by Kat Kinney
I leaned around the corner, trying for a better look.
Which was when I saw her.
She was one of those girls who looked like she needed three hours of prep time just to run something out to the mailbox. Flat-ironed hair the color of prairie grass. Bubblegum-pink puffy vest. Designer boots suited only for roughing it in an air-conditioned mall. She let that pale, perfect hair spill over the counter like she was in a shampoo commercial. I swallowed, suddenly feeling like I’d been punched in the sternum, the low, familiar rasp of Ethan’s answer threatening to send a hand clawing in to rip out my heart.
I leaned closer, trying to hear what they were saying. My stomach knotted at the sight of their fingers brushing alongside that stupid paper cup. I sucked in a sharp breath. Ethan’s head whipped towards the door. Quickly, I flattened myself against the wall.
Stupid. Stupid.
Beside me, the bell on the door jingled. I jumped back just in time to avoid getting flattened. Shampoo Commercial Girl climbed into her candy-apple red jeep and bumped out onto Pecan with a perky salute of taillights.
The music from inside abruptly shifted to AC/DC, one of their older albums, loud enough to rattle the windows. A second later, the side door by the dumpsters banged open. I jerked back. Ethan Caldwell emerged in a black Dark apron, skinny jeans and his favorite charcoal-gray Cage The Elephant tee. At twenty-five, he’d lost the angular appearance he had as a kid, his lanky frame hard and defined. His face was dark with beard growth, hair mussed as if he’d been running his hands through it all day.
He chucked the garbage bag into the dumpster, and I caught sight of the leather cuff circling his right wrist. Something knifed through my chest, the unwanted memory of warm fingers and a pen trailing slowly over my skin forcing its way to the surface.
From nowhere, angry tears stung my eyes. Furious, I swiped them away. I knew coming back was going to feel about like slamming my head into one of the painted iron cows down by Lady Bird Lake. This time, I swore I wouldn’t let myself get dragged down.
For the record, I killed my own spiders, played guitar in an all-girls rock band, and would eat a salad only if it was slathered in something that actually tasted good. Growing up with a father who broke one promise after another taught you pretty fast there was no one you could depend on but yourself.
I swore the day Ellie and I woke up to find him gone it would be the last time I allowed myself to get attached. Promises were too easily made. And I wouldn’t let myself be discarded again.
The clouds shifted overhead, the wind whispering shhhh-shhhh as it stirred soggy leaves at my feet. Hands contorting into claws, I raked at my hair, long, dark strands tangling in my fingers. Moonlight skittered over the wet pavement, dizzying and lucent as a flashlight beam. My heart thudded like a sledgehammer, sick, shaky pangs of hunger swirling like poison in my blood.
Ethan started back across the parking lot, worn Vans sloshing through puddles on the asphalt. I staggered forward, a garbled whine choking in my throat.
The door slammed shut. He appeared in the window seconds later, mop in hand, tossing chairs up onto tables.
Vision swimming, I clawed at the locked door, fingers raking down again and again until crimson streaks began to appear on the wood. Stray raindrops trickled down from the eaves, dappling my bloody fingertips. The bitter smell of coffee grounds, cinnamon and lemon floor cleaner wafted up from the crack over the mat as I panted, growing ever more desperate. If he didn’t let me in—
The door flew open so suddenly I lost my balance, would probably have fallen if it weren't for Ethan catching my wrists.
"Hayden—"
Raindrops speckled his thick, black-framed glasses, that tiny detail wedging between my ribs like a knife.
I tried to speak. His name caught in my throat.
Maybe it was the stress of twenty-three sleepless nights. Maybe it was the shock of coming home to a town I swore I’d never see again. Or maybe it was the haunted look in his eyes that caused some weak, traitorous part of me to question if he wished he’d tried to stop me that night. To wonder if the three years since we’d last spoken had been every bit as painful for him as they had been for me. Maybe I would always hate him for it. Mostly I hated that I cared.
He frowned. “What are you doing here?”
So. Best way to handle seeing one’s ex after three years?
