Howl for Me (14 page)

My stomach jumped into my throat. The closet door swung wide, squeaking on the hinges, and a hand came through the darkness, grabbing the back of my shirt.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing in there?” he asked. “What is... Oh, I see what you’re doing. You can’t have enough self-control to not sneak around after presents, huh? We’ll see about that. I’m taking this shit back to the store. Is that what you want? No presents this year? See if I give a shit, how much you cry.”

Hot tears ran down my cheeks, but when I sobbed, no sounds came out.

“Yeah? Oh, that’s real fuckin’ sad, Devin. Real fuckin’ sad.”

Holding me by the collar, he flung me backward, and I hit the wall.

“You gonna keep crying, you little titty baby? That’s it, keep crying. Jesus, you’re all red and swollen up. How embarrassing are you? Goddamn baby.”

Behind my green-tinged vision, I felt fire.

Yellow fire licked up the backs of my eyelids, taking me over, coursed through my veins. It reminded me of when I’d taken Hunter, and felt him change.

My tiny frame – Devin’s tiny frame – stooped over, and I grabbed handfuls of my own shaggy hair. I yanked at my scalp, tearing painfully and scratching my face, as the hair poured out of my skin.

“Oh yeah?” Dad taunted. “Yeah? You gonna do that again? Get all scary and shit, like you have any power? Keep at it, you little bastard. You know we never wanted you in the first place, right?”

My stomach twisted. Somehow, I knew that I was never wanted. I already felt for Devin, a little, at least, when I was outside him. Reliving these memories though, my heart wept.

Something jingled in his father’s hands.

“You know what happens when you do that, right? You shameful thing. Look at you, half twisted up, half changed. You can’t even turn into a wolf right.”

He bent down and got right in my face. “You fuck
everything
up.”

When the silver chains went around my wrists and my legs, pain surged through me. My veins were on fire, screaming, as the blood pounded in my temples.

But what hurt the worst were the words.

My chest trembled as the man cinched the chains deep and tight and hard on my skin. I drew a breath, and my nose filled with the scent of burning fur and skin.

He raised a hand, dangling a thin length of chain in front of me.

“Stop crying. Stop wailing and whimpering, you little shit, or I’ll use this on you. Such a fucking disappointment. If you were worth anything,” he said, “you’d be able to take care of yourself, but here we are.”

“Daddy,” I heard a tiny voice say, “I’m eight. I can’t...”

The lash was hot and white, and sent shocks through me. When my tears hit the open cut, it stung even worse.

Even through the pain and the fear, the words still hurt the worst.

He drew back his arm again, but before he could whip me again, someone grabbed his arm and held it back. It must’ve been Devin’s mother.

“Get the fuck off me, Margo!” the father hissed. “He’s dangerous. He turned into this, and started wailing. The reason he still does this is that you won’t let me discipline him!”

“This isn’t discipline, Dale, and you know it!”

Tears ran down her – Devin’s mom’s – face. Her dark hair stuck to her cheek. Mascara ran all the way to her neck.

“You’re drunk,” she said. “And you beat him, and taunt him, and when he doesn’t sit there and take it, you get even madder, and then...”

“You shut up,” he snarled. “Or you’ll get it, too.”

As some kind of warning, he touched her face lightly with the silver that was wrapped around his fist. Smoke rose off her face as the chain sizzled against her skin. She was still crying, still trembling, but she didn’t back down.

“No,” she said, and shook her head. “You’re not... You won’t get away with this anymore. I won’t let you beat him up, beat me up, and then blame us both for all your problems. That little boy didn’t do anything wrong. You quit blaming him for things you did.”

“Yeah?” he said, mockingly. “You stupid bitch, what are you going to do about it? Gonna yell at me? Threaten to leave me, again? You gonna stop cooking that shitty casserole you won’t stop making?”

Her eyes shifted to me for a second, and I saw that they were yellow, too, where the father’s eyes were green. And behind those yellow eyes, there was purpose and courage and...

Click.

“Wh... What the fuck are you doing, Margo?”

The father stumbled to the side, releasing the chains on my arms and ankles. When they fell away, and the burning stopped, my focus was laser clear. All at once, I saw everything for what it was. I
sensed
the tension in the room.

