Page 21 of Jacob Michaels is Trouble

Oma went about pushing the chairs in around the table after I had centered it back in the kitchen. Jason watched us cautiously from his position backed up against the kitchen sink. Apparently, he thought he could escape down the drain if the two of us decided to throw a bit of magic his way again. As far as I was concerned, he had been lucky that neither of had decided to just burn the whole house down out of frustration. Neither Oma nor I had dependable temperaments, so a ball of fire being slung around the kitchen for nothing more than a table being flipped was not out of the question.

“Acted like you was auditioning for The Real Housewives of Toledo, flippin’ my table like that,” Oma grumbled as she lowered herself back into her chair. “You’re damn lucky you ain’t hurt nothin’. This table and these chairs are worth more than twenty of you. And your pack.”

Jason’s Adam’s Apple bobbed as he just stared at her.

“Come sit down.” I sighed as I lowered myself into the chair across from Oma. “We probably won’t hurt you.”

“To Hell.” Oma snorted. “He flips one more thing, and I’m gonna flip my chicken.”

Jason blinked at Oma, confused, then looked over at me. I shrugged.

“Old people are folksy,” I said. “Or so I’ve been told.”

“Sit the hell down already!” Oma boomed, nearly coming out of her seat with frustration. “If one of us has to tell you again—”

Jason scuttled over—which was quite a feat for someone of his build and ego—and sat down in the chair to my right again.

Stupid, stupid werewolf.

“Anyone need more coffee?” Oma barked, her eyes on Jason, then me.

“I could use a cup,” I said. “Jason?”

He shook his head jerkily.

Oma got up from her seat, the legs squealing against the floor again, and she set about the task of getting two fresh mugs of coffee for her and me. The three mugs that had been toppled in our little scuffle had somehow found their way into the sink. The coffee that had been inside of them had been cleaned up as well. Either the Kobolds were quicker than even I knew—and even better at making themselves invisible—or Oma had used a few tricks of her own. Either way, fresh coffee had to be poured for the two of us.

“So,” I started as Oma busied herself at the coffee pot, “how do you know about the man in the black hood? And don’t say his name. Unless you want to see him again. Real soon.”

Jason swallowed hard again.

“I don’t know him,” Jason stated finally. “I just, well, he came to me once. In a dream.”

“That’s how he usually travels,” I stated blandly.

“He likes flair.” Oma deadpanned from across the room.

Jason glanced at her before his eyes landed on me again.

“He…he just came to me in a dream.” Jason shook his head, his eyes closing tightly as though trying to drum up an old, painful memory. “Once. I never saw him again after that. But…once was enough.”

Oma had finished pouring fresh mugs of coffee for her and me and was standing next to the counter, both mugs in hand, staring across the kitchen at the man we had just tag-teamed in the world’s quickest fight. Examining Jason, I could tell that he wasn’t lying—and he hadn’t been lying just so we would let him loose from being trapped by the table. Something in his eyes let me know that he had seen the man in the black hood and it had stayed with him ever since. Even without his past memories—what had happened the night the man in the black hood had disappeared—hadn’t erased the memory of the man. Something like that just stays with a person.

I found myself wondering what my options were in discussing everything with Jason so openly. As things stood, he was still an enemy to Oma, Lucas, and me. He may have hidden the bodies of the two werewolves who had attacked Lucas and me the night before, but he had done so with the intent that we would owe him for that service. Altruism had not been his intention when he had offered to help us out of our mess. Additionally, there was still the matter of things Jason had said to me when I had been at his house alone. Obviously, there was some…sexual tension…at least on his part, between the two of us. I hadn’t been candid with Lucas and Oma about what had happened at Jason’s house.

Furthermore, even if there was some other pack of wolves that the black-hooded man had been referring to—it wasn’t Jason’s pack he controlled after all—that presented another question. Why had Jason and his pack been at Oma’s house the night the black-hooded man had attacked a decade previously—the night I managed to pull a metaphorical rabbit out of my metaphorical ass? That couldn’t have just been coincidental. Had Jason and his pack decided that they were tired of Lucas refusing their offers to let him join their pack? Would things have been different if they had known that Lucas could never turn into a werewolf?

Was that even true?

Was I choosing to believe a lie Lucas made up?

Or maybe it was a lie he thought was the truth?

Would we really know the truth until we had lived through a few more moon cycles?

Question upon question began piling up in my brain, and none of them seemed close to having an answer. Being unable to talk too openly about the man in the black hood made things even more difficult. The fact that Oma and I had to be careful who we told anything to compounded that fact. Everything had changed since I had come back to Point Worth, yet everything was the same as it had been before I left Point Worth. A decade had not been long enough to truly change anything about the danger we found ourselves in by merely existing.

More disturbingly, I felt angry. All of the time. As I sat there looking at Jason and Oma in turn, all I could feel was frustration and anger at my present situation. Had I always been so angry, or just since I found out my life was not like other kids back when I was a teenager? Even though I had my memories back, none of them told me that I had felt perpetually angry before. Now, as an adult, and having returned to Point Worth, everything upset me. Of course, I conveyed that anger through removed indifference…but it was there. Just bubbling under the uppermost layer of who I was.