Thrown to the Wolves (Big Bad Wolf)

by Adhara, Charlie

  The grocery store was a large, open room with low shelves he could see right over by just arching his neck a little. It was more of a gas station market minus the gas, and even that was generous. The fluorescent light was almost cartoonishly yellow, and a song from the sixties played a little louder than most businesses kept their radios. It was like walking back in time.

  A strip of bells on the door announced his arrival, but no one looked his way. A woman sat behind the counter flicking through a magazine, a man with his son up on his shoulders was silently staring at the three freestanding freezers in the back and a lone woman was by the entrance filling a basket with granola bars one at a time. A couple of coffee thermoses and a stack of Styrofoam cups were balanced on a rickety table near the front, and Cooper made a beeline for them.

  As he passed the granola woman, she turned abruptly, practically doing a double take, and stared. Or at least he assumed she was staring. She was wearing huge dark sunglasses. He nodded at her, and after a pause she nodded back but did not keep picking out bars. He could still feel her eyes on him as he continued to the front and made himself a huge cup of coffee.

  Right, then. He’d definitely need to wash up, and soon.

  Cooper approached the woman at the counter. She was white, in her forties or so, with curly silver hair that had streaks of electric-blue clip-in extensions haphazardly placed.

  “Hi, excuse me. I’ve been in a bit of an accident. Is there somewhere I could deal with this?” He gestured to his face.

  She looked at him like bloody men carrying cats were a painfully regular and boring part of her day. “Restroom is employees only,” she said simply, looked back down at her magazine, licked her thumb and turned the page.

  “Yeah, okay. But maybe just this once—”

  “Employees only.” She didn’t bother looking up this time.

  “Okay. Uh, thanks, anyway. Could I use your phone, then?”

  “The phone is for paying customers only,” she said in a monotone.

  “Right. I’ll just...be back, then.” Well, shit. So much for that Canadian politeness. When he turned around, the woman in the sunglasses had disappeared.

  Cooper attempted another text and went to find cat stuff, dragging the bags and Boogie with him. She was being extremely quiet in her carrier, and every time he looked in at her she looked back like I always knew you’d disappoint me in the end.

  Cooper felt a pang of guilt. “Sorry, Fluffer,” he murmured to her, and grabbed a large bag of cat treats as well. It hadn’t been an easy trip for her. It hadn’t been an easy trip for him, either, what with the car accident, gun-toting researchers and whatever the fuck had gone down with that wolf. At this rate Cooper was almost looking forward to the calm predictability of the memorial ceremony tomorrow. He decided he deserved a treat himself.

  He searched the aisles for something sweet and unhealthy, and found a small selection of candy in the very back corner. Already in the aisle was the woman in sunglasses, casually leaning against the opposite shelf and slowly unwrapping a granola bar from her basket. She nodded at him and Cooper nodded back. Again, he felt her watching him, could hear her take a step closer, and the scars across his belly tingled.

  What now?

  He angled his body while scanning the candy so that he could see her easily in his periphery. She was tall and white with very short, thick dark hair that just covered the tops of her ears. Her sunglasses obscured most of her face and made it difficult to determine her age, but she was definitely older than him by at least a decade or so. She rocked back and forth on the balls of her feet, staring intently, and Cooper’s gut tightened almost painfully now.

  If she was a human, he could take her. Not super easily. She was obviously fit and had a comfortable aura about her posture that hinted she knew how to fight, but then so did he. The brace would be tricky, of course, but not as bad as the cast had been. If she was a wolf...well. But why would a wolf attack him in a mini-mart? He wasn’t here on a case. He’d only just arrived.

  Trust you to piss someone off within the first two minutes over the town border, Park would say. Or was Cooper just overreacting? Maybe the tension of the last twenty-four hours had driven him to unforeseeable heights of paranoia. Unfortunately, that made sense.

  He jumped when he felt a smattering of texts go off in his pocket. Speak of the devil. Park had apparently also been trying and failing to reach him, and they were all coming in at once. It seemed he had made it all the way back to the car and was worried to find it abandoned.

