Page 64 of White Wolf
Kolya made a face but didn’t argue, produced a sandwich from his pocket and handed it over.
~*~
He dreamed wolf dreams. Snow beneath his paws, wind in his face. Smell of ice, and cold, and humans. The fast-beating heart of some small mammal hiding in a burrow down below. He ran and he felt joy, the perfect bunching and stretching of his muscles as he flew across the snow, breathing deep lungfuls of frigid air.
Around him, he smelled his pack, their individual scents as distinct as their faces. Ivan, and Feliks, and Pyotr, and Kolya, and Nikita – closest of all.
There was a hollowness, though. Members missing. Mournful howls shivering on the edges of his hearing.
He skidded to a stop in the snow and threw his head back so he could add his own voice to the chorus.
He woke with the howl echoing deep in his chest. And around him, he realized, as his eyes snapped open and he registered the sound bouncing off close concrete walls.
Concrete. Walls. Bunk room.
Oh.
He knew where he was.
Knewhimself.
Nikita.
Pack.
He blinked and sat up to find five Chekists blinking and sitting up too, all of them staring at him, even Nikita, who probably now had a crick in his neck from whipping toward him so fast. He searched for words, and found them, his voice a hoarse croak. “What’s going on?”
“You can talk?” Pyotr asked, sitting up a little higher, face relieved.
“Yeah, I–” He felt a bubbling pressure in his chest, like when he ate bad fish. It traveled upward, barreling up his throat. He opened his mouth and pitched forward, afraid he’d be sick. But it wasn’t lunch that left his lips…it was agrowl.
Sasha clapped a hand over his mouth and the sound cut off, the pressure in his throat with it. “Shit,” he whispered through his fingers.
“Try it again,” Nikita suggested, amazingly calm considering he was pressed up against someone who’d justgrowled.
“I don’t know how.” He let his hand fall slowly into his lap, and stared at the scuffed toe of Ivan’s boot, frowning. “I don’t…” He thought about it, tunneled deep into his body and let his mind go quiet. He could smell them, all of them, each tangy and vibrant and all different. He could smell the staleness of the blankets and sheets beneath them on the cots. Smell faint echoes of others who’d slept here before them, the little flakes of dead skin they’d pressed into the pillow creases, the oil and dirt they’d tracked across the floor with their boots. It was amazing and overwhelming how many things he could smell. And hear – the buzzing of activity beyond the walls, soldiers moving around, busy bees in a hive.
He thought about the sound he’d made, and then he felt it building in his chest again, rolling up his throat. It didn’t scare him this time, and it rumbled out through his teeth, loud and threatening as it reached out into the room.
He felt himself smile afterward. “So I can do that.”
“I think,” Nikita said, “you can probably do a lot of things.”
“Can we eat? I’mstarving.”
~*~
Sasha was ready to walk to the cafeteria, but Pyotr hurried off and returned with a tray laden with a watery stew with chunks of SPAM floating in it and a slice of pumpernickel without butter. Sasha reached for it readily, though his nose wrinkled at the scent. He was too hungry to be picky, he guessed, but he hadn’t realized before how terrible SPAM smelled.
Pyotr handed over the tray and took a quick step back, jerking his hands so they wouldn’t make contact with Sasha’s.
Sasha hesitated, bread half-dunked in the bowl, sadness overtaking him. Pyotr, his friend, was afraid of him now.
He took a hesitant bite of the bread, and once again hunger overrode everything, even the urge to gag the stew inspired. His belly was empty, and it needed filling, that was all there was to it. He finished the bread in four big bites and then took the hot bowl in both hands, put his lips to the edge, tipped it back, and drank it, SPAM chunks and all.
When he lowered it, and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, he found the others watching him with funny looks on their faces. All except Ivan, who grinned broadly.
“What?”
