I turned to Adolf, who was already motioning for a woman to come up on stage. The lap dances were where we made all the money. Before his client could arrive, I grabbed his arm and leaned into his ear. “That guy on the left,” I muttered under my breath. “You know him? Or is he some homophobe about to pull a gun?”
Adolf leaned back to peer around my shoulders. “What guy?”
“The one who looks like he wants to shoot us.” When I turned back, though, the seat was empty. My chest constricted. Sometimes those businessmen just wanted a tease before slipping out a side door and going home to jerk off in the shower before falling asleep next to their frustrated wives. I tried to tell myself it was just that, though the unease clung to me. I searched the crowd more thoroughly than I needed, pretending I was selecting just the right woman for a dance. After a minute, I had to pick one. The man wasn’t in the club anymore, anyway. I’d searched the entire crowd, and he wasn’t among them. He’d simply vanished.
We finished up our show, and by the time my shift was over, I had earned enough money to pay the month’s rent. I’d also put the weirdo out of my mind. No one knew us. They didn’t know our real names, and they definitely didn’t know who we really were. We’d shed our names when we got fake IDs two years ago, when people stopped believing us when we told them our age. There was no way a hulking guy with an eight-pack could pass for thirteen. It was only a matter of time until someone started asking questions. Leaving the foster family and becoming someone else was the best decision we’d ever made, and the only one we could have made.
I threw my bag over my shoulder and headed for the door.
“Not going to say goodnight?” Adolf asked, making a kissy face at me.
“Shut up and go shake your ass at the Golden Girls.”
Adolf laughed and slapped my back. “You did good tonight.”
Even though I was older, I didn’t mind. Adolf and Donovan both knew stripping wasn’t my thing. Being comfortable around people didn’t come naturally to me. Neither did smiling.
“See you at home,” I said, locking my brother into a quick embrace. I turned and headed out the back door, ready to be home and under a hot shower. We had nothing to be ashamed of, and yet, I still felt a repulsive, crawly feeling after being groped and stroked all evening. Not to mention the grimy, used dollar bills that had been in places I didn’t want getting infected by whatever diseases lurked in their crumpled crevices.
If people like me could even get diseases… I wasn’t sure.
I knew I was a big guy. I’d never met anyone stronger than me. I didn’t worry about my physical safety, but I didn’t know if a disease could take me down in a way that people couldn’t. I was so preoccupied with trying to remember if I’d ever gotten a virus or even a cold that I didn’t hear the footsteps behind me until it was too late. Someone slammed into my back, and I flew across the parking lot, crashing into the side of my car so hard the metal bucked under my body.
2
Adolf
My brothers and me, we’d always had this psychic kind of connection. Not that we’d ever say that shit out loud. We didn’t want to get our asses kicked. But when one of them was in trouble growing up, the others always knew, and we’d go running.
So, when I felt this sharp yank on the chord that tied me to Rick, I jumped up off that chick’s lap so fast she probably wondered if she’d let a fart slip. I flew out the side door, and I was halfway across the parking lot before I even realized what I’d done. But it wasn’t really optional, if you know what I mean. When my brothers were in trouble, it was like I was physically, mentally, and emotionally compelled to help. If I didn’t, I don’t know what would happen. I’d never tried to resist. I’d probably have dropped over dead, or gone crazy, or my human body would have been torn to shreds, and a wolf would have crawled out and shook off like a dog coming out of water, except my wolf would be spraying drops of blood everywhere.
Anyway, I saw my brother getting choked out by this Hulk-like bald dude, except he was a regular white guy instead of a green mutant. But he must have had superhero strength, because there wasn’t a person in the world who could kick Rick’s ass. At least no one we’d ever met.
“Hey,” I barked, skidding to a stop behind the guy.
“Come on, show me what you got,” he taunted Alarick, throttling his neck with two beefy hands.
