4. Ben
FOUR
BEN
Warning Call
Dig. Fling. Dig. Fling. Dig. Fling.
I was completely locked in the rhythm of my task when my phone let out a shrill ring.
Digging a ditch wasn’t exactly glamorous, but it was involved enough to keep me occupied and menial enough that I could let my mind rest. Technically, I didn’t need the money from the gig I was doing—I had the entire pack treasury plus the money I took when I finished off the last of the rogues who killed my pack—but it was a way to stay busy and get exercise.
Naturally, I would give up every single cent to have my family back. Hell, I’d swear myself to poverty for the rest of my life if it meant I could spend one more hour with my wife.
But that wasn’t how it worked. No matter how hard I wished, my pack had been massacred, and I hadn’t been there to protect them.
It was my fault.
RING.
Oh, right. My phone.
I always kept it on full volume so Natalie could reach me if there was an emergency with my daughter, but she’d set her own ringtone. The sound emanating from my phone wasn’t that. No, it was the shrill and over-the-top default tone.
Who would possibly be calling me?
I didn’t recognize the number, but then again, I didn’t have any numbers memorized beyond that of my childhood home, and I’d sold that along with the rest of our pack lands.
I knew I couldn’t step foot onto those grounds ever again, not with the blood that had been spilled there.
Every moment of every day, I would be reminded of how I’d failed my people.
How I’d allowed myself to be tricked like a complete fool, a moron of the highest order.
At least where I was now, I could occasionally forget if I was occupied or tired enough.
RING.
Shit, my phone.
“Hello?”
“Hello, Mr. Poynter?”
“Speaking.”
“Oh, fantastic. I apologize for calling without emailing first, but this is your son’s teacher, Miss Fischbacher. I wanted to touch base with you about a few things.”
I frowned, trying not to feel defensive. My boy was a great student, so if she was about to spin me a tale about how he was trouble in class, I would be highly dubious.
“How may I help you?”
“I want to start off with saying that Benny isn’t in any trouble at all. I just have some concerns I would love to discuss with you in person.”
“Concerns?” I repeated, feeling like a stupid parrot.
I hadn’t really talked to anyone at school since the beginning of the school year, and it was almost like I sent Junior to a separate world every day.
As far as Junior told me, everything was amazing, and he enjoyed his friends and his class, but considering I’d been homeschooled, I would have no idea if he was lying to me.
But my son wouldn’t lie to me.
Would he?
No. Junior was my best friend, and he knew he could tell me anything. We had literally lost everything and had been rebuilding our lives together for the past year.
“Yes. I am aware that Benny’s circumstances are unlike most students, or any student’s, really, and I’d like to discuss some possible special help that might be a huge boon to him. Are you available anytime this week or the next?”
“I can come in tomorrow.” I didn’t need to check my calendar.
Outside of the gig work I did, my whole life revolved around my children.
I didn’t think I could ever truly recover and learn to live after everything that had happened, but if they could, then fighting to survive every day was worthwhile. The nightmares were worthwhile.
I would do anything for Junior and Veronica.
“Tomorrow?”
“Yes, would that work for you?”
“Actually, that’ll work perfectly. I really appreciate you taking time out of your day for this. Is four okay?”
“Yeah, that’ll do.”
“Wonderful. Thank you again. I’ll see you then.” Her voice was pleasant, and would have been saccharinely sweet if it weren’t for the slight rasp in it. Junior had never said anything negative about her, and he was fairly perceptive for his age, so I had a feeling she would tell me if he was awful.
“See you then.”
She ended the call, and I stared at my phone screen, feeling like a failure. I thought I was handling things, but clearly I wasn’t if his teacher felt the need to contact me.
Damn it.
Just when I thought I was settling into a new normal, something came along to remind me that I couldn’t get anything right.
Whether it was picking a beta who would eventually betray me in the most horrific way possible, going on that stupid hunt, or taking care of my kids, somehow I always came up short.
All I wanted was to make sure my children thrived, and I would do whatever I had to do to make sure they grew up as best they could despite the bloodbath that stained all of our memories. So teacher meetings were the least I could do.
So why did it feel so heavy in my gut?
“Hi, I’d like to sign in,” I told the secretary in the office.
