Wolfsong (31 page)

It was just missing the man himself.

But that was okay. He was busy now.

“Look what the
gato
dragged in,” Rico said.

They looked up.

I waved awkwardly.

They were on me before I could even take a step back.

They laughed. They held me. They rubbed their fingers over my head. Through my hair. Their arms went around my shoulders. They pressed their foreheads to mine. They told me I was a sight for sore eyes. That they’d missed me. That they were going to work me to the bone when I was ready.

I couldn’t find the words to say what I wanted. Sometimes, when your heart gets so full, it takes away your voice and all you can do is hold on for dear life.

I WALKED
home at dusk.

There was no one waiting for me on the dirt road.

I’d expected that.

But it still stung.

The fading sun shone through the trees.

I ran my hand through the tall grass that grew along the road.

I wondered where I was going.

What I was doing.

How long it would take before I could breathe freely again without this weight on my chest.

How long it would take before my pack wasn’t so fractured anymore.

How long before Joe would talk to me again.

To any of us, really.

I wondered many things.

I stopped in front of my house.

My
house. Not the one at the end of the lane.

I stared up at it.

I told myself to keep walking.

To go to the Bennetts. To stay there like I’d been doing for the past week.

I needed to check on them. To make sure they were okay. To make sure they had eaten something, at the very least. I couldn’t let the wolves go hungry.

So imagine my surprise when I found myself at my own front door, my hand hovering above the knob. I told myself to walk away.

I put my hand on the doorknob and twisted.

It didn’t move.

I didn’t understand.

And then I realized it was
locked
, and we
never
locked the door. Not even after my father left because
we had no reason to
. We lived in the country. The house at the end of the lane had been vacant, and then it had been inhabited by wolves. There had been no
crime
, there had been no
monsters
to come out of the forest at night.

Not before.

It was change and my hand shook with it.

I didn’t have my keys. I didn’t know where they were. I never
needed
—

We’ll put it here
, my mother whispered.
In case you ever need it.

The spare.

She’d put a spare key under the porch, hidden underneath a rock.

She’d shown me one day when I was nine. Maybe ten.

I was down the porch and reaching under it before I had another thought.

I couldn’t find the rock. Dead leaves and spiders, yes, but not the
fucking rock
—

My knuckles rapped against stone.

I pulled it out of the way. It fit in my hand the same way the one in the forest had. The one I’d struck Richard with. It—

There was no key.

I took a breath.

Shook my head.

Looked again.

It was there. Just a little bit in the dirt. A potato bug lay curled against it, shell shiny and gray.

I took the key and realized the last person to touch it had been my mom.

Dad had never used it. He never needed it. If he came home late, stumbling out of his truck, lost in a fog of beer, the door had always been open.

I’d never used it. I came home from school. From work. From the library. From a walk in the woods where I’d felt Thomas’s territory humming through my veins.

She’d been the last one to touch this key.

I remembered the day I’d held my own work shirt for the first time, my name embroidered in careful stitches.

I remembered the first time I’d held Joe’s hand, the little tornado who said I smelled of pinecones and candy canes. Of epic and awesome.

This felt just as important.

I climbed the steps again to the house.

I put the key into the lock.

The tumblers clicked.

I twisted the key.

I pressed my forehead against the wooden door and breathed it in.

The light was fading behind me. Shadows were stretching.

I took the key from the lock and put it in my pocket to keep it safe.

I turned the doorknob and opened the door. It creaked on its hinges.

The shadows were deeper in the house. I took a step and was
assaulted
with the smells of home, of furniture polish and Pine-Sol. Of spring flowers and autumn leaves. Of sugars and spices. It smelled
warm
, but it was there, wasn’t it? That odor of greasy pennies, undercurrent to the smell of
home
. Because this
wasn’t
a dream. I could feel the pain in my chest so surely that I
knew
.

I closed the door behind me.

It was dark in the house.

