I called the phone number twice more.
No one answered the first time.
I waited a day before calling again.
There was a mechanical message.
“The number you are trying to reach has been disconnected or is no longer in service. If you feel this is an error, please hang up and try your call again.”
I barely slept.
I heard Ezra outside my door numerous times.
Sometimes he would knock and ask if I couldn’t sleep.
Other times he would do nothing.
Every morning I’d wake up and check the date on my phone to make sure I wasn’t missing days.
I wasn’t.
I waited.
Santos returned on Tuesday, along with three other wolves.
They didn’t speak to anyone as they went to the Alpha’s house.
I thought about following them, but I didn’t.
I watched as they entered the house, closing the door behind them.
They stayed there for a long time.
“She likes me,” Daniel whispered excitedly on Wednesday morning. “She likes me. We’re going to run together on the full moon, and then we’ll be happy forever. She’s my mate, you know? I think she’s my mate, and I’m going to give her my wolf. Do you think she’ll take it?”
On Wednesday afternoon, Santos was once again guarding the little house.
I didn’t approach him.
I didn’t need to.
I am Dale, the man inside had said. The prisoner. I am Dale. I am Dale.
Wednesday night I had dinner with Ezra.
He said, “I’m sorry. I never meant to cause you any frustration. I only want what’s best for you. I only want to keep you safe. These dreams… I could see they were pulling at you. They were hurting you. I thought… I thought I could help. I thought I could stop them. But I went too far. I never should have done so without your permission. Would you hear me, dear? Would you believe an old fool and forgive his mistakes?”
I said, “Yes. Of course. Of course I forgive you.”
And what was absolutely fucking wild was that I could forgive him. I did. Here, in this house, just the two of us, I thought it was the easiest thing in the world.
I slept a little better that night.
I looked down at the note hidden away in the box in the back of my closet.
I HOWL FOR YOU!!!
FOR WHEN YOU’RE READY.
On Thursday she said, “The Bennetts.”
I looked up at my Alpha as she stood above me. I was showing her how to work around an accounting program she was having trouble with, and she hadn’t said a word in close to ten minutes, just listening and watching as I rambled.
Until she said those two words. Apropos of nothing.
Nothing could be done about the way my heart sped up. She heard it. We both knew she did. “What about them?”
“Do you know them? Have you ever met one in all those years before you came to me?”
You. Are. Bennett.
I shook my head. “No. Look, here. There’s a tutorial that’ll show you better than I could how to—”
“They want something that doesn’t belong to them.”
I lifted my hand from the computer mouse so I didn’t break it. “Why?”
She placed a hand on my shoulder. I didn’t look at her. “They’re stuck in the old ways. And it has twisted them into something unrecognizable. They would do me harm, Robbie, if only they could get to me. To any of us. Do you believe that?”
I said, “Yes,” and it wasn’t a lie.
She squeezed my shoulder. “I should have told you this a long time ago.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“Because I needed you to heal. You came to Caswell a shell of a man. I needed to give you time for the bonds to form between us. So that you could trust me, and so that I could trust you.”
“Do you? Trust me?”
“Yes.” Her heart didn’t skip a single beat. But I also knew Alphas were much more in control than any Beta wolf.
“You trust me to protect you?”
“Yes.”
“To keep you safe?”
I nodded, still staring straight ahead at the computer screen. “I won’t let them get to you.”
She sighed. “I know.”
I didn’t dare look up at the empty space where the leather journal had once been.
It ended on Friday morning.
The storm that had lingered over Caswell was gone.
The sky was blue, blue, blue.
I stood in the refuge, and all those trees rose up around me, and if I thought hard enough, if I believed in what I dreamed, a man stood next to me, a man who said he had something to show me.
I know he did.
I know he did.
But he wasn’t real.
He wasn’t there.
I was alone.
I saw a white wolf in the trees. It had black on its chest and back.
I saw a black wolf in the distance. It—
My phone rang.
A few birds took flight from the canopy above me.
They looked like ravens.
The screen said UNKNOWN.
I thought about ignoring it.
Going back to the compound.
Being surrounded by my pack.
Living the life I had the way it was supposed to be.
My name was Robbie Fontaine.
I was the second to the Alpha of all.
I lived with (and loved) Ezra. He had saved me.
Given me a place.
Given me a home.
Yes, things didn’t make sense. Missing time. These dreams.
