Page 5 of Raised By Wolves

“Who ya got there?” Dougie Jones rasps. Dougie lives tenhard miles outside of town, so last night he’d put himself in jail to sleep one off. “Is that Ray? Itoldthat fool not to drive.” Dougie sits up and rubs his eyes. Does a double take. “Well, slap my ass and call me Susan, you’re mighty young to be scofflaws!” He grins at Chester. “All you need is two more criminals and you’ll have to hang a No Vacancy sign on the jail.”

“Or you couldleave,” Chester points out.

Dougie considers this. “Maybe after snack time.”

“There is no snack time,” Chester says.

Dougie shrugs. “Hope springs eternal.”

Once the kids are inside the cell together, Chester reaches through the bars and removes their handcuffs. “You’re safe here now,” he says. “When we find your folks, we’ll do our best to get you out of here. Though that won’t necessarily be the end of your troubles.” He shakes his head. “What were you thinking, acting like that?”

The silent girl just stares at him. But the boy walks over to the far corner and turns to face the wall. It takes Chester a second to realize what he’s doing.

“Hey!” The little shit’spissingin the corner, four feet away from the toilet. “What the fuck!” Then Chester shakes his head. “Okay, I get it. You had to mark your territory. Because you’re a damn wolf or whatever.”

The boy turns around and bares his teeth in what might be a grin.

“They ain’t even housebroken?” Dougie cries.

“Pearl!” Chester yells. “Randall—one of you. Bring me some Lysol and towels.” Pearl comes hustling over, and Chester takes the supplies and shoves them through the bars.

Chester watches the girl struggle to make the spray nozzle work.Is she stupid?he thinks.Strung out?Finally she manages to squirt the cleaner on the floor, and then she wordlessly directs her little brother to wipe it up.

Chester offers them soapy paper towels for their hands and faces next. It won’t make them smell better, but he figures that at least it’ll get the blood and dirt off.

By the time these various messes are taken care of, Lacey’s walked down the street with takeout from her diner, and the smell of burgers overpowers the smell of Lysol. The boy comes up to the bars, sniffing madly.

“Miss Lacey brought you some food from her restaurant,” Chester tells him.

“My cook called in sick,” Miss Lacey adds, “so I made it myself.”

The kid snuffles the bag all over, drooling, before his sister takes it away from him and opens it.

She looks up at Chester with her cold gray eyes. “Thanks, Officer,” she says. “And thank you to Miss Lacey, too.”

CHAPTER 5

“YOU CANTALK?”

The poor police chief staggers backward like he’s been slapped. I could probably knock him flat by blowing on him.

Yes, absolutely I can talk. But growling feels sogood.

Now that we’ve established I’m capable of speech—and seeing as how this is mylifewe’re dealing with—I’m going to take over the story. I think it’ll work better that way.

For the record, my name’s Kai, and I’m seventeen (I think). My brother, Holo, is fourteen, give or take. At this particular moment, we’re all each other has in the world, and we are not happy to be here. Surely you can understand why.

The chief gets his balance back and immediately starts glaring at us. “What was all that howling about then? And all that pretending that you didn’t know what I was saying to you?”

I hold up a finger. I’ll consider talking again after I’m done getting whatever this delicious-smelling thing inside the bag is into my empty stomach. I pull out two paper-wrappedpackages, and I smell fatty meat. Warm bread. Holo and I tear the packages open with our teeth.

“Hamburgers,” the chief informs us. “With all the fixins.”

I doubt anyone in the history of the world has eaten hamburgers faster than my brother and I did. Holo basically swallows the thing whole, and then he sniffs around the greasy paper bag, looking all sad and confused like he can’t believe there isn’t another hamburger in there waiting for him.

The chief pulls up a stool on the other side of the bars, and he patiently waits for more words to come out of my mouth. I chew the last few bites extra slow to show him that he’s not as in charge as he thinks he is.

“Okay, you two,” he says when I’m licking the last bit of grease from my fingers. “Why don’t you start with your names? And then you can tell me where your parents are. After that, you can explain why they didn’t teach you that you can’t just break into a convenience store and start stuffing your faces with food you didn’t pay for.”

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