Chapter 10
“Aloka.”
I wake up to Stark bent over me. Squinting from the light, my hips ache and I stretch my legs out toward the wall. I move onto my knees with a groan. Healing is exhausting and yesterday was something new. After a month of new, it was nice that this something was not so bad.
Stark grips my arms, pulling me onto my feet. I sway and he holds me still.
“Sorry. Floors aren’t great on the body.” I twist, trying to release the tension in my spine.
“Why are you still in your dress?”
“Oh, um, I . . . never mind.”
He looks better than last night, dressed in a loose T-shirt and another pair of jogging pants. Blacked out again.
“I don’t know what you did last night, but thank you.”
Heat flushes across my cheeks. “Nothing like some good bandaging. Don’t worry about it.”
His hand comes back to my arm and the tingles flow. “No,” he says as heat swarms me, “it was something else.” He lifts his shirt. The white wrap is gone, and the four horizontal gashes have been replaced with deep-red skin.
“That wolf blood works wonders. I’m jealous. I should go get out of this.” I pull away and step around him, closing the door behind me. In all the spirits, I thought it’d be slower acting.
A double knock comes on the door. “I’m heading out. Stay in the house and don’t open the door for anyone.”
Like I’m a child who’s grounded.
“No, thanks,” I mutter to the empty room, knowing he can’t hear me.
Heat builds in my chest, spreading down to my hands. By the time I cross the room to grab my clothes, my palms are burning. I try to breathe and keep the magic from reacting to my emotions, but controlling it has never been that simple.
Stark leaves on foot, and not long after he’s gone, I scan the map in his office.
If I head northeast, I should reach the right road for home.
It looks like the run should take a few hours, but driving down the highway isn’t an option.
Stark probably has the keys for my vehicle locked away.
Tire tracks would be obvious in the snow, even if I do find them.
I unlock my window and open it just enough to slide out. Hands gripping the wood-planked windowsill, I hang my legs down, one foot reaching for the small ledge of stones. When I get my toe on it, I jump back into the deep snow. Cold air surrounds me and I can’t wait to get moving.
My runners crunch into the crusted top layer of snow. Wind blows my hair back off my shoulders. I leave the window open so I can climb back in later.
Before I can move, though, brakes screech to a halt around the corner. I rush back through my deep footprints to lean against the cold stone wall. A door slams, then another.
“Let’s get the bitch.” The man’s voice spins in my head as I try to pin it to a face.
“Yeah, no Alpha to defend her this time.”
My lungs empty as my lips sting with the reminder of being slammed into a truck door. Stark didn’t lie.
One of them knocks on the front door. It’s locked, so maybe they’ll think I’m gone. A bang comes, then another. “Here, little human.” They’re quieter now, like they’ve made it inside.
They’ll scent me out here.
I bolt for the trees. With any luck, they won’t hear me.
The second the trees enclose me, I pick it up, taking in the fresh air.
The snow is deep in some spots, but I try to follow some sets of tracks as I wind through the expansive trees, light shining down.
I slide past a few low branches, scraping my arm on pine needles, refusing to slow down.
If they turn and start looking, they’ll catch up in no time.
My chest throws heat out through my limbs as I crouch beside a tree to listen.
Thick breathing sounds. A growl rips through the forest. My pulse races, heart pounding in my chest. I wish Stark was here right now, but he headed in the opposite direction.
There are no options for hiding, so I dive off the path and run through the thicker trees they’d have to take out to get around as werewolves.
This way.
As I hear the branches break somewhere close, the magic inside me gets protective, heating my skin to pain.
There’s no choice now.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper up to the sky. Pratt is screaming, I know it. Mom will be too.
Bracing myself, I pick up speed through a line of trees to a small opening.
The feeling of fire rips through me head to toe.
I block out all sensations of cold as I push harder, slowing down my breath, then let it out.
My vision sharpens, and my claws grip the ground in front of me just as I find a well-used pack trail.