  “Shit,” Cooper muttered. His own texts had finally gone through as well, but he still sent another, then stiffened as the woman moved closer again. This time she crossed the aisle and leaned against the shelf facing him, practically on top of the candy he’d been checking out. She chewed thoughtfully on her granola bar and scanned his body. Checking for weapons?

  Cooper took a breath. “Are you looking for something?”

  She smiled. “No. Just looking.”

  He wiped self-consciously at his cheek. “I got into an accident.”

  “Are you sure?”

  He frowned. “What do you mean?”

  At the front of the store the doorbells jingled, and he heard Park’s voice. “Cooper!”

  He turned automatically, heart skipping at the tiny pulse of excitement he got whenever Park surprised him. “Back here!”

  He turned back to look at the woman in time to see she’d slipped back down the aisle and was opening an “employees only” door in the back store corner.

  “Wait!” he said, but it was too late. Right before she disappeared, she held her finger to her lips in a shh gesture.

  “There you are.” Park appeared at the other end of the aisle, flushed, rumpled and frustrated with a heavy coating of worry over it all. He looked like the most beautiful fucking thing Cooper had ever seen. Had it only been a couple of hours? It felt like years.

  He was sorely tempted to grab Park, drag him out of the store and out of this wackadoodle town. As it was, Cooper couldn’t stop himself from grinning and hurrying to meet him halfway, practically dragging his leg by now.

  To his surprise, Park hauled him in for a hug. That wasn’t their style, public affection and open, honest emotion. Cooper was expecting a quip and a sardonic look, not an embrace. It was not a “hey there, friend” embrace, either. He felt fingers dig possessively into his back and Park’s face buried in his hair, exhaling hard.

  “I thought...” Park mumbled, and then shook his head, rubbing his lips roughly over Cooper’s temple.

  The intensity of Park’s reaction surprised Cooper, and he felt bewildered and a little guilty. The desire to rant about being left behind and all the weirdness he’d encountered since faded. He wanted only to reassure Park that he was fine. He wanted to be able to tell him nothing extraordinary had happened. That he didn’t need to—

  Park’s roaming mouth froze and he stiffened against Cooper before pulling abruptly out of his arms. The look on Park’s face was alarming—confusion, anger, hurt and fear—before quickly disappearing into his blank mask.

  “Oliver? What’s wrong?”

  “You—” Park bit his lip. He took hold of Cooper’s chin between his forefinger and thumb gently.

  “I know I look awful. I tried to clean up, but apparently you have to be on payroll to piss around here.”

  Park shook his head and angled Cooper’s face slightly back and away. At first Cooper thought that he was looking at the cut again—had it gotten worse? Was he leaking brain matter? Because honestly, that could explain a few things.

  But then Park leaned over him, his nose grazing up the opposite side of Cooper’s face, inhaling and tracing the same path the wolf’s tongue had taken.

  Oh. That.

  Park pulled back to stare at him, expression cautious. Cooper cleared his throat. “So I met somebo
dy,” he tried.

  “And he...kissed you?” Park asked slowly.

  “What? No. Well, kind of. But not like that. It wasn’t a kiss kiss. Just licking.” Park flinched. “Not like that, either,” Cooper protested hastily. “It was a wolf. Like a full-blown wolf in, you know, fur and stuff...” He trailed off at the look of horror on Park’s face.

  “Explain.”

  So Cooper told him everything that had happened: the wolf, Charles Girard and the Freemans, even the woman in sunglasses, because if she thought he was in the habit of keeping secrets from Oliver, she was about eight months too late. By the time he was caught up, Park was pinching the bridge of his nose, eyes closed like Cooper’s headache was contagious.

  “So,” he said nervously after Park didn’t speak. “You see, it wasn’t really a kiss.”

  Park laughed, an abrupt barking sound. “Oh, Cooper,” he sighed. “You do make life interesting, anyway.”

  He pulled Cooper back into a hug and began to insistently rub his face all over Cooper’s head. Park’s stubble dragged through his hair and he breathed heavily over Cooper’s neck.

