Page 16 of Fixer
Dustin told me, “Shawn was fifteen when I pretended to kill him.Badly injured.I couldn’t stick around for his full recovery, and he couldn’t pass for eighteen.He couldn’t live on his own.I had a couple of homes picked out, for just-in-case refuges.I got Shawn settled in one of them, paid them to raise him.They had reasons beyond the money.”
Shawn’s smile looked fond.“They were lesbians with unaccepting families of their own.They loved sticking it to authority and anti-queer cults, so a gay runaway with fake ID was no problem.”
“I want to hear about them, to know more, but Isaiah first.Tell me.”A human knowing about werewolves triggered a drumbeat of alarm deep inside me, no matter how calm Dustin and Shawn seemed.
Shawn nodded.“I was eighteen, out running in the woods the night of the first snowfall of winter, and I came across this young man trudging through the snow in far-too-light clothes—”
“And crying.”Zay set a bowl of dinner rolls and another of fruit on the table and sat beside Shawn.“Don’t forget that.”
Shawn folded Zay’s hand in his and squeezed.“I’ll never forget.”The look they exchanged squeezed my heart the same way.
Zay continued the story.“My parents found out I was gay, found the muscle magazines I’d hidden under my mattress, and other stuff.They told me I had to repent and swear to go straight or leave their home forever.I was seventeen.I told them I couldn’t change who I was.I didn’t realize they meant I had to leave right that moment, after dark, with nothing.Dad grabbed my arm, hustled me to the door, asked me if I was ready to fall to my knees, accept Jesus, and repent my sins.I said no, I couldn’t.He shoved me out the door in my socks and indoor clothes, and locked it behind me.”
“Damn.”I turned to Shawn, who’d gone through even worse.He just kept his gaze on Zay, his eyes shining.
“We’d kept a pair of old rubber boots in the barn, a rain slicker, work gloves.I put them on and started walking to town.”Zay’s tone was surprisingly steady.“I’d walked that four miles before.An hour, perhaps less if I jogged.But it started to snow hard and the temperature was dropping.One of my boots leaked.My feet were freezing.I started looking for the turn to the Hendersons’ place instead.They went to the same church, but they’d let me in so I didn’t die.I was pretty sure.Unless they called my folks.Except I got lost in the snow.”
Shawn lowered his hand to rub Zay’s back in small, slow movements.
Zay closed his eyes for a moment, then said, “Perhaps I didn’t make a real effort to follow the drive.Perhaps I didn’t care…”
Shawn interrupted, “It was snowing hard enough for anyone to get lost, even on a short road.Well, any human.I was out there romping in fur, having a good time miles from home, when I smelled a man out in weather no smart human would walk in.I spotted him barely a minute before he fell into a drift and didn’t get back up.I couldn’t leave him there, Wade.”
I didn’t say that wolf law insisted, yes, he could.And should.
“I went over and nudged him, tried to get him to stand.”
Zay gave a choked chuckle.“Which would’ve worked if I could’ve.I thought this huge wolf was trying to eat me.But I was so cold I couldn’t feel my feet, could barely move.I figured I was dead either way, except getting mauled was going to hurt a lot worse than falling asleep in the snow.”
“I couldn’t lift him as a wolf, so I shifted,” Shawn said.“I hooked his arm over my shoulders, and half-dragged him two hundred yards to the Hendersons’ cow barn.”
“Hot naked man in the snow,” Zay pointed out.“I thought I was having the wildest death hallucinations in history.Not bad ones, though, spending my last minutes draped all over Shawn.”
“I was scrawny, not hot.”
“You were hot, Shawn.I know what I saw.Although I was too listless to do anything about it.He dragged me into this cow barn.There were some canvas sheets and an old blanket, and a lot of straw.He let me down in an empty stall and started trying to warm me up.Coming back to life was the most painful thing ever, but he was there for me, wrapped around me, sharing heat.”
“You still lost two toes,” Shawn said.
“You did your best.I’m here now.No regrets.”Zay turned to me.“We talked a lot through that long night.Once he decided I was safe, Shawn shifted into fur, ran home, and came back with his foster moms’ pickup with the plow blade.I have no idea how he made it through the storm.”
“White-knuckling it, mostly.I’d done a lot of driving on the farm for them, and werewolf eyes are better in dim light, even in skin.”
“The Hendersons came out on their porch, looking confused, but Shawn just stopped alongside the barn, got me into the truck, handed me a thermos of hot soup and a blanket, and we drove away.”
Shawn added, “I always wondered if they told your folks about seeing you.”
Zay shrugged, though I’d bet that was fake nonchalance.“My parents never tried to find me, that we could tell.If the Hendersons told them I wasn’t dead, apparently that was enough for Mom and Dad.”
I pointed out, “I guess that’s still better than someone’s pack murdering them on purpose.Maybe not a lot better.No wonder you and Shawn got along.”
“We just clicked, right from that first night.”Zay gave Shawn another one of those warm looks.“He was my champion, convinced his foster moms to take me in.”
“They loved you.”Shawn thumped Zay’s arm.
“Do they know too?”I asked.“That you’re a wolf?”How many humans has Shawn broken our laws with?He’d moved in with his fosters seven years ago.If there was going to be a big, nasty werewolf reveal, surely it wouldn’t have taken that long?
“No,” Dustin told me.“The ladies knew Shawn was gay, nothing else.We pretended the pack was a homophobic human cult he was running from.However, that risk of discovery was one reason I decided to move Shawn and Zay out of the area as soon as both of them finished high school.I’d spent three years praying his foster moms wouldn’t accidentally find out Shawn was a wolf.Distance made him safer.I located this property for sale, and Shawn and Zay were willing to make a go of apple farming.”
