Filed To Story: Alpha's Regret: His Wrongful Rejection
I was a short niblet, but persistent. I managed to get within an inch of the bottle cap by wedging my left foot in between the wall and the water fountain. My ankle was twisted at an unnatural angle, well and truly stuck, but I still stretched my spine and ribs and sides as far as they could go to get a hair closer to my treasure.
I was sweating and grunting and no doubt bright red when the bell rang for the upper elementary change of classes. I kept swiping for it while nobs walked past, pointing and jeering, highly entertained by the grubby scavenger pup too stupid to know she was trapped. A tall male bent over my head and flicked the bottle cap further back on the ledge.
I tugged my raw, burning ankle and strained every joint in my arm and fingers as if I could lengthen my bones by sheer force of will.
That bottle cap was mine.
And then a curt voice cut through my frenzy.
“Hold still.”
Cadoc Collins was untying my sneaker. I froze, more from surprise than submission.
He made quick work of it. He slid my foot from the shoe, and the shoe fell to the ground. Then he lifted me down, no fuss, and fished the bottle cap from the ledge, frowned at it, flipped it, shrugged, and handed it to me.
I snatched it from him with alacrity. It did have a picture of a red eagle on it, the exact kind my Pa drank.
I grinned my thanks, but he was already striding down the hall. Seth Rosser, Cadoc’s shadow even back then, had tousled my hair and said, “Water fountains are for drinking, not climbing, scavenger.”
Scavengers, by nature, treasure small things. A bottle cap. A word. An act of common decency.
That’s why we’re at the bottom of the pack. We don’t care about the big, important things that matter to the nobs.
That’s why you steer clear of them—why if you’re given a choice between two of them, the real answer is “neither” every time. They’re lost. It’s a real dumb wolf who follows a pack leader who’s heading the wrong way.
The fire pops, and my mind meanders off again. Nia stirs, the metronome ticks, and Pritchard snores. Almost at the exact second that the sun rises, Bevan squeaks out a fart and startles himself awake.
Nia and I burst out laughing. Pritchard flails his limbs, staggers to his paws, and then plops on his butt, baffled by his surroundings. Eventually, he shakes out his bristly tan fur and starts licking his crotch.
“Seriously?” Nia mutters.
Pritchard’s what we call ‘all dog.’ Most shifters have some tell when they’re in their wolf form—an air of otherworldliness, an intelligence in the eye, whatever. Then, there’s folks like Pritchard. He’ll lick his butthole right in front of you.
While he’s doing that, Bevan trots over to piss on a tree. When he comes back to the bonfire, he’s in human form, limp dick swinging.
He holds his hands out to the fire. “We done?”
“Yeah,we are.” Nia rolls her eyes. “Thanks for all your help.”
“You’re welcome.” Bevan grins and scratches his hairy ass.
I maneuver the Dutch oven off the tripod while Nia grabs the guys’ clothes from the branch where they hung them. She tosses Bevan his jeans and Baja hoodie and balls up Pritchard’s stuff and pitches it at him. She misses, and they land in the dirt. Pritchard noses and paws at his flannel.
Using silicone oven mitts, I carry the dragon’s tongue into the Airstream and stow it on an old Weber grill I set up in the shower.
When I leave, I double check that the door latches and locks properly. It’s tetchy, and the lock wouldn’t keep a scavenger out—superstition and a healthy fear of the witch do that—but if a raccoon or a bear manages to get in, the dragon’s tongue will be gone. Abertha won’t thank me if she gets back from her walkabout or spirit quest or wherever she’s gone off to this time and the trailer reeks of dead animal. Again.
My ears are still ringing from the last time.
When I’m satisfied the old trailer is critter proof, Nia, Bevan, and Pritchard are ready to go. Pritchard’s still in wolf form, but Bevan’s got his clothes on. The morning breeze carries howls and yips, coming closer. Some folks will be heading back to the Bogs, and those like us who still have time to serve at the Academy have to make our way to the rutted dirt path that runs along the lakeshore.
We hike in silence. Along the way, our numbers grow with our cousins from the Bogs. Those who eke out every last second as their wolf dart off after rabbits and birds—or nothing at all but another minute of freedom—and then they slink back to the group, trailing those of us in our human forms.
I use the term loosely. We’re scavengers. Even in our skins, there’s a lot of fur, claws, fangs, pointed ears, and long snouts. I haven’t shifted yet, so I’m smooth, but I’m an outlier. Most female scavengers have gone into heat and had their first shift by sixteen. I’ll be nineteen in five months.
For a while, the walk along the lake is calming, like a meditation. A pair of herons swoop like they’re practicing take-off and landing, and on the far shore, the water is still stained pink and orange from the sunrise.
But then, as we pass the Narrows, the path becomes level and paved. The black walnuts and honey locusts and persimmons disappear and are replaced with trees that don’t belong here and will never die, planted in configurations designed to mimic a natural distribution. There are fancy lampposts at regular intervals even though the oldest wolf in the pack can see at night if he’s still got his nose.
In other words, shit becomes civilized. Our stroll becomes a trudge. The younger pups begin to complain of belly aches. Bevan passes around linty hard candies from his pocket to shut them up.
