Mongrel [bxb] | Bad Moon Book III

Chapter 15: coyote

"Like coyotes?"

"They can breed, you know. A coyote and a wolf. They've created a new breed of smarter, faster, more instinctual creatures. And so long as they carry wolf blood in their genetics, they carry the spirit."

Suddenly, the strange, gangling shape of Bailey's wolf form made sense. He was smaller and taller, slender and striped. Nothing like Quentin or the others. "You can't tell if he's lyin' then?" Matt asked.

"Everything about him is different. His body speaks a different language and I can't always understand it."

Matt watched that bold grin on Raven's face. He wanted to dig into the ink with his fingernails and scrape it away. "Why'd he go back to 'em?"

"I don't know," Quentin said. "A den is the kind of place you only go if you think you have an edge. The strength and authority to demand respect. In those cases, being a rogue can be...empowering. You're a renegade. Laws don't apply to you. But when you don't have that edge, it's complete imprisonment. It's a Ponzi scheme. The powerful make their promises to the weak, but in the end, there can never be more than one at the top of a pyramid. If you're not at the top, it's a losing game."

"So why do people go there?" Matt asked. "Why did you?"

"I didn't go to the rogues. They found me one morning on the streets of California." His expression twinged with a faint difficulty—like he was touching glass pieces. Putting them together like a puzzle and gettin' cut open by every single shard. It wasn't easy to think back to it. Matt could tell, and strangely, he understood. He regretted asking.

"I was on my way to school," Quentin said. "Sophomore year. I had to be fifteen, sixteen. They shoved me into the back of an old Caravan and I didn't get a say in what happened after that. That's the thing about rogues, they're weaker than a wolf with a pack, but they hunger for the thrill of control so they go after guppies: the wolves who haven't amalgamated—the ones who haven't associated with a pack. That way there's no risk of an alpha interfering."

That boy with the luster eyes and bright smile flashed to mind. Matt felt like throwing his beer bottle against the wall. "So they go after kids."

"Sometimes. A rogue is nothing without its pack, Matt. A den leader is nothing without its circle. That's why they need people like Bailey—young, useful rogues without the edge. Without power."

"You think he's with Ricco?" Matt asked.

"Sounds like it." Quentin curled his fingers against the table. A loose fist atop the ornate wood. "Did I ever tell you what it took to get Bailey out?"

Matt shook his head, Raven's grin taunting him to the bone.

"I heard about a kid in Ricco's circle—seventeen years old. I was never in Ricco's circle, but I was in Gannon's. They're two of the same kind of bastard. It took a year to track him down—sent my sentinels after him while he was on a drug run for Ricco. They pinned him in an alleyway next to a filthy, piss-stained bar. When I got there, he was crouched by the dumpsters. He didn't look scared. Didn't really look anything...except angry. Since the day I met him, Bailey's been angry at the world."

Matt didn't blame him. He was angry, too.

"He never stopped fighting me," Quentin said. "Not for a second. Eventually, I felt like I wasn't any better than the rogues, keeping him in a place he didn't want to be. I loosened the reigns, but...when he took you to the den on Perigee—"

"He was helping me," Matt said. "I told you that."

"That's why I agreed to give him a second chance." Quentin wiped a large hand up his face, into his hair. Matt couldn't help but think he looked a little sick. "I was never going to hold out. But I thought, maybe if I put my foot down..."