Chapter 20 #2
“You and this—Mosavi are more alike than you care to admit. The life you want is the life he struggles to hold onto, and you will chase it like he does. You will grow bitter like he is. You will always chase but never obtain.” The other werewolves disappeared into the woods, but the elder stayed behind.
“You are at the precipice of self-discovery.” He glanced down at Roscoe.
“Some know who they were meant to be, but for others, it could take centuries to figure it out. You may be special in many ways, but at your core, you are only one part of something bigger.” His thin black lips pulled into a smile one last time, and then he turned toward where the others had disappeared into the fog.
“When you were in the city, did you ever see happiness among our kind?”
At that, he dashed into the brush with surprising speed before vanishing like smoke. Moments later, a distant howl echoed a farewell through the trees.
I spat the herb onto the ground, and the colors of morning shifted back to normal.
My thoughts raced, and I remembered my time as a human in that city.
Werewolves had just been pathetic nuisances I’d never given the time of day.
When I started showing signs of my condition, the misery manifested as desperate resumes, like playing the lottery just so they wouldn’t have to live one more cold and humiliating night on the streets.
Those that weren’t begging for scraps ended up like how Roscoe had been before I met him.
The werewolf’s snoring drowned out the caws of ravens hidden in the leaves. They eventually scattered in all directions, but not before swooping to give a swift peck at Roscoe’s head.
Adam and Austin were likely wondering where we were, if Mosavi hadn’t drilled them for answers already.
The less they knew, the better off they were.
All it would take is one of those bewitched items strapped to any of us, and the mayor wouldn’t need to ask.
He wanted control—at least, that’s how it seemed to me.
That elder feral resembled Mosavi in many ways, but he had a peace about him that I couldn’t quite comprehend.
“He is a living contradiction, and the reason I stay in these woods so close to town.”
Was he trying to protect Mosavi or protect others from him? He also mentioned witches. I had been hearing so much about how dangerous they were, but I didn’t really know anything more than what I was told.
The forest was different than when I’d first walked through it.
Instead of it being eerie and dangerous, there was a lingering peace that blanketed the atmosphere as the fog began to lift.
I considered staying one more night under the stars, laughing with Roscoe, but a nagging inside wanted to get away from all these other dreadful thoughts.
I knelt next to Roscoe, ran my fingers through his messy mane before climbing onto his wide torso, to straddle his hips. He was like a warm mattress with lumps in all the right places, and as I lay on top of him, it was hard to keep my eyes open with the rhythm of his breaths.
Remembering how protective he was of me in that vision, I wanted to kiss him awake.
At first, I planted a peck on his wet nose before trailing kisses to the sides of his open mouth, disregarding his frightful morning breath.
It was difficult to get a decent angle when his tongue was hanging out, so I gave him another kiss on the nose.
When I leaned back in to tackle his mouth, he sneezed in my face.
“Ew fuck!” I shouted, scrambling off him, screaming in disgust as I tried to wipe away the snot. “Oh God, it’s in my mouth!”
Roscoe sat up and rubbed his eyes. “What happened? You okay, buddy?”
“I am never kissing you again,” I choked out. I had to use my light jacket to wipe most of it away, but some of it stubbornly lingered on my face. “I’m gonna throw up.”
“It’s just a little snot, jeez. You know how many loads you swallowed last night?”
“That’s not the same!” After I finished wiping my face, I nudged Roscoe with my foot. “Let’s go.”
“Where’re the ferals?” Roscoe asked, jumping to his feet. “Shit! Did you see ‘em leave?”
“Yeah, but we’re not getting any help from them,” I muttered, hooking my arms through the straps of my backpack.
I gathered all the plastic wrappers and beer bottles scattered around camp and threw them in the empty box.
“This was such a waste of time, and now Mosavi’s going to know I was out here. I have to face the guy at some point.”
“I’ll go with ya,” Roscoe said and grabbed the box. “He’s not gonna know we were in the woods, anyway.”
“Not unless he uses the cursed nipple clamps of truth, or whatever perverted fucked up shit he has lying around for fun.”
“He’d be a blast if he wasn’t so damn scary,” Roscoe said in a stuffed-up tone, walking next to me as we headed in the direction that seemed both familiar and unfamiliar at the same time.
“Do you remember which way we came?”
“Uh, I thought you did.”
I slapped my forehead. “You’re the werewolf, Roscoe! You’re supposed to be able to sniff us back home.”
