But though I didn’t know it, that first night of sleeping together was the beginning of the end. Because my body wasn’t finished changing yet and being so close to Nick and breathing in his scent was going to make it change even more…with consequences neither one of us was prepared to handle.
TWENTY
The next couple of weeks were tense ones at the Spaulding house. Nick and I spent as much time away as possible, but we still had to at least come home to eat and sleep—not that we got much food.
The shard of mirror I had used on Gary Spaulding had done more damage than I had thought. It had sliced through his eyebrow and down the corner of his left eye, making it droop alarmingly. In the end he needed stitches and had to make up some crazy story about running into a nail sticking out of the barn door or something.
Neither he or Nancy was going to forgive me for the permanent, disfiguring scar he was going to have. I was sure if Nick wasn’t there he would have gotten me alone and beaten and raped me for revenge. But my big brother stuck to me like glue, just as he had promised.
Everywhere I went, Nick went. If I was doing laundry, he was helping me fold and iron. If I was collecting dirty clothes, he was holding the basket for me. If I was making “essential oils,” he was sitting right beside me, adding the scent drops and sticking on the labels. He even stood outside the bathroom door, guarding me when I had to pee. He literally didn’t leave me alone for even a second.
Nancy largely ignored us, having decided to pretend her two most troublesome foster children were invisible. Gary, however, followed me with his eyes everywhere I went. When I happened to look up and catch the hate in them, it sent a cold chill down my back.
This man wants to kill me, was the thought that came into my mind when he glared at me like that, his drooping left eye looking particularly malevolent. I was certain if Nick hadn’t been there, he definitely would have done it. But I felt safe as long as my big brother was there…well, until Gary finally broke his silence.
It was one night after we had all showered and finished brushing our teeth and were about to leave the basement to go back to the freezing cold barn. The other fosters—the new “maid” and the “cook”—had already gone, leaving only Nick and me. As Nick was about to usher me out the basement door, Gary spoke.
“I guess the two of you think you’re pretty smart, always sticking together,” he snarled, his voice filled with hateful intent.
I wasn’t going to answer him but Nick turned and said,
“I’m staying with Kira to make sure you don’t try anything else. She’s never going to be left alone as long as I’m in this house.”
“Yeah—as long as you’re in this house. But how much longer will you be here?” A slow, ugly grin spread over our foster father’s face—one that didn’t reach his drooping left eye.
“As long as I have to be to keep Kira safe,” Nick said firmly, glaring at the other man.
“Think you’re forgetting something, boy,” Gary drawled. “Your sweet little foster sister is a year younger than you. You’re about to turn eighteen pretty soon and then you’re out on your ass. You’ll be aging out of the foster system a good solid year before Kira does. Which means you’ll be gone and she’ll still be here with us. With me.” He leered at me meaningfully.
I felt my stomach twist itself into a knot. Of course I had thought of this eventuality too, but I always tried to push it away. Or I told myself that Nick and I would run away or beg our social workers to be transferred before it was too late. But it was barely a month before Nick’s eighteenth birthday and none of those things had happened. We were still here—still trapped with the Spauldings.
Nick pointed a warning finger at our foster father.
“You’re not going to touch her—ever. You saw what I can do…what I can become.” It was the closest I’d ever seen him come to telling a non-Were person about his Were status and the gravest threat he could make.
But Gary Spaulding only snorted derisively.
“The only thing I saw was the moonlight playing tricks on my eyes,” he sniffed.
Nick raised an eyebrow at him.
“And your dogs? What about them?”
Gary shrugged.
“You learned some kind of trick to send them running—so what? Anyway, I won’t need dogs to keep you away. The minute you turn eighteen you’re off my property and out of my hair. While lovely little Kira gets to stay right here,” he added.