Unleashed

by Kristopher Reisz

  “Wish they’d left me in ISS,” Misty whispered, eyes fixed forward. “’Least they don’t lecture you there.”

  Daniel laughed. His fingers searched for Misty’s again.

  The guardians of human order huddled on the cavernous stage, insisting again and again they were in control. Between dramatic pauses, the clamor of staff searching lockers trickled in from the halls.

  Daniel had spent the weekend worrying. Had they disabled every camera? Had they left any evidence? Once he heard Mrs. Wainwright’s threats, though, Daniel relaxed, knowing he and the pack were safe. Predators stalked silently. Only prey made loud noises to try to scare predators off. The rush of getting away with it was almost as good as the demolition itself.

  Misty returned to ISS after the assembly. She wasn’t particularly surprised when, fifteen minutes later, an aide came and took her to see Mr. Fine.

  The main office was full of workers ripping out the dry-wall and carpeting. In the meantime, the administrators had taken over the AV lab at the end of the west hall. On the way, Misty passed more maintenance people carrying toolboxes and spools of wire. Cardboard covered more windows than she remembered breaking.

  In the AV lab, students, teachers, and a couple of cops tried to not knock over the outdated recording equipment. Three printers hummed at once, replacing the files the pack had burned from computer backups.

  The secretary sent Misty into a tiny studio where the school used to put on closed-circuit news broadcasts. There hadn’t been money in the budget for that in years, but the anchors’ desk still stood beneath a McCammon falcon mural. Mr. Fine sat on the corner of the desk with a short stack of fresh student files, Misty’s lying on top. A stocky policewoman stood nearby.

  “So last Thursday, you got angry because Mrs. MacKaye called you what again?” Mr. Fine asked.

  Misty fidgeted in the plastic chair. “I don’t remember.”

  “Come on, Misty. What was it?”

  “A stray,” she whispered.

  “That’s right. Then somebody spray-paints dogs all over the school, particularly all over Mrs. MacKaye’s classroom. That’s a pretty big coincidence, isn’t it?”

  “So you’re blaming me?”

  “Well, who should we blame? If you want to get out of hot water yourself, this is the time to do it.”

  “I don’t know who did it.” Misty sat with her arms crossed. Mr. Fine told her to stop staring at the floor and look at him. The cop let him badger Misty for a while before speaking up.

  “So why do you think this happened?”

  “I don’t know who did it. I already said.”

  “Yeah, but whoever it was, why do you think they tore up the school like this?”

  Misty shrugged. Seconds passed by. The cop and Mr. Fine watched her and waited. “Probably mad,” she finally said.

  “Yeah? What do you think they were mad about?”

  Misty opened her mouth, then hesitated. She wanted to talk. Even if it was in the vaguest terms possible, she wanted them to understand. That’s what they wanted too. They both suspected Misty had played a part in wrecking the school. Now, the policewoman was giving her a little space to tell them about it, hoping she’d slip up.

  The urge to fill the air with words that didn’t matter was miserably human. Forcing it down, Misty shrugged again.

  “Come on, you can’t imagine anybody being mad at this school for any reason? It’s that wonderful a place to go to?”

  Another shrug.

  They tried to squeeze her beneath silence and hard glares. The room was so quiet, Misty could hear her heartbeat. She summoned the wolf’s patience, her calm resolve, and kept her mouth shut.

  The policewoman opened a metal briefcase. “Let me see your right boot.”

  “Don’t you need a warrant or something?”

  “Yes,” Mr. Fine said. “I’ll also need to call your mom and have her leave work and come down. Do you want me to do that, or do you want to cooperate?”

  Misty took off her boot and handed it to the officer. She’d known they’d check their shoe prints; she wished she’d remembered to wear socks without holes. As the policewoman rolled ink across the sole of Misty’s shoe and pressed it down to a piece of paper, she asked, “So what’s a cute thing like you need such ugly boots for, anyway?”

  “I’m not cute on the inside.”

  The woman laughed. She handed Misty her boot and an alcohol wipe to clean off the sole. After she’d left to compare Misty’s shoe print to ones they’d found on the roof and kicked-in doors, Mr. Fine assured Misty this was her last chance. Misty hardly glanced at him.

