The Lost Saint(25)

Heat swelled in my face, and I turned my head away before she could see me blush. It didn’t mean anything, and the last thing I wanted was for her to tease me about it.

Just when I thought April had already forgotten our purpose for going to the club in the first place, she sighed again and stared out the window. “Anyway, Jude is the only guy I care about.”

We were stopped at a traffic light a good three blocks away now, and Talbot had faded from my rearview mirror. I looked straight ahead through the windshield and noticed a long line of motorcycles parked outside a bar called Knuckle Grinders. One of them—a black-and-red Honda Shadow Spirit—reminded me of Daniel’s bike.

“Yeah, I know what you mean,” I said. “I’ve already got the best guy out there.”

April made an uncomfortable noise and shifted in her seat. After a second she asked, “Do you think Daniel’s really changed?”

The light turned green, and I drove through the intersection. I took one last glimpse at the Honda outside the bar. It sure did look a lot like Daniel’s bike. But there was no way he’d coincidentally be at a bar only three blocks from where I’d been at The Depot. There was no way he’d even be at a bar at all. Besides, he was home sick in bed. “What do you mean?” I asked April.

“All the stuff Jude told me about Daniel—the things that he did. Who … what … he used to be. Don’t you worry about him just going back to the way he was before?”

“I know he won’t,” I said. “It’s physically impossible—he’s been cured of the wolf curse that turned him into a monster in the first place.”

“But the other stuff. You know, the stuff he was into before he even turned into a werewolf. Jude said he got real messed up before then. Drugs and drinking and fighting and stuff.”

“That was all still the influence of the wolf. He was born with the curse. The wolf was always there, driving him to make bad choices.” At least that was the way I thought about it. I guess it was possible that Daniel had made some of those decisions on his own. But that didn’t matter anymore. “I know he wouldn’t go down that road again. We sacrificed too much to save him. He’d never turn his back on that … on me.”

“My mom says people never really change.” April kept staring far out the window. I wondered if her mom was referring to April’s dad, who’d walked out on them a few years ago.

“If you really believed that, then you wouldn’t have come with me to help find Jude.”

“I guess not.” She was quiet for a moment. “But I still don’t think you should trust Daniel as much as you do.”

“Hmm,” I said, and let silence fill the space between us in the car.

For a while this evening it had felt like we were friends again. I’d missed the way April and I joked around, and the way she drooled after guys and acted like an overexcited puppy most of time. With everyone at school treating me like last week’s gym socks, my mom checked into Hotel Alternate Reality, Dad leaving all the time, and me trying to keep Charity in the dark about everything, when Daniel wasn’t around, it felt like I had no one to talk to. I could handle the weird stares from people and the whispers behind my back, but I hated the silence that filled so many hours of my day. Not that it was quiet—especially when my superhearing kicked in—it was just that very few people talked to me these days, rather than just about me.

And I missed my best friend.

We were about ten minutes out of the city when I decided to break the silence. I didn’t want quiet anymore. “Those two guys were nasty, right? I can’t believe what happened.”

April perked right up. “Dude, the way you kicked that guy was awesome! Claire and Miya will never believe it … not that I would tell them about it, though. I mean, everyone would freak if we told them about going to The Depot.”

She smiled at me like we had this great secret. It made my heart feel lighter.

“Where’d you learn how to do that?” she asked.

“I’ve been training with Daniel.”

“Training? What for?”

My heart suddenly felt heavier all over again, because I realized that April might know about Daniel and Jude, but she didn’t know about me. She didn’t know that I was infected with a curse that could possibly turn me into a monster. And I didn’t know if I should tell her the truth. It was a pretty big deal to swallow.

What if the truth scared her away just when I was starting to get my best friend back?

But then I remembered how April had accused me of not giving her enough credit. She’d come with me tonight even when she knew how dangerous Jude could possibly be. Part of my heart still stung from the way she’d turned her back on me for the last year—but maybe that wouldn’t have happened at all if I’d just been honest with her from the moment Daniel came home.

I stopped at another red light and put the car in park. It was time to lay it all out on the line. “There’s something I have to show you.” I pushed my sleeve up to my shoulder and exposed the crescent-shaped scar on my upper arm.

“What is that?” April’s face went white. “Have you been … been …?”

“Bitten.”

“God. Daniel bit you? How can you still—?”