by TJ Klune
He scrubbed a hand over his face, his fingers disappearing into that full beard. I remembered when he’d first started growing it at seventeen, a patchy thing I’d given him endless shit over. I felt a pang in my chest, but I was used to it by now. It didn’t mean anything. Not anymore.
I was almost convinced.
He dropped his hand and said, “Take care of yourself, okay?” He smiled a brittle smile and then moved toward the door to the Bennett house.
And I was going to let him go. I was going to let him pass right on by. That would be it. I wouldn’t see him again until… until. He would stay here, and I would leave, a reversal of the way it’d once been.
I was going to let him go because it would be easier that way. For all the days ahead.
But I’d always been stupid when it came to Mark Bennett.
I reached out and grabbed his arm before he could leave me.
He stopped.
We stood shoulder to shoulder. I faced the road ahead. He faced all that we would leave behind.
He waited.
We breathed.
“This isn’t—I can’t….”
“No,” he whispered. “I don’t suppose you can.”
“Mark,” I choked out, struggling for something, anything that I could say. “I’m coming—we’re coming back. Okay? We’re—”
“Is that a promise?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t believe your promises anymore,” he said. “I haven’t for a very long time. Watch yourself, Gordo. Take care of my nephews.”
And then he was in the house, the door closing behind him.
I stepped off the porch and didn’t look back.
I SAT in the garage that bore my name, a piece of paper on the desk before me.
They wouldn’t understand. I loved them, but they could be idiots. I had to say something.
I picked up an old Bic pen and began to write.
I HAVE to be gone for a while. Tanner, you’re in charge of the shop. Make sure you send the earnings to the accountant. He’ll handle the taxes. Ox has access to all the bank stuff, personal and shop-related. Anything you need, you go through him. If you need to hire someone to pick up the slack, do it, but don’t hire some fuckup. We’ve worked too hard to get where we are. Chris and Rico, handle the day-to-day ops. I don’t know how long this is going to take, but just in case, you need to watch each other’s back. Ox is going to need you.
IT WASN’T enough.
It would never be enough.
I hoped they could forgive me. One day.
My fingers were stained with ink, leaving smudges on the paper.
I TURNED off the lights in the garage.
I stood in the dark for a long time.
I breathed in the smell of sweat and metal and oil.
IT WASN’T quite dawn when we met on the dirt road that led to the houses at the end of the lane. Carter and Kelly sat in the SUV, watching me through the windshield as I walked up, a pack slung over my shoulder.
Joe stood in the middle of the road. His head was tilted back, eyes closed as his nostrils flared. Thomas had told me once that being an Alpha meant he was in tune with everything in his territory. The people. The trees. The deer in the forest, the plants that swayed in the wind. It was everything to an Alpha, a deep-seated sense of home that one could find nowhere else.
I wasn’t an Alpha. I wasn’t even a wolf. I never wanted to be.
But I understood what he’d meant. My magic was as ingrained in this place as he was. It was different, but not so much that it mattered. He felt everything. I felt the heartbeat, the pulse of the territory that stretched around us.
Green Creek had been tied to his senses.
And it was etched into my skin.
It hurt to leave, and not just because of those we were leaving behind. There was a physical pull an Alpha and a witch felt. It called to us, saying here here here you are here here here you stay because this is home this is home this is—
“Was it always like this?” Joe asked. “For my dad?”
I glanced at the SUV. Carter and Kelly were watching us intently. I knew they were listening. I looked back at Joe, at his upturned face. “I think so.”
“We were gone, though. For so long.”
“He was the Alpha. Not just for you. Not just for your pack. But for all. And then Richard….”
“Took me.”
“Yes.”
Joe opened his eyes. They were not alight. “I am not my father.”
“I know. But you’re not supposed to be.”
“Are you with me?”
I hesitated. I knew what he was asking. It wasn’t formal, not by a long shot, but he was an Alpha, and I was a witch without a pack.
Take care of my nephews.
I said the only thing I could.
“Yes.”
His shift came over him quickly, his face elongating, skin covered in white hair, claws stretching out from the tips from his fingers. And as his eyes burst into flames, he tilted his head back and sang the song of the wolf.
THREE YEARS
ONE MONTH
TWENTY-SIX DAYS
torn apart/dirt and leaves and rain
I WAS six when I first looked upon an older boy shifting into a wolf, and my father whispered, “That’s Abel’s son. His name is Thomas, and one day he will be the Alpha of the Bennett pack. You will belong to him.”
Thomas.
Thomas.
Thomas.
I was in awe of him.
I WAS eight, and my father took a needle and burned ink and magic into my skin. “It’s going to hurt,” he told me, a grim look on his face. “I won’t lie to you about that. It’s going to hurt like nothing you’ve ever felt before. You’ll think I’m tearing you apart, and in a sense, you’re right. You have magic in you, child, but it hasn’t yet manifested. These marks will center you and give you the tools to begin to control it. I will hurt you, but it’s necessary for who you’re supposed to become. Pain is a lesson. It teaches you the ways of the world. We must hurt the ones we love in order to make them stronger. To make them better. One day you’ll understand. One day you’ll be like me.”
