Under A Latent Moon (A Werewolf Tale)

Chapter 18

There were monsters downstairs. Actual, honest-to-God monsters with beady little eyes and the potential to crush your soul.

Harley rushed to the bathroom and shoved through pill bottles, thermometers, aloe vera, and gauze in the cabinets. Where the heck was it? Will said it'd be right on the bottom near the ibuprofen!

Ah. There. She snatched up the little red container and ran back down the stairs to the basement.

The pack basement was chaos unlike anything she'd seen before. Children shot back and forth, some pattering across on tiny legs, shrieking and trilling with laughter. Others sat near the corner, sorting through the colorful mountain of toys stacked haphazardly into a pile. Will sat with Dylan near the couch, rubbing softly at his back.

Both Will and little Dylan looked up as she strode over. "Here," she handed the inhaler to Will, almost out of breath. Poor Dylan seemed as out of breath as she.

"Okay Dylan, deep breath, ready?" Will placed the plastic inhaler at Dylan's lips. But Dylan, like an eight-year-old pro, grabbed the inhaler from Will, sucked in a breath, and pushed down for the medicine. Pretty quickly, his face lost some of the redness. "Very good," Will said, "promise me next time you tell your mother you have your inhaler, you actually check for it."

"I will. Sorry."

Will ruffled Dylan's hair. "You sir, are lucky your mom thought to keep an extra here."

"I know," Dylan said dejectedly, his head down.

"Go watch TV with the others." Will patted his back.

As Dylan ran off to watch TV with his friends and siblings, Harley urged her heart to solidify. It had gone mushy at Will's easy treatment with Dylan. And all the kids, really. He was super easy-going with all of them, and they all just adored him.

Will watched Dylan relax against the couch as if nothing had happened, his eyes following his dirty blonde mop of hair. "Well, that scared the shit out of me." He murmured.

Harley bit at her lower lip to stop a laugh. "Me too. Does he struggle with his asthma often?"

"No. Only when he gets excited and runs too much. Poor kid wants to play with the others at the same level as them. He's not quite at the age where he knows when to take a step back."

"Does his mother warn him?" Harley asked, crossing her arms and shifting her weight to the side as she surveyed the kids watching TV.

From the corner of her eye, she saw Will shrug. "She does. But the runt of the litter always wants to be just as good as the rest."

Harley smiled. "I know I did."

Will gave her a look. "You were never the runt of the liter. You kept up just fine with the rest of us."

The Willow Creek pack saved the term "runt" for any pup who wasn't quite...at the level of the others. For some, runt was used as a term meaning the wolf had a disability. To Harley, that didn't sound fair. Because oftentimes the youngest pup in the liter ended up with something that held them back, the term runt often coincided with the youngest child.

Although, in her case the term runt would apply both ways. "Yeah," Harley scoffed, "I kept up fine until you jerks shifted without me."

When Will said nothing, Harley glanced over. Will's eyes had softened. "Mathias would've moved mountains for you. It didn't matter if we shifted, he used to slow his pace so you could keep up."

The words were like a stone thrown at her heart. It left a little crack--enough to let the cloud of grief hovering over her to seep in. It never seemed to leave, that grief, but sometimes she was able to build a structure to keep it out.