Condemned

26 | Jael

"Get changed."

Brock drags me into the wolf stall. I'm so dumbfounded by the command that I just turn my wolf-head and gape up at him with an expression that's readable, even for him. Are you sure?

He doesn't bother to answer, but he gives me a slight kick to my hind legs to get me moving toward the privacy screen.

I dip behind it, but I can't help myself. I look back and make no move to follow any orders.

There are clothes hanging from my hook...

I haven't assumed my human form since November 1st, the morning shit went down. All traces of my humanity were removed from the globe, including the extra clothes on my former hook.

They've been forebodingly absent, and yes, I've checked, whenever I get the chance, which I admit, hasn't been that often. But it has happened, maybe once every few days.

It's been almost two weeks of that—checking for any development—and without any warning, my human identity is being returned to me, at least temporarily. It's a sign, but I doubt it's a good one...

"Now!" Brock's roar makes the floorboards vibrate.

It pushes me through the transition, as if my mind were clear and I was still well practiced.

"What's this about?" I rasp out with my neglected vocal cords.

I button my pants and turn my head, waiting for the smack to come when an answer doesn't.

Brock won't know much, but he'll know more than I do. He'll tell me what I need to know in broken sentences when he's good and ready. If he's in a lenient mood, and I catch him off guard, perhaps he'll say more than he should without hitting me. He may be among the most painful, but he's not exactly the sharpest tool in the shed. 

Never mind. He swats my head by the neck, but with the punishment comes an apparent gift. He hands me the key fob to what was my GMC. "Need you to fill in. Faolan will meet you at truck."

Everything they give can be taken away. And then given back when it serves some other purpose, probably unrelated to what I've endured lately. That, and it's a two-wolf job. Off property. I'm glad for the break in monotony, but I can think of only one reason why they'd send me. I'm expendable and death is likely.

"Must be home by sunrise," Brock adds as I'm about to leave. "If not, better hope you are dead."

The threat goes without saying. If I run now, I might save myself, at least for a time, but I'd be haunted by a dead girl and hunted until the end of my days. Ishmael will outlive me, outpace me, outmaneuver me on the hunt or in any fight. He has resources that are infinite in comparison, and networks of allies on every continent and in every known breed of monsters. Without a well-laid out plan and a support system, it hardly seems worth considering.

They always win in the end...

And at the beginning . . . and in the middle...

I assume my truck is in its usual parking spot and this proves to be true. And like Brock said, Faolan is waiting for me, pacing, in human form, by the passenger side door.

If I'm the most expendable, he's a close second. I can't say I'm too torn up about that.

We climb in, on opposite sides, in conflicting predicaments, and never before has this been so profoundly felt.

Faolan sets a cloth bag between his feet that he doesn't feel the need to mention. It lands with an audible thunk.

In a silence that is strained to the point of breaking already, I start the ignition and pull onto the gravel road that snakes down the hillside.