Hutch pressed himself even lower into the grass as the Pack Alpha and David cut across the clearing. Something buzzed along my ribs, and I snapped my head around quietly. It was Hutch's leg, shaking like a leaf next to me.
He was scared. The monster beast of an Alpha was scared.
I turned my eyes back to the scene ahead of me. Shoot, what if they smell my scent by the boat? I'd tried not to leave any trace when I'd done my one-around of the boat, but they were Alphas--the top two, in fact. I hope I was careful enough!
David walked strangely and sat down next to the boat, looking oddly doubled-over. I squinted my eyes at his torso. His stomach muscles were visibly contorting, and a wince was plastered over his face as he kneaded his jaws together, chewing on something.
What happened to you? I wondered silently, watching him shiver and quake. Had he been poisoned?
Kémé spoke as though nothing was happening to the wolv next to him. "I really wish you would've let me go. She knows me a lot better than you!"
David shook his head and gasped. "I'm not arguing with you. I'm a lot faster at this than you are. Besides," he looked down at his belly, than back up again, and spit out what he'd been chewing. "It's too late; it's already done. Why are you waiting for me? You've gotta get to the hunt!"
Kémé shook his head and sighed. "I know, I know." He swore. "Arguing with you is like arguing with myself."
"Well, I'll make sure I let her know you've gained a sentimental side since last month." David's words faded into an incomprehensible growl, and he stood up shakily, flicking his tail back and forth uncontrollably. What the heck is wrong with him?!? He popped several joints in his back loudly. "Has Jamie said anything?"
What does Jamie have to do with anything?
Kémé shook his head no. "No, thank goodness. It seems Humfrey has been keepin' his mouth shut around everyone." Hutch twitched in the grass beside me, and I nudged him back. I had no idea what they were talking about.
"For now, at least," David growled. His back arched and he retched a puddle of red bile onto the ground in front of him. He coughed a few times, then licked his chops. "That mutt...there's just somethin' about him I don't trust. You say he isn't talking, but that doesn't mean he doesn't know." Know what?
Kémé cursed again. "Honestly, I just wish I knew what all Spike told them." He shook his head, staring off into space. "I shoulda waited longer to get Spike. I thought he was dead already when I picked him up. I just couldn't smell him well enough with all that dang smoke in the air!"
"We could just get rid of Humfrey. Than it wouldn't matter if he knew or not." David snorted. "It's not like anyone here would miss him. He's not our bite-child anyway, Kémé. We're not really bound to protect him."
"Maybe not, but he is Mingan's bite-child, and we are bound to protect Mingan."
"Whatever."
"Hey, I agree. Things would've been a lot simpler if he'd just died during his change." Kémé shook his head and let out a laugh. "I've gotta give him credit, though. He's tough. That burn he had on his back...I didn't think that a fresh-changed wolv would be able to heal that!"
"Uh-huh."
My mind raged as I lay in the grass, listening. What exactly do they think that I know? What did he mean, 'I shoulda waited longer?' Did he kill Spike?
David howled loudly, and his chest heaved and twisted at an awkward angle, flattening out slightly.
Wait a minute, Kémé didn't rescue Spike. That crazy, naked guy did; the same one who rescued me! I mean, it must've been that guy! Kémé wasn't anywhere to be found!
Unless...
A bloodcurdling scream split the air as David stretched his paws out in front of him. Bones split as the joints along his legs shifted their positions, moving up or down his legs. The toes on his paws elongated and cracked loudly as the joints adjusted their shape.
Unless Kémé and the man who saved us...are the same. Spike's eerie last words drifted through my mind once more...
It was like watching Nadie's transformation, but in reverse. David writhed on the ground as his coat of fur thinned out and eventually disappeared, dropping clumps of severed fur onto the ground and exposing dark, olive skin. His fingers snapped a few more times until they were, in fact, fingers once more. He turned over his hands, inspecting his new form as the last of his bones clicked into place.
He was human.
Mostly.
His eyelids were still rimmed with black, and his feet were twisted in such a way that when he stood, his ankles didn't touch the ground. It was like he was standing on his tip-toes--much like my feet had been in the last days before my change. His legs weren't the exact shape that a normal human's legs should be; they still bore the faintest curves and resemblances to wolf legs. That said, anyone who didn't look closely wouldn't be able to tell the difference.
David licked his lips and exposed his new, blunted teeth. His canines were still noticeably pointed, but other than that, they seemed to have returned to normal. Short, black hair no longer than his former fur coat covered his head, and he ran an unsteady hand over his scalp.
