by TJ Klune
“Like watching you masturbate.”
“I hate everything. Including you.”
“I’m heartbroken. Really. Why don’t you let me out and I’ll do my best to make amends.”
Carter squinted at me. “Are you hitting on me?”
Jesus Christ. “No, Carter. I’m not hitting on you.”
“Really? Because it sounds like you are.”
The wolf bared his fangs. Ah. So that’s how it was. Before I could comment on it, his eyes flooded with violet.
“An Omega,” I said quietly. Because of course he was. I’d never seen so many of them in my life.
“Yeah,” Carter said, looking at the wolf. “We don’t know where he came from or how he came to be stuck like this. The Omega thing we’ve pretty much got figured out, but beyond that? I don’t know.”
I blinked. “What do you mean you’ve got it figured out? How the hell is there an Omega here? Why isn’t he hurting anyone?” The woman in the diner. The Omegas in the woods. The fucking kid at the bridge. Brodie.
And with that, another memory.
Chris. Tanner. Carter. Don’t hurt him. You hear me, whatever you do, don’t—
“You’re an Omega too.”
“Yeah,” he said, and he let his eyes fill. The violet was shocking, even though I knew it was coming. “And that’s why I was down here where you are now. In fact, there was a time when our roles were switched. You stood where I am, and I was in there behind the silver.”
I slumped against the wall, sliding down to the floor. “I don’t understand. How are you able to control it?”
“Long story,” he said again. “But the gist of it is Ox is like Werewolf Jesus, and there was this beast who murdered my dad and Ox’s mom and then stuck his hand inside Ox and ripped out his guts—taking Ox’s Alpha power away from him, even though he was still human—and then he turned into the Alpha for like six seconds. Then Joe ripped the bad guy’s head off because of love and stuff, and since said bad guy was, like, leader of the Omegas, the Alpha power went back to Ox, and when he was turned into a wolf, there was a door that we closed, but then we shattered it because Mark and I got bit by a carrier of a magical Omega virus—Pappas, poor guy, got shot by someone who took the Bible a little too literally—and Ox became the Alpha of the Omegas, and now here we are.” He shrugged. “Might have left out a few details here and there, but that’s the nuts and bolts of it.” He grinned at me. “You get all that?”
I stared at him.
His smile faded a little.
I said, “What.”
“Yeah, right? It sounds crazy, but that’s how it went. Some explosions too.”
“And I was here for all of it.”
“Most of it, yeah.” His grin returned, taking on a wicked curve. “You wanted to fuck Ox for a long time. Or so I’m told. Tried to get all up on that Alpha junk.”
I choked. “What.”
“Ah,” he said. “I feel better now that that’s all out in the open. So, I was reading up on amnesia, and Wikipedia told me that if I show you pictures, you’ll remember. That didn’t work so well at the garage, but that was probably a little overwhelming, right? At least now you know we aren’t bullshitting you.”
“I don’t know that at all—”
He ignored me. “So, here. Take a look. Let’s see if we can get the brain juices flowing. I mean, if we can control the Omega shit, who’s to say we can’t do something like that for you?” He pulled his phone out of his pocket. He took a step toward the line of silver, but the wolf was up in a flash, standing in front of him.
Carter thumped him upside the head. “Would you stop it? He can’t hurt me. He’s trapped.” He looked at me earnestly. “We love you.”
I was convinced the Omega in him was eating away at his brain. “Fuck you.”
“No, thanks. I’m good.” He tapped on the screen of his phone before holding it up against the barrier. “Take a look.”
“Go away.”
“Come on, man. Just look. What harm could it do? I mean, you could go crazy again and try to break things, but since you only have your backpack and your bed that we’ve already had to replace, that’s all on you.” He wiggled the phone at me.
I sighed as I pushed myself up off the floor.
“There we go,” he said cheerfully. “That’s it.”
“You’re an asshole,” I muttered as I walked toward him.
The timber wolf growled at me. I flashed my eyes at him in warning.
I looked at the phone. “Instagram. You want me to look at your Instagram.”
