Page 40 of Wolf.e

I exit the side door of the dance hall, crack my water and chug, lifting the hair off my neck. The cool ocean breeze feels incredible.

I look around. The moon is full and the sky clear. I watch the water lap the shore below and I swear I can hear dolphins. I begin to walk, just to clear my head. There isn’t a soul out here, but I hear a crew on the outdoor patio on the other side of the building and I smell their cigarette smoke and weed. I wonder if Wolfe is there, I haven’t seen him since dinner.

Before I even know where I’m heading, I’m moving aimlessly toward the water, thinking about the person I am, and Wolfe’s words telling me to be who I want to be. In truth, without Evan, I don’t even know who that is now, aside from who my parents trained me to be. Who Evan wanted. Even who, once upon a time, the church wanted.

The water lapping at the shore and the thousands of stars overhead call to me, and it seems this little path I’m on will lead me all the way down to the water’s edge.

I pass multiple cabins on my way, some have people partying in them. A woman’s moans sound through an open window as I pass by. I wonder if all the HOH members are the ones staying in these. The sounds finally fall silent as I make it all the way down the hill to a trail at the edge of the woods. It’s here, just before I bend to take off my shoes and walk barefoot in the sand, that I hear it.

The kind of blood curdling groan that instantly makes your stomach turn because you just know something is horribly wrong with the person it came from.

I snap my head to the left to see a flicker of light just beyond the first veil of trees. I wait, but hear nothing as the waves crash into the rocks and shore in the distance. The water retreats to the sea and I, once again, hear the muffled cry and voices. It was definitely a person and they’re hurt in that cabin. I begin to move toward it as fast as my sandal clad feet can carry me. Who would even be staying out here, way off the beaten path?

A sickening crack fills my ears as I approach and then that sound again and more voices. The cabin isn’t even elevated, I walk right up to the open screen door and my blood runs cold as I peer inside.

The stench of burning flesh fills my nose, making me gag.

I fall to my knees because there are just no words for what I see before me.

If I had to try, I would say… Carnage. Bloodlust. Torture.

Two men are on their knees, shirtless, one of them beaten beyond recognition, blood-filled saliva running out of his mouth as it pools on the wet, red tarp beneath his body. Both of them are missing fingers. Their faces are swollen, and someone’s teeth are on the ground. The bigger one is cut open in so many places that my mind can’t fully register all the wounds. He’s bleeding from his ears, his eyes… between his legs. Oh my fucking god.

And the man standing before them both, like a gloriously dark and terrifying god, is Wolfe.

He stalks forward and stands over them, looking down at their broken bodies from his full height, holding some sort of butane torch. He has an evil in his eye as he fires it up, and flames flow in a thin jet from the tip.

I watch, frozen in horror, as he grips the bigger one by the hair and yanks his head up. Wolfe slowly brings the torch to the man's neck, and as his garbled screams fill the air, he burns off the flesh all the way from the ear down to the collarbone. Erasing a tattoo. He’s concentrating like the man’s pain means nothing. It’s like he doesn’t even hear his cries.

The man whispers something I can’t hear, and Wolfe turns down the flames for a moment to listen.

I would almost think the man had just fallen unconscious if it weren’t for the tiny whimpers that leave his lips. His skin still sizzles, as more of the thick, pungent smell fills the air. You’d think I would get up and run but I can’t.

I can’t look away from what I assume is a tattoo associating him with whatever club or gang he’s a part of, now grossly destroyed by Wolfe, chased away by his own charred flesh.

I’m breathing so quickly and so silently I’m not even sure air is making its way to my lungs. My brain screams again to get up and move out of sight but I’m frozen like a deer caught in headlights.

I should be disgusted. I should be in shock.

But all I see is the dark power of the man standing before me. He knows exactly who he is without any shame, guilt or remorse.

It’s… hauntingly beautiful.

I’m so consumed by the horrific feelings rushing through me as I choose to stay there, that I don’t even notice Kai’s eyes on me as I kneel outside the cabin door, the grassy dirt is cool against my skin. Wolfe sets his torch down but there’s no regret on his face for what he’s doing. He doesn’t speak. He just draws his gun.

I feel ready to pass out.

Someone is crying.

“Wolfe.” Kai nods his head in my direction. My eyes flit to him when I hear his name. He turns and his gray eyes snap to mine, holding them for the longest ten seconds of my life.

His gaze is my anchor, and I realize it's me who's crying.

“I’ve heard enough,” I hear Mason say.

I see Wolfe’s mouth move but I don’t hear what he says. Then he takes a single shot—

A shot that hits the bigger man square in the middle of his forehead. He falls lifeless to the floor and there’s a sickening thud when his head meets the bloody tarp.

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