She glanced at Daniel. He shoved his hands in his pajama pants pockets, trying to look casual—which didn’t exactly make him look innocent, but did make his pecs flex in a very nice way. Charity’s cheeks pinked a bit, and I assumed it was because she’d finally noticed that Daniel was shirtless. I mean, she was a girl, after all; even if she was wigging out, she was bound to notice the perfection of his body.
Suddenly, her eyes narrowed as she looked at Daniel. “Is that … a bullet hole?” She used the muzzle of the gun to point at the welt on Daniel’s shoulder, making my stomach feel like I was on a rocking boat. “Or is it a burn? Or both?”
Daniel glanced at me as if asking how I thought he should answer the question. But I didn’t get a chance to respond.
“Oh, my heck.” The pink flush in Charity’s cheeks turned a bright shade of red. I could almost see the gears turning in her head as a realization dawned on her. “Silver bullets? That wasn’t a normal wolf those hunters were after, was it? I mean, what the sheriff said about the whole town being able to hear the wolf howling. That shouldn’t be possible. A normal wolf can’t be heard beyond a mile and a half. I studied wolves last year for my science project, so I know.”
I didn’t like the emphasis she kept putting on the word normal in her sentences. And I especially didn’t like the way she was holding the gun now, pointing it at Daniel in her unsteady hands.
“Charity, I don’t know what you think is going on, but—”
Charity rocked the gun in my direction, making me throw my hands up defensively on instinct.
“Don’t you point that at anyone!” I cried.
“What I couldn’t figure out was why you’d risk your life to save some wolf.” She tilted the gun back toward Daniel. “But I know why now.…”
“What do you think know?” Daniel asked, sounding calm, like a therapist, and not like someone who had a gun pointed at his chest.
“I had to research myths about wolves as part of my project. I know what they say about wolves, or people, who can be burned by silver. And I saw you do a flip from the roof and land on two feet like it was no big deal. Normal people can’t do that.”
I gave a little gasp. “So being a show-off comes back to bite you in the butt, eh?” I said to Daniel.
He smirked. “So it does.”
“This isn’t funny!” Charity rocked the gun back and forth between us. “I’m not stupid, Grace. I know you think just because I’m in middle school that I should be oblivious to everything. I know something’s been going on. Ever since Daniel came back … and people started turning up dead again from wild-dog attacks. And all that stuff the news has been saying about the return of the Markham Street Monster.”
“I know you’re not stupid. But this isn’t what you think. Daniel didn’t do any of that.”
Charity shook her head, the gun swaying dangerously back and forth as she did it. She blinked fast, as if fighting the tears that formed in the corners of her eyes. “He’s a monster, isn’t he? A … a … a werewolf?”
I opened my mouth, ready to tell any lie that would convince her otherwise, but Daniel placed his hand on my shoulder.
“It’s okay,” he said. “She knows what I am, and it’s time to tell her the rest.”
“So it is true?” Tears trailed from her eyes now. The gun wavered up and down in her trembling hands. I knew how freaked out she must be—even I hadn’t handled the revelation of Daniel’s true origins all that well when I found out—but if she lost control of herself, that gun was surely going to fire.
Three different scenarios of how I could spring on her and wrestle the gun from her hands flashed through my mind. Do it! growled my inner wolf. She’s a danger to you. Take her out.
No. I couldn’t see any of those scenarios ending without someone I loved getting hurt. “Yes, Charity. But what are you going to do about it?” I inched sideways. “Are you going to shoot Daniel?”
“I don’t know.” She choked on her tears. “Isn’t that what I should do? Shouldn’t I try to protect us all?”
“If you shoot him for being a werewolf, then you’re going to have to shoot Jude.…” I stepped between Daniel and Charity so the gun was aimed at me now. “And then you’ll have to shoot me.” Because even if I wasn’t a full-blown werewolf now, watching Daniel’s heart get ripped open by a silver bullet would be the tipping point that would force me over the edge. “This is what we are, but we haven’t done what you think we have.”
“Don’t do this, Grace.” Daniel’s hands clamped over my shoulders, ready to shove me out of harm’s way if needed.
I didn’t change my stance. “So what’s it going to be?” I asked Charity.
Except for the bright red tearstains, her face was as white as the clouds in the sky. “You’re a … ? I don’t believe it. You can’t be … You’re just my sister. I don’t understand.…”
“Give me the gun, and we promise to tell you everything.” I held out my hand.
“Everything?”
“Yes,” Daniel said.
My heart thudded against my chest at least forty times before Charity finally lowered the rifle and handed it to me. I passed it quickly over to Daniel as Charity took a lurching step forward and fell into my arms, crying like the little girl I knew she no longer was.
AN HOUR LATER
I held Charity for a good long while before she sank into the fallen leaves that were scattered across the dead lawn. She pulled her knees into her chest and asked us to start from the very beginning. Daniel gave her a brief overview of the history of the Urbat, but he let me tell the story of our lives over the last year—probably because his memory was still a bit spotty. I noticed he listened just as intently as Charity did when I covered the happenings of the last week.
I told Charity the truth, but I was careful to leave out personal details. Like the way I’d had to hold Daniel last night to keep him from succumbing to the pull to transform back into the white wolf. I didn’t tell her the secrets Daniel and I had shared in the dungeon of Caleb’s warehouse. And I figured this wasn’t the time or place for Daniel to find out about our engagement if he didn’t have any memory of it.