I was going into the kitchen. Or upstairs. To her room. Or my room. I needed new clothes. I’d been wearing Carter’s for the last week, and even though I smelled like
pack
, I needed to smell like
me
. It was a plan. A good one. I’d go upstairs and get a change of clothes, a
few
changes, and then I’d—

I was in the living room.

I was told how it would be.

One of the strange wolves had told me.

He’d said, “I’m sorry. We tried. We tried to clean it as much as we could. But the… it soaked. Into the wood on the floors. It—”

It was there. A dark stain, the edges of which were ragged. It had been scrubbed. It had been power washed. It had been
scraped
. But they couldn’t get it all.

My mother’s blood had soaked into the bones of the house.

But that was only fair. Because she was part of it. This was
her
home and she had
died
—

I was out on the front lawn, on my hands and knees, retching into the grass. The bile splashed hotly against my hand, near my thumb. I croaked out a wet moan, a string of saliva hanging from my bottom lip.

In some distant thought, I felt a
ping
of fear.

There was a roar, much deeper than I’d ever heard it before.

That
ping
became a
clamoring
.

I heard the breath of a large animal.

The sounds of great paws upon the earth.

He was there as I retched again.

There was the snap and creak of bone and muscle and then Joe was before me, hands frantic, rubbing down my back and arms, as he said, “
Ox
.”

“Joe,” I groaned, spitting away the bitterness in my mouth. “It’s fine, it’s fine, it’s
fine
—”

“I could feel it,” he said, voice cracking. “Through everything. In the house it’s hard to see because
everyone
feels the same way. It’s over
everyone
. But then you weren’t there and I couldn’t remember where you were and I
felt
it. It was like being stung on every part of me. I could always feel it before, but nothing like this. There has never been
anything
like this. Like
you
.”

“I don’t—”

“This must have been what he felt like. My dad.
All the time
. Because you’re mine—my pack. It’s…
Ox
. It’s so big, I don’t know what to
do
with it.”

And it was weird, hearing him like that again after a week of near silence. Because he sounded like he did when he was a kid, just a kid who hadn’t spoken in fifteen months and who had climbed me like a tree to demand to know what that smell was. It righted me, barely, but somehow.

He was quiet as I rocked back on my feet and tried to catch my breath. His hand was in mine, not caring that it was sweating and bile-slick.

He said, “Why did you go in there?”

I looked up at the sky. Night was overtaking day. It was orange and red and violet and black stretching above us. I saw the first hint of stars. The first slight curve of the moon.

“I had to,” I said. “I found the key and I had to.”

“You can’t go in there alone.”

“It’s my
house
.”

Joe’s eyes flashed. “I am your Alpha.”

And there was a tremor that rolled through me at the redness in his eyes, a need to bare my neck and
obey
, a whisper that grew into a storm. It yanked at the thread that connected us until I was
shuddering
with it, until I had to grind my teeth together just to fight it back. I closed my eyes and waited for it to be over.

It didn’t last long. Because Joe pulled it back.

He said, “Oh fuck. I’m sorry. I’m
so sorry
.” His eyes were wide and he looked so impossibly young.

“Don’t do that to me,” I said hoarsely. “Ever again.”

“Ox, I. We—I didn’t mean it. Okay? I swear to you, I didn’t mean it.”

He squeezed my hand so hard I thought my bones would break.

“I know,” I said. Because I did. That wasn’t who he was. None of this was who we were. Everything was so fucked. “I know.”

He looked miserable, this seventeen-year-old kid who now had everything resting on his shoulders. But there was anger in him too, low and pulsing, and I didn’t know how to stop it. Mostly because it resembled my own.

He said, “You can’t go back in there. Not by yourself. Not until we—”

“You can’t fix this,” I said as kindly as I could. “Not now.”

He flinched away, but I held on to his hand.

“Ox, I—”

“I didn’t mean it like you think.”

“You… you don’t know what you mean.”