But I could explain them away if I really wanted to. I could just… be.
Would you hear me, dear?
Yes. Yes I would.
The phone stopped ringing.
I breathed in. I breathed out.
And then the phone started ringing again.
I stared down at the screen.
UNKNOWN.
But was it? Was it really?
“Little wolf, little wolf,” I said. “Can’t you see?”
The skin between my neck and shoulder felt like it was on fire.
The phone beeped as I connected the call. I brought it to my ear. “Who is this?”
“Robbie? I need you to listen to me. We don’t have much time. You need to—”
“Shannon? Alpha Wells?”
“Yes,” she snapped. “Did you find him? Did you find the prisoner?”
The day grew brighter around me. I pressed a hand against the tree to ground me in reality. The membrane was thinner still. “Yes.”
“Did you kill him?”
“Kill him? What the fuck? No, I didn’t kill him. I don’t know who the hell you are, but you need to—”
“His name is Robert Livingstone,” Shannon said, and I fell silent. “A witch. And he’s the reason all of this is happening. To us. To you. You need to—”
The ground rolled beneath my feet. “He’s not—that’s not his name. I don’t know who that is, but he’s not who’s in the house.” Unless he was lying, but with the amount of effort it took and with the way his mind seemed destroyed, I didn’t think that was possible.
Silence. Then, “What?”
“The man. He’s a witch. But his name isn’t Robert Livingstone.”
“He talked to you?” Shannon demanded. “He told you his name? Jesus Christ, Robbie, he could be fucking with your head. They told us he was—goddammit. Who did he say he was?”
I am.
I am
I am—
“Dale.”
“No,” she whispered, sounding terrified. “No, no, no. Oh fuck, that’s…. That means…. Robbie. I need you to listen to me, okay? I know you don’t remember me. I know you don’t have any reason to trust me. But I need you to hear me.”
Would you hear me, dear?
My claws dug into the bark of the tree. Sap spilled over my fingers.
“We’ve met before. Days ago. You came to my house. You met my pack. Malik. John. Jimmy. He showed you his monster movies. You slept in my barn. You ate at my table.”
The colors of the world around me began to bleed together. My stomach clenched and my knees felt week. “I’ve never met you before in my life.”
“You have,” she snarled. “And they know it. Your Alpha. Your witch. He took it from you, and then they came for us. They sent wolves after us, Robbie. They sent them to find us. I recognized one of them. We were already gone, but I stayed behind to watch. Santos. His name was Santos.”
“No,” I muttered. “No, that’s not… it’s not—”
“Lignite.”
“What?”
“Get to Lignite, Virginia. In Botetourt County. It’s a ghost town, but there’s a truss bridge there. Meet us at the bridge as soon as you can.”
“Why the hell should I do anything you’re asking?”
There was a voice in the background. It was quiet, and I couldn’t make out the words. “But—” Shannon said. “How could he—”
The voice spoke again.
“Fine, but if this fucks him up—Robbie. Are you listening?”
“Yes.”
“I need you to think. I need you to think hard. Can you do that for me?”
I closed my eyes. “Yes.”
“Before the witch came for you, before you were brought to Caswell, where were you? What do you remember?”
“He found me. Ezra.”
“I know that. But where?”
“I don’t…. It’s….” I pulled my hand away from the tree and pressed my fist against my face. The entire world smelled like smoky sap, and I was drowning in it. And where had I been when Ezra came for me? What had I been doing? I remembered him standing in front of me, telling me he needed me, telling me that I was special, that he would take me to a place I could belong, where I would never have to be alone again, and his words were everything I had ever wanted. Everything I ever needed. He told me I would do great things, that I was important, that I was exactly what he was looking for, that I I I I I I—
I was nothing.
Because there was nothing.
It was an empty space.
A void.
“Who am I?” I whispered.
“I will tell you,” she said. “I’ll tell you everything. That whole place, all you know, everything you think you know, it’s a lie. Robbie, I promise you, I will show you the truth. I’ll show you the way home. Don’t you want to know what’s real? I can give that to you. And they’ll be here to—”
“Who?”
“I—can’t. Robbie, just get here. Do you hear me? It’s not safe for you anymore. Get to Lignite. Get to the bridge. Do it now before it’s too late. Everything depends on it.”
“But—”
The phone beeped in my ear as the call dropped.
I looked at the tree.
Sap poured down the trunk.
It looked like it was bleeding.
