“You lived near my pack?” Mia asks.
“With Agatha,” I say.
Mia smiles just thinking of old Agatha.
Omar nods. “She was very good to me.”
Their eyes meet and I can tell they’re forming a bond in that moment, based on a shared love of their mutual friend.
“I’m sorry to be a downer,” Olivia says, interrupting their moment. “But I think you might have wasted your time coming out here.”
“What do you mean?” I ask.
“The rogues aren’t going to fight alongside a pack.”
She says it so matter-of-factly, as if there’s no possible world in which rogues and pack wolves could work together.
“Why not?”
“They’re too scattered. There’s no governing body or unifying system. You can visit all the settlements you want but no one is going to sign up on their own.”
“She might be right,” Omar says. I shoot him a look that saysHow long have you been mulling this hopeless thought over?He holds up his hands in apology. “I’m just saying. It’s a thought I’ve been having these last few days. What we’re doing, isn’t it starting to feel a little futile?”
I think back on how many rogue settlements or camps or communes we’ve visited and still no one has agreed to help us.
Omar continues, “Maybe I should have known. Hell, if I was in their position there’s no chance I’d leave the safety of my community to go to war for a pack that never cared whether I live or die. It’s only because rogues were getting hurt that I care now.”
I give him a dirty look.
“And because you’re part of the pack in question.”
That’s better.
“So what are we supposed to do?” I ask. “Give up?”
Omar looks sort of like he’s already resigned to defeat. Olivia has her lips pursed in a way that suggests this result should have been obvious. Mia though, Mia is chewing her bottom lip, her eyes shifting focus, like she’s mulling something over.
“What are you thinking?” I ask.
“There is maybe a way to unify the rogues,” she says carefully, thinking through each word before letting it out. “Have either of you heard of the Big Howl?”
“The Big Howl?” I ask. “No, what is it?”
Olivia, Omar, and I sit facing Mia, waiting for her to explain. She takes a second, twisting one toe into the soft earth littered with fallen leaves and twigs.
“The Big Howl, as far as I know, is like a battle cry or a call to action,” she says. “I’ve only read about it and only in the contextof a wolf pack. It’s supposed to be something an alpha can do to speak to their whole pack at once, in case they’re separated or spread out. It’s supposed to unify them toward a single goal.”
I almost jump out of my seat, my bowl toppling off my knees and onto the ground. “That sounds perfect.”
“Just one problem,” Omar says. “Are you forgetting something?”
He scans the rest of us and I realize, even though we’re in a rogue settlement and even though Mia and Olivia live here, Omar is the only legit rogue of the group.
“What?”
“The rogues don’t have an alpha. Even if this Big Howl would work, there’s no one to do it. That’s sort of the problem.”
All four of us cast our eyes low, defeated or in thought, it’s hard to say.
