Brothersong

by TJ Klune

  The blood drained from my face. “What?” I whispered.

  Kelly nodded slowly, and his face was twisted like I’d never seen before. Oh, he was still my brother, the same shape and size and color, but he was darker somehow. Eyes flat and cold, the light snuffed out. “I know, Carter. I wasn’t supposed to, but I know. Joe was with you. Dad told you to keep an eye on him. But you didn’t like your little brother trailing after you, telling you to wait up, Carter. Wait for me! You were with your friends, and you didn’t have time for the little king. You ran, and Joe tried to keep up, but you were too fast. You laughed, your friends laughed, and then Joe was gone. A beast came from the forest and stole our brother away, and you let it happen.”

  I moved without thinking. I lunged for him, snarling, claws extended, wanting to tear him, spill his blood, make the truth stop pouring from his mouth. He didn’t flinch. He didn’t try to get away.

  No.

  He smiled.

  And I passed right through him because Kelly wasn’t there at all.

  I landed roughly on the ground, skidding through the snow. I came to a stop near an old oak tree, blinking up at the gun-metal sky.

  I knew my eyes were flickering violet. That ol’ familiar feeling.

  “Help me,” I whispered. “I’m slipping.”

  There was no response.

  I FOLLOWED HIM deeper into the woods.

  There were rabbit tracks. Gavin had stopped near them, and I could see the long divots in the snow where he’d put his snout, chasing the scent.

  But he’d let it be and continued on.

  I did too.

  “Kelly,” I said as I trudged through the forest, “I’m sorry. Come back. Please come back.”

  He didn’t.

  I wanted to go back to the tree. Find the picture. Hold it against my chest until I felt awake again. It was mine, I knew. All mine. Gavin stole it from me, but I found it. It was mine.

  I pushed on.

  I walked for what felt like days. Sometimes I thought I saw wolves moving in the trees around me out of the corner of my eye, but anytime I tried to find them, tried to see them straight on, they were gone.

  “You did this,” I told my father. “You did this. You knew. You knew about Gavin, and you said nothing. You kept him away. You hid the truth from us. From Gordo. What more could you have done to him? You took Mark away from him. You left him behind. You didn’t tell him he had a brother. You let Joe get his claws in Ox without him knowing what it meant. You died when we needed you most. Why would you do that to us? I love you. I hate you. I wish you were here. I wish you weren’t my father.”

  A wolf howled, and I didn’t know if it was real.

  “I try,” I panted, skin slick with sweat even though I was freezing. “I try so goddamn hard to do the right thing. To keep my family safe. To be a good wolf. And what does it get me? I’m thousands of miles away from home. I’m losing my mind. I want him. I don’t know why. Maybe it’s all a dream. Or magic. He did something to me. Made me care about him. Made me miss him when he was gone. Made me put tires to the secret highways even though I told myself I would never do that again. He saved us. He saved himself. He is my shadow. I am his. Livingstones and Bennetts. Bennetts and Livingstones. It’s a circle, a snake eating itself. Kelly? Kelly!”

  Clumps of snow fell from tree branches.

  A flash of brown in the distance. A buck. A big one.

  “Run,” I whispered to it. “It’s not safe here in these woods. I’ll hunt you. I’ll kill you. I’ll eat you up I love you so.”

  And on and on it went.

  THE TRACKS LED to a cave.

  I stared at it. The mouth was large and gaping, a black hole from which came the sound of the diseased heart, the pulse that pierced a hook through my brain and pulled, pulled, pulled.

  The fog in my head cleared slightly.

  “Yeah,” I whispered to myself. “Now would be a good time to turn around. Only people with a death wish would go into caves in the middle of nowhere.”

  I looked around for Kelly, hoping he’d be there with me. I needed to apologize for trying to hurt him. Tell him I didn’t mean it.

  He wasn’t there.

  I didn’t blame him.

  A low whine came from the cave, pathetic and weak.

