Chapter 3 #2
Alexander craned his neck to look at the picture on the dusty windowsill.
It was a blurry holiday snapshot on a coastline Alexander didn’t recognize.
Two adults, the male with Tobias’s shaggy dark hair and the woman with his crinkled smile.
Two children were nestled between them, wrapped in a towel.
A boy, obviously Tobias at a younger age.
And a girl, significantly taller and more tanned, who had Tobias in a severe headlock.
Everyone was laughing. It was the kind of family photo that Alexander had previously only seen on television.
His family photos weren’t candid holiday photos, they were poised and practiced.
They sat a sensible distance apart, hair smoothed down, not a stitch out of place.
Alexander’s earliest memory was being told to sit still during a family photo, his mother’s voice bored and harsh.
His older brother Samson had made eye contact over a cousin’s head to roll his eyes in solidarity.
Shame followed by intense belonging: the two earliest emotions Alexander could remember.
He wondered where the rest of Tobias’s family was. Did he get banished after he was turned?
Tobias came back into the living room, sloshing cocoa over the side of his mug.
“Oops,” he said. He ran his tongue up the ceramic, gathering drops.
Alexander looked away, annoyed. Surely the wolf had to be doing it on purpose, using Alexander’s previous interest against him.
He wanted to warn Tobias that his attempts to distract him—or worse, endear him—were useless.
But he could already imagine Tobias’s delighted grin if he warned him, so he kept quiet.
He nodded at the photo on the windowsill. “That’s a nice picture.”
If Tobias noticed Alexander’s subtle probing, he didn’t mention it. He cast a distracted glance at the photo as he sat beside him.
“Thanks,” he said. “Our only overseas holiday. Very momentous occasion for the Rooks.”
“Do they live in the city?” Alexander asked, trying to look politely interested. It wasn’t his strong suit. Multiple store managers had called him ‘intense’ and told him to tone it down.
Luckily, Tobias didn’t seem to notice his expression. He was staring at the photograph, his face oddly blank. Then he twisted toward Alexander, his gaze falling to the fresh bandage on his shoulder.
“The tape’s all lopsided,” he announced. “C’mere, I’ll fix it.”
“It’s fine,” Alexander said reflexively.
But Tobias was already reaching over. He paused at Alexander’s aborted movement.
Not a flinch, but the start of a defensive tactic, Alexander told himself.
No matter what Tobias clearly thought, unnecessary pity flashing over his face before it settled into a casualness that Alexander could never replicate.
“Just fixing you up,” Tobias said quietly. He tucked his finger under the bandage tape, unhinging two sides and straightening them out. He smoothed his thumb around the bandage’s perimeter, and Alexander held back a shiver.
He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been touched so softly. All the physical touch he got nowadays was incidental: a customer brushing his hand during a cash transfer; a coworker bumping into him even though Alexander clearly said ‘behind’; a stranger jostling his knee on the bus.
And at home…
Alexander paused, considering. His family’s physical touch was useful.
Effective. Correcting his stance during training or fixing his collar before he went out.
The last time he’d been touched this softly must have been when his brother was still alive.
Samson would play with Alexander’s hair absentmindedly while they were reading together. It was strangely soothing.
Tobias’s thumb slowed. He rubbed delicately over the fabric, feeling the line of stitches which had been surprisingly tidy despite Alexander’s expectations.
Alexander forced down the swarm of butterflies rioting in his stomach and pushed Tobias’s hand away. “That’s straight enough, thank you.”
Tobias’s lips twitched. He muttered something under his breath that Alexander couldn’t hear, except that it was something about straightness. Then he sat back, cradling his cocoa.
“So,” Tobias said, taking another long sip that made Alexander wonder how many calories he needed to replace after a transformation. “What did you do to get kicked out?”
“None of your business,” Alexander said. He wanted to snap the words—often he snapped without realizing. Meaning to snap but going soft was a much less frequent problem. But his exhaustion was finally catching up to him. He almost took a sip of his own cocoa before stopping himself.
