by Holly Hook
“I know I'm not in charge, but I care about my brother,” Everly says. “And I care about everyone else. Someone has to be the fun killer.”
Cayden would hate this. He never wanted this fate or this hard life for me. Or Remo. Remo stabs his food with his fork, stuffs it in his mouth, and chews with anger. I hear every angry slap of the meat against his tongue. The air is thick.
“I'll tell Mr. Saffron I have to drop out.“ My heart weighs a thousand pounds. “It's a good idea for me to stay away from Noah and Ellie, anyway. If Jansen knows I'm friends with them beyond rehearsal, then he'll report it to Brett.”
Everly's glare softens. “I know this sucks, but maybe you'll get your other halves back before too long.”
She doesn't offer sympathy often. “Thanks.”
But she also doesn't sound convinced.
Chapter Seven
The sick feeling remains as I walk to rehearsal that night. After this, my life will get a lot smaller.
I march onto the stage, determined to get this over with as soon as possible.
And Jansen already sits there in the corner of the stage, cross-legged, with his back to everyone like an antisocial jerk. The new guy once again scrolls through his phone, and he keeps it close to his body. I can‘t read what‘s on it. Jansen glares at me over his shoulder for a second. Even after he turns his attention back to his device, he raises his shoulders. Jansen has all the hallmarks of someone who isn‘t interested in the play.
I walk past Jansen. The stage is empty except for Mr. Saffron, who sits behind his long table. The teacher looks up at me as I approach, shifting in his chair and making it squeak. He frowns. “Do you have news about Cayden? He's still not allowed to come back after ducking out twice. It's a shame, because he had talent.”
“It's not about Cayden,” I say. “I have to step down for personal reasons. My Aunt May needs me to work at the store more.”
Mr. Saffron pales. The color goes out of his face, leaving his faint beard visible. Until now, I didn't know he had one, even with my enhanced vision. He smells musty—a scent I now recognize as disappointment. The longer I'm a werewolf, the more I can pick up emotions as smells. Seems Remo's right that everything has a chemical basis.
“You can't quit the play, Brie,” he says. “We need you here. You've been a part of the Drama Club since Junior High, have you not?”
Now he says I have some value. Well aware that Jansen's watching me, I hike up my shoulders and keep my voice low. “I don't have a choice. Maybe I can come back next year, but my Aunt May is in dire straits. If that's what you call it? Our money is tight and if I don‘t help, we'll have to move to another city. And then I won't even get to be a props person.” I hate my words as soon as they come out of my mouth.
“Don't speak like that about our crew,” Mr. Saffron says. “They are just as important as those of you on the stage.”
“That's not what I meant. Yeah, I've sounded like a big jerk the past few days, and I haven't meant it, but I have to drop out of this play. Sorry.”
Mr. Saffron frowns. “I can't let you do that.”
“Why? We don't have that much of a shortage.”
“Yes, we do. Jansen was the only extra good enough to get promoted to a bigger role. The others would be a disaster playing Titania. Don't you agree?”
Now he's trying to stoke my ego just to make all this easier on him. “You'll have to shuffle people around. Maybe I can find someone. Lots of girls would love to be the fae queen.”
“It won't work that way,” he says. “We need you here, and I'm sure your aunt will understand. I used to be her drama teacher back in the day.”
I always forget about that. “I'm sorry, but things came up. Call her and she'll tell you.”
“I will,” Mr. Saffron says, nodding his promise. “Please stay for this rehearsal. It would be hard to go through it without you here. Otherwise, I must read Titania's lines in your place, and I'm not sure Jansen would like that.”
I hear him snap his head up in shock. “No. I wouldn't.”
Jansen deserves the embarrassment. “I have to get to the store,” I say. Though I haven't told Aunt May about this, she'll understand when Mr. Saffron asks for her opinion. She already knows about Romulus and the tree incident.
The backstage door opens and Noah pops in, Ellie right behind him. “Hey, Brie,” he says. Then he frowns, remembering we're not supposed to be talking in front of Jansen.
And Jansen looks right at him.
“Gotta go,” I say. “Your name is Noah, right?”
Confusion steals over Ellie's face. I walk past Jansen and brush past them, bursting into the hall.
And on the corner of the hall is Everly. She waits as Olivia turns the corner and picks up her pace, heading for Noah. At least he'll have her for company.
Everly waves me to her.
I nod and approach, feeling even more sick inside.
“Well, I did it,” I say, joining her at the corner.
Noah must wave Ellie inside the stage because she doesn't call after me. I wonder what he‘ll tell her.
“How did it go?” she asks.
For once, she's not glaring at me. “As fine as it can go,” I say. “I left Jansen with an awkward situation. He's now married to the teacher. Noah will tell me all about it if I can even talk to him again.”
“Keep it to text,” Everly says.
“But it's not the same.”
“I know. It's rough. This life is rough. But we're doing the right thing.”
We walk side by side toward the exit doors. “Mr. Saffron didn‘t want to let me go.”
“Well, you have been in the Drama Club for a long time. Cayden only got involved for two plays and dropped out of both. So it was a different situation.”