1) Eyeroll and obscene hand gesture. You fronted for Daisy Addiction. Mosh pits and fanboys groveled at your feet. You gave zero fucks.
2) Order obscene latte art, then go all pumpkin spice on his Cage the Elephant t-shirt. (So, okay, maybe you weren’t quite over what happened three years ago.)
3) Lunge for his throat.
Three guesses as to which one I chose.
Ethan sucked in a sharp breath as I came towards him. But before my fingernails could make contact, he pivoted out of the way and jerked my arm to the side, the building’s unforgiving brick exterior rushing up to meet me. I slammed into it in a burst of stars, vision blurring.
His grip on my arm tightened until I thought I would black out from the pain. Dizzy, I slumped against the cold brick.
“You’ve been bitten,” he said into my ear, and I knew then he must have caught sight of my eyes, irises he’d once in an unguarded, un-Ethan moment told me were the palest shade of glacier blue he’d ever seen. “When?”
I felt his breath on the back of my neck and whirled, trying to bite. The pressure on my arm increased, my thoughts briefly clearing. “A month ago.”
“Where?”
His body hovered over mine, heat radiating off his chest. Despite myself, I shivered. The wind gusted, shifting the clouds overhead. A shudder rippled through my torso. His grip on my wrist tightened.
“Don’t even think about it. You can’t shift here.”
The wet pavement exploded in a dizzying burst of moonlight. A scream ripped from my throat. In the next breath, we were down on the sidewalk. Clawing. Kicking. Cursing. My fingernails drew blood. But he was too fast, too strong. Hauling me to my feet, he dragged me inside Dark.
Heart slamming in my chest, I jerked away from him the moment the door slammed shut, her rage a raw, wild thing so visceral I could barely think, barely breathe for it.
“I don’t want to hurt you.” Hazel eyes I’d memorized at least a thousand times flared a bright, iridescent gold. Just like they had the night he kissed me. And then said it could never happen again.
“I think someone’s trying to kill me.”
Blackness swarmed my vision. I knew what was coming, having watched it play out in sickening detail on the video I recorded on my phone while trying to say one last goodbye to Ellie.
The night I realized I could never go home.
Our eyes locked.
“Hayden,” he started, features frozen in an expression I couldn’t hope to read.
Ethan lunged as I started to slide to the floor. I clung to his voice, desperate to stop the change. To hold on to that last shred of me. But the pain consumed me, a vicious ball of white-hot agony I had no hope of containing. A blade licked across my skin, splitting my flesh, my bones snapping easily as twigs. I sucked in a breath to scream, instead drinking in the familiar warmth of cinnamon and espresso as darkness swallowed me.
Then
Ethan
MY DAD WAS RIGHT about more things than he was wrong. That summer West, Dally and I made the thirty-foot leap off Bluff Point down into the cold waters of Lake Buchanan because Dally convinced us being were meant you couldn’t die? Dad just leaned against the doorframe in our bunkroom, where the local vet was rebreaking West’s leg, folded his arms and shook his head.
“Think this is bad? Wait till your mom gets home.”
Nothing better than barely surviving your own stupidity only to get told the next morning over bacon, buttery scrambled eggs and hash browns smothered in hot sauce to go out in the backyard and cut your own switch. Not that I faulted my mom in any way. With seven boys spread out o
ver seven years, it was either run a tight ship or let us all turn out wild as dogs.
And my dad was right the day we met, back in my fourth foster home of second grade, when he said I would like living with him and Sofia if I gave it a little time. The system being what it was, I hadn’t seen my brother August in almost two years by that point. Sure, I’d tried sneaking out. Running away at recess. Hitching rides with truckers heading east through the Hill Country towards Blood Moon. I was probably the only eight-year-old every police officer in three counties could identify on sight.
So when a tall, sandy-haired werewolf in a sheriff’s uniform stepped into the laundry room where I slept, the first thing I did was eye the crawl space between the dryer and the wall.
“You must be Ethan.”
