by A. K. Morgen
She delivered Fuki alone, hidden in a small outcropping of rock deep within the mountains miles from here. Eventually, not even that hiding place sheltered Buka and little Fuki from fearful humans. They came for her in the night, forcing her and Fuki to flee. Kalei found Buka as she ran from place to place, hunted and homeless with a newborn pup to care for. Kalei accepted her as an equal, as a friend. They came here together, drawn to this place like magnets by something so old, no wolf alive remembered it.
Other wolves with no kin to protect and no home to claim trickled into the area behind them. They forged bonds with one another, formed their own pack. A band of those left behind by human hatred and fear, drawn to this place and the promise of purpose when none remained. And this place was different than the places before.
Buka raised Fuki in the woods here, surrounded by humans who didn’t hunt them or try to hurt them, far removed from the dangers she faced with Fuki’s father. The woods here were safe, as no other place had been in a long time, and Fuki knew nothing of the humans who hated wolves. But then Sköll and Hati came, and that changed. The humans who left them alone came for them with guns and knives and hearts full of fear and anger, and they almost found Fuki.
But the pack couldn’t leave this place undefended when this place had shown them such kindness. When Dace accepted them into his land and helped protect them. They owed him and the humans who helped him keep them safe, even if the humans no longer showed them that kindness. Buka understood their fear, and she didn’t blame them for their anger.
Duty bound her to this place, and she would not run from that responsibility. But like every mother, she wanted safety for her child. He didn’t understand the danger writhing like snakes around them now. He was too young, too innocent. And Buka couldn’t fulfill her promise to protect Dace’s people and watch over Fuki too.
She had no one else to help her save his life. No one but me. I could watch over him for her, remove the fear growing in her heart, and let him grow up where he didn’t have to hide or run. He could be safe. With my help… Fuki would know safety again.
“Oh, Buka.” I flung my arms around her neck again, squeezing her tight. I didn’t know what to say to her, but I couldn’t deny her this request. If I could keep Fuki safe for even a little while, I owed it to Buka to try.
I’ll take him. I clung to her for a long moment before letting her go.
She butted me once with her head, then looked at Fuki.
He whined, sinking low to the ground in obvious misery. Buka stepped up beside him, touching her nose to his. Their eyes locked for a moment, and then Buka turned and loped away.
I stayed crouched beside Fuki, both of us watching as the wolves slipped back beneath the cover of the trees soundlessly. When they disappeared into the woods, Fuki lifted his muzzle and howled one long, forlorn howl.
The pack howled back.
So did Freki, her farewell to our family a soft whisper piercing my heart.
I listened until the pack’s goodbye faded into the freezing wind, and then I wrapped my hand in Fuki’s soft fur. “It’s time to go,” I whispered to him, turning to look at my dad and Ronan.
My dad smiled at me, his cheeks wet.
Ronan opened the back door for us before climbing into the driver’s seat.
Fuki stayed at my side as I made my way to the car.
He looked at me and then at the car, his thoughts full of distress.
“It’s okay,” I told him. “We’ll be okay.”
I don’t know if he believed me anymore than I believed myself, but he huffed a sigh and clambered into the backseat. He curled up on the far side, closing his eyes.
I hugged my dad tightly one final time.
“Love you, Ari,” he whispered, kissing my forehead.
I let him go and climbed in beside Fuki.
Ronan started the ignition and pulled away from the curb.
In a matter of moments, the house faded behind us, swallowed up by the night.
I stared straight ahead, Fuki’s forlorn thoughts a heartbreaking dirge echoing in my head.
don’t know if I slept, or if I simply lost myself in a waking dream, but Dace held me in his embrace and I felt warmer than I had in a long time. He whispered songs to me, running his fingers through my hair. His heart beat strong and steady beneath my ear, singing my favorite song. The smile on his face wasn’t twisted with bitterness or self-loathing, and my heart didn’t feel shredded by regret and goodbyes.
I didn’t want to leave him, so I didn’t.
