Under My Skin (Wildlings) by Charles de Lint Read Free Book Online Page B

for confirmation and I give a reluctant nod.
    " Seriously ?" she says.
    "No, we're making it up," Desmond tells her. "Of course, seriously."
    "Are we're talking about the same—"
    "Big black dude who sits out at the picnic tables all day?"
    "But— why ?"
     She turns to me again and I see the concern in her eyes.
    "It was cool," I tell her. "I don't know why he decided to quiz me about us. Maybe he just wanted a little dose of that celebrity buzz you were talking about."
    "Ha ha."
    I'm still freaked about the whole mountain lion business—come on, who wouldn't be?—and I hate all the attention I'm getting, but the thing that bugs me the most right now is how I have to lie to my friends. Nobody can stop me from sharing my own secrets, but I can't, in good conscience, share someone else's.
    Something stirs in my gut and it takes a moment before I realize it's the part of me that's a mountain lion. I resent Chaingang for putting me in this position and the mountain lion wants to take it out on him.
    Marina puts a hand on my arm. "Are you okay?"
    And that's enough to ground me.
    "Yeah. I'm fine."
    "Because you had this intense look in your eyes …"
    I shrug. "It's been a really stressful morning."
    She holds my gaze for a long moment, then finally nods.
    "No surprise there," she says. "You should have come out with me this morning."
    "It wouldn't have helped," Desmond says. "He'd just have spent the whole time looking out for guys in black bathing suits."
    I go to punch him in the shoulder but he pulls back out of range.
    "Seriously, dude," he says. "You ought to blow off the rest of the day."
    I shake my head. "The last thing I am today is anonymous. They'd know I was skipping and I don't need detention on top of everything else."
    "You could go to the office," Marina says. "I betthey'll understand if you need more time to deal with this."
    "No, I just need to get through the day. I want things to go back to normal and that's not going to happen if the school decides to start treating me with kid gloves."
    "Yeah, they'd probably make him go see Ms. Chandra," Desmond says, "and she'll want him to talk about his feelings ."
    "Probably. She already stopped me in the hall on my way to calculus."
    The bell rings for us to go back to class. Marina and I have study period, so we head off to the library while Desmond goes to English. We get our usual table at the far end of the room, except I take the chair Marina normally does so that I can look out the window. I don't like having my back to doors or windows anymore.
    "Desmond doesn't get it yet," Marina says.
    She leans forward over the table, pitching her voice low so that the librarian won't come over to shush us. The mountain lion lets me smell the salt in her hair.
    "He hasn't really thought it through," she adds. "You know, how huge a change this is and how you have to work through a few things."
    "I know."
    I glance down the row of tables along the window and see Rachel Armstrong sitting with some of her friends. She looks away quickly and I realize she's been staring at me. I've had a huge crush on her since the school year started and didn't think she even knew who I was. But I guess everybody does now. The trouble is, it's for all the wrong reasons.
    Marina rolls her eyes when she notices.
    "Forget Ms. Chandra," she says. "Maybe you should talk to Rachel about your feelings ."
    "Shut up."
    But that only makes her smile and shake her head.
    "Desmond's right," she says. "You're way too easy to tease these days."
    "It's just—I feel like my life's falling to pieces around me. Like I don't have any control over anything anymore."
    That stops the teasing.
    "I know," she says. "But he's partly right, too. You can't change what's happened. So maybe it's time you embraced it."
    "What? Like change into a mountain lion and go racing through the halls?"
    "Don't be an idiot. I just mean that all we seem to hear about with the Wildlings is the negative stuff."
    "Because that's all