by Laura Burns
No one spoke as they waited for the Jager to appear. No one moved. The ceremonies always had a formality, a gravity, but tonight Sarah could feel a new tension in the group. What are we here for? What was so urgent we were called together with no warning? Sarah wondered, staring down at the floor. Her hood dropped so low it was hard to see anything else.
The tension grew with each moment they waited. A girl gave a nervous giggle, then went silent so quickly it was as if a hand had been slapped over her mouth. Sarah’s scalp had started to itch, and a spot near the middle of her back. Trying not to fidget, she shut her eyes, hoping that would help. But instead, it just made her more aware of every tiny irritation in her body.
She opened her eyes, focusing on the details of the floor’s rough stone, the slight differentiations in the gray color, a chip in the rock here, a crack running through there. She heard a faint rattling sound, then a metallic squeal, and a muffled moan.
She continued to face forward. They were expected to remain in place until Nate arrived. The rattles grew louder, the muted cries more agitated. Wheels entered Sarah’s field of vision, bouncing over the stones, one of them turning in the wrong direction, causing the high metallic shriek. She lifted her head until she could see a larger slice of the room from under her heavy velvet hood. The wheels belonged to a gurney, being pushed past by two pack members. On top of the gurney, a sheet covered a squirming body.
“Heil, Jager! Heil, Jager!” The chant began from those closest to the entrance. When Nate strode past Sarah in his black robe, she joined in, her shout adding to the frenzy of sound. He took his position in front of the terrifying Bone Man sculpture and raised his hands. Immediately the chanting stopped.
“What is owed to the Jager?” Nate called out, his voice easily filling the large room, echoing off the stone.
“Loyalty unto death,” Sarah answered in unison with the others.
“What is owed to the pack?” The moaning from the gurney continued under Nate’s strong voice and the answering pack.
“Loyalty unto death.”
“Those are the first of our sacred edicts. What is the third?” Nate asked, his voice loud but controlled.
“We stand alone. We trust no one but our brothers and sisters.”
“We stand alone,” Nate repeated. “We trust no one but our brothers and sisters. And yet one of our own has broken the vow. One of our own has put another before the pack. One of our own has chosen to trust another, an outsider, with our secrets. And now one of our own must pay the price. Come closer to witness the punishment required by our laws.”
There was a soft whispering of robes as the pack gathered in front of the Bone Man. Nate gave a signal to the figures on either end of the gurney and they rolled it into place before him. Sarah pulled her hood back a fraction to clear more of her vision. A fire had been lit in a copper bowl resting inside the Bone Man where the heart would be.
Nate pulled back the sheet in one long, smooth motion, revealing Grayson Chandler tied down on a filthy mattress. Naked. Her flesh covered with goose bumps, nipples erect. Eyes wide with terror, she twisted her head back and forth, trying to spit out the wadded ball of cloth that had been stuffed in her mouth and tied in place with more cloth.
Sarah stumbled back, horrified. Izzy caught her by the arm, holding her steady. “We will not banish our sister from the pack. We will be merciful. We will punish her, because it is required of us,” the Jager intoned.
Nate signaled to another member, who handed him the bowl of Blutgrog. He brought the bowl to each member of the pack, letting them drink. His hands were completely steady when he lifted the bowl to her lips. She reluctantly swallowed. She didn’t want to experience this more intently. She didn’t want to experience it at all.
When each member of the pack had drunk, Nate turned and removed a length of iron from the fire blazing inside the Bone Man. It took Sarah a second to notice the shape of a wolf’s head glowing deep red at one end. It was a brand.
Grayson began thrashing as much as she was able while still restrained on the gurney. Sarah’s stomach gave a slow, sickening roll as she saw that the rough ropes had rubbed away the skin on Grayson’s wrists and ankles, leaving the flesh raw and bleeding. With her Blutgrog-enhanced senses, Sarah could smell the sharp, coppery odor of blood. When she breathed in, she could almost taste it on her tongue, along with the acrid fear sweat pumping out of Grayson’s body.