I bit down on my lip until I tasted blood. As Alpha, he could compel me to answer. Instead, the sheriff nudged the dirty clothes piled in the corner with the toe of his boot. A muscle twitched in his jaw as his gaze flicked from the crumpled bits of newspaper, broken pencils and dryer lint strewn across the floor, to the two frayed towels I was allowed to use as blankets, finally settling on the paper plate of cold beans shaking in my lap.
“Why don’t we go for a drive, son.”
Quickly, before he could take them away, I stuffed the beans into my mouth. The sheriff’s frown hardened, but he produced a handkerchief and told me to clean my face.
He tried to talk some on the way into town, asked if I liked my foster parents, if I played any sports in school. I twisted my shirt into knots and stared out at the carpet of bluebonnets, firewheels and black-eyed Susans scattered alongside the highway. We both knew why he was here. It wasn’t like either of us missed the black plastic trash bag containing my clothes and backpack he had to step over on our way off the porch.
Ten minutes later the sheriff pulled into the parking lot of the local pizza joint. Not that I’d ever been inside. I wasn’t exactly the kid anyone wanted at their birthday party. But the moment I saw August, I forgot everything else.
My little brother was clinging to Sofia like a freaking koala bear, chattering away in new sneakers and a Superman shirt. And right then, I got it. I might have been a lost cause, but August was still young and cute enough for someone to adopt.
We ate pepperoni pizza and drank cold, fizzy Dr. Peppers. August refused to touch his crusts and I tried to think of a way I could stuff them under my shirt for later without getting caught. We finished eating and the sheriff gave us tokens for the games.
As soon as they were out of earshot, I checked my little brother over. No bruises, but he had a big scab on one knee.
“I’ve got my very own bike!” August crowed.
“Yeah?” I fed him another one of my tokens for the pinball machine.
“Uh huh. Dallas, one of my new brothers, is teaching me to ride it.”
Something ugly roiled in my stomach along with the pizza at the mention of new brothers. I forced it down, firing off questions while the Skee-Ball siren blared obnoxiously in the background.
“They giving you enough to eat?”
August didn’t answer. I gripped his shoulders, turning him to face me.
“They hit you? Lock you in the utility room? Touch you anyplace bad—?”
That was when the sheriff came up behind us. Turned out his hearing was better than I thought.
“You know, I’m of a mind brothers should be kept together.”
For someone the teachers deemed hopeless, I started doing a lot better in school in a hurry. There was so much to do out on the ranch. Tire swings that swayed under shady live oaks. Barns and fields to explore. Creeks for catching tadpoles and a huge lake for swimming in during the summer. And after Sofia, who August already called Mom, went to my first parent-teacher conference and saw the sketch I did in art class of the Caldwell’s backyard at sunset, drawing paper and real artist’s pencils appeared—along with the rule that there was no touching any of it until chores and homework were done.
They had five sons. River was a year younger than August. West and Dallas were in third and fourth grade, right above me. The twins, Brody and Cal, were in middle school.
It was a few months later when the sheriff, who I was now supposed to call Ben, pulled Calgary and Brody aside at River’s birthday party down at the city park and told them to keep River and August away from some man called Zane Crowe.
I listened in, knowing there would be trouble if I was caught. I already received nightly talks from Ben on an array of subjects, like why I couldn’t sleep on the floor outside August’s room instead of in the bunkroom with West and Dallas. Or that I should just ask when I wasn’t sure about things like putting dishwasher detergent in the washing machine. Spoiler alert: soapocalypse.
I checked the porch every day when we got off the bus. As soon as I saw the trash bag wasn’t there, I ran out into the fields to throw up.
And today when I overheard the whispered warning, saw Brody and Cal nod with the crisp yessir that clumped in my throat every time Ben asked me a question, my wolf clawed beneath my skin in a black, desperate rage. If I trailed August like a shadow, it would only sign my walking papers that much faster. But I couldn’t just stand around and do nothing. Not when my brother might be in danger. The others ran off. I settled myself under one of the old pecan trees with my drawing pad and a fistful of pencils where I could observe from a distance.
Zane Crowe was easy to spot. Rail-thin. Dark, stringy hair. He was dressed in ripped jeans and long sleeves despite the heat. Parking himself on an unoccupied table, he pulled out a guitar case and lit a cigarette.
