Here's chapter two! I know it's kinda short, but when I write shorter chapters I can get them out faster. Let me know if you like longer or shorter chapters.

HOWL

Chapter Two

I was driving home on autopilot when my phone rang. It scared me so bad that I bumped the curb and swerved around the road for a minute before realizing that it was only my phone, and not a brain-eating vampire. A car honked behind me and I resisted the urge to give them the finger. It wasn't my fault that I was extremely paranoid and irritable from my encounter with the so-called kidnappers. I mean, I could have been kidnapped. That's kind of traumatizing.

I fished my Nokia out of my purse and flipped it open. "What, Alex?" I snapped.

"Always pleasant to hear the sound of your voice, Cousin." A voice that could only be defined as arrogant and snarky came from the other end. My cousin Alex was not the number one person I wanted to talk to right now.

"What do you want?"

"Jeez Alena, did you forget your flea medicine again?"

"I'm going to hang up if you don't tell me --"

"Okay, okay. I was wondering if I could crash at your place tonight."

"Great job buttering me up, Alex. And you should ask my mom, not me." Of course, my mom would just about spoon-feed Alex if he asked, she loved him so much.

"Couldn't get a hold of her. So I take that as a yes?"

"Yeah, whatever. Listen, I have to talk to you about something later, alright?" I said quickly, under my breath. I really was feeling extra-cautious, and for some reason I didn't feel safe talking about Lorenzo over the phone.

"About what?" he asked, but I knew that I no longer had his attention. He got what he wanted. That was another reason why I had to talk to him in person about serious matters, or else I would never get a straight answer.

"I'll tell you later. Bye." I hung up and put my phone on silent to avoid any more distractions.

I sighed heavily and swiped my hand over my face. I was so confused. I wandered who the hell Lorenzo was and why did he send half-assed kidnappers after me? If he had warned the kidnappers about me, then he might know that I'm a werewolf. I wanted to believe that that was unlikely. My kind were very good at keeping our secret. Then again, if he did know that I was a werewolf he would have sent people a little more skilled in the art of kidnapping. Well, he did send a vampire. That was another thing that really unsettled me -- the vampire didn't do squat. He let me go. I didn't want him to get punished for being nice.

Whatever. I didn't want to deal with this right now. This was beyond my brain's thinking capabilities.

When I got home Alex's sporty red BMW was already parked in the driveway. Oh, no, he couldn't have gotten an old Honda Accord like me. He had to have the flashiest car within his price range (which was quite a large range, let me tell you.)

My watch said it was one in the morning, so I could safely assume that my mom was asleep and Alex… well, who knows what he would be doing. He probably already made himself at home in the guest room.

I had to disarm the security system before I went inside. I took care to turn it back on once I was safely in the entry way. There would be no Lorenzo cronies in my house tonight.

I went straight up the stairs, took a few turns to my bedroom, and flopped face down on my bed. That was exactly how I slept the rest of the night.

The next morning at breakfast I was forced to confront my mom. Before I made my way downstairs, I decided that I wasn't going to tell her about the night before. I didn't want her to worry and overreact, and I mean that in the nicest way possible. After the thing with my dad, my mom has since been prone to overreacting.

But as I made it downstairs the aroma of chocolate chip pancakes filled my nose. She was bribing me. Well, I wouldn't necessarily call it bribing because she had no way of knowing what events occurred last night. Unless Alex told her something, and if that was the case, then Alex was going to have some very dire consequences on my behalf.

Since I'm a werewolf, I have the appetite of a high school football player. I went through a stack of eight pancakes before my mom sat down across from me and folded her hands on top of the table. Her wide brown eyes bore into my face. Even though I kept my gaze fixed on my breakfast, I could feel a crater burning through my skull.

"You were out past curfew last night," she said, as though she were asking if I liked the pancakes.

"Yeah… um, sorry about that." I stuffed my mouth and chewed slowly and deliberately.

"Care to let your old mom know what you were doin'?"

"Oh, you know -- just the usual stuff that teenagers do."

She gave me a hard, knowing look. Every time she gives me that look its like my spine shrivels up and I'm about two feet tall and waning. "You mean like sneaking off to your fairy boyfriend and getting carried away?"

