make us his.”
There was a buzzing in my ears. “Bad man?”
He nodded. “Richard Collins. I didn’t want to listen. I didn’t want to be with him. I tried to tell others. Tried to make them leave. But they didn’t want to. I didn’t know what to do. Brain on fire all the time. He made it worse. Bees in my head.”
Oh, how I hated the beast and all that he’d done. All that he’d taken away. “Did he know who you were?”
Gavin shrugged awkwardly. It was such a human thing. He was learning. “No. Didn’t like him.” He bared his teeth. “Bad, bad man. Tried to get in my head. I wouldn’t let him. Different now. Found it. What Thomas told me to find.”
“What was it?” Kelly asked.
And Gavin said, “Tether. I found tether. Thump. Thump. Thump. Sound never left. Never went away until I went away. Then ghost Carter there, but I didn’t hear it. Not like before. I asked him why. He said because I was crazy.” He frowned. “Don’t like ghost Carter very much.” He stiffened as if he heard what he was saying. “Don’t like real Carter very much.” But he didn’t pull his hand away from mine.
“But your eyes,” Kelly said. “You’re still… you’re still an Omega.”
“I know.” He looked back out the window. “But I’m not bad wolf. I’m good wolf. I don’t hurt people. Only those that try to hurt me. Makes me feel bad if I do. So I don’t.” He looked like he was going to say something else, his mouth opening and closing, but no sound came out. I thought he was done until he sighed. He lifted his hips and reached into the pocket of the jeans Gordo had given him. They were loose on him. He said, “Here. This. This is yours. I kept it for you.” He frowned. “Well. I kept it for me. That’s stealing. I don’t like stealing.”
And he handed me the photograph of three smiling boys.
“What is it?” Kelly asked.
I showed him. “I… had this in the truck. Took it with me.” I didn’t need to say where I’d found it after it went missing, but I thought Gavin knew already. “Kept it on the dashboard so I could see it whenever I needed it.”
Kelly took the photo from me and glanced down at it, throat bobbing up and down. He nodded and then set it on the dash. He pressed his fingers to his lips and then touched the faces of the boys.
We drove on.
AN HOUR LATER I FELT IT.
The wards, so much bigger than they’d been before. I closed my eyes as I let it wash over me. It was healing, or something so close to it that it didn’t matter.
I opened my eyes in time to see the sign for Green Creek.
At the bottom, carved into the wood, was a howling wolf.
daddy rico/hello hello
My father said, “Here it is.”
I opened my eyes and looked out the window. The trees were green and seemed to stretch on for miles. I could smell them. The scent was old. Familiar. Flashes pulsed in my head, bits and pieces of how it used to be. A tiny town in the mountains. A wolf pack running under a full moon.
Mom looked back at us. She smiled at me and Kelly, but her smile faded when she got to Joe. Mom and Dad said he’d get better. I didn’t believe them. “Joe,” she said quietly. “Do you see?”
Joe didn’t answer. He didn’t look at her.
Kelly poked him in the cheek. “Hey. Joe.”
He turned to look at Kelly, who flashed his eyes at him.
Joe’s lips twitched, almost like he was trying to smile. But he didn’t.
“It’ll be different here,” Dad said. “Better. You’ll see. Everything will be better.”
I didn’t know who he was trying to convince.
Kelly sighed and dropped his hand back to his lap. “There’s no other wolves.”
“No,” Mom said. “But that’s okay. We have each other. And you and Carter will get to go to a real school. Meet new people.”
“I don’t like new people,” Kelly said.
Mom shook her head. “You’ll learn. You have to. You—”
Joe made a noise. It was small, but there. A sigh, an exhalation. Almost like a whine. I could see Dad’s eyes widen in the rearview mirror as Mom turned around.
But Joe wasn’t looking at us.
His hands were pressed against the window. He made the sound again.
Dad slowed.
I looked back to see Mark doing the same behind us in the large