He snarled in my face.
I didn’t flinch.
“That’s enough.” Joe stood in the open doorway to the motel room. It was the first time we’d heard his voice in days.
“We’re just—”
“Carter.”
He rolled his eyes and pushed past me, stalking back out into the dark.
We listened as his footsteps faded.
“You shouldn’t have interrupted us,” I told Joe coolly. “It’s better to have it out now than to let it fester. It’ll hurt more if you don’t.”
“He’s wrong, you know.”
“About?”
Joe looked exhausted. “You do care about us.”
He closed the door behind him.
I smoked another cigarette. It burned on the way down.
ANOTHER FULL moon. We were in the Salmon-Challis Forest in the middle of Idaho, miles and miles from any signs of civilization. The wolves were hunting. I sat next to a tree, feeling the moon against my skin. My tattoos were brighter than they’d been in a long time.
If I stood then and went to the SUV, it’d take less than two days to get back home.
Green Creek had never felt so far away.
A wolf appeared. Kelly.
He held a rabbit in his mouth, neck broken, hair matted with blood.
He dropped it at my feet.
“I don’t know what the hell you want me to do with this,” I told him irritably, pushing it away with my foot.
He yipped at me and turned back toward the forest.
Joe came next. Another rabbit.
“For all you know, this kind of rabbit is endangered,” I told him. “And you’re contributing to its demise.”
I felt a burst of color in my head, sunshine bright and warm. Joe was amused. He was laughing. He didn’t do that when he was human.
He dropped it at my feet.
“For fuck’s sake,” I muttered.
He sat next to his brother, facing the trees.
I waited.
Carter came, eventually. He was dragging his feet. He carried a fat gopher in his jaws.
He wouldn’t look me in the eye as he dropped it next to the rabbits.