Guardian

******Author's Note******************

5/29/09 -- Okay, this took foreeeevvvveeeerrrr to get out. And for that I sincerely apologize. I must have written this about a thousand times and in about a zillion different directions. This is what I ended up with. Its about 4 AM now, and I have to be at work in three and a half hours, so this is the (very) rough draft. I'll clean it up and add review responses to chapter twelve soon!


UPDATED!! 6/1/09

To:

cbarkins-well, I'm glad the vamp isn't to transparent, cuz he's got big plans, hehe.

MnMs-let's see. Humans do live on the mountain, because they were "born and bred" there, so to speak. It's very hard for a human to enter or a supe to leave. That will be explained a little later. As for the rest of your questions I can only answer..."bird bombs". Sigh...poor car.

Mondamme-thanks! The meat products at my school were always horrifying. I'm not really sure it was meat, to tell you the truth..(shiver). And poor Andy only gets revenge on accident...or not? XD

firebreather-Switching teams? Don't know what you could possibly mean... ;D

DaniD-Yeah. Ypu'll be seeing more and more as she gains some confidence and *ahem skills. Not this chapter though. :(

shadowkeeper-Thanks!!

For all of you who reviewed this chapter before I posted these, I will respond on Chapter 14, but I just wanted to say Thank You! I can't tell you how happy it makes me that you like this story enough to give your opinion. I love reading them. So thanks so much!

Please enjoy~

*************************************


I wouldn’t say that I ran from the cafeteria. Doing something like that would be undignified—not to mention the fact that it would only make that arrogant punk way too satisfied. In truth, I simply made a fast-paced retreat. That was something that both my pride and I could live with. Sigh…

My head was so wrapped up in the particulars that it paid no attention to where my feet were taking me. They followed habit, and carried me to the place I had felt the safest.

For a moment I stared blankly at the roof top door, and the scarred sign that read: “Authorized Personal Only”. Those words had never meant much.

I was reasonably safe, I supposed. Everyone was still in the cafeteria. Quickly, I peeked around. The hallway was deserted, classrooms with students shut tight.

No one had followed me that I could see. Not that that ever meant much, either. Sneaky bastards.

I set my mouth and turned the handle. I climbed the cement stairs and was immediately met by the brisk October wind. It carried with it the smell of dying leaves and smoke. Someone, not too far away, was burning trash.

Silence surrounded me under the open sky, its gray clouds impossibly far away.

By degrees my shoulders relaxed until I leaned against the chain links for support. I cuddled up to the cold metal like a child to its mother. The steel edges bit into my skin even as it gave and cradled me.

My head returned to last night and the embarrassing outburst on the stairs. Drama queen, much? But even after that, I still felt on edge. Daisy’s words of comfort rang empty. She had turned pencils into earthworms. I had exploded a bathroom without meaning to. And…

A bad feeling was sinking into the pit of my stomach, joining a few soggy French fries.

Something had changed back there, under the fluorescent lights and ketchup stained ceiling tiles. I had never done something like that before, at least, not successfully. Maybe some wandering spirit had witnessed the whole thing and had taken pity on me, I prayed, almost desperately. Maybe it was just my lucky day.

…No. No matter how I thought about it…

Wasn’t it just a little too convenient?

After the initial relief had passed, the worry was knotting my stomach. Things like that did not happen to me. Luck denied and avoided me like the plague.

The very thing I had warned him about just a few seconds before had actually happened. I couldn’t really have done it, right?

“Be careful what you wish for,” Daisy had always told me. “Be careful what you say out loud.”

There is power in words. I had never had to worry about that…but maybe…

My chest fluttered in a mixture of emotions. If it had been me…

Doubt riddled the conflicting feelings of hope and unease. If it had been me that made him fall, then that meant I had gotten my wish. It meant that I was finally getting stronger, but…

Shouldn’t I have felt something?

I should feel something when I completed a spell, but I had been just as surprised as he was. It felt unreal to me, now.

And that smile. That satisfied twist of lips…what had that been about? Maybe Matt was just happy to have an excuse to punish me again. Yeah, right. Since when had he ever needed an excuse?

I smirked. Just wait until he saw his car. That was one show I couldn’t stand to miss, at least, from a distance—a very safe distance.

