Running in a Pack

by A M Burns

  “Bye!” he yelled to his family.

  “Have fun!” his mom called back, and then he was off and out the door with his backpack, full of things he’d haphazardly thrown in, slung over his shoulder.

  “Hey!” he said, a little out of breath from all the rushing he’d had to do to get ready. Finn climbed into the passenger seat and shoved his backpack into the backseat after seeing it was empty. “No Adrian tonight?”

  Ivan shook his head and started driving. “Nope. His parents wouldn’t let him stay out overnight.”

  “That sucks.” Finn tried not to be too happy about getting Ivan just to himself, which was extremely rare. Not that he minded Adrian being around. It was just hard to share Ivan’s attention with someone else when he really wanted it all for himself. It was probably selfish of him not to want to share Ivan right then, especially on their first night alone together, but he couldn’t help how he felt. Even if it didn’t make a lot of sense.

  He was thinking about it as Ivan drove to Rainbow Falls. Going through it in his mind, he wasn’t sure how to label what he was starting to feel for Ivan, but part of it felt like he was having a crush. It didn’t help that he still didn’t know what was going on between Ivan and Adrian. Did that mean he might be crushing on someone else’s guy? And Adrian was a friend too. They were his only friends in Colorado. If Ivan and Adrian were together and Finn couldn’t shake how he was starting to feel for Ivan, it would seriously suck.

  “You’re quiet,” Ivan said as he pulled up to a campsite at the top of a hill. The road up had been dirt, and the campsite was even more primitive, with just a small bit of dirt exposed to mark out it was even a real spot.

  Finn shrugged. He wasn’t sure what to say. “Just thinking about school and stuff. Senior year, you know?” It wasn’t much of an excuse, but it truly was part of the stuff that bothered him sometimes. “Wish I knew what I wanted for myself after I graduated.”

  Ivan laughed in his easy, natural way that always seemed to make things better between them. “I think you’ve got time to figure things out. School just started. I’m not even bothering with that yet. There’s too much else going on. Wolves take a lot of time, and I’ve got my two best friends to think about first. Maybe when I get some downtime, I’ll think about what I’ll be doing next year. But not right now.”

  Finn smiled at him. He did feel a little better after just talking to Ivan. It was amazing how Ivan was able to get him to relax so easily—just like he could with the wolves. It was his gift. “Yeah. You’re right. So, we’re here?”

  “Yep. I love this spot. It’s not far off the main trail. Just a few yards actually. But not many people come this far up. We’re a good walk from the bathrooms, and there isn’t good fishing right here. If you want to see the stars, though, it’s perfect. When’s the last time you went camping? Like with tents and stuff, not in an RV. I don’t think that counts.”

  Finn blushed. It had been an embarrassingly long time since he’d even seen his sleeping bag, not to mention his multitool, which was still lost somewhere. It was probably buried in the bottom of some box he decided was unimportant and therefore hadn’t unpacked yet. His mom hadn’t said too much about it, so he figured he still had time to get to his boxes in the garage.

  “Um…, last time we went camping, I was maybe ten. I think.” He really wasn’t sure.

  Ivan smiled at him. “Least you won’t actually be doing anything tonight. We won’t be making a fire or building a shelter or anything hard like that.”

  “That’s a relief.”

  Ivan tilted his head toward the campsite. “C’mon. I’ll show you around my second home.”

  Finn laughed as he followed him out of the truck and copied Ivan’s movements as he spread out his own sleeping bag and popped a pillow on it. He’d even brought a camp light, which he put between them as Finn finished smoothing out his sleeping bag on the uneven ground. The light was enough for him to be able to see all around them, which was nice since they were surrounded on three sides by high pine trees that could be hiding anything behind them. There hadn’t been any other campers on their way up either, which seemed weird to him.

  “No one else cares about the meteor shower?” Finn asked as he watched Ivan unzip his sleeping bag and lie down on it.

  Ivan crossed his hands over his stomach and propped one of his knees up. “Maybe. I’m not sure. Most of the people in town can see it from their yards if they wanted to.”

  “Then why come out here?”