  Gavin.

  I went to the cave.

  Water dripped somewhere inside.

  Gavin’s heart raced.

  The diseased heart was slow and steady.

  I took a deep breath.

  And went inside.

  It was warmer than I expected, humid and wet. I stepped over piles of leaves. Over branches long dead. Bones littered the ground. Some looked small. Sitting on a rock was the skull of a deer, the bone stripped clean. I thought I saw a human rib cage, but I told myself it was just a trick of the low light.

  The cave narrowed almost immediately. Tufts of black hair hung from the walls, as if a large animal had passed through and rubbed up against it. Above the smell of snow and stagnant water, animal parts and blood, there was something darker. Something deeper, as if it’d seeped into the earth. It burned my nose.

  I found them only moments later. The cave opened up again to a larger space, and in the failing light, I saw the outline of a beast moving slowly. It inhaled. It exhaled.

  And there, in the darkness, was a single red eye, as bright as a dying sun.

  It wasn’t pointed toward me.

  It was staring at the ground below it.

  At a timber wolf.

  He lay on his back, his eyes weakly flashing violet. His jaws hung open, his tongue lolling out of his mouth. He struggled, legs kicking, but his father had a large misshapen hand pressed against his chest and stomach, claws like hooks digging into the soft flesh. Gavin whined again, eyes wild and unseeing. It tore at me, and I had to stop myself from rushing in, from leaping at the beast that held him down.

  Livingstone leaned his head down, growling as his remaining eye flashed a deeper red.

  I felt it then. In my head.

  Gavin was mine.

  Gavin was his.

  A conduit.

  It was faint, but there all the same.

  It whispered SonWolfPack, mine you’re mine i am wolf i am alpha give yourself to me i can i can i can smell him on you i can smell the bennett the interloper the prince who will take you from me kill him kill him kill him you must kill him alpha i am your alpha kill him if you don’t i will i will i will.

  I could hear him, hear Livingstone, because I could hear Gavin.

  Gavin saying, screaming, no please no please no please no stop stop stop stop STOP STOPSTOPSTOP DAD PLEASE DAD IT HURTS IT HURTS IT—

  And I said, “Let him go.”

  The beast jerked his head toward me.

  His eye blazed.

  He roared, the sound flat and muffled as it bounced off the walls of the cave.

  Gavin turned his head. When he saw me, he howled and began to kick at his father. Livingstone snarled as Gavin’s claws sliced his skin. He pulled his arm back, and Gavin rolled away quickly, pulling himself upright. Livingstone hit his head on the ceiling as he tried to come for me, but before he could reach me, Gavin stood between us, his shift melting away.

  He held up his hands to his father as if to ward him off. “No. Stop. Don’t.”

  Livingstone did, though he continued to rumble angrily.

  Gavin looked over his shoulder, a look of sheer agony mixed with fury on his face. “Get out.”

  I took a step toward him. “I—”

  “Get. Out!”

  “Fuck you. I’m not leaving you here!”

  Livingstone knocked Gavin to the side as he charged toward me. I ducked as thick claws swiped over me, sparks falling like stars as they connected with the rock wall. I ran toward him, meaning to go under him, but he was too quick. My breath was knocked from my lungs when he picked me up, pinning my arms to my sides and slamming me against the wall. Bright lights flashed across my vision, and
I felt hot breath against my face. I shook my head, clearing the lights away, only to see Livingstone’s mouth wide open.

  “Youuuu,” he said, and it rattled my bones. “Always youuuu. Bennett. Another Bennett. Taking from me. You can’t have him. He’s mine.”

  I thought my ribs would splinter if he applied a little more pressure. My vision was tunneling, and I thought about Kelly and Joe. They were going to be so mad at me for dying so far from home.

  “I’ll do it,” Gavin said. “I’ll kill myself. Right here. Right now.”

  Livingstone reared back, looking down at Gavin.

