No one would appreciate strangers showing up to their home without warning, I imagine, but a pair of werewolves we'd never met before trespassing on our territory (intentional or not) was . . . a little more than alarming. Leroy and I had been on our toes ever since. Shaun wanted to come over again the next day, but Leroy said he wasn't allowed, without really explaining why. Shaun tried calling him several times, and instead of telling him what was going on, he only answered the phone to say, "Just stay the fuck away," and hung up.
Ten minutes later, Shaun was at the door, and they were yelling at each other—through the door, like fucking heathens. Leroy banged his head against the wall and growled, "Go home, Shaun! This is not a hotel!"
"You're a lousy fucking soulmate," he replied.
"Just go away."
"Why?"
"It's for your own goddamn safety!"
After a few seconds, Shaun said, "Oh . . . well, you could've said so."
That's when Leroy finally opened the door. He sighed and explained in a low voice, "There are wolves in the area, okay?"
"Uh, yeah. I know. And I'd argue I'm probably safer inside than standing outside your house waiting for you to open the fucking door." He scoffed. "Not that I imagine they'd come this close to humans."
"I'm talking about werewolves, Shaun. They've got no issue coming close to humans, and they probably won't be nice about it. I don't want them to know you know us, let alone that you're my soulmate, so please just stay home for a while, okay?"
"Dude. Why not just text me 'you gotta lay low for a bit 'cause there's weres around' next time? That would've saved us a lot of trouble."
"Because Leroy is an idiot," I called from the living room.
Leroy grumbled something about getting bullied under his breath before stepping outside. I got up to see what he was doing and found Shaun frowning at my brother, who was spraying the ground. He pointed the hose at Shaun and ordered, "Move aside."
"What are you doing?" I asked.
"Masking his scent," he said, threatening to wet Shaun again.
"Oh, I—okay." Shaun stepped off the lopsided pavers leading up to our house and returned to the road. "I guess I'll just . . . go then?"
"Bye."
Shaun rolled his eyes and flipped Leroy off behind his back. I tried to keep my laughter in as he got into his car. Whether Leroy noticed it or not didn't matter. He splashed his car, anyway.
"Okay," I said, "but we really have to do something about that wolf."
"Yeah, let's kill her."
I threw Leroy an unamused look. If it came to that, he could hide the body.
"I'm kidding," he said. "We can try to find her and ask what she wants. She was definitely trying to provoke us, sticking to the edge like that."
"You really think so? Maybe she was just . . . being respectful."
"Trae, if she was being respectful, she would've left the moment she smelled us. She wouldn't have gone around for miles to make sure we couldn't miss her."
He had a point, unfortunately.
"How do you think we can find her, though?"
He sighed and took his time to turn the hose off and wrap it around the hook on the wall. "I don't know. I guess we can walk around town. See if she's been anywhere else."
"Can't hurt, right?"
"Right," he sighed. "Okay, let's go, then. Before it gets dark."
— · —
I'd taken it upon myself to check the shopping area, but I was already regretting it.
It was swarming with people, which made it impossible to pick up a single scent, because there were a thousand others, and I couldn't exactly drop to a crouch to sniff the ground. I could've gotten away with it if I was wearing shoes with laces so I could pretend to tie them, but I didn't think to change before we left, so I would just have to make do with sniffing the air. My only consolation was that I had a better nose than Leroy. He'd have had an even harder time than me.
I didn't really need to identify a specific scent, anyway. I just needed to find that familiar, distinct smell of a werewolf. Once I'd caught it, I could worry about keeping track of it and following—
I paused in front of a souvenir shop.
Wolf?
Or was it—
Someone bumped into me, and I got a noseful of cologne.
"Watch your step," the man snapped, pulling the kid beside him closer as I coughed to clear my airways of artificial spices. Shit, it's like he bathed in it.
"Sorry," I muttered.
When the man was gone, I tried to find the smell again—I even went into the souvenir shop—but there was no trace of it. Before I knew it, I'd spent nearly an hour walking around the area, but . . . nothing.
I had to accept reality: I'd probably imagined it. People were starting to stare, too. I was walking up and down the same streets over and over again, with nothing to show for it, and I had so much more ground to cover. The day wouldn't last forever. I was just wasting my time. I turned into an alley and called Leroy.
"Did you find anything?"
He sighed. "Nothing. I'll join you."
"Oh, don't bother. I thought I had something, so I've been going over the same area to find it again, but I think I was just smelling what I wanted to smell. I haven't gone much further than, like, Main and North, so it would be better if we divide the rest of it so we can cover more ground."