I curled into him, and I stayed there, lost in my vision as the car sped down the interstate, carrying me far away from the painful things I didn’t want to think about or remember or deal with. In that waking dream or fugue, Dace held me, and I felt content. There was nothing but warmth and comfort. That’s all that mattered.
Until Chelle shook my shoulder, calling my name softly.
Dace’s face blurred and twisted, his body turning to smoke beneath me.
You did this, he mouthed, then vanished.
My eyes flew open, a little cry of alarm breaking from my lips.
I focused wild eyes on Chelle leaning over the backseat… and then I remembered.
I had left Dace.
Pain engulfed me, and I wanted to scream at myself. What did I do? Why? One accusatory question after another bounced through me, glancing off one another until an avalanche of doubt and fear and worry, of what-ifs and maybes barreled through me, screaming for my attention.
Why had I left?
What if I never saw him again?
That question screamed the loudest. What if I had just said goodbye to Dace for the last time? What if, what if, what if…. The question spun and swirled until the world around me blurred and I couldn’t catch my breath through the clawing, cloying, consuming fear threatening to drag me under and leave me there.
I clenched my hands hard, trying to battle back panic and hysteria. My fingernails gouged into my palms, scoring my skin with bright red lines of desperation. The confusion racing through my mind slowed, allowing me to shove it behind a hastily-erected wall.
I took a deep breath, then let it out.
“Where are we?” I asked Chelle, my voice thick and heavy. I sounded detached, cold. Maybe that was for the best. I’d keep everything behind that wall, and focus on the immediate, one step at a time. No thinking. No regretting. No hurting. Just focus on the here and now, and leave the rest behind.
“We went through Jackson ten minutes ago,” Ronan answered for her.
Jackson? As in Tennessee? I blinked, his response cutting through me.
“We’re going to your mom’s,” Chelle said.
I opened my mouth and then closed it again. Nothing they said made sense. We weren’t supposed to go there. We were supposed to go to Indiana, to see Dr. Michel. I shook my head, hoping to clear it. Thinking maybe I still dreamed.
My heart felt torn apart.
So not a dream, then. A nightmare, maybe.
Dace’s bloody torso swam into focus in my mind, his lip curled in a furious, inhumane snarl.
I added another wall, tossing it up right in front of the first.
Focus.
Just focus.
Ronan’s dark eyes locked on mine in the rearview mirror. The way shadows moved across his face made him look eerie, like a bandit lurking in the dark. “Dace,” he said.
I waited for something more, but it never came. Just Dace’s name, echoing like a bomb blast in my chest. I looked at Ronan, and then at Chelle. Down to Fuki, and back to Ronan.
Understanding dawned.
Dace was giving me back a little piece of my heart. He wanted me to go home.
My throat burned, the walls wavering.
“How long?” I whispered, staring blindly ahead.
“One day,” Ronan said, “and then we go find Dr. Michel.”
I nodded, my mind refusing to move beyond the words “one day.” For one day, I could walk through my ol
d house. I could curl up in my old bed. I could forget, for one day, all of the pain and grief and the heartache of goodbye. For one day, I could go home.
Tears blurred my vision and made hot tracks down my cheeks. They fell on Fuki. Drip, drip, drip… until I buried my face in my hands and sobbed.
When I finally cried myself out, I felt better. My heart still ached. I still wanted to run back to Dace and tell him we’d find some other way to beat Sköll and Hati. I didn’t dare tear down the walls I built in my head, and I still didn’t have a single answer to any of the questions threatening to tear me apart. But I could breathe again.
“You okay?” Chelle asked, handing me a tissue from her purse.
I nodded, dabbing my eyes.
Fuki looked up at me, his head cocked to the side like Buka and Dace always did when they were confused or uncertain or wanted to understand me.
I’m okay, I told him, offering him a watery smile.
He whined, lowering his head.
Oh.
“We need to stop,” I said. “Fuki needs out.”