I laughed to myself.

“Just you wait,” I grinned. “This is only the beginning of my revenge, bwahahaha!”

My voice echoed hollowly around me and an awkward silence followed. Statements like that truly needed an audience to appreciate them.

I huffed in the unsatisfying stillness. What I wouldn’t do for a friend—someone who would definitely be grateful for my wonderful sense of humor and would be a source entertainment from time to time. I could tell all my secrets to them…

However, I would never admit that I was the “L” word.

That’s right.

Lonely, with a capital L.

I flipped around so that the fence cradled my back and I didn’t have to watch the P.E. class going on down below. It wasn’t one of my favorite subjects, because I had a penchant for becoming the target in all of those wonderful team-oriented sports. Who knew you got extra points in softball for hitting the catcher with the bat?

It was all on “accident”, of course. They must be nervous up there on the base, for their hands to be so slick and sweaty. Yeah, right.

My cheeks began to burn, and I realized that I had been twisting my face into a nasty sneer for a while. I rubbed my cheeks, wincing at the iciness of my fingers. I breathed on them, kind of disappointed that I couldn’t see my—

“You are so weird.”

I clamped my hands over my mouth, but that wouldn’t take back the high-pitched yelping sound carrying across the football field.

“Omigod! Don’t do that!” I hissed, pulling my hands away and clenching them together.

It was Vampire Bait, or so I had decided to name him. The creepy guy from the library was sitting in the corner of the building, headphones plugging his ears and a dog-eared paperback propped up on his knees.

Had…had he seen everything? I could have sworn when I came up here that I was alone…

He didn’t say anything as I stood there. He just watched. I wondered if it was a habit he had picked up living in that house. Poor guy, it must be tough being the resident snack.

Ugh, I really hoped that the vamp didn’t want me to join the family.

“I didn’t think you’d come,” he finally said, folding the book carefully closed. There was a minute of silence before he continued. “But when you came up here…you thought you were alone. You forgot.”

I felt my eyes widen as I remembered that he had invited me to lunch.

But was that a hint of accusation I was hearing? It wasn’t like I’d said that I would show up, still—that empty expression made me feel almost…guilty. Our situations weren’t so different, at least at school. I didn’t want to think about what kind of home life he had.

Dinner would be something like: “Honey, pass the rolls.” “Sure, oh, if you don’t mind, send the pretty brunette this way.” Sheesh.

I ended up shrugging and looking away. “I’ve got a lot of stuff going on,” the words as empty as his expression.

“You’re still alive, yesterday you thought they would kill you.”

Was he saying that literally? I gave him a sideways glance, but I couldn’t tell. I just didn’t know him well enough.

“What can I say, they like playing with their food.”

He snorted, the action awkward against the delicate features of his face. It was kinda cute, though.

“They aren’t the only ones,” he mumbled. I guessed he was talking about my undead stalker. He did mention liking games.

“What’s the deal with you?” I blurted, unable to hold the question in.

His eyebrows rose. “What do you mean?”

“You’re some kinda spy aren’t you?” I said, the words gaining force as they spilled from my lips. “Watching me during school, trying to creep me out with the whole necklace thing, right? It’s all part of his little “game” isn’t it?”

His face smoothed from faintly mocking to carefully blank.

“I don’t even know your name,” I accused, as if that was the case-proving evidence.

He blinked. I waited.

The bell rang, long and tired, and I ignored it. Fullridge could yell at me later, at least it would give him something to do.

“I thought you would have heard it by now,” he hedged.

Well, maybe, if anyone at this school decided to include me in their little gossip circles, but somehow I highly doubted that that would ever happen.

“Unfortunately, the grapevine stops just short of me.”

With a sigh he sat back. “It’s Jesse.”

It could have been a girl’s name, or a cowboy’s. It sort of fit him, either way. Yeah, he had the whole “Lone Ranger” thing going on…in a Brokeback Mountain kind of way.

Whoa, there went my brain—straight to the gutter, though, the vampire looked kind of sexy with nothing but a cowboy hat and jeans…unbuttoned jeans. Yum…

I took a deep breath and gave myself a mental slap. Right. Sexy cowboy vampires were off limits. I could remember that.