“Wow,” Carter said. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard so much disdain in such few words. Yeah, man. Look at my Instagram.”
I did.
There were photos of the pack—all of them in some, just a few of them in others. One had Carter scowling in the mirror of a bathroom, the glowing violet eyes of the timber wolf in the background.
I was there too. Or rather, the version of Robbie they claimed to know. It was discordant, this feeling, recognizing my face but not remembering anything about who that person was supposed to be. I was laughing, I was smiling, I was staring up at the moon with a look of wonder.
The most recent one, in the top left corner, was of Kelly and me. We were sitting under a tree. Kelly lay with his head in my lap. My hands were in his hair. The caption said one word.
GROSS.
“Elizabeth said I was taken over a year ago.”
“That’s right.”
“Why is that the last photo you posted, then? Why haven’t you done more since?”
He took the phone away, looking down at the screen. A complicated expression crossed his face, and the room filled with the scent of blue, bright and cold. “Things just sort of… stopped. After you were gone. It didn’t seem right, I guess.” He cleared his throat. “I know you don’t remember, but I do. And man, I gotta tell you, it sucked. For all of us. It hit harder for Ox and Gordo and especially Kelly, but yeah. We all felt it. Pack. It’s all about pack.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah,” Carter said. “Oh. It’s like… part of us was missing.” He looked up at me, mouth set in a thin line. “I don’t expect you to understand, because you can’t, obviously. You don’t know. I think you might be better off because of it. It hurt, man. The hole in all of us was ragged and never seemed to heal. Even when we figured out where you were, like, eight months after you left, it still hurt. And I know you—”
The ground tilted beneath my feet. “You knew where I was?”
His eyes widened. “Oh shit. Totally forget I said that. I wasn’t—dude, that’s not what I meant at all.”
The wolf tried to pull him away as I stepped right up to the line of silver. My skin tingled. My nose itched.
The timber wolf tried to pull Carter away, but he didn’t budge.
“You care about me,” I said in a dangerous voice. I felt like hunting. Carter was the perfect prey. “You love me. It’s all about pack. That’s what you said. All those wonderful words painting such a pretty picture. And if everything you’ve all told me is to be believed, I was part of this. This house. This town. Your pack. I was taken from you. I left. I was stolen. Which is it? And now you tell me you knew where I was this whole time? And you left me there?” I cocked my head at him. If not for the silver between us, my teeth would be in his throat. “Sounds like I didn’t belong here as much as you’re all claiming. Maybe I left because I wanted to. Because I didn’t want to put up with all your bullshit.”
I thought he’d cower and mutter and disappear up the stairs and try again another day. No. He looked pissed. He squared his shoulders, his lips curling. His blue eyes gave way to violet, and I could feel his animal lurking underneath. “After what you did? You’re fucking lucky we even kept tabs on you at all when we found you. Even Rico said to just leave you where you were at.”
“What did I do?” I asked. It was a challenge, and I wanted to scream at him to fucking break the line of silver, t
o let me out and decide this like wolves. Oh, the timber wolf would be on me before I could get a hand on him, but I didn’t care. Fuck them both. “Come on, man. Tell me what I did. You’re angry. I can see it. You have been ever since you saw me at the bridge.”
He faltered. He broke. He recovered. He said, “If you lay a hand on Kelly again, I’ll tear off your fucking arm.”
I smiled at him, a nasty thing that felt foreign on my face. “Try it, Bennett. See how far you get.”
He left then. He didn’t look back.
The timber wolf trailed after him. He stopped in the doorway, looking at me over his shoulder.
I turned my back to him.
Eventually he left too.
I dreamed, that second night, and it was blood and fire.
I screamed for someone to find me.
No one did.
I woke on the third day in the basement to something different. My mouth was dry and my eyes were gummy and stuck. I groaned as I sat up on the cot.
“Good morning,” a quiet voice said.
I looked up.
