Thirty-four
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On four feet, Jess sniffed around in the small patch of wild weeds and stunted trees behind a mini-strip-mall of half a dozen stores. He could smell raccoon, was certain that it was close, and coon would certainly taste better than rat or skunk or squirrel. Now, where was it? He lifted his head from the tangled trails on the ground, searching the air for any clues as to which direction he should try.

A combination of scents that had nothing to do with coon tore a growl from him and raised his hackles even before his mind consciously registered it: human terror, and the acid-sweet smell of a predator.

No way! I'm obviously a failure as a wolf, too, why should I bother risking my life? He fought the overwhelming need to hunt it, kill it, protect, but wolf instincts regarding predators ran too deep for mere depression to bury. It clawed at him mercilessly, worse than the memory of need for the uppers and downers he'd once used to pretend his life was under control.

He spun around and raced off in the direction of the predator scent; dinner would just have to wait.

Not far away, in a sheltered corner behind a laundromat, he found both predator and prey. The human girl he recognized—she was about his age, and spent a great deal of her time in the summer sitting on various stretches of sidewalk with coloured chalk and her own fertile imagination, creating fantastic designs. That explained the interest of the predator: creativity, passion, fear, were all acceptable sources of nourishment.

The predator itself was different from the only one he'd actually encountered in Haven, and he couldn't recall anything like it in the descriptions his packmates had given him of various types, but so what? A predator was a predator. This one was eight-limbed, four of the limbs wide-pawed feet, four of them spindly long-clawed arms, the whole thing massing probably roughly what he did; the glossy dark hide gleamed unpleasantly like oil in the scant light.

Two hands held the girl's arms, and the other two were exploring her body. Adding to her fear, Jess thought in disgust. Spicing up the meal before feasting.

All that took only a second or two to assimilate; without a pause, he lunged directly at the predator, aiming for the back of the neck—there were very few creatures, according to his packmates, that could survive having their central nervous system severed.

The head of the predator swivelled around like an owl's, more than ninety degrees from front, and three huge oval eyes fixed on him.

The lipless slit that passed for a mouth opened, and it began to keen, a high-pitched sound that made Jess whine softly even as his full mass connected with the predator and flung it aside, off the girl. It writhed, and wrapped arms and legs around Jesse's torso, still keening.

Jess turned his head and snapped savagely at it, but missed; all four paws planted firmly, he shook himself, struggling to think past the keening that abused his sensitive ears and made his skull feel like it would split. It hurt, oh god it hurt, Bane had never told him about a predator that used sound to attack, and the limbs wrapped around his ribs were beginning to constrict, not being able to breathe was not helping him clear his thoughts.

Come on, Jess, get it together, or you're going to die, and going down in your second ever predator fight is too pathetic even for you!

He shifted back to human, bare skin crawling at the greasy feeling of the hide against him; the predator, confused, didn't adjust its grip sufficiently, and the keening didn't cause such acute pain, though it was still uncomfortable. He twisted around, and slammed the heel of his hand into the bottom of its jaw.

The mouth closed with a small snick, and the keening faltered.

Thank god. He hit it again, aiming for the throat this time; dazed and silenced, the predator's hold loosened, and Jess pried both pairs of hands apart; he squirmed his way free, with only a couple of shallow scratches to show for it. Panting hard, he shifted back to wolf, and attacked, praying he could kill it before it started that keening again.

He had to tear one arm off to get it out of his way, which took time, but then, all four hands were pawing at its throat and it was making hoarse rasping noises, so it didn't matter, because it didn't appear to be able to breathe properly, let alone hurt him. His jaws closed, covering nearly the entire neck, and he braced himself and jerked sideways and up, bringing the powerful muscles of his neck and shoulders into play.

Head nearly severed from body, the predator went limp, and in a matter of seconds, dissolved into nothing.

Jesse shook himself, pleased with his success—and he hadn't even gotten hurt doing it, not really. Bane would be proud of him, when he told...

Except that he couldn't go tell his pack all about it and celebrate the kill with them and tell them about this new sort of predator. He couldn't go to his pack at all.

The satisfaction turned to pain, an aching sense of emptiness; he heaved a sigh, and turned to check that the girl was going to be all right.

She was huddled against the wall, watching him with wide eyes, tears streaking her cheeks and her breath coming in half-hysterical sobs. The fear scent was overpowering, he could pick up nothing else.

She's as scared of me as she was of the predator, he realized. This wasn't Haven, where she'd have thanked him and been concerned about the blood streaking his sides, even if it wasn't deep. To her, he was as alien and terrifying as the thing that had attacked her, regardless of his having protected her.

He whirled away, and bolted, not caring where he was going, as long as it was somewhere else.

