Harlan eased up, knowing what his brother was saying was true.

“Noble gave you the chance to handle your problems yourself. Let’s let him do the same with this one.”

Harlan let out a sigh. “You’re right, of course. But what if Noble dies?”

Argus spoke to Harlan, but looked directly at Jake MacKinnon the entire time. His words were spoken matter-of-factly without the slightest hint of emotion. “If our brother dies because of the actions of this, this…creature, then we will make him pay for what he’s done.”

Harlan was satisfied with that.

Jake, on the other hand, seemed scared half to death.

Argus and Harlan headed down the hall toward the doors that led out of the school. In seconds the crowd had broken up, leaving a shaken Jake MacKinnon standing alone and looking for a friend.

“Nick? Noah?” he said aloud. “Where’d you guys go?”

A few moments later, Principal Terashita arrived on the scene. “What’s going on here? What happened? What did I miss?”

No one answered him, not even Jake MacKinnon.

* * *

As Tora, Argus, and Harlan stood outside the school waiting for the bus to take them home, they overheard some girls talking.

“Did you hear that Noble Brock got sick from some silver nitrate that Jake MacKinnon put in his drink?” one of them said.

“Silver nitrate?” said the other. “Silver’s the only thing that can kill a werewolf.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“Don’t you watch any horror movies?”

“No. Should I?”

“Silver’s always what gets the werewolf in the end.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

“Then maybe it’s true what Maria Abruzzo is saying about the Brocks…you know, about them being lie-can…”

“Lycanthropes?”

“Yeah, lie-can-thropes…Maybe it’s true.”

Tora felt sick to her stomach.

“Oh, hi Tora,” said one of the girls. “I didn’t see you standing there.”

Tora turned her back on the girls, hoping she wouldn’t cry.

Chapter 12

“Well, I guess it isn’t a myth, then,” said Ranger Brock as he sat at Noble’s bedside along with his wife, Phyllis, and the other members of the pack.

Noble was still in a lot of pain, and his body couldn’t decide on what form it should take, but he seemed to be getting better. He was eating now and could sit up in bed. But although he was on the road to recovery, he still had many miles to travel before he was feeling 100 percent.

“But if the myth is true, and any amount of silver is fatal, then why didn’t he die?” asked Harlan.

The ranger nodded. “Well, I think if it had been a bullet made of silver, or a silver dagger, I’m sure Noble—or any of you—would be dead right now.”