  “I don’t care because I know I can’t look any worse right now, but what the hell are you doing?” Cooper muttered.

  “It’s barbaric and unnecessary, and I’m thoroughly ashamed of myself for doing it,” Park said, his chin drawing circles in Cooper’s shoulder now. “But I hate that his scent is all over you.” He whispered that last part and slid his hands up and down Cooper’s arms. “I want you to smell like us again.”

  “Oh.” Cooper felt a little thrill. That was...unexpectedly erotic. “Wait. Him? Does that mean you recognize who it is?”

  Park sighed against the tender spot under Cooper’s jaw and straightened. “Yes.”

  “Yes and...? Who is he? Are you...related?”

  Park snorted, an oddly similar reaction to the wolf’s. “No. Definitely not related.”

  “So he’s part of another pack? The Rosettis?” Cooper suggested.

  Park squinted, looking slightly taken aback by Cooper’s name-dropping. “Where did you get that name?”

  “Oh, the Freemans mentioned another family in town was blocking their research. I just assumed... Aren’t they wolves?”

  “Yes, they’re wolves. Not really a family, though. Just go by that name because it’s the easiest explanation for why ten-plus adults are all living in the same house, besides being a cult.”

  “A pack’s kind of like a family, though, isn’t it? A chosen family?”

  Park studied him. “I guess it is. Or it certainly can be, anyway.”

  “Speaking of which.” Cooper looked over Park’s shoulder. “How did you get here? Is your family here?”

  “Yes. My sister-in-law came to check out your head. She’s waiting in the car.”

  “Ah. Couldn’t find parking?” Cooper asked sarcastically.

  “No. She just didn’t want to come in.”

  Cooper stiffened. “Because of me?”

  “No, of course not. She just—” Park glanced up toward the front of the store “—didn’t want to come in.”

  Cooper backed up a few steps and stood on his tiptoes to look over the shelves. The woman at the counter still had her magazine open but was staring in their direction intently.

  “Is this...” Rosetti turf? Cooper mouthed the last words. “Did I just kick off a rumble? Is that why she wouldn’t let me use the bathroom?”

  Park rolled his eyes. “It doesn’t work like that. We’re not going to break out into war any minute. Or song. Unless, of course, she starts to wonder what’s taking us so long.”

  Cooper grabbed his basket of cat food and litter and Boogie’s carrier. “Let’s go. Unless—Is it okay if I buy this stuff here?”

  Park groaned, “Cooper, really,” and snatched the basket out of his hands, stalking toward the front counter. Cooper gathered up the rest of the bags and cautiously followed. Park was chatting apparently amicably with the woman at the counter, already paying.

  “Here, cutie,” she said as Cooper approached. She plucked a wet wipe from beneath the counter and offered it to him, all small-town charm now. It was the same story when they were interviewing suspects as well. Everyone wanted to play nice for Park. It sometimes made Cooper wonder why Park put up with someone like him, chronically incapable of playing nice.

  “You look like something the wolf dragged in,” the woman added.

  “Yeah, thanks.” He wiped carefully at where he guessed the worst grime was while trying not to reopen the cut. Then, after a moment, ran the wipe over the spot the wolf had licked as well. “Better?” he asked Park.

  “It’ll do,” the woman said. “Now get out of here. Before we have to rumble.” She cackled, Park snorted and Cooper blushed. Great.

  “Thanks again,” Park said.

  “No worries, Ollie.” She sobered suddenly and tilted her head. “See you tomorrow, yeah?”

  Park’s expression was grim. “Guess so.”

  “With him?” She looked at Cooper.

  Park stood straighter, looking every inch the dangerous man he was. “Yes,” he said tightly. The easygoing frivolity had disappeared as suddenly as it had come on. They stared at each other for a long moment, some nonverbal communication passing between them, until the woman sighed.

  “Good luck with that, then,” she said.

  “Something to say?” Park said very quietly.