I almost let out a huge breath of relief. So that's what she thought I was doing. Not beating up kidnappers in an alleyway. My mom has such faith in me. I almost felt my eyes tear up at the thought.

I gave her the puppy eyes. Not hard to do, considering that I was actually a dog fifty percent of the time and I knew how to shift my eyes just right.

"Quit that, Al. You know its not good for you to shift in the daylight."

I sighed. She was right. Werewolves use loads more energy shifting in the daylight then at night when the moon was out. If there wasn't a moon then it was almost impossible to shift. I let my eyes go back to their normal blue.

"Do you know a man named Lorenzo?" I asked quickly. Asking didn't hurt, right? The worst she could say was no. And as much as I sometimes thought otherwise, my mom was pretty smart.

The fork she was holding up to her mouth dropped. She froze mid-bite. "Why are you asking, sweetheart?" her voice was breathy, as though she were trying to mask about fifty other emotions.

I shrugged. I tried to be nonchalant, but again, I was demanding. I had to know if my mom knew anything that would ease my nerves. "What do you know about him?"

She let out a shaky sigh. Her eyes met mine. It was almost like looking at a mirror sometimes. We had the same eyes, but where hers were a chocolate brown, mine were blue. We had the same face shape, the same honey blond hair. Sometimes I wondered if it would be the same if I looked at my dad. I haven't seen him in four years. His face didn't hold the same clarity in my head that it used to.

"Oh. Oh, no. Alena… please tell me you didn't meet with anyone that works for him last night," she said, her tone pleading.

I frowned. "Why? What's wrong with him?"

"He's like the boss of the supernatural mafia," a voice drawled from the kitchen. "Why do you wanna know, Cuz?"

Alex had a milk carton positioned over his mouth, but he quickly put it on the counter when I scowled at him. My mom would have a fit, and now was really not a good time. Any other time, sure, I would have loved to see Alex get lectured about the importance of using cups and hygiene. Considering he was a twenty-one year old party boy whose only authority in Chicago was my mom, that would have made it all the more better.

Anyway, I glanced back at my mom, who was still staring at me with wide, questioning eyes. She looked terrified out of her mind. "Mom? What's wrong? If he's like us, then I don't think there's a problem, right?"

Supernatural beings, or supes, usually stuck together. We didn't really turn against each other unless it was something personal. So if Lorenzo, even if he was in the mafia (I couldn't shake the Godfather image out of my head), if he was a supe then I should really have nothing to worry about. But he sent kidnappers after me… I bit my lip and pondered for a minute.

"Uh, Alex? Is Lorenzo a supe?"

"Nah. He just likes to control them."

I crossed my arms tightly. "What, how? If he's just a human…"

Alex shrugged. He plopped down at the table with a plate piled with food, which included raw bacon and a stack twice of size of my pancakes.

"What happened last night, Alena?" asked my mom, sounding a tad frantic.

I sighed slowly. Might as well tell her. "Lorenzo sent some guys after me. But don't worry, they're taken care of." I spoke quickly, hoping she wouldn't catch what I was saying.

"No, no, no…" She got up from the table and started pacing around the kitchen. "I'll have to call Bobby and see if… well, maybe he wouldn't want too… but if it's my daughter, then he won't mind…"

I scowled as my mom talked nonsense to herself. She was a kook, but usually there was a reason for her madness. Now was not one of those times.

Alex was pointedly not looking my way, to which I found aggravating. "So how did you sleep last night, Cuz?" I asked, picking a piece of raw bacon off Alex's plate and swallowing it in one bite. Werewolves loved raw meat.

My mom came back to the table. Her face was devoid of any color, pale as milk. "You're going to your uncle Bobby's house in Texas."

"Why?" Both Alex and I exclaimed in unison. I glared at him.

"You don't have to go to your parents house, Alex," my mom told my cousin reassuringly. My uncle Bobby and aunt Linda were Alex's parents, but they've been in a feud since he was eighteen. "Alena, on the other hand…" she sighed tiredly. "You have no choice. That's the only safe place for your right now. I have to call Bobby and get you there as soon as we can."

Please review, constructive critisism is welcome (: