Scratch the Surface (Wolf Within)

by Amy Lee Burgess

  I’d been a baby about Kathy driving but she hadn’t given in to me. She’d just smiled and told me to sit in the back and buckle my seat belt. I really did feel about five years old around her, like she was my mother or something.

  I could tell Murphy wanted to argue with her but she hadn’t given him the opportunity. She was good, but then she was a Councilor. She’d told him to buckle his seat belt too and help her with the GPS navigation system.

  “I know where we’re going.” I’d pouted from the back seat. “Murphy does too. We were there yesterday.”

  “Indulge me,” said Kathy as she’d settled herself behind the wheel. Pulling down the sun visor, she’d examined her appearance and rearranged a few stray locks of hair before pushing the visor back up.

  In her dark-green DKNY pantsuit and forest-brown woolen coat, she was the quintessential New England upper middle class young matron. Tiny pearl studs adorned her ears and a strand of bigger ones encircled her throat. If she wore her bond pendant, it didn’t show.

  Her shoes were nice—brown, flat ballerinas with gold buckles on the toe. Gucci. Too bland and conformist for me, although before Murphy I couldn’t have hoped to afford them. It was beyond my comprehension to fathom why anybody would wear ballerina flats in this weather. The parking lot at the state park had been plowed once during the beginning of the storm but it was hardly clear. Her shoes could be ruined if she walked through snow in them. Maybe she didn’t care. Maybe she had a closet full of shoe racks in a Rhode Island mansion in Providence.

  My own boots were black—a pair of Guess ankle boots loaded with unnecessary but fabulous buckles, lined with red-and-black plaid flannel and imminently suitable for snow. They were kick-ass cute.

  I’d admired them as we traveled because I couldn’t look at the way Kathy Manning drove. She was a fiddler. She’d fiddled with the radio station then switched to the CD player. Then she’d switched songs. Then the entire CD. She’d rummaged in her purse for a stick of gum then her cellphone. The third time she went for her purse Murphy had picked it up and all but thrown it into the back seat with me. He’d been watching me turn progressively paler despite the allure of my boots.

  When she’d started texting as she drove that did it. He’d blown up and declared that she was either going to drive or she was going to blather on with her friends, not both, so make up her mind. If she preferred to text, she’d better pull the damn car over and let him drive. If she was hell-bent on driving, she’d better put the goddamn phone down now.

  After casting him an amused smile, she’d put the phone down. She’d managed to hit send before she did so and, a moment later, a reply bleep shattered the simmering silence and Murphy had sworn in Irish.

  “Do you mind telling me what that says?” Kathy had asked sweetly and Murphy’s face went apoplectic. He’d almost been rendered speechless but managed to snarl, “I fucking do,” which had only made Kathy laugh.

  “I’m trying to make sure my son is going to school. He has this annoying tendency to skip. He’s seventeen and thinks he knows everything.”

  “Takes after his mother,” Murphy had grumbled and Kathy laughed again.

  “Your son goes to a public school? With Others?” I’d asked, fingers clenched, eyes fixed on my boots.

  There had been a beat of silence because apparently nobody had expected me to be able to talk past my panic.

  I had been panicking a little. I was sweating and my heart thumped uncomfortably in my chest. On the plus side, we were nearly at the park and were still alive, so we’d had that going for us.

  “We home schooled until he was in the third grade but after that he wanted to go to public school and so we let him. It’s been great for him. He has tons of friends and lots of self-confidence. Along with an annoying tendency to skip now that he’s a senior and thinks he’s a big shot.” Kathy had looked at me in the rearview mirror while she talked, hardly keeping an eye on the road.

  I felt the panic claw at my stomach and wished like hell she’d look at the cars in front of us. They had all been moving fast, but what if there was a sudden stop or some black ice?

  “There’s a small pack in Houston called Dark Bayou and a little girl named Mindy went to the public school there. One night her father was in a hot tub and a grandmother in the pack brought him out a beer. Spiked with sleeping pills. When he fell asleep, she held him under the water until he drowned.” My voice had been matter of fact and clinical but Murphy half-turned around in his seat anyway and had given me a concerned look.

