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  Time Mends

  Timber Wolves: Book 2

  by Tammy Blackwell

  Published in

  the United States

  Copyright © 2012

  All rights held by the author.

  Just in case the boys turning into wild animals under the light of the full moon didn’t make it obvious, this is a work of fiction. All characters and events exist only in the mind of the writer. Any resemblance to real life is a figment of your imagination.

  Cover Design: Victoria Faye (www.victoriafaye.com)

  Cataloging Information

  Blackwell, Tammy

  Time Mends/ Tammy Blackwell. - Smashwords ed.

  Timber Wolves: Book 2

  Summary : After a tragic accident leaves her battered, heartbroken, and alone, Scout Donovan would rather hide in dreams than face reality. But things are changing quickly in Scout’s life. Soon she’s pulled back into the world of Shifters and Seers, with her best friend’s fate depending on Scout’s ability to protect her. Can Scout pull it together in time to save Talley, or is the past too much to overcome?

  [1. Werewolves - Fiction. 2. Kentucky - Fiction. 3. Supernatural. 4. Grief.]

  This book is

  dedicated to my mom,

  the single most awesome

  person to have ever lived.

  Chapter 1

  “Tony Stark over Bruce Wayne, but Batman trumps Iron Man.”

  Alex looked at me as if I suggested the Pope was Atheist. “There is no way Batman could take on Iron Man. What is he going to do? Throw one of those little bat-thingies at him?”

  “They’re called batarangs, and they’re awesome, just like Batman.”

  It was one of those perfect spring days where the sun warmed your skin as the wind tossed strands of hair into your face. The smell of honeysuckle hung heavy in the air. The woods surrounding the lake displayed a kaleidoscope of colors, and the grass formed a soft green carpet.

  Sadly, we weren’t sitting on the grass.

  I shifted, attempting to find a spot where there wouldn’t be a rock jabbing into my butt. Misinterpreting my movement, Alex’s arms tightened around my waist as his head fell to my shoulder. “I don’t want to you to go.”

  “Then I won’t,” I said, leaning back against his chest. “I vote we stay here forever.”

  “And I’m selfish enough to want to second that,” he muttered against into neck. His chest rose against my back with a deep breath as if he was taking in my scent, and then his arms fell away and his head lifted. “It’s getting late. You have to get ready.”

  “No.” A familiar panic bubbled in my chest. The sun vanished instantly. The nearly full moon hung heavy in the sky, illuminating the blood stains on the front of my shirt.

  “Things are Changing,” Alex said from where he now stood in front of me. “It’s graduation day.”

  And then the boy I loved was gone and in his place stood a beautiful gray wolf with human eyes.

  “I want to stay here,” I begged through the tears.”Don’t make me leave. Please. Let me stay this time, Alex. Please.”

  You have to wake up, Scout, his voice echoed in my mind.

  I shook my head, eyes fixed on his. “No.”

  “Wake up, Scout.”

  “No!”

  “Scout, wake up!”

  ***

  There was always an adjustment period after one of my dreams. In those moments between sleep and opening my eyes, I teetered on the edge of happiness. Then, it would hit me. Some traitorous part of my brain would tell me, “Alex is dead,” and it would all come rushing back. A moonlit date in the woods. An attack. Alex falling off a cliff. His body growing cold and still in my arms. Waking up in the hospital, knowing he was gone.

  I opened my eyes when the pain hit. It was never long after The Moment of Truth. Maybe it was because I also remembered what happened to me on that night, or perhaps it was because all the quick, shallow breathing pulled at the fifty-one stitches in my stomach.

  “Hey there, Sweetie,” my mother said from the side of the bed. “It’s time to get ready.”

  Blond curls bounced in agreement. “You get to wear the dress we ordered. Remember? The one you let me help you pick out? You know, it’s like this.” Angel stood on the bed beside me to reveal her blue linen sundress. “We’ll be twins, only yours is green because it looks better with your skin tone.”

  For the past month I had heard a lot about skin tones. And color palettes. And other extremely scary TLC-esque things. The crazy thing was, I really didn’t mind too much. Since the accident, my entertainment options were limited. At least when I was with my little sister I wasn’t obsessively scouring the Internet, trying to uncover the nonexistent history of a dead boy.

  “Scout, if you don’t get up now you won’t have time for a shower,” Mom said.

  I pulled the covers over my head at the mention of the s-word. I’m normally opposed to personal hygiene, but when you’ve got four lacerations across your midriff and a cast to deal with, bathing becomes a rather complicated chore.

  “I can help.” Angel pulled the covers down. “I can wash your hair for you in the sink again. That’ll be better, right?”

  “Yes, that would be better.” My voice was thick and slow. I didn’t know if it was the drugs or the depression making it so. “Thanks.”

  Mom moved away from the bed and began unhooking the tubes connecting me to the IV pole, confident Angel had me well in hand. “Let me know when you’re ready for me to put on new bandages.”

