Free Back to You by Sia Wales Page A

to listen to it all the time when he slept in the storeroom.
    Vuk is examining the long, black box. After a second, he recognizes the stereo as well. I’m not put out when he makes a comment about the hole gaping from the top of the stereo, a nest of wires spilling from it.
    “What have you done to this? The radio is broken.”
    “Yes,” I reply.
    He pokes at the hole.
    “Someone must have dropped it, it’s badly busted.”
    “It was me,” I confess. “I couldn’t get it out of the socket.”
    “So you tortured it?”
    “You know how I am with these things. It was an accident.”
    He looks doubtful, and I’m sure he thinks I did it on purpose. But then he laughs.
    “You’d better not touch my second present then.”
    “I’ll look after it,” I reassure him and put the CD in my pocket.
    We don’t talk for a few moments. I hear his breathing, mingled with the sounds from the stage and the wind that rages outside.
    The images of my hands ripping through the plastic of the stereo, my fingers dripping with blood, race through my mind.
    “Things ain’t great, eh?” Vuk’s voice is dismal, and I hear the click of the lighter and his breath as he takes a hit from a cigarette.
    “It won’t always be like this. But you should quit smoking,” I whisper, my voice breaking, as tears begin to form in my eyes.
    “Forgive me. It’s my other addiction.” He looks relieved; my words seem to have soothed him.
    “This is called blackmail!” I act wounded.
    Vuk inhales on his cigarette deeply, a perfect smile spreads on his lips.
    “No. I just asked you to forgive me.”
    “I do forgive you. Almost”
    He doesn’t look too happy mumble something under his breath.
    “Apology accepted, but now put out that cigarette. Whoever heard of a wolf smoking?” I exclaim. I want him to quit. Really, I hold nothing against him. When he did what he did, he was out of his mind, that’s all. I’m to blame; I insisted on staying with him on the night of the full moon.
    “I’m a werewolf, little girl, it’s different,” Vuk sighs. “I’m not a man, but I can’t turn into a wolf like my brother Doctor.”
    He shakes his head, as if to stop himself.
    “At least, not yet, and maybe I never will. That’s why my eye color changes, it’s as unstable as my nature, halfway between man and wolf.”
    “You’re a tough werewolf, Vuk. You can do it, you’ll see.”
    He holds back a smile.
    “Thanks, Stella, but there are cases in my family of wolves with the same congenital defect. That’s why my father, who is not superstitious at all, called me wolf twice. To try to ward off the defect…” His emerald eyes seem to be reliving a memory from the distant past.
    “What do you mean, he called you wolf twice?”
    “In Serbo-Croatian, Vuk means wolf. Then there’s my surname, Vuk Wolf’––two times a wolf.” He purrs each word. “When Doctor, my brother, found out, he took it badly.” Vuk laughs. “I wish I’d gotten a normal name!”
    Another song ends and Vuk looks out the door. Then he turns back to me, anxiously awaiting my reaction.
    “I think it’s a nice name.”
    He relaxes and shakes his head, a strange look on his face. “Anyway, little girl, you’re lights went out completely that night. You’ve forgiven me, I know,” Vuk smiles. “And when I quit smoking, you’ll have pardoned me for everything. In every way possible. But for now, let’s just start anew.”
    He stubs out the cigarette under his shoe and throws it in the trash. Then he slips his arms around me again and brings his lips to my ear.
    “I want you to be the same as you were before,” he whispers. His emerald eyes bore into me, but his thoughts have been distant for weeks now.
    “What are you thinking?”
    “About what’s right and what’s wrong.” A shiver runs through me when his teeth brush against my earlobes. I try to wriggle out of his warm embrace, but he pulls me closer and brings his eyes to within an inch of