  “Constance, not all grandmothers and grandfathers are part of the conspiracy. I trust the ones in my pack.” Kathy’s tone had been slightly condescending and dismissive.

  “I trusted the one in mine too.” I had shrugged.

  “So when you and Murphy have a child, you’re not going to let him or her go to public school because you’re afraid of the grandmothers and grandfathers?” Kathy had wondered.

  “I don’t want a child,” I’d declared mutinously. Hurt washed over Murphy’s face for a split second. He’d thought I didn’t want his child.

  “I’ve never wanted a child,” I had clarified. “If Grey, Elena and I had ever gotten to be Alphas of our pack, she was the one who was going to have a baby or at least go off birth control. I was going to stay on it.”

  “Grey and Elena knew this?” Kathy had been fascinated.

  “Of course. It’s not a big thing, Kathy.”

  Her smile said otherwise and I felt my face warm with humiliation and growing wrath. I hated to discuss children with women of the Pack. They never understood my position.

  “You’re afraid to have a baby, aren’t you?” Kathy had guessed with an astuteness that made me squirm against the leather seat.

  “I’m not scared,” I protested, but I could tell she didn’t believe me.

  “So it’s not just the conspiracy, it’s all your life, this fear. You’ve let fear rule your entire existence, haven’t you? You never developed your wolf because you were scared. You don’t want a baby because you’re scared. You look at a grandmother or a grandfather and you’re scared. So tell me, Stanzie, all this fear, has it ever stopped the bad shit from happening anyway?” Kathy had tried to meet my gaze in the rearview mirror again but I stared at my boots. All at once, they’d seemed far less cute than they used to be.

  Chapter 22

  Murphy took me aside after we parked the damn car. Kathy strode on ahead to get to Allerton, who stood by the Prelude with two other Pack. From the distance I didn’t recognize them, and assumed they must be from one of the New England packs or maybe New York—people with experience as far as car bombs or explosives were concerned. That even such Pack members existed made me want to cry. When had we become so violent? Had we lost our way, or was this normal?

  “She was too hard on you.” Murphy held onto my arm even though I tried to get free so I could follow her. I didn’t want to have this conversation with him.

  “Maybe you’re being too easy on me,” I argued when it was clear he wouldn’t let go. I stopped trying to get free and faced him. “I hid behind Grey and Elena, and I’m hiding behind you, and she’s right, I am scared of too many things. I always have been.”

  “You do not have to have a baby,” he told me in a very gentle tone. He looked so understanding and approachable. I knew I could touch him if I wanted. I knew he would take me in his arms if I wanted him to and I did want him to—so much it physically hurt. I stood my ground.

  “When we’re Alpha, you can stay on birth control,” he told me.

  “No!” Frustrated tears blinded me until I blinked them away. “No, Murphy, I can’t. Not only is that against everything the Alpha system stands for, it’s not fair to the woman who might have been Alpha instead of me, who might lose her chance at having a baby because I was Alpha during her fertile period and she wasn’t. I can’t do that. In Riverglow I could have done that. Elena was there, for one thing, but I can’t deprive someone of a potential chil
d just so you and I can become Councilors. No. If we’re Alpha, we’ll have a baby. Or at least try to have one. Or I don’t want to be Alpha.”

  “Maybe I don’t want to either,” he countered and I shook my head violently.

  “No! You want to be a Councilor. You are not going to let me and my fear take away that potential too. No. This has been going on too long! I’m not going to let fear rule my whole life anymore!”

  He didn’t say anything, he just looked at me.

  “I know you like to play the protector, but it’s going to get old and then you’ll resent and hate me,” I predicted.

  “I’m not playing anything with you,” he said, his eyes flashing. “I’m telling you, you don’t have to do all this shit just for me. That what you want counts too, that’s all I’m saying!”

  “Allerton’s waving us over. I think we can leave. I want to drive back,” I cried.

  He swept a frustrated hand through his hair. “Damn that woman! You do not have to do everything all at once. You do not have to face every single goddamn fear you have in one damn day, Stanzie! We were doing fine and then we had to come here and now you’re letting that bloody busybody woman lecture you. You’re letting Allerton’s expectations get to you. You’re letting that old man scare you from the grave and you think you have to do all this shit on your own when you don’t have to. It was you and me before. Why should that change?”

