And really, that was the big problem.
Markus wanted to do things. He played, climbed flagpoles, kissed jellyfish, took dares and bets, and followed the whim of his heart. Falling for Destiny was one of those whims. Destiny always smiled at him more than the others, so one day he went up to the alpha and asked him out on a date.
The date almost didn’t happen. Destiny thought about his answer, thought about where they would go, what would happen afterwards. If everything in his mind hadn’t worked in the exact right way, they never would have gone past that first step. Markus was convinced had their first date not gone swimmingly—but how could a low-budget horror movie at a dumpy theater and a picnic lunch in the park go wrong?—then there would have been no second chance. As it was, he took to pestering Destiny constantly, throwing ideas at him, hoping something would stick just right so something could happen.
Destiny wanted to weigh each and every consequence, categorize the risks, and just generally suck the fun out of everything. There was no such thing as spontaneity or natural progression when it came to him. His mind was an orderly thing, a library of knowledge and personality. When he came to a decision, that was it. He couldn’t be persuaded otherwise.
Markus got tired of being the one to put in so much effort. There had just been something missing, some insurmountable chasm between them that couldn’t be crossed. He tried and tried to build bridges, but all of them collapsed.
And Destiny got tired of him, because Destiny got tired of anything and everything that wasn’t exactly how he wanted it.
It was a bad breakup, a storm of foul words thrown out after yet another failed attempt by Markus to get Destiny to sleep with him. They’d been dating for some time by then, neatly crossing off all the items on the typical romantic to-do list. First date, first kiss goodnight, first time inside each other’s homes, first time spending the night with each other. The closer they got, the further apart they seemed to be. Kissing wasn’t enough. Cuddling wasn’t enough. Foreplay wasn’t enough. He wanted to know Destiny in every single way possible, to be as close to him as could be, in body and mind.
They had been making out on the couch at Destiny’s place while an old black-and-white film played in the background. Hands roaming all over, their bodies pressed together. Their lips and tongues a tangle between them, Markus slid one hand down to the bulge at the front of Destiny’s jeans.
Destiny had pulled back, a curtain slamming down in front of his hazy eyes.
Markus had unbuttoned his jeans, pulled the zipper down, and reached inside. “Have sex with me?”
It wasn’t the first time he had asked. It was, however, to be the last. Destiny resisted him, and the chasm suddenly burst wide open, lengthened by a surge of anger and frustration with all the strength of an earthquake striking against a fault line in the most perfect way.
Things escalated quickly after that. Brock acted as soon as he got the news. He declared that he and his brother would no longer have anything to do with Destiny, and anyone who had ever felt slighted or frustrated by that nasty wolf could come with him to join his new club. Lethal Freedom, he called it, coming up with the name on the spot. The club was so named because there were supposed to be no rules, no stuffy jerks holding everyone else back. Live and die by the freedom.
Not that it’s ever been like what he said it was going to be. We’ve got just as many rules as SC, just different.
Some of the wolves stayed with Destiny, and others went with Brock and Markus, and the rest filtered away to do their own thing, not really interested in getting involved in the affairs of a jilted lover and the one who had jilted him.
The rest was history.
Painful history, which haunted him even now. That was why he asked Destiny to come here, because some part of him was still loyal after all these years.
For the first time, Markus wondered if all of this would have happened in the exact same way if Destiny had sex with him. He always assumed things would have been okay if that happened. After tonight, he wasn’t so sure. Maybe they would have grown apart anyway. Seeing Destiny, talking to him, reinforced that idea for him. Not even being in charge of a pack had changed Destiny. Maybe nothing would.
Though guards still roamed across the beaches in their trucks and jeeps—and a golf cart, on one occasion—none of them came close to spotting him even though his dark fur made him stick out like a sore thumb. They couldn’t see him, their human eyes pathetic at piercing the darkness.
When he rejoined the highway leading back north to the main part of the city, Markus considered shifting back before tossing the idea. If anyone saw him, they would just assume they were looking at a large stray dog.
By the time he arrived home, dawn had made itself known across the city. Gentle fingers of rose and peach swept through the streets, bringing with them an influx of traffic as businessmen woke up and headed out for the day. Early-rising tourists would soon join the flood, followed by every other person who had work or school or errands to attend to.
Slowly, softly, Pensacola came to life again.
Brock had often posited the idea of having some sort of safe haven or meeting place where the members of LF could gather, but since Destiny had already done that so successfully, that had never happened. He didn’t want anyone to think he was copying the bastard. Never mind that several of his wolves had left to join Destiny because of the way he took better care of his pack. Brock would not be caught dead being a copycat.
So, they had a few popular hangouts. Bars, specific spots in the beach parks. Nowhere in particular, nowhere structured, since that was the whole idea behind their club. They all carried phones to stay in contact when it was necessary, though that method of communication was unreliable since shifting seemed to be incredibly rough on electronics.
So, when he arrived home, he didn’t come to a large complex where dozens of his friends would be waiting. Instead, he pushed his way through the door of a tiny house hardly large enough to contain all its rooms. The only person waiting for him was Brock.
“Where’s the knife?” Brock said.
