Wolf Sirens: Forbidden: Discover The Legend Read online

  Conversation was slow. Lily had remained standoffish to everyone it seemed. I wondered what it was that had dampened her demeanour since they had ambushed me in the canteen on Tuesday.

  I shivered, either because I was scared or I was cold from the shade that lowered my temperature, as a breeze rattled the leaves.

  I was hesitant to speak. I knew all eyes would be on me if I did. This made me nervous. I touched the back of my neck. I felt soreness on my spine, a bruise from the recent kidnapping.

  Reid and Jackson - the new boy that I hadn’t known was a definite member of the clique before

  - sprawled out on the sand as though the hard little sand pebbles were as soft as couch cushions. They polished off three very large boxes between them, before I’d eaten two pieces, and it had only been hours since breakfast. The girls weren’t shy about eating their share either, except Giny. It was easy to see why she was so thin. Blue veins were visible through her arms. I’d only noticed her eat the one piece. Was Sam the sole cash cow?

  Giny offered to show me ‘ the rope’.

  “It’s down that way a bit.” She pointed into the trees. I dusted off my bum and happily joined her. The sand crunched under our feet as we headed down river, no one else expressed interest and I was glad to be in a one-on-one situation again, especially if it was with Giny. She was the only one who didn’t intimidate me – or, for that matter, terrify me.

  As we leapt over stones along the river edge on the way to ‘the rope’ I gazed up at the tops of the trees. There weren’t many birds where we had been, but as we got further away from the campsite where we had eaten they fluttered about noisily tweeting in the leaves above, more active in the warm sun, as we seemed to be. They chirped and rustled so much that I could no longer hear the bubbling stream. I happily hoped over logs and tree roots along the worn-out path. I pushed aside branches of bracken and drooping fronds of lime green willows about my shoulders as I followed Giny.

  She showed me the way up over some higher crested dunes and down again in another hidden curve of the river where the water pooled and became naturally deep, flanked at one side by a large pitted granite rock. A big oak tree overhung the deepest part. Strung from it was not one, but two, thick ropes: one from the slope, the other from the middle of the tree above the water. I imagined the guys scaling the tree precariously in an effort to swing themselves above the still dark water.

  On the walk back we dawdled along the river edge rather than the sand and curving path, jumping over rocks. I ran my bare feet through the clear running water and sank my toes into the fool’s gold dust, which littered the sand. I prodded the algae with a tree branch and ran my fingers through the crystal clear water, which was ice cold. A shadow came over from above. I looked up automatically. A smiling Reid towered over me, his teeth were white and straight. He seemed in a genuine good mood. I stood up and smiled back despite myself. He was wearing a tight black shirt and his physique was cut. I held my breath.

  “It’s so beautiful.” He smiled at me enigmatically. “The river is,” he added, almost awkwardly.

  I smiled and noted his wide muscular frame.

  “They must work you guys hard in practice?” I said, surprised at my own bravery.

  “Huh?” he mused with a smile at the corner of his lips.

  “You’re all huge,” I teased, flushing slightly. I looked about for Giny. She had disappeared - deliberately I thought.

  “Oh, I’ve quit football.” He looked a little embarrassed, shrugging.

  “Oh.” I felt chagrin, because I had assumed.

  As I gazed at him I unfortunately knew then that I found his friend, Sky, far more attractive, but if he was seconds, then I was sure I could compromise.

  “I’ve seen you around,” he said. Two dimples appeared in his cheeks as his lips pressed together in a smile.

  A yell echoed up the river.

  “Yeehaw, whoohooo!” called a distant voice, followed by an audible splash.

  “He’s going to drain the river.” Reid laughed; he had a towel rolled in his hand. “Reid,” he said, introducing himself then with a gentle smile.

  And I saw the sunlight reflect in his eyes making them clear amber. I felt a flutter in my chest.

  “Lila,” I returned the greeting. “You’re swimming?” I couldn’t help but smile back as I gestured toward the towel gripped in his right hand. “- But it’s so cold?”

