Inhuman Heritage by Sonnet O'Dell Page A

coat. I lay it over the banister doing a small spin. “But at least I am appropriately dressed.”
    “How long have you been drinking?”
    “Hmmm, for about twenty-four hours now.”
    “This is not good,” he said shaking his head. I smiled at him and he just shook his head some more. “You cannot go to meet them like this especially not smelling like that.” He walked to the telephone picking it up and I shrugged stepping into the living room. I flopped onto the couch and moved Sophie’s book out from under me, she was reading New Moon by Stephanie Meyer. I wondered if she was making werewolf comparisons. I could hear Simian on the phone and Sophie came back into the room smiling at me.
    “Can I get you something to drink, Cassandra?”
    “Scotch.”
    Simian slammed down the phone and came into the living room. He grabbed me by the elbow and made me get to my feet.
    “No scotch. Come with me,” he said dragging me towards the stairs. Sophie looked at him, he shook his head a little and she went out of sight. I pulled at his grip.
    “Simian, what are you doing? Let me go.”
    “What is wrong with you? You smell like a wino, what happened? Explain yourself.”
    “I can’t explain myself, because I am not myself you see,” I chuckled quoting C.S.Lewis’s, Alice.
    “This is not the time for levity.”
    I slammed my mouth tight shut as he dragged me into the upstairs bathroom. It was white tiled and gleaming. He opened the shower stall and let me go so he could roll up his shirt sleeves. I glared at him.
    “Take off your dress.”
    I cocked an eyebrow at him and took a step back. He pushed me down so that I fell onto the closed top of the toilet, then ripped my boots off my feet before pulling me back onto them. I smacked him hard with my fist and he winced.
    “Take off your dress.”
    “No. What the hell, Simian?”
    He growled, thrust me fully clothed into the shower cubicle and turned ice cold water on over me. I screamed. The ice water slapped all over my skin, forcing me to my knees, it felt like drowning in a frozen over lake. His hand turned the knob to the hot water, at first it was a relief then it was scorching and I screamed again. Then came the cold again and slowly the pleasurable hazy edge of alcohol pulled away from my memory. I grabbed my head. The shock of the cold and hot water to my system sent my stomach roiling and I shoved Simian away managing to stumble to the toilet in time to throw up in the porcelain bowl. My throat was raw as I leaned my face against the cool plastic of the seat rolling my eyes up to Simian.
    “You and I are no longer friends,” I groaned. He crossed his arms over his chest.
    “I will throw you back into that shower if I have to. I’ve dealt with enough newly turned wolves to know when someone has been pity drinking.”
    I closed my eyes, the smell rising up from beneath me making my stomach churn in an unpleasant way. I felt tears hot on my face, running down my cheeks and splashing in the water below. I was dripping wet and I could remember all the pain and all the hurt, it felt like being stabbed in the heart.
    “Cassandra,” said Simian squatting down next to me, “talk to me. I’ve never seen you this torn up.” Part of me, the part of me that knew my little pity bender has been wrong had been waiting for this, wanting this, for someone to call me on the carpet.
    “I’m cold,” I said shivering on the tiles. He stood grabbing a towel from off the back of the door and dropped it over me. I pulled the fluffy peach thing around me. It smelt like washing powder and shampoo, a very comforting scent.
    “You need to get out of those wet things. I’ll get Sophie to put them in the drier.” He gave me some privacy in which I slipped out of my wet things wrapping the towel around myself, knotting it at my breast. I flushed away what had been the contents of my stomach and washed my mouth out with some Listerine I found in the bathroom cabinet. I pushed the