The dreams came rapidly, one after another after another. In some of them, Bailey was standing in a clearing, masked in concentrated moonlight. His face morphed into an anthropomorphic creature—the snarling, wrinkled muzzle of a leering wolf. Long, red tongue and flesh-hungry hook for teeth.
Sometimes Matt didn't dream of Bailey at all—sometimes he dreamed of himself. That he was staring down at a set of broken wrists—the bones numb and snapped, protruding through the ivory flesh, his hands nothing but two detached weights at the end of his arms.
Sometimes Matt dreamed that they were standing at the door of Bailey's barn, pale in the motion lights. He dreamed Bailey kissed him against the wet wood, snapped apart the buttons of his shirt and floated a pair of tan fingers up the bare flesh of his stomach. He dreamed that purple-black flowers bloomed on his skin like a rot. Everywhere Bailey touched, bruises blossomed.
When Matt couldn't stand to dream anymore, he stopped sleeping.
His father knew about the video. Though they hadn't spoken about it, Matt was certain. Jack Richards—who usually came home in his cruiser, whistling songs from his time—walked instead with thoughts behind his eyes and hands in his pockets. He didn't look Matt's way when he happened to be out in the field with the cows. He didn't call him in for the occasional dinner, or a beer come Sunday night.
A week passed since Bailey had left. Since Jess had moved out. Since his dad had chosen to forget he existed. And still, every time Matt stepped outside, the crows came. They landed on his shoulder and his arms and the hood of his jacket, and when he shook them off, they scattered to the ground at his feet and followed, tiny hopping shadows. He didn't understand their fascination—not until Monday evening when he sat at Quentin's table, still dressed in his work jacket. The alpha slid a photo toward him of a tall, muscled soldier with buzzed hair and a confident smile. The same man he'd seen in the passenger seat of his Wrangler, the day of the crash on i5. A black bird stood on his left shoulder.
"That was him?" Matt asked.
"That was him," Quentin said. "Thomas Neely."
"His name wasn't Raven?"
"Everyone called him Raven. He had an odd fascination with crows, ravens, black cats. All the dark, unlucky things. But the ravens knew him like a brother. Flocked to him everywhere he went. Was never a party he was at without a black bird on his shoulder."
"So he's stuck in me," Matt said, sliding the photo closer. "Like your wolf's stuck in you?"
"According to Devi, he's using you as a vessel to pass over. Likely, there's something he's trying to accomplish. And once he has, he'll be gone and it'll just be the wolf."
"That's good, at least." Matt thumbed the ink on the photo, his chest heavy with a perpetual ache. He was growing used to it, but sometimes it felt like he was being anchored down by the ribs. Tired, always.
Quentin seemed to see it in him. There was a difficult moment where he looked as if he was seizing words and releasing them again into his thoughts when he felt they weren't the right ones. Eventually, he settled on something easy to digest. "I'm sorry, Matt. I didn't see it. I see everything, but I didn't..." The alpha paused again, those words floating off. Silence climbed into his hard-set jaw and eased again when Quentin let out a vocal sigh. "It's different with Bailey to begin with, but if he was ever lying, he did well not to show it."
"What do you mean?" Matt asked. "Is he different?"
"Very different," Quentin said. "Have you ever heard of coywolves?"
"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..."
"What are they gonna do to him?" It was a sick question with a thousand sick thoughts behind it, and a very large part of Matt wanted not to know them. But a small part of him wanted the spark—the flare that would ignite and burn Ricco down.
Quentin's knuckles went white against the wood. "Some rogues want money, some want drugs. Some just want to rule the world. When it comes to Ricco, if you've thought of it, he's probably done it."
Matt felt in his front pocket for the knife Bailey had given him the night he taught him all the vital stab-spots on a wolf. He held it in his lap, stroked his thumb along the worn grip. "We can't leave him in there, Bronx."
"We could raid," Quentin said, "but we don't know where he is and I'd hate to risk the safety of my sentinels on the chance that he runs right back into the jaws of the rogues."
Matt pressed the button on the side and the blade released. He felt along the metal, touched a finger to the sharp tip. Would he really do that? Would Bailey go back on his own?