"You good to go?" Kémé asked, completely unphased by what had just transpired in front of him. David nodded, and took a few awkward steps towards the boat.
"I'm fine, I just need a moment." He spoke in English, but slurred and growled out his words with his new mouth. He stretched out his arms, and cracked the joints in his back. "Thank goodness that doesn't take so long anymore!"
Kémé snorted. "That's only because you've had a lot of practice. Ugh, it took me an hour to shift back in Bloodvein."
"Hmph. That's still better than taking a day! I'm glad those days are over."
Something splattered against my fur. Oh, shoot. I quietly looked behind me at Hutch.
His eyes were wide, and his pupils seemed oddly dilated. I looked at my fur, than back to him. He'd thrown up all over me. He was seriously confused. Terrified, even!
Back at the boat, David had pulled the tarpaulin off and was dragging the aluminum shell down to the water, uttering a continuous stream of curse words as he stubbed his toes on the boat. Once he reached the edge of the creek, he folded a tiny outboard motor out from the boat and locked it into place.
"Hey, just be nice to her for me, eh? I think she got a little more pissed off than usual when I was there," Kémé called out.
"Why's that?"
"Hutch and the mutt barged in almost at the same time I did. I think she was a little overwhelmed by all of it."
David's eyes widened. "Hutch...? Frick, Kémé! How many times did they see your human form?!?" David pushed the boat out into the water and jumped in after it, shaking his head. "I wish you woulda told me that sooner. You really need to deal with them. If this gets out, everything we've worked for could go up in smoke." David swore angrily and reached down into the boat. He came up with an old, crumpled t-shirt, and threw it on.
Kémé sighed loudly. "I know that, David. I just haven't figured a way to do so that doesn't involve killing them. Yet."
"Honestly? I don't think there is any other way." David reached down and yanked the starter on the outboard several times before it coughed itself to life. He gunned the throttle a few times, then deftly maneuvered the boat away from the shore and down the creek. Kémé stared down the waters after him for a moment, than turned and bolted into the trees.
What. The. Heck. I stared after him, my mouth hanging open silently.
The change is permanent! That's what Trish said!
"No," Hutch stated, slowly shaking his head back and forth. I stood up from the grass and sniffed the air, making sure that Kémé was gone. I coughed as the acrid smell of burned gasoline entered my nose.
She lied to me! She knew we could change back! "So that's it. The big secret," I muttered. I put one paw in front of the other, moving myself forward in a daze.
"I had a family. I had parents. I had a sister!" Hutch moaned from behind me.
I didn't turn around. "All this time, he thought I knew. He thought we knew! That's why he was punishing me! He wanted me to keep quiet!"
"Do you know, I was seven when I was bitten?"
"It all adds up now, don't you see? That was Kémé who threw us out of that house in Bloodvien! It was him who attacked those men when we were rescuing Nadie!"
"It was during the wild rice harvest. Everyone had taken their boats to the other side of the lake, but they left me on the shore with my sister."
"Hutch, listen to me! It's Kémé's fault that Spike is dead! He could have saved both of us sooner, but he waited! He thought I was going to die, too! He wanted us dead, so that we wouldn't tell anyone that we can change back!" That bastard!
"She left for just five minutes. When she came back, I'd already been bitten. I was seven, Humfrey. Seven! Can you imagine what that did to my parents, having to leave their child in the care of a wolf?!? They don't even know if I'm still alive! They don't know what happened to me!"
We both stopped talking over each other and fell silent. Everything was falling into place in my mind; everything was adding up now.
Somehow, Spike had ended up seeing Kémé transform in Bloodvien. He'd fallen into a state of shock, and had stayed that way until Hutch and I found him. Kémé hadn't just disappeared--he'd shifted and gone to see Trish for, by the sounds of it, information, just like David was doing now.
Then, when we'd all been caught in the fire, he'd taken his sweet time in rescuing Spike and I. When I ended up surviving, he cut me off from everyone important, leaving me with no one to share his secret with--in the event that I actually knew what that secret was.
I could understand why he'd been so harsh to Hutch and I. I could even understand why David wanted the both of us dead. If the rest of the pack found out that it was possible to assume human form once again, especially after being told that it wasn't possible...things could fall apart. The pack could fall apart.
There was just one thing that I didn't understand.
