“Okay, kiddo,” Mom says, clearly fighting the urge to pry for more information. “Sleep well.”
“Night, Max.” Dad is already unpausing the TV.
“Good night.”
Once up in my room I pull off my shredded button-down and shove it into the back of my closet, reminding myself to take it out to the trash tomorrow before my parents can see it. I think about messaging Jasper but don’t want to come off as too clingy or obsessed—play it cool, Max—so instead I head for the shower, wanting to make sure the already-healing wounds on my back are clean and any residual blood is gone.
When I’m washed and ready for bed, I slip my aching limbs under the covers, finally feeling the weight of the night’s events settling into my bones and muscles, and glance at my phone to find a text from Jasper waiting.
Thank you for tonight. Have a good sleep. See you soon. Xxx
I begin crafting a reply but before I can hit Send my eyes are already closing. Exhaustion overcomes my body and I slip into sleep, dropping my phone on the comforter.
I’m standing on the roof of the packhouse, over a hundred stories in the air. Above me clouds roll and tumble, lightning splitting the sky and casting my attacker’s face half in light, half in shadow.
Clayton has his paws on me, his claws digging into my chest, his jaws snapping, slick with glistening saliva, and crowded with razor-sharp teeth. My back is bending unnaturally over the balustrade as I fight to stay upright. Below, traffic whirs past in strips of gold and red light. The pedestrians are a crowd of black dots hustling to and fro—all unaware that I’m under attack.
I thrash and fight but it’s no use against Clayton’s immense strength. I have to do something or Clayton will surely kill me, push me over the edge and send me tumbling. As I stare into his black eyes I realize I do have strength, a power neither Clayton nor any other wolf has.
With my eyes closed, I relax my body and open my mind.
Like a spider’s web the strands of my consciousness reach out, a net of squiggly and swirling red veins, curling and twisting in all directions. I search the strands for Clayton’s, and find it in the darkness, rotten and deteriorating, falling apart like a diseased root. Just as I’m about to follow the thread into Clayton’s consciousness I feel something, a gentle tug on my consciousness, pulling my attention elsewhere.
I glance about, searching for the source of the distraction, but it’s gone. The blood strands flicker and pulse, they shiver and quake, they reposition themselves.They’re alive.
Again I feel the pull, only it’s stronger this time. I spin to catch it, and stare into the inky blackness. It comes again like a pulse. I move toward it. The pull tugs over and over, rushing past me like waves, drawing me nearer with each surge. And then I realize not only can I feel it, I can hear it. The pulse has sound, and that sound is a howl.
The second I hear it, I’m torn from the vision—pulled back onto the roof. Only Clayton is gone, the shape of his wolf replaced by a human form.
Jasper.
His hair is a mess, his shirt untucked and unbuttoned. He stares at me with dark, vengeful eyes. His teeth are clenched, his brow slick with sweat. His hands are on my neck and I can’t breathe.
“Killer,” he rasps between clenched teeth.
With a grunt and groan, he hoists me over the side of the building, and I’m powerless to stop him.
The ground rushes at me as I fall, and I’m about to hit the sidewalk when…
“Maximilian!” I’m woken the next morning by Mom bellowing my name from downstairs. “Maximilian Xavier Remus! Get your butt down here!”
I sit up in bed, wincing as the skin on my back is pulled taught, tugging at my injuries which have scarred over in the night. My head is throbbing like I drank a whole beer keg, even though I didn’t touch a drop, and images from my dream are swirling in my mind.What was that? A howl? Why did I feel like it was calling to me? And what was with Jasper calling me a…killer?
“I’m not joking, kiddo!”
Mom doesn’t sound like she’s messing around, so as fast as I can I jump out of bed, slip on a T-shirt from the pile on my floor, and run downstairs. I’m still wiping my bleary eyes when I find Mom and Dad waiting for me in the hall.
“What is it? What’s wrong?”
Mom looks flustered and Dad is wearing gardening gloves, like he was pulled away from planting his spring bulbs to address whatever emergency is happening.
“I just received a text from Katie’s mom, who received a text from her friend Stacy, who was texted by Kaitlin Thompson.”
“Okaaaaaay,” I say, shaking my head. “You got a text. It happens. What’s so important?”
“Kaitlin was at the packhouse last night,” Mom says, her eyes wild.
Oh. Oh no.
