Chapter 17 #2
“Sounds good to me,” Malachi says, wheezing slightly. “Though you’ll have a hard time convincing the rogues to fight alongside a pack.”
“We know,” I say. “But we have to try.”
Malachi and I lock eyes for a brief moment.
While I was communing with him, our wolf souls were connected, and while I’ve always thought of it as a one-way exchange, I wonder now if his wolf self maybe had a glimpse of mine as well.
If by opening my mind to him I’ve let him in more than I’ve realized.
And I wonder how that makes him feel. Does it endear him to me, or does it make him distrust me even more?
After a long while, until I start to feel a little awkward about how he’s looking at me, he simply nods and says, “All right, Blood Wolf.”
It’s late when we finally find the settlement Omar has been talking about.
Our headlights shine along a dusty road, leading across the open fields flanking us on either side.
In the dark I can’t see the horizon, just an abyss where the grass meets the shadows.
Up ahead is a small farmhouse, and behind that a barn.
String lights hang between the two buildings, swooping in glowing arches.
Off to the side and a little farther back are a handful of caravans.
More lights linking them like circus wagons.
The car judders as we roll over rocks and stones, and eventually we pull up in front of the single-story farmhouse. A woman with two braids and a shotgun steps through the front door, letting the screen bang behind her.
She watches us carefully as we exit the car, Malachi leaning on Omar for support. I hang back as they limp to the woman, sighing with relief when they get close enough for her to take a good look and she puts the gun down, leaning it against the doorframe.
She gestures Malachi inside, yelling something through the door, I guess to whoever is in there, and I wait as he shuffles out of sight.
Omar and the woman speak for a while under the dim light of the porch, moths flitting about like crazy.
The woman keeps glancing at me like she doesn’t trust me, which is fair.
Though eventually she nods, placing a hand on Omar’s shoulder, casts one more distrusting look in my direction then heads inside.
“There’s a place we can sleep in the barn,” Omar says when he returns.
We grab our bags from the trunk and make our way to the back of the property.
Under the golden glow of the string lights are two picnic tables, with a few wolves sitting at each.
One table is playing cards. They look up and nod at us as we head to the barn, then return to their game.
The other doesn’t pay us much attention.
A mother and her pup are reading a book, while an older man tinkers with what looks like an old-school radio.
I feel weird about disturbing their night and I’m sure they feel super weird about having a pack wolf on their land. But no one says anything.
Inside the barn, long tables stand in lines with benches running alongside.
This must be where they eat or gather. We head up a steep ladder to the mezzanine at one end where a sort of living room is set up, a ratty-looking sofa with a floral pattern and stuffing spewing from the armrests, a lamp, a stumpy coffee table.
Together Omar and I pull out the sofa bed.
“There’s a washroom downstairs,” Omar says, grabbing his toothbrush. “Mind if I go first?”
“Go ahead.”
While he’s gone I get changed into pajamas, or really an old T-shirt and a pair of sweatpants. I sit on the edge of the bed and take a breath. I’ve been farther from home and I’ve spent time with rogues. But never quite like this.
Rogue City was a derelict settlement, where desperate rogues went for shelter.
The Sanc was a massive tent-city, full of life and easy to feel lost in.
Here, this place, this is my first glimpse at how most rogues probably live.
Quiet lives, out of the way of pack wolves.
Sitting under stars and playing cards. A normal, peaceful existence.
And here I am, a pack wolf, disturbing the peace and asking them to go to war for us.
I shouldn’t be here. Even with Omar to make introductions and to vouch for me, these wolves know I bring danger with me. I’m like a foreign disease arriving on the shores of a new land, likely to decimate the local people. My chest feels tight as I think through all of this.
Maybe I’m wrong to think the rogues are the answer. Maybe I’m wrong to make our problems theirs.
I feel on the verge of tears, my lips crinkle and my chin quivers.
And then a strange sense of relief trickles into my consciousness and Jasper speaks.
“Max,” he says via mind-link. “Hey, you there?”
“Hi,” I say, somehow breathless even though I don’t need breath to speak like this.
“Are you okay? I felt like . . . I just had this feeling.”
“I’m fine,” I say, warmth spreading through my loosening chest just hearing his voice. “Or maybe a little homesick, or . . .”
“What? What is it?”
I let out a long exhale. “These rogues, the way they live, I . . . They’re just trying to exist, you know? What right do I have to ask them to leave to help us?”
“They’re under attack as well, Max.”
“I know. But isn’t that our fault? Shouldn’t we clean up our own mess?”
“I wish it worked like that,” he said. “I wish we had another option.”
“You still think I’m doing the right thing?”
For a moment he doesn’t answer, and I worry our connection has conked out like bad Wi-Fi. But then he clears his throat.
“Max, there was another attack.”
I sit up straight.
“What? Was anyone hurt?”
Again, he pauses for too long.
“Luckily there were no casualties. But . . . it was a school, Max. They attacked a school.”
What the actual fuck?
“And that’s not all,” he continues when I can’t seem to say anything.
“Rogues have started showing up at the borders, asking for help, saying they’ve been displaced.
We’re taking them in but there are more than we can handle.
This isn’t just our fight anymore, Max. It may have started with us.
But it’s bigger than that now. I know it’s a lot to ask, but we need you to convince the rogues to fight with us.
If not . . . I don’t know what will happen. ”
Above me a hatch is open, and I can make out a patch of starry sky through it. I stare at it as Jasper’s words register with me, landing like a sack of bricks.
No matter how uncomfortable I may feel, the guilt I carry, I have to push forward. I have to convince the rogues to fight with us.