"Why?" I whispered as I came to a halt above the discarded tarpaulin. "Why did Kémé bother saving us from the fire? Or from the people and the traps at the abandoned house?" I looked over my shoulder at Hutch. "Why go to all that trouble, if he just wanted us dead anyway?"
"Instinct," Hutch rasped.
"What?"
"He's the pack leader. It's his job to keep all of us safe, no matter the cost. The primal urge to protect his pack can't be denied." He shook his head slowly.
"Didn't you hear what he said? He waited to rescue Spike and I! He basically killed Spike! How does that square up?" I shouted angrily.
"He did save both of you from the flames, even if he took his time in doing so. He wasn't physically responsible for Spike's injuries."
"Are you defending him? Are you bloody for real?" I snarled.
"No! I'm not defending him!" Hutch sprung up from the grasses and lumbered over to me, looking down his muzzle at me. "I'm just using the same logic he did. He was, and is, instinctually bound to protect us. But--"
"But what?!?"
"--if the pack found out about this, people would begin to leave, and then there would be no more pack."
"So what!" I yelled in his face. How could anything justify leaving a fellow person to burn to death?
"People have families! Weren't you listening to me? Everyone in the pack was taken away from their old lives to live out here! What do you think would happen when the pack finds out that they've been living a lie for generations? That they could've returned home, and lived a normal life, at any point? Had children, perhaps--something that the pack has desired for a long time? The unity of the entire pack, all forty-seven of us, depends on this secret staying hidden. In the face of that, the loss of one or two wolves would be insignificant, don't you see?" he whispered quietly.
I fell flat on my face, sobbing violently. I knew that what Hutch had said made sense--Kémé had had to choose between saving us, and keeping the pack, and it's future, intact--but that didn't dull the pain of losing my friend.
"Why--ah!--what about you? Why didn't he leave you to die?" I cried out.
"I wasn't pinned down like you were. I escaped on my own." He lowered his head. "I had given up on saving you both." Shame burned on his face, and he looked away, laying his ears down against his scalp and tucking his tail down. "I should have tried harder. Maybe Spike would still be alive if I'd stayed instead of running away like a coward," he spat bitterly.
"Is that why you were such a jerk to me after Spike died?" Did you blame yourself?
He looked down at his massive paws. "I'm just as responsible for what happened as you are. I am--was--an Alpha, but I left you two to die. I...I couldn't bear that, so I took it out on you." His face hardened, and he hung his head even lower. He was almost submitting, right in front of me. "I am so sorry."
No. "Hutch, this is not your fault." I reached down and nudged his muzzle with my own. "Kémé left us to die. Sure, he freed us, but he wanted us to die. This is his fault. You heard him--he could've helped us sooner, but he didn't. Remember what David said? 'I don't think there is any other way.' Hutch, you aren't the one who wanted anyone to die. They are."
"What are you saying?"
"I'm saying, don't beat yourself up! There's been enough of that going around lately!" I sighed and looked around at the trees. "We're not safe in this park anymore."
"What? No, Kémé would never try to kill any one of us. He may have let Spike die, but he didn't kill him. As the lead Alpha, his instincts wouldn't ever let him personally end the life of a fellow pack mate." No, of course not. But letting someone die on their own is okay. My head reeled as I tried to make sense of what Hutch was telling me. I felt like I was learning more about the ways of the pack than I had learned in the past month.
"Hutch...Kémé found some sick loophole in his instincts. If he truly cared about the pack, and the pack law that he preaches, than Spike would still be here," I growled.
"He didn't physically kill anyone--"
"He may as well have!" I snapped angrily. Even if Hutch was right, and Kémé was truly incapable of killing one of us, I had no doubt that the wolv would find a way.
"What about David?"
"David is crazy. He would hurt us if given the chance."
And there it is. Another loophole that Kémé can use. Shoot. So while Kémé can't physically kill one of us, anyone of his underlings can. And there's nothing to stop him from hurting us. Kémé hadn't had a problem with beating the tar out of Mingan.
"So Kémé can hurt us or let us be hurt, but he can't actually kill us himself."
"I guess."
"Perfect," I muttered. I turned around, and something squished beneath my paw. It was whatever David had been chewing on before he'd begun to change.
It was green and had a strange, almost sweet scent. "What the heck?" I reached down for it, my paws tingling as I drew closer--
Smack! Stars criss-crossed my vision, and I staggered away. "The heck, man!"
Hutch lowered his paw, and then his gaze. "This is mostoswehk. It is extremely poisonous to wolves and people alike!" He stared down at it, musing to himself. "One bite is supposed to cause a slow, painful death..." He sniffed it cautiously.
