Walking Wolf Road (Wolf Road Chronicles Book 1) (10 page)

“I was raised by a nurse too, I know how it is,” would usually shut him up though.

In truth, the similarity between us kinda creeped me out. Similar houses, raised by single mothers who put themselves through nursing school to provide for us. Both trained to shop on a slim budget and pinch pennies into plates before the age of ten. Neither of us had a dad. I couldn’t begrudge him being enamored with John, but I couldn’t quite stamp out the jealousy either.

It was a good thing I had the extra time available; Fen didn’t just help me study for school, he was also bent on educating me in Werewolfery 101. Sometimes Fen would try to stuff so much into my brain that I would be reeling half an hour in. What made it harder was that this…
noise
kept fading in and out of the background, distracting me, like a fuzzy cloud of voices. I frustrated myself when I couldn’t quite understand something, but the amused look in Fen’s eyes made it worthwhile when I got it.  

He explained the types of shifts that were—potentially—possible, and I felt like I needed a notepad to jot down everything as he spouted it off. My brain just about liquefied trying to keep up with all the jargon about possession shifting and bilocation shifting, one of them was where your animal form went out on its own like a ghost—but which one?

A notepad probably
wouldn’t
be a bad idea…

When he started rambling about the ‘
therian’s role’, I had no clue what he meant, so I asked.

“We’re technically therianthropes, not lycanthropes,” he replied, his charcoal never ceasing movement. “This isn’t a mental illness; we just… seem to have animal souls. There are a lot of fakes on the internet just looking for attention, but there are real Therians like us out there too. The question we all ask is why are we here? Why are we the way we are?

“It’s part of the reason why I want to study ecology and wildlife biology. Being human in appearance gives me an advantage to help protect the wild from humanity. But inside I am a wolf, and think like a wolf; so I see things differently. Like an inside agent; a wolf in man’s clothing.” He smiled, but it wilted a little at the edges.  

“I have to find a way to use what I am. We’re made this way for a purpose, we just have to figure out
why
we walk between worlds; but can never belong in any of them. A freak even among freaks… Only in other shifters like ourselves can we find even a moment’s brief reprieve from the isolation, and yet even that is so often denied us…” His tone grew sour; but he quickly masked his expression.

“The shamans of the world… they know better than anyone else what it is like… They also walk between worlds, between the spirit and the flesh. They journey into the Lowerworld and bring back spirits to heal and make the world whole again.”

“The Lowerworld? That place where I saw Lupa?”

“Yeah, though what you saw is just a fragment of the entire plane. The place is—literally—inf
inite. It’s funny how much the therian and shamanic worlds intersect, a lot of us develop shamanic skills. It’s not very surprising though when you realize that most shifters have Native American heritage. It’s like there’s something in the blood that hasn’t had the connection beaten out of it yet.”

I bit my tongue. I couldn’t stop myself from thinking about the man who’d knocked up my teenage mother and then disappeared into the Idaho woods. Was he like me? Did a fire-eyed wolf dwell within him as well? I shuddered and fought to suppress the wave of rage that surged through me.

It didn’t matter, I would never know anyway.

He didn’t want me, he didn’t know anything about me. He disappeared and I would never find him. Never meet him. Never punch him in the fucking face for what he put us through—

My charcoal squeaked against the paper just before it snapped and shot across the room. Fen paused and looked at me as I reached into the box with grubby fingers for another piece, but my expression never slipped for a moment. He took a second to collect his thoughts before he continued, but I couldn’t focus on his words as my mind spun off onto its own tangent.

Unexpected possibilities had stirred and now my mind flew over deep evergreen woods, over the rolling hills of the Idaho in my mind’s eye, untouched and pristine. The land looked… familiar for some reason. Especially that huge greenish blue lake, with the tall spires of rock
on the shore…

“Jimmy?”

Fen pulled me out of my head just as I felt I was about to connect something important. “What?” I asked.

“I asked where you want to go for college.”

“I… don’t know,” I muttered as Mrs. Ashcroft’s words cycled through my head again. “I don’t know what I want to do yet. John’s willing to pay for me to go, but I just… I don’t think I’m good enough to actually
do
anything. I’m not smart like you, and my only talents are next to worthless.” I held up my charcoal, and sighed. Once I’d said it to Mrs. Ashcroft it was easier to admit, but I hadn’t tried it on my parents yet.