I read once that insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.
Here was my insanity:
I walked back into the compound.
Some of the wolves waved at me. Some did not.
I smiled at those who did. I smiled at those who did not.
Little cubs ran around me, shouting my name, demanding that I lift them up and spin them around.
I did.
God help me, I did.
Tony screamed in delight, just like all the others.
What was it like when you were here before?
Why were you blue when you came back?
I almost dropped him.
He looked up at me with wide eyes, nostrils flaring. “Blue,” he whispered. “It’s all blue.”
Sonari said, “Hey, Robbie.” She smiled as the cubs took a step away from me. They weren’t frightened of me, but they knew something was wrong.
“Hi,” I said. “Sorry, I’ve—I’ve got to run.”
Her smile faded slightly. “Oh. Hey, that’s okay. Maybe we can talk later?”
“Sure. Yeah.”
“Are you all right?” She looked concerned. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
I left them standing there. I could feel their eyes on me as I walked away.
Santos was on guard duty.
He stood in front of the house.
He said, “What are you doing here? Alpha Hughes said you’re not allowed back at the house. It’s for your own good.”
“Where did you go?”
He glared at me. “Fuck off, Fontaine.”
I didn’t know how it happened. One moment there was distance between us. The next I had him pressed up against the porch railing, the wood cracking under our combined weight, my claws in his throat. A small drop of blood trickled down his neck.
“Get the fuck off me!” he cried.
“What did you do?” I whispered hotly in his ear. “What the fuck did you do?”
“Jesus Christ, have you lost your damn mind? What the hell is wrong with you?”
He tried to shove me away.
I let him.
His blood was on my hand, deeply dark.
I wanted to taste it.
More of it.
I wanted to tear him apart.
I whirled around and headed for the woods.
He shouted after me.
I ignored him.
The trees swayed as I walked through the forest.
Black birds (ravens? Why were there so many ravens?) swirled overhead. My mother told me once that a group of ravens was called an unkindness. “I don’t know why,” she said as we lay in the back of the car, waiting for daylight. “It’s odd, isn’t it? There’s another name for a massing of ravens too, though it’s strange. When they come together, they’re also called—”
“I know what they’re called,” I said to the trees, to the birds, to the earth beneath my feet.
The ravens laughed at me. They screamed, Little wolf, little wolf, what do you see? We take to wing above you, flying in a conspiracy.
An unkindness of ravens.
A conspiracy of ravens.
I turned my face toward the sky.
The birds were gone.
I looked ahead.
The path through the trees was empty.
I looked to the right.
A white wolf, black on its chest and back.
I looked to the left.
A pure white wolf stood side by side with a black wolf.
Their eyes burned red, and I swore the black one had violet mixed in.
It wasn’t possible.
I ran.
Tree limbs slashed against my face, cutting into my skin. Blood began to fall even as the scrapes healed almost immediately. My glasses were knocked askew, and someone snarled in my ear, “Take those fucking things off. You don’t need them.”
I gasped as I stumbled, sure that a man, a gruff man, an angry man was standing next to me.
He wasn’t.
I was alone.
I sucked in a breath, trying to clear my head from a maelstrom of voices that spun furiously like a tornado. They were shouting at me, dozens of them, telling me to listen, that I needed to listen and it would all make sense, it would all become clear.
My chest burned as I took off again.
Someone was running next to me. A large blond man, a wicked grin on his face.
He said, “You think you’re faster than I am?”
I laughed. “I know I am.”
“Oh, you’re in for it now. You think you got this, Fontaine? I’m not going to go easy because you’ve got my brother wrapped around your finger. I’ll—”
I screamed in horror when he burst into a cloud of dust. It sprayed my face, and I—
I ran into the house I shared with Ezra.
It was empty.
No one was home.
I shut the door behind me, slumping against it.
Outside, something prowled back and forth on the porch.
Its claws clicked against the wood.
It snorted air out its nose.
And then it howled.
The house shook around me, the door vibrating against my back.
The song
(wolfsong)
was long and loud, and my bones quaked at the sound of it. I said, “No, please, please don’t do this, please don’t do this. Who are you? Who are you!”
The howl faded into nothing.
The house creaked and settled around me.
“I’m Robbie Fontaine,” I said to no one. “I’m the second to the Alpha of all. I am home. I am loved. I have many responsibilities. I live with my friend. He is—”
And they knew it. Your Alpha. Your witch. He took it from you.