  The woman’s nose wrinkled and her dark brown gaze dropped another couple degrees in temperature. “You know I don’t care, of course. But...” She trailed off.

  Park seemed about to say something but glanced at Cooper. “Yeah. But.” He nodded at her and she dipped her head back, just on the border between deferential and mocking.

  Cooper followed Park out with a curious glance back at the woman. She was still staring at him intently as they walked out of the market. There was something almost...excited about it.

  “Okay, so there was no singing, but what the fuck was that about?” Cooper murmured as soon as the door closed behind them.

  “Not yet,” Park said distractedly. A car had pulled up the street and parked in front of them so suddenly that the driver must have been watching and waiting.

  Here we go. The nerves were back full force. Cooper was here to support Park. Period.

  But it was also his first time meeting a lover’s family. Meeting Park’s family. It felt like a big deal. It felt like the biggest deal.

  “How do I look?” he blurted as they approached the car. He couldn’t help it.

  “Like you’ve seen some shit,” Park said.

  “Oh, good. I like to stay on brand. Oliver, wait.” He grabbed Park’s arm and pulled him a little farther up the street. “Seriously, what did she mean in there? When she said she doesn’t care? About what?”

  Park shook his head, annoyed. “She doesn’t know what she’s talking about.”

  Cooper didn’t let go of his arm. Park’s sister was married to a woman, so he didn’t think it was a problem with him bringing home a boyfriend, but he couldn’t imagine what else the woman could be referencing. “Is it...awkward for you going back? Because you left the pack, I mean.”

  Park bit his lip. “No. That’s not... I mean yes and no. Less so now that my grandfather is gone,” he said. Paused. “It’s just—They might be—”

  Too late for whatever Park might have said. He broke off as the car door opened and a woman stepped out and moved gracefully toward them. She was short and Vietnamese-Canadian, had long dark hair in a low braid and unexpectedly powerful-looking shoulders. Her dark eyes were studying Cooper with sympathy.

  “Oh, look at you. You did take a knock.” She reached right for Cooper’s face without so much as a how-do-you-do, and he flinched back in surprise until he realized she wasn’t touching him, just holding out
the inside of her wrist near his lips.

  “Um...” What was he supposed to do? Look at it? Kiss it? Offer her his wrist in return? He looked at Park, bewildered, but Park was suddenly avoiding his eye. “Mai, this is Cooper, my boyfriend. Cooper, my sister-in-law Mai.”

  “Nice to meet you,” Cooper said into her coat sleeve, feeling a little thrill at the casually included title of “boyfriend.” Mai was the surgeon married to Park’s older sister Jacqueline, Cooper reminded himself. She was also, apparently, a partaker of hyper-weird greetings.

  “May I take a look?” She gestured to the cut and Cooper nodded. Mai dropped her wrist and gently took hold of his head. She prodded the bones around his eye and her fingers were cool, firm, sure and a little too intimate too fast, just like every other doctor he’d ever had. The familiarity of it, unpleasant though it was, relaxed Cooper a smidge. At least she wasn’t offering him any more body parts to kiss or...sniff.

  Sniff, obviously. Cooper’s eyes widened.

  “Oh, did I hurt you?” Mai asked when he inhaled sharply.

  “No,” he said quickly. “You’re fine.”

  “Well, Ollie’s right. No fractures, and I know it doesn’t look like it, but this doesn’t need stitches. Head wounds just bleed a lot.”

  “Right. That’s what I tried to tell him,” Cooper said, trying to catch Park’s eye again. He wanted to drag him away and confirm his suspicion right then and there, but it was too late for that now and Park still refused to look at him.

  “Let me just check for a concussion,” Mai was saying. She asked him some simple questions and pulled a penlight out of her jacket pocket. Did all doctors carry one of these? Was it a med school graduation gift? “Look here for me.”

  She shone it into his eye and hesitated. The swift efficiency with which she’d run through everything else seemed stalled. She dropped the beam of the penlight and Cooper could see her face was puckered in confusion. The light went back up to the other eye and then back down. Still confused.