“There’s a rest stop half an hour from here.” Ronan looked over his shoulder at us. His features were sharp in profile, handsome almost.
Fuki whined again, the sound full of misery.
“Not gonna make.” I reached out and scratched his ears, trying to make him feel better.
Ronan flipped the blinker on and swerved into the right lane without a word. The car bounced onto the side of the road and then into the grass. Gravel popped beneath the tires.
He tapped the brakes, stopping easily.
Chelle pushed her door open, then climbed out to help me. I clambered out gracelessly, my legs wobbling beneath me. Fuki’s tail thumped against the seat. As soon as my feet were on the ground and I felt more or less steady, he jumped out behind me, then dashed off into the tree line. His body seemed like little more than a gray streak in the dark.
Don’t go too far! I called to him, worried he might race off beyond my limited communication range and we’d have to troop into the woods after him. Or worse, that he might find his way into someone’s backyard and get shot.
Cars whizzed by, shaking Ronan’s Mustang slightly. Headlights cast bright beams of light onto the roadside, illuminating little more than the initial thick crush of trees on the other side of the ditch.
“I’m so sorry,” Chelle said, her face moving in and out of shadow each time a car flew by. “I didn’t even think about letting him out while you slept.” She hunched her shoulders, wrapping her arms around herself, though whether out of guilt or because of the driving wind, I didn’t know.
“I didn’t think about it either,” I murmured, shivering. I was so wrapped up in my own misery, I had ignored Fuki altogether. He deserved better than that.
Ronan climbed from the car and circled around to us. He leaned against the side of the car, his gaze focused on the woods where Fuki entered. “What are we going to do with him?” he asked. He, it seemed, hadn’t forgotten the little wolf.
“I don’t know.” I scoured the thick shadows beneath the press of trees with my gaze. I could feel Fuki out there, but I couldn’t see him. “We can’t let him run free in the middle of a city.”
“I know,” Ronan said. “He wouldn’t last a day.”
I frowned, feeling guilty. I hadn’t exactly thought through what we were going to do with Fuki once we got where we were going. Buka asked me take him, to keep him safe, and I’d agreed. I had no idea what that entailed for any of us, least of all for Fuki. Perhaps I should have thought it through a little more carefully though, because like Buka said, Fuki grew up around people.
His entire life, Dace was there, interacting with the pack. Then I came along and the pack adopted me. Even the shifters and the people in town lived more or less peacefully with the pack until Sköll and Hati appeared.
Fuki didn’t grasp that wolves and people were enemies, or that people had been afraid of wolves for so long no one really even remembered why anymore. He didn’t understand why the pack was being hunted now, or comprehend the danger that put him in. He was too young to grasp the intricacies of normal human-wolf relations when things had been different most of his life.
If he ran wild in the city, he might be shot or captured, or god only knew what.
My stomach churned at the thought.
“He’ll need a collar and a leash.” Ronan eyed me.
“When we get there, we’ll need to stay somewhere with a lot of open space, too,” Chelle said.
“I’ll see what I can find.” Ronan tilted his head back, looking up at the sky.
I got the impression he was as exhausted as the rest of us. Did he sleep any more than Dace? I didn’t know, but I doubted it.
“You’ll have to set some rules for him,” Ronan said.
Poor Fuki. Buka sacrificed so much for his safety, and there was no telling if he’d ever get it back. Even if we did manage to beat Sköll and Hati, would Fuki ever be able to live in the wild again? I hoped so, but I kind of doubted it worked that way. And I think Buka knew it too.
I’m so sorry, I whispered even though she couldn’t hear it.
Fuki reappeared a few minutes later, panting as if he’d run the length of the woods and back. He danced at my heels, his relief at being out of the car again evident. I reached down and stroked his muzzle, unable to keep from smiling at him and the excited babble he sent into my thoughts. He really was like a child, his thoughts disjointed and full of meaningless chatter, even when underscored with melancholy.
