Daniel.
I blink and squint and blink. My vision’s gone blurry.
Daniel, calm down.
A wave of warm, happy feelings shudders through my system and suddenly I can see clearly again. I suck in deep breaths. No nausea. I feel great.
“Feeling better?” Kayla looks at me with raised eyebrows.
“Yeah,” I say. “I thought I was gonna black out for a minute there but now I’m fine. Wow. I can’t remember the last time I felt this good.” I look around at my surroundings like I’m seeing them for the first time.
“Here’s what we’re going to do,” Kayla says. “You are going to finish getting dressed. Then we are going to decide where you want to eat.”
“Wendy’s sounds good to me.”
Kayla snaps her fingers at me. “Come on. Put that sweatshirt on. And the vest. And the coat.”
“What’s the rush? Why can’t we talk about dinner while I get dressed?”
“One thing at a time.”
I don’t like her tone and that good feeling I had before is starting to wear off. I yank the sweatshirt on over my head, hearing the sound of a seam ripping. “I’m just hungry,” I snap, jerking my arms through the vest. “All I’ve had to eat lately is a can of soup, and that was yesterday.”
“Button it,” Kayla says, pointing to the snaps on the vest as I’m reaching for the jacket.
I glare at her.
She smiles sweetly. “Please.”
I continue to glare as I snap each button closed. After shrugging on the jacket, I zip it up to my nose. “Happy?”
“Very.”
“Now can we talk about food?”
“Hat and gloves first.”
Finally, all suited up, I growl, “Food.”
“Okay.” Kayla takes a deep breath and smiles. “Food.”
“Yes.”
“You have two options. We can head into town, which is about an hour on foot, and see what’s still open and where we can steal some food from.”
The idea of stepping out into that frozen tundra does not exactly appeal to me. Now that I’m finally warming up, I’m realizing exactly how cold I had been. “What’s option two?”
“We can go hunting.”
“You have a gun?”
“No…” She raises her eyebrows, looking at me like I should know what she means.
“Hunting. As wolves.”
“Bingo.”
“That’s not an option.”
“You’re going to have to learn sooner or later,” Kayla says. “Right now, you’re in a pretty deserted area, so we’re unlikely to come across any people. And considering we don’t have any money… it’s free food.”
I swallow and stare outside. “I think later is better.”
Kayla nods and puts her own mittens back on. “Then back into town we go.”
“You’d rather go hunting.”
Kayla looks at me. “This isn’t about me. This is about you. You don’t feel comfortable going hunting, and that’s fine. We’ll try it later. Right now, we need to get you some food, okay?”
I look away and follow Kayla outside without saying anything. I feel weak, like it took all my strength to keep from succumbing to that change a few minutes ago. The cold cuts into every chink in my winter armor. All I can do (besides shiver) is trudge behind Kayla along the little path she’s made with all her trips into town through the snow.
It isn’t snowing, and in the darkness I can see for miles along the flatlands. An occasional tree, bowed under the weight of the frost. A dark ribbon through the snow that is a road, with headlights flaring and blinding me.
Kayla keeps away from the road.
Over a low hill the town throws off an electric glare that turns the sky a faint pink above its rooftops. When I look up at the clear starry night I realize there is no moon. And no streetlights anywhere nearby. Only that faint pink glow from several miles away.
I don’t mention my observation to Kayla. She’d think I was dumb, only now noticing that I can see better in the dark than normal people. I bury my nose into my scarf and keep walking.
My scarf smells like wood fires.
The noises are not alarming at first. Of course, it’s so silent out here that the crunching of our boots through the snow deafens me. Once my ears become accustomed to that sound, I pick up the whishing of tires across that road half a mile away, and Kayla’s breathing, which is silent except for a little whistle when she inhales, then her heartbeat, a relaxed BOM-bom BOM-bom. I tune into that sound and follow it, my eyes closed to keep the wind from freezing the tears against my eyeball.
