80. Ivy
Ivy
Istill can't believe Wraith wants to go to the movies.
Sure, we're going at nine o'clock at night, the latest showing Plague could find, but we're going. We're doing something fun as a pack, out and about, and Wraith isn't wearing his mask, looming behind me as my shadow with his hood up.
It's dark in here, at least. Whoever designed this place staunchly believed theaters should feel like caves, with dark carpet with red and purple retro shapes, and only neon strips lighting the walls.
Wraith stays center-back of our group, hood shadowing his face, and in this light, at a glance, he's just an enormous alpha in a hoodie.
Whiskey tried to come up with another solution.
He went through endless prototypes. Hoods, wraps, masks that wouldn't brush against the scars.
Plague even found him a UV hat with a mesh face covering that was loose enough to technically fit.
Wraith panicked and snarled the second it covered his eyes, and tore it off, and that was the end of it.
So Whiskey's solving the problem by being Whiskey.
"HO-LYYYY SHIT, they have the collector cups!"
Every head in the lobby swings toward him.
He's at the concession display, holding up a giant plastic cup shaped like a zombie head with a straw sticking out of its brain, and he's already surrounded by fans.
He signs one fan's phone case. Then somebody's ticket stub, and a napkin, and a second napkin for the first napkin kid's brother, and the crowd that forms around him is a wall of backs facing away from the rest of us.
He's so loud and so much, nobody looks past him.
Or so I think, at first.
A woman at the condiment station glances over her shoulder toward the noise, and her eyes go right past Whiskey's crowd and land on Wraith.
Her hand freezes on the pump for the nacho cheese and overflows the cup.
She stares openly at him, blanching, and then turns away from us with one last shocked glance over her shoulder.
"Sh-shit," she mutters, trying to clean up the nacho cheese and apologizing profusely to the theater employee who comes up to try to help.
I hope she gets fucking banned.
Same as the group that just walked past us, doing an obvious double-take at Wraith.
"Is that the feral alpha from the Ghosts?"
"Holy shit, he's huge…"
"Oh my god, his face…"
"Shouldn't be around people..."
"Not safe..."
Bans for all if I ran this place. But all I can do is glare at the worst ones and use myself as a shield between him and them, letting him shadow me as always.
Funny thing is, they fuck off when I look at them.
Most people close enough to get a good look at my mate are at chest level with him and don't try to see past the hood. But the ones who do see his scars are giving him a wide berth, or they stare, or they try not to stare, and if they're with someone else, they whisper and mutter.
He doesn't react. He just keeps his eyes on the floor, which means he's used to it. Worse, he seems almost relieved. Like he was expecting worse, and he can live with constant whispers and stares and open horror.
And he's fighting through this for me.
Whiskey notices. He cranks the volume even higher and starts telling a story about the time he ate an entire bucket of fried chicken on a dare, and whatever attention was briefly on Wraith is on him now.
He knows exactly what he's doing.
I love him so much.
"I'll get the food," Thane says, shooting Nacho Cheese Asshole a look when she glances back at us again like Wraith might bite her. "Ivy, what do you want?"
"The most buttery popcorn they have. So buttery the popcorn is disintegrating."
He heads for the counter, shoulders squared, a man on a mission. He gets stopped by a few fans on the way who just came from getting autographs from Whiskey, and before long, he's surrounded, too.
"We're never getting popcorn," I sigh.
"I will. I don't usually get crowds," Valek says simply, already heading for the counter.
Plague watches him go.
I flash a grin at him. "Getting attached?" I tease, poking him.
Plague scowls half-heartedly at me. "A little," he admits, conveniently drifting toward the darkest wall of the lobby where there's an oversized cardboard standee for the movie.
It's a muscular blonde zombie woman with Gatling guns for arms, firing down into a teeming horde of normal zombies clawing at her legs.
Wow.
Whiskey wasn't exaggerating. I should've known. Despite his bombastic personality, he doesn't actually exaggerate much at all.
"This film is going to be terrible," Plague says, smoothly changing the subject from Valek.
He's in his usual black turtleneck, hair loose in neat waves, but he isn't wearing a mask today.
In solidarity with Wraith, I guess, even though he's acting like the world's viruses are crawling on every surface here and keeping his hands in his pockets at all times.
"That's the point," I say, coming up alongside him to admire the standee with Wraith by my side.
Thane returns with Valek, each with a drink tray and popcorn buckets, and Whiskey extracts himself from his fan club with a final round of boisterous high-fives.
"Theater twelve," Thane says. "The whole back row's ours. I bought the one in front of it too."
"You bought two rows?"
"Privacy," Valek says with an easy smile.
Thanks, Wraith signs quickly.
Thane just nods and hands his brother a lemonade with a straw already in it.
The theater itself is even darker, and it's empty toward the back. There's a scattering of people down front, teenagers mostly, a couple on a date. Nobody turns around when we file in, even with Whiskey making a shitload of noise.
Wraith takes the corner seat of the back row.
And I take Wraith, climbing into his lap before he's even fully settled, and his whole body exhales beneath me as his arms come up to wrap around me and his chin rests on the top of my head.
"Comfortable?" Valek asks, amused.
"Extremely."
"I know you are. I meant him."
Wraith gives a thumbs-up over my shoulder.
Thane takes the seat to my right, then Whiskey with a popcorn bucket the size of a bass drum and Plague with a tiny water bottle he somehow brought in his coat.
