Raven closed the few steps between them and sank onto the couch beside him, tucked her legs right against his ribs and rested her head on his tensed shoulder. “How long did she give you the drug for?”
“I didn’t even fuckin’ know she was doing it for a year. Maybe longer. I just thought my animal had disappeared, but there was this anger left behind. I couldn’t stop fighting the other kids in my class, and the more time that went on, the sicker I felt in the head. And, eventually, my body got sick, too. She wouldn’t take me to the doctor. Said I was going through growing pains. Only my skin turned pale, and I couldn’t keep any weight on, lost my appetite, was exhausted, my eyes were all sunken in. I looked like a corpse. An eight-year-old corpse. I thought I was dying. Hell, maybe I was.
“I’d never met my dad, but one day this big bear of a man kicked in our door. I was lying on the couch, staring at a television set that wasn’t even turned on. He took one look at me, and I remember his eyes went so sad. Mom came barreling down the stairs with a shotgun in her hands, pumped it, and aimed it at his chest. She told him to get away from me, said he’d done enough. He told her to go ahead and shoot him. It’s what it felt like when he found out I existed anyway, like he’d been shot. He accused her of giving me Filsa, and I didn’t know what that meant. And, honestly, I didn’t really care. I felt so awful I could barely lift myself off the couch cushion. I remember the rage in his eyes when he told her she’d ruined me. ‘There ain’t nothin’ wrong with him, and you went and ruined him. You ruined him.’ He told me to go pack a suitcase, but I didn’t want to go with a stranger. I didn’t know him. I shook my head, and I remember he picked me right up off that couch like I weighed nothing. He told me everything was going to be okay, and he carried me up the stairs, right past my mom, all folded up in his arms. He grabbed a duffle bag from my closet and emptied as many of my drawers as he could into it, then he grabbed the stuffed dog off my bed because I said I wanted it. My mom was hysterical in the hallway, said she was calling the cops, and he lost it. Told her to go ahead. They would take one look at me and know she’d been poisoning me. He told her if she ever contacted me again without my consent, he would burn the house down with her in it and make the world a better place for it. And I believed him. My dad has a dark place in his soul for humans that try to cut the animals from us. And it happened to his own son. He took me out of there and said all I needed was time. Explained what Filsa was. And then he pulled over at a gas station a few towns over, got me a gallon of water to start flushing my system and a package of Skittles.”
Tears were burning her eyes, but she smiled at that and wrapped her arms around his middle, snuggled closer. “That’s why you like Skittles?”
“He sends me a bag every time I buck. I get a care package of candy every week, along with a bunch of other random shit he finds at stores that remind him of me.”
“How long did it take you to be able to change again?”
“About two days. The second that drug started wearing off, my bull came rampaging out of me. Dad had to camp out beside a corral for a couple weeks since I changed forty-fifty times a day. I don’t remember much about the detox. Just that it hurt.”
“Have you talked to your mom since?”
Dead shook his head. “Didn’t ever get the urge to. My dad was good enough for me. I didn’t yearn for my mom or feel like I was missing out. My bull, though? He never stopped thinking about her. Never stopped hating her. Now he takes it out on every human he can reach.” Dead smiled brightly. “And that’s the story about how fucked up I am.”
“No, that’s the story of a