  Even after the officer returned shaking her head, the vice-principal wouldn’t give up. “We’re going to talk to your friends next. Maybe you don’t want to save your neck, but I bet one of them does. If they tell me how, say, you started the fire and they didn’t know it would go that far. Well, you’re not telling me your side of the story, are you?”

  But Misty didn’t have any friends. She had a pack. “Talk to whoever you want.”

  Mr. Fine shuffled through the files on the table, pulling a few out. “Let’s see. Eric Polidari. We’ll talk to him. Daniel Morning. If Daniel gets arrested for this, he can kiss Cornell good-bye. You sure he’ll throw away his entire future over this?”

  Misty sneered. “Cornell? That’s just some stupid rumor.”

  Mr. Fine stared at her. He gave a small, snorting laugh. “Is that what he says?”

  Even if Misty had wanted to speak, her mouth had suddenly become too dry. Still, she managed a tiny nod and had a tiny bit of faith that the vice-principal was trying to trick her somehow.

  Mr. Fine opened Daniel’s file and thumbed through the papers. “Let’s see. His file was one of the ones destroyed. But the recommendation letter I wrote to Cornell was still on my computer at home.” He laid a long letter on the desk. “And the central office had copies of the transcript requests he filled out.” He showed Misty two photocopied forms. “That’s Daniel’s handwriting, right?”

  The same looping strokes listing the receiving school as Cornell University filled the sweet notes she’d saved in her jewelry box.

  “No, he isn’t leaving. It’s all bullshit. It’s all—” Misty tried explaining, but rising sobs choked her every time she opened her mouth. She shoved the papers away, but Mr. Fine pushed them back under her nose.

  “Look at the date, Misty. He signed this last transfer request a month ago. Look at the date. He didn’t even tell you he’s leaving in the fall. You really think he’s going to risk everything to protect you?”

  Mr. Fine pelted her with threats until Misty screamed, “Shut up! I wish you’d all just die! I wish you’d—I—” She wished the wolf could emerge, could lunge across the fake-wood desk and silence him. Misty stayed trapped in her pathetic human shape, twig-thin arms hugging her belly.

  Finally, the policewoman touched Misty’s shoulder and told Mr. Fine that was enough.

  When the aide slipped into Daniel’s trig class and handed Mrs. Schiff a note, Daniel knew it was for him. The administrators had gathered a whole herd of black sheep in the AV room, desperate to find their hidden enemy. Daniel leaned against a rack of old VCR tapes beside Val. Three skaters shared a private joke in one corner until the secretary snapped at them to be quiet.

  “Misty’s with Mr. Fine now,” Val said, nodding toward a door with a cracked on air sign above it.

  A minute later, the door opened, and Misty stepped out with a cop. She wiped her nose with the back of her hand and was shaking. Shouldering one of the skaters aside, Daniel went to her. After all this, the hand-lickers had hurt her again. He swore they’d pay. They hadn’t seen what the pack could do yet.

  “Are you going to Cornell?”

  Daniel stiffened, her hand in his. It felt like being jolted awake, that panicked second before remembering where he was, who he was.

  Mr. Fine told Misty not to say another word. Squeezing Daniel’s fingers, she said, “You
aren’t. Just say you aren’t.”

  “I’m …” He was a wolf. He was the shooting star. He was a natural charmer hiding a snarling animal hiding a miserable coward. And he was the one, not the hand-lickers, who’d brought Misty to tears. “I’m so sorry.”

  Her mouth opened, but no words came out. Taking her arm, Mr. Fine whisked Misty out of the room. Troublemakers, student aides, and cops watched the scene.

  “Son of a bitch,” Val said. “She had me convinced.”

  Daniel pretended he hadn’t heard her. Mr. Fine reappeared a few seconds later. He crooked his finger at Daniel, ignoring the students who’d been called in before him, and led him into the studio. Without commenting on what had just happened, Mr. Fine asked the policewoman to take Daniel’s boot print. As soon she’d left, the vice-principal smiled.

