Chapter Thirteen
Bayen walked right in front of Tabian’s truck without looking up. He wore a frown on his face and stared at the ground. He was the only kid out here who wasn’t with friends.
Tabian was sitting in the car line with the parents, waiting for their kids to get out of the high school, and he observed Bayen come out of the building alone, not say hi to anyone, and worse?
He watched the groups of teens get quiet as he walked by and talk among themselves, tossing him dirty looks.
A low snarl was still rattling his throat.
Bayen was distracted and didn’t notice the empty parking spot until he was nearly on top of it.
He looked around and then turned and saw Tabian’s truck. Oh, he would recognize it from last night. That or from the channel, if Bayen really watched his videos.
Tabian rolled down the window and twitched his head.
“Where’s Tru’s car?” he gritted out as he approached the window.
“Tru needed it to run some errands. I told her I would give you a ride home.”
He huffed an angry laugh and clapped his hand on the open window frame. “No thanks. I’ll walk.”
“Face it.”
Bayen stopped and looked around at the two groups of kids watching their interaction.
“Face what?” Bayen asked, turning back around.
“The hard conversations. Look, you can get in and I can take you home, and you can listen to what I have to say for what? Ten minutes? And then you can get out and go inside and decide to flip me off at the door. I was tough like that too once upon a time.”
Bayen clenched his jaw hard and stared off to the side. “What’s option two? Fight you?”
“Ha!” Tabian cleared his throat. “Look, a part of me wants to tell you hell yeah, I love that response, but I’m pretty sure your momma would skin me alive if I encourage that.”
“She’s not my mom,” he ground out.
“Right.” Tabian sighed and corrected himself. “Stepmom.”
“She’s just Trudy.”
“I’ll buy you an entire pizza and give you twenty bucks if you get in my truck and stop giving me shit.”
“That’s bribery.”
“So?”
“Well…old people aren’t supposed to bribe kids.”
Old? Okay now he kind of wanted to fight this little idiot. Tabian pinched the bridge of his nose and counted to three before he responded. “Forty bucks and a pizza.”
“Fifty bucks, two pizzas, a two-liter bottle of Pepsi, and cheesy bread.”
Fuck. This kid was annoying. “Fine,” he ground out.
Bayen offered an empty smile and yanked the door open, then shoved his backpack in the back, whacking Tabian in the face as he did.
“Dude,” Tabian growled.
“Accident.” Kid didn’t even try to hide the lie in his voice.
Tabian’s eye was already twitching.
“Sell your product, and hurry up about it,” Bayen said, fiddling with the air conditioner. “I don’t want you ruining my pizza binge with your annoying words.”
Where did he even start?
Bayen had turned heavy metal on at a deafening volume, and Tabian turned the knob all the way down. “You’re hurting my ears.”
“You’re hurting my eyes. I don’t even know what Trudy sees in you, you look like a fuckin’ goblin.”
Tabian gripped the steering wheel in a strangle hold. “I can see why you have so many friends at school,” he said sarcastically.
Bayen tossed him a dirty look, and it was enough. That had stung him.
Tabian frowned over at him. “Why were those kids staring at you like that?”
“Why do you think?” he grumbled, staring out the window.
“They all know you’re a werewolf?”
Bayen tossed him an annoyed glance, and yep, his eyes were glowing gold. “There’s not really any hiding it.”
“I went to public school.”
“With other werewolves?”
“Yes.”
“Let me guess,” Bayen said in a bored tone. “You hung out with people who understood you and were just like you. You Changed together after school and ran the woods together and your wolves hunted together and you had best friends for life?”
“Well…” Tabian thought of his childhood friends. He did still stay in touch with most of them. “Yeah.”
“Cool, now imagine you’re the only werewolf in your school and no one wants to even sit at the same table as you at lunch. Ever.”
Damn. Tabian tried to imagine it, but his mind flinched away from the thought of such loneliness. “No humans want to hang with you?”
Bayen shook his head. “Is this the speech? I’m bored of it already.”
“Do you start fights with them?” Tabian asked, trying to understand the weird looks the kids were giving him. Sure, humans didn’t like being around werewolves in general, but they usually got used to them eventually. These kids should be desensitized at least a little.
Bayen shrugged. “I’m a loser. I don’t know what to tell you.”
“Maybe it’s because you’re fuckin’ mean to everyone,” he grumbled. “Ever think about being nice for a change?”