I lifted my fist and slammed it down on his gleaming cranium, reigning it in a little so I didn’t crush this numb-nut’s skull. I was pretty sure I could do that, but I’d never tried. Fighting was like fucking. Not something we did with humans. Both involved way too much risk of losing control and ending up with a dead person on our hands and the cops at our doorstep. It was safer to keep our heads down, go to work, and spend our free time with each other.
But this guy’s head didn’t crater like it had been hit by a meteorite. It felt like I’d punched a titanium plate. I was pretty sure I heard my knuckle crunch. Yeah, fuck that.
I swore and threw another punch, this one under the guy’s arm. He grunted, his grip on my brother loosening. “There’s the second one,” he said. “If I keep going, the last one will come scurrying to your rescue, too, won’t he?”
“Let me go,” Rick rasped, slamming a fist into the guy’s ribs over and over. The guy didn’t let up, but I could see his body tense for each blow, which meant it hurt the asshole.
“Then admit it,” the dude said. “I know what you are. I know you’re not the only ones.”
I felt the animal rage building inside me, the one I tried so hard to control. I didn’t like to go all beast mode, even with my brothers. I always felt so low afterwards. But this prick had it coming. My fingers tingled, as if they might burst into claws at any moment, and my skin prickled with the fur that was rippling under the surface. I grabbed the guy by the back of the neck, and with a giant heave, ripped him away from the car, where he’d held Alarick pinned.
After hurling him to the ground so hard I felt the ground asphalt shake under my feet, I turned to my brother. “What the fuck, Rick? Who is that guy?”
Something slammed into the side of my head so hard I went flying, crashing to the ground ten feet away. My head spun, but I was on my feet in an instant, swaying for a second before I got the black spots blinked out of my vision. The Hulk dude swung at Rick, but he ducked and slammed his own fist into the Hulk’s gut. The Hulk grunted and doubled over, but before Alarick could finish him off, he dove forward, tackling my brother against the car again.
I leapt at them, grabbing the guy and wrenching him free. When he looked up, his eyes were glowing with this fucked up silvery light.
The animal inside me growled furiously at the unfamiliar sight, at the threat. It wanted to come out and go berserker on this guy’s ass. And I wanted to let it. Fur rippled along my arms, but Alarick barked a sharp order at me, this one inside my head.
Control yourself.
Right. Because we were monsters, and no one could know. People had gathered on the sidewalk outside the club, but they were too far to hear us, too far to see the fur prickling through my skin. Still, I couldn’t just wolf out in the middle of the strip club parking lot. The Men of Memphis were pieces of meat to be devoured, not predators that could devour the patrons. Rodney wouldn’t be very happy if we showed his clients that we weren’t actually sexy studs with eight-packs, but monsters with more back hair than a pack of gorillas.
“I know what you are,” the Hulk said again. “Show me what you can do.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Alarick growled. “Get lost before you get hurt.”
“You can’t fool me,” the Hulk said, his words slurring like a crazy person, like he was about to start spitting and foaming at the mouth. “Show me, you cowards!”
“Leave us alone or you’ll be sorry,” I said.
“Are you two young pups going to beat up an old man in front of all those proper southern ladies?” he taunted. “Two against one? I could
take you. But you’ll have to go in the woods with me, won’t you? So, let’s go.”
“You’ve got the wrong guys,” Alarick said. “Now leave, before someone calls the cops.”
Before I could move, the guy whipped out a hand and clamped it around my neck. Moving with unnatural speed and strength, he raced across the rest of the lot and into the sparse grove of drooping trees where junkies liked to throw their needles, and teenagers liked to throw their condoms. I didn’t have time to be scared. The second we were blocked from view of the club, the guy dropped me. A second later, the guy’s business suit burst into shreds, and a giant wolf exploded out of it and sank its fangs into my throat.
3
Alarick
I could have lain there and let that asshole spill every drop of my blood from my body before I’d spill a word of our secret. But when he went for my brother? Fuck that.
