Wolfsong

by TJ Klune

  “It’s a wolf thing.”

  “You’re not a wolf.”

  “Close enough.”

  His eyes narrowed. “He did it, didn’t he?”

  “Who?”

  “Thomas. He offered you the bite.”

  I heard Rico cackle loudly from back in the shop. Tanner and Chris yelled something in return. “Yeah,” I said.

  “Ox,” he warned.

  “My decision,” I said. “He wouldn’t do it until I turned eighteen, but it’s still my decision.”

  “Just… fuck.” Gordo was upset. “Just think of the consequences. You’ll be hunted. For the rest of your life. There are things out there. Monsters and people who want nothing more than your head on a pike.”

  “Because I’d be a wolf?” I asked. “Or because I’m already part of a pack.”

  “Shit,” he muttered.

  “Or maybe because I’m tethered to a witch.”

  “I told you—”

  “I’m not a kid anymore, Gordo.”

  His voice cracked when he said, “But you’re all I have.”

  “Good,” I said. “Then you know I’m never walking away from you. From this.”

  He closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

  “You turned it down,” I said, going off a hunch. “The bite. You said no.”

  His eyes opened slowly. “Easiest decision I’ve ever had to make.”

  We both knew that was a lie.

  I DIDN’T tell him that I’d decided to remain human.

  For now.

  MOM SAID, “Jessie came by the diner today.”

  I looked back down at my math homework. I didn’t think I was doing it right.

  “Said she hadn’t really seen you for a few days.”

  “Been busy,” I muttered. “Homework. Work.” Full moon with werewolves.

  “Priorities, Ox. They’re good to have, but don’t forget the good things.”

  Running with wolves was the greatest thing.

  A DARK pulse in the sun between Joe and me.

  I snapped my head up from the desk in history class.

  I was up and out the classroom door before I even knew I was moving.

  I thought, JoeSafeJoeFindJoe.

  Two other pulses, brief flares of light.

  Carter and Kelly and I thought, pack.

  There was anger in the sun. It was contained, but it was going to break.

  I knew, though I didn’t know how.

  Men’s room. Hallway.

  I pushed open the door.

  Joe, pressed up against the wall. His bag at his feet, torn open. Pencils and papers across the floor.

  Three guys around him. One held him against the wall, his forearm pressed against the neck. I recognized them vaguely through the descending red haze. Sophomores. Assholes.

  Joe wasn’t scared. At least not completely. I swore I could hear the quick but steady beat of his heart.

  But he wasn’t fighting back because he knew he was about to wolf out.

  Then he saw me.

  His eyes widened.

  And the sun exploded.

  I took the one that held him against the wall first. Grabbed him by the back of the neck and jerked him away. He said, “What—” and then he couldn’t speak at all because he was on the floor, my knee on his chest, hands around his throat. His eyes went wide as I snarled and bared my teeth in his face.

  The other two grabbed me by the shoulders and arms to try and pull me off, but I remember my training and Thomas saying keep calm and maintain control.

  I let them pull me up. I used the momentum and brought my knee into the stomach of the guy on my right and elbowed the guy on my left in the face. One bent over, struggling to breathe. The other cried out, a flash of crimson between his fingers. I stepped back, pushing Joe behind me. His hands fisted my shirt and he pressed his forehead to my back.

  Carter and Kelly burst into the room, eyes flaring. They surveyed the room. Something settled in me when they looked satisfied with what they found. Not surprised. Satisfied. Like they knew I could handle this.

  “So,” Carter said. “Your names.”

  “Fuck you,” the guy with the bloody nose said.

  “Wrong answer,” I said as Kelly moved toward him.

  “Names!” Carter snapped.

  Blood nose said, “Henry.”

  The guy with hands on his stomach said, “Tyler.”

  The guy still on the floor said, “Go to hell.”

  Carter picked him up by his throat and held him up. His feet left the floor as he kicked.

  Carter was close, but he was still in control. “Your. Name.”

  “Dex,” the guy choked out.

  “You got them?” Carter asked Kelly.

  Kelly nodded as he breathed in. “Henry. Tyler. Dex. I got them.” Their scents.

  “If you ever come near my brother again, I’ll kill you,” Carter said. “Every one of you. And if I can’t, Kelly will. And if he can’t, god help you when Ox gets his hands on you.” He threw Dex to the ground. Dex cried out as he landed on his side. Carter and Kelly stepped over him. The other two flinched away from them. They came and stood by my side, blocking Joe in. Kelly put a hand on my arm. Carter’s shoulder pressed against mine.

  Henry was the first to run. Then Tyler. Dex sneered, but it was a coward’s sneer that stuttered and broke. He ran too.

  I burned like the sun.

  THE PRINCIPAL looked at us. Me. My mom. All the Bennetts. “Five days suspension,” he said.

  Carter, Kelly, and I said nothing, as we’d been instructed.

  “Five days?” my mother said. “And the three that started this?”

  “They are being dealt with,” the principal said. I could see the thin film of sweat on his forehead.

  “Are they?” Elizabeth said. “I should hope so. After they pinned my twelve-year-old son to the wall.”