Kelly sat against the far wall near the door. He had a blanket covering his lap. His arm was bandaged. He looked frail and weak, dark circles under his eyes, like he hadn’t been sleeping. I wondered if he had nightmares.
I closed my eyes, hoping I was still dreaming.
I opened them. He was still there.
He pushed his hair off his forehead. He needed to get it cut. It was—
I stopped myself from thinking anymore. It didn’t matter.
I grunted at him. If I didn’t talk, maybe he’d go away.
“Are you hungry?”
Or maybe he’d just sit there. Goddammit. “No.”
“You should still eat.”
“I’m not hungry.”
He shrugged. “It’s there when you’re ready.” He nodded toward a tray on the floor. There was cereal in a chipped bowl and a small cup of milk. A spoon. A banana. A napkin. When I was fed, one of the humans would come with Ox or Joe and set the tray over the silver. I didn’t smell the Alphas this time, though. Kelly must have done it himself.
It meant nothing.
He shivered, and before I could stop myself, I asked, “Are you cold?”
He nodded slowly. “Yeah. It’s weird. I don’t know how humans can stand it. I’m always freezing now, even when I’m outside.” He chuckled, though it sounded forced. “Dumb, right? All the little things I never really thought about. Shifting. Being warm. Being able to smell my pack. Hearing where they were at all times. It’s frustrating. I feel so….”
“Human.”
He nodded. “Yeah. Jessie and Rico are… well. They’re trying to help, but they don’t get it, you know? It’s like I’m locked in a windowless room and I can’t find my way out.”
“Yeah,” I said, pointedly looking around the basement. “I wouldn’t know anything about that.”
He startled. “Huh. I never thought about it that way.”
“Why don’t you just have your Alphas bite you? Change you back?”
“We don’t know what Livingstone did to me,” Kelly admitted. “Not really. It’s not so much that he trapped my wolf as much as he just… took it away.”
I couldn’t look at him.
“See?” he said after a moment. “Even a week ago, I’d have some idea of what you were thinking. Or feeling. Emotions have a scent to them. You don’t really think about it much until it’s gone.”
“Scent memory.”
“Yeah. Like that. Little reminders that open up something you haven’t thought about in years. Smoke does that for me. I don’t like the smell of smoke. It hurts.”
Before I could stop myself, I asked, “Why?”
He picked at the blanket in his lap. “My father.”
“What was his name?”
“Thomas.”
“Thomas Bennett.” TB.
“Yeah. He… died.”
“I’m sorry.”
He arched an eyebrow. “Are you?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. Did I know him?” Those last four words caused my head to spin.
“No. It was before you. Years ago.” He paused like he was thinking hard. Then, “Seven years, to be exact. Seven years in a couple of weeks. Wow. I don’t…. That’s a long time. Longer than I thought.”
“How old were you?” And, “How old are you?”
His lips quirked. “Almost twenty-one then. And I’m twenty-seven now.”
Only a couple of years between us. He looked younger than that. “What does your father have to do with smoke?”
He didn’t look away when he said, “He burned. After he was killed. On a pyre in the woods. Wolves came from all over. We cried and howled. And I never forgot how the smoke smelled.”
I didn’t know what to say to that. Consoling him felt fake. I made a mistake instead. “Did Michelle come here too?”
His expression hardened. “No. She wasn’t invited.”
“Why? She’s the Alpha of all. And if your family is as important as you’re all telling me, then—”
“You really don’t know, do you?”
I scoffed at him. “Just figuring that out, are you? Good for you.”
He didn’t take the bait. “My father was the Alpha of all. Like his father before him. He left Michelle in charge after Joe was hurt. When he was a kid. He brought us back here so that Joe could heal. So we all could heal.”
He… took a boy, once. A little boy. A princeling, or as close to one as we have these days. This wolf hurt the boy terribly, and it was only by the grace of the moon that he was saved.
Reality shifted yet again. I searched my memory for anything about this, anything about the history being laid out before me, but once again came up empty. “How do I not know about any of this? Why didn’t I know anything about your father?”
