by TJ Klune
The birds were gone.
I looked ahead.
The path through the trees was empty.
I looked to the right.
A white wolf, black on its chest and back.
I looked to the left.
A pure white wolf stood side by side with a black wolf.
Their eyes burned red, and I swore the black one had violet mixed in.
It wasn’t possible.
I ran.
Tree limbs slashed against my face, cutting into my skin. Blood began to fall even as the scrapes healed almost immediately. My glasses were knocked askew, and someone snarled in my ear, “Take those fucking things off. You don’t need them.”
I gasped as I stumbled, sure that a man, a gruff man, an angry man was standing next to me.
He wasn’t.
I was alone.
I sucked in a breath, trying to clear my head from a maelstrom of voices that spun furiously like a tornado. They were shouting at me, dozens of them, telling me to listen, that I needed to listen and it would all make sense, it would all become clear.
My chest burned as I took off again.
Someone was running next to me. A large blond man, a wicked grin on his face.
He said, “You think you’re faster than I am?”
I laughed. “I know I am.”
“Oh, you’re in for it now. You think you got this, Fontaine? I’m not going to go easy because you’ve got my brother wrapped around your finger. I’ll—”
I screamed in horror when he burst into a cloud of dust. It sprayed my face, and I—
I ran into the house I shared with Ezra.
It was empty.
No one was home.
I shut the door behind me, slumping against it.
Outside, something prowled back and forth on the porch.
Its claws clicked against the wood.
It snorted air out its nose.
And then it howled.
The house shook around me, the door vibrating against my back.
The song
(wolfsong)
was long and loud, and my bones quaked at the sound of it. I said, “No, please, please don’t do this, please don’t do this. Who are you? Who are you!”
The howl faded into nothing.
The house creaked and settled around me.
“I’m Robbie Fontaine,” I said to no one. “I’m the second to the Alpha of all. I am home. I am loved. I have many responsibilities. I live with my friend. He is—”
And they knew it. Your Alpha. Your witch. He took it from you.
I could only scream. “Get out of my head!”
I pushed myself off the door, storming down the hallway to my room. I looked around wildly, sure someone would be waiting for me, waiting to take all of this away, to make me sound, to make me whole, to put some sense back into the world around me.
There was no one there.
“Don’t you want to know what’s real?” I said with a grating laugh. “I can give that to you.”
Backpack hanging on the closet door.
I grabbed it and opened the closet.
I stuffed it with a pair of jeans. With socks. A couple of shirts. I pulled out the panel from the back of the closet. It broke in my hands. It didn’t matter. I grabbed the secret box and upended it into my backpack, spilling its contents inside.
My mother looked up at me from her driver’s license photo lying near a wolf of stone.
“Quiet as a mouse,” I told her.
She didn’t reply.
I zipped the bag closed. I lifted it up and over my shoulder. It was heavy against my back, grounding me. It felt like the only real thing in all this unreality.
I turned toward the door.
Ezra said, “Going somewhere?”
He stood hunched in the doorway. He looked tired. And sad.
“I need a break,” I said evenly. “I need to get away for a couple of days.”
“If you give me a few minutes, I can throw some things in a bag. We can go together.”
I shook my head. “No. It’s not—I need to do this. On my own. It’s important.”
“Why?”
“I need to clear my mind.”
“There’s nothing wrong with your mind, dear. There never has been. You’re just tired. Maybe you should get some rest.”
I laughed. “I don’t need any more rest. Look, I just want a couple of days, okay? I never ask for anything.”
“No. You don’t.” He looked like he was going to reach for me but thought better of it. His liver-spotted hand curled into a fist instead. He was shaking. I thought he was scared of me, but I couldn’t smell fear on him. “It’s the worst thing about you.”
“Then give me this. Just… let me go. For a little bit.”
“Where will you go?”
“Away.”
He sighed. “Would you hear me, dear?”
And it was so easy to say yes. So easy to say of course, of course I will hear you. Every part of me screamed to do just that. It rolled over me in a calming wave, and for a moment I thought how ridiculous I was being. I was in the middle of a breakdown, that much was clear, and here was this man, my friend, who wanted nothing more than to keep me safe. He loved me, and I loved him. I loved him.
I loved him.
And even as a sharp lance of pain pierced my skull, I said, “No.”
Silence fell between us, stretching until it was almost unbearable.
Then, “What?”
“No. Not this time. Not now. Just let me go. Please. That’s all I’m asking. Just let me go.”
“You’re scaring me, Robbie.”
I laughed. “You have no idea.”
“We need to fix this. We need to fix this together. I don’t know what’s going on in that head of yours, but I promise that I can help—”
“I don’t want you in my head,” I snapped at him. “I don’t want anyone in my head.”
I was surprised when he took a step back out of the doorway. “Fine. If that’s the way it is, then go. I don’t know what’s going on, but I won’t stop you. If this is something you need to do, then do it. I’ll make sure Michelle knows.”