“Margo, stop it,” Dale said. “Put that fucking thing down. You don’t know what you’re doing.”

“You didn’t seem to mind sticking it in my face, last night,” she said with a sniff. “I still have this from it.”

She touched her face, running her finger around a light pink circle – a healing scar – that must’ve come from the gun barrel.

She prodded him in the stomach.

“I’m done with this,” she said. “I’m done with waiting all day for you to come home and beat me, then watch you terrify him. I’m just done with it.”

“You... You don’t know what you’re saying. What the hell are you going to do without me?”

“Close your eyes, honey,” She said to me, turning her head a little bit in my direction. “You don’t want to see this.”

But I did.

“No.” The little voice came out of me again. “He hurt me, and he hurt you, mommy. I know you don’t have a choice.”

“You stupid bitch!”

The man lunged forward, striking out with a closed fist.

Click.

I heard the metal on the trigger scrape against the gun’s frame, and then I saw the flash. I didn’t even hear the blast. The whole world just went white, as the man slumped to the ground, his stomach smoking. He clutched at it for a moment, and then fell silent.

“Oh, God,” Margot whispered.

The gun slipped from her fingers, and before it hit the ground, she had her arm around me.

“We have to go,” she said. “We’ll come back soon, but we have to go.”

We have to go.

Have to go.

Go.

“Open your eyes, Lily,” Damon said.

When I did, I was with him again, back in the cave.

“What happened? Did you see anything?”

I nodded, but didn’t want to speak. Not yet, anyway. I felt tears on my face.

“She’s terrified,” Poko said in a wavering voice. “She must’ve been in his memories. And they must have been bad ones.”

Again, I nodded.

“His dad, he... had Devin pinned against a wall, and I remembered – or well, it was like I was watching a home video. He was in a closet, trying to sneak a look at Christmas presents and...”

“That’s okay, Lily,” Poko said. “I can’t believe I let this happen. I knew better than to trust the Carak with him. But, I thought equality was the only way. Raise two alphas, one Skarachee, one Carak... Let them work together, to finally reunite the packs. I’m so terribly sorry for failing you, Devin.”

But, Devin was insensible. He was just babbling, shaking his head back and forth. If I was that terrified when I relived his memory, I couldn’t imagine how awful it would have been to actually
have
the memory. And at the same time, I wondered what other horrors lurked in that head of his.

“Did... Did I do it right?” Devin said.

His eyes were watery, and he was so broken, so absolutely destroyed, that I hugged him. Squeezing him tight for a second, I thought maybe he’d calmed down.

“You did fine,” I said, petting his shoulder. “You did everything fine.”

“So patient,” Poko said, softly. “So kind. Damon, she has such a good heart. How does she have so much patience with someone who caused her so much pain?”

“I don’t know,” Damon said to Poko. “But, yeah. She’s... she’s better than I deserve.”

As the two of them were talking, Devin calmed a little. He got still enough that I thought maybe he’d fallen asleep, but then, a moment later, he squeezed my hand.

“Thank you,” he whispered. “I don’t deserve this. I’ve been so... so out of control. I...”

“It wasn’t you,” I told him. “You did bad things, but I’m starting to think, maybe, it wasn’t you in control the whole time.”

One of his eyes, I noticed, had gone from pale blue to fully black.

“Poko?” I called out. “Look at this.”

The old man shuffled over and bent, then let out a long, low groan. “How long has his eye been like that?” he asked.

“My eye?” Devin said. “Is there something wrong? I can’t see out of my left one, but... but that’s nothing new. It comes and goes.”

“For how long?” Poko was beginning to get insistent. “Do you remember when it started?”

Devin shook his head, tossing his sweat-damp hair from side to side.

“No, I mean, a long time ago. Probably, five or six years?”

Poko closed his eyes and let his head fall forward.

“It is as I feared. Jacarth... Joram... he’s been with us longer than I thought. Do you see how his eye moves? Back and forth, apparently without seeing?”

I nodded. “Is there something wrong?”

“Jacarth awakes, already,” Poko said. “He wakes, and he watches. How he got ahold of this young one, I’ll never know.”

Another coughing fit wracked his ancient body, but Poko remained standing, once again waving off the help Damon and Hunter offered.

