Lillabeth had helped him remove the bandages and clean him of the clay left behind. And beneath it all, his skin had only the faint stripe of a single scar remaining. She said it might fade on its own, but it didn't matter to Jaylin. Disregard numbed him. He felt so distanced from himself that nothing mattered at all. Nothing but his friends and his family, and he'd yet to see any of them.
By the time he'd wandered to the garden, Felix has finished the job he'd set out to do with Lisa. He stood there with a glass of something red in his hands, shed of the layers of jackets and gloves he typically wore.
Jaylin had seen him before, without his husks to cover him. But he had spent so much time trying to ignore the scars on his skin, he hadn't observed them in their gnarled glory. For the first time, Jaylin truly saw the scars that mangled his body. Most of them old, simple blemishes on the surface, but a few fresh—newly mending. They wracked his skin, from the bones of his knuckles to the broad, built arms he hid from the world.
Julia sat on the bench beside him, chatting up a storm. His mother was the type of person who could make conversation with anyone—and not only that, but make it enjoyable. Even to people like Felix, who roared out in laughter at something she'd said and wiped the sweat from his brow. Jaylin didn't know why she was here, but he felt a lightness in his chest at the sight of her smile. Finally, he could focus on her. On her health and her comfort, no more wolves, no more scouts, no more Bad Moon.
But as he went to greet her, a hand hooked him by the elbow.
He swung around, startled by Alexander—his eyes wide and his cheeks pink from the cold. He tugged Jaylin behind the tool shed and his pearly grin came to life.
It looked as if he wanted to say so many things. But instead, Alex shoved his hands into his pockets and humbled his smile. "I'm glad you're okay, Jay. How are you feeling?"
Jaylin crossed his arms and rubbed away the chills. "I don't know. Surreal I think. I guess I just—it's like I'm still waking up." Something bristled him. The sky turned dark and the wind blew, but Jaylin didn't feel cold. It was something else. "I don't know what to think. I guess I won't until I remember everything that happened. No one will tell me, so..."
"It'd probably be better if you remembered naturally. Quentin was pretty adamant about things going back to normal. You know, now that the whole lichund thing's over." As Alex caught the uncertain look on Jaylin's face, his smile eased. "Jaylin? What's wrong?"
Jaylin shrugged because nothing so simple could explain how he felt. "It might be over for you, but I feel like I lost time. Or like I'm dreaming and I'm going to wake up back in Ziya's...monster factory. It doesn't feel over to me, Alex." Alex looked him over, searching the right words to say—but Jaylin didn't need them. He just needed to be heard. "Who's to say it's over?" he asked. "Olivia turned weeks before the bad moon. Do you know why?"
Alex's eyes grazed the ground.
"Does Quentin know why? Imani? Any of them? There's still so much we don't know...so who's to say it's over?"
When Alex raised his head, there was something sad and troubled to the look he wore. "You want out of this, don't you?"
"No." Jaylin sighed. "I just...I think I want to go home. I like it here, Alex. I love it here. But I think I need to go home."
There was a flash of disappointment on Alex's face. But he nodded slowly and kicked at the dirt under his feet. "I get it. It'd probably be easier to forget all of this if you forget...this."
"It's not that I want to forget. I just want to feel normal and I can't do that here."
Again, no words from Alex. His curls fell over his eyes and he dug his heel into the dirt.
"We'll still hang out," Jaylin said. "Promise."
"Yeah." Alex lifted his eyes to the sky—to the moon, washed completely of red. "We have to. We're kind of family now."
As Jaylin turned to look back towards his mother, Alex gripped him by the arm again. "One more thing, Jay."
-
"We called her this morning," Alex said. "Talked her into keeping quiet from the cops for a while. We told her you've been lost in the forest all this time, and she believed us, but Quentin still has to make some arrangements."
"Arrangements?"
"He's got wolves everywhere," Alex said. "Too many in the police force to count. He'll take care of your missing person's report, but for now, you've been lost. That's all. Just lost."
"Okay," Jaylin said.
Alex nodded toward Julia. "Okay."
