Chapter 2: That's My Junk You're Feeling Up
"Thanks for answering again," I say to Alpha Bren as I reach for the door.
It's difficult for me to accept the fact that my childhood friend is just gone. I'm always expecting a different answer from Brendan, but it's always the same.
As I open the door, I see Marcus and Shea standing nearby, looking suspicious as they stare up at a tree and discuss the intricate details of a pigeon.
It's a squirrel.
"See how the pigeon operates in its natural habitat, babe," Marcus says to Shea, using a 'mansplaining' voice on her.
When Marcus starts speaking in a high tone, I know that he's nervous.
I walk up to them and observe the apparent pigeon.
"Oh, hey there! We totally did not see you," Marcus greets me, resorting to his high-pitch.
"You two were listening in on us the whole time, right?" I ask them, already aware of the answer.
"Yup!" Marcus instantly confesses.
Shea elbows him in the stomach.
"Babe, you know I hate lying," he complains. "My hands were getting all clammy and sweaty and sh*t," he defends himself.
I grin and decide to call it a day. I head back to the house, back to where I know Dominic will be raiding my kitchen -- he tends to think that he lives with me, these days.
As I enter the kitchen, the first thing I see are sweet packets scattered across the checkered tiles. "Dominic!" I yell out in irritation. I'm sick of cleaning up after him.
"Hailey!" he yells back at me from somewhere in the house.
I storm into one of the rooms and find him watching TV. He has his feet propped up on the coffee table as if this is his house.
I glance at the television to see that he's watching a documentary on wolves. I snort in disbelief. "Since when do you watch Animal Planet?"
"Since I'm an animal," he answers lazily. "Wolves are magnificent creatures. Don't you think?" He grins up at me, testing my patience.
I huff and fold my arms over my chest. "Cut the crap, Dom."
He blinks at me innocently when I stand in front of the TV to block his view. "I don't know what you're talking about. I always watch Animal Planet," he lies.
"Sure," I humor him and begin searching for the remote. "Where is it, Dom? Are you sitting on it?" I ask as I search between his legs.
He jolts upright and pushes me aside. "Hey, watch it! That's my junk you're feeling up!" he grumbles before giving into my persistence and handing me the remote of the Xbox.
I smile in victory and change the channel over to see what it is that he's really been doing while I've been gone. "I knew it!" I exclaim as I notice the cars beginning to appear on the screen. "You've been playing in our saved Need For Speed: Most Wanted game without me when you promised we'd complete it together!"
"I can't hold your hand for everything," is his response.
I pout and take a seat next to him, already forgetting about the mess that he's created in the kitchen.
"Don't look at me like that," he orders as I continue pouting at him. "Fine! I won't save my progress. Now can you stop?!"
"Thank you, Dom."
"Whatever," he mumbles.
"You know, earlier, you could have just mind-messaged me," I tell him, referring to him calling me when I was busy speaking to his brother.
"Hailey, how many times have I told you not to call it 'mind-messaging'? It makes us sound pathetic." I have to bite my tongue from telling him that he is pathetic. "We're telepathic, not telepathetic. In any case, if I did contact you via our mind linkage, Brendan would have heard that it was me interrupting the meeting."
"Yeah, and calling me on my phone is so much better?" I raise an eyebrow at him questioningly.
"Bren didn't know it was me calling," he shrugs, unaware of thee Alpha's awareness.
"Oh, he knows it's you," I mumble under my breath.
"You told him?! Are you insane?" he growls at me.
"I think we all already know the answer to that one," I answer honestly.
"You know as well as I do that this isn't the first time I've interrupted one of his meetings. Last time, I barely made it out with my fur still intact," he reminds me.
"Hey, don't blame me," I defend myself. "I just said that it was an idiot calling. It's not my fault that he knew exactly to whom I was referring to. You're the one who made the name for yourself."
He's about to flip me off when he notices the time.
"Don't tell me it's that time of the day again," I sigh aloud.
"It is, princess. Let's move." He walks to the front door and opens it for me. "I know you hate training but you have to."
"But do I have to?" I groan.
He frowns at me in frustration. "I'm pretty sure that I just said that you have to. I swear, you're the laziest werewolf I've ever met."
I can't argue with that logic. Thus, I follow after him.
His blue eyes soften a notch. "Hailz...it's the only way we're gonna find out what's wrong with your wolf."
I roll my eyes. "You make me sound like a freak of nature."
He smirks. "But you are. We all are."
I brush his comment aside as we reach the training center.
"I feel like the only way I'm ever going to get my control back is if I go back to the place where I supposedly died," I reveal my own theory. "Please, Dom. I can't continue like this anymore. It's been ten years. I want answers."
He hesitates, contemplating my words, before he averts his eyes and shakes his head adamantly. "I can't go behind Bren's back and take you there."
Defeated, I sit down and push the brunette lock out of my eyes.
"Then I'm not training today," I say stubbornly.
He huffs, annoyed. "Hailey, get up."
"No."
"Hailey!"
"What?"
"Up! Now!"
When I still don't move, he takes a seat in the dirt too.
I glance at him from the corner of my eye. "Just leave me alone."
"Can't do that, Hailey," he says determinedly.
When he refuses to budge, I groan in exasperation.
"I'm tired, Dom. I can't keep living like this," I voice my conflicting emotions. "Tell me something, if it was you who had lost control, would you not do anything in your power to get it back? Would you not break every pack law that's ever existed if it meant that you could get a chance to lead a normal life as a wolf again? Would you not denounce everything you once believed in to get that inner howl, that inner you, back?"
He moves his gaze from the tree branches to me. "It doesn't matter what I'd do if I was in your situation, simply because I'm not. What counts is what you decide to do. There are two options, leave and get yourself killed, or stay with your family and let us help you. What's it going to be?"
"If you're not coming with me, then I'll go on my own. I'll leave the pack and become a wanderer if I have to," I threaten. "I can't stay captive here anymore."
"You'd just leave all your friends behind?" he asks in disbelief.
I nod in confirmation.
"You'd leave me behind?" he asks again.
"The real question is whether you would stay behind," I turn it back on him.
I spend nearly every waking minute of the day with Dom because of Alpha Brendan's demands. He told Dom to make me his first priority. In the beginning, I was just a job to Dominic, some weak girl he had to protect, but somewhere along the line, he started to accept me as a friend.
Dominic brushes my question aside. "You realize that if you leave this place, you'll never be able to come back?"
I allow his words to sink in. He's right. If I leave, it will infuriate Bren. He will never trust me again, forget allow me back into his pack.
I lift my eyes to Dom's awaiting blue ones. "I know."
"And that doesn't change your mind at all?"
I shake my head. "No. It changes nothing."