by Tiki Kos
White candles and empty beer bottles surrounded the frame.
“What’s going on here?” I shot a nasty look at Mom and jerked my hand away.
Her eyes went wide. “One of our brothers died. We’re honoring him.”
“Are you kidding me?” This time, I wasn’t going to shut up. The fury rose in my veins. No one should be celebrated right now other than Dad.
“What?” Mom’s mouth formed a perfect ‘o’ as her blonde eyebrows shot up.
“Your ex-husband is dead, and you’re throwing a party for this nobody?”
“He wasn’t no one. Bobby was a good man. He followed the rules and will be missed.”
“The person you were nearly married to for 18 years is dead.” I felt the rage build even more. My entire body was shaking.
“Sunny Armstrong,” Mom snapped, “don’t you speak to me with that attitude. This is my house, and my rules. You don’t live with your dad anymore, and that means I’m in charge.”
“Don’t you have any pride?” I hissed. I wanted to hurt her. I wanted her to feel as bad as I did inside. “You should be mourning his death.”
“You know nothing about your sweet old daddy.”
“I know he was a better parent than you’ll ever be. I wish you were the one who’d died.”
“You’re an ungrateful brat. I’m sick of your lip and your attitude, and your stupid victim complex.”
Mom raised her hand in the air, and just as she was about to hit me, Karl, the self-proclaimed King of the Disciples, grabbed it. Not only was he the leader, but he was also Ryan’s dad. He was handsome for an older man; I’d give him that. He had one of those smiles that would stick with you forever. His black hair was always slicked back with streaks of barely noticeable white. You could tell by the way his shirts clung to his chest that he worked out. Karl’s eyes were the type that didn’t like to stay one color; at times, they were green, blue or grey. Ryan’s were similar, but stuck to shades of blue.
I knew he was dangerous, just by how charming he was. He would make you forget that he sold drugs and did bad shit for a living.
“Now, now, ladies,” Karl chuckled as he gently pushed Mom’s arm to her side.
Mom’s voice squeaked. “We’re just going through some family drama. You understand.”
That was the understatement of the century.
He looked at me and winked. “You should honor your daughter. She’s the only one you have left.”
To the best of my knowledge, I was the only child Shelly had. Would she have told me she was pregnant before?
A sting of pain crossed her face. Mom opened her mouth, then shut it; I guessed it wasn’t smart for her to argue with the king of the Disciples.
Karl gave one of his signature melting smiles. “There’s no reason to fight. We’re all here to celebrate life…am I right?”
Mom shrugged, then nodded. “I guess so.”
Karl cupped a hand against his ear. “I couldn’t hear that…am I right?” He lifted his glass beer bottle into the air and took a swig.
“This drink is for the fallen. Bobby, you were a great man, and one hell of a biker.”
A wave of hell yeahs were called out, followed by a clink of beer bottles and cans.
“Bobby was a true Disciple, an obedient brother, and a follower of the six commandments.”
Karl threw both arms around Mom and pulled her into his side, then gave her a loud kiss on the top of her forehead. “What are the commandments of the Disciples?”
The crowd recited them in unison.
“Number 1: Keep your mouth shut. Number 2: Disciples are family. Number 3: No Disciple member stands alone. Number 4: A Disciple never betrays his own. Number 5: In unity, there is strength. Number 6: Disciples always honor their dead.”
Karl’s dark eyes locked onto mine. A chill rolled up my spine. For the three years I was dating Ryan, he’d barely spoken a word to me. I had a bad feeling brewing in the pit of my stomach.
Karl whispered something into Mom’s ear. She turned and headed out of the kitchen without looking back at me once. I wanted to yell at her for abandoning her only child.
He took a step towards me. “You know, if you follow those rules, life will be so much easier for you.”
“I’m not part of your little gang,” I protested, “and I don’t want to be.”
“You little firecracker.” Karl ran a hand through my red hair and twirled his fingers around the orange ends. His hand lingered on my neck. “I guess that’s why your hair’s this color.”
A weird feeling rippled through my body and sent goosebumps flaring on the tops of my arms. That linger of Karl’s fingers made me squirm.
I jerked my head away. “Don’t you dare touch me.”
He smirked. “I keep forgetting how much you’re like your good ol’ dad…Follow the rules, obey, and what happened to your daddy won’t happen to you. “
Tears welled up in my eyes and my lips began to tremble. How could he say that?
“Wolf got your tongue?” Karl asked me. “No more snarky comments?”
I took a step back, pulling myself away from Karl’s reach, but landed hard into someone behind.
“Get outta my way.” I scowled while I turned to face the blockade. I was not in the mood for another encounter.
The woman looked at me, her eyes wide, and her mouth formed an ‘o’. Her teal hair was buzzed close to her scalp. I knew she was young, maybe twenty, but the harsh black liner and atomic orange lips made her look older. The black leather outfit paled her skin and was a little too tight for her frame. A thick black and grey barbed wire tattoo wrapped around her neck like a snake. Her whole look distracted from the fact that she would have been pretty without all the bells and whistles.
“Make me,” she hissed, her chest puffed up towards me. “I don’t have to listen to you.”
“Please get out of my way. I just want to leave.” I could feel myself depleting. All I wanted to do was escape to my room and forget about today. My entire body, down to my bones, was exhausted. I felt as though I could sleep for a week.
“I don’t think so,” she sneered. “We aren’t done with you yet.”
The woman tried to grab my wrist, but I slapped her hand away. She wasn’t expecting that. Her light brown eyes scrunched towards me, she wrapped her fingers around both of my wrists, and pushed me down to the ground. I didn’t want to fight back that much. I was greatly outnumbered, and wasn’t in the mood to entertain the likes of the Disciples.
“I won’t forget that.”
A lump in my throat formed. The corners of the room were shrinking. As I crawled on my hands and knees, I pushed myself between two large men and crept into the living room.
I stood up and brushed the dirt and crumbs off my knees. Karl yelled at me. “Lone wolves never survive. Remember that when you come crawling back, begging us to forgive you. Begging for protection.”
The people in hearing distance laughed and watched me. A burly man with a pot belly and tight leather pants stood in the middle of the living room. In his hand, he held a picture frame. Not just any picture frame—I’d given my dad that one after I’d finished middle school and we came back from a beach vacation. He loved that picture. It was decorated with sea shells and sea glass.
I yanked the picture out of the man’s hands. He took a step towards me, but a low, rumbling growl slipped from my lips.
His face dropped as he placed both hands in the air.
I couldn’t help it but scream. “Get out! All of you, get out of my mom’s house!” Everyone paused, but not a single soul said a peep. Silence consumed the party, and everyone stood still. Their eyes were glued onto me, watching and waiting for this train wreck to continue.
“You don’t belong here.” I grabbed a glass beer bottle from the coffee table and threw it against the wall, shattering it.
Karl cheered. “Too bad, sunshine. We’re here, and we ain’t leaving. You’d better get used to it.”
Chapter Four
“Dicks,” I scoffed, and sprinted up the carpeted stairs, down the hallway and through the last door on the right. Once I slammed the door shut, I could hear the thumping of the party starting back up. Hoots and hollers shook the floor, and the bass vibrated throughout the house.
My shoulders dropped and I relaxed. I finally managed to breathe normally.
I had to take a second glance at the room. The usually nearly empty room was full; even the bed had my favorite comforter on it. It looked as though almost all my stuff from Dad’s house was placed carefully around.
I was in my safe haven.
The walls were painted a smoky grey, with accents of teal, yellow and pink. Mom made sure that this room was perfect, a sanctuary just for me.
In all honesty, I couldn’t remember the last time she did something this nice for me. Maybe I was wrong, and she did care about me.