“Please, Father,” I begged, struggling against the restraints that held me down. “Please don’t do this. Please don’t hurt me.”
My mother looked to speak, but my father shook his head.
She choked on a sob as she was led from the room. She didn’t look back.
Abel Bennett sat beside me. He was a large man. A kind man. He was strong and powerful, with dark hair and dark eyes. He had hands that looked as if they could split me in two. I’d seen them grow claws to tear into the flesh of those who dared to try to take from him.
But they could be soft too, and warm. He took my face in them, thumbs brushing the tears away from my cheeks. I looked up at him, and he smiled quietly.
He said, “You are going to be something special, Gordo. I just know it.”
And as his eyes started bleeding red, I breathed and breathed and breathed.
Then the needle pressed against my skin and I was torn apart.
I screamed.
HE CAME to me as a wolf. He was large and white, with splashes of black on his chest and legs and back. He was larger than I would ever be, and I had to tilt my head back to see the entirety of him.
The stars were out above, the moon fat and bright, and I felt something thrumming through my blood. It was a song that I couldn’t quite make out. My arms itched something fierce. Sometimes I thought the marks on my skin were starting to glow, but it could have been a trick of the moonlight.
I said, “I’m nervous,” because this was the first time I was allowed to be out on the full moon with the pack. It had been too dangerous before. Not because of what the wolves could do to me, but because of what I could have done to them.
He cocked his head at me, eyes burning orange with flecks of red. He was so much more than I ever thought someone could be. I told myself
I wasn’t frightened of him, that I could be brave, just like my father was.
I thought I was a liar.
Other wolves ran behind him in a clearing in the middle of the woods. They yipped and howled, and my father was laughing, tugging on my mother’s hand as he pulled her along. She glanced back at me, smiling quietly, but then she was distracted.
But that was okay, because so was I.
Thomas Bennett stood before me, the man-wolf who would be king.
He whuffed at me, tail wagging slightly, asking a question I didn’t have an answer to.
“I’m nervous,” I told him again. “But I’m not scared.” It was important to me that he understood that.
He lowered himself to the ground, lying on his stomach, paws out in front of him as he regarded me. Like he was trying to make himself smaller. Less intimidating. Someone of his position lowering himself to the ground was something I wouldn’t understand until it was too late.
He made a low whining sound from deep in his throat. He waited, then did it again.
I said, “My father told me that you’re going to be the Alpha.”
He pulled himself forward, belly dragging along the grass.
I said, “And that I’m going to be your witch.”
He came a little closer.
I said, “I promise that I’ll try my best. I’ll learn all that I can, and I’ll do a good job for you. You’ll see. I’m going to be the best there ever was.” My eyes widened. “But don’t tell my father I said that.”
The white wolf sneezed.
I laughed.
Eventually I reached out and pressed my hand against Thomas’s snout, and for a moment I thought I heard a whisper in my head.
packpackpack.
“IS THIS what you want?” my mother asked me when it was just the two of us. She’d taken me away from the wolves, from my father, telling them she wanted to spend time with her son. We were sitting in a diner in town, and it smelled of grease and smoke and coffee.
I was confused, and I tried to speak through a mouthful of hamburger.
My mother frowned.
I grimaced and swallowed thickly.
“Manners,” she scolded.
“I know. What do you mean?”
She looked out the window onto the street. The wind was sharp, rattling the trees so they sounded like ancient bones. The air was cold, people pulling their coats tightly around them as they walked by on the sidewalk. I thought I saw Marty, fingers stained with oil, walking back to his auto garage, the only one in Green Creek. I wondered what it felt like to have marks on my skin that could wash away.
“This,” she said again, looking back at me. Her voice was soft. “Everything.”
I glanced around us to make sure no one was listening in, because my father said our world was a secret. I didn’t think Mom understood that, because she hadn’t known such things existed until she met him. “The witch stuff?”
She didn’t sound happy when she replied. “The witch stuff.”
“But it’s what I’m supposed to do. It’s who I’m supposed to be. One day I’ll be very important and do great things. Father said—”
“I know what he said,” and it was sharp. She winced before looking down at the table, her hands folded in front of her. “Gordo, I—you need to listen to me, okay? Life is… it’s about the choices we make. Not the choices made for us. You have the right to set your own path. To be who you want yourself to be. No one should decide that for you.”
I didn’t understand. “But I’m supposed to be the witch to the Alpha.”
“You’re not supposed to be anything. You are just a child. This can’t be placed upon your shoulders. Not now. Now when you can’t decide for yourself. You shouldn’t be—”
“I’m brave,” I told her, and suddenly I needed her to believe me more than anything in the world. This felt important. She was important. “And I’m going to do good. I’m going to help many people. Father says so.”