"Trae . . ."
"I know. I'm sorry. I just wanted to be sure."
"What did you smell?"
"Well, I thought I smelled a werewolf, but the scent was gone before I could pinpoint it. It was probably just a dog or something."
"Okay, well, I'm coming over, anyway. It's getting late, and we need food. We can cover the rest later."
— · —
Once we were back home, I tried working the maybe-they-just-left angle again, but all I got from Leroy was a glare. And, yeah, I knew it was bullshit. I was just trying to make myself feel better. I mean, what were we supposed to do? Keep looking until our feet were covered in blisters? Wait for the werewolf to show up again? How long would that take? What the hell did she want with us, anyway?
"Just keep your eyes open when you go to work tomorrow," Leroy said. "Who knows? You might run into another werewolf."
"I hope the fuck not."
"Did you have plans with Mae?"
"Uh . . ."
"Cancel them. We're not putting her in danger, too."
I groaned.
"Trae—"
"Yeah, yeah, I know. I'm just annoyed."
I couldn't afford to be selfish about this, I knew that. It sucked that these werewolves were preventing me from seeing Mae, but it was only temporary. I could see her again when the coast was clear. At least, once I knew where she lived. It was a bit of mystery to me why she hadn't told me yet, honestly. The only thing I could think of was that she still didn't trust me, which was . . . fair.
But I'd hoped she was past that.
"Do you know where Shaun lives?"
Leroy looked up with a curious look. "No, why?"
"Just wondering," I said, shrugging. "Anyway, I'm gonna sit outside and draw."
"Been a while, hasn't it? Have fun."
"Yeah, thanks," I muttered, walking over to my room to get my supplies.
I wasn't the best artist in the world, but I enjoyed it. I usually just drew the same thing over and over again. Leroy claimed that my trees (or my traes, as he liked to call them) were really good, and he'd even tried to convince me to sell my art or put it on the internet or something like that, but Leroy didn't know shit about art. It wasn't that good. Besides, I didn't do it for money.
I was in the middle of drawing one of my famous traes when my phone rang. My hand jerked, and my pencil skidded across the paper, dragging a jagged line through the drawing. With a groan, I dropped the pencil and grabbed my phone, but my scowl disappeared when I saw who it was.
"Mae, hi!"
"Hey," she replied. "How are you?"
"You ruined my drawing."
"What? Um, sorry?"
"It's fine," I chuckled, explaining what had happened. She tried to apologize again, but it was really no big deal. I could just as easily start a new drawing. (Also, I could think of worse reasons to ruin it).
"Do you ever draw people?" she asked. "Friends and family?"
"Sometimes," I replied as I picked up my pencil again. "I'm not very good at portraits. Faces are hard. I could try to draw you, though."
"Ooh, yes, draw me like one of your French girls," she laughed.
"Oh, no, please. I appreciate the pickup line, but please, no anatomy."
She giggled. "Just the face, then."
"I can do that."
"I'll be looking forward to it," she said earnestly. "Anyway, I was calling to ask if you wanted to go out next week. There's a movie I've been meaning to see. I think you'll like it, too. It's a thriller with—"
"Mae," I sighed, "I'd love to, but we're kind of, uh, in the middle of a situation over here. It's not safe to meet up right now."
"Oh."
"I'm sorry. I just don't want to put you in danger."
"I understand. Do you . . . know when we'll be able to meet up again?"
"I don't know," I sighed. "We don't really know how to deal with this problem."
"Is there a way I can help? I have—you know, I know people, I've got resources, but . . ." She cleared her throat. "Well, I don't know what kind of problem you're dealing with, so I don't know how helpful I'd be."
"Yeah, I appreciate the offer, but I doubt you'd be very helpful. Unless you happen to be, like, a witch or something," I said, laughing.
She didn't laugh.
"Mae? You still there?"
"Sorry," she said quickly, like I'd startled her. "I was just thinking. I guess there's nothing I can do if that's the kind of help you need. Please let me know how things progress, though. And please be safe."
"Of course."
"Good. See you soon then?"
"As soon as possible," I promised. "See you."
"Yeah. Bye."
"Bye."
There was another brief moment of silence before she actually hung up, so I sent her a quick message to assure her it would be fine. Her support was all the help I needed right now. She replied with a heart emoji, and I picked up my drawing again with a smile. I started drawing another tree, but before I could even get to the leaves, I finally smelled that thing that'd been haunting me all day.
The werewolf was back.
And this time, she'd brought a friend.
"Leroy!"