I do too.
We can’t do it now.
But we won’t forget.
And then one last statement from Walter, this one spoken aloud. “Do not disappear on me.”
“I won’t. I swear.”
It was done. They got out of the car and began walking through the crew toward the center of the crowd. To the right, nine kangaroos huffed and grunted in a tight cluster around Sand. They were surrounded by nervous-looking cops with guns and Tasers. Bing had no idea what a Taser would do to a phantom kangaroo, and he really didn’t want to find out. He stepped forward with Walter, pitching his voice loud enough to be heard by all.
“The beasts will stay calm if we all do. Just relax. And please back away.”
No one moved, but then again, no one got more tense, which was something. Meanwhile, Walter strode over to where the director faced off with the grand master. Kong was there too, looking around with wide eyes and a nervous twitch to his gestures. As Walter headed over, Sand looked up, her expression lifting into one of utter glee.
“Finally! You’re here! We can begin.”
Walter turned at her words and shook his head. “No, Auntie. We’re not beginning anything right now.” He was strong, forceful, and the crew immediately nodded. They knew who was in charge.
Auntie Sand, however, wasn’t as sanguine. She stomped forward while the kangaroo behind her began grunting with true agitation.
Hell, this was going south fast. Bing stepped in, his gaze on the cops. His voice was strong as he spoke. “Don’t worry about the kangaroos. I will stop them.” It was a lie. Even as a werewolf, he couldn’t manage that many at once, and he certainly couldn’t if Sand wanted them to attack. But the point was to project calm. It helped in a small way, of course, but most everyone’s attention was on Walter, who was managing many things at once, while the director, Sand, and the grand master, as well as the sheriff, all tried to talk to him at once. Even Gator the disaster blogger was inching forward with his cell phone out, likely livestreaming the whole thing.
For a moment Walter looked small as everyone converged on him, while around them, chaos threatened. But then Walter looked up and met Bing’s gaze. His eyes weren’t panicked. His expression looked solid, but there was a second there where he seemed to need to know that Bing was there, looking for grounding in the presence of his best friend.
Bing smiled. How could he not be there for his lover? Walter had stepped into his greatest power: managing chaos with calm. And yet he still looked to Bing, not from weakness but from a place of connection. It was the two of them against the bizarre, and love swelled in Bing’s heart like never before.
In that moment he realized what an idiot he’d been. He’d rejected Walter not because of any deficit on Walter’s part but because he’d been afraid of this. The look across the room that said,I am connected to you. You mean something to me. I need you in my life.
That had sent Bing running before because he’d been afraid. Because he’d thought he was stronger alone. Even in his wolf pack, he had been the lone outsider, not making friends, not making connections.
And then he had done the ultimate in stupidity—he’d rejected Red Wolf because the character had been made from love, as if somehow that made the persona less real, the feelings less true.
He loved Walter. He loved that Walter had created Red Wolf for him out of love. And he was an idiot for rejecting the character and Walter in a misguided attempt to find out who he truly was.
“Quite a spectacle, isn’t it?” Gator said as he sidled up to Bing. Apparently he couldn’t get close to Walter, so now he was trying to get information from Bing.
“You need to back up,” Bing said, returning his gaze to the kangaroos.
“Sure, sure,” Gator said. “Just tell me one thing first, okay? Why are you here?”
“What?”
“This movie is the Red Wolf origin story. You’re the actor who used to play the part, but you’re not relevant anymore. So what are you doing here?”
Good question. He wasn’t a werewolf anymore without Red Wolf’s power. And he wasn’t an actor in this movie. He took a breath and decided for once in his life to say the truth, even though it scared the hell out of him.
“I’m here because Walter Chen needs me here. I’m here because I love him.”
There. He’d said it aloud. He’d told the world that he was gay and that he loved Walter. God, did that feel good. Finally he was opening himself up to love. It felt like warmth that expanded from his chest out into his body. A feeling of strength filled him. And when he looked back at Gator, he saw the tourist with different eyes. He saw the coils of energy that were the man, but also the overlay of something darker—something that fed on the energy the man generated.
The demon that Sand had warned about.
He lifted his eyes and saw even more—a haze of mystic energy, thick in the air. He saw which of the kangaroos were phantom and the one that was real. And he saw Sand, Walter, and the grand master with eyes that could sort fact from fiction, mystic from mundane.
And he knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that he was Red Wolf once again.
