Page 44 of Just Dare Me
Mom wipes blood from her lips and says, “It doesn’t matter. There’s no avoiding it now. Ben can’t go back on his word, even if he wanted to.”
“But I can talk to him. I’ll tell him—”
“You won’t tell him shit,” Mom snaps.
“Even if we could intervene,” Nolan adds. “Shayne’s dominance would resent us for it.”
Mrs. Cody reels with shock. “Dominance?”
Randy narrows his eyes at me. “That’swhy you feel different.”
I glance from face to face, hoping I don’t look as helpless as I feel. This is a worst-case scenario. Lose-lose. I can’t see any way out of it. All I know is that, like it or not, I had to come. Not just because this is my fight, but because this is my family. I quit the pack, that’s true. But as hard as I tried, I never managed to quit caring for this place—these woods—and all my people here.
My dominance flares with gratification at those two words:my people. I feel that little circle—my circle of trust and protection—swell outwards at an alarming rate, engulfing all of Newport Woods and our wagon train. My true north.
Reassurance settles over me. Not confidence—I’m still shaking with anxiety—but a certainty about my feelings. I don’t feel doubt about coming here, nor regret.
Nolan gives me a supportive nod. “Say what you mean…”
I finish the line. “Mean what you say.”
Stepping onto the path, I plant my feet, square my shoulders, with fists balled at my sides, and lock eyes with Ben. I feel the power of my dominance radiating outward. He feels it too. It stops him cold, his ears perking up.
I speak in a calm but strong voice. “I know you have to do this, Ben. And you’re right to do it. This place and these people—your pack—are every bit a true north to you as they are to me. Only, I quit the pack, and you didn’t. You never would, not for anything. That’s the one—and theonly—thing I respect about you. So you do what you have to do. Just know that I have no regrets about coming back here. You wanna know who the real threat was—your real enemy? Her corpse is right over there. That’s right, she’s dead, because I—” The rest of my words are swallowed in a huge gulp when Ben unleashes a savage bark and charges at me.
So much for courage. With a pathetic whine, I shift and sprint into the woods. My only chance—and it’s not much of one—is to outrun him. We’ve raced in the past. Sometimes he won, sometimes I won. I’d say it’s a coin toss—50/50—but only if I weren’t injured. The gashes in my hind leg jolt me with painful shocks. My entire backside feels stiff and sluggish. Ben easily closes the gap.
I slalom around trees. He follows without missing a beat, snapping at my tail. I pounce on top of a boulder, then skitter down the other side. He clears the whole thing with a powerful leap. I dart through hedges of thick brush, snaking over, under, around the tangles. Ben bulldozes straight through the mess without slowing down one bit, leaving a trail of broken branches. He’s a wrecking ball.
There’s only one thing left to do. It’s a last resort that only delays the inevitable, but I’ve got no other choice. Leaping at the nearest tree trunk, I sink my claws into its bark and scramble up into its branches, just inches out of reach when Ben high jumps and snaps his teeth at me.
My narrow escape is short-lived. Jay’s voice calls out from the direction of the wagon train. He’s shouting my name. Searching for me. Immediately, Ben latches onto the direction of Jay’s voice and sprints off in pursuit.
My stomach does a flop. Abandoning all thoughts of self-preservation, I race along a tree branch and launch myself down at Ben. We collide in a chaotic tumble of scratching and biting and kicking. Ben doesn’t pull any punches. His claws open my skin. His teeth sink into the scruff of my neck.
He’d have ripped me to shreds then and there if it weren’t for another fox suddenly joining the fight. It feels like my dad. Icy dread grips my heart. Nobody can beat Ben in a fight. It’s certain death.
Focusing on the new threat, Ben flings me away. After that beating, I can barely think straight. My body wants to lie still and give up. But I have to see. Gritting my teeth, I raise myself on wobbly legs and watch the fight. The fox pawing at Ben’s face is not my dad. It’s Little Bunica. Her fur is matted and gray, with bare spots showing thin skin sunken between her ribs. She looks starved and sick. Completely feral. But her spirit is strong. I feel her presence and personality as clearly as if she were standing next to me, stroking my fur, telling a campfire story. The potency of her company in that moment almost hurts.
In a blind rage, Ben snaps around, clamps his teeth into her neck, and thrashes so hard that a dozen of her brittle bones crack at once. She goes slack in his jaws, and her presence—that lively spirit—vanishes, taking my breath with it. Ben slams her body to the ground and pounces on it, stomping with his two front paws. He rears back and stomps again. Midway through a third pummeling, he hesitates. Blinking, he backs away from the broken body, then steps forward again with a low whine. After a long moment staring at what he’s done, his shoulders slump, and he slowly backs away.
I want to feel satisfaction at seeing Ben realize what he’s done, how badly he messed up. But I don’t. I only feel sorry, not for him but for all of us. For all of Detroit, even. This city just lost a part of itself.
I also feel something else. Amazingly, Bunica’s presence seems to be fading back in, rematerializing all around me. No, not around me, butinme. A tangible force—not seen, but definitely felt—transfers from Bunica’s lifeless body into my own. My dominance explodes from the sleepy flame of a single match into a roaring bonfire. Physical pain is forgotten. Insecurity and fear shrink away. My heart seems to grow too big for my fox, so I shift.
I feel like a giant glaring down at a scared little pup. Ben backs away with flattened ears and lowered head, an embarrassing show of submission. This time I do get satisfaction from his humiliation. It’s not a smug feeling, though.Justiceis what it is. After all these years, as close as we used to be when we were younger, he only now sees me. Reallyseesme—not the tagalong or the fun drunk or the mate to be claimed. He sees the me that’s grown past him, forever out of reach.
Too bad it took a mountain of dominance to twist his arm. Now it’s too little too late. I want him gone. Out of my sight. Out of my circle. I don’t have to say a word. Ben skitters backward, then bolts away.
I stand there in a daze. Fortunately, I already mourned the loss of Bunica back when she shifted for the last time. If I hadn’t worked through those emotions months ago, I’d be a paralyzed wreck right now. Watching her lifeless body, her matted fur rustling in the breeze, I feel deeply, but not painfully. It’s hard to be sad when saving my life—trading hers for mine—is such a fitting end to the Legend of Dottie Davies. Not because it’s heroic, but because it gives her the last laugh. For as long as I can remember, she always swore that me and my shenanigans would be the death of her.
This moment is surreal. I should be dead four times over, yet somehow I’m standing here, in a place I thought I might never be allowed to stand again, with power I never imagined or asked for, and faced with a future of maddening contradictions. Little Bunica is gone, yet somehow closer than ever; I’m home, but home will never feel the same; Arael Moaz no longer haunts Jay, but is free to haunt all of Detroit; East Side will stop targeting me, but only because they can now target my whole world.
When I woke up this morning, life was one way. Now it’s another. What do you do with that? How do you grasp onto it? I let out a long sigh. Yet another contradiction: If I’m stronger than ever, why do I feel so small?
“Babe?” Jay’s voice is quiet. He’s close—within arm’s reach—but he stops there, waiting for me to acknowledge him. “Babe.”
I’m suddenly aware of tears running down my cheeks. I wipe them with the back of my fist, but that only smears blood across my face. I feel self-conscious. It scares me that Jay won’t come any closer. “Am I…do I seem different? Do I look different?”