  Ivan laughed again. “Because I can? I love being around the wolves all the time. It’s intense, though, and sometimes it’s good to just get away to where it’s so quiet and there’s no one around for miles.”

  Finn could kind of understand that. But part of him knew that if he lived around the wolves, he wouldn’t have been so fast to leave. “I can’t imagine growing up like you did with them all around you. I’m jealous.” He sat cross-legged on his sleeping bag.

  “And I could not have spent as much time in a city as you have. I think I’d go crazy.” Ivan cringed like he was actually freaked out by the idea of living in a city, even one like Austin that wasn’t as large as some other cities like Denver or Dallas.

  Finn shook his head and looked around at the shadows as they seemed to get bigger with the setting of the sun. Even though he wanted some time with just Ivan, he found himself wishing Adrian were there with them. It was weird wanting both of those situations to be real, even though they couldn’t both happen. “Adrian’s really good with the wolves,” Finn said idly. Someday he hoped he could be that natural with them. Sometimes they seemed like big dogs; then he would catch a glimpse of something in their eyes, like what Midnight had in his. It was wild and powerful, and it reminded Finn they weren’t pets, but rather, intelligent predators that had allowed him to be close enough to pet them—but that was on their terms, not his.

  Ivan nodded, and Finn lay down on his side next to Ivan and tried to get comfortable with just a few inches of down padding between him and the rough ground. Ivan looked completely at ease with sleeping on the ground, like he was in his natural state. Finn’s natural state was somewhere beneath a pile of blankets and with the heat turned up as soon as it started getting cold. But he knew Austin cold wouldn’t be anything compared to the winter he would have in the mountains, and part of him was nervous. The other part of him couldn’t wait to see real snow for the first time.

  “Adrian’s pretty special, and I think the wolves get that. He’s good for them, and they’re the same way for him. It’s like he’s an omega wolf, one that no member of the pack would hurt. He fits in perfectly, something he doesn’t find very often. I think it makes him cool.”

  Finn looked away as the obvious affection Ivan felt for Adrian slammed into him like a punch in his gut. “You really like him, huh?”

  Ivan frowned at him. “Yeah, of course I do. He’s my best friend. So are you. How come?”

  Finn shrugged and played with the zipper of his sleeping bag. “No reason.” But that wouldn’t be a good enough excuse. Not for Ivan. They were growing too close, and he didn’t want anything to spoil that. “It’s just… I had friends in Austin. And I thought they were pretty good friends to me. But they weren’t anything like how you are with Adrian. When I overheard them talking about me, it wasn’t how you talk about Adrian. Like you’d do anything for him.”

  “Hey….” Ivan had softened his voice. “I would do anything for him. Absolutely. To me that’s part of being a good friend. And I’d do the same for you. You ever need anything from me, you just have to ask.”

  The honesty and seriousness in Ivan’s words caught Finn off guard. He slowly nodded. “Thanks.”

  Ivan shrugged. “Sure. Anytime. Now turn over and look up at the sky. You’ve already missed the first two meteors.”

  Finn quickly slipped into his sleeping bag and smiled up at the darkening sky. “Hey, Ivan?”

  “Yeah?”

  Finn glanced over at hi
m. “Thanks for inviting me out tonight.”

  He could just make out Ivan’s big grin in the light from the lantern between them. “Of course. No way I was going to come out here alone. I could get kidnapped by Bigfoot or something.”

  Snickering, Finn shook his head. “Bigfoot’s not real.”

  “Lots of not-real things start to become believable if you spend enough time in these woods.” Ivan sounded so serious, but Finn was pretty sure he was just messing with him. He had to be.

  Even in a family that sometimes saw the future, there was no such thing as Bigfoot. Still, when a twig snapped behind them in the nearly black forest, he couldn’t stop the chill that raced down his spine.

  “You don’t look that comfortable over there.”

  Finn wished it weren’t so obvious to Ivan that he wasn’t used to sleeping on the ground. “I’m really not.”

  “Want to come over here? Might be more flat or something where I am.”