  “And Ox broke a kid’s nose!” the principal said. “He’s lucky no charges are being filed against him.”

  “Yes,” Elizabeth said. “Quite lucky. Though if there had been charges, I’m sure we could have found some of our own.”

  The principal wiped his brow.

  “Mark?” Thomas said in a light tone.

  “Yes?”

  “How much money were we set to donate to the Green Creek school district this year?”

  “Twenty-five thousand dollars.”

  “Ah. Thank you, Mark.”

  “You’re most welcome.”

  “Now, Mr. Bennett,” the principal said. “I’m sure we can—”

  “I’m done speaking with you,” Thomas said. “Your presence bothers me. Come along, everyone. It’s time to leave.”

  THOMAS AND Elizabeth led me away from the others.

  “You protected your own,” Thomas said, eyes flashing red. “I am so very proud of you.”

  He was my Alpha and my skin thrummed with his words. I tilted my head back, baring my throat to him. He reached out and touched my neck gently.

  Elizabeth held me close.

  THE SUSPENSION was lifted suddenly and without warning.

  “I COULD handle myself,” Joe grumbled as we walked down the dirt road.

  “I know,” I said.

  “I could have taken them all down.”

  “I know.”

  “I’m not some little kid.

  I said, “I know.”

  He scowled. “Say something else.”

  “I’m glad I could protect you,” I said honestly. “And I always will.”

  He stared up at me with those big blue eyes. Then he blushed. It started at his throat and rose up through his face. He looked away. Kicked the dirt. I waited until he could make up his mind.

  Eventually he grabbed my hand and we continued on down the road.

  ANOTHER ARGUMENT.

  “They’re my family,” I snapped at her.

  Jessie’s face was flushed, her eyes bright. “I get that,” she said. Her voice was hard. “Ev
en if I don’t fully understand their weird fascination with you.”

  “It’s not weird.”

  “Ox,” she said. “It’s kind of weird. Like, are they some kind of cult or what?”

  “Knock it off, Jessie. You don’t get to talk about them like that. They’ve never had a single bad thing to say about you, so don’t you talk about them that way.”

  “Except for Joe,” she muttered.

  “What?”

  She looked up from her spot on my bed. “I said except for Joe. He doesn’t like me.”

  I laughed. “That’s not true.”

  “Ox. It is. Why can’t you see it? Why are you so blind when it comes to him?”

  “You leave him out of this,” I said, my voice starting to rise.

  She looked frustrated. “I’m just asking to be a part of your life, Ox. You blow me off. You keep things from me. I know something is going on. Why can’t you trust me?”

  I said, “I do,” though it almost felt like a lie.

  She smiled, but it didn’t quite reach her eyes.

  JUST AFTER Thanksgiving, Mom texted me, asking that I come straight home after work.

  The house felt different when I walked in. It hit me in the chest. There was anger. Sadness. But relief. So much relief. It had to be a pack thing. I’d never felt the emotions in the house before. I wasn’t a wolf, but I wasn’t just human, either. I was something more.

  It almost felt like seeing colors.

  The anger was violet, heavy and cloying.

  The sadness was a flickering blue. It vibrated along the edges of the violet.

  The relief was green, and I wondered if that was what Elizabeth felt in her green phase. Relief.

  Mom was at the table. Her face was dry, but her eyes red-rimmed. She’d cried, but it had passed and I knew I wasn’t completely normal anymore when I somehow knew exactly what she was going to say before she said it.

  But I allowed her to say it anyway.

  I owed it to her.

  “Ox,” she said, “I need you to listen, okay?” and so I said, “Yeah, sure,” and put my hand over hers. It dwarfed hers completely, and I loved this tiny little woman.

  “We have each other,” she said.

  “I know.”

  “We’re strong.”

  “We are.” I smiled.

  “Your father died,” she said. “He was drunk. Got behind the wheel. Went into a tree.”

  So I said, “Okay,” even as my chest tightened.

  “I’m here,” she said. “I’m always going to be here.”

  We both chose to ignore the lie because no one could promise that.

  “Where?” I asked.

  “Nevada.”

  “Didn’t get very far, did he.”

  “No,” she said. “I don’t suppose he did.”

  “Are you okay?” I asked, reaching out to brush my thumb over her cheek.

  She nodded. Then shrugged. Her face stuttered a bit and she looked away.

  I waited until she could go on.

  “I loved him,” she said finally. “For a long time.”

  “Me too.” I still did. She might not have, but I still did.

  “He was kind. For a while. A good man.”

  “Yeah.”

  “He loved you.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Just us now.”

  And I said, “No, it’s not.”

  She looked back at me. “What do you mean?” A tear fell on her cheek.

  “There’s more,” I said, and I was shaking.

  She was worried. “Ox, what’s wrong?”

  “We’re not alone. We have the Bennetts. Gordo. They’re….”

  “Ox?”

  I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. I couldn’t let her think we were alone. Not anymore. Not when we didn’t have to be. “I’m going to show you something. You have to trust me. I will never let anything hurt you. I will always protect you. I will keep you safe.”

  She was crying now. “Ox—”

  “Do you trust me?” I asked.

