“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—?”
“Daniel didn’t bite me. Jude did. He attacked me right after he turned into a werewolf.”
April looked away. She played with one of the sequins on her shirt. “What does this mean? You’re not a werewolf yet, right?”
“No. I’ve been infected with the curse, but I’m not a wolf yet. And I never will be if Daniel and I can help it. He’s training me so I can use my powers to help people. But yes, there is the potential of me becoming a monster.”
A car honked from behind us, and I shifted back into drive. I looked at April for her reaction, almost afraid she’d bolt from the car now that she knew the truth. She was quiet until we’d driven through the intersection, and then she leaned in real close to me. “Are you serious?” she asked. “Are you telling me you’ve got superpowers? ’Cause that’d be pretty much made out of awesome.” She grinned at me and shook in her excited, trembly way.
“Um. Yeah. Kind of. I mean, I’m just learning how to use them, and they’re kind of fickle—but they came in handy tonight, didn’t they?”
“Heck, yeah, they did!” April squealed. “Did you see the look on that guy’s face when he hit the ground? Seriously, that was the coolest thing ever. He was all like, ‘Come here, defenseless little girl,’ and then you were like, ‘Bam! Take that, suck-face! I’ve got superpowers!’ ”
I laughed. “Um, you’re kind of forgetting about the part where he knocked me down and was about to take my face off.”
“Yes, but that’s why the universe created boys like Talbot. Those other guys practically peed their pants when they saw him.”
“Yeah, didn’t you think that was kind of weird? I mean, what was a guy like Nathan Talbot doing there, anyway? He didn’t exactly mesh with the crowd.”
“Tal,” she said, emphasizing the nickname he’d told her his friends used, “is probably a DD.”
“A what?”
“Part of the designated-driver program at the university. He’s probably like the resident adviser for one of the dorms. I bet he could get those guys kicked out of school for being tools. That’s probably why they backed off, but it’s still cool the way he swooped in to save us like that.”
I cringed. I absolutely hated that someone had had to “swoop in” to save me. I had abilities, and if only I could figure out how to use them the right way, I wouldn’t need some random guy to come to my rescue.
April giggled. “And it doesn’t hurt, either, if your knight in green-and-blue plaid just happens to be hot.”