  I nodded as I started the slow, arduous process of getting out of bed. You don’t realize how much you rely on your stomach muscles until a few of them get torn apart. In the month since the accident the gashes had healed very little. The small cut on my shoulder was already closed up and beginning to scar over, and the doctor planned on taking off my cast next week, but the wounds on my stomach were as deep and painful as the day I woke up in the hospital, thanks to a seemingly impossible to identify and kill infection. My very own team of doctors and specialists agreed such a thing was to be expected when you were attacked by a coyote and then rolled around in the woods until you nearly bled to death.

  “Good girl,” Angel said once I was sitting on the side of the bed. I thought about being annoyed at being talked to as if I was a labrador, but decided on apathy instead. Apathy was great in that it required very little effort on my part.

  Angel pulled the walker over to my bed, causing the apathy to be replaced by two of my new favorite emotions: dread and bitterness.

  “I’ve changed my mind. I’m not going.”

  “Scout, it’s your high school graduation. You have to go. Everyone is expecting you to be there,” she said, speaking literally. Timber is a small town which sees very little in the way of excitement. The accident had been the biggest thing to hit Lake County since an ice storm came through two years ago. I was the lead story on the local news for over a week. My injuries had been too severe to return to school, and I hadn’t ventured any further than the doctor’s office since Alex’s funeral. I wouldn’t be surprised if half the county showed up for graduation just so they could gawk at the girl who survived being mauled by a wild animal.

  “I don’t feel good. I just want to stay in bed.”

  Angel put her hands on her hips, a look of determination on her face. “You can’t stay in bed forever.”

  “Why not? It’s warm. And comfy. And it’s got all these great pillows.” And it was the place where I could sleep, where I could dream.

  Angel pulled herself up to her full three and a half feet. “Harper Lee Donovan, get up. I mean it.”

  I threw a blanked over my face. Angel pulled it back down. “You have to take a shower. Your hair is getting yucky again.”r />
  I ran a hand over my head and discovered she was right. When was the last time I washed it?

  I still wasn’t sold on the idea of attending graduation, but I was in dire need of a shower, or at least a sponge bath. The tiny part of me that still cared about such things was appalled.

  I bit my lip as I pulled myself up, too stubborn and embarrassed to scream out. The room swayed, but I managed to stay upright.

  Three hours later I was deeply regretting my decision to get out of bed.

  The gymnasium, which is fairly massive for a small town thanks to our obsession with basketball, was packed. Either the air conditioner couldn’t compete with that many bodies crammed together, or it wasn’t functioning. Either way, I was melting inside of the gaudy blue gown I was forced to wear over my dress. The sound system was turned up way too loud, amplifying Senator Harper’s voice to the point I feared my eardrums would burst. And I’m not sure who it was, possibly the entire senior class as a whole, but someone forgot to put on deodorant.

  Why couldn’t we have graduation outside like one of those normal schools they show on TV?

  “This is painful,” said the person to my left. I turned my head to meet a pair of brilliant green eyes. A tingly pain-like sensation ran across my abdomen as my heart battered itself against my ribcage. “At least you got a new car out of the deal. The rest of us have to withstand this torture without any sort of compensation.”

  I could have explained how the car was most likely a political payoff from the Toyota plant in Scott County to Senator Harper, who just happened to be my grandfather. I could have theorized that he only pawned it off as a graduation gift because he personally wouldn’t ever be seen in anything less than a Mercedes. I could have even pointed out it wasn’t like I would be driving it in the foreseeable future. But all that would require actually talking to Jase, something I hadn’t done in almost a month.

  For the first few weeks he tried, begged even, but eventually gave up. We lived in the same house, a mere wall separating our bedrooms, but he lived his life in the real world while I was confined to the protection of my bed. I wasn’t sure why he was talking to me now. Maybe he banked on the sentimentality of the day to make me forget how he shredded my stomach and assisted in the murder of my boyfriend.

  I turned back to the stage just as Senator Harper completed his assault on good sense by promising we could live the American dream and change the world simply by the fact we’d completed our secondary education. I could only assume everyone was clapping out of sheer relief that he’d finally quit talking.

  When the applause faded out a new person was positioned behind the mike. She looked a bit like Snow White - dark, bouncy hair spilling down her back in shiny waves; porcelain skin fortunate enough to never see a blemish in its eighteen years; deep blue eyes sparkling with kindness. She stood awkwardly, attempting to conceal her short, curvaceous body with her arms.

  “As most of you know, I’m not really supposed to be here.” Talley’s voice shook as she addressed the room full of parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and fellow graduates. “The position of Valedictorian is reserved for the person with the highest GPA. It’s given in recognition of twelve years of hard work, of excelling academically. While I did work hard for twelve years and did pretty well in all of my classes, there was someone who worked harder, did better. This isn’t my speech to make, so it’s not my speech I’m going to give.” My best friend looked at me and gave a nervous smile. “I hope you don’t mind.”

  She began reading from the sheet of paper clutched in her hands. “People will tell you tonight is a beginning, the start of a new life. I don’t believe that. Your life is what it is, it’s going to continue down the same path you’ve been ambling along since you were born. Tonight isn’t a beginning, it’s just a change.

