Hitchhikers (Wolf Point #1)

-61-

It's strange how Zeke's demeanor changes after I threaten him. He's still hard to read, with his face all covered, but he comes along and follows directions without the weird moodiness of yesterday. Around noontime I pull him deeper into the trees alongside the road and ask him to wait. In seconds I shed my clothes and turn wolf.

A family of rabbits has dug a burrow nearby, and I sniff it out, then kill two.

When I return to Zeke, relieved that he hasn't run off, he is starting up a fire. He stares at me while I transform, then quickly averts his eyes.

"It's weird," he says finally. "I could smell what you caught. I figured cooked rabbit would taste better." He throws more wood onto the flames as I zip up my jeans. "Have you always been... this way?"

I unsheathe my knife and start preparing the rabbits. "I guess. I mean, I was born this way... but I didn't know it until I turned thirteen. That was the first time I changed."

"Didn't you know you were different, though? Before?"

I shrug.

Zeke comes over and starts on the other rabbit as I'm skinning the first. "I can smell things I never thought had a smell. I can hear things that must be miles away like they're right next to me." He looks at me. "You must have known."

"I had no idea," I say.

I almost can't believe it myself, but growing up I was so isolated. My parents and Kayla, they all had the same powerful senses. It didn't seem abnormal. They never told me I was abnormal.

(would've been nice if they had, maybe then I wouldn't have spent three years running from myself)

Only the kids at school, but they were mean about everything.

what did you say danny you think i smell like shit well smell this

The swirlies in the boys' bathroom, one time getting upended into the trash can in the cafeteria. The constant headaches from the too-loud chatter of a hundred children all at once, the scraping of chalk on the blackboard, the stink of the dumpster behind the school.

look who smells now but you always smelled like trash didn't you danny you and your drunk-ass dad down there in that trailer your whore of a mother

My grip tightens around the knife and I rip out the rabbit's innards with enough force to spray its coagulating blood across the snow.

(it was a long time ago)

(none of that was as bad as what dad did)

It's all in the past, and besides, they didn't pick on me very often. Mostly because I could hear them coming and hide. I thought they bullied me because I wasn't a townie or a rancher. I thought they bullied me because my family was white trash.

Definitely not because I was a werewolf.

After we've eaten, put out the fire, and started walking again, I offer Zeke my idea. "Do you know how to drive a car?"

"I drove my dad's truck a couple of times. Like two feet forward, or backing up."

I nod. "That's good."

"What, you don't know how to drive?"

"No."

"Really? I figured you were old enough to have your license already."

"Nope, just turned sixteen a couple months ago."

"So... if we were to steal a car, you could drive it?"

"Driving on a highway is a lot different from backing the truck up in front of my house." We walk on for a few more minutes. "Besides, you'd need to find a car with keys. I don't know how to hotwire a car. And it'd have to be an automatic. I have no idea how to drive standard."