His Three Wolves

Chapter 1

Everything looked the same, really, even though everything had shifted. Even though I would be forevermore alone in my studio apartment with the cute succulents on the windowsill and the cheap art prints on the walls. Even though I’d never have sex ever again in the double bed by the window.

I glared at the bed, not that it had done anything wrong. My phone hummed against the small dining table for the third time in a row, and I seriously considered doing something dramatic like throwing the device against the wall or pouring my lukewarm oolong tea all over it.

Fuck Steven, his cheating ass, and his inability to take a breakup in stride. I shouldn’t even have to deal with his cheating self right now, seeing as I was the guy he’d cheated on with some barely legal twink. Who even did that? And also—once more with feeling—fuck his cheating ass.

In lieu of the dramatic destruction of my phone in much the same manner fucking Steven had burned our relationship, I picked it up and set it to silent.

Then I walked over to the small kitchen to boil some water for more oolong, and of course my gaze caught on the damn shelves Steven had helped me build.

I tried looking away and focusing on making myself a fresh cup of tea, but then I noticed the mug Steven had given me for my birthday. Marcus and Steven, it said, with a big, gaudy heart around our names.

Oh, fuck me. I picked the mug up off the shelf and let it drop to the ground, where it shattered with a satisfying noise. Maybe I should’ve thrown it, but I didn’t want to have to repaint the walls.

“There you go. That’s where you fucking belong, you asshole.”

Tea though; I needed tea. As the kettle brought my water to the perfect temperature for oolong, I turned and leaned against the kitchen counter. There were pictures on my desk I needed to toss, and the sheets… Fucking Steven had fucked his twink and then come into my bed after.

Again, the bed was innocent in the matter, but what an asshole. Maybe I could burn the sheets somewhere. I sure as hell wouldn’t sleep on them again.

“Idiot. I was such an idiot.” I closed my eyes to avoid seeing all the things in this place that reminded me of Steven.

Of what he had destroyed. Of what we could have had.

Of course, I was the idiot for thinking that we were in the process of building a life together and grieving for it.

If Steven had cared about us, he wouldn’t have slept with one of his fucking students. Ugh.

The water bubbled behind me, and I turned around to pour it over the dry leaves. I took the tea back to the desk and my computer, where I’d been trying to get some work done, but writing ad copy on the same day I had to end my four-year relationship was likely not going to happen.

What I needed wasn’t work, it was a change of scenery.

I’d told Steven I wanted a vacation, but he’d been oh so busy with work, and his best effort had been to invite me to come along on a hunting trip with some buddies of his, which—fuck that.

I wasn’t going to go into the wilderness and watch him shoot things.

I sipped some of my blessedly hot tea and took to the internet.

I was single as of thirty-seven minutes ago, and I could damn well take a vacation by my lonesome.

The ad agency hardly ever needed their creatives to come in to the office so long as the work got done, and my PA side gig was all online to begin with.

Heck, for all anyone cared, I could become a digital nomad and never come back. Maybe I should.

About an hour in, the Google gods delivered a B&B that wasn’t disgustingly pleasant, but pleasantly morbid.

It was called Corpsewood Manor, of all things.

It lay nestled in some woods I wouldn’t hike if my life depended on it, and had a rose garden and a rainbow flag among the dozen or so others behind their reception desk.

They had rooms available. I could get there by tonight if I skipped burning the damn sheets for now and focused on packing. I booked a single room for three weeks, deleted Steven’s fake apology email without opening it, figured out where I could rent a car to get me there, and got to packing.

The rental car had been unwilling to connect my phone to its internal systems, so rather than listening to a few true crime podcasts, I was forced to endure the radio.

Apparently, people still listened to that.

Steven had called about half a dozen times.

Apparently, he thought I would still speak to him.

I loved Searsville. It was a beautiful city, and I loved biking everywhere, but getting back behind the wheel gave my mind something other than the breakup to focus on.

It took several dozen miles before I felt comfortable enough to pay more attention to the things either side of the road.

Not that there was all that much to see here, this being the country.

I’d left the urban area hours ago, and the last town was a good hour behind me.

This was the kind of place serial killers picked to bury their victims, but it was also far away from any place Steven might go looking for me.

“Nothing is going to distract you from getting over him out here,” I mumbled, tapping my fingers on the wheel. I was craving a nice cup of oolong right about now, and maybe a sandwich, but I still had a way to go.

The trees to my left and right were… Well, they were trees.

Some outdoor person probably would’ve known what kind, but I had no idea.

Looked nice though, all quiet and green and mottled where the setting sun broke through the foliage in shafts of golden light.

I sighed, feeling myself relax and actually really start looking forward to the vacation, not just the getting away from Steven part.

“You’re doing a retreat. Reset. Yeah, hit the reset button on everything.” I hummed along to a familiar song that came on. It meshed perfectly with the reset idea.

