Unleashed

by Kristopher Reisz

“Misty! Use a glass, damnit.”

  Misty lifted her head from the faucet, water dripping down her chin and the front of her shirt. Even though they were human on the surface, it took a while for their brains’ language centers to wake up. Forming words was difficult; the sounds didn’t fit right in their mouths. “Sorry,” Misty grumbled. “I’m sorry.”

  “Why are you two still up? What have you been doing?”

  Misty shrugged. “Mostly … on the computer.”

  “It must be nice to actually enjoy staying up all night. Just please be careful what you do online, okay? Please?”

  Misty nodded.

  Her mom started making herself breakfast. Reaching past Val for a cereal bowl, she asked, “Honey, what happened to your hands?”

  Val’s hands were speckled with black spray paint. She shoved them into her pockets. “Art project.”

  Luckily, after years of bartending, Misty’s mom couldn’t smell the smoke on their clothes. Misty and Val retreated to Misty’s bedroom with more food. They freed their aching feet from their boots and hit the lights, still eating in the dark.

  The wolf was hidden but not gone. Even though Misty could walk upright and speak with concentration, the wolf’s simple hungers and austere philosophies bled into her more complicated human vision of the world. Drifting to sleep, Misty remembered Daniel but not what she’d gotten so anxious about. He had kissed her. Because of his heat and savory boy smell, Misty kissed him back. She’d taken a few seconds of pleasure from him. There was nothing beyond that.

  Misty began to dream without realizing it. Her eyes closed, she listened to the wolf, her other self, pad into the dark room and settle down at the foot of the bed.

  They slept past noon, until Eric called Val to check on her. Yawning and stretching themselves awake, Misty felt talkative again and finally told Val about Daniel.

  Val, still in Misty’s old Dora the Explorer sleeping bag, sat up with a jerk. “You kissed him? When?”

  “When we went to the furnace Thursday. And he kissed me first. I was just being polite.”

  Val slumped back to the floor and hid her face under her pillow.

  Misty laughed. “It wasn’t a big deal.”

  “I thought you weren’t into him,” Val said, her voice muffled.

  “I wasn’t.” Reaching down, she grabbed the last of the licorice. “I always figured he was just a leg-humping jock. But he’s really kinda sweet. He actually likes talking about things besides himself.”

  “He’s still got Angie.”

  “I know, I know.”

  “So?” Lifting the edge of the pillow, Val gave Misty a nervous look. “No matter how sweet and gooey he is on the inside, I don’t want you to be his little gutterfuck when she won’t give him any. You’re way too good for that.”

  Misty stared at the ceiling and finished off the candy. Val had watched her tear herself apart over Andre, and she’d earned the right to worry. This was different, though. Misty was different. Misty was a wolf. “Maybe I’ll make him my little gutterfuck.”

  Angie had soccer player legs, firm and tan even in January. She had a sunny personality, a belly-button ring, and that smile that made the whole school want her. And Daniel had her.

  His friends were the best bunch of guys Daniel could imagine. He was destined for the bluestone towers of Cornell, and he had made his mark here. Trophies etched with his name and records would stand in their glass cases long after he’d left Birmingham behind.

  All that should have been enough, but Daniel’s night with Misty and her friends had awakened something restless inside him.

  Their combat boots, which only Marc didn’t wear, kept the group distinct from the student body mingling around them. They didn’t even have much to do with McCammon’s other dregs, the stoners and skater boys in their Vans.

  Despite all that, Misty’s friends acted a lot like Daniel’s own, just a little more desperate and a little more dangerous. Eric had something to prove, but Daniel knew lots of guys like that, small guys who knew exactly how small they were and hated the world for it.

  Misty was the one who fascinated him, though. Unlike him, she didn’t have a shining future waiting up the road. But she had furious pride and the freedom to forge her own path to wherever she pleased.

  Misty was out of ISS Wednesday. Daniel looked up as she walked into Mrs. MacKaye’s class, and they held each other’s gaze just a moment too long. Then Misty took her usual seat by the windows. A minute later, Mrs. MacKaye shut off the lights and started a PowerPoint lecture on the Supreme Court. Daniel kept stealing glances at Misty.