  The water reflected sunlight across his t-shirt.

  “I’m tough enough to handle it, you can watch,” he said.

  Somehow I think if it were Sky I was talking to I would have been blushing, tongue-tied and nervous. It somehow made it more bearable to talk to this ever-so-slightly, less intimidating guy. The fact that Sam had said he liked me earlier that day gave me the slightest bit more confidence. Something about this day was starting to intoxicate me. “What were you doing with your stick?” he said in his deep voice, lifting it out of my hand.

  A piece of bright green algae hung from the end and I leant away as he waved it.

  “Ewe,” I giggled.“Entertaining myself,” I answered, ducking the spray from the algae. I couldn’t remember when I had last laughed out loud like that. “We don’t have rivers like this in Horkum.” I winced at the possible stupidity. There was no river in the city and I was sure he knew it. He tossed the twig in the river with a splash.

  “We can entertain you,” he said confidently and started off towards the others at the rope. He looked back at me over his shoulder; his tan forehead wrinkled above two black brows. “You want to watch?”

  The guys swung from the ropes to rival gymnasts. It was more like Cirque du Soleil than a bunch of adolescent high school boys swinging off an old tree rope. As I emerged from the path I saw a pile of clothes on the ground and silver necklace hung over the twig of a pine tree, which glinted in the sun. Sky scaled a tree and did a back flip off a branch and Jackson swung from the rope and managed a summersault before crashing into the dark water.

  “Ewe, I felt an eel!” he cried, spluttering and laughing as he surfaced.

  “There’s eels in there?” I asked, uneasy.

  Reid nodded. “Yeah,” he admitted unconcerned as he pulled his shirt over his head and joined them.

  I was very glad I hadn’t been enticed in. I noted Sam was missing. Bianca eventually showed up, out of the bracken rimmed path, but Lily remained aloof and sometimes present the entire afternoon and evening. I assumed she was off by herself. I noted her returning when she showed from the opposite direction of the path and said nothing, undressing hurriedly and jumping into the deep water in her bra and boy legs, with the boys. Her skin was deathly pale and I thought for sure she would emerge freezing, but she seemed comfortable, despite her thin frame and blue veins. She pushed her wet fringe back from her forehead. Unlike the boys she wasn’t smiling at me, though. How she could bear the icy water, which made my fingers numb, I didn’t know. She swung from the rope like a pro. Her luminescent green eyes glowed like fairy lights and her red hair flowed around her in the dark water like a mermaid’s. I felt plain, gangly and uncoordinated just watching them. Reid wasn’t scared of shouting out to me as they dove and swam.

  “Hey watch Sky…jump in the river.” His smiling eyes squinted at me through wet lashes, as he pulled himself out onto the muddy bank. He sat next to me dripping water onto the granite rock, which I sat upon. His amber eyes gave away nothing.

  “Have you been around town much since you got here?” His eyes smiled as he spoke.

  “No, I’ve been occupied with school.” I shrugged.

  “I’ll show you around, if you’d like?” Again he unknowingly flashed his dimples.

  “Thanks, that would be nice.”

  “Is this your first time at the river?”

  I went to say yes, but recalled the summer we came for a holiday and camped. “I nearly drowned in this river.” I admitted.

  “Here? When?” He sounded genuinely surprised.

  “
My mother used to live here, she even went to Shade High. We spent the summer swimming and the river was deep and I guess I got caught in the current. My brother was meant to be watching -and anyway a long story short, this woman saved my life.” I recalled that it wasn’t really Tim’s fault, because I was a handful.

  “Yeah, and you’ve never been back since?” he joked. “It does get pretty rough after the rain. It floods some years, and all the people in the lowlands get washed out. Who saved you?”

  “Um, Tormey Hunter, she was a local.”

  “Hey, I know of her, she was a real activist,” he reminisced.

  “Was?” I asked.

  “Yeah, she’s passed on, now.”

  “Oh,” I said, quietly nodding.

  “She lived out of the valley in the next shire over.” He didn’t tell me how she’d died. I knew she was my mother’s age.