The heat becomes comfortable as I charge through the trees, growing in speed.
My body sighs. It’s been weeks since I’ve turned.
A howl rings out, making me wonder why I even risked turning so close to other wolves’ homes.
I pick up the pace and change course, hitting another wolf’s trail.
Home will have to wait. My vision forms an easy-to-follow tunnel as I run, and the sounds of the two wolves behind me start to lessen.
They have just reached where my footprints disappeared and massive tracks would have taken their place mixed with others. I step off the previous wolf’s tracks.
Has to be Stark. Look at that print.
We’ll get her soon enough. He can’t protect her forever.
The urge to howl itches my throat, but I hold it back in case they decide to investigate.
Once I’ve run another few miles, I can’t hear a sound from them.
The wind whips past my fur. I accept my fate, slowing to a crouch in the snow as I drain the heat into the air around me until the sharpness of everything fades. The deep snow sinks away.
Back to two feet, I cross the distance toward home, the urgency to run or do anything fading.
The trees get closer together, a sign I’m close.
I weave through them, bending under branches.
It’s been almost three weeks since I was forced to leave.
Three weeks since Pratt risked his life for the pack.
The burning appears in an instant, and the snow around my legs becomes slush.
If only I could be like Stark and control my emotions.
I might be able to control the magic’s push to be front and center.
There are no sounds other than me and the odd squirrel.
I pass one deer, but hear no signs of other wolves.
Most of the pack doesn’t come up here. The dense trees love to tear at your skin while running through them.
Plus, for border patrol, the humans are south, leading cohorts like Stark’s even further away.
An unused roadway comes into view just past the trees, and I turn to walk alongside it. When I reach the edge of the property, my feet stop moving.
Pratt isn’t going to be here.
I need to do this, I tell myself. It’s home. Where I belong.
I force my feet forward until I reach the small clearing of trees.
Untouched white snow fills it. The small log home rests off to the right side, lighter than Stark’s, with a chimney that sticks out close to the peak of the roof.
Large beams make a fan pattern over the porch, and a thin wooden railing, lines it leaving a space in the middle for a set of stairs.
The first time I turned . . . the steps looked the same.
My body hummed, the largest grin on my face as I ran toward home. I did it—I’m not an outcast anymore. My ears flicked with anticipation as I rounded the house into the front yard. The things I could smell. Howling away.
Mom stepped out onto the porch, wiping a tear away from her cheek. It took a few tries, but I turned back and walked up the steps to join her, panting.
“Did you see?” My smile spread across my entire face, my movements jerky as I did a small dance.
“I did, sweetheart. I’m so proud of you.” Her eyes dropped in sorrow and her smile fell away with them.
“What is it?”
“I’m taking you out of school.”
I moved against the railing, away from her. “Why? I finally can keep up with everyone else.”
“Because you’re red, sweetheart. Red werewolves don’t exist.”
I can almost see myself running off the steps all those years ago, taking off for the trees. The sadness and betrayal of that moment crawls back across my skin.
Shifting through the deep snow, I reach the porch and stick my hand into the fake pot beside the door.
Pulling out a key, I place it in the lock and turn until the dead bolt clicks.
Inside, the smell floods my nose—Pratt, me, Mom.
I lock the door behind me and go straight for his room.
It’s been next to mine since we were kids.
Everything is the same. Even Pratt’s clothes still hang over the end of his bed.
The room blurs as tears begin to drip down my cheeks.
I grab his favorite blue sweater off his bed and pull it on.
The smell of him wraps me like a comfortable hug.
“How did this happen?” I ask the memories of his stuff.
I bend down and cross my arms over my legs to sob.
A wail breaks free, and I have no desire to stop it.
The tears flow harder, until the blue sleeves become filled with dark, wet stains.
If only I could’ve just been like everyone else. Maybe then I’d have friends, or at least some sort of support from those who know me. But no one left has a clue. I lost them all when my mom pulled me out of school.