It took me a minute to shift, the process painfully and infuriatingly slow. If that guy was the same kind of wolf we were, I needed to learn his secrets. Nothing about my shift was easy or painless. When I finally dragged myself up off the ground, the wolf was shaking my brother like he was trying to snap his neck. He probably would have if Adolf hadn’t had the presence of mind—or the instinctual reaction—to start his own shift. His bulging muscles were pulled in strange, deformed ways for a human. His eyes glowed like a pair of moons, and his face had elongated into a muzzle, his teeth elongating into fangs at the same time.
I dove onto the other wolf’s back, sinking my teeth into the back of his neck. But when I jerked at his head, Adolf howled in pain.
Fuck. Someone was going to hear us and call the cops. Or animal control.
I released my hold and dove in again, tearing into the wolf’s hindquarters. He released Adolf with a snarl, whirling to snap his slathering, bloody jaws at me. I leapt aside, then slammed my shoulder into his, sending him tumbling across the filthy ground, choked with dead grass and trash. He rolled back onto his feet, and with one powerful jump, he landed on me, pinning me to the ground. Everything inside me screamed in protest at the horrific, unnatural sensation of being pinned under another wolf, staring up at him. I didn’t bow to anyone.
With a snarl, I snapped my jaws at his throat, but he slammed a paw against the side of my head, his claws raking through my fur in bloody furrows. His teeth clamped onto my shoulder, and a growl of pain ripped from me, trembling the leaves clinging to the sickly trees overhead.
Adolf dove in, now in full fur, his jaws clamping shut on the old wolf’s leg. The wolf turned his head to snap at my brother, and I took advantage, using my revulsion and fury to propel me upwards. This time, I connected. I sank my fangs through his thick pelt and into his skin and muscle. Blood flowed from his throat, over my teeth and my muzzle, but I refused to release my hold until I’d ripped through fur and flesh. I ripped away a piece of him, and he fell in the dirt, blood splattering across the packed earth, cigarette butts, and shards of beer bottles.
I stood with head lowered, letting blood and saliva drip from my muzzle. Adolf trotted over and nudged my good shoulder, whining quietly. Despite the agony of my injuries, I forced myself to endure the pain of shifting back. If no one had run down into the gulley from the club, they must be scared. Cops would be on the way.
When I finished shifting, Adolf was still furry, but otherwise he looked mostly human. “You okay?” I asked, checking him over visually as well as through the weird mind-link we shared. Somehow, he seemed almost entirely healed.
“I guess I heal faster as… You know,” he said, dropping his gaze and smoothing the grey fur along his forearm, as if he could push it back through his skin. When we were kids, when we’d discovered we could do this, it had been the most exciting thing, something unfathomably incredible, beyond even our superhero fantasies. It hadn’t taken us long to realize it wasn’t quite so awesome to the other people in our lives. Still, I hated the shamed look on Adolf’s face as he pushed his wolf back inside completely. I watched in awe as the wounds on his throat stitched themselves together, and the fur receded with them.
“Yeah, well, I can’t stay that way to heal,” I said, picking up what remained of my clothes. I pressed the dirty T-shirt to my bleeding shoulder.
“You gonna make it home?” he asked.
“You’re not coming?”
He shrugged, his fingers skimming over his throat, where only fresh, pink scars remained. “I haven’t finished my shift. I was gonna get some good tips from those Betty Whites.”
In the distance, sirens wailed.
“You better get back in there, then,” I said, clapping him on the shoulder with my good hand. “Tell them you fought off a thug. They’ll think you’re a hero.”
We stood staring down at the fallen wolf for a minute. “What are we going to do with him?” Adolf asked after tugging on his pants.
“Nothing,” I said, finishing pulling on my own torn clothes. “He’s a wolf that got into a fight with other wolves. There are no human injuries on him.”
“Is he…dead?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “But we’re not. We better get out of here.”