Fen’s expression grew dark, and he was silent for a moment. His voice was soft when he spoke, and I almost didn’t hear him. “I’d give anything to have your problem. I know exactly what I want to do, but I can’t afford it. You have a free ride, and you don’t know what to do with it.”

“I’d trade you if I could.” More than he knew.

I’d noticed it before, but after we celebrated the Blood Moon in October, the noise grew worse.

Noise. That was the only description that even came close to fitting. Just this… static inside my head. It was usually formless, but
whenever I started to fall asleep random words emerged from the din; and on particularly bad nights, screams and crying. Every once in a while I heard someone speak my name and I jolted awake. Before long,
I developed a state of lethargic insomnia, and I couldn’t even think around the noise and the weariness. The exhaustion made me crabby, and it expressed itself in the most inopportune places.

I got a D on a math quiz, and John and I fought over it for a week. The academic probation loomed over everything in the back of my mind, and gnawed at me until I broke down and literally begged Mr. Parkman to let me do something,
anything
, for extra credit.

It was impossible not to hear how well the football team was doing on a daily—if not hourly—basis. They’d made it to the State finals, plus, the entire school was buzzing with cruel gossip about why Bo quit the football team out of the blue a week before the big game. Mr. Parkman finally relented to my pestering, and agreed to give me some extra points for helping him and Jeremy swap out equipment from a storage shed out by the football field. I met him after school and dropped my bag off in his office. He propped the gym and hallway doors open and we loaded up all the summer gear into big carts and mesh bags.

Mr. Parkman undid the padlock on the storage shed and we started a chain-gang hauling stuff in and out through the cold autumn air while the football team ran through drills next to us on the field. Some other students sat on the bleachers and watched, mostly the team’s current or hopeful girlfriends. Mr. Parkman stayed behind to help Jeremy wrestle with a big stack almost to the storeroom ceiling which threatened to avalanche hockey gear, so I went outside for another cart of basketballs while the team dispersed. I heard voices approach the shed as I wheeled out my new load, but instead of Mr. Parkman, it was Jack and Malcolm walking down the track ring to where Jack’s girlfriend Tabby waited on the first row of bleachers. A nasty spurt of surprise made me pause a moment, but I put my eyes on the ground and pushed past them as they sat down and watched me.

“
Dude, check out the brownnoser.” Malcolm sneered, and my ear swiveled toward them.

“Yeah. Hey, why aren’t you out banging your Goth bitch girlfriend?” I ignored Jack as best I could and kept going. “I bet she’s a real freak in the sack.”

“Well, you got the freak part right…” Tabby joked, and they laughed while my face grew hot. A sick feeling welled up in my stomach as the dragon shifted inside me and I ground my teeth.

“Or—” Jack started like he’d been struck by divine genius, “Maybe he’s more interested in that twink with the creepy eyes.” I walked faster and hoped they didn’t see how red my face was. They chortled at each other, “Oh, I think we hit a nerve there. Hey, come over here, let’s have a little chat.” I heard them stand up and follow me.

My wolf growled low in my throat, but even he knew that we didn’t stand much of a chance against the two of them together.

Just a little further and you can make it to the gate, maybe Mr. Parkman is coming out right now and they’ll leave you alone.

“Hey, I told you to come here.” I walked a little faster and heard their footsteps patter as they ran after me. I glanced over my shoulder, and panic spilled through me in an icy wave. The promise of violence was only too clear in their eyes, so I ditched the cart and bolted. I rounded the corner of the bleachers but the wind had blown the gate closed. “Fuck!”

I only slowed down for a moment, and then I drew on every bit of strength the wolf could lend me and leapt. I made it halfway and started to climb over, but a strong hand grabbed my ankle and pulled my foot out from underneath me. I biffed it hard on top of the chain-links and cried out as bright pain flashed through my chest and hand. Two pairs of hands pried me off the fence and threw me down on the ground. I glimpsed a white sneaker a moment before it collided with my head and I curled up into a ball to protect myself. Another kick wrenched my shoulder as a blow to my kidneys knocked the wind out of me.