Then I hear the snuffling.
It reminds me of when a dog smells food under the couch. He sniff sniffs, then snorts out so his nose is clear to sniff again. Sniff sniff snort. There’s some heaving breathing too, panting. And there are a lot of mouths breathing and noses snuffling.
Kayla doesn’t do anything so for a while I ignore it. Probably some animal, some harmless animal burrowing under the ground, a herd of bison or something
(doesn’t sound underground, doesn’t sound that big)
until I can’t ignore it anymore. It sounds like a pack of something running. I pull my nose out from the scarf and snort myself a few times
(“This thing stinks,” I tell Kayla when she looks back at me)
and inhale a big double lungful of icy cold air.
The thing about icy cold air is that most of the time it makes it hard to smell anything. Frozen things don’t have a smell.
The other thing about icy cold air is that when everything else has no smell because it’s frozen solid, you can smell heat-pumping creatures that much better.
This smell puts my nerves on edge. It’s like that night in the playhouse all over again. The smell, the sounds – I know it’s a pack of wolves coming up on us, and fast.
“Watch it,” Kayla says. I’ve walked into her, not paying attention to where I’m going and thrumming with nervous energy.
“Do you smell that?” I ask her.
She sniffs the air.
“I don’t smell anything.”
I shove my nose back into the burnt wood scarf.
“What was it?”
Kayla sounds so patient. I shrug. “Nothing, I guess.”
We continue.
Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe I’m so crazy hungry for food that I’m hearing things. Smelling weird stuff. Kayla should be able to smell that. If she’s not worried, I shouldn’t be.
For the next half hour walking to town, my muscles burn with alertness.
-45-
“How’s that sandwich?”
My mouth is too full to answer. I bob my head up and down and tear another bite before I’ve swallowed.
We’re sitting on a fire escape in a dark alley, away from the streetlights and the chances of a police car patrolling the area for kids out past curfew. The fire escape is near the exhaust pipe from a 24-hour laundromat, which means warm, damp air billows around us in clouds. While I’m warm now, I know once we leave the cloud the dampness will turn to ice and I’ll be even colder than before. It doesn’t make me eat any slower, but since we managed to steal a foot-long sandwich from the convenience store, I still have plenty of sandwich left.
“We really need to think about getting back on the road,” Kayla says.
I swallow without chewing enough and have to swallow a few more times to get the lump of food down my throat. “Once I’m done we can get going.” I tear off another chunk, this time chewing a few more times.
“Really?”
Through the mouthful I ask, “Yeah. What else were we gonna do here?”
“By here you mean… in town?”
“Yeah. What did you mean?”
She sighs and looks toward the street through the steam. “I meant we need to leave East Bumfuck, Nebraska, and get home.”
“Oh.” I stare down at my sandwich. I’m kinda not hungry all of a sudden.
Kayla sighs again, more dis
gusted this time. “Look, I get it. You’re all freaked out about the werewolf thing. It’s perfectly understandable. But…”
“But what?”
“Ever since you left, and the other packs started harassing us, all my mom and your mom talk about is how great you are. How you’re going to save us all. So I track you down, expecting to find some great warrior, and all I come up with is some self-centered kid who doesn’t know how to take care of himself, never mind use his God-given powers to help anyone else.” Kayla sighs one final time and gets up and disappears on the other side of the steam.
Now I’m really not hungry. But I know better than to throw away good food. I wrap the rest of the sandwich and put it in my pocket. All the time I hear her voice in my head
some self-centered kid … doesn’t know how to take care of himself
When I walk through the cloud, I feel wetness on my face. I tell myself it’s the condensation and I wipe it away before it freezes to my cheeks.
* * *
The dark and cold press in on us. We huddle inside our layers and scarves, and the darkness cuts us off from everything around. It’s worse walking back, not only because I’m damp from the condensation but also because we’re facing into the wind. My eyes are narrowed so much that most of the time I’m walking they’re closed, and I find my way by the sound of Kayla crunching through snow ahead of me and the odd assortment of scents from her second hand clothes.