When my eyes reached the record collection piled against the corner of the room near a silver record player, my heart wrenched. This summer, I had begged Dad for his records. He loved them and had been collecting since he was 16. We used to sit in the backyard playing David Bowie and Jim Morrison. Dad loved to reminisce about playing bass in his high school band, and how he would go to all the concerts in Riverview.
Banshee posters plastered every wall. I had my own collection going now. I grabbed the latest CD. The lead singer Amy Chaos stood in the middle of the cemetery, surrounded by skeletons. I popped the disk into my Walkman and slapped on the ear muffs. I knew I was being old school and that kids my age didn’t really use disks anymore, but I didn’t have an MP3 player. This was the best it was going to get.
I didn’t mind.
I was used to being different. My hair was always colored by the rainbow, and my nails never matched, often too short for comfort.
My dad would always say the weird ones shined brighter than the herd.
The sound of rapping came from the window, and there on the sill sat a raven. I frowned. Was it the same bird from earlier? When I opened it, the bird swooped into the room and perched on top of my wooden desk.
“Are you hungry?” I asked.
The bird tilted its head to the side.
I knew ravens were smart, but could they actually understand what humans were saying? This one seemed like it didn’t want to leave me alone.
I yanked open the bottom drawer of my desk where I stored my emergency snacks. I dug through the chocolate bars, sour candies and granola bars to the bottom, finally finding a bag of unsalted nuts. I bit open the bag and placed a handful on the desk. The bird grabbed the first nut, crunching it between its strong beak.
“There you go.”
I watched as it pecked merrily at the snack. What were the chances of this raven being the same one that was with me the night Dad died?
“Have you been following me?” I asked, watching the bird’s face for any reaction.
After a few heartbeats, I shook my head. I couldn’t believe I’d let a wild bird into my room and I was actually talking to it.
I laughed. I swiped the sweat that rolled down both of my cheeks, then tied my sticky hair up into a messy bun.
“God, it is so hot in here.” I pulled off all my clothes and threw them down into the corner. The crunching noise of nuts stopped and the raven stared at me.
“Don’t worry, this will be between you and me.” I gave the animal a wink, before I pulled open the dresser drawer.
Instead of my usual fuzzy rainbow PJ’s, I opted for a light tank top and shorts.
“You just picked Wolfmere’s weirdest girl to stalk,” I whispered. Dad would’ve loved this. A lump formed in my throat and I took a steady breath in.
I didn’t know how I was going to survive these next months, but I needed to find answers about what had happened. I flipped open my laptop.
‘Do wolves eat people?’
I found multiple sources stating that wolves would only eat a corpse if they were extremely hungry. Those wolves looked healthy and well fed. Their coats were shiny and no bones were protruding in the minutes I saw them.
Then, an article caught my eye. Magical beasts and mystical forces. The website claimed werewolves feasted on humans after they’d changed into beast form. Their prey was savaged and only partially eaten. Their instinct drove them to go after live animals and people.
The flash of my dad’s sprawled and bleeding body popped into my head. I turned off the computer without even shutting it down properly. I shuddered the image out of my head. Was I that crazy that I would spend 20 minutes reading about werewolves on a website that claimed the vampire apocalypse was near?
Dad deserved so much better than this, not me wasting time reading about some fairy tale creatures gone wrong.
I needed to talk to the police…or maybe above the police? The Feds? The CIA? Homeland? Hell, maybe even a politician. Surely one of them they would be interested in Dad’s death—and from what Karl said, the Disciples were involved.
First thing in the morning, I would try to see if one of the deputies was around town. If that didn’t work, I would figure out how to contact the Feds. If I had enough time, I’d get this bite checked out. I wasn’t going to go back to school until someone acknowledged what had happened to my dad.
But first, I needed sleep. A long, uninterrupted sleep.
The raven slipped out of my room without me even noticing, and I shut the window.
