run into Gramm again.

“We’re not heading in the direction of any campfires, are we?” He tried to sound casual.

“No,” she said. “Parking lot.” She looked over her shoulder at him. “What kind of car do you drive?”

“A Porsche,” he said proudly.

“Figures,” she murmured. They walked on, she in front. Jackson pulled out his phone to check his reception. Still no service. Damn.

Cassie kept leading the way, moving aside branches that she held for him. He grinned to himself, comparing how Lydia would never have done such a thing, but he was also beginning to wonder how long the hike back was going to take. He must have gotten himself turned way around.

“We’re going the right way, right?” he said to her back.

“Uh-huh,” she replied. “Trust me.”

• • •

At the Argents’ house, all the new weapons were put away in the garage. All that beautiful ammo. Those lovely guns. Kate still hadn’t figured out if they had anything new in their arsenal, and Chris wasn’t saying. He was finishing checking a box of crossbow bolts. Crossbow bolts, for heaven’s sake. Why bother with Robin Hood when there were rocket launchers to be had?

Kate liked to think that they were ready for anything, but she knew all too well that where werewolves were involved, you couldn’t get too cocky. Take their present situation. When she’d come back to Beacon Hills, she’d figured she’d pop into town, kill whatever was slinking around, put some more notches in her belt, and that would be that.

Then things got complicated, and she was more than willing to blame Derek Hale for all of it. Some werewolf he was—couldn’t even figure out the identity of the new Alpha. And as long as Derek was alive, he could get her in major trouble, by implicating her in the fire. Sad to say, she was surrounded by people who still lived by that outdated code. In her opinion, the only good werewolf was a dead werewolf. And as for those so-called normal Hales who had died in the unfortunate electrical fire in their house?

Better safe than sorry.

“So when is Allison coming home tonight?” she asked Chris as he set the alarm code in the entryway to the garage. She watched over his shoulder to see if he was changing the password. Yes. To “silver.” Not too original, but her brother had colored inside the lines for so long she would have expected nothing more from him.

“She’s spending the night at her friend’s,” Chris told her. “They’re working on an English project.”

She snorted. “Chris, really? This is the same Allison who cut school and stole a condom out of my bag, right? I mean, I love my niece, but what’s the saying about giving someone enough rope? They hang themselves?”

To her surprise, he didn’t take the bait and start arguing with her. He just gave her one of those enigmatic smiles that used to drive her crazy while they were growing up and walked into the kitchen, where Victoria, his wife, was putting the finishing touches on dinner.

Kate snitched a cherry tomato out of the salad and popped it into her mouth. “How about you, Vicky?” she asked her sister-in-law. “Do you think Allison’s studying with a friend?”

Victoria Argent smiled coldly back at her and checked the oven. The aroma of baked chicken tantalized Kate’s senses.

“Allison has made some poor choices lately,” Victoria conceded, “but we didn’t want her home for the weapons delivery.”

“So, you can tell her to come home now,” Kate said. “Everything’s stashed.” She pulled out her cell phone. “Should I call Allison and see how her study date is going?”

• • •

Scott kept monitoring himself on the walk to Allison’s car. The hike back to it seemed longer than their original trek, and he began to wonder if they had gone the wrong way. But mingled with his anxiety was real wonder at the beauty of the woods in the setting sun. All his senses were in play; he could smell mushrooms and damp earth, and Allison’s shampoo and perfume. The smell of the smoke was fainter now, and he scented rain in the clouds. He could smell the weather. How cool was that?

He saw the blue glow of the stars, and a milky ring around the moon appeared in the sky. What was it about the full moon that made him change? Was all this magic? Did he actually believe in magic?

When he looked at Allison, the answer was yes.

There was her car, parked exactly where they had left it. He heaved a sigh of relief, chased by a little thrill as she looked over her shoulder at him. In the world of high school, cars were like portable bedrooms. Except he didn’t want their first time to be in a car.

Or maybe I’m being too picky, he thought, as, still gazing invitingly at him, she reached into her purse. To get the keys, he assumed.

“Huh,” she said, and dug around some more. Then she held her purse open and peered inside. “I don’t see my keys.”

He woke his phone up and shined its illuminated display window into her purse, making a silent inventory of the contents—lip gloss, pens, her phone, a leather wallet, a tiny notebook, what looked like more makeup.

But no keys.

Her forehead furrowed, she looked up at him, then dug around some more. He rewound the night in his head, trying to remember where he’d last seen her keys.

“I took them, right?” she murmured. Then she put her hand around the driver’s door handle and opened it. She smiled hopefully. “Maybe I left them in the ignition.” She sat down in her seat and reached forward. Felt around.

“They’re not there, Scott,” she said nervously.

“Maybe you dropped them on the ground when you got out.” He started scanning the area around the door, figuring he was too close to her—making it too risky—to use his enhanced vision. Aside from chancing discovery of his weirdly glowing eyes, he didn’t want to initiate a shift he couldn’t pull himself back from.

No keys.