  It was worth a try. Finn got up and dragged his stuff closer to where Ivan was. He didn’t intend to end up practically lying on top of Ivan, but it would have been awkward to try to move his sleeping bag once he’d put it down. As soon as he was lying down, though, Ivan surprised him by pulling him close and putting his arms around Finn’s shoulders.

  He froze as he looked down at Ivan. Then Ivan kissed him, and Finn forgot he was thinking anything about where his sleeping bag was. It wasn’t his first kiss, but it was his first kiss with a guy, and being with Ivan made it special because he cared about Ivan so much. When Ivan pulled away from him, Finn just stared at him.

  “Um….” Finn’s mind went blank.

  Ivan chuckled. “Hey.”

  It was a good start. Finn could manage that. “Hi.”

  “Meteors?” Ivan suggested.

  Watching the stars was safe, and it took a lot less thought than trying to figure out his kiss with Ivan. Why had he kissed him? Finn had no idea. But he turned over and tried not to think about it as he forced himself to relax next to Ivan. “Hang on. But aren’t you with Adrian?”

  Ivan laid his arm around Finn’s shoulders. “Wouldn’t have kissed you if I was.”

  “Okay, then.” With that question answered, Finn breathed a little sigh of relief. He’d stress over the kiss tomorrow. For tonight he was simply going to enjoy watching the meteors with Ivan and try not to freak out about the kiss in the process.

  "I actually do have something to tell you though. Something kind of weird, if you think you can handle a bit of weird tonight that is. If not, it's totally good."

  Finn didn't like the sound of that at all. "How weird are we talking? You're not like a serial killer or something right? This isn't where you dump the bodies?" He was joking, mostly anyway. He chuckled nervously. This definitely wasn't going to be good.

  Ivan laughed. "No. I'm not a serial killer. But...the whole bigfoot thing and...do you think there's stuff out there? Like things people can't explain. Legends and myths and stuff like that. I mean, what if things like banshees and unicorns were real? What if werewolves were?"

  That was his big weird secret? That he believed in werewolves? Finn snorted. "So what if they are? As long as they don't try to eat me, or anyone else I guess, except for Esteban and Channing of course, then they're fine. Live and let live right?"

  "So if you met one you'd be cool with it?" Ivan pressed.

  Finn turned his head to look at him. "Yeah. I would be. Assuming, again, that no one is trying to eat me."

  Ivan smiled at him. "Cool. So...I'm kind of a werewolf."

  "And I have visions," Finn half joked. He'd never said that to anyone outside of his family before, and it felt good to tell Ivan, even if they were just playing around. Maybe someday he'd even get up the guts to tell him for real.

  But Ivan wasn't laughing. He didn't play it off. And Finn ended up staring at him. "No..."

  "What are your visions like?" Ivan asked him as if he hadn't just announced that he was a freaking werewolf.

  "Are you sure you're not a serial killer?" Finn asked, his voice impossibly small. He was fairly sure that if Ivan had been a serial killer, he’d have hd a vision about it, but a werewolf? Was that why he got fuzzy around the edges sometimes?

  Ivan shook his head. And then, very slowly, fur began to sprout up over his cheeks and his eyes grew brighter. Finn turned away, willing it not to be real even as he knew in his heart that what he was seeing was the truth. His friend, the guy he was interested in, was a freaking werewolf.

  He curled onto his side and waited for it to be over, for Ivan to tell him that everything was fine, that it was just a trick of the moonlight.. something. But instead, Finn felt something cold and wet touch his hand. He peeked out, just a little, and saw a big wolf nudging him with his nose.

  "Please don't bite me and turn me into a werewolf too," Finn squeaked out.

  Ivan shifted back. Finn forced himself to watch. He'd turned away before, but this reversal, this wasn't so bad. This was Ivan turning from something impossible back to being himself and Finn could handle that.

  "I wouldn't turn you. But, you can't tell anyone. You know that, right? I just couldn't have you not knowing. I didn't mean to bring you out here and tell you and it took me years before I told Adrian, but I did need you to know. It's important to me that you know."

  Ivan looked worried, and maybe even a little scared.

  Finn shook his head. "I'm not telling anyone." He wouldn't do that to his friend. "And...the visions..."