Two girls trailed into the park after him, flip flops smacking noisily on the asphalt. One had pigtails. The other, braids. Wandering over to a patch of daisies a few yards away, they began poking flowers into their hair, ignoring me. Which was fine. Girls were pretty much useless. Swatting at mosquitos, I went back to sketching.
“What are you drawing?”
Pigtails marched over, twirling a pale daisy with a sunny yellow center in both hands. She jutted out her hip. I scowled. But she was August’s age. And even if she wasn’t, I didn’t hit girls.
“Go away.”
But because the universe never listened, she squatted beside me. “Can I see?”
I hugged the sketchpad closer.
“No.”
She stuck her face six inches from mine, dark brown hair tickling my cheek. Her eyes were the palest shade of blue I’d ever seen, like a winter sky washed in high, wispy clouds. And she was freaking annoying. After a minute of dangling the daisy in my face, she lunged for my paper. Snarling, I jerked it out of her reach.
“Don’t you have flowers to terrorize?”
She laughed like I’d just said the funniest thing in the world, then leaned in close to my ear.
“I like your glasses.”
Cheeks flaming, I glared and darted a look around, hoping Brody or worse, Dallas, hadn’t heard. No one, absolutely no one, had ever said that. Mostly I got called Hairy Farter. Or Turd Breath. Exasperated, I tapped Pigtails on the end of the nose with my pencil the way I would have August.
“And I think you’re trouble.”
“Hayden!”
You wised up to a lot of things real quick in foster care. The first was that fear had a certain smell—a taste, like something gone sour on the back of your tongue. And the way Pigtails’ eyes widened before she hurriedly brushed off her shorts, abandoning the little kingdom of daisies and scurrying off clutching hands tightly with Braids, brought my wolf clawing for the surface like nothing else.
Ben and Sofia knew how to throw a cookout. There were burgers and hotdogs fresh off the grill. Corn on the cob and salad with big cold tomato wedges. Macaroni and cheese with bits of crumbled bacon that was so good I ate three servings, then tucked back in for guacamole with chips. And then for dessert, warm peach cobbler and vanilla ice cream.
At a little table away from the others, Hayden and her sister Ellie ate like it was
the last time they would see food, sneaking rolls into their pockets when they thought no one was looking, something I kept getting in trouble for whenever Ben found food hidden in the bunkroom.
And suddenly, despite the fact that she was annoying and a girl, I felt sick for the little daisy menace. And so later, as the plates were being tossed into garbage sacks and everyone else was scrambling to grab clear drink cups and plastic lids to catch the first fireflies of spring, I dropped a scrap of paper into her lap.
“Psst… Daisy.”
She frowned. Unfolded it as I ran off. But from across the lawn, I watched those pale blue eyes light up in a starry smile.
And in the moment I felt my wolf claw longingly in my ribcage, stirring sensations it would be years before I could even come up with a name for, I knew only two things.
Hayden Crowe was trouble. And I was seriously screwed.
2
Ethan
IT WAS TUESDAY NIGHT. I’d been up since 4 a.m. And I was getting my ass kicked by a girl. More specifically, Hayden Crowe. Think five and a half feet of vintage tees, don’t-fuck-with-me looks, and a collection of short skirts and tight jeans that were nearly the source of me putting my own eyes out back when she was still in high school. All I needed now was for West to get wind of it and I would have my very own hashtag. #WerePussy, or some shit.
That was the thing about having six brothers. Sure, someone always had your back. Someone, meaning August or Cal. Brody, like most firstborns, had to always be right. Which most of the time he channeled into stuff like going after the lowlifes who dumped boxes of stray puppies out on the side of Highway 29. But you better believe he could shut down group texts faster than a flash hailstorm when he got on a tear railing about outlawing crushed ice at the mini-mart or threatening to audition for the next season of The Voice just to prove the thing was rigged. Dallas had more claws than a sack of wet cats if you caught him on a weekend the Cowboys lost. And don’t even get me started on River. Which was why putting the seven of us together in the same room with booze was a four-alarm dumpster fire.