  “I hide behind you!” I shouted. “I hide! And you’re letting me! I think you get off on it, you like the chase, and right now you’re chasing my fears but I’m the one who has to do that, not you!”

  He let go of my arm and before he erased all the expression on his face, he looked vulnerable and lost. Unsure. All his usual confidence destroyed.

  I left him standing there by the Town Car and stomped my way across the icy parking lot to where Allerton, Kathy and the two strangers stood by the Prelude.

  “Everything all right?” Allerton asked me and I nodded, too strangled by emotion to speak. “I’ll give Liam the keys. The Prelude is fine, Constance.”

  “I’ll take the keys.” I found my voice somehow and held out my hand.

  After a moment, Allerton put them in my palm.

  “Thank you, Ray. Thank you, Noah,” he said, addressing the two strange men. One was balding and verging past middle age, the other young, around my age. Possibly grandfather and grandson. Now that I was closer, I knew their faces from Regionals, but I was pretty sure I’d never spoken to either of them. My wolf had kept me isolated from most of the men in other packs. While I’d sometimes participated in the Great Hunts, I’d never shifted with anyone outside Riverglow. When I’d been first bonded to Grey, I hadn’t wanted to, and after we’d been together a few years all of New England and upper-state New York knew about my wolf. Opportunities to shift with men outside my pack had noticeably dwindled. No one wanted to babysit when they shifted.

  The younger one gave me a knowing stare and a surge of humiliation burned in my gut. Next the asshole would make a comment like How’s the wolf these days, Stanzie? Or Seen any good trees lately? That was a particular favorite. Everyone in the region knew how much my wolf loved to run so that the world became a blur of speed and motion. They thought they were so goddamn clever. I’d show them someday when my wolf was normal just like theirs.

  Abruptly, I became aware of my clenched fists and forced my fingers straight.

  The older one nudged the younger and they faded back to a small red pickup which belched blue smoke from the exhaust pipe when the engine roared to life.

  We watched them drive away then Kathy and Allerton began to pick their way carefully across the snowy expanse of the parking lot toward the Town Car and the Jaguar.

  Kathy got into the Jaguar and drove off. Allerton got behind the wheel of the Town Car.

  Murphy stared across the lot at me, the wind tumbling his hair across his forehead then he got into the Town Car and slammed the door shut so I couldn’t see him anymore.

  I waited until the Town Car was gone out of the lot before I turned back to the Prelude. Now I would stop being such a goddamn baby and take some control of my life.

  The hood and trunk had been closed but I checked them both anyway. All I needed was for either of them to pop open when I was doing fifty miles per hour. I checked the tires too. I knew I was procrastinating but I couldn’t help it. I took my time examining the car, not letting myself acknowledge I was only trying to delay getting into it.

  Even though I knew there was no bomb, the idea of one sat like a malignant tumor at the base of my brain, flooding my body with random bursts of terror.

  It couldn’t have been more than twenty degrees, but I could feel cold sweat trickling down the back of my neck.

  “I can do this.” I spoke the words aloud to see if they gave me courage. Except that I sounded so scared and shaky it was a joke.

  My hand reached for the door handle three times before I made contact and then it was a good minute and a half before I could bring myself to open the damn door.

  Above the keening of the wind I could hear my own frightened, shallow breathing. I wished Murphy were there with me. Then, for having that traitorous thought, I took the heel of my hand and slammed it between my eyes hard enough to make my head swim.

  “Baby,” I spat at myself. “Coward. Pathetic fucking freak.”

  Yelling at myself, I got behind the wheel. One of my feet hit the brake pedal and I froze. My mind blanked. I didn’t remember how to drive. I didn’t remember my own goddamn name.

  The keys were heavy in my fist. I couldn’t make my fingers uncurl and I sat there for five minutes staring at my own hand, the car door yawning open, wind whipping inside, as icy, slick sweat trickled down my back.

  “The Comet or Blue Moon, Grey? Which club do you want to go to?”

