By ten in the morning, Jason had had enough of Christa waking him every hour to ensure his head injury wasn’t worse than they thought. Even though his bed was nice and soft and warm, he had to face that he had to call the Chief before the man became too impatient and called him. He’d have a great deal of difficulty explaining how his adopted father had learned of his injuries to his housemates.

He slowly got out of bed, expecting to be sore from head to foot, but surprisingly, his shoulder felt fine, his wrist was only a dull ache, and head only hurt if he touched the area of the stitches.

He looked in the wall to wall bathroom mirror, turning sideways to get a look at the bruises that had marred his left side. Instead of being black and blue, the bruises were a pale shade of the greenish yellow it normally took a week or more to get to. He’d have to make sure he kept his shirt on and didn’t allow anyone to try and take a look at him. His implant seemed to be working just fine.

He closed the door on his side of the buddy bathroom he shared with Tiko and Angie. It was understood, if their door was closed, only the person in that bedroom could open it. The werewolves might not have a problem with nudity, but he didn’t share their easiness with it. Sharing one bathroom with four brothers wasn’t a problem, but adding Princess to the mix had turned all of them into prudes. His bedroom door was already closed, so he locked it to keep Christa from walking in, as she had been doing.

Christa had brought his backpack up sometime during the night and placed it beside the bed. The shirt and jacket he had been wearing when Taylor attacked him were folded on top of it, now clean. Someone had washed them.

He sat down on the bed and reached down, lifting the clothes, laying them down on the bed and then lifted the backpack. He set it on the bed beside him, opening the small side panel where he kept his cell phone.

He pulled it out and stared at it for a moment. What was he going to tell the Chief? He’d been too tired to think about it until now.

With his luck, if he tried to lie, Keyop would let slip everything he’d seen in Danse Macabre and Mark would hold it over his head forever. He might as well come clean and accept the consequences.

Jason took a deep breath and blew it out, hitting the speed dial for the Chief’s office rather than the family line. He didn’t want to talk to any of his siblings.

The Chief picked up on the fourth ring and Jason found his mouth dry. He had to swallow before he could speak.

“Hey, Chief,” he said, trying to keep the nervousness out of his voice. It actually galled him that he suddenly felt like an eight year old caught with his hand in the cookie jar.

“Good morning,” the Chief responded in a voice too cheery for Jason’s liking. Had Keyop already squealed? “How are you feeling?” Jason’s embarrassment came back tenfold and he could feel his lips going up in a smirk.

“Like an idiot. I’m really sorry.”

“Mark refused to tell me what happened.” Jason laid back down, grinding his teeth. Nothing like cutting to the chase.

“I thought you’d better hear this from me.” Jason proceeded to tell him most of what happened, but left out that his housemates were werewolves.

Anderson listened, staying silent until Jason stopped. The man was analyzing everything he’d said, picking it apart in his mind. Jason stared at the ceiling, waiting for the inquisition to begin.

“Are you sure you’re all right?” the Chief asked. Jason was so surprised by the question, it took him a moment to answer.

“I think so,” he told him. “Everything works.”

“Any double vision? Nausea?”

“Last night, for a little while, but by the time I got back to the house, I was okay. I guess the implant kicked in. I was exhausted.”

“You’re positive you didn’t get scratched or bitten?” The concern in the Chief’s voice surprised him.

“I think I would have felt it if he bit me. He only grabbed my right leg and I’ve gone over it several times. No marks.”

“You have no idea how lucky you were.” Lucky? Jason’s mind returned to the thoughts he’d had when Taylor had first started to change.

“No thanks to you keeping us in the dark.” As soon as he said it, he grimaced. Mark was always telling him that when he was angry, he had to wait until the connection between his mouth and brain was working to speak. Tact was not his forte.

“Excuse me?” The Chief asked in surprise.

Jason rolled his eyes. He’d already stepped into it. He might as well finish it.

“It would have been nice to know werewolves can shift in thirty seconds,” he started. “It would have been nice to know they’re as fast as we are,” he almost added ’in Birdstyle’, but they were on the phone, not his bracelet. “It would have been nice to know they’re strong enough to bench press trucks!” He tried not to yell it, but dammit, it was ridiculous the Chief hadn’t trained them at all about the preternatural creatures in their world.

The Chief was silent, so Jason pressed on.

“And the vamps. Do you want me to tell you about the vamps?”

The Chief was still silent. Jason wasn’t sure if that meant he was shocked, contemplating an appropriate retort or just so angry he couldn’t speak.

“Chief?” Jason ventured after another minute of dead air. Had he lost the connection maybe? That did still happen with cell phones.

“You’re right.” Jason’s eyes bugged and he nearly fell off of his bed. The Chief was agreeing with him?

“Excuse me?”

“It was virtually impossible for all of you not to end up having to deal with a wereanimal or vampire at some point. I should have taught you about them.”

Now it was Jason’s turn to be struck silent.

“I’ll put some information together and share it with all of you. You can add what you’ve learned or correct anything I have wrong, based on your personal experience.”

“Uh…okay.”

“Is that satisfactory?” Jason again felt as he used to when he was a child and got in trouble, received his punishment, and was asked if he understood why he had gotten into trouble.

“Yeah. Sure. That’d be great.” Jason thought for a moment. “Uh, Chief? You might want to start by getting everyone blessed crosses and adding silver to certain items we have,” he suggested. To his surprise, the Chief laughed.

“We’ll make it standard issue. Jason, I am really glad you’re okay and I’m sorry if my lack of sharing certain information with all of you may have endangered your life.” The solumbness in his voice made Jason feel momentarily guilty for all of the bad thoughts he’d had about the Chief recently.

“I survived, Chief so I think you‘ve taught us well enough. Just get us the information and we’ll take it from there.”

“Mark said you need some more medication?” Anderson changed the subject. Jason nodded.

“Yeah.”

“Your last refill was supposed to last until you graduated.”

“I know, but I’ve been having a lot of headaches lately,” he admitted. He knew what was coming next. “I’ve been using the relaxation techniques. Sometimes they work, sometimes, they don’t.”

“It could be stress. I remember what it was like my senior year. Lots of reports and such.” Jason smiled a little. The Chief didn’t talk about his college days much.

“Maybe.”

“Just try to relax. Get enough sleep. Eat right--”

“Yes, sir,” Jason quipped with humor.

“I’ll have Sylvie call it in and you can pick it up tomorrow.”

“Thanks, Chief.”

They were both silent, so Jason sat up and rubbed his hand over his face.

“I better get going. I’ve got a class in an hour,” he said.

“Take it easy. Even though you feel fine, you still had a concussion. Give your eyes a day to rest. If you end up with any of the symptoms again, call immediately.”

“Okay.”

“I’ll send the information to your e-mail.”

“Okay. Bye.” Jason flipped the cell closed and stared at it for a moment. That had actually been easier than he’d thought.

The smell of cooking food suddenly caught his attention and his stomach growled. He glanced at his alarm clock and figured he had enough time to eat and shower. He climbed out of bed and dug through the drawer for clothes.