“Well, Jesse,” I said, lugging my backpack up. “Tell fang find someone else to snack on. I don’t play games.”

“He’ll just laugh,” Jesse said, unblinking, before his eyes grew dark. “Nicholaus will make you beg for it, in the end.”

“How would you know?” I bit out, offended. I wasn’t going to beg anyone for anything.

Jesse flipped his book open again, and said only two soft words, without ever looking up, “I did.”

“Hmph,” I answered, and clopped noisily down the stairs. The door opened with a loud creak and slammed just as noisily behind me.

“So what?” the words hissed from my mouth with more venom than they deserved. Maybe I was just trying to cover the fact that my stomach had sunk to some cold unknown region behind my belly button. How could I have so little confidence in myself?

No. The little twerp was just trying to wear me down and make the hunt all the easier. I wasn’t going to give in.

………………………………
At three-thirty I was still ticked, Fullridge keeping me the extra half-hour as punishment for my post-lunch tardiness hadn’t helped at all. I was hungry. I was tired. I was ready to go home…

My feet thudded to a halt as I finally noticed the crowd I had walked into.

Shit! Without thinking I had been heading towards my usual parking spot, and my usual spot was now inhabited by a very disgraced Jaguar and a very angry wolf.

I could almost see the heat rising off of him as he paced around the car. The crowd shifted back as his jaw tightened. I eased back on my heels and took in the sight of the massacred leather.

It filled me with great joy and great dread. On the one hand, Matt was really pissed, but on the other, the crowd was packing tighter and there was no way I could push my way out without attracting attention. I so did not want his attention.

And I really wished Chris would stop laughing, it couldn’t be helping…

The ground dipped a little as I watched Matt pick up a piece of crust from the driver’s seat. Evidence! I had left evidence!

His lips twitched as he sniffed it. No way! I was in such deep shit if…

Voices raised as he growled, he had caught a scent. Whispers, shouts, and suggestions on what to do to the perp filled the air. Oh, no.

I shoved myself back into the crowd, but it was like hitting a brick wall. My heart was in my stomach, which was clenching rapidly. It was chanting; “Get the Hell out. GettheHellout! GETTHEHELLOUT!”

It was like slow motion. I watched Matt’s eyes widen and his nostrils flare. His head rose, twisting deliberately in my direction. I was frozen as the people around me crushed closer trying to get a good look, trapping me. Hard eyes met mine through the mass of bodies, which was suddenly not as thick as I wanted it to be. There were only two or three lines of people between him and me. I wanted more…like a whole continent.

Before I knew what was happening, my body was already moving. I dropped, wiggling out of my backpack and scrambled through the forest of legs and feet. My hands got stepped on more than once and I got kicked enough times in the gut to make me gag, but the roar of rage coming from behind me was more than enough incentive to keep going.

However, people were catching on.

I almost made it to the light before hands grabbed my shirt, my pants, my hair…I screamed, as they yanked, painfully. There was another roar, less human and far too close.

Oh, fuck!

My jacket was torn off, only to have my shirt clutched at. It split at the seam on my side, all too easily. Cold air brushed my skin and nails and fingers dug into my bared flesh. I struggled, biting, scratching, and screaming to get free. Hair ripped from my scalp. It hurt, but I was out! And running.

I ran like I never had in gym class. It probably had a little to do with the adrenaline that was suddenly shoving itself into my veins and a lot to do with the sound of Matt’s shoes thundering behind me.

Oh God! There was no possible way I could outrun a werewolf.

But there was nothing in Heaven or Hell that could make me stop.

I dashed around the front of the building, where there were less people to get in the way, but there was also less obstacles to slow him down. I ran along the highway, the gravel flying as he chased me down. I could only guess what we looked like to the cars whooshing by us.

Wind brushed against the back of my neck and I felt a tug, like a finger caught in a curl. A shriek escaped me before I suddenly ground to a halt and switched directions, just missing the hand that swiped back at me.

Unfortunately, that direction seemed to be right in front of oncoming traffic.

Fuck! I could make it!

I didn’t think before I leapt, I just did it, the tightening in my spine told me I was in for a world of hurt.

Of course it hadn’t figured in just how fast a Were could move.