Izzy was still holding her arm, and Sarah could feel her friend’s pulse beating in her fingertips, much more slow and even than Sarah’s own erratic, racing heartbeat.
“Let this mark be a reminder that speaking of the pack to an outsider is verboten,” Nate cried. “Let this mark be a reminder that only those of us initiated here in this room before the Bone Man can be trusted.”
Instinctively, Sarah jerked her head to the side so she wouldn’t have to watch the brand come down on Grayson’s stomach. But that didn’t stop her from hearing the sizzle, from smelling the smoke and the frying-meat scent of Grayson’s burning flesh.
Somehow Grayson managed to free herself from the gag, and Sarah was sure that even without her phenomenal memory she would never be able to forget that scream. Nate flicked his hand, and Grayson was rolled out of the room, still screaming, the broken gurney wheel squealing in accompaniment. “Now we begin again, our pack cleansed,” he told them, pacing between the two lines of robed members.
Sarah took a deep breath, filling her nostrils with the scent of chalky bone, old blood, and rank seaweed coming from the towering Bone Man icon. Cleansed. She felt sick from what they had just done, but the pack had to be kept secret.
“Why do we gather here today?” the Jager called.
“We gather to renew our spirits and our strength,” Sarah said. She forced the image of Grayson’s thrashing body, the memory of her scream, and the smell of her burned flesh out of her mind.
The two members who had left with Grayson returned to the room, taking their place in line. Where was Grayson?
“Our disgraced sister rests in body, but we know now that she is forever here in spirit. Tonight all members of our pack are present. Our pack. It is ours. All of ours.” Sarah felt that electric energy in the room again. The energy of a group with a singular focus. “Never forget that you have brothers and sisters. Never forget that you are part of something much larger than yourself.”
As if she could. No one in this room, at this school, had a family, not truly. What they had was the people gathered around them right now. For the years they were at Sanctuary Bay, family was only care packages, if you were lucky. There was no way to keep up friendships with people from before.
“As a reminder of this, our great blessing, we will perform the next mission together. It is assigned to all of us,” the Jager continued. “When we have completed it, I know we will be stronger than we have ever been. The weakness that led our sister to stray will be removed.” He let out a howl and they all joined in. Sarah could feel the tiny bones of her inner ear vibrating with the sound, and her larynx vibrating as she joined in the cry.
Nate raised his hands for silence and a hush fell. “The mission will take place on Halloween night. On that night we will join in an act of sacrifice. On that night we will take a life, to honor what the pack has given us and to bind us.”
Sarah’s mouth grew dry. He means an animal, she told herself. He has to mean an animal. Or maybe it will be like when Luke was buried alive. It won’t be for real.
“Together we will offer up the most precious gift—a human soul,” Nate told them.
Sarah felt like the tendons in her knees had been severed. Somehow she managed to remain standing. No one protested. Why wasn’t anyone saying no? Why wasn’t anyone saying this was fucking crazy?
Why wasn’t she?
She opened her mouth, but no sound came out.
Nate’s voice was clear and strong and compelling as he continued. “And when we have made this sacrifice together, we will be clo
ser than any oath or vow, no matter how sacred, could make us. We will be as one, one brain, one heart, one body, one pack.”
“One pack,” they all repeated.
“One pack,” Sarah whispered.
9
Three days before I’m supposed to help kill someone, and I’m drinking beer at a bonfire, Sarah thought. How fucked up is that?
The answer: Very. Very, very.
There had to be a catch. Nate had said they were sacrificing a human soul. So maybe that didn’t mean someone would actually die.
Ethan kicked her foot. “No doing chemistry equations in your head, or whatever it is you’re thinking about,” he said. “This is a party. Or is that something else you never experienced out in the real world before you were saved by Sanctuary Bay?”
“Stop being such a porcupine,” Karina said affectionately, wrapping one arm around Ethan’s waist, while she roasted a marshmallow with the other.
“Porcupine isn’t the animal I was thinking of,” Izzy commented with a little shrug.