  He thought about Angie’s soccer player legs some more, her taut calves, how ticklish she was behind her knees, gently biting her thighs. It didn’t work. After the bell rang, he lingered outside the classroom, pretending to read a flyer for a summer biology program on Dauphin Island. When Misty came out, he said, “What’s up? So, I’ve been thinking about you thinking about traveling after graduation. I know where I’d want to go.”

  “Cool. Where?”

  “The Greek Isles. Keith told me about them a while ago. There’s beaches that you can only get to by boat, and at night, like, the whole island turns into one huge party.”

  “Yeah. I think I saw something on TV about them. They seem pretty cool.”

  They both had first lunch period. They started walking to the cafeteria but only got as far the stairwell landing. Hidden from the bustle of the school, whispered voices and laughter echoed up and down the brick-walled shaft. They talked about skinny dipping in the Aegean Sea and other adventures Daniel would never have. At least not until he’d gotten through his undergraduate courses and nailed the LSAT. But by then, he’d be grubbing for a prominent internship or maybe a position on the Cornell Law Review. After graduating, some people spent a year just studying for the bar exam. And after that he’d need to begin planning his career. It wasn’t like he could spend that time wandering Southern Europe and expect to get anywhere.

  Misty, on the other hand, had apparently thought as far as buying a plane ticket and grabbing her toothbrush, happy to make the rest up as she went along.

  She liked him, and Daniel knew a lot of it was because he’d lied, pretended to be as reckless as she was. He decided there wouldn’t be any harm in pretending for a little longer. As far as anything sexual, he could keep his options open.

  The bell rang. They’d spent the whole lunch period talking. “Wow, I better go,” Daniel said, jumping to his feet. He still didn’t want anyone seeing them talking.

  “Yeah, me too. Oh, wait.” Reaching out, she started feeling Daniel’s shoulders through his shirt. “Hm … not super sculpted, are you?” she said in a teasing voice.

  “You mean traps and deltoids? No. I used to have them when I played ball, but I haven’t been working out regularly like I used to. It takes a lot of free-weight work to harden those up.”

  “Hm.”

  “I mean, a lot of work. Like three times a week.”

  “Hm.”

  Daniel wasn’t used to being appraised so unforgivingly. Ignoring the people already trickling up the stairs, he defended his ego. “Do you know how many girls want this body?” He rubbed his chest. “Dream about it?”

  Misty eyed him up and down. “I bet. Narrow shoulders. Slim thighs. Give you some decent boobs, and you’d be gorgeous.”

  “What? No, I mean, want me.”

  “Oh, that’s what you meant.” She smirked, then turned and headed up the stairs. “Well, see you.”

  Daniel stood there completely baffled, kind of scared, and a little turned on.

  A few days later, they swapped numbers. They always made sure to have some reason to call, usually a question about government class, but then they’d talk for hours about places beyond Birmingham or just their families. Daniel told Misty about getting yanked off the basketball team but switched one detail, saying his parents had made him quit because of his grades.

  Daniel kept finding ways to sl
ip out of his real life and go slumming with Misty and her strange friends. They never did much, but it felt like an adventure, anyway. Daniel would hang out at the deli, run by Charlie Say What’s, and for a few wonderful hours, forget he was within arm’s reach of the valedictorian’s purple honor cord.

  When he was with her, Misty would be constantly plucking at his sleeve or nudging his shoulder. Once, Daniel’s shirt tag was sticking out. Without halting her stream-of-consciousness chatter about work, Misty reached around to tuck it back in.

  Those brief, static pop touches thrilled Daniel. And judging from the sly smiles that followed them, Misty knew it. They never led to another kiss, though, or any of the other things they made him think about.

  Eve had probably taught her daughters the same game, but Daniel wondered if any girl since the fall of man had played it with as much cool and confidence as Misty. Within a week, Daniel had given up any hope of screwing her, then going back to Angie. Misty was happy to have him around, happy to keep his excitement and desire stirred up, but nothing else would happen until Daniel showed her he was serious.

