Stare

One - Departure.

▓ ONE ▓

I buried my face in the musty, bare surface of our dad's old mattress, wishing for the world that we didn't have to leave this place behind.

Our old house wasn't much. It was very small. The foundation and pipelines were falling apart, but that was pretty much like everything else in our community, and it was the only home I'd ever known. This was the town I grew up in, and this was the house where my brothers and I spent every holiday and birthday eating candy, running helter-skelter through the yard, and huddling under our dad's ridiculously huge comforter.

Most of all I remember my mom. She was an ass most of the time and we didn't have very much in common. It was Jonah that used to worship her, pattering behind her like a pup on the lazy summer nights. She and I shared the responsibility of making sure the house was moderately intact and that nobody got shot or bludgeoned in a street fight. She was good at solving issues.

Before she died, our mother told us everything she possibly could about our "other sides". Being wolves, she would say, there was no way in hell we could be open about ourselves and expect to fit in. It was dangerous. There were people who would kidnap us and put us in labs and we would never be seen or heard from again.

Honestly, it used to terrify me and make me sad. And I'm not sure when I accepted it, but my family knew the real me and that was all that mattered. I now pretty much spend a my free time drilling the same philosophy into Jade. No matter where we went, our wolf sides had to stay a secret.

A low sniffle got my attention. I turned over to my side, coming face-to-face with a pair of serious, bright blue eyes. My baby brother was smaller than Jonah and I had been at five years old, unerringly sensitive and patient. Jade, unlike me, resembled mom in the fullest. His personality, though, was far softer.

"Hey, Little Guy," I said, smiling. I made a move to embrace him, but he shied away, pinning me with that hesitant, tired look. Jade hated it when people touched him, but I was usually an exception. I guess tonight he was feeling especially ill.

I frowned. Jade wasn't going to survive in this place.

Rare field trips, TV, and Dante's constant grumbling reminded me that Chicago wasn't the best place in the world. When I was very little, I didn't understand the violence. It was everywhere, a part of life, and I never fully grew accustomed to it. I used to run home to my brother and parents, wailing about some cruel injustice me or somebody else experienced at school, and Jonah would only laugh, shake his head, and promise me he was going to fix that. The next evening, Jonah would be suspended for beating up a kid on my behalf.

One day, he tried to teach me a thing or two about defending myself.

"Respect yourself. Don't let nobody tell you who you are, or what you can or can't do," Jonah said. He was fourteen then, tall and handsome, and I was ten. It was no secret that I was a little nerdy. I liked to flaunt my intelligence, and that didn't bode well with the other kids in my class. Before I knew it, there were snickers behind my back and poorly disguised gestures to me from the corners of my eyes.

"What if they try to fight me?" I argued.

"You call yourself a wolf? Fight."

"What if I lose?"

Jonah squared up. "You might, but I'm gonna teach you not to. You'll win some, and you're gonna lose some." He licked his lips, then added, "Just prove you ain't a fucking punk."

Sometimes I wondered if Jonah was embarrassed of me. He was always making fun of me because I never really had friends, but he was still there whenever I needed him. There were other people, like our landlord, who seemed to hate us for no reason. Dad had a stalker once who didn't like that he left his gang. He would bang on the door late at night, and Dad would corral us in his room all together to pretend we weren't home.