She glowered at him. “I didn't exactly care about the rules at the time and the fever turned my brain into mush! Do I even need to justify that?”
He regarded her in silence, his forehead set in a deep frown.
“And excuse me if I didn't know there'd be these nightmarish things stalking me, ready to rip me to shreds!” she crowed, watching Nik's jaw clench and unclench. It was such an insignificant facial movement, and yet she felt like she wanted him; to wrap her arms around him and do everything she'd fantasized about for the past two months right there and then.
Why did she act this way?
This was exactly why she wanted it to stop.
“I hate it,” she grumbled. “I hate being this way. I hate feeling things I don't know are real or just part of this- this darker side of me. I hate being in agony and not knowing when it's going to happen or if it will even stop. I hate the shakes, the spasms, the cracking bones. I hate everything about it.”
“You're a Were. You can't change that. And no poison or drug is going to stop that. Get used to it!”
Jaz felt her insides winding tightly, on the verge of snapping. “Am I a Were? Am I really? Because from what I've heard it isn't even normal for them to change just small parts of themselves and that Changing an arm into a claw can't even be done-”
“Who told you that?” he demanded.
Jaz smiled sourly folding her arms across her towel-wrapped chest. “So it's true then?”
He only frowned deeper.
“You think I'm the bad guy?” she scoffed. “Just because I don't want to be a bloodthirsty monster- and you know what I mean by that, so stop twisting it. You're just angry because you know I'm right and because I keep questioning what you think, or say, is the norm. Whether I'm a Were or some freakish alternative of one, I've had to face the fact that Weres exist and that they roam the woods right outside my bedroom window. That they become crazed creatures, out for blood- whether that's just one Were or all Weres is beside the point. I saw the look in Rufus's eyes: he wanted to eat me alive. That's what we are; what you are! What you've always been beneath this holier-than-thou fa?ade!”
“Don't-”
“-So let's cut the crap and just be honest with each other shall we? And while we're at it, I'll start by saying that I do not like you. You do not like me or the way I am and think and I couldn't care less. Most of the time I can barely stand to look at you because all I see is my kidnapper, the destroyer of my hopes, and the man who couldn't even keep my sister alive, even with all his power and protection. The same man who stands by whilst the 'supposed' love of his life and unborn child are killed.”
Nik's eyes enlarged as if he was dumbstruck.
She ignored him, shaking her head. “And all this time you've been giving me signals that you feel something for me? How can you when you say you loved my sister? When everything I do pisses you off or disappoints you?
“And then you stupidly tell Edda -and lord knows who else- that you feel something for me! I mean how the hell did Fraya know? What that feeling is, I am at a loss to know with all your dodgy mood swings. But to save me from the agonizing guessing I'm telling you this right now: I could never and would never, be with you.” She stepped forward, her face glowing red with anger. “Sometimes I find myself struggling for breath knowing that I'm this horrible killing machine that I have no control of. This thing within me makes me do and feel and think things that are just not me. It's making me so confused by its desires I'm finding it harder and harder to tell the difference between us!
“I have no one to confide in. No one who can understand what I'm going through.” She took a deep ragged breath.
After a short pause she gazed at him with a solemn expression. “And even though for some stupid reason I felt safe around you and wanted you to be there for me -even after everything- I can see now I was stupid. You probably understand me less than anyone.” She inhaled and exhaled, her breaths shallow and weak. She felt light-headed and rested against the wall, closing her eyes as she tried to steady herself.
It surprised her when she heard the front door close. Her eyes snapped open and she saw he was gone. She was so frustrated by his silence and refusal to talk to her, she was bouncing between crying and roaring in anger.
In the end she stomped to her bedroom, threw off her towel and fumbled in the dull light of the closed curtains naked as she tried to pull on her clothes. She managed to find her denim shorts and a vest, slipped on her grey hoodie and red high-tops and rushed out the door, not caring who saw her or where she went.
She glanced at her red, rubber wristwatch. It was almost four o'clock. She decided to jog somewhere, anywhere. She headed towards the totem poles.
The two men, Barry and Norm, weren't there anymore. They'd been taken down exactly as Driver had said. She stomped him out of her mind and turned back, running along the route she'd gone down many times. She ran for twenty minutes flat out before her legs groaned in opposition.