  “I thought you didn’t seem like a city girl!” He nudged me playfully.

  In fact I was a ‘City Girl’. I told him where I had lived with my parents in the city. I found out where he lived and how he liked the beach and which classes he preferred. He smiled at me innocently as we chatted about the school and the town. I wondered aloud if country kids were tougher than city slickers like me, because I was sure I couldn’t take the cold water this time of year.

  He, like me, was from the more modest end of town. His father was a labourer, his mother a factory worker. They had hit the roof when they found out he’d quit football practice, though he’d never been into it. He said he wasn’t his older brother, despite what his parents thought. Reid confessed he was a surfer and that his brother had originally introduced him to it. Apparently none of the other guys were footballers either. Sky had never been, which shocked me.

  Slowly they gathered their towels, Sky took the necklace off the branch and slipped it over his dripping wet head and we made our way back to the sandy edges of the river and I wondered if other kids came here.

  The plan for the late afternoon was to light a fire over the ash spot of the last. “Let’s collect some wood for tonight,” Sky suggested in an authoritative manner, towelling his chest and shaking his wet hair.

  They all stood around in wet and damp clothes, spotted with water. I was glad they hadn’t asked me to swim as a cloud swept over the sun; evidently they were going easy on me. A breeze blew up and I shivered and my arms goose bumped, though I was fully dressed and dry. I bit my tongue softly, thinking about how in books werewolves constantly run a temperature. The water was icy. I had noted this with Giny, running my hand in the small rapids; the water ran directly from the Snowy Mountains.

  I had to tried not to stare at each of them in some sort of admiration and at Sky in particular. I had to make an effort to not let my eyes rest on him - instead looking at Reid. Him, it seemed, I was allowed to glance at, and he glanced at me with his light honey coloured eyes and it made me nervous.

  After the swimming the guys threw around a ball for a while and then Reid asked me if I wanted to go for a walk. I shrugged not believing this hot popular guy could possibly like me. With an approving nod from Giny, I agreed. I doubted he had a nasty bone in his body. His presence was so jovial, especially when compared to the rest of the gang, who always seemed to have a worried expression, like they knew something bad would happen. He nodded at me and he didn’t say anything to the others because they had heard him ask me. No one spoke as he did.They were quiet as even the ball stood still for the moment before I answered. I felt their gazes as he guided me off the rock and across the river. I looked back as we crossed, the only eyes still on us were Sky’s. I turned when I met his gaze and I continued up the embankment, opposite his view from the boulder he leant on. When I looked again he was gone. Reid asked me about my mother, why she and I moved here, as he parted branches for me allowing me to walk through the willows. I smirked at this; teenage boys in the city didn’t have quite the same touch, especially not the ones I’d known.

  I told him about my fights with my olds, my suspension, the divorce, my best friend dumping me for a guy in college, my brother moving away, even my dad’s new girl friend - all of it except the tattoo and the teasing I had suffered at Saint Agatha’s All Girls School. He was easy to open up to and he didn’t judge me when I mentioned the suspension. When I shivered from the afternoon temperature drop, Reid offered me his arm and he was warm. He rubbed my arms, and noticing my tattoo he pulled my sleeve back exposing it. The sun had re-emerged, shinning through the shade of a tree and reflected dappled light over my pale skin. He held it up to better inspect the art work. I let him gently twist it up to the light. “Cool,” he said finally in admiration. “It’s finely detailed.”

  And for once I didn’t have the urge to be as defensive about it, because I liked him.

  I brushed his hand off smoothly and covered it again with my sleeve.

  He watched me, bemusement across his expression.“Gangster!”he teased, smiling wide and nudging me, “How old were you when you got that?”

  “Too young,” I huffed sitting on the granite rock we had stopped at, which was surrounded by leaves.

  “Why?”

  “That’s the best part I don’t know, I was just crazy I guess.” I shrugged though I knew why, but it sounded even more stupid. Peer pressure, I lost a bet; I wanted to impress a guy. It made me sound weak and naïve. I did it for a boy. It sounded so desperate I almost cringed.

