Amber Silverblood: Silverpack

Chapter Twenty Five

"Amber? Hello? Earth to Amber!"

Stacey tapped my cheek with one of her pointy purple nails, and I sluggishly turned my head to look at her.

"What do you want?" I asked.

Stacey jerked her finger back, her eyes widening with surprise. "Well, excuse me, princess! I just thought you looked like crap, and felt like I ought to ask what's wrong."

I groaned and rubbed my temples. "I do feel like crap," I answered.

She huffed and crossed her arms. "Well, now I do too. I want an apology."

I sighed. "Do I have to?" When she turned her nose up at me, I rolled my eyes and said, "You have my sincerest apologies, Princess Purple. Will you forgive me for my most egregious transgression?"

That gave her pause. "Well, now that's more like it," she decided. "Princess Purple... I like it. From now on, I want you to address me by my full title."

"Don't count on it," I said, and turned to look out the bus window at the white landscape flashing past.

"What does 'egregious' even mean?"

"No idea. I think I heard it on TV once."

"Sure you didn't hear it at your LARP?"

I frowned and gave her a sharp look, and she smiled coyly. "What? I'm just saying that sounds like a word people would use when they're running around whacking each other with foam swords, pretending to be knights and crap."

I rolled my eyes. "Whatever."

Whether by luck or fate, my trip to town had been on a Friday night, which meant I'd had two whole days to rest after that little adventure. I'd spent almost all of it sleeping and avoiding Stark. He hadn't forced me to interact with him after his big reveal that morning, and I was only too happy to oblige. I wasn't angry at him, not really. I was... I'm not really sure how I felt. I wanted to be mad at him, I knew that much, but, well, things hadn't really changed, had they? I'd come to terms with being a werewolf months ago, so how mad could I be?

At the same time, though, he hadn't told me. I'd been living with him for over two months, and I'd been accepting help from him for even longer than that, and never once had he seen fit to tell me that he was the cause of everything that had happened. That everything I was going through was his fault. I mean, I understood why he hadn't told me. He probably thought I'd hate his freaking guts if he told me. Why open that can of worms if he could help it? That didn't make me okay with it, though.

So I'd spent the entire weekend refusing to be in the same room as him. I hadn't told my mom what he'd said, but the sympathetic looks she kept giving me made me think he'd told her himself. How did she feel about it, I wondered? He wasn't just some kind old werewolf who'd taken us in off the streets anymore, he was the one who had stolen her daughter's humanity.

Worse than that, he'd killed her husband... and my father.

I may not have been mad at him for biting me, but I sure as hell could be mad at him for that. And I was. A deep, dark anger had sprung up inside me, burning in my chest like fire. I could forgive him turning me into a monster. I could forgive him getting me caught up in this ridiculous adventure. I could even forgive him for putting my mom in danger, since she'd come away from it no worse for wear... mostly. What I couldn't forgive him for, not now, not tomorrow, not ever, was taking my dad away. I clenched my fist around my jeans-covered leg, my nails threatening to pierce straight through the fabric and then the skin beneath. I forced myself to let go, not wanting to draw attention to myself by bleeding on the bus. I already had enough unwanted attention.