The waitress set our food on the table and left after our assurances we didn’t need anything else.  I kept busy with dousing my fries in ketchup, letting the silence build for a moment. “Can I ask why we can’t talk about us?”

He held out his hand for the ketchup.  “It makes me uncomfortable.”

I surrendered the bottle and watched him neatly add it to his burger.  “Not getting into details, but what part makes you uncomfortable?”

“All of it.”

That didn’t make any sense.  He took a huge bite of his burger while I struggled with my frustration.  Stubborn man.

He reached past me for the salt as I leaned forward for the pepper.  His hand brushed the curve of my breast, and he jerked back as if scorched.  His gaze locked on his hand, and he sat there frozen.

He hadn’t bumped into me hard.  No damage done.  It’d been an accident.  So what was his deal?  He continued to…just sit there.  I ducked my head trying to make eye contact, but he avoided it.

His reaction to the incident was starting to offend me.  “It’s a boob,” I bit out, annoyed.  “I have two of them.  They don’t do much.  They just sit there.  They definitely don’t bite, so stop acting like they’re going to come after you. Grow up.”

“Please stop talking about them,” he said in a stiff strangled voice.

I didn’t let up.  “You know, sometimes it helps to name the things you fear.  Let’s call the right one ‘Everest’ and the left one ‘Fuji’, two mountainous ranges waiting to be....”  I never finished.  He cleared the restaurant’s door in a few furious strides, leaving me sitting alone.

It felt good to get under his skin, to see him react in a way that wasn’t calm and confident.  It bothered me that it was at my expense.  What was so wrong with me that he freaked out at the slightest touch?  Other than the fact that some other werewolves wanted to kill me and I had dreams that made me scream loud enough to shake the nearest window...I mean really, who didn’t have some kind of baggage?

He didn’t go far.  My eyes tracked him as he paced back and forth before the restaurant’s front windows.  His scowl didn’t let up, and I didn’t feel so frustrated anymore.  Smirking, I shook my head and continued eating my fries.  He cast an occasional glance in my direction but didn’t appear to calm down.

When I finished my fries and burger, I waited until he glanced at me to take a fry from his plate.  His steps hesitated and his scowl changed to a frown as, with a challenging smirk, I ate the fry.  I reached for his second burger.  He stopped pacing and watched me through the window.  His focused stare and complete stillness seemed a little spooky.  The other patrons cast nervous glances at him.

Slowly, I lifted the burger to my mouth unable to stop my teasing grin.  His eyes narrowed, and he reached for the door.  I took a huge bite and hastily set the burger back on his plate.

In just a few steps, he stood by the table looking down at me, his expression carefully blank.

“Well?  Did you lose your appetite or not?”

He slid into the opposite seat and pulled his plate toward him, not saying a word.  His avoidance hurt a little.  He didn’t want to talk about us, he didn’t want to talk about the trouble that was out there waiting for us, and he didn’t want to talk about my boobs—which was pretty much the same as talking about us.  As I watched him eat, I had an idea.

“Tell you what.  I’ll let you have two closed subjects between us.  Two topics we’ll keep completely off limits.  Three is ridiculous.”  My tone carried a bit of hostility, but I didn’t really care.

He closed his eyes, finished swallowing, and sighed.

“So which one are we going to talk about...our plan to reach the compound, the reason you won’t let me Claim you, or my boobs?  You choose,” I dared him.

He set his burger on his plate and took a drink.  “They will be waiting for us on all three roads.  We could try to leave the bike and take to the woods, but I think they will have scouts ready for that as well.  And we’d be slower on foot.  Our best bet is to anticipate them and break through before they know when to expect us.”

“So the longer we take to get there...”

“The more likely they are to be ready for us,” he agreed.

After my stunt at the last hotel room, they’d probably caught onto the fact that we knew they were after us.

“Any word from that Elder?” I asked.

“He asked for an update, but I kept it vague.  He’s not pushing for anything more.  He offered his assistance if we needed anything further.”

That sounded non-threatening.  Perhaps we were wrong about him.  Still, I’d rather not take the chance.

“Okay then, wolf-man, let’s get going.”  I waved the waitress over for the bill as he finished in one huge bite.  I waited impatiently as he paid and she flirted.  Now that he’d admitted what I already knew—they would be waiting for us—I wanted to get going.  With relief, I walked out the restaurant door.

“Tired?” he asked before we reached the bike.

“No,” I lied.  After a day on the bike, I was ready for bed even without the pull of waiting dreams, but I didn’t want to delay getting to the Compound.

He turned to glance at me and only shook his head, not believing me.  “We can’t go far with you tired.”

“And if we take too long to get there, it will only be worse.”  I’d had enough creatures flying out of the trees at me.  I didn’t want to give them extra time to gather.

“I could call Gabby and let her know.”

“No, we don’t know who is betraying us.”

“You think she would?” he settled on the bike and fully turned toward me tilting his head to study my expression.

“No, she wouldn’t.  At least, not purposely.  But, who does she believe she can trust?  She could say something to the wrong person.  If we stayed on our own, we might actually make it to the gates of the Compound.”  I swung my leg over the back and settled behind him offering the strap. “I’ll do my best to stay awake,” I promised.

Chapter Ten

Birdsong and sunlight drifted along the spring breeze that teased my hair.  My hair, not someone else’s or a past me.  I recognized where I stood.  It was the meadow of my others dreams.  Only, the great stone monoliths had aged and weathered to stunted broken pillars.  Was this then a real dream, pointless and meant to be forgotten as soon as I woke? Unsure, I waited for the Taupe Lady to appear.

Nothing moved in the open field surrounding the stones.  I turned in a slow circle.  The dream felt empty, a shadow of what it should be if it were a memory.  Yet, real dreams, the pointless kind, were so rare now.  I couldn’t believe this was one of them.

“We need to talk,” I called out. I wanted to shout my questions and make threats, mostly just to vent, but I held it all in hoping she would come to me if I was nice.

The wind carried her answer to me.  “My daughter.  Your path is your own to choose.  I can influence it no more than I have already done.  Remember,” she whispered.  “Dream.”

The dream shifted.

I sat on a bed covered with a light pink quilt and squeezed the teddy bear in my arms as I listened to the footsteps pause outside my door.  Using my sight, I checked everyone’s location in the house.

Justin had come home for winter break just tonight.  I hadn’t met him before but had talked to him on the phone.  He’d been so nice to me.  His mom usually fostered two kids at a time.  They had the room, she’d said, in their hearts and in their house.  I’d hoped it would be different here.  The other foster girl with me didn’t really like me, but the other girls usually didn’t.  Justin, though, had seemed so nice.  I’d hoped he would just stay away at school.