Raised by Wolves

by Geonn Cannon

  She took the time to make sure she had stopped crying, checked the mirror to make sure her eyes weren’t too puffy, then picked up the book of essays off the table. This phase of her life was over.

  It was time to start her new life.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Ari came down the stairs at full speed, practically leaping to every third step while her hand only skimmed the railing. Her phone was in her other hand, gripped tightly enough to stress the case. Milo and Gwen both looked up at the thunderous sound.

  “Why did you let me go to sleep?” she demanded.

  “Because you needed it,” Gwen said, rising to her feet. “What’s going on?”

  Ari stopped by the couch, her hand shaking as she pushed her hair out of her face. “Dale called. I missed a call from Dale. She called five minutes ago. Isaac is taking her to an airport, he’s... they’re going somewhere. He’s taking her away, Mama.”

  Gwen’s eyes widened at the last word, a term Ari rarely used even when she was a child. “Just take a breath, Ari...”

  “I don’t have time to take a breath!” Her eyes were shining with tears. “I don’t know where they w-were, and they have a five minute head start... He’s taking Dale away.”

  Milo said, “Just slow down. Five minutes isn’t much of a head start, especially not when a flight is involved. SeaTac?”

  “No, she said another place. Clay... Clay something.”

  “Clay Lacy,” Gwen said. “I know where it is. It’s about four miles away from here. It’s a private airport, which means he might not have to worry about security and pre-flight and... I’m saying they could be getting the plane ready right now.”

  Ari whimpered.

  “Don’t worry, pup, we’ll get you there. We can take my bike.”

  “My car is going to be faster than a bicycle,” Ari snapped.

  Milo grinned. “No one said it was a bicycle.” She turned to Gwen and cupped her cheek. “You wanna call the cops? Get them out there, arrest him for killing the Kirsches?”

  Gwen hesitated, then shook her head. “As much as I despise it, we can’t do that. We can’t risk him telling the police why he was arrested.”

  Ari said, “The Werewolf Murderer of Frankfurt. It would be trending on Twitter by dinner. Milo, come on, we have to go. Now.”

  Milo put her hands on Gwen’s hips and leaned into her. “We’re going to go get our girl back.”

  “Be safe.”

  “Always. I love you.”

  “I love you, too.”

  They kissed, and Milo pulled away, motioning for Ari to follow. “C’mon. I plan to make up some time on the road, but we better get a move on.”

  Gwen hugged herself as she watched her lover hurry from the house, her daughter in hot pursuit. She was terrified, both for Dale and for what might happen when they got to the airport. Three of the people she loved most in the world, the only three people she’d ever really considered her pack, were about to jump feet first into the fire, and all she could do was sit and wait to hear how it had gone.

  “Please don’t get hurt,” she whispered, praying for all of them in equal measure, knowing it would be a disaster if even one of them didn’t come back. “Please be okay...”

  ###

  Dale ignored Isaac on the drive to the airport, but she could tell he was about to burst from excitement. He flexed his fingers on the steering wheel, turned on the radio just to turn it back off again, and checked his phone at stoplights. Traffic was mostly okay, and they seemed to be making good time. She felt like she usually did right before becoming sick, and her emotions were as unsettled as the man behind the wheel. Excitement at her escape, fear at what might come next, despair... she was really feeling the despair. She told herself it was just a side effect of leaving her old life behind, but what if it was more?

  She put her head against the window and closed her eyes. She tried to remember things she’d read in the essay. No one knows where the first wolf appeared. The classic chicken-egg argument is especially hazy in this circumstance. Were they beasts who learned to wear a man’s clothing, or a man who surrendered to his darker instincts?

  “Is everything okay?”

  Dale nodded. “I’m just a little queasy.”

  “Oh. I think there’s some airsickness medication on the plane if you feel like you’ll need it. And there are airsick bags if the meds don’t work.”