“Maybe. I don’t know. Everything is weird right now.”

“I know.”

“But we’ll fix this.”

“I know.”

“We will,” I insisted.

He looked away. “We need to talk, Ox. I’ve… made a decision. About this. About everything. I need you to…. We just have to talk, okay?”

And I felt cold.

WE STOOD
in Thomas’s office. All of us in the pack. It was the first time the wolves had all been human at the same time since the night Richard came. The fact that we all stood together was not lost on me, especially since Gordo was with us too.

Gordo, who apparently had a place in the pack now. Something had happened the night Thomas died, something that bound him to the Alpha, just like the rest of us. I didn’t know if it was his magic, the changing of the Alpha, or a combination of both. Gordo wouldn’t talk about it. In fact, none of them would talk about it.

I thought there was a very real chance they all knew what this was about except for me.

Elizabeth looked pale and wan, an afghan wrapped around her shoulders.

Carter and Kelly were frowning, standing side by side near Joe.

Mark was looking out the window, arms across his chest.

Gordo leaned against the far wall, staring down at his hands.

Joe sat behind his father’s desk. He looked like a child playing grown-up.

And there was me. In-the-dark me.

No one was talking.

So I said, “What did you do?”

All gazes snapped to me, but I only had eyes for Joe.

He sighed. “We’re leaving.”

“What? When?”

“Tomorrow.”

“You know I can’t leave yet,” I said. “I have to meet with Mom’s lawyer in two weeks to go over her will. There’s the house and—”

“Not you, Ox,” Joe said quietly.

I froze.

“And not Mom. Or Mark.”

My skin buzzed.

He waited.

“So it’s you,” I said slowly, not quite sure I understood. “And Carter. Kelly.”

“And Gordo.”

“And Gordo,” I repeated flatly. “Where are you going?”

“To do what’s right,” he said, his eyes never leaving mine. There was something building here, something between the two of us, and it wasn’t good. None of it was good.

“Nothing about this is right,” I said. “Why didn’t you tell me about this?”

“I’m telling you now.”

“Because
that’s
the right—where are you going?”

“After Richard.”

I should have expected that.

I didn’t.

It hit me like a hammer to the chest.

“Why?” I choked out.

“Because he took from us,” Joe said, hands curling into fists. “He took from us, all of us. From me. From
you
. You
told
me that we needed to—”

“I was
angry
,” I cried at him. “People say things when they’re
angry
.”

“Well I still am! And you should be too. Ox, he—”

“And what do you think you’re going to do?” I asked him. “What do you think could possibly happen here?”

“I am going to hunt him down,” Joe said, claws popping. “And I am going to kill him for everything he’s taken from me.”

“You can’t divide the pack,” I said, sounding rather desperate. “Not now. Joe, you are the goddamn
Alpha
. They need you here. All of them.
Together
. Do you really think they’d agree to—”

“I already told them days ago.” He winced. Then, “Shit.”

The buzzing intensified. “You did what.”

I looked at each of them in turn.

Carter and Kelly were staring at the floor.

Mark and Elizabeth met my gaze. Elizabeth’s eyes were dull and muted. Mark looked harder than I’d ever seen him before.

And Gordo. He—

“Ox—” Gordo started.

“No,” I snapped. “I’ll deal with you later.”

He sighed.

I looked back at Joe. He looked stricken but resolute.

“That’s it, then.”

“Yes.”

“You’re just going to go after him.”

“Yes.”

“You’re going to hunt him down.”

“
Yes
.”

“And leave the rest of us here to… what? Wait for you? To hope that he doesn’t kill you? To hope he doesn’t come back here where you’ve left us unprotected? Is that what an Alpha does?” I didn’t mean to say that last part. It just came out. And I saw the hurt on Joe’s face before he carefully slid his face into a blank expression. He’d never done that to me before. Hidden himself away. We were open with each other. Always. Until this last week, when he’d apparently kept secret far more than I thought he was capable of.