(FREE TO READ) Bad Moon

chapter 20; whispers

Jaylindid call. Every day he called, and every day he came to understand just a bit more about Quentin's world.

On Monday, he learned that the werewolf society had been birthed only thirty years ago. He learned that their government branches into dozens of different authoritative positions, that the Alphas were only the middle-men in a hierarchy of powerful people and those people operated under two separate matriarchs—the most powerful of the powerful being the very family of women who wrote the laws of the wolves.

On Tuesday, he learned that humans who knew of wolves were welcomed into the society under one condition; they weren't to expose the society to other humans. He learned that those who did were not killed, but taken away. Just where they went, Quentin didn't say. On Tuesday, Jaylin learned that Quentin's first breath as a wolf was taken at age sixteen.

On Wednesday, Jaylin asked about the matriarch. For as long as anyone remembered, the werewolf society had been governed by women. It was only sixteen years ago that the system had changed. Their society split in two—the West and the East. Quentin blamed this on the birth of the new queens. He said that much like human beings, the werewolves adapted to their own political structures. The West cherished noble causes; prioritizing the safety and the sanctity of their people. The East cherished power, the right to hunt, the right to kill—within bounds, of course. Then there were the humans like himself, stuck in the middle of it all. Bystanders who'd been in the wrong place at the wrong time. They were bound to the laws of the wolves or face the punishment. There was no other option.

On Thursday, he learned that not every wolf could turn a man. That whether you had the ability to change a person was entirely dependent on your genetics. He learned that not everyone bitten turns into a wolf. That some live with the scar for the rest of their human lives, and some perish in a war between their own bodies and the infliction. On Thursday, Jaylin learned that even if Quentin could, he would never change a soul.

And then came Friday.

Talking to Quentin had become an addiction to Jaylin. Partly because of the thrill of knowing the unknown, of including himself in a world that didn't exist a month ago. And partly because it was Quentin. Quentin, who never made a mistake. Quentin who spoke slow and heady, like he did it for a living. Quentin who answered every time Jaylin called. Every single time.

And somehow, that was more of a curse than a blessing.

Jaylin laid on Tisper's couch, staring at the screen of his phone. Denying himself the liberty of pressing that button—the one single tap of his finger that would connect him to Quentin. He had a pile of questions in his mind and he'd been going through each of them, deciding which he wanted answered the most.

But it felt like no matter the explanation Quentin gave him, he was always hiding something. And there was one question he just wouldn't remedy. One that he'd find a clever way to deviate from every time. And yet, the one that never left Jaylin's mind.

What was inside of him?

He'd had the opportunities to corner Quentin on it in person. He'd been in the right position so many times to ask. But Quentin had a way with his eyes—a way of speaking with a low, hooded eyes that made Jaylin flick through the folders in his head for a different question entirely. And when not in person, it was the quiet that pried Jaylin apart bit by bit. The difficult way Quentin would go silent, pass a breath through his nose, like a static charge scrabbling through one end of the line to the other.

Because of that, Jaylin could never bring himself to ask. He wanted Quentin to keep talking—forever.

His thumb feathered the call button beside Quentin's name.