  They followed the train tracks south through an industrial small-town neighborhood south of Seattle. There were funky little stores, strip malls, tattoo shops, and so much wide open sky that it was hard to believe downtown was just a few miles away. Isaac drove until they arrived at what appeared to be a typical office park. He pulled into a spot and sat back, staring out the windshield for a long moment before he finally looked at her.

  “This trip really has turned into a remarkable success, Dale. I want to thank you for giving me a chance to open your eyes. For... allowing me to save you.”

  She rolled her eyes and got out of the car. She retrieved her bag from the backseat and waited while Isaac retrieved his own bags. She had started to turn away when she saw a flash of metal, looking in time to see him drape his coat over a gun tucked into the back of his belt.

  “What the hell is that?”

  “Insurance,” he said, as casually as if she’d asked the brand of his suitcase. “Don’t worry, we don’t have to go through security or anything like that.”

  Dale said, “Insurance for me?”

  He looked stricken. “God, no. Dale, you’ve spent ten years with these wolves. I can’t just hope they let you go quietly. If any of them found out where you were, I have to be prepared to protect you from them.”

  She wasn’t certain she believed him, but at the moment her brain and stomach were twisted up in knots, and her heart felt like it was three beats away from giving up entirely. So instead of arguing, she closed the car door and followed him across the parking lot. A private plane waited on the tarmac, gleaming gray and almost unreal against the overcast sky. Isaac picked up the pace, not quite running but moving quickly that Dale had a hard time keeping up with him.

  The hatch opened from the top, stretching down to the ground to create a flight of steps leading up into the plane. A pilot was standing in the opening with his hand raised in greeting. Isaac waved back, and the pilot disappeared into the plane.

  “That was Joe. He’s a good guy.”

  “How do you know he’s not secretly a wolf?”

  He smiled back at her as he climbed the steps. “I’ve gotten pretty good at telling them apart from real people.”

  Dale still felt a twinge at language like that, but it was getting easier to tolerate. She didn’t know how she felt about that. Once they were aboard, Joe pulled the door shut and secured it before turning to her and offering his hand.

  “Good afternoon. My name is Joe. The co-pilot up there is Brian. Flight time to New York is going to be just about five and a half hours. Let us know if you need anything during the flight and we’ll do our best to get you settled.”

  Isaac had stowed his bag and then did the same for hers. “I know five hours seems like a long time, but it’ll fly by. Pardon the pun. They have iPads with movies on them, or you can sleep... the seats at the back pull out into a bed.”

  Dale said, “I think I’ll be fine.”

  She took her seat and buckled in. Isaac sat on the other side of the plane, one row up to give her privacy. She closed her eyes and relaxed against the headrest. She planned to sleep, shut her mind off for a few hours, maybe wake up in New York as a new woman. She hummed a few bars of the Hamilton song and actually felt a little better. The plane began to taxi, and she laced her fingers over her stomach to prepare for takeoff.

  A minute or so after they began to taxi, Joe the Pilot called back, “Uh, sir? We might have an issue up here.”

  Isaac leaned to one side to see through the door. “Is it something with the plane?”

  “Not exactly,”
Joe said. “You should come take a look at this.”

  “I thought people only said that in movies.” He unfastened his seatbelt and stood up, moving carefully toward the cockpit. He braced himself in the doorway and leaned forward to see out the front of the plane. “What the hell...”

  Dale’s curiosity got the better of her. She got up as well and joined Isaac at the cockpit to look over his shoulder.

  “They just came out of nowhere,” Brian said. “Zipped in from toward the parking lot... probably got in through an open gate or something?”

  “Yeah, mechanics are always leaving those gates open,” Joe said under his breath.

  A motorcycle was speeding on the runway directly ahead of the plane. Even if she hadn’t recognized it as Milo’s new bike, she would have recognized the slender woman clinging to Milo’s back despite the fact they were both wearing helmets. Milo weaved the bike in a serpentine path before straightening out and putting on an extra burst of speed. A moment later, she slowed way down and almost disappeared under the nose of the plane.

  “Damn!” Joe said. “She keeps doing that. If we can’t get up enough speed, we’re never going to lift off. And the longer she plays chicken with us, the more fuel we burn.”