Tabby screamed at them to stop just before Mr. Parkman’s whistle cut through the air, shrill and painful, but welcome. Jack swore, and I heard their shoes patter as they ran away, and then the smell of rubber and sweat that defined Mr. Parkman came close.

“Jimmy, are you okay?” I looked at him, my chest cold, fighting to keep the frustrated tears inside. He hissed when he looked at me, and I finally noticed the huge crimson stain that saturated my shirt. “Can you stand?” I nodded uncertainly, and my knees wobbled. I felt cold and sick to my stomach, my hands shook as he lifted one of my arms over his shoulder, and I was so lightheaded I would have just faceplanted if he hadn’t. Jeremy caught up to us and they helped me inside and had me lift up my shirt. Two ragged gashes dashed across my sternum where the top of the fence links had punctured my shirt, and a red hole pooled blood in the middle of my hand like stigmata. Jeremy called my house, and then helped clean me up with his first aid kit. The alcohol burned like hell, but I was just glad it wasn’t worse.

“
What happened?” Mr. Parkman asked as Jeremy scrubbed with a cotton swab and I gritted my teeth. I explained as best I could between hisses of pain. “I’ll talk to the principal tomorrow, just let me take care of it…” I hoped it was Mom coming to get me, so of course it was John who walked through the door a few minutes later.

I slouched in sullen silence as he drove us home and ranted at me, but I couldn’t even generate the energy necessary to give a damn. “These antics have got to stop Jimmy. Your mother and I can’t keep dropping everything to come running every time you have a crisis. I’m supposed to meet the pastor to bid for that new church design in twenty minutes, and now I don’t know if I’m going to make it in time. Money doesn’t grow on trees, we
need
this contract.”

“You didn’t have to come get me, I would’ve walked home.” I glowered at my distorted reflection in the window, and John’s tone softened a little. My dragon moved again, like John called it by name and dangled a treat for it.

“Don’t be ridiculous, I won’t let you walk home looking like you were shot.”

“Talk about ridiculous, you nag me about ruining your plans, but don’t even give me a choice in the matter. I’ll get out right now if it’d help.”
And get me away from you.

John was silent a moment, and when he spoke his voice was just a little softer. “That’s not the point…”

I didn’t know what the point was, and I didn’t care.

I went to the school the next day with, if possible, an even worse mood than before. Mom had wrapped my hand up like a mummy, again, and the bandage she
’d taped to my chest plucked hair out every time I moved.

Mr. Spritari pulled me out of Art before lunch and dragged me down to the counselor’s office. Fen watched me leave with a puzzled look on his face. Mr. Spritari closed the door behind us, and walked around his cluttered desk where he steepled his fingers and stared at me.

“So Jimmy, why don’t you tell me what happened after school yesterday?”

I swallowed nervously, and recounted events as best I could. His face remained cold and unreadable the entire time. When I finished, he looked down at his desk and took a deep breath. “Jimmy, do you remember last month when we discussed your academic probation, and I warned you that violent actions of any kind would not be tolerated?”

I swallowed again, feeling sick to my stomach, “But it wasn’t my fault!”

“Look at it from my perspective Jimmy; you have a record of altercations that followed you from your previous schools. I don’t know you. I know the other students involved though, who are some of our top athletes, and Jack Reinhart’s father is a pillar of the community. Jack’s statement indicates that you provoked him, contrary to your claims, and that you threw the first punch. His face had clearly been struck when we spoke this morning.”

“But, I never touched him!” My jaw dropped open, and I sputtered with incredulous rage. Fucking small-town bureaucracy. How could this be happening? I felt trapped, while the injustice of it burned inside me. “What about Mr. Parkman? He’s the one that chased them off!”

“Well, yes, there is that. Coach Parkman’s statement aligned with yours very closely, but he didn’t see who started the fight. That’s the only reason why you are not suspended yet. This is your last and only warning Jimmy. Should we need to, we will involve Officer Jenson and the police.”

I gritted my teeth and nodded, my pulse throbbing in my temples.

“Fine, you are dismissed.”

