IT STARTED out fine.
Mostly.
I felt like I was caught in a free fall, my stomach swooping up in my chest to the back of my throat. I felt like I was stuck in that moment when you miss the last step and land hard on your foot.
We ran in the woods.
Through the trees, jumping over logs and creeks, our feet splashing in the water when we didn’t make it far enough.
The wolves were howling around me, but it was off, the harmonies too far off-key to really be singing together.
My wolves sang like they always did, in time and in sync.
Joe and his wolves did the same, but a step above or below mine.
It grated, the mixing of the two, but there was something there. Something that was thrumming just below the surface. It crawled along my skin, and I ran toward it, to escape from it.
The humans laughed as the wolves chased them.
Gordo hung back, mostly watching, eyes on the perimeter, arms alight as his tattoos fluttered and flew.
I thought we were close to something as we moved in the forest.
Something that was just out of reach.
Joe ran at my side, the muscles under the white coat moving like water. Like smoke, fluid and rippling.
I wasn’t a wolf. I didn’t think I’d ever be a wolf. I didn’t feel the pull of the moon.
But it felt different now.
I wanted to howl a song out. I wanted to sprout claws and fangs and tear into the flesh of a rabbit. I wanted my eyes to burst red, to feel the grass on my paws.
There were thoughts, some my own, some coming from all directions.
They said, PackLoveBrotherSon and safe here we are safe here and together oh my god we’re together we run together and home we’re finally home look here this tree i know this tree and he’s gone FatherHusbandAlpha he’s gone but i can still feel him i can still smell him i can still love him and so much more. It was all of them at once, the wolves, and maybe the humans of my pack. They were skittering along my thoughts, tying themselves to me and each other, the threads tangling.
But it was the wolf that ran with me that I heard the most.
He said, here.
He said, i’m here.
He said, with you finally with you.
He said, i can feel you.
He said, i know you can feel me.
He said, that little voice at the back of your head that little tug you feel that you’ve always felt that has never left you has always been me it’s always been me because you’ve always been mine i gave you my wolf because you are pack pack pack you are mate you are you are you are—
We were so distracted, running under this euphoric high, this fever dream that couldn’t have possibly been real, that we didn’t see him coming. One second Joe and I were side by side, and the next, there was a flash of gray and black in front of me, and Joe was knocked off his feet onto his side.
The fever broke.
There was loud snarling, a snapping of teeth.
I kept running for five steps before I remembered I had to stop.