  I heard my own words echo in my head from a night two and a half years in the past. I could see myself sitting behind the wheel of the Mustang in my little black dress and my gold spike-heel sandals. I could smell my perfume. J’adore. Four parts Dior, six parts unique Stanzie. I could see Grandfather Tobias scooting underneath the car on the little board on wheels he kept in the garage. The car was jacked up off the ground so he could fit and the gold paint on the car shone with a metallic brilliance in the August sun. I could see his work boots and the cuffs of his faded jeans as he tampered with the brake line when I thought he was just checking everything out. I could see Grey sitting beside me with his hair pulled back. His black t-shirt was tucked into his black jeans. I could see Elena in the backseat in her white mini dress and white sandals, the ones that had ties that twirled around her shapely calves and knotted just below her knee. I could smell her perfume too—Estee Lauder’s Pleasures, the scent she always wore in the summer.

  Their faces were bright and clear in my memory today. No fading. No blurring. They were as plain and in focus as if they were really sitting in the car with me.

  “Fuuuck!” I screamed, pounding on the wheel with both my fists. “Fuuuck!”

  I fumbled open the door and got the hell out of the car.

  My purse was in the trunk. So was my cellphone. After retrieving both, I leaned back against the bumper and stared at the cellphone. I put it down on the trunk and pulled my glove off with my teeth. My right hand still clutched the keys and wouldn’t uncurl.

  I picked up the phone in my left hand and scrolled through my contacts until I got to Murphy’s name.

  “Epic fail, Stanzie,” I whispered before I pressed send.

  Twelve seconds later I heard a cellphone ring from the glove compartment.

  Swearing, I disconnected and shoved my cellphone back into my purse. Murphy’s phone, muffled by the glove compartment, stopped its goddamn noise.

  I got back into the car, the passenger seat this time. I could breathe again and I took several deep breaths before I opened the glove compartment.

  Hidden under Murphy’s cellphone, the insurance papers, owner’s manual
and maintenance receipts were our bond pendants. Curled up in little chain link balls beside each other. His chain was longer, with bigger links. Mine was shinier.

  The wind rocked the car then it came inside. Along with Murphy. I couldn’t look at him, I was so ashamed. I wasn’t sure how long I’d been sitting in the passenger seat staring at our pendants but something told me it had been awhile.

  “I actually did unbend my knees. I was sitting where you are for a little while anyway,” I whispered when he didn’t say anything. “I just can’t unmake my fist.” I lifted my right hand, still clenched, and waved it for emphasis. “The keys are there.”

  “See, progress,” he said, a smile in his voice.

  I didn’t answer.

  “Someday, Stanzie, you’re going to drive this car. You’ll be ready. You’re doing really well, you know, better than you think.”

  “Bullshit. Every week you ask me if I want to drive and every week I laugh at you and say no way. I let you do all the driving and I hate it when other people drive. I get so scared when other people drive me.”

  “But not when I do?”

  I shrugged. “No. You, I trust.”

  “You didn’t in the beginning. That first time you got into a car with me, you wouldn’t fasten your seatbelt, remember that? And then when you finally did, you spent the whole drive between the chateau and Paris with your hands clutched into fists, knuckles so white it hurt me to look at them. Stiff and upright in your seat, just this side of panic. And every time you’d get into the car with me at first, you’d start to tense up before we even unlocked the doors. And again with the clenched fists and the stiff body. I used to stop every ten miles just so you could get the blood circulating through your fingers again.”

  “I remember you stopping, but not my clenched fists.” I stole a look at him.

  He was smiling at me, his face so kind. “I know. You hated every minute in the car the first couple of weeks. But you got in the car and you did it. And now it’s gotten to the point where you’re still anxious, but I can go two hours now without stopping instead of fifteen minutes. And the first time I asked if you wanted to drive, you shut down for an entire hour. You didn’t talk, you didn’t look at me. You just shut down. Now you laugh at me when I ask you. You’ve come a long way, honey, and you don’t see it but I do. You think everything has to happen all at once in a big rush or it doesn’t mean anything, it’s not real, but that’s not true. It’s one step at a time, Stanzie. You don’t have to do it all at once. And look at you, today in the car with Kathy? She drove like a lunatic on purpose and you handled it. If that had happened three months ago you would have been crying and begging her to let you out of the car, you know that? So stop beating yourself up.”