"David was chewin' on that, y'know." I scratched my ear with my hind leg, massaging the bump left by Hutch's paw. "And he's not dead." I padded back to the plant and pushed Hutch away. I put my nose right up to the chewed-up plant and inhaled deeply, memorizing the strange, almost lemony smell.
"You should stop smelling that..." Hutch warned.
"It didn't kill David, it's not gonna kill me. Ow!!" I doubled over, feeling my stomach muscles wrench against themselves. I hobbled away from the plant, wheezing heavily. Something pulled at my rib cage inside, and I let out a pained whine. Shoot, maybe Hutch was right!
The bite marks Mingan had left on my leg began to burn, and I closed my eyes tightly, fighting against the pain. I could hear Hutch's worried voice echoing in my ears, but I couldn't make sense of what he was saying. My bite began to burn like acid, and behind my eyelids, my vision was fading to white--
No, stop! Please! I coughed painfully as my chest heaved again. Stop! I hadn't felt this way since I had changed, weeks ago. Was I changing again now?
I don't want to go back!!
Another kick--
I said, STOP!!!
My chest stopped cramping, and I opened my eyes again. I twisted around, inspecting myself. Everything was still there--my fur, my paws, my tail, everything. I breathed a heavy sigh of relief. I was still me. I was okay!
Hutch's voice trickled into my ears, much more clearly now. I turned around and looked at him. His eyes darted from me, down to the mostoswehk on the ground, than back to me again. A knowing look spread across his face.
"So that's how they did it. They used this plant to initiate their change..."
"I guess," I panted, letting my tongue roll out of my mouth. "We need to go find Nadie. Now." I turned tail and ran away from the makeshift boat launch, leaving the half-eaten mostoswehk and Hutch in the dust behind me.
Nadie was sprawled out on the beach where we'd left her, licking her forepaws clean. I felt a pang of relief when I saw her. Thank goodness she's okay!
"We can change back!" I blurted as I ground to a halt in the sand. She jumped up, startled.
"What?"
"We can change back into people! We're not stuck this way!"
She cocked her head to the side questioningly. "What are you talking about?" She sniffed my side and recoiled. "Ew, you smell like crap! What's goin' on?"
I stared back at her, shaking my head. "I just saw David change back into a person! Nadie, the change isn't permanent!"
"Again, what are you talking about? We can't do that! Don't you think that someone would have figured that out by now if it was true? C'mon, why would they lie to us?"
Hutch crashed noisily through the trees behind us and onto the beach, huffing loudly. "We should go back to the den." He looked over his shoulder, than back to us.
"Why?" I asked.
"Because I don't know if anyone is listening to us right now. Kémé could be anywhere, and I'd rather not talk about this out in the open."
Nadie threw her head back in exasperation. "What the heck is going on here?!?"
"Hutch is right. I'll tell you everything back at the den." We turned around and jogged away from the beach, leaving the lake and tracking our way back home.
Mingan and Tara. They have a right to know why Spike died. I silently prayed that they wouldn't take the news too poorly. I knew how loyal Mingan was, but he had to know the truth about who he was blindly following. It only seemed fair.
As I ran, I realized that I had finally found something damning enough to get people to turn away from Kémé's leadership. But again, one question nagged at me from the back of my mind: do I have the right to tell everyone this? This will no doubt cause a huge uproar in the pack! If the pack fell apart, the goal of becoming a self-sustaining pack, free from human interaction--a goal that had been apparently held by the wolves for generations, long before I ever came into the picture--could never be realized. Kémé must know this as well. All the more reason to keep his secret hidden--generations of hopes and dreams could be thrown away if we tell everyone! What about those hundreds of wolves that came before us, spending their entire lives not knowing they could return to human form, but rather hoping that their infertile curse would be someday lifted? Their lives would mean nothing if the pack ceased to exist!
What about Spike?
I closed my eyes, picturing Spike's burned and battered body, lying lifeless under a tree. Spike was a rare occurrence--a natural born wolv, yet his life had been so easily sacrificed. My friend...
Yes, I have the right to do this! He let my friend die! He robbed Tara of her mate! He separated me from Nadie! Heck, he even let Mingan have his teeth get bashed out! I steeled my features with a new resolve, and ran even faster. Alright, Kémé. You hurt my friends. You kept secrets from everyone. Now I'm going to ruin you!
* * * *
Edited 14/05/2016