Page 111 of Big Bad Bully
I know she’s safe–I’ve done what I can to ensure that–but there’s a sense of loss that’s unfathomable. Like I’m missing a part of me I never knew I had. And never will have.
My wolf whines, wondering why we’re not with her.
“She doesn’t want to see us,” I tell him. He doesn’t understand. To him, things are simple. A mate is the one person in the world you want to be with. So you be with them. You protect them. You hunt for them. You help lick their wounds. And when it’s night and you’re together, you howl at the moon.
It's taking everything in me not to go to her. But …she asked for space, and I respect that.
I also have some things to deal with on my own.
That’s why I’m in Maine, back on the lands where I grew up. I’ve always loved the woods here. The vibrant green moss and ferns, the lichen-covered rocks. The cold, spring fed lakes and deep quiet.
But the beauty is tainted because when I’m here, I hear my father’s voice from the past. Right now it’s morphed into an angry mocking. “Are you sad? What, are you going to cry? Stop moping, boy,” followed by a punch to the head.
And if he knew I was broken-hearted over a human? I can’t imagine what he’d do to me. If I was small and weak again.
I pace through the woods, heading toward the pack houses. I pause when I come to the clearing where my father made me watch a human die.
A twig cracks.
“I know it’s you,” I call. “And I know you stepped on a stick on purpose. You’re usually quieter than that.” I look back, and there’s a giant wolf. A white and gray wolf, like mine, except she has a splash of black on one ear.
“Hey, Boo.”
My sister shifts to human form and stands.
“You’re nuts,” she informs me.
“This is going to end today.” I told her everything on a phone call on the way up.
“Mm hmm.” She walks past me to a tree with a big hollow about head height. She rises to tiptoe and pulls out a black waterproof bag, the sort that campers use. It seems she has a stash of clothes at the ready.
Once she’s dressed, I study her. She’s in jeans and a faded “Dark Side of the Moon” t-shirt. Even dressed, she looks a little wild. Her bare feet are tanned, and her long hair hangs snarled down her back.
I remember how, when she was first exiled, she showed up on pack land in an old pickup truck, desperate to see me. I was so scared my father would order his enforcers to kill her. She was strong enough to fight him, but if he sent enough wolves, they would all be able to overpower her.
Back then, I wrote a note to her and had a trusted pack member smuggle it to her. In it, I told her to stay away and not worry about me. I wanted her to be happy and free. I planned to escape as soon as I could. I just had to survive my teenage years under the tyranny of my father.
And now I have, and I’m back for closure.
“Are we doing this?” she asks.
“Might as well. I came all this way.” We grin at each other.
We review our plan. I ask her how she’s going to hide her scent until the right moment, and she just gives me a smile. “I have my ways.”
“You’ve come here before,” I point to the tree where she stashed her clothes. “Visiting friends?”
“Someone has to watch over this pack.”
“And that someone is you?”
She nods, and I accept it. “Let’s do this then.”
She disappears, and I walk deeper into the woods to find my father.
After a few minutes, the wind shifts. It was blowing past me towards the pack. This would carry my scent straight to my father’s door. Now it carries his scent back to me.
He’s coming. He has a few enforcers with him. Of course he does.
