Page 3 of Pack Nightmare

His voice is soft. “They needed me.” He raises his face to look at me directly, eyes blazing with sincerity. “You needed me.”

I’m taken aback by his statement, but my inner voice tells me there’s nothing but truth here. I shake my head, mentally calculating. “That still makes no fucking sense. If you wanted to help street kids, at twenty-four you could have volunteered at a shelter, or that soup kitchen we sometimes visited. I bet there were lots of ways for a college-educated man to help troubled teens. Boys and girls’ club. None of them involve pretending to be younger than you were, choosing to be homeless.”

His expression sharpens. “But you couldn’t be in the boys and girls’ club, could you? Because you were a foster care runaway, Lex. In order to get that kind of help, you had to be in the system. Same as those other kids. So no, volunteering for those organizations wouldn’t have done the same thing, because it wouldn’t have helped you or the others.”

“It’s Layla, and how exactly did you help: by turning us into better thieves?” I spit. It’s a low blow, but I’m furious. I feel so stupid. While he’s still young and handsome, it’s obvious now that he’s much older than I’d assumed. Did he ever tell me an age, or did he just allow me to believe what I wanted to believe? I can’t remember now.

“You know I did more than that, Layla. I kept the pimps and the gangs away from a rag-tag group of street kids for over four years. I protected you, all of you. I kept Chacho from joining the 76th Street Killers, for one. I gave him an option other than falling into gang life to get by.” His tone softens abruptly. “You might like to know, I finally got him to go into foster care. He was adopted last month, actually. By a really great family.”

My heart lurches—Chacho was such a mouthy little wannabe gang-banger in huge jeans and stained white tank tops. Derrek paid him for his questionable haircuts because the kid had a strong sense of pride; he wouldn’t do the community sharing the rest of us took part in. He wanted to pay for everything he received. It almost brings tears to my eyes to imagine him, cleaned up and wearing an actual shirt, sitting down to a family dinner with kind people.

“And what are the rest of them doing, now that you’re not there to ‘protect them’ anymore?” I can’t help myself from digging for something to be angry about. It’s like an intense need I have no control over.

“Well, you might not realize this, but a lot of them are technically adults now. After you left, I started working on getting them into the system, getting aid and housing, educations. The younger ones I worked on, a few went into the system and ended up in good places—yes, I checked up on them,” he cuts off my angry protest. “There are still a few that refused, and I left Hendrix in charge. You remember Hendrix, I’m sure.”

The kid who went by Hendrix was always quieter than most of the others. More than once I’d spotted him in the library, spending his days reading and enjoying the free air conditioning much like I did. He never got into fights with other kids, but I’d seen him stand up for a smaller kid being bullied by an older one when Derrek wasn’t there to keep the peace. Hendrix was a good choice for leader.

I sigh. “Well, I’m glad to hear that some of them are in better spots than they were a year ago. And yes, I remember Hendrix.”

“Do you approve?” Derrek lifts an eyebrow, a smile tugging at the corner of his lips.

“It still doesn’t make sense to me. If you went that far, if you were so determined to protect all those kids, how could you just walk away like that? But yes, I think Hendrix was a good choice, and I’m glad Chacho and some others have actual homes now.”

He nods. “Me too. It’s strange to be here with you, in such a different setting. But I was always sort of a mentor—or at least I tried—so I hope the adjustment time is minimal. From the sounds of it, you’ve been through a lot since I last saw you.”

“I’ll say,” my hurt feelings resurface after the reminder. “I suppose I’m lucky I had someone to take care of me, since none of my friends bothered to show up once the ambulance took me away.”

Derrek’s expression hardens, and he stands, straightening to his full six-feet. “Is that what they told you? We sat all night in the ER. Me, and several of the others. They wouldn’t let us in since we weren’t family. I didn’t leave the hospital for two days, and when your uncle showed up, they said you were being moved and wouldn’t tell me where. I made such a scene he came to talk to me himself, and that’s when he figured out who I was.” He pauses to fish a brown leather wallet out of his pocket and pulls out a somewhat battered business card. I turn it over, seeing my uncle’s name and the city crest of Smoky Falls, along with contact information.

“He gave me this, told me to call him. I assumed once they had you stabilized he’d invite me to come visit in Smoky Falls, but he just gave me a list of requirements and said they could get me a position at SFC if I finished my master’s. He must have researched me. I have no idea how he knew so much.”

My heart thumps painfully. “Derrek, I was in LA for a year. I just got to Smoky Falls in time to start the semester. Two months ago.”

Derrek’s shock is genuine. “Are you kidding me? You’re fucking with me, right? There’s no way. They said…” he trails off, thinking.

“Did they actually say I was in Tennessee?” My voice is hard, and I’m ready to whip my phone out and bitch Roxanne out right now if they lied to him.

“No, I don’t remember them saying it directly. It was just implied. I knew they were moving you, so I guess I just assumed.” He sighs, visibly deflating. “Where were you?”

“They moved me to Cedars Sinai, and when I recovered, I was in an apartment nearby so I could get my GED and attend physical therapy. My arms were pretty bad,” I admit.

“I’m so sorry, Lex- Layla. I promise if I’d known you were in town, I’d have come to visit. We all would have. But… you never came back, either.” His statement isn’t an admonishment, just an implied question.

I swallow, my mind racing. I don’t know how much he knows about the pack; we haven’t really discussed it in detail.

“I… wasn’t allowed to go back,” I answer finally, which is true. “They were worried the person who attacked me might try it again.

Derrek’s eyes darken. “I suppose that’s fair.”

“Did they ever catch the guy? Or know what he was after?”

“They never made an arrest.” His gaze darts away, a guilty expression crossing his face.

“I see.”

Silence falls over us, and I’ve run out of anger. I still feel like he’s not telling me the whole truth, but I don’t know how to process it. He’s not part of the pack, so I can’t feel him the way I feel the others.

Still, there’s something there. Something about him that’s different from normal humans. Tourists visiting town on the weekend are different, and I’ve gotten good at recognizing pack as separate from normies. Now I have a third category—something else. This sense must be how my uncle knew Derrek belonged here. I try to think back to my visit to the pack seer and remember if this is how it felt to be around her, but I was so revved up after the fight, I truthfully don’t recall. I’ll have to ask Roxanne about it.

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