Kicking his boots away, Markus headed for their kitchen and started opening cabinets. He was one of those thin men who could eat and eat constantly without ever really gaining any weight, due to his fast metabolism. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Don’t make this more difficult than it has to be, okay? I caught your scent in my room. The knife is missing. There’s no other conclusion to draw from all that.”
“You’re starting to sound like Destiny.” Finally discovering something in the depths of the pantry, Markus let out a soft murmured of satisfaction. Pulling down a box of cookies, he shook it to see how many were still inside.
“You don’t mention that bastard’s name in this house.”
“Sometimes, I think you’re more upset about that break-up than I am.”
After what I felt tonight, I’m not sure if that’s necessarily true anymore.
Surprise crossed Brock’s solid features. “Of course I’m upset about it. I love you, Mark. And he hurt you. I can’t stand for that.”
Markus blinked away tears, which surged up out of nowhere from deep inside him. He shoveled a cookie in his mouth and chomped down on it. “I love you, too.” He sprayed bits of gingerbread and cinnamon sugar while speaking, hoping the dry, muffled quality to his voice would disguise the fact that his eyes were stinging. His sinuses had that disturbing, full quality they always got right before the few occasions when he cried.
“So, where’s the knife? I’m too tired to be mad. I stayed up all night waiting for you when I realized you weren’t coming home. Was going to go to the cops if you weren’t here by noon.”
“I should have left a note. Sorry.”
“Mark. Knife?”
Well, there was no point in continuing to pretend, was there?
Swallowing thickly, Markus searched for the right words to convey what he wanted to say. There were none,
so he came right out with it. “I took it with me when I went to see Destiny.”
Brock’s features abruptly tightened, screwing in on themselves like he’d tasted something particularly bitter. “You can’t be serious. Can you? What in the actual fuck would you do that for? You have a death wish?”
“He says he didn’t have anything to do with it, Brock.”
“And you believe him when he said that? Of course he was going to deny it, Mark. People don’t just admit to their crimes.”
“Destiny would,” he insisted. Cookie residue felt thick and cumbersome on his tongue. He was no longer as hungry as he had been. He popped another cookie into his mouth anyway, gnawing on the stale surface to have something to do. “You know he would.”
“I don’t know anything about him. Not my heart that he broke.”
Brock suddenly advanced. Markus tensed up, but all his brother did was place his hand on his shoulder. The pressure was warm and comforting, and he felt the ugly fullness of tears clogging up his sinuses again. “I just hope you know what you’re doing. You’re trusting your judgment. I respect that, even if I don’t agree. I just hope it turns out the way you want it to.”
“I just think he deserved to know about it.”
“It was his knife. He already knew.” Brock reached into the box of cookies and plucked one out, inspecting its craggly surface. Dropping it back with the others, he just shook his head and sighed. “I’m going to bed. I’m tired. You should probably do the same if you’ve been out and about all night.”
“Night, bro.”
Brock raised one hand as he left the kitchen, heading to his bedroom. He opened the door and shut it behind him with a soft thump.
Holding onto the cookies like they were some treasure he had found, Markus went to his own room. He navigated the messy floor in the dark, knowing exactly where each and every obstacle was because the chaotic layout hadn’t changed in months. Cleaning his room wasn’t exactly on his list of priorities.
Lounging in bed, Markus ate cookies one after another. He watched the fish tank he had set up on his dresser, where a lively red betta fish drifted peacefully between silk plants. Crawling along the bottom of the tank were a few black-and-yellow snails. They didn’t do much of anything except hoover up algae and occasionally duck down into their shells whenever the betta came by the investigate their presence in his domain. At one point, there were also a number of ghost shrimp that scampered around through the water, waving their little legs as if riding invisible bicycles, but the betta had eaten them all one-by-one, just like Markus was eating cookies. There was no point to it. It hadn’t been necessary. The betta ate twice per day, every day, and often had a fish food treat to go along with his meals.
He had just…eaten to eat. To have something to do.
I’m getting tired of that damn tank, Markus thought. He would have to see if someone wanted it. Selling the whole set-up, fish, snails, food, decorations, tank, filter, and heater, would mean he lost money, but he was getting tired of caring for the boring creature. It would take food from his hand, which he supposed was exciting the first few times, and that was about it. He was getting nothing in return.
Maybe next time, he would get something bigger. More intelligent. A snake, maybe.
Could you feed fish to a snake?
With that last, semi-coherent thought still drifting around in his brain, Markus fell asleep.
4
A week went by without incident. No further attacks, no secret visits with his ex in the middle of the night.
A few hours each day, Markus worked at a tattoo parlor. He had no skill whatsoever with the gun since his hands weren’t steady enough, but he had the people skills to work the front desk. He took money and scheduled appointments. He also worked out designs for those who came in wanting something customized without any knowledge of what it was possible and acceptable for an artist to do. Certain colors could only be next to each other in certain cases, or else they would muddy and bleed. Designs could only be so small, so complex.
He could do that because making the design was different from applying it. There was room to make errors, to go back and erase and modify. With ink, what was done was done unless you knew how to cover it up.