  “Just go around her,” Isaac said.

  Brian shook his head. “We can’t just go skimming across the whole runway. Besides, that one on the back seems to be signaling her. If we change direction, she’ll just move with us.”

  Isaac turned and looked at Dale. There was betrayal in his eyes. “How did they know where to find us?”

  Dale considered lying, but she shook her head. “Ariadne Willow was almost a decade of my life. I couldn’t just disappear on her.”

  “Damn it,” he said, slapping the wall. “I understand, believe me, but you’ve completely screwed this up. If you wanted to say goodbye, I could have arranged it! Safe, monitored.”

  The plane started to slow. Brian said, “We can’t just let them lead us around like this. We’re almost out of tarmac anyway. Get out and talk to whoever that is and we’ll try again.”

  Isaac pushed away from the wall and stalked back into the cabin. “I’m going. You stay here, Miss Frye. I can’t risk one of them tricking you or grabbing you and making a run for it.”

  “The gun stays here,” Dale said.

  “Miss Frye...”

  “It stays here.”

  He sighed and took the gun from his belt. He put it down on the first seat next to the door and faced her again. “You stay on the plane. No matter what.” Dale nodded, and he twisted to look into the cabin. “If anything happens to me out there, you leave. Follow the original flight plan.”

  Joe and Brian looked at each other. “What exactly do you think might happen to you?”

  “Hopefully nothing,” Isaac said.

  He lowered the stairs, gave Dale a reassuring nod, and descended.

  ###

  Ari felt like she was going to throw up. Milo had broken every speed limit and every street law known to man to get them to the airport in time, only to see Dale and Isaac boarding a plane from the wrong side of a chain-link fence. Finding the open gate was pure dumb luck, the first time it felt like luck had worked in her favor this week, and Ari had nearly broken Milo in half when she realized what the plan was.

  Milo put them in front of the plane before it got up to full speed, and then adjusted accordingly to maintain a steady distance between them. Every time Ari looked back, she was positive the plane was seconds away from rolling over them, leaving them as a stain on the asphalt. She guided Milo by patting her shoulders, moving her left and right to keep the plane from getting around them.

  Finally, miraculously, the plane began to slow to a stop. Milo circled just in case it was a trick, but then Ari pointed at the door opening, and stairs unfolding onto the tarmac. Milo nodded and brought the bike to a stop. Ari climbed off the seat and wobbled a little, steeling herself as she advanced. Isaac came down the steps and held out his hands to show he was unarmed.

  “Miss Willow. Miss Duncan. Were the theatrics really necessary?”

  “You’re kidnapping my fiancée,” Ari said, “and you brainwashed her.”

  “I didn’t brainwash anybody. I only gave her access to the facts you denied her. I educated her about what she was actually dealing with, and she made up her own mind. Just like everyone who will read those essays when I have them published. You wolves have been hiding far too long. It’s time to step into the light and face the consequences of what you are.”

  Milo was standing a few feet away from Ari, arms crossed over her chest. “And what’s that, mate? Monsters? You’re the one who killed the Kirsch pack just to get a damn book. Humans are the ones who hunted us to near extinction. Turned it into a sport. You skinned us, hung our hides on your walls, beheaded us.”

  “While you overran our settlements, devoured children, tried to change us into beasts like you. Every wolf we killed meant a greater chance of survival.”

  Ari held up her hands. “Okay, let’s just admit both sides were awful to each other in the past. But Mr. Hayden, you have to understand what exposing canidae in this day and age could do. People are more afraid of differences now than ever. Do you really think we’d be greeted with open arms, or would be rounded up and stuck in cages, cut up in labs?”

  “You would prefer to hide?”

  “No! Not really, but when the alternative is slaughter, we don’t really have a choice. At least there’s peace.”

  Isaac said, “People deserve to know what might be living next door to them.”

  “Maybe in some cases, it’s none of their business. Wolves aren’t inherently dangerous. We’re not bombs waiting to go off.”

  He raised his eyebrows. “Aren’t you, though?”