Far behind me, I hear Mr. Saffron's chair squeak as he gets up. Rehearsal will start within minutes. It's a home I've just had to leave, a home away from home.
Romulus, just by hanging around, has ruined everything.
I'm just like Everly now, with my whole existence being the school and home. School and home. Patrolling the woods. Nothing else.
Maybe she has a crab in a bucket mentality and just doesn't know it yet.
“Everly, what are your interests?” I ask. Maybe I'm being too nice again, but it beats the alternative. Being mean just got me deeper into this hole.
“I don't have any.” She looks straight ahead as she speaks, pushing open the exit doors.
“Come on. You've got to have something. Don't you want to try making friends once all this stuff blows over?”
“Friends just get put in danger. It's better not to endanger anyone else or pull them into this life. Look what happened with Remo. He thought Leonora could help make him human again, but now he's stuck here. And he will have to help defend this territory for the rest of his life. And that life might get cut short. I feel so bad for him.”
“He wants to date and feel normal,” I say. “It stinks that Leonora had to leave. But, I don't want her to die either.”
“I agree. The two of us need to patrol today. We've skipped it for a few days, and now our scent might get weak around our borders.” She drops her voice low with that last line.
I get out my phone and text Aunt May, warning her about Mr. Saffron's call later. She responds, saying she's got it, and that she'll say I'm at the store. I put away the phone and face Everly. “Yeah. We need to do that. Remo's too bummed out to do it himself.”
Pack business. It's what Everly knows best. She nods at me. “Agreed. If our scent fades, the Savages will see it as an open invitation to cross and attack us. We'll be saying we're giving up our territory.”
“Not a good thing,” I agree.
We cross the parking lot and walk together towards the woods. It's the trail Cayden used to take. I check my phone with messages from him. Leonora is in Chicago by now, and I'm glad Cayden is with her to show her the modern world. I know deep down he'd never cheat. And that's why I l
ove him so much.
Cayden, how are things going? I want to see his words. Anything.
I enter the tree line, which is bare in the winter and without the leaves of the thick vines. Everly steps through and stands in the late afternoon light. She waits as Cayden takes his time responding.
Fine. Leonora is overwhelmed.
I figured as much.
I shake as I tap out the texts. A part of me wants to tell him about Romulus, but as if she's sensing what I'm thinking, Everly shakes her head. We can't do that. Lies are the only thing keeping him safe.
“I hate doing this,” I say. “Pretending everything's all right when it's not. It's bad enough he sensed when the tree almost fell on me.”
“Have you sensed anything coming from his end?” Everly asks.
“No,” I say. “No danger. And I would have detected it. The time Mr. Hayde was in the shack, and Cayden was on the floor almost dying from the curse, I felt it. He must have had that feeling when the tree almost fell on me.”
“We have to keep it that way,” Everly says. “I hate this. Who am I supposed to pick on?”
I sniff the air. “Well, do we patrol? Get scent all over the trees? All I smell is Remo's faint scent and if we wait another day, it‘ll fade.”
“We need a place to leave our coats and phones.”
“What if the Savage King is around here?”
“Thanks for that thought, Brie. Just thanks. But we have to renew the border. We don't want Matthew getting over here, either.”
“I‘ve seen no sign of him,” I say.
Everly looks at the ground. “Being a turned descendant of the Savage King, he might be, well, deteriorating by now.”
All the Savage King's turned descendants eventually become pure animal, according to Brett. “I'm not sure how long it takes. And I'm getting no sign of anything.”
Everly and I walk in silence, but every muscle stays tense as I study the surrounding trees. The King could be anywhere. It‘s the most unnerving feeling in the world. I turn off my phone as we approach the cluster of boulders where I saw Cayden's clothing lying on the ground for the first time, and the black wolf looking at me with those magical hazel eyes. Everly and I duck into the boulders after making sure there's nothing but trees and snow around us, and we toss our coats and clothes on the ground to shift. It's tempting to give in to the animal within, to let the fur cover my body, even though the transformation brings a storm of pain with lightning bolts of agony on top of the burning clouds. I hold in a scream as the world and trees tilt, my vision pops, and a curtain lifts from my hearing. I stand on all fours, breathing in the faint scents of buried pine needles and even a few mushroom colonies waiting for spring to emerge again.
Everly, the black wolf with red highlights, glares at me. The seriousness is back. We should stay together.
After burying our clothes in the snow, we run off to the borders of our territory, to where Remo's scent marks an invisible barrier around the town of Breck. I rub my body over the tree trunks, masking his scent with mine, and Everly does the same, making our combined smell stronger. We're working harder than usual to keep the enemy out. It takes a long time, running along the border around town, but it's somehow freeing, running around in the woods without any human cares. There's no one to disappoint out here. I haven't shifted in almost a week. And I‘ve missed it.
The light fades and gets longer, going from gold to pale orange and finally pink. By the time we close our border with our scent, Everly and I look at each other in the dying light.
I think we're done, I think.
Yes. Back to our clothes. The others must be worried.
A heaviness settles over me as the two of us trot back to the boulders. My limbs shake with tiredness and I can't wait to sit down to dinner. Even hunting sounds exhausting after running miles around town.
