by TJ Klune
I pulled out of Kelly’s arms. He frowned in his sleep. I reached down and smoothed out the lines on his forehead, whispering that I was here, that he was okay. He sighed, curling toward Joe.
I went to the window and settled on my knees next to Gavin. I rested my arms on the windowsill. It was cold, ice crawling up along the pane of glass.
“Thank you.”
He looked over at me, eyes violet.
I didn’t look away.
“For keeping watch. Guarding. These past few weeks. I know you did while I was sleeping.”
He huffed out a breath, a low grumble in his throat.
“You don’t have to do that. You don’t have to hide from me.”
He looked back out the window. I leaned my chin on my arms, my beard scratching my skin.
He pressed his nose against my shoulder, a question without words.
I needed him to know. I needed him to understand. To hear me, to really hear me. And so I said, “This is ours. This pack. This life. This world. It’s ours, and no one can take that away from us. We’re going to be okay. You and me. We’re going to live. And maybe it won’t be perfect, but we’ll figure it out. We’ll make ourselves a home. I don’t know what this is between us. I’ll trust you to know what’s right for you. But I just want you to know that I’m here if ever you’re ready. It scares the shit out of me, but I know it’s worth it because I know you are. I’m sorry I didn’t see you for who you really were. You helped to fill in the broken parts of me, and I didn’t even realize it, not until it was too late. I don’t want to ever feel like that again. I came for you because you deserve to have someone at your side, someone who doesn’t want to hurt you.”
He whined, pressing against me. His fur was warm, his wolf body hot.
“I don’t know what this means or what it could be. But I think I want to find out. My father told me once that when I found you, when I found the person I was supposed to be with, I’d know. I didn’t believe him. I wasn’t like Joe or Kelly with their wide eyes and belief in something like magic. I get it now because of you. So whatever you want. Whatever it takes. You’re with me now. Where you belong. And I’m not going to take that for granted again.”
He laid his head on top of mine, breathing in deeply.
We stayed there until the sky began to lighten.
shift
“We move quick,” Gordo said. “No matter what happens.”
We stood just inside the doorway of the cabin. Joe and Kelly were grim but focused. Gordo’s tattoos were glowing but muted. Gavin paced the interior of the cabin, nose to the ground. He stopped near the bed. He sneezed and shook his head before grabbing my pack between his teeth. He carried it to me, set it at my feet. He looked up at me, head cocked.
“You’re with me?” I asked him, and it felt like such a loaded question.
His eyes flashed violet.
And for a moment, I thought I heard a voice in my head. It whispered carter carter carter.
I reached down and took his face in my hands. “Stay with me. At my side.”
His tongue scraped my palm.
Gordo was watching us when I looked back at him. He arched an eyebrow.
I said, “We don’t stop. We don’t look back. No matter what happens.”
Gordo grinned, wild and bright. “Goddamn, I’ve missed you. You asshole.”
And then he opened the door.
“TWO TRUCKS,” Gordo said as we jogged through the trees. “You said yours still runs?”
I nodded. “It should.”
“I’ll drive. Joe and Kelly in the other truck. Gavin in the back. He can’t stay as a wolf for long. We’ll come across people soon enough. They’ll see him.”
“We can worry about that once this place is behind us,” Kelly said. He was breathing harshly, a thick stream of fog pouring from his mouth. “I hate it here. It’s like poison.”
“It’s him,” Joe said. His eyes were red. “He’s infected this place. I can feel it. The woods are dying, like he’s sucking the life from everything around him.”
I told myself the chill I felt was from the air.
THE TRUCKS WERE STILL PARKED in front of the house where we’d left them. I wondered if anyone would look for the hunters, if they’d be able to track them here. It didn’t matter. We’d be long gone if that ever happened.
There was a newer truck parked at the rear that hadn’t been there before. Joe told me it was Ox’s. He’d replaced the one that got wrecked when we fought in Caswell. I shuddered at the memory of the children raining down from the rooftops, their eyes vacant, their claws dripping with blood. I hoped they never remembered what had happened.
