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THE GIRL said “Alpha” and “please” and held out her hands.
She grew agitated at the sight of me.
Other times she cried, arms wrapped around herself, rocking back and forth.
Elizabeth looked pained, brushing her hands through the girl’s hair. She would whisper little things and sing songs that caused my heart to ache.
Joe told the humans to stay away from her. He didn’t want to take the chance of the Omega lashing out.
No one argued. She made them uneasy, the way her empty eyes stared straight ahead, only coming to life when Joe or Ox came in the room.
Ox tried to bring her back. Pull her away from the madness. For a brief moment, I thought it worked.
His eyes bled, a low rumble in his throat.
Her eyes cleared, and she blinked slow and sure like the fog was burning away and she—
Her eyes turned violet. She cowered away from him, backing herself into a corner, even as she reached toward him, claws sliding out from the tips of her fingers, oily and black.
“Alpha,” she babbled. “Alpha, Alpha, Alpha.”
I DIDN’T stay at the house most nights. I had my own little home. My own space. It’d once been Marty’s, and then Marty and me. Now it was just mine. It wasn’t anything grand, but I’d missed it almost as much as I’d missed Ox when we’d been gone. The first time I’d stepped inside after returning to Green Creek, my knees had felt weak and I’d slumped against the door.
It was in a quiet neighborhood at the end of a street, set farther back than the other houses. It was made of brick, so the wolves could huff and puff all they wanted. A maple tree grew in the front yard with as many leaves on the ground as were in its limbs. Bright flowers bloomed in the spring, golds and blues and reds and pinks. A small deck attached to the back, big enough for a chair or two. Some nights I’d sit there, feet propped up on the railing, a cold beer in one hand and a cigarette in the other as the sun set.
There were two bedrooms. One had always been mine. The other was Marty’s, now an office. There was a kitchen with old appliances and a bathroom with a medicine cabinet made of wood. The floor was carpeted, and it needed to be replaced soon, some of the edges frayed and worn.
The roof was new. Ox and the guys had helped.
The Bennett house belonged to the pack. But this house was mine.
Sometimes when I came home, I’d put the keys in the bowl on the kitchen counter and I’d stand there, listening as the house creaked and settled around me. I’d remember Marty moving in the kitchen, telling me that all a man needed was a few ingredients and he’d have a feast. More often than not it was a TV dinner nuked in the microwave. He’d been married once, he’d told me, but it hadn’t stuck. “We both wanted different things,” he’d said.
“Like what?”
“She wanted me to sell the garage. I wanted her to fuck off.”
He laughed every time he said it. It would always devolve into a smoker’s cough, wet and sticky, his face red as he slapped his knee.
He wasn’t magic.
He wasn’t a wolf.
He wasn’t pack.
He was a human man who smoked too much and cursed with every other word.
His death had hurt.
I thought I’d seen Mark at the funeral, standing at the fringes of the surprisingly sizable crowd. But when I’d pushed my way through the well-wishers, he was gone, if he’d been there at all. I’d told myself I was projecting.
After all, the wolves were gone.
A FEW days after the Omega came from the trees, I opened the door to my little house. My neck was stiff and my shoulders ached. It’d been a long day, and I wasn’t as young as I’d once been. The work took a toll on my body. I had a bottle of old pain pills in the drawer of the nightstand next to my bed, but they always made me feel muddled and slow. They were probably expired anyway.
A TV dinner in the freezer called my name. Spicy enchiladas that gave me heartburn. A can of beer left from the twelve-pack. A cigarette to finish it all off. A meal fit for a king. A perfect way to spend a Friday night.