After digging up our clothes, I stand and sniff the air one more time. My senses are better in this form, and though I catch a very faint Savage stench, it seems to be miles away, outside our territory. With one more test of the air, it's gone.
Everly's body pops beside me as she stretches out and fur retracts into pale skin. I turn away, doing the same. Though I've gotten used to this, I still don't like to watch my fellow pack mates shift form. Seeing joints pop and bones break underneath undulating skin is somehow more painful to watch than going through it. And I don't like to see what happens to my body when I go through the transition.
After enduring the waves of pain, I seize my clothes and dress as Everly does the same behind me. Once warm again, I plunge my hand into my pocket, hiding my bare skin from the warm air. I also turn my phone back on while I'm at it. “That only took forever,” I say. “At least it was without incident. And I just noticed something.” Another horrifying thought hits me.
“Which is?” Everly faces me with wide eyes. The whites in them almost glow compared to the deepening dark around us.
“We never smelled the Savage King's trail going in and out of our territory. And believe me, he stunk. He left nothing.”
Her jaw drops. “You're right. And if he was here just two days ago, we should have picked up something. Even if it was faint.”
“We don't know how scent works in an immortal Wolf,” I say. “Maybe he has the power to hide it or keep it from getting on anything?”
“I believe you. You have the best sense of smell of us,” Everly says. “That's not right. We should have found where he came in and out of our territory. This isn't right at all.”
“Dark magic?” I ask.
“Could be.” She searches the trees as if expecting the Savage King to pop out from behind any tree trunk.
The sense of dread returns, hitting me like a giant fist. I no longer want to be in the woods as much as I blew off steam running around as a wolf. “What if--”
My phone buzzes. A text.
And then another and another follow. It's a whole stream, and just the sheer number makes my heart leap into my chest. Everly looks at me and frowns. “You'd better look at those.”
“Could be a lot of things,” I say, pulling out my phone. Strings of texts rarely mean anything good.
And these are from Ellie.
Get up to Mountain Hospital.
Noah's hurt.
Freak accident.
I have little information, but--
Chapter Eight
“Aunt May, can't you drive faster?”
“I'm trying,” she says, punching the gas. But Mountain Hospital, from where I stole the wrong medical records, is situated on the side of its namesake. We can‘t avoid the curvy roads, low guardrails, or the fact that it's still winter. Aunt May's headlights illuminate said rails. Even though it's hard to see with the contrast of the bright glow, I make out the edges of every tree below us.
And it's started snowing.
Aunt May's hands shake as she steers. “I don't like hospitals.”
I can guess why. The last time she drove to one must have been when we lost my parents.
Now that I think about it, they might have died at this one.
I might throw up.
And I might have partially caused Noah to get very hurt or even to die. If there's anything I've learned, it's that there isn't always hope.
Aunt May pulls into the hospital. Instead of inviting, the eight-story building stands like a square fortress. The lights on inside look cold and dead. I get out of the car and lean over on to the pavement of the ER parking lot to vomit.
“Brie,” Aunt May says, wrapping her arm around me. She's come up behind me without my hearing. “Calm down. Please. I know this kind of stress makes you sick. And it it doesn't matter what species you are.”
“Well, I know I'm not Savage,” I say. “I bet they wouldn't feel like this.”
“No,” Aunt May says. “They wouldn't. Have that reassurance. And we don‘t know anything yet.”
I straighten up, feeling bad I've left a mess on the pavement. The cold air wraps a
round me and a stiff breeze kicks against us, cold and unforgiving. Even though I put distance between me and Noah, this still happened. Why couldn't Ellie have given me details over the phone?
Not knowing is the worst.
Aunt May and I walk through the emergency department. I should be strong right now and demand to know what's wrong, but as we step through the doors, everything gets even more real. My senses pop and I smell faint blood, human blood, as people cough and hack away in the waiting room chairs. One man leans over and grasps his abdomen. It's a busy night and full of putrid sickness, which makes my stomach turn over again. My sense of smell does not help here.
“Noah Carmichael,” Aunt May says to the receptionist. She sounds like she's a million miles away. And underwater.
I left to protect him and he still got hurt.
At rehearsal.
Jansen—
I‘ll kill him and Brett. Even if that somehow turns me to the Savage side. But maybe Romulus wants that. Can killing too much change me?
Screw trying to be nice anymore.
“Brie. He's this way,” Aunt May says, grabbing my arm.
I snap out of it. My pulse calms. I haven't realized it's been roaring in my ears.
Aunt May levels her gaze at me. Her eyes are blue and pure and I feel like I could get lost in them. She's the only figure I have left to lean on, even if she's not a top member in the pack. I have to if I will make it through the night.
If I become alpha, I'll provide the answers.
I'm strong—physically strong—but I'm not sure about the other department. There's a difference between those strengths.
“This way,” she says. “He's in surgery.”
“Surgery?” A cold, rocky lump forms in my throat. I swallow. Everything burns.
Aunt May leads me through a pair of double doors and towards another waiting area where Ellie already sits. Surgery. What happened?