He started to turn, but his dad spoke first.“You’re my son.You should have told me you were getting married.This is hurtful, and you’re doing it to punish me.”
“To punish you?”That bent laugh found its way out of Tean again.“You turned off the TV one time—I was standing right next to you—and said, ‘I can’t watch two men kiss.’And you said it because youknewI was there.Why in the world would I invite you to my wedding?”
“I never said that!All I’ve ever tried to do is be a good father to you.I think you owe it to me—”
“Get out of my house.”
Tean’s dad stared at him.
“Get out of my house,” Tean said again.“Get off my couch, walk out that door, and get out of my house.Right now.”His dad still hadn’t moved.“Get out of my house!”
His dad stood stiffly.He was no longer favoring the ankle he’d twisted—if it had ever really been twisted at all.He opened his mouth, and for several seconds, nothing came out.Then he said, “Teancum—”
“Get out!”
Outside, a horn honked, and a kid bundled up against the cold zipped along the sidewalk on a scooter.
Then his dad grabbed his shoes, marched to the front door, and left.
28
An hour after leaving Wendell’s house, Jem found a Flying J and parked under the canopy at one of the pumps.It wasn’t even midnight yet.The lights were new and bright, and it was like he was on stage.He’d stopped shaking, but inside, he was like a snow globe, everything whirling around, things flying so thick it was a whiteout.
He went inside.
The men’s room was empty.He washed his face and mouth before he checked himself in the mirror.A little blood on his coat from when he’d bit Zeb.He got some paper towels and then stood there like an idiot because he couldn’t keep the coat.So he wet the paper towels and wiped his face and threw them away.And then he went outside and stepped out of that eggshell of powder-white light and walked across the concrete pad into the dark until he found the commercial dumpsters.He buried his coat there and walked back to the Subaru, his tee too thin for the cold, chafing his arms as his breath steamed.
Back in the car, he turned the heater up.
Had someone seen him?
Maybe.Not likely, but maybe.He hadn’t been thinking clearly.No, scratch that—he hadn’t been thinking at all.Someone else had been driving the car, so to speak.And he’d driven Jem right off a fucking cliff.
Zeb had been in that house.
One of the wolves had been in Wendell’s house.
Why?
The question hadn’t occurred to him until now.He knew it was important, but he was too tired—too drained—to think about it.What mattered was that Zeb had been there.And he’d killed Wendell.More than killed him.Butchered him.
And Jem’s fingerprints were all over that house.
And Jem had punched Wendell.Attacked him in front of dozens of witnesses.
And when the police started digging, they’d find out about care, and the bite, and God only knew what was in the records—would they have any of Jem’s side of it?Any explanation?Probably not.Just the facts.
Psycho ex-foster comes back and murders a pillar of the community.
The wave of nausea made Jem close his eyes.His jaw ached, and for a moment, he could see it again: the bloody mess of what had once been a human being.
That’s not helping.You have to think.
He started the Subaru and eased out of the Flying J’s lot.He headed east, toward the foothills.Not back to Wendell’s house.And not back home—God, not now.Toward one of the neighborhoods around the University of Utah.
Chaquille was a grad student in aerospace engineering, and he was always chill unless his research had gone to shit.He also sold some of the best weed in the valley, and he’d helped Jem out before—for a price.
Right then, he was living in a brick bungalow that some old Mormon dude had split into a duplex.Chaquille had the basement, which was perfect for a guy who didn’t want to get up before noon most days.The entrance was around back, down a gravel drive and past a retaining wall with streaks of rust running down it.Loose stones crunched and slid under Jem’s soles, and when he had to adjust his balance, his knee flared up.He put one hand on the retaining wall.It was cold, and the concrete was rough.
