by TJ Klune
“Get up,” he said.
I picked up the bottle and set it back on the table. “You shouldn’t have done that.”
“Get. Up.”
I got up.
“Take it outside,” the bartender called. “I mean it, Mikey. You start shit in here again and I’ll call the cops.”
“Mikey,” I said. “That’s cute.”
They surrounded me. I could smell their anger, the blood boiling just underneath their skin. They were spoiling for a fight, not giving a shit that it was four against one. They moved like a pack, like they’d done this before. For all I knew they had. Perhaps the girl was bait and they’d thought I was an easy mark.
They led me toward the door.
I let them.
They were cocky. Sure. They stank of sweat and cigarettes. It reminded me of how Gordo had once been, sitting behind the garage in the ratty lawn chair, a cigarette dangling from his lips, oil under his fingernails. He didn’t smoke anymore.
The night air was cool. I was amused when I tried to remember where I was, what town, what state, and I couldn’t. It was just another place.
One of the men shoved me from behind.
I stumbled forward into the parking lot, the gravel crunching under my boots.
“Smug fucker,” the one with the tattoo said. “Who the hell do you think you are?”
I grinned at him. I felt feral, like I used to be. I wanted to tear into them, make them bleed. Hear them scream until they begged for me to stop.
Maybe it’d make me feel something other than hollowed out.
“You don’t have to do this,” Not-Kelly said, leaning against the side of a truck, arms folded. “You could walk away.”
“Nah,” I said. “I’ve earned this.”
He shook his head.
“Earned what?” the man demanded. “What’s wrong with you?”
“A great man once asked a question,” I told him, ignoring the crowd gathering outside the bar. They wanted a show. I’d give them one. “He stood, his head held high. He wasn’t afraid. He knew what he was capable of, and though he would do anything to protect what was his, he still believed in mercy. I’m going to ask you the same question.”
The men looked at each other before turning back to me.
I said, “What are your names?”
Not-Kelly sighed.
The tattooed man didn’t feel like talking. He swung at me, his fist big and blocky.
I caught his hand before it could connect.
He tried to pull away.
I didn’t let him.
I said, “I asked you a question. What are your names?”
I squeezed his fist. I felt his bones creak.
His eyes widened.
I let him go.
They came, all of them at once. They got a few hits in. One of them sucker punched me in the kidneys, causing a sharp flare of pain, bright and glassy. I welcomed it.
They tried. I wondered, briefly, how many people they’d done this to. How many times they’d taken what they’d wanted without caring about the repercussions. I told myself I was doing a good thing, teaching them a lesson so they’d never fuck with anyone else.
And maybe part of that was true.
A small part.
Because the rest of me wanted to hurt them. So I did.
I saved the man with the tattoo for last.
Arms wrapped around me, pulling me back against a strong chest as another one came in swinging. I kicked my feet off the ground, slamming them against his stomach. He bent over, eyes bulging, arms crossed. His mouth opened soundlessly, a thin line of spit hanging from his bottom lip.
I tilted my head forward before bringing it back sharply, hitting the man who held me square in the face. Bone and cartilage broke. Blood sprayed on the back of my neck as he grunted, dropping his arms.
The third man reached down and scooped up gravel and dirt, throwing it in my face as he rushed toward me. My vision blurred as I moved to the right, his fist glancing off my shoulder. I elbowed him in the throat, and he gagged, hands at his neck.
The tattooed man narrowed his eyes but stood just out of reach.
That was fine. His time would come.
The man with the broken nose threw a clumsy punch. I grabbed his arm, spun around on my heels, and threw him into the side of a parked car. He fell to the ground face-first and didn’t get back up.
“Don’t kill them,” Kelly said.
“I won’t,” I promised him.
The first guy had started sucking in air again, still bent over, and he went down hard when I kicked him in the side of the head.
The smart man raised his hands in front of him as if that would stop me.
I knocked them to the side.
I grinned at him. “You should run.”
He didn’t.
“Okay,” I said, grabbing him by the shoulders. I kneed him in the stomach. He collapsed, wheezing, wet eyes blinking rapidly.
“Here!” I heard a man yell.
I turned to see another man toss my attacker a wooden baseball bat. He caught it deftly and laid it against his shoulder. He spat on the ground, never looking away from me.
I shook my head. “That’s not going to help you.”
He came for me, bat raised.
He brought it down where I’d been standing. It bounced off the ground as I pressed against him, spinning around him until I was at his back. He turned his head just as I reached over his shoulder, grabbed the bat, and ripped it from his hands. I threw it to the side.
“You should have told me your name,” I whispered in his ear.
I was distracted.
I didn’t see him reach into his pocket.
I heard a click.
A metallic whisper I recognized from how things used to be.
Tanner and Chris with their knives. From when they were human, breakable and soft.
He thrust his hand back.
It wasn’t big, the switchblade. Six inches at most.
But fuck did it hurt when he stabbed me in the side.
I shoved him away.
He stumbled forward.
I looked down.
The handle of the knife stuck out from my shirt. Blood bloomed like roses against the fabric.
I reached down and grabbed the handle, feeling the blade in my gut. I gritted my teeth as I pulled it out.