Of course, that was when the damn car decided to be a total dick and just stopped, out here in the world of green terror where serial killers roamed.

I’d made sure the car’s battery was fully charged, and I’d asked the lady about the reach. Everything should’ve been fine, but clearly, the car had other ideas.

All the information the fancy electronics conveyed before I rolled to a halt at the side of the road was that something wasn’t right, and that it needed to be serviced. Well, what grand motherfucking news, and what excellent timing.

“Fucking hell, I didn’t mean reset in the literal fucking sense,” I said as I engaged the hand brake. “Fucking hell.”

I pulled my phone from the middle console. It had been almost constantly lit up with all the incoming messages from Steven, and as I woke the screen, I noticed something worse.

Three percent. It was at three percent charge, and I knew why.

“You stupid asshole! If you hadn’t been texting and calling and shit, I’d have charged this damn thing, but no, it was always your ugly mug on here. Shit!”

I was seconds away from throwing the device, for real this time, but it was my best chance to escape the wilderness. I searched and found a mechanic near me, then hit the call button. It rang once, then twice, then someone picked up.

“Hello?”

“Hi, I broke down on, uh, somewhere on the way to Corpsewood Manor, and I need help.” I waited. “Hello?”

With dread sitting in my stomach like a fatty meal, I pulled the phone from my ear and looked at it.

The screen was dark, and it wouldn’t let me wake it. Three percent hadn’t been enough, but with any luck, my call for help had gone through.

“Luck. Yeah, sure.”

I looked in the rearview mirror, looked at the road ahead of me. There was nothing to see there, no other cars. The last car I’d seen had been… I wasn’t sure. The lack of traffic had been relaxing when I was driving, but now?

“What the fuck were you thinking, going on a trip to the middle of fucking nowhere?”

I knew what. I’d wanted to get away from it all, and I’d wanted to go to a place where Steven wouldn’t expect me to. I’d also, maybe, in a childish way, wanted to show him I was fine going out into nature so long as it didn’t involve a hunting trip with his cheating ass.

Grudgingly, I got out of the car and walked into the greenery along the road, hoping for a tow truck to appear like a fairy godmother with wish-granting powers.

“Fuckfuckfuck,” I said, because neither a truck nor a fairy godmother was coming to my rescue.

You never want to do anything, you never want to go out.

Yeah, the asshole ex had said that, and now here I was, showing him. And getting kicked in the teeth for it, metaphorically speaking.

I walked along the road one way, then the other, doing my very best not to cry.

Why do you always cry? It’s just a movie.

I hated his guts. For four fucking years, I’d dealt with all his shit. I’d endured his love of beer even though I hated the smell, his requests to fuck when I had a deadline looming, him working late all the fucking time.

I snorted on my way back to the car. “At least now I know why you always worked late, you asshole. Couldn’t keep a leash on your fucking dick, could you?

Four years of going to all your fucking faculty parties and listening to your stupid colleagues talking about lasers, four years of you accusing me of reading at those fucking boring parties just to get me to blow you in the bathrooms at all those fucking stupid parties. ”

I put my hands on the car’s hood and focused on my breathing. Shouting at the air wouldn’t help me. I got back behind the wheel and tried to restart the car.

“Turning you off and then on again. Come on, please be like a printer.”

But no, the thing didn’t budge. Nothing lit up at all. The sun was rapidly descending, and I had no flashlight other than my phone, which was totally useless now.

“Fuck.” My eloquence had gone out the window along with everything else.

I tried my best not to freak the fuck out as I sat behind the wheel and considered my options.

It was possible that the owner of the manly voice on the other end of the phone had heard where I was and that I needed help, but wouldn’t they have sent someone by now?

What if no one came? I couldn’t spend the night in the car, I just couldn’t.

What I could do was walk back to the town I’d passed earlier. The only problem was I didn’t think I’d get there before nightfall, and walking around an unfamiliar rural area when it was dark was just not going to happen.

The other option was to head to Pleasant Peak, the small town where my cozy creepy B&B was waiting for me.

I’d downloaded the maps of the area to my phone earlier, and I’d looked at them.

I remembered that the road I was on was going somewhat left, and that I’d have to circle back and go right and down once I got to town, whichever compass direction that was.

I’d just been surprised that there wasn’t a road that went straight to where Corpsewood Manor was.

I looked to my right.

“And of course the quickest way is through the motherfucking woods,” I said.

I cursed a bit more, flexing the creative muscles all that copywriting had honed. There was nothing else for it though. If I had memorized the map correctly, Pleasant Peak was an hour or two away on foot—doable and closer than the other option—and they were expecting me, so that was good.

I grabbed my shoulder bag from the passenger seat.

It held my laptop, my wallet, and some bottled water.

Good enough. I zipped my phone away in there as well.

Hoping against hope for someone to come to my rescue at the last moment, I waited five more minutes behind the wheel, but of course, my bad luck proved obstinate.

With daylight waning, I headed into the woods.