Chelle watched him with a slight frown on her face. She’d accepted his presence without complaint thus far, but she couldn’t quite hide her nervousness. To her, Fuki was a wolf. Not a friend, not a baby, but a wolf. And unlike the shifters she knew, Fuki didn’t walk around on two legs and drink milk straight from the gallon part of the time. He didn’t go home at the end of the day and cook dinner. He was wild, but he wasn’t dangerous. Not to her, anyway.
“Do you want to touch him?” I asked, hoping to ease her fear.
Fuki yipped his approval of my plan. Like Buka, he loved when I scratched between his ears or rubbed his fur between my fingers. The thought of having someone else to do that for him when I was busy excited him.
Touch, touch, touch, touch ran through his mind in a happy rumble, more impression and emotion than actual speech. That made me feel a little better. Even if leaving the pack behind made him sad, it hadn’t broken his spirit.
Chelle whipped her head in my direction, her eyes wide. The wind caught her hair, flinging it into her face. She battled the mess back, tucked it into the back of her dark hoodie, then looked between Fuki and me. “Um…”
“He wants you to touch him,” I said, giving her an encouraging smile.
Ronan looked on, not commenting. Even if he did feel sorry for Fuki, I couldn’t imagine him befriending the little wolf. Honestly, I couldn’t imagine Ronan doing a lot of things. He was too silent, too imposing, too… Ronan.
Would he ever seem completely human to me?
Chelle hesitated for a long moment and then she squared her shoulders and nodded. She reached out bravely and put her hand on Fuki’s neck. He quivered beneath her palm, the wordless chant in his mind morphing from touch, touch, touch to friend, friend, friend, friend. He reminded me so much of Buka the first time I touched her, all wide, wolfy eyes and brimming curiosity.
Chelle rubbed her hand along his neck. “He’s so soft.” She sounded surprised.
“Yeah,” I murmured, smiling down at Fuki as he rumbled his appreciation and wriggled, trying to get her hand between his ears where he wanted it. “They’re all soft like that.”
Chelle laughed a little at Fuki’s maneuvering. “What’s it like to hear his thoughts?” she asked.
Ronan’s attention shifted to me.
“I don’t know.” I shrugged, uncomfortable at having him focus on me so fully. “Have you ever known when the phone was going to ring before it made a sound?�
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Chelle nodded.
“It’s like that,” I said. “What they want me to know clicks into place like intuition or instinct, I guess.” I searched for a way to explain how the pack communicated. It was so different than anything else I knew. Not even my connection to Dace and Geri really compared.
With Dace and Geri, I felt them in my head, like a door opened and they stepped through. Whether our bond was magic, science, or a gift from Odin, I didn’t know. But I could feel them, as if they truly were a part of me. The same thing happened when they let me in. I was still me, but some part of my consciousness or subconscious or soul walked into Dace’s head and took a seat. I felt what he and Geri felt, heard what they heard, and saw what they saw. With them, I felt electrified, as if there was a power line stretching between us, a current that bound us together in ways that defied words.
There wasn’t anything like that with the wolves. I couldn’t see what they saw, or feel what they felt unless they shared those thoughts with me. I couldn’t close my eyes and look out at whatever lay before them. But when they were close enough to me, they spoke to me. It felt a little like knowing when the phone would ring or that laughter filled a room before I walked into it… I just knew.
I told Chelle as much.
“Oh.” She scratched Fuki’s ears for a moment, not speaking. “It was always like that for me and Dani and Beth too,” she said then. “Even if none of us said anything, we still knew exactly how the other felt or what they were thinking at any given moment.” A sad frown spread across her face. “Sometimes, I think I still feel Dani, and then I remember….”
“She’s gone,” Ronan said when Chelle trailed off.
“Yeah,” she whispered, her expression stricken. “I remember she’s gone, and it’s like learning she died all over again.”
Ronan’s emotionless mask slipped. Grief burned through his dark eyes, pain setting them afire. He bowed his head. “She haunts me,” he said, so softly I wasn’t sure he had spoken at all.