“Now I really wanna meet this guy if he’s got Roscoe riled up.” He looked around, eyeing the edge of the woods. “It’s pretty out here—a little too quiet and creepy for my taste, though.” Darryl settled a hand on my leg. “What did you want to talk to me about earlier? Need a swimming lesson?”
I laughed. “Tempting, but the water level might be a little low after Adam.” He smiled at me, his sharp teeth glistening in the flickering flames of the pit. He hadn’t trimmed the thicker fur on his face into the usual soul patch; instead, he let it grow out a bit more into a full furry beard. He still had that old-wolf surfer look about him. “I know you can do the whole vironoct thing. Are you an elder, too?” I asked.
“Christ, I’m not that old.” His brows furrowed in frustration. “I’m way younger than Roscoe, you know.”
“You smell like the mayor. Plus…” I turned toward him, trying to channel the emotions whenever I’d give Austin a command. My vision brightened as the firelight turned a bluish silver. “I can do it, too.”
“I know,” he said. “And you’d better keep that a secret, or they’ll be after you like they were me.”
“The mayor is the only one who knows, and I think he may be hiding as well.”
“What makes you say that?”
“His wife’s a witch, and she showed me some visions from their past. From what I could see, I think they tried to kill him because of it.”
“Aw fuck. I know exactly who you’re talking about.” Darryl rubbed the sides of his head in frustration. “So Darius is the fucking mayor.”
“You know him?”
“Not personally. He tried to get me to join his little revolution, but I didn’t want any part of it. I know oppression when I see it, and his was just another version of the bullshit that already exists. I don’t like politics. I don’t like living in the shadows while pretending to be human. And I really don’t like witches, even if she claims to be a good one.”
“They keep the town safe from the witches in the woods. At least, that’s what they claim.”
“So, you met her?”
“Yeah,” I said. “She’s actually kinda cool.”
He looked around and took a deep breath through his nose. “When I arrived, I got a bad feeling. Maybe as soon as Adam turns, you guys should come back to White Dunes. I’ll build an addition to my house.”
“Austin’s not going to agree to that.”
“Then leave him here. He can be just as miserable by himself as he is with everyone else.”
“It’s not that simple,” I said, catching myself. “Never mind.”
“There’s nothing you can say that would excuse the way he treated Adam.”
“There are a lot of really awful things he’s working through.”
“Self-inflicted, most likely,” Darryl added. “He made the choice to join the military after I warned him not to.”
“Remember when we were eating that marlin you and Roscoe caught?”
“What about it?”
“You said you knew Austin when he was a half-turn. How much did you know about him back then?”
“Not as much as I probably should have. Just knew he was the kinkiest half-turn I’d ever met. You wouldn’t know it by looking at him now what he was into. There were times I thought things were going too far when they weren’t going far enough. I drew the line in the sand when he started asking me to tie him up and make him bleed. I’ll happily do that shit to Roscoe, but not half-turns.”
“Can you keep a secret?”
Darryl’s ears perked up. “Do you even have to ask?”
He had a point.
“When Austin was a child, his father killed his grandmother, mother, and brother in front of him, shot him in the back of the head, and then killed himself.”
“Jesus fucking christ,” Darryl shouted.