Kelly grabbed me by the hand as he stopped next to my truck. I looked at him.
He said, “This is real. I need you to know that. This is real. We’re here. We came for you, the both of you. You’re awake, Carter. I swear you’re awake.”
I hugged him tightly, breathing him in, relishing the beat of his heart.
“There’s time for that later,” Gordo snapped. “Get to the truck. Don’t get stuck trying to turn around.”
We separated. Kelly looked like he was going to say something else but stopped himself. Gordo was right. We had to focus.
Joe squeezed my shoulder before pulling Kelly toward the truck. My brothers looked back at me over their shoulders as if they thought I’d disappear once I was out of their sight. I didn’t blame them.
Gordo took my bag from me, and the keys. “Get Gavin in the back.” He turned toward the cab and opened the door.
I rounded the truck. Gavin followed me. The stench of blood was still thick in the air. It made my gums itch. I pulled down the tailgate, glancing at Gavin. He stood next to me, back rigid as he stared off into the forest. I touched him between the ears. He startled, looking over at me. “We good?”
He jumped into the back of the truck. It creaked and shook from side to side under his considerable weight. He whined at me. I understood. Let’s go. Let’s go. Let’s go.
I lifted the tailgate and locked it in place.
The truck rumbled to life, black exhaust pouring from the tailpipe and making my eyes water. As I went to the passenger side, I glanced over my shoulder to see Joe back up slowly and execute a sloppy three-point turn. His truck’s tires spun briefly before they caught, lurching forward as he turned down the country road.
I climbed inside and closed the door behind me. The heater was on full blast, but it hadn’t yet warmed up. My teeth chattered. I reached to the back window and slid it open. Gavin stuck his snout in, nostrils flaring. His tongue lolled out between his fangs.
Gordo pulled forward toward the house. “Maybe we’ll get lucky.”
“I wouldn’t count on it,” I muttered.
He managed to get the truck turned around with little trouble. He pulled around the other vehicles, tree branches scraping against the passenger side. Ahead, the other truck’s brake lights flashed as they waited for us to catch up.
Gordo turned the headlights on and off to let them know to keep going. They started up again, truck bouncing on the old road.
The house was barely out of sight behind us when Gordo grunted.
I looked over at him.
He was grinding his teeth, a thin sheen of sweat on his forehead. Gavin pulled his snout out from the window, growling as he struggled to stay upright in the snow that had settled in the bed of the truck.
Gordo said, “He’s awake.”
The engine revved as he pressed his foot down on the gas pedal. We jerked forward just as a roar came from deep in the woods.
“Go, go, go,” I chanted. I looked out the window, sure I’d see a large black mass barreling toward us. I pressed my hands against the roof of the cab as the truck fishtailed around a corner. Gordo spun the wheel, easing up on the gas as the truck drifted. We narrowly missed a tree, the trunk almost grazing the side of the truck. We straightened out and picked up speed again.
Ahead, Joe and Kelly
hit the main road. They didn’t slow as they turned right, sliding so much that I thought they’d overturn into the ditch, but Joe kept control. I looked behind us to check on Gavin and—
“Oh shit,” I whispered.
I felt Gordo’s eyes on me. “What? What’s wrong? What’s—”
Robert Livingstone crashed onto the road behind us, trees falling down around him. He rolled once, the ground shaking as he pulled himself up. It was one thing seeing him at night killing the hunters or circling the cabin. Or even in the darkness of the cave. It was something else entirely in the daylight, the beast easily ten feet tall as he stood on his hind legs. His remaining eye burned in his massive head, the hair covering his body almost entirely black except for the white around his face and chest. His limbs were thick with muscle, and as I watched, he fell down on all fours, launching himself after us, fangs glinting in the weak sunlight.
“Hold on,” Gordo spat.
“To what?” I shouted, but it didn’t matter.