Instinct took him to a little-known baseball field, tucked in behind a couple of huge government buildings. He stood in the middle of the field, and howled his anguish and confusion to the stars, until a couple of strangers came into the park and yelled at him; he fled again, back to where he'd hidden his backpack and clothes under the seldom-used back steps of a coffee shop. In the shadow of the garbage cans, he curled up as tightly as he could, too miserable to care about hunting. What difference did it make? What difference did anything make, now?

* * *

Jess sank down on a bench in a different park, under a moon that had passed from near-new to full since he'd seen Kevin and Shaine, grateful for the shadows that concealed him.

This was killing him by inches. Living like this wasn't worth it—sleeping furform in hidden corners, hunting the small wildlife of the city or shoplifting chocolate bars, hating the thought of being around anyone. It was a twisted version of his blissful days alone in Haven's forest, and that only made him loathe himself and his life more.

He wrapped his arms around his knees, shivering. He should've known better. Every time life began to look brighter, every time he was happy, his feet got kicked out from under him again, usually followed by a kick to the head. Being adopted after so long being bounced through foster homes and waiting for his real parents to come and find him, only to have what seemed at first like heaven turn into a worse hell than that younger Jesse had ever dreamed could really happen. Now it was happening all over again, except that this time, the heaven was still real, only he'd exiled himself from it. Shaine had made it quite clear that he was tired of babysitting him and he was no longer welcome. That left nothing but surviving the streets alone, with no hope of any change. Not even the temporary escape of acid or alcohol or anything else; he knew enough about wolf physiology to know that it would take drastically more each time, and not long for his body to build up a complete immunity to it. And it just might have something to do with Kevin and Shaine both being there last time, and he desperately didn't want that.

Wolf. He could shift to wolf, run far from the city and lose what was Jess in the animal mind...

No, he'd still be running alone, and the memories would never lie completely quiet. He could no more be entirely wolf than he could be entirely human. Better just to get it over with, save himself all the pain between now and the inevitable anyway.

He took his knife out of his jacket, shrugged out of the jacket itself, and pulled out the largest knife-blade. The ragged sleeves of his worn sweatshirt he pushed up out of his way. Now, which way was best? Across? No, wolf blood would clot too quickly, he had to do more damage than that to kill himself.

He didn't notice the footsteps, but he caught the scent; only that saved Shaine from getting the knife in his guts.

“Don't be such a fucking idiot. Put the knife away.” Impassive as ever, Shaine sat beside him.

“Go away. You don't want me around. No one does.”

“I never said that. I said I was tired of taking care of you. It would've been more real if I said I was tired of seeing you need somebody to look out for you. You were s'posed to stay in Haven and get your life straightened out. So why the fuck are you back here?”

“Because nobody trusts me. They said they did, but they don't. They lied and you lied and everybody lies and nobody's even going to notice when I'm dead.”

“Give it a break, Jess, you don't want to die and we both know it. Get the jacket back on before you freeze, put the knife away before I take it, and come on. We're going home.”

“I don't have a home,” Jesse said halfheartedly, but he obeyed anyway. He went with Shaine, back to the apartment. Nothing had changed.

After his room in Haven, it was awful, but at least it was familiar and trustworthy.

“There's probably something edible around,” Shaine said.

Jess shook his head. “I'm okay.” Though it was out of place to say it, he wasn't going to eat if he wasn't hungry. Bane had told him true wolves could survive for over a week without food and python it when they could; werewolves tended to be tougher than true wolves. The coon he'd devoured last night would keep him comfortably until tomorrow.

He didn't want to think about Bane.

Shaine shrugged. “Your life. Go have a shower, you've obviously been sleeping rough and you need one. Badly.”

Too empty inside to care, one way or the other, Jess obeyed. Memories stirred again, of trying to get clean after two weeks in the forest, but he buried it ruthlessly. He just couldn't cope with that right now.

The clothes in his backpack weren't noticeably cleaner than the ones he'd been wearing, but he could figure out what to do about that tomorrow. Right now, he left the bathroom, to find that all the lights were off, leaving only the glow of the streetlights outside through the two small windows, and Shaine was in bed already, waiting. He curled up against Shaine under the blankets, shivering a bit; Shaine slid an arm over him, sharing warmth. Well, what physical warmth Shaine ever had to share; with a body temperature that reminded him more of a dryad's, Shaine was certainly no elvenmage. But the other kind of warmth, that was another matter.

“Shaine?” he said, after a few minutes.

“Hmm?”

“I really really need to tell you something.”

“What?”

“I'm a werewolf.”

“Oh. I was scared maybe you were gonna say you're back on those fucking drugs again.”

“I mean it. I can be a wolf when I try.”

“'Least I won't have to worry so much about whether you're safe.”

There was that.

“Drugs are no good. They don't work anymore.”

“All the better,” Shaine said. “Shut up and go to sleep.”

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