  “You switched boots, didn’t you? Pretty clever. That must have been your idea.”

  Now that it was all over, Daniel felt nothing but a bone-deep exhaustion. He busied himself pulling his boot back on. “I don’t know anything about who broke into the school.”

  “Well, I do. It was you. It was Misty and all your new pals. Now, want to know why they vandalized the school?”

  “None of them—”

  “Why not?” He spread his hands. “They don’t have any futures to waste, so they might as well get stoned and knock things over and knock one another up. Hell, that’s what makes running with them so fun, right?”

  Daniel arched his eyebrows. “And yet somehow their lives aren’t transformed by your inspirational teaching methods.”

  “Come on, Daniel.” Mr. Fine rubbed his face. “Nobody hates it more than me. I—every teacher here—does what we can. But I’ve been at this longer than you’ve been alive, and I know a lost cause when I see one. You’re not one of them, though. You can leave this mess behind and still go on to great things. I’m trying to help you, Daniel, but now you need to tell me the truth.”

  “The truth.” He spoke the word, listening to it roll down his tongue and wondering how much of the truth Mr. Fine would ever believe. He wondered if he even knew the truth anymore. “The truth is that something found your lost causes. You, every teacher here, everybody wrote them off. But something big and ugly found them.”

  Mr. Fine sighed. “And what’s that mean?”

  “They found paw prints on the roof, didn’t they? Inside the ceiling?” Daniel shrugged. “What’s that mean? What about those phantom animals the firefighters saw in the school? Appearing, attacking, then vanishing again? What the hell does that mean?”

  Daniel hadn’t known if the cops and firefighters had told the administration about any of that until he watched Mr. Fine’s eyes widen. His Adam’s apple bobbed with a hard swallow.

  “So you were involved. You’re admitting that?”

  “I’m trying to help you, Mr. Fine. Don’t push this too far. Talk to anybody you want, take shoe prints if you have to, but after that, drop this. Pray you never find out the truth.”

  “Daniel, son, don’t threaten me.”

  “I’m not. Like you said, I’m not one of them. Problem is, I’m not what you think I am either. What I was before.”

  “Then what are you?”

  Daniel thought carefully, but finally shook his head. “I wish to God I knew.”

  The policewoman walked back in, but Daniel decided he was done talking. Getting up, he walked past her and out of the studio. Neither Mr. Fine nor the cop moved to stop him.

  Keith had hoped they’d cancel school for a couple days, but actually, that upside-down Monday was better than sleeping in. Everything and everybody was off-kilter. Because of smoke damage and broken glass, most of the front hall had been blocked off behind hanging plastic sheets. Without enough rooms, teachers held class outside, in the library, anywhere they could find space. Every window was propped open to get rid of the lingering smell of smoke. Cool spring air blew through the corridors.

  In Keith’s first three classes, Mrs. Ellison continued scolding her students where the principal had left off; Mrs. Crow showed a movie; and Mr. Healy popped his head through the door ten minutes after the bell, apologized, said he’d be right back, then never returned.

  By lunch, working through the lunatic day had turned the whole student body a little giddy. All order felt temporarily suspended. Keith and his friends bounced through the breezy halls, as if even the school’s gravity had weakened. When Scotty suggested going to the Hardee’s up the street for lunch, Keith didn’t think about what would happen if they were caught. He just realized what a sunny day it was outside.

  At the restaurant, they compared rumors. So far, Keith knew of six people who’d been overheard in the bathroom admitting to the arson. One teacher’s grade book had burned and she was giving all her students A’s. If the school couldn’t send your transcripts, no colleges would let you matriculate. Somebody had died in the fire, but the administration was keeping it quiet. Another teacher’s grade book had burned and her students’ grades for the whole period would come from the final. If the school couldn’t send your transcript, you got to make up anything you wanted. Everybody was worried about prom.

  Keith finished his cheeseburger and bought ice-cream cones for Angie and himself. Heading back to school, they fell a couple steps behind the others. Keith let his hand slip down to rest on the curve of Angie’s butt, savoring the muscle and motion beneath a thin layer of denim. Angie held his gaze from the corner of her eye, tasted her ice cream, then said, “I was thinking. We should throw a massive graduation party.”