  Since he continued calling, Daniel had to admit she was winning.

  Sneaking around behind Angie’s back was exhausting enough, but it also guilted Daniel into acting like the perfect boyfriend when he was with her. On the Sunday before Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Daniel went to church with Angie, then downtown. She needed to talk to the events coordinator at the Tutwiler Hotel, then do some shopping. Browsing through stores, Daniel held Angie’s hand and whispered gentle things in her ear. When she saw a funky beaded purse she liked, Daniel bought it, saying it was just because he loved her.

  Angie obsessed over the awards ceremony the whole time. With a week to go, minor details had her near tears. Plus, Claire had said something to another girl that got back to Angie, and now the two of them weren’t speaking.

  Daniel found the details dull. And he was dreading the ceremony a little. He looked good in a suit, and the afterparty was always worth recounting the next Monday, but last year, he’d gotten the Oliver Robinson Award, given to the player with the best scholastic ranking.

  Oliver Robinson had played ball at McCammon before getting drafted by the Spurs. A bad shoulder ended his pro career, and he was a state legislator now. Mr. Robinson shaking his hand and giving him the trophy had made Daniel grin like a moron, not to mention the five-hundred-dollar scholarship that went with it.

  He would have been first string this year. Who knew what he could have done? But his parents had pulled him off the team, and the only reason Daniel got to go to the ceremony at all was as Angie’s date.

  Driving home, they crossed the train tracks and a long clay scar that had been a major street before the overpass had been built above. Now, Baseemah Taxi Service parked their broken-down cabs on what was left of the road. Three of the cabs bore spray-painted wolf heads across their sides.

  “Jesus,” Daniel muttered as they bounced across the tracks.

  “What?” Angie turned but didn’t see anything except a few vandalized cars.

  Daniel shook his head. “Nothing.”

  The tracks divided downtown from Southside. The wolves watched north, gazing across office towers and regional headquarters. The same wolves guarded the furnace. Since Misty and her friends had taken Daniel there, he’d started to suspect they were the ones throwing the signs up all over the city. In the weeks since, he’d spotted it on store fronts and overpass pillars. Slowly, he’d begun seeing a pattern. Misty’s crew weren’t vandalizing random walls and weren’t driven purely out of boredom. The wolf head only appeared near arteries of traffic flowing into Southside. They were slowly, steadily marking their territory.

  Daniel had tried to guess why but didn’t have a clue. Whatever their reason, they’d obviously spent a lot of time, effort, and risk on the project. Somehow the secret, like a locked chest, fascinated Daniel more than the treasures Misty had already revealed.

  All the way to her house, Angie talked about the awards ceremony. Daniel tried paying attention, but his eyes kept flickering to the mouths of alleys. He wondered if Misty was out there somewhere in her scuffed tanker boots. Nodding, mumbling vague affirmations to Angie, Daniel strained to see past the streetlights and glowing signs, down into the dark cracks of the city.

  “Daniel?”

  “Yes, Misty?”

  “I really like you.”

  “Great, let’s do it. Or should I just massage your feet while speaking in an Italian accent?”

  Misty slapped Val’s arm. “Come on. Be serious.”

  They sat in the walk-in cooler, having a dinner of cookie dough and weed. Grabbing the pipe from Misty, Val laughed. “Okay. Give me a second…. Gee, Misty, I really like you too,” she said, lowering her voice.

  “Way more than that cheap skank Angie, right?”

  “Of course.”

  “Good. I have to tell you something, though. And you have to promise to listen to the whole thing before you say anything, okay?”

  “Whatever you heart desires, my love.”

  “Okay. I am a werewolf. I know that sounds crazy—”

  “Damn straight it does. Never talk to me again, you whack-job. I’m going back to the cheap skank.”

  “No, Val! He promised to listen.”

  “I don’t care what he promised. He’s not going to stick around after you tell him you’re a werewolf. Either he’ll think you’re nuts, or even worse, he’ll believe you and think you’re about to eat his entrails.”

  Misty took a toke and shook her head. “See, I hit him with the werewolf thing first. Bang! Like ripping off a Band-Aid. Then I explain everything calmly and rationally, so he doesn’t get scared and can’t think I’m crazy.”