“Lily,” he said. “You must go back in, while he’s watching. While he watches us, you must search this pup’s memories. You should find a trigger, a hitch of some kind, that gives the ancient one power here.”

“I don’t think I understand,” I admitted, still stroking Devin’s wet hair and keeping him calm. “What am I looking for? A certain memory?”

Poko frowned, deep lines framing the tattoos that ran down his chin.

“This would be a lot easier, had I ever done it before,” he said. “I expect that, yes, there will be some key memory – some exact moment – when the pup’s mind changed. Any sort of rift in his mind could be what we seek.”

I already had my hands on Devin’s face.

“I’m ready,” I said softly, with steel resolve in my voice. “I don’t know what I’m ready for, exactly, but... I’m ready.”

“Darkness,” Devin moaned. “I feel darkness and cold, and, I really just want this to stop.”

How was I feeling pity for him? It didn’t matter. I shook myself, feeling that chill Devin was talking about, and preparing my soul for another journey through the nether. Suddenly, something pulled in my chest. My heart and my mind seemed to go in two directions at once. I reached back for Damon, and heard him shout my name.

“Hold her, Damon! Don’t let go of Lily! You must anchor her! You mustn’t let go!” Poko shouted.

But, I was already sinking. The green was taking me, pulling me out of my body, and into Devin’s eyes. I felt myself falling to pieces, stretched into a string, and then... blackness overwhelmed me.

––––––––

T
his time, instead of being inside Devin’s head, I was a ghost looking down from the corner of the room.

“Devin? Is that you, Devin?”

I heard Cat’s voice, trembling and scared.

“Please, what are you doing? I can’t see anything down here!”

I felt her wrist in Devin’s hand; felt her terror, felt her shaking. From where he stood at the doorway to a basement, he yanked her back, and threw her against a wall.

I wanted to close my eyes, to stop the vision, but I knew I couldn’t. I had to do this, no matter what. If this is when Joram Blight entered his head, I’d be able to use it as a portal – a key – and find the monster, before he found us.

But there, in Devin’s head, experiencing life from his perspective, it was almost too much to take.

“Shut up!” he roared. “Just, shut up! I can’t think, I’m trying to think, I can’t think... Why, won’t you just be quiet?”

“Sorry,” she whimpered, and he threw her against the wall again, then pinned her to it, with his massive forearm.

“I can’t help it,” Devin said, in a pitiful whisper-scream. “I can’t stop myself. I don’t know why. It’s like someone else is in my head, someone else is making me do all these things I don’t want to do. Can’t stop myself, don’t want to do them, but I can’t help it. Please! Please! Please, please, please, Cat... Please, don’t leave me, I can’t help it. I don’t know what I’m doing!”

“Devin,” she pleaded. “This isn’t you. What’s going on?”

“Shut up!” he shouted again, and grabbed her wrist.

Cat tried to run, but he grabbed her shirt, tearing the collar, so that it hung limply on her shoulders.

“I don’t know what’s happening,” he repeated. “But I can’t... I won’t let myself hurt you. I...”

He took a deep breath that rattled in his chest like his ribs were shattered. Then Devin grabbed her wrist and yanked her back to the basement.

He dragged her halfway down the stairs, and then, from out of nowhere, a blood red rage overwhelmed him.

“I can’t!” he screamed. “I can’t hurt you. I...”

The way he shoved her down the stairs certainly hurt, especially when her knees hit the wall, and Cat collapsed on the ground. In a twisted way though, he did it to keep her safe.

We always thought he raped her, that he beat her and almost killed her. The truth though was really the last act of a desperate mind. He knew he was slipping, he knew he wasn’t in control.

Not a moment later, after he slammed the door to the basement shut, Devin stalked out of the house and yanked me out of my Grandpa Joe’s old Blazer. He hurled me down the stairs, into the depth of the basement. As soon as I was in the dingy cellar, he turned and stalked back up, though, he left the door open.

“It’s okay, Cat. It’s okay.” I heard my voice, muffled by the thick concrete walls, calming the traumatized girl.

All right, of all the weird things I’ve come across, hearing
myself
talk to someone else, has to be the craziest.

“Shut up!” Devin roared again, shrieking like he was actually losing control. He didn’t seem to know where the words were coming from. He’d yell something and then look around like he expected to see someone else in the room.