Kelly said, “Leave. Carter. Please leave.”
I threw the knife on the ground, my blood glistening on metal.
The wound began to close.
I lifted my head slowly.
The tattooed man took a step back.
He said, “Your eyes, what the fuck is wrong with your eyes—”
“You should have told me your name.”
I rushed him as the fog thickened.
Kelly said, “Carter.”
Kelly said, “Carter, stop.”
Kelly said, “Carter, you need to stop.”
I lifted my head.
He wasn’t there.
The man below me whimpered. I looked back down at him, hearing Sarah screaming, begging for me to stop, to please just stop, please, please, please. My hands shook. Two fingers on my right hand were broken. The knuckles on both were split and coated with blood.
Some of it was mine.
Most wasn’t.
The man’s face was swollen and slick. He was babbling, telling me he was sorry, he was so sorry, man, don’t hurt me anymore, please don’t hurt me, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, your eyes, your eyes, why do they look like that, why are they purple?
The fight had drained out of him. All that remained was fear.
He was afraid of me.
I looked back up at the crowd.
They were horrified.
A few had their hands over their mouths.
Sarah was sobbing. She was terrified.
I said, “I didn’t… I didn’t mean it. I didn’t mean to—”
The bartender pushed through the crow
d. He carried a shotgun. He pointed it at me. “I don’t know who you are, but if you touch him again, I’ll blow your head off.”
He tracked me with the shotgun as I stepped away from the tattooed man. Sarah rushed forward, going to her knees next to her brother. She cradled his face in her hands as he moaned. “Oh god, I’m sorry, I didn’t ask them to—”
“His eyes,” the man babbled. “His eyes. His eyes. His eyes.”
“Get out of here,” the bartender said coldly. “I’ve already called the cops. You’ve got maybe five minutes before they show up.”
I nodded and turned toward the truck, my eyes burning.
I only stopped when the bartender said, “Wolf.”
I didn’t look back.
“Don’t let me catch you here again. Your kind isn’t welcome here.”
I left.
peter and the wolf/our father
The third note came in August.
I thought I was dreaming most days. Kelly was there more and more, and everything had a hazy edge to it. It was getting harder to wake up.
The roads all looked the same. The days bled together.
Kelly said, “You’re going to lose your mind.”
I laughed, though it sounded rusty and broken. “I think it might be a little late for that.”
He sighed. “Why are you doing this to yourself?”
“I have to. He would do the same for me.”
He had that stubborn set to his jaw. I ached at the sight of something so familiar. “You don’t know that. You don’t even know him.”
“Years. He was with us for years.”
“And stuck as a wolf,” Kelly (Not-Kelly) reminded me. “Feral. For all you know, he doesn’t remember anything. Like Robbie.”
“He saved us,” I whispered, hands tightening on the steering wheel.
Kelly shook his head. “I know. But don’t you miss me? Don’t you want to come home?”
“More than anything,” I said hoarsely. “You know that.”
“I need you, Carter. Why would you do that to me? You know what losing Robbie did to me. You were there. And yet you didn’t even hesitate in leaving me behind.” He was crying. “I don’t understand. How could you be so cruel?”
I couldn’t look at him. I was numb. “I love you.”
“Do you?”
“Yes. More than anything.”
“Then come home. Please.”
I swallowed thickly. “I… can’t. Remember what Joe said? To that hunter. David King. To tell Ox.”
He laughed through his tears. “Not yet. Not yet. Not yet. It’s all happened before and it will all happen again. These circles. We keep going in circles. Ox and Joe. Gordo and Mark. Me and Robbie. We keep making the same mistakes over and over and over.”
“I know.”
“What are you going to do about them?” He nodded toward the front of the truck.
“I’ll handle it.”
But he was already gone.
I looked out the windshield.
Wolves growled.
I got out of the truck, hands raised, and was surrounded almost immediately.
“Who are you?” the Alpha demanded, hand around my throat. She pressed me against the truck, the handle digging into my back. “What are you doing in my territory?”
“I’m not here to hurt you,” I managed to get out.
“Then why are you here?”
“Can’t… breathe….”
Her grip lessened, and I sucked in air. Her nostrils flared as her forehead furrowed. She shook her head as she narrowed her red eyes again. “What do you want?”
I reached up and settled my hand on her wrist. I held on gently so she wouldn’t think I was going to hurt her. “I’m looking for someone.”
“There’s no one here for you.”
“Not anymore.”
“Why would you think he was here in the first place?”
I grinned at her. “I never said it was a he.”
She sighed as she let me go. “Shit.”
THEY WERE A YOUNG PACK, all unmated. The oldest, the Alpha, was only twenty. She wouldn’t tell me her name and refused to let me talk to any of the others. That was fine. I didn’t come for them, only for what they could tell me.
Theirs was a house set back in the Canadian wilds. No one else was around for miles. They liked it better that way. They didn’t want me going inside. I never pushed.
“No witch?” I asked as she came back to me after whispering to one of her Betas.
She hesitated. “No. We… had one once.”
“But not anymore.”