  “You’re a rebel then,” he offered, still teasing.

  “Mmm, yeah, something like that,” I added sarcastically. “It was something to do.”

  “So, it’s not only kids in the country who get bored then, and do crazy shit.”

  “Yeah, sorry to break it to you but it’s all more or less the same.”

  “Hmm, yeah,” he agreed casually.

  “Can I ask you about somebody?” I questioned hesitantly.

  “Sure, who?” He invited himself to sit next to me so close our arms touched, but I felt our close proximity was nature to him, so I resisted shifting from it.

  I gathered my thoughts. “Cresida.”

  “Yeah?” He looked down.

  “Is she unhinged?” I asked. He laughed uncomfortably.

  I ignored his chuckle. “Reid, why does everyone say Cresida’s parent’s aren’t around or present?” He looked stunned for a moment and then answered, “They aren’t,” his voice cracked quietly.

  “Where’d they go?” I asked replicating his tone.

  He pointed up; I looked at the blue sky. I knew instantly what he meant by the gesture.

  “How did it happen?” I asked quietly, but before he answered I blurted, “Is that where she got the huge scars?”

  He looked at my arms and breathed in before he spoke. “They had an accident driving…it wasn’t long ago.” His brow furrowed. I’d thought they had abandoned her. I felt a horrid wave of sorrow in my stomach.

  Judging by his expression I felt it was still too soon to be casual conversation and too close to home. I assumed she was in the car, what else could have caused that kind of mark?

  “Do people make fun of her?”

  “What?”

  “It’s just she seems so crazy, I wondered if maybe people were cruel to her, you know, take advantage of her condition?” I frowned softly.

  “Her condition?”

  “Yeah, I mean, something’s obviously up with her.” I was certain.

  “What makes you say that?”

  “Is she getting help?”

  “She’s been talking to you?” His voice was calm.

  “Yes, well some…” I wasn’t sure now whether she was nuts.

  “What did she say?” he enquired. His black eye lashes jutted at me.

  “Crazy stuff that doesn’t make any sense.” I laughed a little, uncomfortably. “She said some weird stuff to me, as though she lives in a make-believe world - where you guys are the enemy?” I was definitely paraphrasing, and maybe that made it sound more ridiculous.

 
“Yeah, well she’s a little confused,” he said annoyed.

  “Since her accident?” I offered.

  “Yes, and she took some bad drugs after it and she’s screwed up.” He shook his head and pursed his lips.

  He didn’t speak again so in the silence I reaffirmed, “She needs help, Reid,” my voice full of sympathy.

  “She’s had help…look don’t get into her business, okay, its being handled.” Now finally defence coated his tone. “There’s not a lot that can be done, stay clear of her,” he warned sympathetically.

  “But-”

  “Hey, if it were you, would you want to be dragged off to a nut house. She doesn’t hurt anyone, her aunt’s looking after her,” he argued.

  But I wondered if she had hurt me. “Does she have any friends?” I was suspicious of an accomplice, one who had helped her lock me up: a male one.

  “No,” he shrugged. “Everyone just leaves her alone.” I got that he thought that this was an example I should follow.

  “But I saw her with so much food…in the canteen?” I scowled.

  “Oh, that. She takes lunches to the…office for the teachers…or maybe she has imaginary friends she feeds? Ha.” He tried to laugh.

  “It’s just she’s tried to warn me away from you.” I frowned.

  “Really? What did she say?” He sounded curious.

  “She…said, this sounds weird, but she said you were dangerous…for me?” I squinted.

  “That’s funny. Me, personally, or all of us?”

  “Are you?” I recalled she had then suggested Reid and Sky would help her keep me from harm. I felt a little better being alone with him, as I remembered this remark amongst her ramblings.

  “Right now? Not to you.” He shook his head and smiled reassuringly.

  “And I think she sort of kidnapped me,” I stated tentatively.

  “Really?” He looked amazed. “When?”