  Gavin stood with his hand at his own throat, claws digging in. Blood ran in rivulets down his neck and bare chest, striping his skin. His eyes were clear, and his hand flexed briefly, the blood trails thicker.

  “No,” Livingstone snarled. “No. You can’t. Alpha. I am your Alpha. You cannot die. I won’t let you.”

  “Then let him go.”

  Livingstone’s red eye grew brighter. “Bennett. Always. Kill them. Kill them all.”

  “Leave you,” Gavin said, and I gasped as the grip around me loosened. “Even you can’t keep me from dying. You’ll be alone. You’ll have nothing. You’ll have no one. Let. Him. Go.”

  Livingstone roared again. He turned his head toward me, jaws snapping, fangs inches from my face. “You can’t have him.”

  “I’m going to kill you,” I promised him through gritted teeth. “When you least expect it, I’m going to kill you for everything you’ve—”

  “Carter! Shut up.”

  Livingstone shook me hard, my head snapping back and forth. The back of my skull knocked against the cave wall, and I was floating away. It was getting harder to breathe, but it seemed unimportant. I knew only the ringing in my ears. I said, “We heard them. The songs. Wolves. Ravens. The heart, always the heart. It means we’re coming home. They’re strong, and nothing else matters when we hear them. Kill me. It won’t matter. Because in the end, our songs will always be heard.”

  “Don’t!” Gavin cried, and I didn’t want him to see this, didn’t want him to see what his father would do to me. For all his bravado, for his prickly exterior, he was still my shadow, still the timber wolf who followed me even when I told him not to. He was there, always there, and when he wasn’t, when he was gone, when he’d left with his father, I understood how a heart could crack so cleanly in two without even a whisper of warning. He’d been stuck as a wolf until I was about to die. He’d shifted for me.

  I said, “Hey,” and “It’s okay” and “Look away. Please look away.”

  The stench of his blood grew thicker as he demanded Livingstone let me go.

  And then I was flying.

  It was darkness, and then I was outside again, the air snapping cold against my skin. I screamed when I hit a tree and my back broke. The tree cracked, the wood splintering as it fell over. I landed on top of it, my body made up of useless limbs. I slid off into the snow. I couldn’t come back from this. It was too much. It was too big. Bones could heal, but I couldn’t feel my legs.

  I looked up at the sky through the canopy. The clouds had parted above me, and through the gray, I saw blue, blue, blue.

  “I am because I am,” I whispered.

  “Carter? Carter!”

  I screamed again when something in my back shifted back into place, and suddenly I could feel everything. I was on fire, my skin blackened and charred. I writhed on the ground, my arms and legs skittering in the snow. I rode the wave of pain, struggling to catch my breath.

  And then he was there above me, wearing a halo of blue sky. “Get up. You have to get up. Carter. Carter.”

  He grabbed my arm and pulled, and I cried out as the world tilted around me, the colors bleeding together in streaks of gray and white and blue. I was up on my feet, my arm around his neck, his cheek scraping against mine like a kiss.

  He said, “Shift.”

  He said, “You have to shift.”

  He said, “It’s the only way. Shift, turn wolf.”

  He said, “Now, now, now.”

  I tilted my head back and I—

  am wolf

  i am wolf

  hurts it hurts it hurts it

  gavin

  gavin

  gavin

  saying run

  telling me to run

  can’t

  can’t leave

  can’t leave you

  he says you have to

  he says you’ll die

  he says he’ll kill you

  come with me

  come away

  we’ll run

  just the two of us

  we’ll run far

  why

  why won’t you believe me

  why won’t you do this for me

  he says sometimes

  he says sometimes we can’t have what we want

  no

  no

  no

  i won’t stop

  i can never stop

  i am bennett

  i am wolf

  i am

  he says run i’ll follow just run

  yes yes yes

  run we’ll run

  and i do

  i run

  good wolf

  i am good fast wolf

  where are you

  where are you

  where are

  I SHIFTED AS THE cabin came into view. My back hurt, my front hurt, everything hurt, and I fell to my hands and knees, gagging, a thin line of spittle hanging from my lip before dropping into the snow. I was so fucking cold, my teeth chattering, and my eyelids were stuck, gummy and heavy.