He had a long chain of jobs under his belt, most of which he had been at for only a few months before moving onto the next. He was a jack of all trades, master of none. He liked knowing how to do so much without ever pinning himself down to one specialty.
Most of these jobs, he was working at small businesses where word of mouth went a long way. A good employee could bounce around just fine as long as he had some recommendations to go along with him.
When he wasn’t in the parlor, trying to explain to young girls that yellow and blue together would make green, dissuading drunks from getting dicks tattooed on their foreheads as a result of a dare, he was out roaming the city. Once upon a time, Ralphie had been the pack favorite. Now that he was gone, that position fell to Markus. Out of nowhere, everyone wanted to hang out with him. Everyone wanted to go do something. Feed the ducks at the park, and harass the skateboard punks. Linger at the beach and laugh at the terrible surfers, the idiots who messed with sea creatures and got hurt as a result of it. He’d learned his lesson after the jellyfish incident, though tourists never did. Patrol the border, making sure those Shadow Claws fucks stayed on their own side.
Today, he was out with Reuben and Jacob, who was also known as Daddy Long-Legs because he was incredibly tall, topping out at a grand total of 6’10”. And there was another reason, a very intriguing one: Jacob possessed a third leg, a vestigial limb protruding from slightly above his hip. The entire leg was only eight inches from beginning to end, topped off with a misshapen little foot with three toes that could all wiggle. The leg itself possessed no joints; the bones inside were cartilaginous and underdeveloped, which meant the leg could move around but not bend. It often did move, though Jacob said he had no real control over it. There seemed to be some sort of random nerve impulses that caused the limb to kick and twitch occasionally.
Jacob had come up with this name himself. He was a constant presence in freak shows, especially the seedy traveling ones, where he would stand before a crowd of gawkers in nothing but his underwear. The pay was extravagant and he was proud of the attention his extra leg earned him. He had been featured in a few medical journals, several newspaper articles, and occasionally made appearances in small-time movie productions and documentaries. The guy lived a life of leisure, basically.
His leg wasn’t a birth defect. It was the remnant of a parasitic twin his body had absorbed in the womb. That phenomenon was much more common than people thought, though it usually manifested as hairy warts or tumors with teeth inside them.
Oddly enough, he did not have an extra leg when he turned into a wolf.
But overall, despite the oddity, despite the sensationalism that came with it, Jacob was an all-around pretty decent guy. His motorcycle was a cruiser, and he liked to drift around, hitting on any woman who looked receptive enough.
“You know,” he was saying now, “lots of ‘em are real curious about it. Like to touch it. Stroke it. Like it’s a second cock or somethin’.”
Reuben took a deep drag on a cigarette he held between two fingers, then released a series of smoke rings. His mouth opened and closed like a fish. “That’s gnarly, man. Real gnarly.”
Reuben was a surfer at heart, and he said words like “gnarly” in a completely serious manner.
Markus examined the glowing tip of his own cigarette. “Does it feel good when they do that?”
“Bet it feels good for the chicks,” Reuben supplied. “Bigger than his real chub.”
The mental image of absurdly-tall Jacob fucking someone sideways with his third leg was too much. Markus laughed out loud, and Reuben joined in with a series of tomboyish chuckles that had probably melted the heart of many a lady surfer.
“Ugh,” Jacob said in response.
; Except, he didn’t say it so much as he coughed it. And when he coughed, red speckles sprayed from his mouth. The fine mist of blood seemed to hang in the air for a moment before pattering heavily to the ground.
The blade of a knife protruded through his chest, sticking out several inches.
Markus dropped his cigarette.
The knife seemed to shrink as it receded back inside Jacob’s body, pulled from the other side where a long, hairy arm emerged from the shadows. Before anyone could even move, before anyone could speak, the knife fully emerged from Jacob’s back. It was a machete, with a wicked curve to its extraordinary length. The damn thing wouldn’t have looked out of place in a jungle, slicing through thick swathes of vine.
As the machete plunged back inside Jacob, who gave another one of those coughing ugh sounds, Markus’ cigarette finally hit the ground. Miniscule cherry-red sparks bounced away from the glowing tip, scattering across the concrete.
I don’t understand. Why is this happening? All we were doing was taking a break.
They were firmly on their side of the city, the crumpled remnants of fast food wrappers littering the alley. Hell, they weren’t even that deep inside the backstreet. If Markus leaned forward a little bit and to the right, he would be able to see the colorful flashes of cars going by on the road.
A man emerged from the alley, propelling Jacob in front of him like an insect speared on a display pin. Blood pooled around the blade, a surprisingly small amount. The other stab wound was flowing, gushing, spurting with scarlet, a puddle already forming on the ground.
The man was nowhere near as tall as Jacob, but he was massively broad. Meaty, like one of those absurd hamburgers you can order at dive joints.
If you could eat this guy, you’d get more than just your name on the wall, Markus thought, incoherently, absurdly.
The stench pouring off the man was incredibly foul. He smelled like a dive bar, like layer upon layer of old, fried grease. His skin glistened with an oily shine beneath the weed like protrusions of hair covering his body. Veins bulged along the forms of every single one of his muscles, rippled with his movements.
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