“Killed,” she said. “Or so my mother told me. Years ago. In Oregon. Mom said she deserved it. Listened to someone she shouldn’t have. She tried to kill an Alpha. Apparently she took the hand of a witch, and the witch’s mate killed her.”
I looked up at the wide expanse of sky above and thought of Kelly speaking of circles. “Emma.”
The Alpha nodded slowly. “Emma Patterson.”
“She was in over her head.”
“Should I ask how you know this?”
“Probably not. And I was never here.” I nodded toward her pack. “Make sure they know that too.”
“Don’t worry about them. I know you.”
“I doubt that.”
“Who were you talking to in the truck?”
“No one.”
“I heard you.”
“It doesn’t matter.” I looked at her. “When was he here?”
She hesitated. “A month ago.”
I nodded. “Was he alone?”
“No.” She looked off into the trees. “There was something with him. Something bigger. We never saw it. But we felt it. Deep in the forest. It felt like a cancer. It was wrong. Black.”
“Sounds about right,” I muttered. “What did he want?”
The Alpha shrugged. “He didn’t speak much. I think…. Do you know the story of Peter and the Wolf? My mother told it to me.”
I shook my head.
She said, “Peter lived in a clearing in the forest with his grandfather.”
Jesus Christ. “A clearing.”
“He goes out into the clearing, and when he does, he leaves the garden gate open. There was a duck that lived in the garden. It saw the gate open and went through, wanting to go swimming in a pond. There, the duck meets a bird, and they argue about swimming and flying, going back and forth and back and forth. The bird and the duck don’t know that Peter’s cat has also come through the open gate. It’s hunting. At the last moment, Peter sees the cat and warns the bird and the duck. The bird flies away. The duck swims to the middle of the pond.”
“I don’t know what this has to do with—”
“Peter’s grandfather is upset that Peter went into the clearing alone, asking him what would happen if a wolf came out of the forest? Peter says that boys like him aren’t afraid of wolves. His grandfather, seeing his grandson is foolish, locks the gate.”
Her pack sighed around us. It sounded like the wind.
The Alpha said, “Soon after, a wolf comes. It’s big and gray. The cat, seeing the wolf, manages to climb a tree and escape back into the garden. The duck, not seeing the wolf, leaves the pond. The wolf comes for it. The duck runs. But the wolf is faster and swallows the duck whole. Peter, seeing the beast eating his friend, makes a decision. He gets a rope and climbs the tree. He tells the bird to fly over the wolf’s head and distract him while he lowers a noose to catch the wolf by his tail. He succeeds. The wolf struggles to get free, but Peter ties the rope to the tree and it only makes the noose tighter.”
I didn’t speak.
The Alpha tilted her head back toward the sun. “Hunters come. They’d been tracking the wolf, and they want to kill it. Peter doesn’t want death, even if the wolf had eaten the duck. He convinces the hunters to help him take the wolf to a zoo. There is a parade, led by the hunters and the bird and the cat and Peter, dragging the wolf by the rope. The grandfather is there too,
and though Peter was successful, his grandfather says, ‘What if Peter hadn’t caught the wolf? What then?’” She looked at me. “In its hurry, the wolf swallowed the duck whole. If you listen very carefully, you’ll hear it quacking in the wolf’s belly.”
“That… was certainly a story you just told me.”
She snorted, and for a moment she wasn’t an Alpha. She was a young woman exasperated by someone who didn’t understand what she was saying. “You’re trying to catch a wolf by the tail. But what if you can’t catch it? What then? Will you be swallowed whole?”
I said, “Sometimes I think the noose is already around my neck. I can’t breathe because it’s being pulled tighter and tighter.”
“By your own choice. You left the gate open. You’re inviting the wolf inside. I’ve heard things. We all have. Rumors. Of the destruction of Caswell. Of a great and terrible beast that cannot be killed. Of a pack unlike any other, led by two Alphas, one of whom is a king. The other a savior. This pack has suffered again and again. And yet they still go on.” She smiled. “Have you ever heard of such a pack? It’s a miracle. Even here, so far away from everyone, we know things. Secret things.”
I was very tired. My head hurt, and my palms were sweaty. “He’s important.”
Her smile took on a melancholic curve. “He would have to be. Though I hope you don’t take offense when I tell you it only cements my belief that men are the stupidest creatures alive.”
I laughed for the first time in a long time. It crawled out of my throat, sounding like broken glass. “I won’t argue with you there.”
“I thought not. If they ask, I’ll tell them that you were here. They deserve to know. After everything.” She reached up and cupped my face, and though she wasn’t my Alpha, I couldn’t help but lean into it. I couldn’t remember the last time another wolf had touched me. Her eyes filled with red as her voice grew deeper. “You fight, little prince. And even when you stumble, you push on. Why?”
My eyes stung. “I don’t know how to stop.”
“Even when you feel the pull of the noose?”
“Even then.”
She let me go and took a step back. “Wait here.”
I did.
She left me standing in front of the house, her pack trailing after her, shooting curious glances over their shoulders. Once the door had closed behind them, I sagged against the truck. I tried to keep my breathing slow and even, but my chest hitched.