It was vaguely familiar, as I’d been here a couple of times with my wife when she was interviewing different schools, but it was on the cusp of my memory.
If I was being honest, I often had trouble recalling things that happened before the massacre.
Especially certain things so intrinsically linked to my love’s plans for the future—a future that would never be.
It was as if my brain was trying to protect me from those echoes, but try as it might, the ghostly visages of those I loved were always waiting in the wings, flashing through the corner of my vision more often than not.
“Of course, and what’s the reason for your visit?”
“Parent-teacher conference with Miss Fischbacher.” I probably sounded nervous, which made sense, since I was. It had only been one day since I’d gotten the call, but I had been in my head about it ever since I hung up. I knew it wasn’t healthy, but I couldn’t quite help myself.
“Ah, Mr. Poynter! It’s good to see you again! How are you holding up, given everything?”
Did everyone know about what had happened?
We’d moved into the suburbs, far away from our pack lands and any other wolf shifters I knew, to get away from the story.
We’d tried to keep it as hush-hush as we could in our community, but unfortunately a massacre like that was impossible to keep completely silent.
Some of it had leaked to the news. Not as a major story, but certainly one people tended to remember if they had seen the four-minute segment on it or read about it.
I supposed I couldn’t blame them. I would also remember such a tragedy if I saw it on the news. But it felt so invasive because it was my life. And my son’s. And my daughter’s. And Natalie’s too.
Ugh. Sometimes it felt so inescapable.
“As best we can.”
“Of course, of course. I don’t mean to be nosy.” Yes, she did, but I couldn’t begrudge her natural curiosity. It was a very human thing. “Do you know where you need to go?”
Did I? I had to pause for a moment and rack my brain. After a beat or so, I realized I had absolutely no idea where my son’s classroom was. I could still recall the path to his kindergarten room, but he was a first-grader now.
Damn, that was a disheartening realization. When had I become so… distracted? Junior and Veronica were my whole world, but if they were, why was I suddenly so out of my depth?
“Uh no, I don’t think so,” I said finally.
“No worries. I’m more than happy to walk you there. It’ll help me get my steps in.”
“Thank you, I appreciate it.”
“Think nothing of it, really.”
Despite the awkward foot we’d started on, I appreciated the secretary’s candor. She chattered at me about different things about the school as we walked, and I made sure to nod at the appropriate times. I was only half listening, however, as my mind was fully on the meeting coming up.
Maybe I would have felt a little better if Benny was walking with me, but he’d stayed behind after class for convenience. Not that I needed my son by my side to be confident, but technically, I was in his territory.
“Here you are,” the secretary chorused before knocking on the door. “Hope you have a great evening. You can go right in.”
“All right, thank you.”
She hurried off. I stared at the door. It was the only barrier between me and the meeting I was dreading.
The practical part of my brain knew everything I was imagining was way worse than anything she’d say, but that didn’t matter.
The vast majority of my mind had already come up with several catastrophic and very convincing scenarios that reinforced me being a bad father and an even worse alpha.
“Hello?”
Well, might as well get it over with.
Commanding myself to calm the hell down, I opened the door. The voice on the phone had sounded young, but I’d anticipated the classic, middle-aged woman with spectacles and her hair in a sensible, slick bun.
That was not who was waiting for me at all.
“H-hello!” I sputtered slightly. The woman who was standing by what had to be the teacher’s desk was the most beautiful fairy that I had ever seen.
Her long, red hair was half piled on top of her head in one of those effortless, messy buns.
She had cat-wing eyeliner—at least, I think that’s what it was called—and cute glasses hanging around her neck from a rainbow-beaded chain.
She was a slight thing, as fairies so often were, her bone structure prominent and her nose upturned just enough to be appealing but not so much that she seemed like she was looking down at me.
“Daddy!”
My attention was ripped away from the ethereal beauty, and thank goodness, because I was feeling all sorts of off-kilter. Not because I didn’t know how to act around women, but I was just incredibly surprised to meet one of her kind at all!
As far as I knew, fairies were very European, and although there were tropical subtypes, they were few in number and rarely traveled over open waters. Seeing one of their kind was an incredibly rare thing for a schmuck like me!