I stood up and turned to leave, but a thought struck me and I turned back to him. “By the way Mr. Spritari, before you default the blame to me, you should talk to a kid in my gym class named Doug. Ask him about Jack’s character…”

I fought the urge to slam his door as I left, and started back toward the art room when the lunch bell rang. I tracked down Fen and the Pack, a felt some of the sick feeling ebb. Loki made the mistake of asking me what happened, and I ranted about it almost all the way through lunch until the bell rang and the sick feeling returned.

Worried, I walked into P.E, but Jack and Malcolm weren’t there as Jeremy passed out the final. Though judging from the dark looks a few of the students threw my way; I guessed the rumor mill was going full tilt. I saw Doug smirking behind them; the hair over his eye couldn’t hide his vindictive glee as he nodded at me.

As we all left the locker room, I heard yelling in Mr. Parkman’s office near the locker
-room door, but the blinds were down so I couldn’t see who was in there. I walked most of the way to English before I realized I’d left my textbook in the gym locker.

Swearing under my breath, I let Mr. Decker know what was going on before I doubled back through the emptying hallways. I slipped silently past Mr. Parkman’s door, the voices inside had quieted to a murmur, and walked through the deserted locker room. Most of the overhead lights had been turned off, and dark slanted shadows stretched across the dim lockers. I undid the padlock and grabbed my textbook, and then I heard Mr. Parkman’s door open and footsteps squeaked on the tiles as people walked in.

I glanced around the corner of the lockers just as Jack led Mr. Parkman and an older man I’d never seen before over to his locker. “When you’re done cleaning it out, leave the padlock on my desk.” Mr. Parkman said, before he turned and left me stranded in the locker room with Jack and the other man, who I assumed was Jack’s dad.

Aw shit…

Frantic, I closed my locker as quietly as I could and backed into the gap between the lockers and the drinking fountain. I pressed myself into the shadow as far as my backpack would let me. I tried to slow my breathing, as my brain fervently repeated the mantra of ‘
don’t see me, don’t see me, don’t see me
.’ I willed myself deeper into the shadows, as if I could pull them around myself like a cloak. My eyes changed color as my wolf reacted to my unease and moved closer to the surface.

Please, don’t see me…

A cool clinging feeling crawled over me, like when I hid in the tree my first Full Moon, but much stronger. The fluorescent bulbs overhead flickered erratically, and I swallowed the lump in my throat. John would disembowel me and hang me with my own intestines if I got in trouble again so soon, and Mr. Spritari would probably watch with a bag of popcorn.

I fought the flicker of panic and braced myself to wait them out.

As soon as Mr. Parkman was out of earshot, the older man looked around the locker room to see if they were alone. The silence felt loaded as his eyes swept past my hiding spot, but he didn’t seem to notice me. I closed my eyes and let out a breath I hadn’t realized I was holding, and then jumped as something slammed into the lockers. My eyes snapped open and I bit down on my tongue.

The man pinned Jack to the lockers by his throat. Jack’s face turned
red as he choked. “What were you thinking boy? You weren’t thinking at all. Typical… Pathetic…”

I didn’t know what to do. I froze, while Jack struggled to choke out the words, “Dad, please!”

Jack’s father released him, and he sucked in a ragged breath. “Look at me boy. I said look at me!” He lifted Jack’s chin with one hand and then backhanded him across the face. “Can’t you do anything right?”

Jack pushed his father away, his face livid and puffy while he panted for air and held his neck.

“Oh, so now you’re a tough guy, Jack? You’re a big man? C’mon boy, give me your best shot.” He goaded Jack, who finally snapped and threw a punch at his dad’s face. He used Jack’s outstretched arm to throw Jack across the locker room, where he slid to a stop ten feet away from me. Jack tried to stand, but his father grabbed him and slammed him into the lockers right next to me.

Shit, shit, shiiiit!
Adrenaline dumped into my bloodstream, but unbelievably, Jack’s dad looked right past me like I wasn’t even there. He was close enough that I could see the beads of sweat that rolled off his shiny balding head and the bulging vein in his temple.

“Don’t you ever take a swing at me again. Know your place, boy. You’re
nothing
in my eyes, and you’re
nothing
in the eyes of the Lord.”