Page 34 of Raised By Wolves

They haven’t.

I’m right above them.

I wait, my hands unmoving in the water, until I feel a brushagainst my wrist—and then my fingers snap closed around a fish’s belly. I pin it to the bottom of the undercut while it struggles. I work my fingers into the gills so I’ve got a good grip, and then I fling it over my shoulder onto the shore.

Kai 1, rainbow trout 0.

Holo lowers himself into the water so he can reach under the bank and grab them from below. He moves slowly, slowly, sloooowly—until suddenly he doesn’t.

“Pinned one,” he says, grinning. Water streams down his happy face.

We repeat the herd-and-grab process until we’ve got a little pile of speckled rainbow trout. While Holo guts and cleans them, I look around for more things to eat. I don’t have to look too hard to find morel mushrooms and a bunch of miner’s lettuce.

We rest creekside for a while, and then we walk back to the cottage with our arms full. In the early evening we make a fire in the yard. And by the time Lacey and the chief get home, there’s a feast waiting for them.

Lacey looks like you could knock her over with a sneeze. “Did you two—”

“Yes,” Holo interrupts, so excited to surprise her. “We cooked dinner!”

“I don’t think anyone’s cooked me dinner in a decade,” Lacey says, and then she gives the chief the side-eye.

He says, “Oh, come on now, Lacey, I grill us steaks.”

“Okay,” she acknowledges. “But you sure don’t know how to make a salad or a side dish, do you?”

“A what?” the chief says, and then they’re laughing, and hekisses her cheek before she goes into the kitchen and brings out a bottle of wine. The chief spreads out a blanket on the grass. Then he goes inside and comes back out with plates and forks.

“Why are you bringing all that stuff out here?” Holo wants to know.

“When it’s a nice day, sometimes you eat outside on the ground, and it’s called a picnic,” Lacey says.

“I guess wolves have picnics all the time, then,” Holo says.

Lacey laughs, but of course Holo isn’t trying to be funny; he’s just figuring stuff out. And considering we’ve never lived in an actual house before, or been to actual school, we’re not nearly as ignorant as we could be.

The food we made is a thousand times better than Wendy’s or the slop they serve in the cafeteria. Lacey’s licking her fingers when she says, “You know what, Holo, you might just be right.”

“About what?” he asks eagerly. He’s so excited to be right about something—anything.

“About Kai being the best cook there is,” she says.

Then she grins at him and ruffles his hair, and my brother doesn’t duck away. Instead he smiles back at her, and then he rests his head on her shoulder.

The compliment ought to make me feel good. But suddenly I’m afraid. I’m convinced that the human world is going to tear my brother and me apart.

CHAPTER 25

BACK AT SCHOOL on Monday, I can’t stop thinking about that missing girl. Julissa. When did she disappear? And why?

Her mother seems to think that sixteen years is old enough to leave. If you ask me, she’s probably right. Hell, a wolf might leave its pack when it’s two.

But the chief seems pretty worried. Like maybe something bad happened to her. I wonder if Julissa’s okay, and if she knows people are wanting her back home. Maybe she thinks that no one’s even noticed she’s gone.

Did anyone notice when Holo and I disappeared? I don’t know. All I know is that it’s a lonely thing to wonder.

I must’ve had a weird look on my face, because suddenly Waylon plops down next to me in the cafeteria and says, “Look, I know you prefer growling to talking, but you’ve obviously got something on your mind.” He leans closer and says confidentially, “I have to warn you, I don’t speak Wolf. But I get straight As in English and solid Bs in Spanish.”

I’m so surprised that he snuck up on me that I just stare athim. How could I let my guard down like that? But his body language saysfriend,notfoe. Okay, fine, good—but what am I supposed to say back? The woods taught me a lot of things, but the art of conversation wasn’t one of them.

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