And at first Jaylin hesitated. And when he realized Alex was telling him to go ahead and greet her, he took quickly to his feet. Julia was shocked at first, by the bandages covering his body. But with a tearful smile, she took Jaylin into their arms and kissed his cheeks until his face felt numb. "Don't you ever do that to me again," she said into his shoulder. Jaylin bit back his tears so Felix wouldn't see.
"Sorry, Mom."
She stayed out in the garden with Felix after that, while Jaylin returned inside. The house was alive with the smell of roasting meat and the table had been set with rows of dishes and utensils. A number of strangers strung out around the living room—a few lounging at the table, chatting with one another while they nursed glasses of wine and bottles of beer. The only face among them that he recognized belonged to Izzy.
She blinked when she noticed him, and the beauty in her striking smile flushed him down to the bone. Was there something in the werewolf gene that made these people so attractive?
"Jay!" she cheered and lifted her wine glass. "Look at you, all healed up already."
Jaylin touched the scar on his neck. "Yeah..."
"It's the wolf blood in'm," one of the guests exulted from the table—an older man, rugged and wrecked with scars. He tipped back his beer, guzzled it down in a single sitting and then hissed out a satisfied exhale. "Those bullet wounds practically healed up by morning."
Jaylin clutched at the soreness in his side and rolled his shirt up just enough to seek a scar. The skin there was risen, but nothing more than the size of a bug bite. "Bullets..." he mumbled.
"No sir," the second man contested, an arm around the woman in his lap who cradled a child against her chest. "That my friend is lichund blood. To call him a wolf would be like callin' a shark a goldfish."
"He's not wrong," Imani crooned. She sat on the couch, fully dressed now in a blouse and a skirt surely from Lisa's closet. Her arm hung around another woman's shoulders—black, short hair cut straight across her bangs. "And surely a shark heals faster than a goldfish."
"I'm not sure that's how it works, Imani," Izzy laughed. She set her wine glass down and trotted across the floor in heels that made Jaylin feel so much shorter than he was. She snatched his hand and dragged him back to the couch with her, and Jaylin fell into the cushions, wedged between Izzy and the dark-haired girl.
"What's going on?" he asked as a glass of wine was shoved into his hands. He sniffed it and recoiled at the smell. It wasn't only the wine—but her perfume. The candles. The foods cooking in the kitchen. Everything smelled much too strong.
"We're throwing a victory dinner," Izzy gleamed. "We brought venison."
"Ja," the girl beside him said, her voice thick around the edges. "Hunted all morning—a fine feast."
"For a fine occasion," Izzy added.
The men from the table came to join the conversation, while the woman was helped off by the maids to change the child's diaper in a more private environment.
They spoke about things Jaylin had never heard of; events they'd participated in all around the globe—things exclusive to wolves, things unknown by people. Imani spoke of her pack in the South, and the rugged-looking man contested with his own stories of his men in the North. It wasn't long until someone had spoken his name. Leo. The alpha Quentin talked about so often.
They bonded over stories of their own chrysalises. Their first moons and their first hunts. And while they talked, Jaylin drank. He drank until he'd numbed the numbness. By then, Izzy was as buzzed as he was, and bubbling about something called the exposition.
"And god, the Gala. It was so beautiful last time I went. And the food—over thirty kinds of meat. I've never seen so much in my life. It was amazing. You have to go this year, Jaylin."
"He's to be crowned anyway." Imani's pewter ring clanked against her glass. "Are you forgetting?"
"Crowned?" Jaylin asked, holding out his glass as one of the maids circled around with a bottle of wine. He hated the taste of it but it warmed him pleasantly.
He watched her fill it as Izzy spoke, "It's a ceremony for all of the new wolves. An official introduction into your pack. Think of it like an orientation."
The wine suddenly tasted too bitter to drink. Jaylin gazed down into his glass—into the red of his reflection. And his mind was swept by a vision. The red of the moon beating down on the earth—on every blade of grass he trampled as he ran, ran as fast as he could between trees and over brooks. He was remembering—remembering the way his fingers looked. The terrifying claws that mangled everything he touched. "I'm not a wolf."
"No," Imani said. Her eyes stuck to him too firmly to look away. "You're a shark. But we share the same reef, do we not?"
Izzy took his hand in a tight squeeze. "You're one of us, Jaylin. That's what she's trying to say."