What if he was the wolf?

LATER

I’d almost emptied the sink when Daniel came into the kitchen. “James is finally down.” He brushed my arm and then picked up a towel and dried a saucepot.

“Thanks,” I said, and handed him a newly washed cup.

He frowned at my reddened skin. “You should take better care of yourself.”

I looked at my hand and then closed my eyes, concentrating on erasing the pain. I waited a few seconds, but when I opened my eyes, my skin was just as red and tender. I wasn’t surprised.

“I should get my mom to bed,” I said, and dried my hands on my pants.

“Do you want me to stay here? Just in case Jude … comes back. I can sleep on the couch.”

As much as the idea of Daniel’s spending the night made me feel better, almost as if my dad were here, I knew it couldn’t happen. “That might push my mom over the edge,” I said.

“Hmm. Good point.”

“Then again, maybe that wouldn’t be such a bad thing. Getting a reaction out of her would be almost worth it.” I was glad I wasn’t going to be grounded for coming in after the ten o’clock news had started, but as much as I hated Mom hovering over my every move when she was in a Crazed Mother Bear manic state, it was still preferable to the zombie zone she was in now.

Daniel’s devious grin slid across his face. He took my hand gently in his and brought it up to his lips. The look in his eyes as he kissed my reddened knuckles made my knees ache, and for a moment I wished we were still lying in the grass together.

“Not a good idea,” I whispered, and pulled my hand out of his. If Mom did come to her senses, I’d be grounded for the rest of my life.

“As you wish,” Daniel said, and picked up another cup to dry. “I’ll help you finish this up before I go.”

I sighed. I knew the house would feel empty and cold the moment he left. Every sound would make me jump. Every minute would drag on for a year until I finally fell asleep. “I wish my dad were here at least … but I doubt he’d be able to protect us, either.”

Daniel frowned and put down the cup. He shifted his weight from his bad leg to his good one.

A wave of guilt washed through me. “I didn’t mean you.” I put my hand on his shoulder. “I didn’t mean to say that you couldn’t protect us anymore. I was talking about me, I swear.”

“It’s okay. I know I can’t, Grace. It’s kind of a side effect of losing my powers.”

“But you’re still strong. You could—”

“No.” Daniel finally looked back at me. “But you can … someday. I promise. You’ll get the hang of it.…”

“I have a feeling someday isn’t going to be soon enough. I think Jude called me because he needs my help.” I looked down at my stupid red hands that refused to heal. “But I’m not strong enough to do anything.”

“Grace, you’re the strongest person I know. You’d have to be to save me the way you did. You can be a hero like you wanted.” He lowered his voice and glanced back at my mom on the sofa, as if he was worried she might actually be paying attention to us. “You have all this power just beyond your fingertips, and we’ll figure out how to reach out and grab it for good. All you need is a little more time and patience and balance, and we can make it work. Maybe we’ve been pushing it too hard to begin with. Maybe we need to ease into it more. Take more time with your lessons …”

“What if we don’t have more time? What if Jude is right? What if somebody really is after us?” For the first time I really let that fear sink in—the weight of it trying to pull me under. “What if I need my powers right now?”

Daniel grabbed a fistful of his shaggy hair and tugged at it in frustration. “I don’t understand what you want me to say, Grace. What do you want me to do? If you want me to train you faster, that’s not going to happen. You know that wouldn’t be safe. I’m not going to let you lose yourself to the wolf.”

“I’m not going to lose myself to the wolf, Daniel. That’s not what I want … Gah, I don’t even know what I want! A way to stop time, maybe. A magical way to make my powers come faster. I don’t know.”

“I don’t know, either.” Daniel picked up a bowl from the counter and then set it right back down. “I still think Jude was just messing with you, Grace. The wolf is probably getting a real kick out of tormenting the people he loved.” Daniel put an extra emphasis on the past tense.

But I didn’t want to believe that. Daniel still loved me when he was taken by the wolf. He still wanted to find a way to come back to our family. I wanted to believe the same thing about Jude now. I had to give him the same benefit of the doubt. Deep down I wanted to believe that he called me tonight not out of some sick joke, but because he needed to warn me. He still wanted to be my brother.

“You didn’t hear the concern in Jude’s voice,” I said. “I think it was a cry for help.”

Daniel shook his head. “I wish I could track him down for you. Find out what the hell he wants, or stop this person, or whoever is supposedly after us. But I’m not the one with the superpowers.”

“And apparently neither am I,” I grumbled.

He looked at me, his dark eyes laced with sadness, but he stayed silent. We both did for a few long minutes. Mom was listening to a different station’s evening newscast recorded by the DVR, but they were playing an almost identical account of the story from earlier. Invisible bandits. Terrible crimes in broad daylight. Even a similar joke about the Markham Street Monster turned to a life of organized crime …

“Do you regret it?” I finally asked Daniel. It was the question I’d held back for months now. The question that came into my mind each time I watched Daniel struggle to keep up with me when we ran, or nursed his knee after a sparring match. “Do you regret that I cured you? It must be hard not to have your powers anymore.” And it must be hard for him to watch me not figuring out mine. Like whenever I struggled as he tried to teach me a new painting technique, and I could feel him itching to grab the brush and just do it himself—but he never did. Good teachers don’t do that.

“No,” Daniel said. “Sometimes I miss my powers. But I never regret what you did for me. I’m here because of you. I’m a whole person again. I could never go back to that place I was in again—I could never deal with having the potential of becoming a monster again. I think I’d rather die …” Daniel trailed off. He hesitated for a moment and then said, “Do you regret it? Do you regret being there to save me?” From the sound of his voice, I knew he’d been holding that question back for a while, too.