He hit the road, spinning the steering wheel to the right. The truck’s tires squealed as we swerved. Time slowed around us as I looked back out my window to see Livingstone crouched low, muscles coiling as he prepared to jump. I braced myself for the impact, knowing that if he hit us, it was all over. The truck would roll, and Gavin would be thrown from the back.
Gordo spun the steering wheel to the left, and the truck’s tires slid along the road, wet sludge spraying up around us. Gavin grunted as he fell to the side, almost tipping out and over the back of the truck.
Gordo slammed his foot on the gas. We shot forward just as Livingstone leapt, mouth open wide with what looked like endless rows of fangs, his misshapen hands in front of him, claws like black utility hooks.
I screamed for Gavin to stay down as Gordo regained control. The engine shook the cab as we shot forward, Livingstone roaring as he sailed over the bed. Gavin lay flat, but Livingstone reached for him, one claw gouging Gavin’s shoulder. Blood sprayed against metal. Livingstone snarled in fury as he crashed down onto the other side of the road and rolled off into the trees, which were torn from their roots. He got up almost immediately.
Gordo looked in the side mirror, hands tightening on the steering wheel as Livingstone began to chase us. “Oh, I have such a bad idea.”
I gaped at him. “What? No! No bad ideas!”
“Take the wheel. Keep us straight.”
“Are you out of your goddamn mind?” I yelled at him but did as he asked. Joe and Kelly were a couple hundred feet ahead, tearing down the road. “Maybe you should have let me drive, you dick!”
“You’re a terrible driver,” Gordo muttered. He turned in his seat, keeping his foot pressed against the gas. He pushed open the driver’s door, hanging out the side. Cold air rushed into the cab, whipping his hair around his head as he narrowed his eyes. He muttered under his breath as his tattoos flashed brightly. The roses twisted around the scar tissue where the raven had once been. The feel of his magic was at once familiar and strange. There’d always been an order to it, even after he’d lost his hand, but this felt different. It crawled over me as the roses bloomed larger than I’d ever seen them. They grew along his arm, the vines stretching tightly, the thorns so real I thought they’d prick my skin if I touched them. The roses and vines curled around the stump of his wrist. I looked back as the road behind us split apart as if the tectonic plates beneath the earth had awoken angry. Tons of cement rose in the air as Livingstone roared. He tried to run through it, but a chunk of black rock slammed into his head, knocking him to the side. Gordo grunted as he brought his arm down, and I could actually smell the roses, the scent thick, as if I stood in the middle of a garden.
Livingstone hit the ground as the remains of the road fell down around him and on top of him. A red eye flashed once before it disappeared under rock.
“Take that, motherfucker!” I crowed.
Gordo pulled himself back inside the truck, pushing my hands away from the steering wheel. He hit the brakes hard, the hood of the truck pointing toward the road before we came to a stop. Ahead, Joe and Kelly did the same, and I could see them staring back at us with wide eyes.
Gavin pulled himself to his paws in the back. The wound was slowly healing. Damage from an Alpha always took longer. His fur was matted with blood, but he paid it no mind as he stared back at the ruins of the road.
“Was that it?” I asked. “Is he dead?”
Gordo shook his head, staring at his side mirror. “I don’t…. It can’t be that easy.”
“You dropped a fucking road on him. How the hell did you do that?”
“You’d be surprised what I can do now that I’ve been unleashed.”
A phone rang. He pulled it from his pocket and tossed it to me. I looked down to see Kelly’s name on the display. I answered. “Did you see that?”
“Why are we stopped?”
“I don’t—”
“Fuck,” Gordo said, and I looked back out the window again.
At first there was nothing.
And then a pile of cement shifted.
“No,” I whispered.
But it wasn’t the beast who rose.
A pale hand appeared. Human. Five fingers reached toward the sky. They flexed once, twice before another hand appeared, the skin bloodied.
And then Robert Livingstone stood.
He was nude, his body covered with nicks and cuts in various stages of healing. His white hair fluttered around his head in the breeze. He only had one eye, the other shut tight and scarred over, a mass of tissue that wrapped around the side of his head. He shook himself and craned his neck from side to side.