The wind changes direction slightly so it’s scouring the right side of my face instead of dead on, and that’s when alarm bells start ringing in my head.
I can smell them.
They’re close.
nausea
I double over, my muscles singing with tension.
(Daniel, stay with me)
Gagging, sour bile filling my mouth.
(Do you smell that?)
(Yes)
I double over further, my vision blurring
dizzy
Blinking furiously to keep the sudden sweat out of my eyes, to try to see.
(Take off your clothes)
I’m not sure I can even move, my fingers feel strangely short and unbendable. Hands, Kayla’s hands, her breath hot and sweet in my face, fumble with the zippers.
A low whining fills the air, and I realize it’s me.
It’s only a matter of time before the
blackness
(stay with me, dammit, stay here with me)
Everything is darker. I rip my shoulders free of the jacket and the vest. It all feels uncomfortably small in my shoulders and too big in my waist. My pants fall to the ground while Kayla is still trying to unbutton my shirt.
The world is fading in and out and that smell is filling my nostrils, every time I inhale I see red and black and a new wave of nausea rolls over me. I’m growling and whining because I can’t make any words come out of my mouth, and the fur on the back of my neck is stiff like an extension of my tense muscles.
(I have fur on the back of my neck and my mouth feels weird, too big and crowded)
blackness pulsing
(stay with me, just a few seconds)
Finally Kayla gives up on the buttons, the backs of her hands covered in butterscotch colored hair. She grips my shirt and rips it off.
I don’t want to look down and I can’t anyway. I fall to the ground, bracing myself up in the snow with my bare hands
(why don’t I feel cold?)
The blackness is crowding around the edges of my vision. I try to focus on my hands, but they’re moving. Growing, curling, hair sprouting.
This is everything I never allowed myself to see. All those times I killed people, this is what happened. My arms straighten out involuntarily and my joints seem to turn backwards.
Beside me, Kayla’s clothes drop to the ground.
(They’re nearly here, now Daniel NOW)
The scent hits me. Eight wolves. My brain takes a sudden backseat to the darkness.
(Daniel control your wolf)
I’m racing, paws flying over the snow, which has crusted over enough in the subzero temperatures to hold my weight. I can smell them in front of me, blood and sweat and fear and for a moment I’m not sure I’m going stay here instead of slipping back into that pit of blackness. There are fewer of them now but it’s a little harder to tell, the scents are everywhere. The scent of death.
(Kayla!)
I slow down. The minute I think about how my human body might have slowed down, leaning back and digging in my heels, my wolf body slips on the icy snow and slides.
scrabble claw tumble stop
It’s a weird feeling, to have arms and legs that don’t move like they should. My brain can’t wrap itself around that.
(Don’t think)
I lift my head and
sniff listen
for Kayla. She’s there. Cleaning up. Blood pricks my nose,
tangy copper death
I have to get back to help her. Her blood is mixed in there, although I can feel her heartbeat connected with mine, beating like we are one. Her heart is beating, strong and sure. My legs, however, don’t want to cooperate with me.
(Don’t think about it. Just go. Just pick your destination and go.)
I focus on Kayla and sure enough, my body figures out how to move itself. Faster and faster until I can see her, caramel fur against the white darkness.
Then faster still, until I am by her side.
-46-
There’s blood everywhere. Hunks of fur, wolf legs, some looking suspiciously humanoid. I’m panting and coughing every few breaths to get the stink out of my nose, but I think it’s there to stay. Kayla
(Lila)
is just standing there, looking at me.
(That was…)
(crazy)
She’s bleeding. I’m at her side and licking at her before I can think anything about unsanitary or hunger or anything human. The wolf knows that licking a wound helps stop the blood. It’s her neck. One of them got her neck. I growl.