I gripped the strap of my backpack tightly. “Thank you.”
He grabbed my bicep as I left the room.
I didn’t look at him.
He said, “Your home is here. It’s always here. Remember that. No matter what happens, I want you to remember what we have.”
I pulled my arm out of his hand. “I know. And it’s the best home that I’ve ever had. I’ll come back.”
“Oh, I know you will.”
I left him standing in the doorway.
I expected him to follow me.
He didn’t.
* * *
I stayed out of the compound, circling around it as I headed into town. I could hear the wolves laughing and shouting. I could hear the cubs screaming in happiness.
I pushed it all away.
The main road through Caswell was mostly empty on this Friday. The few businesses that we had were open. The marquee of the movie theater was lit up, lights flashing. Anyone passing through wouldn’t think twice about it.
There was a large garage next to the theater. Inside was a small fleet of vehicles.
I grabbed the keys for a compact car off the corkboard.
I shoved my bag into the back seat before climbing in the front.
I gripped the steering wheel, breathing in and out.
In and out.
“Okay,” I whispered. “Okay.”
I hit the clicker on the visor above my head.
The garage door opened.
Weak light spilled in, the rain lessening.
I turned the key in the ignition.
The car rumbled to life.
I gave myself one last chance.
One last chance to stop this.
One last chance to go back to the compound.
I gunned the engine.
It whined laughably.
I put the car into Drive and pulled out of the garage.
I headed south.
pack
Once, when I was just a cub, my father sat me in his lap.
He said, “There are things you don’t understand.”
He said, “Things that you’re too young to hear.”
He said, “But I need you to hear them anyway.”
I looked up at him with stars in my eyes. I loved him. He wasn’t like us, but he was my father, and it was all that mattered.
He said, “You have something in you. Something that will grow and grow and grow. It’s a bad thing. You have to fight it. You can’t let it consume you. It’s a monster, Robbie. And it will eat you if you let it. And then you’ll be the monster.”
I trembled in his arms. “I don’t wanna be a monster.”
He brushed my hair off my forehead. “I know. And I will do everything I can to make sure it never happens. But if it does… well.” He smiled. “We’ll worry about it then, won’t we? Can you keep a secret?”
I nodded. “Yeah. Tell me.”
He leaned over, his lips near my ear. He whispered, “There’s a monster inside all of us. But some of us learn to control it.”
* * *
The farther away I got from Caswell, the more it pulled in my head.
I was in Connecticut when I pulled over to the side of the road and vomited. I retched until I was dry-heaving, a thin line of noxious spittle hanging from my bottom lip. I spit as my stomach rolled.
The air was hot, rising from the black roadway in wavy lines.
I sat back in my seat, wiping my mouth.
“Fuck,” I muttered as I closed my eyes.
I allowed myself another minute before I closed the door and pulled back onto the road.
* * *
I slept that night near a field in a tiny village in Pennsylvania with the odd name of Bird In Hand.
I lay in the back seat, overwarm and aching, the moon and stars as bright as I’d ever seen them.
My sleep was thin and restless.
My mother was in the back seat with me, running her hands through my hair as I sounded out words from the book she’d given me. The pages in the book were filled with wild things, great and horrible beasts that raised their claws. I struggled with some of the words, but she helped me through them.
“Good,” she said into my hair. “You’re doing so good.”
She was crying.
When I looked up to ask her what was wrong, why she was sad, why she was blue, she wasn’t there.
I didn’t know if I was awake.
* * *
It was early evening when I found it.
As I saw the red wooden sign with LIGNITE in white, I knew.
Lignite was dead. It’d been dead for a very long time.
A few buildings remained, their bones nothing but piles of stone, a vague outline of what had once been.
The forest had overtaken it.
The trees were thick.
The road into Lignite was small and covered in potholes. I hadn’t seen another car in a long time.
I didn’t know where to go.
A bridge. Shannon had said there was a truss bridge, but I didn’t know what the fuck a truss bridge was. My phone was no help. I had no service. The GPS had cut out ten miles back, and I didn’t want to turn around. If I did, I thought I would keep driving.
I stopped the car on the side of the road near an old collapsed building. It was cooler than I expected it to be when I opened the door and got out of the car. An electric hum ran through my skin, and I fought the urge to shift. It felt safer.
“Hello?” I said.
My voice echoed around me, and it was as if the trees were greeting me.
Hello… ello… lo… lo… lo.
I was alone.
I closed the car door. The sound was startling in the great quiet.
I looked around, unsure of where to go.
Through the trees to my right, I thought I saw the flash of something in the failing sunlight. I walked toward it.
The trees felt different here, unclaimed.
This wasn’t wolf territory, or at least it wasn’t currently.
I growled at a rodent that skittered off through the forest.
The flash came again, brighter than it’d been before.
It looked metal.
I began to run.