We smell the Academy well before it comes into sight. Exhaust from the cars the nobs insist on driving even though their digs are only two or three miles further along the lake shore. Their human perfumes and shampoos and aftershave. Coconut body lotion. Pumpkin spice hand sanitizer.
Predators disguising their scent as food. It’d be funny if it didn’t make your head ache.
Unfortunately, we haven’t dragged our feet enough this morning. First bell hasn’t rung yet. Pups are romping on the playground by the primary school, and the humans are waiting in clusters, chatting. The Quarry Pack wolves are hanging out on the sidewalk where their bus dropped them off. They’re not too excited about starting the day, either.
Moon Lake underclassmen and the boarders from Salt Mountain and North Border gather under various trees and sit on the benches they’ve staked out as their territory.
For the hundredth time, I wish the path from the Bogs led to the plaza at the front of campus where the statue of the Great Alpha Broderick Moore stands on his pedestal overlooking the lake, front leg regally raised as if he’s about to leap into the future, polished bronze balls glinting in the sun. But it doesn’t.
It veers off so we enter campus at the back end of the student parking lot.
As soon as we turn, the pups get squirrelly. The oldest of us scramble to snatch the littlest before they stampede into the woods. I manage to nab a Scurlock even though he’s a wiggler. Bevan scoops up two Wogans, throws one over each shoulder, and grabs a Nevitts by the hand.
This is the moment when the pups bolt if they’re gonna, and the nobs who speed in at the last minute don’t watch for them. Scoring a close parking space is more important than watching out for us.
Once they park, seniors head for campus—they still have coursework to grind out—but postgrads tend to loiter by their shiny new cars, bought by Daddy for acing their first internship rotation or scoring an interview with the risk assessment department.
I couldn’t handle it if they made scavengers do the two years of “continuing education,” but they don’t even try. Internships and “finishing” courses like Human-Shifter Relations are reserved for ranked wolves. They’re welcome to it.
I’m out of this place the second the last bell rings at the end of year twelve, and no one’s gonna be able to find me to do a day for a cousin who wants to cut. I’m not stepping foot past the Narrows again if I can help it.
Even now, my steps are slowing. For a bastion of bullshit and misery, Moon Lake Academy looks pretty as a picture. Red bricks and white columns, classical mouldings and porticos. Cobblestone paths. Tall oaks with trunks wide enough to hide a passel of pups behind.
There’s a bad memory in every corner. There’s the bench beside the tot lot where Nia, Bevan, and I had to sit out recess for all of nursery school and kindergarten because we wouldn’t wear shoes.
There’s the Dumpster behind the middle grades building that we were responsible for compacting on our first janitorial rotation. The job never rotated, but we never crushed down the trash like they wanted either. We’d hang out and shoot the shit until someone was sent looking for us.
Past the big buildings for the primary school and middle grades, the various academic halls are arranged around a long, perfectly manicured lawn edged with beds of low shrubs. The first time I saw Bevan get his ass beaten by a nob was when he tore up the grass with his claws racing Pritchard to lunch in sixth grade.
A convertible blows past us, and the Scurlock I’ve got by the hand takes advantage of my momentary distraction to contort himself into a mannequin with its arms and legs twisted backwards. I have to kind of lift him on my hip and haul him the rest of the way. I try to be gentle, but the little dude isn’t making it easy.
“Only six hours, friend, and you can sleep away the morning.” The instructors don’t try to keep us awake. They only care if we’re in our desks.
“I hate it.” He loosens up and gives one last mighty flail, but at maybe forty pounds soaking wet, he’s no match for me.
“I know.” I wince as his heel nails my shin. “But hey, don’t take it out on me, eh?”
He settles a bit, but he’s still not gonna operate under his own steam. I hug him close. I remember my sister Drona dragging me here in pretty much the same way. I couldn’t bear the hours indoors, and I worried about my plants. Abertha knows herblore like the back of her hand, but she kills growing things just by looking at them.
We’re close to campus when my wolf perks up. This is weird. She’s always awake at dawn and dusk, alert for sleepy critters with their guard down, but she rarely shows sustained interest in her surroundings when we’re not in the woods. She’s a very wolfy wolf. I can’t wait to meet her.
There’s something in the air, though, that’s got her by the nose. She raises her snout and sniffs the air. Not really, not in a physical sense, but on the plane where she exists—my mind or the spirit realm or wherever—she comes to her feet, alert and alive.
What does she smell?
I inhale. Gasoline. Engine exhaust. Humans. The chemicals the nobs have sprayed on the grass to make it that bright shade of green so late in fall.
And wood.
Fresh cut wood, but not. It’s like the very essence of wood. Oh, it’s delicious. It chases away all other scents, including the cereal breath of the little guy I’m hauling like a sack of potatoes.
I could smell it all day. I could immerse my whole face in it. Throw myself backwards into it in bliss like a lady on TV into a featherbed.
What is it?
I want to eat it, but it’s not a food smell.
It’s coming from the row of cars reserved for the postgrads from the five high-ranking families. I search the groups of perfectly groomed males and females in khakis and light blue button-down shirts with their messenger bags and sunglasses on cords and fake laughs and smarmy smiles.
The future leaders of the pack.
I never look at them directly. Wouldn’t want to inadvertently challenge one of them into kicking my ass into next Sunday.