  "You really have them?"

  "Yeah. I do." Finn pursed his lips. "So..."

  Ivan shrugged. Then he just smiled and lay next to Finn again. "So what? I'm a werewolf. You have visions. It's all good. But, not to add even more for you to digest tonight but it is kind of important, my family is like me too. And a lot of the wolves you've seen at the center, they're..."

  "Wait, you keep werewolves in pens? Isn't that weird?" Finn jumped on him, assuming that's where he was going with his drawn out secret.

  "No, that would be weird. It's nothing like that at all. Some of the wolves, not all of them, but a good portion of them at the sanctuary, they're actually werewolves but they're not like I am or like my family is. We change when we want to. Like I just did. They're wolves that have been scratched by a werewolf. They change into people once a month. We keep them safe. Think about it, a wolf that suddenly goes through that and has two legs and no fur and yeah, they're freaked out. We keep them calm and give them food and try to keep them safe until they go back to being the wolves that they naturally are. Singer is one of those wolves."

  Finn took a deep breath and tried to digest what Ivan was telling him. But he kept coming back to the same thought. "Poor Singer. That seriously sucks."

  Ivan settled in beside him. "Yeah. It does. She was so scared the first time. They're all so freaked out. I think she's better now, but it's been a few years for her. They don't talk. They just whimper and whine and it definitely breaks your heart."

  Finn couldn't even imagine. He didn't want to see that at all.

  They sat there in silence for a few minutes, then Finn slid a little closer to Ivan, wanting to feel his warmth. “I guess that explains some of my visions. When I first met you, I had trouble seeing you and your mother in focus. It was like you kept getting fuzzy.”

  Ivan laughed. “Like you could see our other sides. Cool. So did the wolves like Singer at the center look more human?”

  Finn shook his head. “No, but when I’m at the center, I’m normally really focused on either your or the wolves. I have to be a little more relaxed to have visions.” When he’d had his first vision at five, his grandmother had been there, and always warned him that he could never force a vision, and they would only come to him when he was relaxed.

  With a wicked grin, Ivan traced a finger along Finn’s jaw. “So if I don’t let you relax, you’re not going to have a vision about me?”

  “Not necessarily, but it might help, particularly if you’re
really a serial killer who doesn’t want me to see what you’ve done.” Finn sighed, feeling more relaxed than he should after Ivan revealing he was a werewolf, but he was okay with it. If it was going to cause a major problem, his sight would warn him. Nothing bad was coming his way.

  8

  The next afternoon Finn was a little uncertain about being at the center after the night he’d had with Ivan. Everything had been fine and he’d loved seeing the meteors, but they hadn’t talked about the kiss—at all. They'd talked about how Ivan was a werewolf and Finn was actually really fine with that. A little weirded out, but generally he was good with the fact that there were werewolves in the world. It was the kiss that he couldn't stop thinking about. And now here he was at the center, hoping to act like everything was normal even as his heart raced and he couldn’t seem to come up with a coherent thought to save his life.

  Even though his mom was with them, he didn’t go off with his group of volunteers, not right away at least. The first thing he saw when he came into the center was Adrian sitting on a wooden log bench with his knees pulled up close to his chest and a sketchbook balanced on them. Finn went to sit beside him, trying to make as much noise as he could so he didn’t startle Adrian in case he was working on something and not paying attention. But he didn’t need to be that cautious, apparently, since as soon as he was within a few feet of Adrian, he looked over at Finn and gave him a little smile. “Hey.”

  Finn sat beside him. “Hi. I didn’t know you could draw.” But there were a lot of things he didn’t know about Adrian. He’d known both him and Ivan for a few weeks, but he still had so many questions about them.

  Adrian’s talent was obvious, even to someone who had zero interest in art like Finn. The wolf he was drawing, Singer, seemed to be looking back at him from the paper nearly as much as she was staring from the pen in front of them. Finn wouldn't have been all that surprised if the drawn wolf could have come alive in front of them. There seemed to be some kind of sparkle to it. It wasn’t something Adrian had seen before. The picture and sparkle held his attention.