Roscoe gurgled as he inhaled the remaining mucus before spitting it onto the ground.
“I’m feelin’ a little under the weather.”
“That makes no sense. You told me werewolves don’t get sick.”
“Yeah, about that,” Roscoe said, his ears folding back against his head. “That stuff we smoked kinda messes up the senses fer a day er two, but it’s worth it.”
I stopped and glared at him.
“Naw, come on. Don’t look at me like that. It was the only way we could talk to ’em.”
“Really? There was no other way?”
Roscoe scrutinized my face and sighed. “I guess you figured that out, huh? Smoking makes everything better, and you had fun, right?”
“Damn it, Roscoe,” I sneered while examining our surroundings. “Okay, let’s see… we walked west to get here, and the sun is coming up that way.” I pointed toward the heavier brush. “If we just walk in that direction, we’re bound to get to somewhere familiar.”
“You sure about that?”
“No,” I snapped. “I have no sense of direction. You know this!”
“All right, calm down. Goin’ east is a good idea.” Roscoe snorted again, spitting more snot onto the ground.
“That’s so hot,” I said sarcastically while snapping branches and pushing brush out of the way. Before letting go of the dense flora, I noticed something. “Hmm…”
“What’s wrong?”
“I don’t know. There’s something about these bushes,” I said, stumbling through the leaves. “I think we walked by these on the way here.”
“Nah.” Roscoe picked up a branch I snapped off, sneezing again. “We woulda already broken through this place if we had,” he continued, wiping his nose with the back of his arm.
After a few minutes of walking, something tickled the back of my neck.
“There’s a huge spider on you,” Roscoe shouted.
I screamed, flailing my arms and spinning backward. Instead of a spider, I ended up with a face full of leaves courtesy of Roscoe.
“I ain’t never heard a grown man scream like that in my life.” Roscoe shook with laughter, choking on snot as he sneezed again. “Goddamn, I can’t breathe.”
“You’re going in the cage tonight.” I snatched the thin branch away, whipping him with it once before tossing it to the side.
“I thought we agreed that those things were too dangerous to use.”
“I’ll happily make you take that risk,” I said, scratching at my arm, which was starting to burn a little. “There aren’t supposed to be any mosquitoes this time of the year.”
Roscoe’s face went from a squinty grin to wide-eyed horror in less than a second.
“What?”
“Oh shit,” he said, pointing at my face.
“I’m not falling for that again.”
“I’m bein’ serious. Yer face don’t look right.”
Similar to my arms, a burning and itching sensation spread from my forehead down to my cheeks.
“Uh oh,” I said, my heart racing as I picked up the thin branch I’d tossed away.
The leaves were turning a red color, which was typical for fall, but when I counted the three leaflets on each stem, all the blood drained from my face.
“Oh my God. This is poison oak.” I dropped the branch and gripped Roscoe’s chest mane with both fists.
“You rubbed this all over my face, you idiot! I’m going to kill you! ”
Roscoe stood in the middle of the bedroom with his tail tucked between his legs, his hands bound, and his maw wrapped in an enchanted leather strap.
The most satisfying part of all of this was how snug that cage was, since it perfectly molded to Roscoe’s size.
After that, it shrank uncomfortably small.
If this was witchcraft, then I could see why Mosavi got a kick out of it.
It wasn’t that hard to get all this stuff on him. Once I snuck the magic cuffs around his wrists, that was it. His body locked up, and I could do whatever I wanted.
“I’m taking a shower,” I slurred, my face still swollen. I was confused as to why the reaction to the poison oak was so quick and intense. Perhaps the rapid healing had something to do with it, but I didn’t know for sure. “Don’t go anywhere.”
Roscoe whined like an injured dog, snot still oozing from his nose. The strap securing his muzzle wasn’t on that tight, so he could still breathe through his mouth.
I walked out of the room before closing the door behind me as Adam crept through the hallway.
“Ew! What the hell happened to you?”
“Bad life choices,” I muttered, scratching my arms before stepping into the bathroom. “What do you want?”
“I want to know what you did to Austin.”
“What are you talking about?” I stammered, trying to choose my words very carefully. “I just told him to give you more attention.”
“You fucked him, didn’t you?”
“I most certainly did not!”
Adam pulled me into a hug, which wouldn’t have bothered me had my skin not been licked by the leafy tongue of Satan himself.
“Ow,” I said, trying to push him off me.