Tif and Matthias ran back up to the fire. “My feet are actually blue,” Tif said as she rolled down the legs of her jeans and held her feet out to the fire.
“Maine. October,” Izzy said. “Logic.”
“I told her,” Matthias answered, digging his bare feet into the rocks. Sarah had always thought beaches had sand—that’s what they looked like on TV. But the beach here was entirely made up of small, smooth rocks.
“You told her, then you went in the water yourself. Yeah, that makes sense,” Izzy said.
“I grew up in Maine,” Matthias reminded her. “I’m conditioned, unlike our little magnolia here.”
“This bonfire open to anyone? Or is it invitation-only?” Nate sat down without waiting for an answer, The Grin on his face. Olivia, a girl from the pack Sarah hadn’t gotten to know too well yet, sat down next to him.
She frowned. Were they a thing? He’s always with me at parties, she thought.
“Our bonfire is your bonfire.” Karina rotated her stick to get her marshmallow golden brown all over. “It’s not like the beach is big enough for two of them anyway.”
They were gathered on the one tiny strip of beach that wasn’t off-limits to students. It ran along for only about fifty feet on either side of the jetty.
“There’s a great beach on the other side of the island, near the old asylum,” Ethan said. “Of course, we’re not allowed on it. Just another one of the school’s stupid rules for the sake of rules. There’s no reason we shouldn’t be able to use it.”
“Really? How did you find it? There’s that big hedge blocking the way over there.” Olivia took a beer from the cooler.
“A hedge isn’t enough to stop Ethan,” Karina answered for him.
“There shouldn’t be anything blocking the way,” Ethan said. “Why do we need to be hemmed in here?”
“Maybe because the ruins of the asylum are dangerous and could collapse on anyone stupid enough to go over there,” Nate shot back.
“Then they could say that,” Ethan replied. “They could treat us like the intelligent people they know we are, instead of like prisoners.”
“Prisoners? Prisoners with a movie theater, and an Olympic-sized pool, and a—” Nate began arguing before Sarah had the chance. Prisoners? Seriously? She rolled her eyes. Every school had rules.
“Ooh, a pool and a theater,” Ethan was saying sarcastically. He shook his head. “What is it with everyone here? All it takes is some nice stuff and your brains shut off? You’d probably all have jumped into a van with a pedophile holding a bag of candy.”
“I do love a nice Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup,” Matthias joked.
A couple of people laughed, but not Sarah. Ethan had been handed so much in his life it had completely warped him. It made her crazy.
Nate glared at Ethan. “This school isn’t handing out candy. It’s handing out an education. My life would be shit if I hadn’t gotten a scholarship here, and I’m not ashamed to say it.” There was real anger in Nate’s voice.
“My life’s shit here,” Ethan said. He sounded angry too.
Izzy leaned close to Sarah. “I was right. He’s not a porcupine. He’s a moose. Nate too. And they’re smashing their antlers together trying to impress you,” she whispered.
“What? No way,” Sarah whispered back.
“Every time one of them makes a point, they look at you to see your reaction,” Izzy insisted.
Izzy noticed everything. Could she be right? Sarah wondered. Ethan had kissed her. Although he’d certainly kissed Karina a bunch of times since then. And Nate had, if Izzy was right, arranged to be with her at two pack parties.
“Then we have different definitions of shit,” Nate said to Ethan, then glanced at Sarah.
“No, we don’t,” Ethan snapped. “You’re just letting a bowling alley and some gourmet coffee cover up the smell.” He looked over at Sarah.
She glanced back and forth between the two glaring guys. Was this really about her?
“I probably would have dropped out of high school if I hadn’t gotten to come here. No point in finishing without college, which I wouldn’t have been able to afford.” Nate jumped to his feet. “With Sanctuary Bay on my application and recommendations from the teachers here, I can get in anywhere. And that ain’t shit.” He stalked away.
Sarah stood and started after him. “Of course, they’re perfect for each other,” she heard Ethan say edgily. “Poverty makes them so much more mature than the rest of us.”
