Red Moon Rising

23. found

Chapter Song: Never Be Like You - Flume (feat. Kai)

XX

Each day, I'm a little shocked to find that I haven't been sold to some NHA pervert and no cops have turned up to drag me to the county jail. I don't think Isaac ever told the cops in the first place, and I think he understood that taking me under his wing was as good as wiping me off the map. The cops don't come here. I keep expecting some kind of investigation to be launched, for feds to pour in, but nothing has happened. Maybe they found Mikey's cabin and understood what was going to happen, or maybe they found out about whoever I was supposed to go to next. The thing is, tracking me down now would mean exposing the entirety of what those trappers were doing. It could get very public. If there are others like me, it's possible that the cops already know about them. It's possible that knowledge of their involvement died with Mikey and Cameron. Maybe to them, my disappearance is a blessing.

It's been a week since Isaac brought me to his house—or rather, compound. The wolves are living in a crudely renovated shell of what used to be a boarding school for Native American kids. The grounds have been abandoned since the early 80's when the school was closed, about the same time that wolves started claiming territory, and no one tried to get the building or surrounding property back. There are a few hundred acres of tended land around the school, but Isaac and his pack have essentially laid claim to several hundred square miles of wilderness and cropland. Theirs is a different kind of territory. It encompasses human towns, residential areas, and even a human school. But there is a careful diplomacy between the wolves and their residents, an uneasy truce that recognizes how Isaac has brought new life to a dying community by bringing a constant stream of revenue in from outside visitors. His territory has no name, and I've never even heard about it before now, but it's the only instance of this kind of collaboration that I've seen.

And Isaac...Isaac is some other kind of wolf than I've known before. He's brutal and ruthless when he spars with his pack, and now that I'm healing he doesn't spare any softer tone for me. But I can sense him keeping an eye out for me, making sure I've eaten enough, watching to ensure the other wolves are friendly and respectful. I was nervous, at first, when I realized that there were no women and children in the pack. It still unnerves me to be around this many men. But I've come to understand them for what they are—outcasts, like me, united together by their shared struggles. They don't see me differently, either, and it hasn't taken long for me to forget the strange gender divide. Sam, especially, has taken great pains to make sure I feel welcome. He's even let me help him in the garden as I've healed, pulling weeds and picking the last of the summer's produce. When he learned that I manage our crops in Rust Cove, he peppered me with questions, and I've promised to help him sketch out next year's planting. It feels, oddly, like home, like sharing an abandoned school complex with a bunch of brothers.

And then there's Isaac. Sometimes, when he walks past me to sit at one of the long cafeteria tables where they serve dinner, his hand brushes between my shoulder blades, and it makes my heart drop to my stomach. When he looks at me, it feels like he can see inside of me, like he knows all of things that I keep hidden. I initially dismissed this warmth toward him as gratitude for helping me and not selling me to traffickers, yet. But then he helps me with exercises to keep my arm from getting stiff, and there's something about the way he touches me—gentle yet assertive—that makes a warmth spread through my chest. Sometimes, I think his hands are going to slip farther, around my waist or to my neck, but they never do.

By the end of my second week, my lip is healed and my arm is beginning to regain functionality. There's a fragile layer of new skin across each bullet wound, and movement still isn't entirely pleasant, but it's considerably better than where I started. I'm comfortable picking up small objects with it once again, and I think if I had to shift I could walk without too much of a limp. For now, though, I'm content to stay on two legs and favor my arm until it's entirely healed. As I've recovered, I've run out of reasons why I should stay with Isaac and his pack any longer. There's a part of me that wishes I had an excuse, that maybe a bullet had nicked the bone a little deeper, and I don't bother trying to parse through how troubling of a thought that is.