Page 43 of Banished From the Pack

“You want purple hair?” he asks, leaning back to peer down at my face.

“I’ve only ever had this color,” I say, picking up a lock of hair. “I didn’t know you could choose different colors. I guess Mama chose this one for me and forgot to tell me I could change it. But I think I might like to try every color before I pick one.”

“Every color, huh,” Callan says, taking another swig of beer and handing back the box. He has that shine in his eyes like he might laugh soon.

My neck and cheeks heat up. “I told Warrick that Ama said it was stupid, and he said, ‘Ama’s a bitch,’ and that I should do it if it makes me happy. So he bought if for me.”

The laugh comes bubbling out of Callan then, and I relax, feeling good that I made him happy, too. For weeks, I’ve been halfway in a daze of grief over Mama and Axel. It’s nice to finally feel like I can smile again without bursting into tears. And the thing that gives me these little nuggets of happiness is making them happy. Well, that, and the little things they do to make me happy.

Callan brings me a wildflower or a fresh rabbit after a hunt. Ethan says I’m doing good even when I mix up the words for things he’s shown me or forget to put soap in the laundry. Warrick said I should be happy, and he gave me three new experiences today—being queen of a motorcycle, going to a cold store, and getting food fast. And they all eat the food I make for dinner even when I burn it, or it tastes strange because I don’t know what things go together.

“Let’s get ‘er done,” Callan says. “How about right now?”

“Okay,” I say, hopping up from the swing.

“This might get messy,” he warns.

“Have you done it before?”

He throws his head back and laughs, then downs the rest of his beer and belches. “No, pet. This is au naturale.” He runs his hand dramatically through his shaggy brown hair.

“I think we can figure it out,” I say. “Can you help?”

“Sure. Might as well get some more use out of these.” He snags the gloves from where he dropped them at his feet on the porch, and we head inside. He opens the box and pulls out a big piece of paper. Staring intently at it, he mouths the words. At last, he points to the sink.

“Over there.”

I like the way all these men tell me exactly what they want instead of making me guess things and get them wrong, like I did with Axel.

I go to the sink in the kitchen. Callan fishes a couple of plastic bottles from the box. He opens them and pours creamy white goo into the dark purple liquid. Shaking the bottle, he says, “Bend over the sink and let your hair hang into the basin.

I do as I’m told.

He gets behind me and squirts the goo into my hair, all over, until it’s completely covered. “Now I’m going to massage this in, and then we wait for it to set.”

I sniff the odd scent of the purple dye while Callan leans over my back and rubs his fingertips into my scalp until I want to purr. I remember Axel’s fingers in my hair, doing the same thing with shampoo, and an ache pierces straight into my heart. I gasp for breath, reeling with the sudden onslaught of pain that comes in bursts every time I remember something from our short time together.

Closing my eyes, I try to come back to the moment. This isn’t Axel, who expected me to know everything and didn’t tell me anything. It’s Callan, who patiently answers the thousand little questions I have every day, and though sometimes he and the others laugh at me, they always let me know that it’s okay if I don’t know, that they’re delighted by my lack of understanding. And then they teach me what I didn’t know, so I can laugh with them.

“How you doin’ down there?” Callan asks, his voice lower and gruffer than usual. I can feel something rigid pressed into my butt from the front of his hips, just like I felt from Axel when we were in the shower.

“Is that your cock?” I ask, remembering what Axel called it. I reach behind me to feel, and Callan lets out a groan.

I pull my hand back. “Did I do something wrong?”

“No, pet. You didn’t do a thing except for being you,” he says, easing back a little. “There. We’re done.”

I don’t want to be done. Frustration rumbles in my throat as a growl. All these sensations and feelings are overwhelming, the way they come popping up like bubbles from the swamp, each one filled with something new—desire, confusion, grief, joy, pain—so many things every day that I don’t know how to feel from one moment to the next. I hang my head in the sink for a moment, letting my sorrows drip down the drain with the droplets of color.

“So, show me what else you got,” Callan says, fitting a plastic hat from the box over my head. He twists the dial on a small white thing on the counter, then we both head for the table.

One by one, I pull out the clothes Warrick purchased for me.

“Trust Warrick to make you look like a bag lady,” Callan says, holding up an oversized T-shirt. “Of course he wouldn’t want to show you off.”

“Show me off?” I ask.

Callan drops the purple shirt he’s holding onto the table. “If Ethan bought you clothes, we wouldn’t be able to take you anywhere,” he says. “Not without starting a riot.”