“I’m sorry about all that,” she told Nate when she caught up to him down at the edge of the water. He didn’t look at her, just stood staring out at the ocean, hands jammed in his pockets. “Ethan’s an entitled idiot.”
Nate didn’t answer.
“It’s the same for me with this scholarship,” she said. “I tell myself I would have found a way to go to college without it. But I don’t know if that’s true.” She took a deep breath. “Sanctuary Bay overlooked some stuff in my transcripts that most places wouldn’t. They took a chance on me. They changed my life.”
Nate turned to face her. “You’re amazing, and you deserve everything this place can give you. Everything. You did it, Sarah. You didn’t let your past hold you back.”
“That’s because of you,” she said. “You took a chance on me too, the very first day I got here. You told me the truth about yourself and that made me see things differently.”
“I could tell you deserved it,” he replied. “And you deserve even more. That’s why I wanted you in the Wolfpack. The friends you make there are different from other friends, because of what we go through together.”
“I know. I’ve never had anything like it before.”
“And our packmates?” Nate said. “Think of the kind of families they have, the kinds of jobs they’ll get after college. There will be doors open for you—for us—all over the place. Wolfpack members rule the world. I’m serious. Business, entertainment, politics, science, sports, media, there are Wolfpack alumni everywhere, at the highest levels, and after college, we’re going to be there too.”
Conviction charged his voice, glowed in his eyes. He believed what he was saying with every molecule of his being. Listening to him, Sarah did too.
“That’s what you said when I first met you,” she remembered. “You asked if I wanted to run things, and I did.”
“See?” Nate gave her The Grin. “I pegged you for the pack right from the start.”
Sarah smiled back, so glad he’d wanted her. “But we’re not really going to kill someone, are we? I know you say going through so much together creates a bond, but…”
“For you and me, the Wolfpack is different than it is for everyone else. They have all the connections they need. We don’t. We’re not from this world.” He reached out and smoothed her hair away from her face. “All I can say is that you want to be with the pack on Halloween night. I want you there.”
Then he cupped her face in his hands, an
d kissed her, soft and sweet. It was the first time he’d kissed her outside one of the Wolfpack parties. It felt different out in the real world. It meant more. It wasn’t just about fun.
Sarah slid her arms around Nate, and he deepened the kiss, his tongue exploring her mouth slowly. It was nothing like the hard, demanding kiss Ethan had given her that night after the movie. Ethan? Why was she thinking about Ethan? But now that she was, she couldn’t stop. Was he watching from the bonfire?
Or maybe he’s making out with his girlfriend, she thought, ashamed of herself. With my friend, Karina, nicest girl around. What did Matthias call her? The Sweetheart of Sanctuary Bay.
Sarah forced her attention back to Nate. It wasn’t hard. Nate was difficult to ignore. She let her tongue flick against his, pulling him closer against her. He kissed his way down to the hollow of her throat, then back up to her ear. “Promise me you’ll be with us on Halloween,” he whispered, his breath warm against her skin. “It won’t be the same without you. And you’ll regret it if you aren’t there. Trust me.”
She wanted to believe him. She wanted the advantages the pack would give her. “I do. I will,” she whispered back before he again captured her mouth with his own.
* * *
Sarah’s legs trembled beneath her ceremonial robe as she stood in the Bone Man room on Halloween night. She thought she could trust Nate, but she couldn’t help feeling unsettled about what was going to happen tonight.
“Heil, Jager! Heil, Jager!”
Nate had appeared in the doorway holding the bowl of Blutgrog over his head. When the pack went silent, he called out the words that opened every ceremony. “Why do we gather here today?”
Sarah responded numbly. We aren’t going to really kill anyone, she kept telling herself. All she had to do was follow instructions until it was revealed that the sacrifice was only symbolic or something.
“We will need strength for what we must do tonight,” Nate said once he reached the end of the usual call-and-response. He threw back his head and took a long drink from the bowl, then offered it to the person at the top of one of the two lines flanking the room. The hooded figure drank, then uncovered his face. Luke.