Something about it didn't sit right with Matt. Bailey wouldn't do that.
A gentle groan came from the open window of the kitchen. Quentin rose from his seat, smiling anew. "Come on. You look like you could use some sun."
He led Matt through the hummingbird glass stained window and out into the garden—the flowers twice as large as he remembered. Thick petals and fat stems and vivid color, trees dangling with fruit and blossoms, sprinkling light on the stepping-stone earth.
Matt followed him beyond a pair of apple trees, where a green pelt of grass had overtaken the lawn. And within the middle of it, the large Warden tramped the ground, fur black and sheening, horns curling back over his skull, large hands splayed against the earth. A much smaller creature dashed between his legs and around him again, and the lichund beast whirled around and smacked the empty air with a grunt. A cat after the dot of a laser pointer.
Finally, with his large, taloned fingers, he caught the smaller beast, rolled onto his back and dropped her to his chest with a guttural moan. The sounds the little creature made were much smaller—the bubbly roar of a pup that'd just found its voice. The tiny lichund climbed up Jaylin's mane and chomped at his snout.
"He's been teaching her how to turn," Quentin said, hand to his forehead to block out the sun. "He's been teaching all of them. He'll have his own functioning pack soon enough."
Matt watched as the Nadaline scrabbled down the side of Jaylin's neck and gnawed on his ear. He batted at her with that massive hand and she tumbled into the lush grass.
"They do this a lot?" Matt asked.
"Always," Quentin said.
"You guys really think she'll live a normal life like this?"
"No." Quentin looked to the beasts with a broad grin as Nadaline pounced the larger lichund and gave a tiny roar. He laughed at the sound—a soft and warbled woooon the wind. "But she'll live a happy one."
She would. Matt could see it in his grin—he and Jay were gonna be together for the rest of their lives. A family made of monsters and were-men. Psychics and witches.
But still, a family.
Matt let the sun bake his skin, let the heat soak into his tired eyes. He watched them tumble around in the grass until the sun went down. Until both lichund turned back, sopped and bloody, and Quentin brought out towels and buckets of sudsy water to wash off in. Until they dressed and Nadaline fell asleep on Jaylin's shoulder in the warmth of the fire-lit den.
And when Matt couldn't stand to stay any longer, he drove home, the sky still faint with ebbing sunshine and vaporous clouds.
The moment Matt hopped out of his Wrangler, he headed straight for the shed to fetch a bucket of sudsy water and a brush. Then he stood in the pasture and called Billy's name. His voice mocked him in barreling echoes: Billy!... Billy!... Billy! When he didn't come, Matt called him again. It always took twice.
He watched the horizon for that little brown speck to come barreling toward him, but Billy didn't show. Matt crossed the pasture and checked the barns in search of the bull and when he wasn't anywhere to be seen, Matt tossed crossed the ranch to his dad's house. He tossed the door open to the decaying guts of his childhood home—the floor filthy with dust and the wallpaper stained by the sun. The walls were narrow and boxy and Matt always felt claustrophobic inside.
Once he'd gotten a washer and dryer installed in the guest house, there was no reason to step foot in Jack's place—'less he made a dinner big enough to share, or felt like cracking open a cold beer with his kid. It felt like a circular dream to Matt—a place untouched by time, but terribly so. Shrugging off the familiar smells of old wood, Matt crossed the creaking floorboards toward the kitchen. "Dad, Billy got out again," he shouted, gathering his military-grade flashlights from the key hooks in the hall. "Where are the leads? Or at least some rope?"
When no one answered, Matt stuck his head into the kitchen, where his father sat back at his tiny breakfast nook, teeth tapping against the lip of a beer bottle and a newspaper in his hands.
"Dad," Matt repeated. "Can you stop with the cold shoulder for five fuckin' minutes? This is important. Billy's not out in the field."
His father straightened out the newspaper in his hands with a shake. The paper snapped against the sound of the classic rock, crackling through the kitchen radio. "He didn't get out."
"So where is he?"
"Fred came and picked him up earlier."
A cold prickled at the nape of Matt's neck. He clutched the door frame of the kitchen and moved one step over the threshold. "Fred? You sent Billy to the butcher? Why the hell would you do that?"