  “Isn’t everybody?” Milo said. “When provoked, or pushed, or threatened, we all could be the worst kinds of weapon. You publish that book, you make every human who reads it into an enemy of canidae. Some of us will take that as an invitation to fight back. Preemptive strikes. You’re not setting up a genocide, you’re starting a war.”

  Isaac remained focused on Ari. “You know Miss Frye is not here under duress, right? I didn’t kidnap her, Miss Willow. She chose to come with me. It was her idea to leave today. So what’s your plan? Follow us to New York? Drag her back here kicking and screaming? In that scenario, you are the kidnapper. You are the one ignoring what she wants.”

  Ari looked away.

  Milo said, “Pup, don’t listen to him...”

  “He’s right, though. We saw her. She was carrying her own bag.”

  Isaac lowered his hands. “Go. Go aboard the plane. Ask her to leave with you. I won’t stop you.”

  Ari looked at Milo, who shook her head. “If she’s that far gone...”

  “I have to try.”

  Milo looked uncertain, but shrugged and looked back at Isaac. “I’ll keep an eye on this’n.”

  Ari walked forward, giving Isaac a wide berth. He held his hands out to the side, still looking like a kindly older man. He was even sort of smiling, the smile of a man who knew she was just going through the motions and that he was about to be proven right. Ari passed him and walked faster, almost running by the time she got to the stairs. She climbed up, terrified of what she was going to find inside. When she got to the top, she saw two pilots standing at the cockpit entrance and motioned for them to go back and shut the door.

  “Dale?”

  “Stay back.”

  Dale was pressed against the far wall, keeping as much distance between her and Ari as possible. Ari almost cried. It had been so long since she and Dale had been in the same room together, and just seeing her made Ari crave a hug, a kiss, the scent of her hair. The frantic look in Dale’s eyes, like a caged animal, was almost too much for Ari to bear. She showed her hands.

  “I’m not going to hurt you.”

  “I can’t make that same promise.”

  Ari smiled. “I don’t believe that.
I’m not scared of you, Dale.”

  Dale closed her eyes. “You should be. You don’t know what my head is like. I’ve learned things, Ari.” She opened her eyes and saw Ari had come closer. “No! Back up! Get away. I promise. I’ll h-hurt you.”

  Ari retreated past the first row of seats. “I know what the essays can do to a person, Dale. They’re poison. But I also know what they did to you. They made you run away from me when I was vulnerable. They made you call and tell me exactly where you were. And I know they couldn’t stop you from helping with my case when you figured it out. You may feel like a hunter but you’re acting like the woman I fell in love with.”

  Tears were shining in Dale’s eyes. “Mutt. You’re a mutt.”

  Ari said, “No. Don’t listen to that side of you. You’re stronger than it is.” She glanced down and saw the gun on the seat next to her. She didn’t think about what she was about to do, she just reached out and picked it up.

  Dale tensed, tried to retreat further. “No!”

  “I know what the book can do,” Ari said, “and I know who you are, and I have faith in you. Every time, Dale, I’ll choose you every time.”

  She turned the gun around so she was gripping it by the barrel. She walked down the aisle, ignoring Dale’s pleas for her to back up, go away. When she was within arm’s reach, Dale punched Ari, once on the shoulder and once in the chin, but Ari took both blows without reacting. She took one of Dale’s hands, brought it down, wrapped it around the grip of the gun.

  “What are you doing, don’t. Stop! Ari, stop!”

  Ari pressed forward. The barrel of the gun dug into her stomach just below her ribs. Dale went very still, her eyes wide, the lashes trembling under the weight of tears they hadn’t let go yet.

  “If I’m a monster, then the last ten years have been a lie. A long con. A manipulation. If that’s true, I never loved you. Every time I held you when you were sick or comforted you when you were sad, it was all bullshit and it meant nothing. I’m a mutt, I was pretending, I was laughing behind your back. If you believe that, then pull the trigger.”

  Dale parted her lips, but no sound came out. Ari didn’t blink, didn’t say anything else.