I was hit, but it wasn’t from the ton of fast-moving steel I was expecting. As the sounds of the blaring horn and screaming breaks tore though my eardrums—God that’s going to be the last thing I heard!—I was smashed into from behind.

Vertigo swept through me as I was suddenly several feet from where I had been an instant ago. I was dangling from under an arm by my belly, staring at the pavement inches away as he crouched.

Power built in the legs beneath me, and a split second later I was airborne. I think I screamed as we flew twenty feet in the air and came crashing down into the thicket on the other side of the road, all before the Wal-Mart truck even had time to swerve.

For a moment I couldn’t move. I couldn’t blink. I couldn’t even breathe. My brain hadn’t had time to process it all. Everything had ground down to a stupefied halt.

“Fuck!” The curse exploded from behind me and I jerked around. Pain shot from my wrist to my shoulder, as I scrambled back into a bed of thorns.

Matt was crouching three feet away, panting, knees level with his shoulders and fingers digging into the soil. His head was hanging down as he drew in several deep breaths that rattled at the end.

One hand rose from the ground and rubbed shakily at the sweat on his upper lip.

“Fuck,” he breathed, letting out another breath.

I don’t think I’d ever seen Matt other than arrogant, cocky, and/or furious. I mean, it didn’t look like the world was going to end at the moment, but seeing him not completely in control was so…off putting.

My survival instincts, however, were still completely normal—nonexistent. While I had been staring, I could have been escaping. But no, I was gaping like an idiot while he collected himself and finally turned to glare at me.

Suddenly, he was in my face, trapping me between two arms and his crouched body. I shrunk lower like a submissive dog. At least he wasn’t growling now.

“What the fuck is the matter with you?” he ground out.

When I didn’t answer immediately, his hand found the hair at the nape of my neck, and dug in.

As my spine arched, forcing vulnerable arteries to the light, I heard myself yelling, “I’m sorry! I’m sorry about the car! I’ll pay for it!”

“Fuck the fucking car!” he roared back.

I let out a whine that hurt my ears, as I tried to get away, but he just shook me like a disobedient puppy.

“Look at me. Look at me!”

I opened my eyes wide and stared at him, unable to control my breathing. Fear of him was too long ingrained into my memory to do anything other than obey. He was strong, so much stronger than me. The only thing between him breaking me in half and walking away was the rapidly fading humanity in his eyes.

“Don’t ever run from me again!”

I couldn’t say anything; only choke on the air trying to get down my throat.

“Got it?!” he snarled, emphasizing the word with a shake.

“Yeah,” I managed, barely more than a pant. I’d agree to anything he said.

For a moment he stared at me, glaring into my eyes as if he was trying to burn the words into my brain, before he abruptly stood up.

“You. Up, too,” he grunted, the air around him electric. The features in his face had shifted slightly and become more feral.

Shakily I sat up, relieved that I hadn’t peed my pants. That would have been beyond humiliating. As soon as I got to my feet he grabbed my arm, ready to drag me back. Pain shot from my wrist and I let out a yelp.

He stopped, glowering at me with uncanny eyes.

“It hurts,” I explained, weakly, to that cold face.

I wasn’t talking to Matt, I realized. Matt was gone. This thing looking out of his face wasn’t human. It was all Wolf.

Those eerie yellow orbs glanced down at where his hand was curled around my wrist. It looked so big against my thin arm. He could probably snap it like a toothpick. Instead his grip loosened as he loomed a step closer and it took everything I had not to run.

He lifted my arm and slid his fingers along my wrist, probing with gentle touches. I blinked, not daring to breathe. My heart was making enough noise to cover the hovering silence.

It felt like it was trying to jump out of my chest. Every time he touched me, I felt its ghost whispered across my neck, where the healing bite still lingered. It made my stomach do odd somersaults.

Suddenly, like a robot, he stopped, then his gaze rolled up to meet mine.

“S’not broke,” he breathed. It breathed. What exactly was talking?

“Uh…” no words came to mind. Even an animal was more articulate than me.

I flinched as his other hand rose. It hesitated before brushing its knuckles across my cheek, so softly I barely felt it.

“Don’t…” he started, and swallowed. I watched him struggle to come up with the words. “Don’t…be afraid of me…Andy.”

Oh, man. Déjà vu?