“I’m nice to the people who deserve it.”
“I haven’t even seen you be nice to Tru.”
“Because you’ve only seen me around her when I’m upset.”
“No, she talks about how hard you’ve been on her.”
Bayen huffed a growl. “I like Dominos. They have stuffed crust.”
Tabian took a right at the light. “It’s my favorite too.”
“Congratulations,” Bayen said in a dull voice. He reached forward and pulled the handle for the glove compartment, exposing a handgun and a clip of bullets.
He touched one of the bullets and flinched his finger back. “Silver?” he asked.
“Yeah, for if you fuckin’ annoy me,” Tabian deadpanned.
“Seriously? Why do you have a gun. You have a wolf. A big one. Why would you need this?”
Bayen seemed serious, so Tabian reached over and shut the glove compartment.
“A while back my Pack was at war. We were booted out of the government land and stripped of our ranks, our identity, our Pack name, the works. My Alpha was glue. He kept us together. It came with some bloodshed though while we carved out our place here.”
“With a rival Pack?”
“And with the Elders. We are operating outside of their power now. I don’t know how much you know about the Elders, but they don’t really like losing control.”
“I’ve seen Elders before. They’re assholes.”
“Language.”
“You cuss.”
“I’m not a sixteen-year-old boy.”
“My dad said I can cuss as long as I don’t suck at it.”
Aaaah. There it was—the first mention of Tru’s ex.
“Well, then who am I to tell you to stop?” Tabian asked.
Bayen was staring at him with a deep frown etched into his face.
“What?” Tabian asked after a minute.
“I’m waiting for the punchline. You’re trying to be the new stepdad, right?”
“Hell no. You’re annoying, and rude, and your wolf is out of control. I’m not trying to claim that as my problem. You would fight me every step of the way if I tried. I was like you once. I would’ve done the same thing if another man came in and tried to tell me what to do.”
Bayen finally looked away from him and back out the window. He was quiet now.
“I’m not looking for a stepdad position with you, kid.
I could just be Tabian, same as Tru is Trudy to you.
I’m going to be around though. You’ll fight it, clearly.
You’re going to insult me and distance yourself and make Tru pay for being happy, and we will see how long you carry on.
You won’t chase me away though. I like her. ”
Bayen tossed him a dirty look, then back to the window. “I can get rid of you.”
“You think so? You mean if you give Tru ultimatums? Maybe. It would hurt Tru though. Why would you want to hurt her?”
“Look, we both know why you are here,” Bayen snapped.
“Tru has something that draws in the damn werewolves. She has a giving heart and she gets taken advantage of easily by you deadbeats. She has something you want or something you need, and you will do whatever it takes to get it until she is drained, and a shell of herself. Only you got to her too late. You are picking up scraps. She doesn’t have any money.
Do you know how much life she used to have in her?
When I first met her? I was in middle school and she took me on so many adventures.
She was always smiling. Always laughing.
Always talking to her friends on the phone, and they were hilarious.
She was hilarious. She could light up a room without even trying.
You couldn’t be in a bad mood around her, because she would drag you up and have you laughing, even if you wanted to be mad.
The Tru you think you know isn’t her at all.
This is the leftover Tru after my dad deconstructed her.
He took his time too. He made her doubt herself, stole her smile away, and chased her friends off.
I watched it. He only came around to keep her in line with these stupid controlling rules only he understood, and then he left, and he dumped me on her and now I’m… I’m…fuck.”
“You’re what?”
“I’m the one that drains her now. She can’t take any more.
Do you understand? She can’t take another one of us.
I’ll be eighteen in two years. I’m looking for a part-time job now.
I’m going to save up for a truck, and get through high school, and work up in my job, and move out, and she will be free to find herself again.
She has two years, bro. Two years and she’s free of what my dad did.
” He jammed a finger at Tabian. “You are going to mess that up.”
And there it was. There was where the anger came from.
Bayen wasn’t just some idiot kid who only thought about himself. He had self-awareness. He had a plan. He wanted a good future for Tru and he saw Tabian as a threat to that.
Okay.
Okay.
“My dad left when I was ten,” Tabian admitted low.
“Is this the part where you bond with me over our sad childhoods?” Bayen asked sarcastically. “No thanks.”
“Nah. It’s an awful thing to bond over. I just know from personal experience that sometimes when a parent leaves, a kid takes on a lot of stuff that isn’t theirs to take on.”