Page 8 of Chased

Sanchez got up and grabbed a new bottle of whiskey off the counter, along with the three freshly washed glasses sitting next to it. Probably the only clean dishes in the kitchen.

He carried it all into the shed and put it on the battered kitchen table sitting out there, with three mismatched chairs around it and a half-burned candle with a red barbecue lighter next to it.

One wall was covered in a huge raw slab of wood with a twelve-month calendar roughly painted on it. Matéo was just pulling a battered combat knife out of it. He didn’t look at them.

Sanchez stood for a second, watching him, then sighed and walked over. He was still shit at this even though he’d been doing it since they were barely more than cubs, when their parents were killed and Sanchez was left half-grown with two traumatized younger cousins on his hands.

He put his hand on Matéo’s shoulder and turned him around. “Que pasa, Téo? Estamos en casa. Estamos bien.” We’re home. We’re okay.

Matéo shook his head, still not looking at him.

Sanchez didn’t move, just kept his hand on his cousin’s shoulder. Touch was important for shifter wolves, especially when they were upset. And Matéo had been like this ever since he was a kid—full of emotion he found hard to put into words. You just had to wait him out.

Finally he burst out, “What the fuck were you doing, up there on the roof?”

Sanchez frowned, thinking back. “Laying down cover for the rescue helo.”

“Standing up there like a target? How many fucking times did you drill it into us? ‘Stay low. Don’t get silhouetted against the sky. You’re just asking for someone to shoot you.’”

Now Téo did look up, into his face. “Is that what it is, all the crazy chances you’ve been taking lately?”

What the hell was he talking about? “It’s what I do. Take point. Make a hole, so the others can get in. We all do.”

Téo shook his head. “Not like this. Not stupid shit like tonight. It’s like you’re daring Fate to take you out.”

Was he? Was he pushing himself further and further, chasing an adrenalin high that got harder and harder to reach?

Or was he just sick of waiting for that paper-thin tire to burst, and hoping someone would stick a spike in it?

He cupped his hand around the back of Matéo’s neck and touched his forehead to his cousin’s. The Sanchez boys didn’t hug, but it meant the same.

“It’s nothing like that,” he told Matéo. “Just—all this shit going on here. Too many changes. The wolf doesn’t like it. It makes him wild.”

Matéo just shook his head. Sanchez didn’t know what else to tell him, so he said, “Come on. It’s time.”

There was a thing they always did after a mission, or any time there’d been a chance one of them might not make it through the day.

Back when the three of them had been left to fend for themselves, they were always scared they wouldn’t make it through the day. They’d seen first-hand that sometimes wolves older and tougher than they were didn’t.

We’re still a family, Sanchez had told them, over and over. La familia. Even if it’s just the three of us. We can make it, if we stick together.

He’d made it his life’s work to make sure that happened.

Back then, they’d marked off the days by carving lines on the inside wall of the old tumbledown barn they’d holed up in.

Every day they survived was a victory. Every day had made Cisco and Matéo a little stronger, had fed their belief that they would be okay.

And then Thanatos—the owner of Outlaw Ridge—had found them and brought them here. Honed their tracking skills and made them into soldiers.

But they still did the ritual. Not every day, anymore, but on days that could have gone badly. Like today.

Sanchez lit the candle, and then poured bourbon into the three glasses.

“We made it,” he said. “We’re here. La familia sobreviva.” The family survives.

Matéo walked up to the wall, still holding the knife. Finding the square for the day’s date, he carved a slanted line from the top of the square to the bottom right corner. “Yo sobrevivo,” he said. Then he handed the knife off to Cisco and sat down.

At the wall, Cisco hesitated for a minute, touching one of the dates a few months ago. His leg had been mangled on a mission, and he’d been lucky to survive. Luckier still to get surgery in time to recover full use of it.