I locked the bedroom door, just in case one of the disciples stumbled off from the party and made their way into my room. I wouldn’t put it past one of those drunkards. They sure knew how to burrow under my skin.
I couldn’t think about that now, and all the what ifs my anxiety could summon up.
In this moment, all I could think about was how I was still so bloody hot, as if someone had stuck space heaters in my room and turned them onto full blast. I jumped onto the bed.
My feet shoved the heavy comforter to the end as I cuddled into the mountain of pillows. I was never able to sleep with just one. I had to have at least three for the most comfortable rest. Even through the haunting music blaring into my headphones, I could still hear the party below. The tip of my finger dragged along the volume dial, drowning the remaining noises from the Disciples. My eyelids fought to stay open, but finally shut, succumbing to the dream gods.
Chapter Five
I was running in the woods. The night sky painted everything around me shadowy black. I nearly tumbled over a rock as I got used to my newfound paws.
I could smell the fear coming off the deer. It was so close. She thought she was faster than me, but she was wrong. I lunged over a fallen tree and dashed towards the mounds of snow. A splatter of blood soaked through the top of the hill and trailed down in a swerving line. There she was, lying in the snow, blood pooling out of the bite mark on her hip. Her doe eyes widened and stared at me with dread. I lunged towards her; I couldn’t help myself. I was overcome with the craving of fresh meat.
My snarling teeth dove into the bloodied fur, ripping apart the flesh and devouring each piece.
I gasped, sitting up and drawing in shallow, rapid breaths one by one until my pulse slowed back to its normal rate. Goosebumps rose across my arms, and my entire body shuddered.
I wasn’t a huge meat eater, and that dream made a knot of my insides. But now that I thought about it, I was hungry. Not just hungry—starving. My stomach let out a whiny growl.
An icy breeze rolled into the room as the white blinds tapped against the windowsill. When I looked down, I was stark naked, my clothes tossed on the floor carelessly.
Did someone come into my room? Panic rushed through my body. My hands shook, and it felt like tiny needles were pricking all around my skin.
I ran towards the door and pulled the handle, but it wouldn’t budge. I sighed and ran my hands down my cheeks.
I tossed myself back onto the bed. I did not want to get up and face the day. I didn’t know what the hell was going on wit
h me. Somehow, I knew this day was going to get worse.
A few heartbeats later, another whoosh of wind made its way through the room. Not that I minded—it was usually unbearably stuffy during the winter months, and my body still felt warm to the touch.
Another rumble of starvation came from my guts.
I hauled myself out of bed, threw on a clean set of pyjamas, and headed back downstairs. Once I reached the hardwood floor, my nose crinkled. This was one of the worst smells I had ever had the pleasure of encountering. It was as if puke, yeast and rotten eggs got together and had a good old party.
The entire living room was covered in empty beer cans, abandoned pieces of clothing, and cigarette butts. Some celebration.
There was no way in hell I was going to clean this mess up. A trail of empties blocked the way to the kitchen. I kicked the cans to the side one by one.
Even though the entire room smelt of death, the grumble of my stomach began, and this time it was much more demanding.
“I’m going to eat in a second.” I rolled my eyes and scurried down the path into the kitchen. I wrapped my fingers around the fridge handle and yanked the door open. I spotted a half empty jug of milk, apples on the edge of rotting, and a fully packed meat drawer. That was one thing my dad used to love about Mom—she was always ready to have a full barbecue.
I grabbed a pack of sausages and tossed them into a pan on the stove top. As the meat sizzled and filled the room with a spicy smell, I dug through the meat drawer once again. This time, I pulled out ground beef and placed it onto the countertop. I poked a fork through the sausage and, in one swift motion, cut it in half. As steam seeped out of the meat, I blew on it to cool it off. Again, my stomach roared in hunger. I chomped merrily at the first half, and then the next. Before I knew what had happened, I’d eaten through the whole pack of sausages and my stomach still was starving. The hunger pains quickened.