“Jesus Christ,” Kelly whispered through the phone. “He can shift.”
He took a step toward us.
Gordo reached for the door handle. I grabbed his arm, held on tight. He glared over at me, trying to pull away. I said, “Don’t. Not like this. We can’t take him like this. Think of Mark, Gordo. He’s waiting for you. Please don’t do this.”
He slammed his hand on the steering wheel. “Fuck. Fuck!”
I glanced back and saw Gavin standing on his hind legs, staring back at his father. The wolf was stiff, his hair standing on end.
Livingstone tilted his head back and howled. It rolled over us, and I felt it down to my bones.
The call of an Alpha.
It echoed around us, and I felt the pull of it, the desire to submit, to bare my neck even though I knew he’d tear my throat out.
Gavin took a step toward him, chest bumping against the tailgate.
I reached back through the window, grabbed his tail, and yanked as hard as I could. Gavin jerked his head back at me, eyes violet.
“No,” I growled at him. “You don’t belong to him. He can’t have you. Fight it, you hear me? You fight it.”
Gavin stared at me for a long moment before turning back to look at his father.
I saw the moment it hit Livingstone.
When he realized Gavin had made his choice.
Something crossed his face. It was blue and blue and blue, but underneath I felt the pulse of black, of rage, his wrath rising up and smothering all else. The blue faded as his face twisted. His eye burned red. He nodded slowly.
And he said, “So this is how it will be, then. I see.” He pressed his fingers against his face, the skin dimpling. He pulled his hands away and looked down at them. “What have I become? This… thing.” He dropped his hands. For a moment he looked like a frail old man, lost and confused. But then it melted away as his face hardened, his brow furrowing as his eyes narrowed. “You did this to me. Gordo. My son.”
“Go,” I said.
Gordo was transfixed, still staring at his side mirror.
Livingstone took a step toward the truck. “You can’t leave well enough alone. You never could, even when you were a child. And here you are again. I thought… I thought the boy would be enough. The princeling. I thought Gavin would….” He shook his head. “Why must you force my h
and? I left you alone. I took what was owed to me and I left you alone.”
“Gordo!” I shouted. “Fucking drive.”
Gordo jerked out of his stupor. He looked at me like he didn’t recognize me. Then light filtered in again, and he looked ahead. I could hear Kelly shouting into the phone, but I ignored it. Gavin was snarling, and Gordo wasn’t moving. I glanced back to see Livingstone take another step. He turned his face toward the sky.
He said, “I can see the truth of it all. Of what I was supposed to become. And what I’ll do with it. This will end one way or another. Gavin. Come to me. Stay by my side. I never understood the ties that bind a pack together. I do now.”
I gripped his tail as hard as I could, but Gavin made no move to jump out of the truck.
A tear trickled down Livingstone’s cheek. “Even you, then? You stand with them? They take. They always take. They don’t know how to do anything but. Bennetts. All of them Bennetts.” He wiped his face. “Your world will burn. I’ll make sure of it. And in the end, when you’re begging me for mercy, pleading with me to spare their lives, I will remind you of this moment. When you turned away from me, your own father. And I will tell you no.”
“Kelly!” Gordo shouted. “Are they ready?”
Kelly said, “Yes.”
“Do it. Do it now.”
He was out of the truck before I could stop him. Gavin snarled at him but stayed where he was.
I put the phone back up to my ear. “Kelly. Kelly! What is he doing? He can’t do this on his own!”
And Kelly said, “He’s not alone. We never were. Look.”
They came from the trees. Dozens of them. I could hear their heartbeats, rapid, like the flutter of a bird’s wings. They stood between us and Livingstone.
He cocked his head and said, “What’s this?”
Witches. All of them witches. Some I recognized from Caswell. Some from when I was a child and they bowed before my father. Two more stepped from the trees, moving slowly but surely.
Aileen and Patrice.
Livingstone smiled. “What do you think you could possibly do to me? This is my becoming. You can’t touch me.”