I ran alone. No wolves.
It didn’t take long.
The bridge was as old and dead as the buildings. The struts below had turned brown with rust. The metal railings along the top were in better shape, though not by much. The trees around the bridge swayed in the cold breeze.
Before I stepped onto it, I hesitated. My shadow stretched out long in front of me, looking monstrous.
The pavement was cracked, the yellow dividing line faded into almost nothing.
The bridge groaned.
I didn’t look back.
I stepped onto the bridge.
Nothing happened.
I took another step. And then another. And then another.
In the middle of the bridge, the moon caressed my neck, prickling my skin.
“I’m here,” I said.
Nothing.
“I’m here.”
Nothing.
I raised my voice. “I’m here! Goddammit, you told me to come here, you told me to find you, and I’m here!” I spread out my arms as I spun in a slow circle. Above, the first stars were coming out, and the moon, the fucking moon was calling for me, saying i see you here you are you are here you are you are you are.
“What do you want from me? What more do I possibly have to give! Do you know what it took for me to get here? Do you? You’re all fucking with my head, and I won’t—”
“Robbie.”
I whirled around.
A young woman stood on the bridge. She looked wary, and she stepped no closer, but she was an Alpha, and I fought against the instinct to bare my neck to her.
“Who are you?” I asked harshly.
“Alpha Wells. Shannon. We spoke on the phone. Do you remember?”
I glared at her. “Of course I remember. You told me to get here. You sounded fucking nuts, but here I am. You said you had answers.”
She nodded. “I do. Though not all of them.”
“Malik,” I said suddenly, and she narrowed her eyes. “John. Jimmy. Those are the names you told me. Your pack.”
“Yes.”
“Where are they?”
Something complicated crossed her face, there and gone. “Why?”
“Is this a trap?”
“No, Robbie. It’s not a trap. Not for you, anyway.” She looked over my shoulder in the failing light. “Are you alone? Did you tell anyone you were coming here?”
“No.”
She cocked her head as she listened to my heartbeat. I bristled but said nothing. “Do you want to hurt me?”
That shocked me into laughter that echoed around us before I cut it off. “What? Why the hell would I want to hurt you?”
“I had to ask. To make sure you’re you.”
That discordant feeling returned, the divide in my head where things were real and unreal at the same time, separated by a thin veil made of glass. “Who else would I be?”
“A weapon,” she said quietly. “A monster capable of great harm. Savage. Fang and claw hell-bent on spilling as much blood as possible. Feral.”
I took a step back. “I’ve… never done that. I’ve never hurt anyone.”
(what are you doing
robbie
robbie
please don’t
please don’t do this
oh my god what’s wrong with you
you’re not
please please please i don’t want to die
please you’re hurting me robbie you’re hurting me
oh god no
no
let me go let me go LET ME GO LETMEGOLETME
)
The bridge creaked beneath my feet as more stars appeared. I tilted my head back, stretching my neck, barely holding the shift at bay.
“I’m not a monster,” I told the waning moon.
“We were wrong,” Shannon said as my eyes flooded with orange fire. “We thought… we thought we knew what had happened. In the compound. We were wrong. All of us. We made mistakes. And we suffered because of it. But it wasn’t as bad for us. Because we had each other. We’re pack. Even after all we’d lost, we’re pack. We’re together. But I understand loss. That void. Where something is taken. Torn away. I can only imagine what it must have been like for them.”
“Who?” I demanded, my voice a low growl, more wolf than man. “Who are you talking about? Why am I here? What have you done? I’m not a monster. I’m not a weapon. For fuck’s sakes, you’re describing an Omega. Can you see me? Can you see what I am? I’m a goddamn Beta!”
She said, “I thought I knew. What it meant to be Omega. What they were. I was wrong. Brodie showed me that. And I will never let him go.”
“I don’t know who you’re talking about.”
She smiled sadly. “I know. But you will. One day all will be well and we will live free and without fear.” Her eyes flooded with red. “I’ll fight for that with everything I have. Can you say the same?”
“Alpha, I mean no disrespect, but can you get to the fucking point? Because I’m getting real tired of your shit.”
She nodded. “You’re right, of course. Here. Let me show you.”
She tilted her head back toward the moon, her shift starting to overcome her. Her face elongated as thin white hair grew around her nose and mouth. The white faded into rust red, almost like a fox. And she was fox-like, her snout shorter than most other wolves I’d seen. It took me a moment to recognize her for what she was.
A maned wolf.
I’d never seen one before.
I didn’t even know there were maned wolf shifters.
She didn’t howl. Instead, a deep guttural bark crawled from her throat and out of her mouth, reverberating along the bridge and slamming into me. She did it again. And again. And again.
The sounds faded away into nothing.
“What is this?” I asked her. “What is—”
An answering howl.
I fell to my knees.
An Alpha.
A second howl rose up from the trees, singing in chorus with the first.