  “Grown-ups like to say the only certain things in this world are death and taxes. Well, no disrespect, but that’s a bunch of crap. There is only one certainty in this world and that is change.

  “Life is change.

  “When you wake up in the morning, you won’t be the same person you are today. You’ll be the the girl who danced on the table at the post-grad party or the boy who professed his love to a girl who was only vaguely aware he existed. You’ll be the person who sat through this speech. You’ll be a high school graduate. And, of course, you’re expecting that. But, the thing is, when you wake up on Monday morning, you’ll be a different person than you were the day before. And it’ll happen again on Tuesday, and Wednesday, and every single morning until the biggest change of all comes and you don’t wake up in this world again.

  “To live is to change.

  “You can’t stop change no more than you stop the earth from trudging around the sun, but you can influence its direction. Tonight, I beg you to commit yourself to making positive changes. Be better people than you have been. Rid yourselves of bigotries, prejudices, and pettiness. Go out in the world and do something important. Try new things and learn from your mistakes.”

  Talley’s blue eyes locked onto mine. Something hidden in their depths caused pinpricks of anxiety to race up my spine. “It’s not always going to be easy, and you will, without a doubt, screw up over and over again; but the next morning you’ll wake up a new, changed person, and you’ll try again. Be strong. Be brave. And, please, be good.”

  She broke the intense eye contact and flashed one of her brightest, most genuine smiles at the masses. Her thanks was swallowed up by the sound of three thousand people shuffling to their feet and applauding. I didn’t bother trying to stand - everyone would be sitting back down by the time I made it up - but Talley managed to re-capture my gaze all the same.

  ***

  I was not the assumed Valedictorian of my class. It’s not like I’m some super-smart genius girl who aced her SATs and made As without trying. I had to work hard and study my butt off to even attempt to keep up with the other Honor’s students. In all honesty, Talley would have probably been named Valedictorian even if I had been able to finish out the school year.

  The only reason I prepared a speech is because Talley and I started working on them our tenth grade year during her “power of positive thoughts” phase. We wrote them, but never showed them to one another, saving the “surprise” for graduation day. Mine was saved on my password-protected computer profile under the name “Screw Sunscreen.” A normal person would have never found it, but Talley is far from normal. She’s a Seer, and more specifically, a Soul Seer. With a touch she can reach into your brain and See your memories, thoughts, dreams, or the location of your secret graduation speech.

  It looked like it was time to have a little talk about boundaries.

  I managed to miss the cue to stand up while I was pondering when exactly she hacked into my computer because suddenly I was the only senior still in my seat. I grabbed onto the despised walker and pulled. Nothing happened. Another tug. Still nothing. My arms were like spaghetti, all pale and floppy and weak. Tears of frustration threatened to spill out, humiliating me further. And then two sets of hands were easing me to my feet. Jase let go as soon I was upright, possibly due to the glare I shot his way, but John Davis kept one hand on my elbow as he moved around to my side. He moved the walker out of the way with his spare hand before wrapping the other arm around my waist.

  “Just lean on me, Graduation Buddy,” he whispered with a goofy smile. “We’ll make it just fine.”

  Again tears threatened, but this time out of gratitude and affection. For the first time, I realized I may never see John again. True, Timber is a small town, but it’s still big enough you could go your whole life without seeing everyone who lives here. And who knew if we would both end up back home after college? Maybe we would run into each other at Wal-Mart over the holidays, but maybe not. John may not have been my favorite person, but he was a friend, someone who had been a constant part of my Monday through Friday life for the past thirteen years. Still, I was shocked to realize I would miss him.


  The entire class made its way to the stage in pairs. John supported most of my weight the entire trek and practically lifted me onto each step as my turn neared, but it was better than clomping around with the walker. I swore I would only think kind thoughts about him for at least the next month.

  “Jase Stewart Donovan,” Principal Dexter’s voice bellowed from the speakers.

  My brother’s presence on stage was met with more than a few wolf whistles and cat calls. He handled it with all the charm and irreverence one came to expect from the star basketball player with celebrity-like status in our small community. He stopped in the middle of the stage and gave a deep, theater-worthy bow before tossing a few winks and kisses to his adoring fans. The school superintendent - who was known affectionately as “Dad” in the Donovan household - sighed deeply, Senator Harper scowled, and Principal Dexter barely suppressed a smile.

  Once they finally managed to shoo Jase off the stage, it was my turn.

  “Harper Lee Donovan.”

  I wasn’t expecting what happened next. My first step was met with a deafening roar that almost literally knocked me off my unsteady feet. I looked out at the crowd, startled.

  They were all once again on their feet. Three thousand pairs of eyes glued me to the spot. Three thousand sets of hands slammed together. There was yelling and whistling and cheering. It was all too much. The room tilted. Out of the corner of my eye I saw my father rush towards me, but I knew he wouldn’t make it in time. The last thing I saw before collapsing was a pair of familiar grey eyes watching from the upper bleachers.

  Chapter 2

  “You weren’t gone long,” Alex said as I made my way up the lake’s shore. The sun was dipping behind the trees, sending streaks of light to dance across the top of the water.