  “You’re so fucking high.”

  “God, I can’t keep my hands off him. But I can’t … you know, until I figure this out.”

  “What’s to figure out? Three weeks ago you were just going to use him for sex, then kick him out of bed and make him do your laundry or whatever.”

  Sighing and stuffing her hands in her jacket, Misty slumped against the corner. “That’s, like, what I want to want. But—”

  Ilie jerked the cooler door open. Val shoved the tub of cookie dough back on the wire rack. Ilie didn’t care if they smoked weed, but he hated it when they ate his cookie dough.

  “I need some Reuben preps,” he said.

  Val glanced at the time. “We still have five minutes on our break.”

  “I don’t need them in five minutes. I need them now.”

  “I got it.” Misty grabbed the carton she’d been sitting on and a pack of cheese slices off a rack. Ilie held the cooler door open for her.

  “You waste all your money on drugs. Should save it. Go to university someday.”

  “And quit working here?” Misty asked. “Ilie, you’re like a father to us.”

  Val’s stoned laugh spilled out of the cooler as the door swung shut.

  Since October, Misty had been a wolf. She’d only wanted food, sex, and some time to prowl with her pack. All winter, her life had been that beautifully, brutally simple. Then Daniel had walked into the deli, and Misty’s human side started complicating everything again.

  She’d never daydreamed about backpacking through Europe. But Daniel had said he didn’t know what he was doing after graduation, and Misty needed to say something back. Traveling the world was the first thing that popped into her head. It was a ridiculous lie. Misty felt like a stray in Birmingham. Being lost in a distant city, surrounded by strangers, would terrify her.

  But Daniel kept asking questions, so Misty kept lying. Somehow, she fooled him into thinking she really was that free. He looked at her like she was someone enchanted, like he had no clue she was just a hoodrat.

  Slowly, Misty started believing her own fairy tales. It wasn’t like there was anything here worth sticking around for. She could save some money and go wherever she wanted.

  Making the Reuben preps, Mis
ty laid a piece of pre-cooked, presliced roast beef on a waxed paper circle, a slice of Swiss cheese on top of that, another slice of roast beef, and then another waxed paper circle. Ilie grabbed the first two she made, dropping them on the grill for thirty seconds before scooping them into rye loafs with sauerkraut and Thousand Island dressing.

  “Ten more for tonight,” he said without glancing at her.

  Misty stacked them one on top of another. Meat, cheese, meat, waxed paper, meat, cheese, meat, waxed paper. While her hands moved automatically, she studied the Florence Deli logo on the cheese wrapper, an old-world skyline dominated by an orange-and-white domed roof. Misty had spent more than a year surrounded by its image—on the sign outside, on her uniform vest, as a watermark on every paycheck—but until a few days ago, she’d never been curious enough to find out what it was a picture of.

  The dome was the Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore, the Basilica of Saint Mary of the Flower, in the real Florence. Now, making Reuben preps and staring at the logo, Misty let herself imagine standing in Florence, Italy, seeing the actual thing.

  The wolf was hungry for Daniel. She loved his strong arms and good smell. She wanted to bite him. Not hard. Just a little. Misty loved his eyes, the deep green of slow-moving rivers. As the weeks of conversations went by, though, Misty was falling just as hard for the reflection of herself she saw inside them.

  Another kind of desire had started winding itself around the wolf’s urges like a vine. Misty wanted to be the woman Daniel let her pretend to be. She wanted to be clever enough and fearless enough to leave everything familiar behind, to explore foreign cities and see strange sunsets.

  “Just don’t stare,” Daniel said. “He’s really sensitive.”

  “Sensitive about what?”

  The door opened, and Bwana and Spence got their first look at Charlie Say What.

  “Hey, Daniel.” Charlie bumped Daniel’s fist. “Where’s Misty?”

  “She’s working.”

  “Say what?”

  “Working! Let’s go inside.”

  Charlie glared at Spence. “You queer?”

  “They’re cool, Charlie. Let’s go inside.”