I squinted at him. “You better not be. The pee was gross enough.”
“I’m just sayin’ that smells ain’t good or bad to us. They just tell us what we need to know, and sometimes they make us feel comfortable.” He glared at me again. “Like my hoodie.”
“I’m sorry, okay? I won’t wash it again.” I shoved my hands into my pockets. “What was so comforting about it? You just like your BO or something?”
“Our BO,” he corrected.
“Excuse me?”
“I just like the waywesmell… together. That hoodie had a lot of us in it, and I liked that.”
As frustrating as it was arguing with him, that was unexpectedly sweet—in a strange, gross way. “Now I feel like shit.”
“Good. Maybe you won’t be such a hard ass about me takin’ showers now.”
“Oh no, I’m not changing my mind on that. The deal is I won’t wash your hoodie, but I’ll make damn sure you shower.”
He huffed but didn’t say anything more. We continued along an invisible path that only Roscoe could see, and as the last of the sunlight faded, I grew more concerned.
“How long are we going to stay out here?”
“You got yer supplies, right?”
I shuffled under the light weight of my backpack. “We’re not spending the night in the woods. I didn’t pack enough stuff for that.”
“Yer a goddamn half-turned werewolf. This is where we should be, anyway.” He inhaled deeply through his nose. “Smell that clean air. Mmm, all them pines and maples.”
“You’re smelling deer shit right now, aren’t you?”
“Yeah, that’s in there, too.”
Once again, we laughed it off, but this time, I could admit being at fault and overstepping. It wasn’t like Roscoe to get angry, and he had a point. Everything was changing enough asit was, but I was forcing him into this mold he didn’t fit. Roscoe was older and set in his ways, and he wasn’t going to change his gross habits overnight—even if one of those habits turned out to be something really thoughtful.
“You know a lot about the ferals, and Mosavi thinks you used to be one. Did you?”
One of Roscoe’s ears fell as he shrugged. “I get bits and pieces of when I was younger, and I can remember runnin’ through the woods a lot.”
I elbowed his arm. “Run? I don’t believe it.”
“I run when I have to. Just ain’t had to do it in a while.” He shoved me back playfully. “Maybe I was a hyper little scamp, but I really don’t remember my time with the ferals if I was there.”
“You really don’t know? We could be walking into death right now because you have a hunch.”
“Well, there’s a tiny chance it could’ve just been a really good LSD trip, but this is a different feeling. IknowI was out there, but I just don’tknow—you know?”
“Have you been sneaking sips of beer?”
“Maaaybe.”
Roscoe stepped on a loud branch, which startled me enough that I almost ran into him.
“I can’t see anything. You’d… protect me if anything tried to eat me, right?” I asked.
“Uh… sure.”
“That didn’t exactly instill confidence, Roscoe.”
“There ain’t nothing in these woods that can eat you, so chill out. Plus, ferals would rather fuck you than eat you.”