  I crawled toward the cabin.

  I made it to the door before my arms could give out.

  I pushed it open.

  The fire was dead.

  It was cold.

  I found the blanket left on the floor.

  I threw it over myself, curling up into a ball on the floor.

  “Kelly,” I moaned as I shivered. “Kelly, help me. Kelly, please. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I didn’t want to hurt you. I didn’t mean it.”

  But he never came.

  heartbeat

  Gavin didn’t come back that night.

  The sky darkened.

  The promised snow never fell.

  When I could move without feeling like I was dying, I built a fire, my hands shaking. It took a long time before I started to feel warm.

  I stood gingerly. The pain was lessening, but it still had its teeth in me.

  I went to the window.

  The glass was frosted.

  I slept, but it was broken. Kelly was there, standing off in the distance. No matter how much I tried to run toward him, I never got any closer.

  I SAT UP WITH A GASP.

  It was morning.

  The fire was out again.

  I heard—

  I smelled—

  I wrapped the blanket around my shoulders and went to the window, sure there would be someone standing outside the cabin.

  There wasn’t.

  Only the trees.

  The clouds were gone.

  The sun was shining.

  I said, “I know you’re there.”

  I said, “Come out, come out, wherever you are.”

  I said, “You can’t hide from me.”

  I said, “This is a dream. I’m still dreaming.”

  I was delirious.

  I was hot.

  I was cold.

  I said, “Dad?”

  But my father was dead and nothing but ash.

  I went to the door.

  I opened it.

  Cool air washed over me.

  I blinked against it.

  I stepped out into the snow.

  I barely felt it against my bare feet.

  I walked away from the cabin.

  I didn’t know where I was going. My skin thrummed.

  I said, “Where are you?”

  I laughed.

 
It came out sounding like a sob, choked and wet.

  And then I saw him.

  In the snow.

  Behind the trees.

  A white wolf. Black on his back and chest.

  His eyes burned red.

  He said chase me i love you chase me.

  I said, “Daddy?” because I was just a little boy again, and my father, my father was there, and he was never going to leave me, he was never going to leave me again.

  He ran.

  I chased after him.

  Tree branches slapped against my face and chest, sharp stings as the blanket flared around me. I almost dropped it. I almost let it go.

  PackLoveSon to me to me come to me

  He was there and then he wasn’t.

  He was in front of me.

  He was beside me.

  He was behind me, nipping at my heels.

  i love you PackLoveSon i love you i love you and i will guide you home

  “Dad!” I cried.

  I entered a clearing, one I didn’t recognize. It all looked the same. The trees. The snow. The earth. It wasn’t my territory, it wasn’t home, and I couldn’t find him, I couldn’t—

  I tripped over a tree root and crashed onto the ground, the blanket underneath me.

  I came to a stop on my back.

  I looked up at the sky.

  “I tried,” I whispered to my father. “I’m sorry I wasn’t good enough.”

  I closed my eyes.

  He spoke then, his voice loud and clear. “You are more than I ever thought you could be. My brave son. Listen. Can you hear it?”

  I said, “Daddy. It hurts.”

  He said, “I know. And I would take it from you if I could. I would take it all. It was never supposed to be this way. None of it. Howl, Carter. Howl as loud as you can. Sing your song. They will hear you.”

  And because he was my father, I did as he asked.

  It came out thin and reedy, a desperate aria of blue.

  I opened my eyes.

  There was no one there.

  My father was dead.

  He’d died years ago.

  He wasn’t here.

  He wasn’t with me.

  He wasn’t—

  “Carter?”