I could only scream. “Get out of my head!”
I pushed myself off the door, storming down the hallway to my room. I looked around wildly, sure someone would be waiting for me, waiting to take all of this away, to make me sound, to make me whole, to put some sense back into the world around me.
There was no one there.
“Don’t you want to know what’s real?” I said with a grating laugh. “I can give that to you.”
Backpack hanging on the closet door.
I grabbed it and opened the closet.
I stuffed it with a pair of jeans. With socks. A couple of shirts. I pulled out the panel from the back of the closet. It broke in my hands. It didn’t matter. I grabbed the secret box and upended it into my backpack, spilling its contents inside.
My mother looked up at me from her driver’s license photo lying near a wolf of stone.
“Quiet as a mouse,” I told her.
She didn’t reply.
I zipped the bag closed. I lifted it up and over my shoulder. It was heavy against my back, grounding me. It felt like the only real thing in all this unreality.
I turned toward the door.
Ezra said, “Going somewhere?”
He stood hunched in the doorway. He looked tired. And sad.
“I need a break,” I said evenly. “I need to get away for a couple of days.”
“If you give me a few minutes, I can throw some things in a bag. We can go together.”
I shook my head. “No. It’s not—I need to do this. On my own. It’s important.”
“Why?”
“I need to clear my mind.”
“There’s nothing wrong with your mind, dear. There never has been. You’re just tired. Maybe you should get some rest.”
I laughed. “I don’t need any more rest. Look, I just want a couple of days, okay? I never ask for anything.”
“No. You don’t.” He looked like he was going to reach for me but thought better of it. His liver-spotted hand curled into a fist instead. He was shaking. I thought he was scared of me, but I couldn’t smell fear on him. “It’s the worst thing about you.”
“Then give me this. Just… let me go. For a little bit.”
“Where will you go?”
“Away.”
He sighed. “Would you hear me, dear?”
And it was so easy to say yes. So easy to say of course, of course I will hear you. Every part of me screamed to do just that. It rolled over me in a calming wave, and for a moment I thought how ridiculous I was being. I was in the middle of a breakdown, that much was clear, and here was this man, my friend, who wanted nothing more than to keep me safe. He loved me, and I loved him. I loved him.
I loved him.
And even as a sharp lance of pain pierced my skull, I said, “No.”
Silence fell between us, stretching until it was almost unbearable.
Then, “What?”
“No. Not this time. Not now. Just let me go. Please. That’s all I’m asking. Just let me go.”
“You’re scaring me, Robbie.”
I laughed. “You have no idea.”
“We need to fix this. We need to fix this together. I don’t know what’s going on in that head of yours, but I promise that I can help—”
“I don’t want you in my head,” I snapped at him. “I don’t want anyone in my head.”
I was surprised when he took a step back out of the doorway. “Fine. If that’s the way it is, then go. I don’t know what’s going on, but I won’t stop you. If this is something you need to do, then do it. I’ll make sure Michelle knows.”
I gripped the strap of my backpack tightly. “Thank you.”
He grabbed my bicep as I left the room.
I didn’t look at him.
He said, “Your home is here. It’s always here. Remember that. No matter what happens, I want you to remember what we have.”
I pulled my arm out of his hand. “I know. And it’s the best home that I’ve ever had. I’ll come back.”
“Oh, I know you will.”
I left him standing in the doorway.
I expected him to follow me.
He didn’t.
I stayed out of the compound, circling around it as I headed into town. I could hear the wolves laughing and shouting. I could hear the cubs screaming in happiness.
I pushed it all away.
The main road through Caswell was mostly empty on this Friday. The few businesses that we had were open. The marquee of the movie theater was lit up, lights flashing. Anyone passing through wouldn’t think twice about it.
There was a large garage next to the theater. Inside was a small fleet of vehicles.
I grabbed the keys for a compact car off the corkboard.
I shoved my bag into the back seat before climbing in the front.
I gripped the steering wheel, breathing in and out.
In and out.
“Okay,” I whispered. “Okay.”
I hit the clicker on the visor above my head.
The garage door opened.
Weak light spilled in, the rain lessening.
I turned the key in the ignition.
The car rumbled to life.
I gave myself one last chance.
One last chance to stop this.
One last chance to go back to the compound.
I gunned the engine.
It whined laughably.
I put the car into Drive and pulled out of the garage.
I headed south.