  “Cool.” He nodded. “We’d need to do it at your house, though.”

  “Screw my house. I hate my house. It’s too small. We need to rent a space. Get a real DJ and everything.”

  “Please tell me you’re a pimp and not a ho.”

  “I don’t know where we’ll get the money yet, but think about it.” She started skipping backward in front of him. “You throw the most massive, huge, big-as-God party right at the end of senior year and it’s like every other party gets wiped off the map. Like, ten years from now, whenever anyone thinks about high school, all they’ll remember is your party.”

  Keith grinned at that thought.

  “Now, here’s the genius part,” Angie went on. “We don’t throw it on graduation night. Everybody’s going to have a party that night, so nobody’d come to ours. We throw it right before finals week. Everybody will be stressed, ready to bug out, and—”

  “Hey, Keith.” Up ahead, Bwana had stopped and turned. “What’s up with your cousin?”

  They were across the street from the school. Keith saw Daniel in the paved courtyard beside the cafeteria that always reeked of congealed fat. He paced in tight circles and kept gesturing and pointing, trying to explain something to somebody who wasn’t there.

  “Aww … he’s sad because his little skeezeball got ISS again.” Angie giggled.

  Even if Misty had ISS, Keith wondered why Daniel wasn’t with the rest of the ghouls he hung out with. Suddenly, Daniel kicked the fence surrounding the school Dumpsters. He looked ready to collapse to the asphalt.

  Scotty clapped a hand over his mouth to keep from laughing out loud. “Guy’s finally snapped.”

  Keith shook his head. “I don’t even want to guess what that’s all about. C’mon.”

  Angie told him more about the party. Keith had spent all of high school in Daniel’s shadow. Last January, he’d finally made a grab for the brass ring. A little courage was all it took. Angie had fallen in love with him. Bwana and the others started treating him as one of the group. And today, Keith let his imagination soar even higher. Like Angie said, if the party was big enough and wild enough, it would obliterate four years of being Daniel Morning’s tag-along cousin. People would finally see who Keith was; they’d remember him for the rest of their lives.

  This weird day, it seemed possible. Almost anything did.

  • • •

  For once, Misty was glad to be in ISS. Even
though there were a dozen other people in the room listening to her sniffling, Misty couldn’t see any of them behind the high dividers of her carrel, none of them spoke, and she could pretend she was alone.

  Misty sneered. She had a talent for deluding herself like that.

  Clenching her jaw to make it stop quivering, Misty hunched over the busywork her teachers had assigned her. Even when her vision blurred with new tears, she kept writing. When the final bell rang, Misty gathered her things and handed the sheaf of papers to the ISS monitor. She’d answered every question with the same response: I am a wolf, I am a wolf. I am a wolf.

  Outside, wisps of gossip filled the campus. A small audience gathered around a trio of boys crooning an R & B song, snapping their hips to the beat. Head down, Misty walked through the babble until a call stopped her cold.

  “Misty, wait! Misty!”

  Daniel took the front steps two at a time. He came within whispering distance but didn’t touch her. He wouldn’t look her in the eyes. “I didn’t rat you out,” he said. “You don’t have to worry. You—the pack’s safe.”

  Misty tried to say something but couldn’t. Squeezing her arms across her chest, she started toward her car.

  Daniel followed her. “Misty, I’m sorry. Will you just listen? I’m sorry. I didn’t want you to find out like this.”

  “I told you everything! I—Jesus, I brought you into the pack.”

  “I know, I know. I should have come clean long ago. I was afraid you wouldn’t trust me.”

  Misty whipped around, eyes narrowed for the slaughter. Daniel sputtered, “No. That’s not what I meant.”

  “That’s exactly what you meant. You might not have gotten your little pecker sucked if I knew. That’s exactly what you meant.”

  “No. It’s not. Please-”

  The rest of the pack rushed up, scattering the passing hand-lickers. Marc shoved Daniel against the wall of the school, pushing his face close. “Missed you at lunch today.”