We strode to the edge of the trees before turning to look back. Adolf cleared his throat. “So… What the fuck just happened?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “But I don’t like it. We need to be on alert. If anything else weird happens, we split.”
“But I love this place,” Adolf said with what looked like the beginning of a pout. I had to remind myself he was only fifteen under all that freakish muscle that apparently came with being a werewolf.
“Want me to stay and keep watch for the rest of your shift?” I asked, glancing nervously in the direction of the wailing sirens.
“No, I’m good,” Adolf said. “I’ll call you if anything weird happens. Go take care of that.” He nodded to my shoulder, and my lips tightened into a grim line. I could feel blood running down my cheek from the gashes the other wolf had made when he attacked.
“I will,” I said.
“I’ll create a diversion,” Adolf said.
“Thank you.” I squeezed his shoulder once and then gave him a little push into the light of the parking lot. He trotted back, and the few people still outside the club swarmed him, probably asking if he was okay and what had happened to me and the other guy. While they were busy with him, I crept to my car. The side was dented, but I pulled open the door and climbed inside. The old beater car had barely run before, and now it looked like shit, too. I didn’t care. There was no one to impress. Despite our looks, relationships were obviously impossible for us.
I started the car, relieved that nothing had been affected but the frame. People started to notice, and I heard some calls when I started for the exit, but I knew Adolf would calm them down and spin some wild tale about how we’d interrupted an animal fight. Everyone would believe it, even the cops. Humans were predictable like that. They couldn’t believe something they hadn’t experienced, and however improbable Adolf’s story, it was within the realm of possibility. What we were? That was the stuff of legends, not reality. No one over the age of ten believed that boys could turn to wolves.
4
Donovan
When I heard the footsteps pounding up the stairs of our apartment building, I knew Alarick was pissed. The moment he’d gotten within five miles of the house, I’d known something was wrong. We’d tested out our connection the first time we stole a car. It didn’t have as long a range as we’d hoped. But it came in handy tonight.
Pausing the show on TV, I sat up on the couch, the blanket falling around my hips. I never slept right when my brothers were gone. Too many homes where I’d learned to sleep with one eye open. Only when they were in the same house could I really relax. Staying up watching TV was a better option than lying awake in bed until they got home on my nights off.
Keys jangled outside, and I was at the door, pulling it open before Alarick had a chance to turn the knob. It wasn’t like we had
to look through the peephole to see who was coming. Not that anyone would mess with us. We kept to ourselves, and if they wanted to start shit, we looked like the type of guys who could finish it. They usually backed off once they saw the three of us.
“What happened?” I demanded before Alarick could step through the door. When I caught sight of his face, my stomach twisted up all knotty. Long, jagged gashes sliced through his face from his forehead to his chin. He held a T-shirt wadded up on his shoulder, but it was already soaked with blood. The scent of it turned my stomach even more.
“A fight at the club,” Alarick said, pushing past me. “I just want a shower.”
“I’m gonna need a little more than that,” I said.
“Okay, Mom,” he said, giving me a sour look. They liked to call me that, thinking I’d get pissed, but I didn’t. Someone had to look out for them when they weren’t looking out for themselves. Someone had to care. If our real mom had tossed us in the trash, I’d do her job.
“What the fuck?” I asked, turning Alarick toward the light. He clenched his jaw, turning his face away from me, but he turned it in the direction that let me see his injury. “That’s not from a fight with a jealous boyfriend.”
“I’m going to shower, and then I’ll fill you in,” he said. “I’m tired, okay?”
While he washed, I rummaged through the cabinets, cursing under my breath every time I couldn’t find gauze or antibiotic ointment. We didn’t get injured, and when we did, it seemed to disappear while we slept more often than not. I didn’t know about this one. It looked like a chunk of his body might be gone, and all I could find were Band-Aids and rubbing alcohol.
Paranormal Academy Page 17