Valek takes the end of the row, closest to the aisle, but I'm not sure if it's because he's acting as security or if he just wants to sit with Plague.
Maybe a bit of both.
The lights drop and Whiskey immediately produces snack after snack from the inside of his leather jacket like contraband. None of these are things they have at the theater. He was clearly waiting for this.
"Got the premium shit," he whispers conspiratorially, passing them down the aisle.
"Thanks," I whisper back when he hands me a pack of sour gummies.
Plague actually lights up when Whiskey flashes him his favorite protein bar, already in the middle of sanitizing his armrests with a wipe. Valek is helping him.
"Factory sealed, baby," Whiskey says.
Thane pretends not to see any of this, staring down into the audience like someone might see this and snitch.
The opening ads start playing. They're terrible, all outdated 3D with tinny voices and loud music. The theater's mascot is an unnecessarily feminine female T-rex that eats all the cartoony audience members who break the rules.
"See?" Whiskey whispers loudly to Thane. "You don't gotta enforce the rules here. Lexi Rexi will."
Thane rolls his eyes.
The previews are even campier.
But the movie is perfect.
Yes, it's a fucking mess. All the zombies have guns for arms, not just the main character, so there must have been a change along the way after they made the standee and the posters.
She's the only one with Gatling guns, though.
The movie never once explains it. A scientist in dark academia clothes, complete with a pocketwatch, who immediately reminds me of Plague is to blame for all of it.
I hear Whiskey chuckling and whispering something to Valek that has Plague hissing in rage.
Wraith even huffs a little at the absurdity and Whiskey's running commentary, which Plague keeps trying in vain to silence even though more than half the people in the theater left when they realized it was a gorefest.
Thane's hand ends up on the armrest between us, open, palm up.
I take it.
His fingers close around mine immediately, and I feel his knuckles are slightly swollen. Still healing from whatever wall he must have punched recently. Even just holding his hand, I can feel how tense he is.
"Hey," I whisper. "You're off duty."
He looks at me sideways. "I'm never off duty."
"Try. For two hours. The zombies have guns for arms, Thane. You deserve this."
He snorts and squeezes my hand, facing the screen and settling in.
He doesn't let go for the entire movie.
And I love every last glorious second.
It's the worst movie ever, and it definitely wasn't a horror movie no matter how many zombies and buckets of blood there were, but I still wish it would go on forever when the credits start rolling to metal guitar riffs.
Because I'm with my pack.
We wait for the theater to completely empty before we move, all in loose formation, Wraith and me at the center, and we come out into the lobby.
Which is not empty.
The earlier showing of some animated movie let out at the same time, and there are families scattered across the dark carpet. There are overtired kids everywhere.
Wraith goes still beside me the second the doors swing shut behind us, and Valek positions himself casually to block anyone's direct line of sight to him.
"Straight line to the doors," Whiskey says, like the kids are enemy soldiers.
We make it halfway.
"'SCUSE ME."
A boy leaps to plant himself directly in our path.
He's maybe six or seven, his light-up sneakers still going off, clutching a plush zombie from the merchandise stand. It's green and floppy with an angry face and guns for arms.
He's looking up, way up, at Wraith.
My whole body goes cold.
Whiskey moves first, stepping in front of us and forming a physical wall that blocks the kid's view of Wraith. "Hey, little bro. Did you see the zombie movie too? Aren't you, uh, a little young for scary shhiii—movies?"
The kid blinks at Whiskey. "My mom lets me watch whatever I want. Are you the Ghosts?"
He's craning to look past Whiskey at Wraith.
Oh shit.
Whiskey lights up, sliding over subtly to keep blocking his view. "Uh, yeah! We are! You want an autograph?" he asks, producing a sharpie from his flannel like he's performing a magic trick.
The kid holds the plush zombie away from Whiskey, out of reach. "Not YOU," he says, with the withering contempt only a child can manage. "Zombies ONLY."
And he holds the plush up toward Wraith.
The lobby noise keeps going around us, but inside our little cluster, everything stops. Whiskey's mouth hangs open mid-word and my grip on Wraith's arm tightens.
Wraith doesn't move, staring down at the kid.
The kid shakes the zombie at Wraith impatiently. "You're the coolest one. You gots real zombie teeth. Sign my guy!"
A woman comes rushing up behind the kid, mortified, reaching for his shoulder. Her eyes travel up Wraith's height, into the shadow of his hood, and land on his face.
She freezes, whatever she was about to say dying in a croak.
Then she looks at her son, hopping on his light-up sneakers, holding his plush zombie up at a seven-foot feral alpha, and she stays planted exactly where she is with her hand resting on his shoulder.
"Matt," she says in a loud whisper. "You have to say please."
"Pleeeeease sign my guy!"
Wraith looks at me, then crouches slowly, lowering himself to the kid's level. Whiskey hands the sharpie across with a huge grin, and Wraith takes it in his scarred fingers and takes the plush zombie in his other hand.
Matt watches Wraith's face from two feet away with enormous, delighted eyes.
"Do your teeth come out?" he asks, hopping.
Wraith blinks, shaking his head.
"That's SO COOL."
Wraith's shoulders shake with a quiet, uncertain huff. He steadies the plush against his knee and carefully signs WRAITH #0 across the chest in his jagged handwriting before handing it back.
Matt hugs the zombie to his chest with one arm and holds up a small fist.
Wraith bumps it, scarred knuckles against tiny ones.
And for the first time, I actually believe it.
I actually believe he's going to be okay.