A few days after, Pratt found me in the forest, my legs dangling over a cliff edge.
“What’s wrong with me?”
“There’s nothing wrong with you. It’s what’s wrong with everyone else that you should be asking.”
“Why can’t I be a normal color like you and Mom? I don’t get why other people can’t know. It’s just a color.”
He handed me a book—The Reds: A Legend—and left me to read.
The legend comes from centuries ago, maybe thousands of years, with various story retellings.
A red wolf appeared with unique gifts beyond the ordinary.
But when the other wolves in the pack found out that it could heal, the red wolf was hunted and used as a sacrifice to the spirits.
That legend is now used to teach young wolves about the power of jealousy and how it can make you do unfathomable things.
I shuffle over to my own room to find the various books of legends on the shelves.
One red wolf could change their own size on command, going from a domestic dog to the size of a large truck in a blink.
Some of the stories are even more dark than the first, like having their abilities abused, leading to a slow, agonizing death.
A good reminder for why I need to be careful.
It’s time to do what I came here for.
Under the tiny bathroom sink is human hair dye.
It’s distasteful to werewolves to hide your natural color, but the red grew more and more vibrant, no longer just noticeable in the sun.
Hats weren’t cutting it. Even as a kid, people would ask my mom about the color of my hair, and she’d make jokes about the lighting.
She never admitted anything, hoping it wasn’t true, until that day on the porch then she came up with the idea to dye it. It’s been my routine ever since.
I slide on a pair of latex gloves and mix the brown coloring in a small bowl until it becomes smooth. I begin parting my hair, the red stretching out further from my head, then slick the dye on with a small paintbrush until it covers all my roots.
“Goodbye again,” I say quietly.
My arms feel rubbery from the angle, and a slimy sound forms as I rub it in, the chemical smell filling the bathroom. I wrap my head in a plastic cover and wait thirty minutes before shoving my head under the bathtub tap. Brown dye dots slick the walls as I scrub out the thickened paste.
Dark roots stare back at me. I wish I could see my true color once again in this lifetime.
I bend over and shake my damp hair out, taking a black towel to squeeze the excess water.
When I flip up, it’s scrunched into curls that will fall out as it dries.
I wipe down the tub and anywhere else of evidence of hair dye and throw the extra dye I have into a bag in the kitchen.
The corner kitchen is small, with over-filled cabinets.
Next to it is a small round table for eating, and the rest of the space is used for the living room.
The entire room would fit in my bedroom at Stark’s.
Distaste fills my gut as I notice Mom’s crocheted blanket draping over the couch.
I pick it up and wrap myself in it. Between its smell and being back in Pratt’s sweater, it’s like they’re in the room with me.
I stare at the door, waiting, wishing it was all a joke, testing to see if I could keep a secret or not.
How am I the one left? More tears drip onto my neck.
Pratt’s voice the morning he left had been so ordinary.
I didn’t know he wouldn’t come back that day.
Not until the searing pain started to spread in different spots—one under the ribs, another in the thigh. The last two up by my collarbone.
Now he’s gone. My hands vibrate, then the rest of me begins to shake. I pull the blanket tighter around me and close my eyes, hoping to visit Pratt in a dream.
The entire house is dark when I wake. I refuse to turn on any lights to draw attention, and starting a fire in the stove would be worse.
I make sure I locked the door and flood heat through my limbs, just enough for comfort.
The small solar panels behind the house are enough to power things so pipes don’t freeze, and that’s about it.
Stark’s going to think I’m dead the second he smells those guys at the house.
I can live here, with all the memories of my family.
The fact that Stark thinks he can control whether I enter and leave a house is crazy.
Pratt wasn’t even that strict, and he knew why I needed to be hidden.
Here, I can go for a run and turn whenever I want, be free and alone.
If I’m here, I won’t be risking giving things away by healing the intense, black, muscled werewolf man.
It’s better this way. The Elders won’t complain if I’m dead.