10

“Baby?” That would be my mom, knocking on the door. The knock was nothing more than a formality. I could scream, hey don’t come in here, I’m naked, and she’d barge in nevertheless.

“Mm?” Yep. That was all I could muster. I wasn’t going to string together syllables to form words. I was too drained, too sad, and too depressed for that.

“Why aren’t you at school?” She never asked you how you were. That wasn’t the way Joyce Hawkins was raised. She’d ask an insinuating question, which would be her way of asking if was doing okay.

“Mom. Leave me alone.”

“Remember what Dr. Richard Nygard said, honey. We have to communicate if we want to make things work,” she said. That was the pot calling the kettle black. Communicate? Why don’t you try first, Mom?

“Dr. Richard can go suck a big fat one,” I muttered from under the sheets.

I saw her outline from under the sheets coming closer to me. At least the woman was trying, I’d give her that. She sat down by my side and tugged the sheets off.

“Tell me what’s wrong,” she said.

“I had a vision again,” I told her. Dr. Richard Nygard, the esteemed shrink to the deranged teens of South Side, had told Mom and me that my first course of action in case of a psychosis (yeah, that’s right, he didn’t believe that I had visions) was to confide in my mom first and foremost.

“What did you see?” Mom asked. I felt love for her in that moment. She believed me, despite what Dr. Richard had told her. When I told her about the visions, she never said that I was crazy or stupid or trying to gain attention. She always believed me.

I threw myself into her lap and hugged her tightly. “It was the worst thing I’ve ever seen. Well, second worst.”

“What do you think we should do?” Mom asked.

“There’s this boy. He’s … well, he’s all that and much more. I don’t want to get into it. It’s super embarrassing. I saw him die,” I said.

“Fine,” Mom said in a robust voice. “We follow the plan. Okay? That’s something we can do. The visions and their outcomes might not be in our control, but we can do what we have control over. Is that right?”

“That’s right, ma’am.”

Ah, yes. The plan. The emergency plan that mom and Dr. Richard Nygard had come up with; Dr. Richard, the pretentious psychiatrist with Harvard Degrees on the wall of his strip mall office. That man was as much a psychiatrist as I was a deep sea diver. Still, he had given some valid advice.

“We’re going to go back to the meds. The antipsychotics. They helped you before. They’re going to help you again. I’m sure. I’ll send a note to the school, tell them you’re taking some time off. What do you want me to do about the boy?”

“The boy? Well, his name’s Brandon. He’s completely innocent. He’s done nothing wrong, but I don’t want to see him. It’s traumatic. I can’t even tell you how much. So, if he shows up, just tell him that I don’t want to see him. Hell, get a restraining order if you have to,” I said. Every word that I uttered broke me a little from the inside. But it was what we had to do.

“Get some rest. I’ll send Elma to keep you company,” Mom said as she ruffled my hair. “I have to go to a meeting. I’ll be back in the afternoon. We can get Thai food, your favorite.”

“Thanks, Mom,” I said, blowing her a kiss, then creeping back under the sheets to catch some shut-eye.

6

Brandon

Upholding the responsibilities of being an alpha was the least of my worries. I had been preparing for these all my life. Every wolf worth his salt does. The Creed of the Wolf swore by rigorous training that started when the child was barely five years old. Every member of the pack was taught the secrets of the creed. From tracking wild animals to picking up the trail of rival wolves, from fending off enemy attacks to engaging in lethal combat—everything that I knew today came from thirteen years of constant practice.

When I was made alpha, I took an oath to protect my pack, to hunt only those who deserve being hunted, and to treat innocents with respect. In the one week that I had been alpha, I had conducted several prowls with my fellow wolves along our territories. I’d scouted for rival packs. I’d warned others of signs of the DOPC. Ah, yes, the DOPC.

They were a worry, but still not the foremost worry on my mind.

I was completely flabbergasted by the way Alice had behaved in the cave. One moment we’re kissing and the next moment she’s on the floor, writhing and screaming, her nose leaking blood, her eyes streaming tears. And the way that she behaved with me afterward … what the hell was that all about?

She didn’t come to school for an entire week.

When I went by her house, her younger sister opened the door twice, telling me that Alice wasn’t home. The third time I went by her place, her mother opened the door. She was a formidable, scary woman who towered nearly as tall as me. She looked me in the eyes, cold as a crypt, and told me that I was never to come here again unless I wanted a restraining order on my ass.

I’m not sure she knew how restraining orders worked. One doesn’t get them on their ass.

Still, I had taken the hint and had stayed away from her house. I visited the diner once or twice to see if she was there. The new manager told me that Alice had handed in her resignation already.

What the hell was going on?

The only thing that made sense to me was that she had some sort of mental breakdown in that cove. That could be the only explanation for what had happened.

Ancient folklore tells of wolves whose fated mates reject them. The rejected wolves suffer from heartache so terrible that they wither and die. While those folktales might be slightly exaggerated by the elders of the pack, there was some truth to them. I did not feel like eating food anymore. Turning into a wolf, which was otherwise one of the most amazing feelings in the entire world, felt bland and disgusting. I didn’t want to sleep, I didn’t want to drink, and I didn’t want to play football.

The only thing that I cared about was Alice. The longer I stayed away from her, the more it hurt. I guess there was some merit to those folktales after all. The pain I felt in my heart was more than just the Macbethian sort of pain. It was a physical pain that nothing else dispelled.

It was why I was planted in the tall birch in Alice’s backyard at seven in the evening right now. After five days of observation, I had learned the patterns of her mother and younger sister. I didn’t want them to think that I was lurking around. I needed a one-to-one with Alice. Her mother left for the gym at six-thirty and came home at seven-thirty. Her younger sister went with her friends from school to band practice, whatever the hell that was, at roughly the same time.

I could see Alice in the window, combing her hair, looking distraught. It was killing me to find out why she had rejected me.

As I watched Elma leave the house in her friend’s mom’s minivan, I leaped out of the tree and landed on the roof of the house. Under normal circumstances, I wouldn’t have been able to make that tall a leap. I wasn’t ashamed that I had used my wolf strength to make that jump.