“Mysterious,” Tobias said. “Alright. I was just curious if you had a heart under there.”
It was bait. Alexander knew it was bait. And yet he found himself asking, “What?”
Tobias shrugged those absurd shoulders, his shredded hoodie stretching wide so Alexander could see the slash wound he’d given him, already healing.
“Only two reasons a hunter gets kicked out of his pack—”
“Family,” Alexander corrected.
“Whatever. One: you fucked up by accident. Or you grew a conscience about being a serial killer and fucked up on purpose.”
“Serial killer,” Alexander muttered, appalled.
“I’m hoping it’s door number two,” Tobias continued, ignoring Alexander’s protests that he wasn’t a serial killer, he only killed monsters, which obviously didn’t count.
Then he turned to look at Alexander head-on, his face expectant.
Like he wanted Alexander to hand over all his secrets: the road trip.
The vampires who had fooled him into thinking they were his friends.
That last fight after only one of the vampires turned human again despite their promises that their adventure would fix them both of.
The way they had stared up at him pleadingly, one of them human again, the other cursed to remain a monster forever.
How desperately they asked for him to let them go.
And Alexander had fallen for it, like an idiot.
If he had just ended it there, he would be back home right now.
Sleeping peacefully in his childhood room, the house silent and pristine.
No roaches or water stains or traffic noise leaking in from the street.
No noisy neighbors or bosses who didn’t take their job seriously.
He would have a real life, a family, a purpose.
Now what did he have? A string of dead-end jobs and low-level hunts. You could only kill so many monsters on your own. He had to accept help from a werewolf, of all things.
His family could never find out. Even if he had to kill Tobias to keep his secret.
You should do it anyway, Alexander reminded himself as Tobias watched him with those big, dark eyes. You don’t want it to end up like last time.
He stood, those big eyes following him.
“Excuse me,” he said stiffly. “I have to make a call.”
“Now?” Tobias checked his phone. “It’s almost midnight.”
Alexander bit his tongue, and marched out into the parking lot. He needed to be careful with this wolf: he was so disarming, Alexander had almost told him that his mother stayed up late.
The phone rang out three times.
Alexander’s fingers shook as he pressed redial again. This wasn’t some monthly update they could ignore. This was important. Surely they had to understand that after this many calls.
The phone rang. Alexander waited, heart in his throat.
Click. “What is it?”
Alexander felt his chin lift, his shoulders shove back despite the pain. Posture was important, even if she couldn’t see him.
“Mother,” he said. “I…I have a new lead.”
There was a pause long enough for sweat to bead under Alexander’s bandage.
“I was about to go to bed,” Meredith White said finally. “You knocked me off balance. Now I have to start again.”
“I’m sorry,” he rushed to say, all too aware of his mother’s strict bedtime routine. “I only wanted to know…”
He paused, looking back at the ground-floor apartment. The window was lit up. Tobias had his back toward him, cradling the photo that Alexander had pointed out. No, he realized, not cradling it. Tobias was holding it up to the light to examine the blurry faces.
“Yes?” his mother said, annoyed.
“Sorry,” Alexander said again, shoving down a deluge of questions about his father and aunts and uncles and cousins. “I wanted to know if I would be allowed back home if I killed an alpha werewolf.”
Silence. Alexander sorely wanted to fidget. He didn’t dare. Nineteen years old and still a part of him believed she’d be able to sense it over the phone.
His mother hummed. “What’s its name?”
“Muzzle,” Alexander replied.
His mother made a strange noise, almost like a gasp. Which was impossible. She was never taken unawares, and if she was, she stayed stony silent. He had seen her step into a bear trap and barely make a sound as it crunched down on her leg, leaving her with a limp that still plagued her.
Agonizing seconds passed. Tobias put the photo back on the windowsill then looked up, and sent Alexander a wave.
Alexander pretended not to see it.
“Mother,” he said. “Are you still there?”
Finally, his mother spoke.
“We’ll consider it.”