(It’s no big deal, just a nip)
(I should have stopped them faster)
(You were amazing)
Then she does that thing again, where I’m flooded with warmth and good and my heart slows and my eyes slide to half mast.
Funny thing is that this also gives me the irresistible urge to pee.
While I’m marking my territory
(my kills MINE)
Kayla’s changing. I watch with blissful interest as the fur fades into her golden, smooth skin. She makes it look so graceful. One moment she’s a wolf, the next she’s a woman.
(she’s my cousin)
(I can still hear you, you know)
I choke off my thoughts and try to shake them out of my head. Some other kind of happy feelings are racing around and they make me want to hump Kayla’s leg.
(Try changing back now, Daniel)
Her voice in my head is smiling.
I turn away and try to push my humanness out. I have no idea how to do it. My pelt suddenly feels like it’s too hot, too tight. I glare at my paws. Why aren’t they shifting?
(close your eyes)
I oblige.
(see yourself, your human self)
Drawing a blank. I barely know what I look like. When was the last time I really looked at myself in a mirror? Dark brown hair, too long. Brown eyes. Pale. Skinny.
I keep seeing Kayla as she unfurled herself.
Growls emerge from my throat. I grind myself into the snow. Damn fur is too hot. I’m agitated. Why is this so hard? I’ve done this a million times before, only I don’t remember it.
(take a deep breath. Let it melt away)
I suck in some air. Close my eyes. Imagine the fur melting off and revealing my human self. Cold air rushing in. It’s a relief for about two seconds and then the cold robs my breath away.
“Why did we h-have to change b-back?” I ask.
Kayla laughs through her chattering teeth. “Look.” She’s pointing
at one of the more humanoid bodies. “We can’t leave this for the humans to find.”
“What do we do?”
“Burn it.”
“With what?” I gesture around. “All we’ve g-got is snow and ice.”
“There’s a lighter in the backpack.”
I glance around, looking for our stuff. I don’t see it anywhere. My nose sniffs out our trail, but my human eyes don’t allow me to see too far into the distance on this moonless night. “Where is our stuff.”
“About two miles thataway.”
A vicious shiver rips through my body. “Why the fuck did we change then? Makes no sense. We can’t walk two miles through the snow like this.”
“You need practice.”
“P-practice walking through the snow naked?”
“No, practice changing. Hurry up, I’m freezing my ass off.”
She wants me to change back into a wolf. I stand there, wondering how to even begin. It’s one thing when I’m feeling dizzy and nauseous and angry to just turn myself over to the wolf. But now? I’m cold and I can’t feel my feet.
“What’s the hold up?” she asks.
“I don’t–I have no idea how to start it,” I say. “I’ve never tried to make it happen. It just happens, and I usually try to stop it. What do I do?”
She steps closer to me, and I instinctively step away. We’re both naked. What is she doing?
“Don’t move away,” she says. She steps up to me and puts her arms around me.
The back side of me is turning almost as numb as my feet, but suddenly my front side is all kinds of warm. I lock my hands around her back, press my face into her hair. We shiver in unison.
(you have to change or we’re both going to die)
(I can’t do it I have no idea how to do it)
(let me know how this works)
She gives me her good feelings again, only this time it feels like she was holding back those other times. I’m instantly hard and flushed and jittery. My fingers dig into her back.
(let yourself go)
(it’s not that easy!)
I’m waiting for those symptoms that tell me the wolf is clawing at my door, but there is no nausea. I’m not dizzy. I’m just stepping back and
fur fangs snow death blood
Kayla has melted into a wolf in the next heartbeat. She makes it look so easy. Her forelegs bow down, but I know she’s not bowing to me. It’s not subservience but
play
And I’m bounding after her, no thoughts just
warm female lilacs run mate
-47-
Kayla and I stumble back to the warehouse, clinging to each other. We don’t bother taking off our coats; we are nearly frozen. The blanket goes around us and we huddle closer together, making a tiny warm space with our breath under the covers.