“We think he took everything away,” he said, meaning Ezra. Or whoever the fuck he was supposed to be. “Like my wolf. He just wiped it out. Everything having to do with us. Your time here. Everything we went through.” He gnawed on his bottom lip. “And there might even be a chance he took things from before you came. But if we don’t know about it, and you don’t, then it’s kind of pointless to even think about.”
I reached up almost unconsciously to touch the mark on my shoulder.
His gaze tracked my movement, but he didn’t say anything about it.
“How long was I here?”
He hesitated. “You showed up about a month after we left. We were gone for almost three years, and you were part of Ox’s pack by the time we got back. We think you were sent to spy on the pack while it was fractured. But something changed. You stayed.”
“But that’s—that would mean I was here for years.” I stood up from the cot, letting the blanket fall to the floor. I began to pace, my head full, thoughts racing.
He never looked away from me. It was as if he thought I was going to disappear if he did. “You were. Middle of 2013 to when you were taken, in the beginning of 2019. So almost six years.”
Six years. If he—and all of them—were to be believed, then Ezra took the better part of a decade away from me. “Why would he do this?”
Again he hesitated. I wondered if the others were listening in. I could hear their hearts and breaths above me. Not all of them. Joe and Ox. Elizabeth. Mark. The others didn’t seem to be in the house.
He said, “Michelle… you always had a soft spot for her. You were with her for a year before she sent you west to Green Creek. And even with everything that happened after, even after all she did, you still believed there was something good in her.”
I shook my head. “I know her. She wouldn’t—”
He stood, grimacing. His eyes burned with something fiery that had nothing to do with being a wolf. It was all human anger. “She would,” he snapped. “And I’m sorry to have to be the one to tell you this, because it hurts me, okay? To have to see that goddamn look on your face. But she did this. To yo
u. To me. All of us. What happened to you may not have been by her own hand, but she knew about it. She is complicit. The stories I could tell you about her, about what she’s done, Jesus Christ, Robbie.”
“I don’t believe—”
“She sent hunters here to kill us,” he said hotly. “All of us. Including you. You pleaded with her. You begged her. And she didn’t listen. After Carter and Mark were infected by whatever magic Livingstone put on them to turn them and all the others into Omegas—”
“What?”
“—she told us we had to kill them both. Put Carter and Mark down. Her words.” He was breathing heavily. His hands clenched into fists. “We said no, so she sent hunters to Green Creek to kill every single one of us. We survived. The hunters didn’t. But other people died too. Good people. And still she refused to listen to us.”
“That’s not like her,” I growled. “She wouldn’t—”
He scrubbed a hand over his face. “Do you hear yourself? I know it’s a lot, okay? But you have to meet me halfway. You have to listen to what I’m trying to tell you.”
“I don’t even know you,” I said coldly. “If this is all real, then that person you knew, that guy in the photos, on the missing poster, that guy you all seemed to be desperate to find, he’s gone. This is what I am. This is who I am.”
He was angry. It smelled like a forest fire. I wanted it to consume me, to burn the flesh from my bones just so I could find relief from the storm in my head. But it was good. Anger I could deal with. Anger I could handle. The begging, the pleading, the look of cautious hope and affection in his eyes—I didn’t want that.
He spoke as if each word was getting punched out of him. “Memories are all well and good, but they aren’t everything. You’re still you. You’re still the man I lo—”
Words. Like grenades about to explode at my feet. Instead I picked them up and hurled them back. “I don’t love you.”
He paled. He opened his mouth, but no sound came out.
I was sweating. Aching. Everything hurt. “I don’t know you. How the fuck could I love you? You have to see that. You said we were mates.”
“We are—”
“Then why don’t I feel you? Mate bonds connect two people. Two halves of the same whole. It’s a gift. A treasure. Something wonderful. And that’s not us. There’s nothing between us. For all I know, this mark I have was put there by your witch. That woman Jessie, she said Ezra put a glamour on me. Covered it up. What if there was nothing there to begin with? What if it was something Gordo did to me? To fuck with my head. To cause as much pain as possible.”