  “Yes. Yeah. Yes. Of course.” It was broken up with tiny little gasps.

  “We never needed him. We survived.”

  “Did we? Did we?”

  I took her by the hand, pulled her up. Wrapped my arms around her shoulders. Led her to the front door. It was cold outside, so I kept close. I was warmer than she was.

  “Don’t be afraid,” I told her. “Don’t ever be afraid.”

  She looked up at me, so many questions in her eyes.

  So I looked up at the night sky, my head tilting back.

  And I sang.

  It wasn’t as good as the wolves. It never would be, because regardless of what I was, I was closer to human than anything else. Thomas had told me as much when he’d taught me deep in the woods. But it was strong, that howl, even when my voice cracked. I put everything I could into it. My violet anger. My blue sadness. My green relief, my fucking green relief that he was gone, gone, gone, and I never had to wonder about him again. There would be no more what ifs. There would be no more whys. There would be no more suffering because we were not alone. My father had said I was gonna get shit, but fuck him. Goddamn him. I loved him so much.

  I put it all in that song.

  And even before the echo had died through the trees, there came an answering howl from the house at the end of the lane.

  Joe.

  And then another. Carter.

  And Kelly. And Mark. And Elizabeth.

  Thomas was the loudest of all. The call of the Alpha.

  They heard my song and sang me one in return.

  “Oh my god,” my mother whispered and pressed closer against me.

  There was a crash in the distance. The pounding of paws and claws on frost-covered leaves.

  Violet was anger.

  Blue was sadness.

  Green was relief.

  And through the trees came the flashes of orange. The flicker of red. The colors of familiarity and family and home.

  I could hear them in me and they said, we’re here BrotherSonFriendLove. we’re here and we are pack and yours and nothing will change that.

  My mother whimpered at my side, holding me tightly. She was trembling.

  I said, “They would never hurt you.”

  She said, “How do you know?” She sounded rather breathless.

  “Because we’re pack.” I pulled away from her, shushing her gently as she tried to hold me back. “It’s okay,” I said. “It’s okay.”

  I never looked away from her. I walked backward down the porch steps, slow so I didn’t slip on the ice. My breath fanned out around me in puffs of white. It was cold, but the moment I stepped foot on the frozen ground, I was surrounded by warmth. The wolves brushed up against me, yipping excitedly, nipping at my fingers and hands and arms. Joe jumped up on his hind legs, paws on my shoulders. He licked my face and I laughed and laughed.

  Thomas sat back, waiting. Eventually, he gave a low growl. The others stopped moving around me and moved aside. When he rose to his feet, I heard my mother gasp.

  His steps were slow and deliberate. He came up beside me and laid his head on my shoulder, wrapping his neck around mine, his nose running along my skin and hair. A rumble came from his chest, quiet and pleased. It was the first time I’d called them on my own. He was proud of me.

  I was seven months away from being eighteen years old, but I still must not have been a man because I had to blink the tears away. “My father died,” I whispered to him. Joe whined, but didn’t come closer. “She thinks we’re alone.”

  The rumble in his chest grew louder, and through the bonds that stretched between us all, I heard hush no never alone here we’re here don’t cry SonPack don’t cry never alone.

  I put my hands in his fur and held on tight. He allowed me the moments to grieve, because he knew all I needed were moments.

  They passed, as these things often do.

  He licked the tears from my cheeks, and I la
ughed quietly.

  He put his forehead against mine, and I said, “Okay. I’m okay now. Thank you.”

  Thomas turned toward my mother. She let out a small, choked noise and took a step back, shivering.

  I said, “It’s okay.”

  She said, “This is a dream.”

  And I said, “No.”

  “Ox!” she cried. “What is this!”

  Thomas stood in front of her, bowing his head. He pressed his nose against her forehead, and she said, “Oh.”

  fight for me/family is everything

  MY MOTHER said, “What a strange world we live in.” And then she laughed.

  And then she cried.

  The pack huddled around her until the sun came up the next morning.

  THE DAYS moved on.

  “MOM KNOWS,” I said.

  Gordo closed his eyes. I could feel the bond between us as he fought to control his anger. Violet with tinges of blue. Mixed in was gold, and I pushed at it until I realized it was jealousy. The sharp colors faded as he let out his breath.

  “It’s your pack,” he said, face blank and voice indifferent.

  My own violet pulsed. “Dad died.”

  Blue, blue, blue. “Ox. I’m so sorry.”

  And then his arms were around me and I was his tether, and I thought he might have been part of mine.

  SHORTLY BEFORE my birthday, Jessie kissed me in my room. She pressed herself up against me until I took a step back, my legs hitting my bed.

  I sat down.

  She straddled my lap.

  I laughed quietly and thought about the full moon that night. Mom was going to go with us for the first time, just to see.

  Jessie said, “I think we should break up.”

  I said, “Okay.”

  Silence.

  She pushed herself off of me and stood. “Ox.” Her eyes narrowed.

  “What?”

  “That’s it? That’s all you have to say?”

  I was confused. “You said it!”

  She rolled her eyes. “You’re supposed to fight for me.”

  “Oh.”