Her eyes were wet when she said, “I know, baby. I know you are. And I’m very proud of you. But you don’t have to. I need you to listen to me, okay? I need you to hear me. It’s not—this isn’t what I wanted for you. I didn’t think it would ever be like this.”
“Be like what?”
She shook her head. “We can—we can go wherever you want. You and me. We can leave Green Creek, okay? Go anywhere in the world. Away from this. Away from magic and wolves and packs. Away from all of this. It doesn’t need to be this way. It could be us, Gordo. It could be just us. Okay?”
I felt cold. “Why are you—”
Her hand shot out and gripped my own across the table. But she was careful, as she always was, not to push back the sleeves of my coat. We were in public. My father said people wouldn’t understand the tattoos on someone so young. They would have questions they didn’t deserve the answers to. They were human, and humans were weak. Mom was human, but I didn’t think she was weak. I had told him as much, and he hadn’t responded. “All I ever wanted was to keep you safe.”
“You do,” I told her, trying my best not to pull my hand away. She was almost hurting me. “You and Father and the pack.”
“The pack.” She laughed, but it didn’t sound like she found anything funny. “You are a child. They shouldn’t be asking this of you. They shouldn’t be doing any of this—”
“Catherine,” a voice said, and she closed her eyes.
My father stood next to the table.
His hand came down upon her shoulder.
We didn’t talk about it after that.
I HEARD them fighting a lot, late into the night.
I pulled my blankets up around me and tried to block them out.
She said, “Do you even care about him? Or is it just your legacy? Is it just your goddamn pack?”
He said, “You knew it would come to this. Even from the beginning, you knew. You knew what he was supposed to be.”
She said, “He is your son. How dare you use him this way. How dare you try and—”
He said, “He is important. To me. To the pack. He will do things that you can’t even begin to imagine. You’re human, Catherine. You could never understand the way we do. It’s not your fault. It’s just who you are. You can’t be blamed for things beyond your control.”
She said, “I saw you. With her. The way you smiled. The way you laughed. The way you touched her hand when you thought no one was watching. I saw, Robert. I saw. She’s human too. What makes her so goddamn different?”
My father never answered.
WE LIVED in town in a small house that felt like home. It was on a street with Douglas fir trees all around it. I didn’t understand why the wolves thought the forest was a magical place, but sometimes, when it was summer and the window was open as I tried to sleep, I swore I heard voices coming from the trees, whispering things that weren’t quite words.
The house was made of brick. My mother laughed once, wondering if a wolf would come and blow it down. She laughed, but then it faded and she looked sad. I asked her why her eyes were wet. She told me that she needed to go make dinner and left me in the front yard, wondering what I’d done wrong.
I HAD a room with all my things. There were books on a shelf. A leaf I’d found in the shape of a dragon, the edges curled with age. A drawing of myself and Thomas as a wolf given to me by a child in the pack. I asked him why he’d drawn it for me. He said it was because I was important. Then he’d smiled at me, his two front teeth missing.
When the human hunters came, he was one of the first to die.
I SAW her too.
I shouldn’t have. Rico was yelling at me to hurry up, papi, why are you such a slowpoke? Tanner and Chris were looking back at me, slowly pedaling their bikes in circles around him, waiting for me.
But I couldn’t move.
Because my father was in a car I didn’t recognize, parked on the side of the street in a neighborhood that wasn’t ours. There was a dark-haired woman in the driver’s sea
t, and she was smiling at him like he was the only thing in the world.
I’d never seen her before.
I watched as my father leaned forward and—
“Dude,” Tanner said, startling me as he pedaled back to me. “What’re you looking at?”
“Nothing,” I said. “It’s nothing. Let’s go.”
We left, the playing cards clothespinned to our bike spokes rattling loudly as we pretended we were on motorcycles.
I LOVED them because of what they were not.
They weren’t pack. They weren’t wolves. They weren’t witches.
They were normal and plain and boring and wonderful.
They made fun of me for wearing long-sleeved shirts, even in the middle of summer. I took it because I knew they weren’t being mean. It’s just how we were.
Rico said, “You get beat or somethin’?”
Tanner said, “If you do, you can come live with me. You can sleep in my room. You’ll just need to hide under my bed so my mom doesn’t see you.”
Chris said, “We’ll protect you. Or we can all just run away and live in the woods.”
Rico said, “Like, in the trees and shit.”
We all laughed because we were kids, and cursing was the funniest thing.
I couldn’t tell them that the woods wouldn’t be the safest place for them. That things with glowing eyes and razor-sharp teeth lived in the forest. So instead I told a version of the truth. “I don’t get beat. It’s not like that.”
“You got weird white-boy arms?” Rico asked. “My dad says that you must have weird white-boy arms. That’s why you wear sweatshirts all the time.”