His father sighed and lowered his papers. "He was getting old. Suckin' up the resources—"
"Bullshit!" Matt shouted. His eyes ached so painfully, he hardly felt the tears until he was blinking them back. He'd never cried in front of his father, he wouldn't start now. "We've had billy for years, this ain't about him. This is your way of punishing me!"
As Matt's voice grew, so did his father's. "He's food, boy. We're ranchers, it's what we do. Get the hell over it."
But as he spoke, Matt recognized the distinct slur between sounds. The terrible liquor on his breath. "You're wasted."
"Jesus," Jack groused. "I had a few beers. It's got nothin' to do with that."
There was a fire in Matt's throat—long, sharp claws digging up his esophagus. "No, it has to do withme. Me and Jess and frankly, that's none of your fucking business." His father slouched back in his seat, reds in the whites of his eyes. But he didn't speak, so Matt went on, "You're punishing me because of my own fuckin' personal life? You have no right!"
"It's my farm, boy," his father snarled, snapping up from his seat. "I don't give a shit what you stick your dick in, but Richards men don't cheat. You made a laughin' stock of—"
"Of what?" Matt said, tears brimming. "You? It's not about you. And as far as laughing stocks go, you did that all on your own, Pop."
His father's eyes narrowed, his hollow face edging. A skeleton with a cracked pelt and an ugly scowl. "Watch your damn mouth—"
"Or what, Dad? I'm all out of cows to kill. Or are you really that scared to admit you got your own problems?"
"Matthew!"
"How the hell have you not been demoted yet?" Matt asked. "How much scotch do you chug in a day, Sheriff? How many beers does it take before you stop hatin' this place and everything in it?"
His father's voice grated with depth. "I don't hate this place."
"I do!" said Matt, and a tear escaped the brim of his eyes—fell heavy on his cheek. He wiped it away, quick as he could. "I fucking hate it here."
"This is home!" Jack shouted.
"This is hell!"
It happened so quickly—the beer bottle slung from his hand. Matt veered out of the way just as it crashed on the door frame of the kitchen, beer splashing over the legs of his jeans. His arm burned like the sting of a wasp and Matt looked down to the glass shard sticking from the flesh of his forearm. He pulled it out, slick with blood—fingers trembling at just how deep it had gone. Stitches-deep, his dad would say.
His father watched with wide eyes, face pale. "Matthew, I—"
Matt watched the blood roll down his arm, tears heavy on his lids. His heart bellowed in his ears, and he looked to his father, hurt and afraid—because despite his drinking and his anger and his hatred for every little thing out of his control, Jack Richards had never despised his son enough to lay a hand on him. Not until now.
"Matt," he said. "Son, wait."
Matt staggered back out of the kitchen and into the cold night, clutching the wound—wishing, for some reason, that it hurt more than it did. Wishin' it hurt so badly, he couldn't entertain the mass of emotions clashing around in his head. They were like waves colliding from opposite directions and he was stuck in the middle, drowning and choking and tired. He wanted to think about the hurt in his arm, 'cause it meant he didn't have to think about the rest.
He stood in the kitchen of the guest house, washing the wound in the kitchen sink, and eventually the blood stopped and the tears dried and Matt stood there, feeling the hot heartbeat in his gashed arm. It was something. At least he could feel something.
His fingers numb, he dug his phone from his pocket and slumped down on the kitchen floor, pressed against the hard edges of the cabinets. He wanted to fold into himself until a black hole ripped open in him, devoured every cell of his body. Took him to a place where things felt alright—or even if it took him to nothing. Even if it took him away to nothing, it'd be better than this.
He dialed from his contacts. The phone rang twice and went to voice mail.
Hey, you've called Tisper. Can't answer right now, but leave a message and I'll call you back!
Matt waited for the beep, then spoke, sounding as broken and tired as he was. A rope pulled so taut, it ripped at the strings. The strings pulled so taut, they ripped at the fibers.
Matt was one breath away from snapping in two.
"I know you're busy with school," he said, "but if you're free tomorrow, I could really use a drink."