Increasing the search area, he moved back a couple of feet and squatted down, pushing away ferns and underbrush, anticipating a metallic glint. Behind him, Allison was examining the floor of the car and feeling between the seats. He could hear her muttering under her breath, walking herself through her actions. Everything was kind of a blur for him—he’d been so distracted just being alone with her—so maybe it was like that for her, too.

“They’re not here,” she said. “Oh, God, Scott. What did I do with them?”

A breeze blew her hair as she climbed back out of the car and faced him. And the wind brought the stronger odor of smoke with it. As if the fire had grown . . . or there was a second fire.

His heartbeat picked up.

Don’t wolf, he ordered himself.

“Let’s backtrack,” she said. “I must have dropped them when we first started out. I had my phone out.” She started walking back the way they had just come. “I looked for my gloves.” She stopped and opened her purse. “No. I didn’t have them in my purse. They were in my jacket pocket.” She brightened and put her hand into her pocket. “They’re probably . . . not there.” Her face fell. “Scott . . .”

“I’ll call Stiles,” he said. “He can come get us.”

“That’s not the problem,” she said. “Well, not the immediate problem. I can’t leave my car here.”

Scott realized they were focused on two different issues. She wanted to find her keys, and he wanted to get her out of the preserve. He opened his mouth to explain, but he reminded himself that he was dealing with Allison Argent. She would probably laugh at him if he told her he was feeling protective.

He couldn’t let that matter.

“Stiles can get you and take you to Lydia’s,” he repeated, “and I’ll stay here and look for your keys. When I find them, I’ll drive your car to Lydia’s.” He looked down at his phone. The charge had gone down to 15 percent. He reminded himself that once he had found the keys, he could charge his phone in her car.

Aware that she hadn’t responded, he gazed up expectantly at her. She shook her head and gave him a mock-stern look. “I’m not leaving you out here while I’m all cozy.” She made a face. “And while I’m not with you.”

Scott wanted to pinch himself. She really did like him.

“Then you wait in the car,” he said.

“No. Two sets of eyes are definitely better than one.” She cocked her head and raised a brow. “It’s the wolf, isn’t it?”

“What?” he asked, his voice rising shrilly. He cleared his throat. “What?” he said in a lower, more manly register.

“You’re afraid that the wolf will attack us.” She broke eye contact as she studied the ground, circling the car. “I don’t know a whole lot about wolves, but I do remember something I saw on a show somewhere. They’re very shy. They don’t attack unless provoked.”

He lowered his head and let his wolf vision take over so they could find the keys more quickly and leave. If he worked hard at keeping his head turned away, she wouldn’t be able to see his eyes.

“So how do you explain the fact that that wolf just walked right up to us? That was definitely not shy,” he argued.

“Maybe it’s not a wolf. Maybe it was something else,” she said, and he jerked, startled.

“Like what?”

She thought a moment. “Well, I think there are dogs that look very wolflike. Have you ever seen anything like that at the vet clinic?”

“Nothing like what we saw,” he insisted. “I swear that was a wolf.”

“Well, maybe it was just passing through. I’ll bet we could have petted it if we’d wanted to. Not that I would have,” she said. “I’m not stupid.”

“I know,” he said. He didn’t want her to think he was insulting her intelligence. It was so hard to carry such a deep secret. Why did her father have to be a hunter? Why did there have to be hunters at all?

“Any luck?” he asked, trying to change the subject, but it was a lame attempt. If she’d found her keys, she would have said something.

“They’re definitely not here.” She raised her head. “Scott, I can’t leave here without my keys.”

“I’ll call Stiles and ask him to come help us,” he said.

“I was hoping to have some time alone,” she murmured. “But, well, I do need my keys.” She sniffed the air. “There’s more smoke. Someone must be having a bonfire.”

“Yeah, maybe.”

“Well, that means there are other people nearby. So the animals will keep away. The wolf,” she added, in case he didn’t catch her drift. “And maybe we can get some other people to help.”

But then he had a thought. “Allison,” he said carefully, “maybe someone took the keys.”

She laughed and shook her head. “Who would do that?”

“But what if someone did?” he asked. “Maybe just for a prank, or something?”

“That would be . . . really mean,” she said hotly. “I don’t know anyone who would do that.”

You’re new here, he thought.

He tried to sniff the air without her noticing, to see if he could tell if anyone had been near her car. Then her phone rang, and as she pulled it out of her purse, he inhaled more deeply. He wasn’t spectacular at picking out scents—although he had smelled the blood on Laura Hale’s dead body, both in the morgue and in her grave—and he wasn’t having any luck now with trying to smell humans who might have opened the car while they’d been out of sight.

CHAPTER NINE

Hello?” Allison said into the phone.

“Oh, good, you’re out of the bathroom,” Lydia replied in a falsely bright voice. Allison hadn’t put the call on speaker, but Scott could hear her perfectly. “Your aunt’s on the line. I told her I’d have you pick up on the extension.”

Allison’s eyes grew huge. Scott heard her heart stutter a couple of beats as she licked her lips and put a smile on her face. “Hey, Aunt Kate. Hi. Yeah, everything’s great.”

Date: 2015-12-11; view: 609