“Are you sure you don’t want to come home with us?” Quetzalli asked, once I released her from the farewell embrace. It was a bad idea, but for a second, I allowed myself to imagine climbing out the attic window that night and slipping through the dark to meet up with Quetzalli on the road. Unfortunately, my mind continued on to the inevitable conclusion of that scenario—the Chief showing up on Wolfie’s doorstep the next morning to take me back by force, the younger alpha challenging my father, and the cousins slaughtering every one of my friends. I might want to go home with Quetzalli, but I wouldn’t do it.
“No, I have to stay here and figure out what’s wrong with Haven,” I told her. “Tell Wolfie … .” My voice trailed off as I realized I couldn’t think of anything to say to the young alpha. Tell him I loved him? Bad idea—that would just make the bloodling bring the fight to Haven. Tell him I was sorry? Same result, most likely, since it might make Wolfie forgive me for my harsh words. “Just tell him goodbye for me,” I said finally, and I was glad Quetzalli didn’t linger over her own farewell since I knew I wouldn’t be able to speak again through the sobs trying to force themselves up out of my chest.
***
When I woke, my throat was still sore from the crying jag I’d succumbed to as soon as Quetzalli walked out the door. It was dark outside, but the waning moon was pushing through the curtainless window, filling my attic domicile with a soft glow and proving that I’d slept through the evening and half the night.
I stretched, suddenly wide awake despite the late hour, then glanced across the room at Quetzalli’s empty bed. But the bed was no longer empty. Instead, a large wolf was sprawled across the mattress, and my heart leaped, imagining that Quetzalli had dropped off Iris and then crept back into the attic to rejoin me. Perhaps I wasn’t so alone after all.
But as I tilted my head to the side to get a better look, the wolf tilted her head as well, and I realized the canine was simply my own reflection in the darkened window. My reflection, I tried out the words, and suddenly felt like I was flying. Shiftless no longer, my wolf had come to comfort me with fur.
If I’d been in my human form, I would have laughed at the notion that a fit of self pity was all that was required to break through my inability to change forms. But with the wolf brain and my human side merged into one mind and body, we were instead enveloped by a calm that I hadn’t felt in years. We were able to think clearly for the first time in weeks, without any confusing human emotions to weigh us down.
To celebrate, my wolf and I decided to run together, releasing the last of the angstful emotions that had been churning through our belly. But as we rose into a crouch, we felt paper rather than sheets crinkling beneath our paws, and my human brain jolted back to the forefront.
Looking down, my nose knew what had happened before my eyes could focus on the torn envelope. My dead sister’s scent wafted up from the disinterred sheet of paper, and the wolf and I breathed deeply, knowing that this decade-old aroma would dissipate before long. Despite ourselves, we whined, missing Brooke’s soft lap and gentle hands. She’d sat right here beside us so many times, brushing the tangles out of our wayward hair and braiding it back into a simple plait, or comforting us when we’d clashed with our father over some rule we considered stupid and he considered gospel. Her scent on the paper seemed to bring long-forgotten pieces of my sister back to life in my mind.
“I’m sorry he’s so hard on you,” Brooke had told my human form once, not long before she left home. It had always seemed unfair that my sister could float through her days beneath my father’s radar while I was the harridan who seemed in constant need of reprimands, but I didn’t resent my older sister so much as I hated my father for the unwanted attention. “You know it’s only because the two of you are so much alike, right?” Brooke continued gently, rubbing my back in slow, soothing circles.
“I’m nothing like him!” I retorted, stiffening in horror at the notion that the Chief and I shared anything other than 50% of our DNA. Even before our mother died, I hadn’t wanted to grow up to be like my father, who never had a kind word for any of his children and who believed in an eye for an eye justice.
“You’re just like him,” Brooke disagreed quietly, which got my dander up further. But my sister was always the fence-mender in our family, so I knew she wasn’t being nasty for the sake of getting my goat. “You’re strong and smart and caring … .”
“Caring?!” the younger me interjected. “Father doesn’t care about us at all. Don’t you think that if he did, he’d let you apply to colleges like you want?”
Brooke smiled sadly at me, pulling my stiff shoulders into her body until I softened against her curves. “He does care about us, Terra,” she replied. “But he cares about the good of the pack even more.”
***