Black Gold Legacy
The Song of Wolves
FOUR DAYS AGO - TORY
Kit closes the door behind the officers and collapses into the couch, exhausted. He feels like he doesn't even have enough energy to worry anymore – and he has a lot of reasons to worry. Tory is missing, and all signs point to a runaway. Cooper is gone, her clothes are packed, there is money missing and a substantial amount of food has just vanished. And Kit knows it better than anyone: Tory is highly resourceful. He would almost say she could take care of herself, but…
She is fourteen. She can't. She is young, there are predators out there, people who will take advantage of someone as defenseless as Tory.
Kit grinds the heels of his hands into his eyes, hoping to lessen the burning tiredness behind them. He should sleep, but he hasn't slept in three days. Not since she went out and never came back.
He wakes up when something starts buzzing and shrieking. Kit tumbles off the couch, startled, and the noise rises. He roots through the couch cushions for a moment and comes up with Tory's phone, which has been missing but has no GPS that they could track. The alarm is going off – it's six in the morning. He's slept for over twelve hours.
Blearily, Kit hits buttons until it shuts up, and then he just stares at it. If Tory dies, it will be his fault.
There is a text message icon in the bottom right corner of the phone's screen.
Kit looks at it, head blank for a few frustrated seconds. He knows that is important somehow. The little envelope. But he just can't connect it…
Texts are stored. Tory missed her friends. Tory texted her friends all the time. Tory might have told them something.
Kit hits the icon, misses, backs out to the main screen and tries again. Finally the most recent message pops up. It's from Hiram Stolowitski. See you soon, it says.
Kit pages backwards through the texts.
Leaving now, says Ben Blue. On my way, says Shelton Devers.
Tonight, says Tory. We're leaving tonight.
NOW - TORY
The girl doesn't look more than sixteen years old, at the most. She walked into the gas station a few minutes ago, and he's been watching her ever since, keeping a close eye on her hands. Kids shoplifting is about his biggest problem this far into the middle of nowhere.
He's watching her, so he notices some things.
Like how she moves quietly, steadily, through the aisles, and keeps the door in the corner of her eye at all time. Her worn-out shoes, like she's done a whole lot of running. The layered clothes, the bulging, old backpack, the dirt on her hands. The greasy, unwashed hair.
Aw, hell. A runaway, he's willing to put money on it.
For longer than he likes to admit, he thinks about just letting it go. Could be she's just poor. But no, when he looks outside there's no cars out there. She either walked or hitched a ride here, and it's miles to the next station, miles of open, unobserved road. The perfect place for a girl like her to disappear.
He does not want to wake up two years from now wondering what happened to her, if she got where she was going, if she's still alive. He has enough of that already.
He moves into the back room, calls the police about a possible runaway, and steps back into the shop just as the girl hits the bell on the counter. There's three packs of jerky on the counter, a gallon of water, and a pack of cigarettes. His eyes travel to the case he keeps the cigarettes in - still locked. What the hell?
He charges her for the jerky and the water, takes his time about it, waiting for the cops to show. He moves the cigarettes off to the side and at the end holds them up for her to see and stows them away under the counter. They're not a brand he carries, so she probably paid for them somewhere else, but it's still illegal. He doesn't know why she put them on the counter - mistake? It doesn't feel like it.
She gives him a secretive smile, and he thinks she looks pleased with him. She heads for the door.
He pauses. Thinks. Too soon for the police to catch her. Goes to the door.
"Hey!" he calls, catching her by the arm just outside.
She whirls, one hand lashing out with all of her momentum behind it. He doesn't get the chance to say anything else. When the hand, that back-handed afterthought of a blow, lands on his shoulder it is with the force of a boulder. He falls to his knees, breath knocked out. He thinks his arm might be broken.
Her eyes are glowing gold.
"I saw you watching me in there." The girl says. "But you didn't let me buy cigarettes, so I figured you were okay. Do you think I'm defenseless?" She pauses, inhales slightly. "Your intent is not malicious, I can tell that. Stop being so afraid. I am not going to hurt you."
She steps back, slowly, carefully. Her eyes are amber - how did he not notice that before?
Then she turns around and breaks into an easy lope that carries her quickly away from his station, but not along the road. She's heading off into the fields, going west.
When the police get there six minutes later, he's still kneeling there, holding a broken arm, staring at where she was long after she's gone. Thinking.
SEVEN DAYS AGO - TORY
Tory throws the pile of clothes into her bag, then removes them again and folds each one carefully. There are two sets, not counting what she's wearing, and a leather jacket that is one of Kit's many 'apology' gifts. It is the only one she really likes – mostly because Whitney so obviously disapproves.
The clothes are all dark, unremarkable. Nothing new, nothing old and worn. She doesn't want anyone to remember her.
She doesn't want to be found.
Two minutes ago, Hi finally texted her back. Everything is set up. They are doing it tonight. The pack is going to be whole again, and this gnawing, aching loneliness that has been her only companion will finally be gone. She knows the others have it worse – Tory at least still has Cooper, when the emptiness gets too great.
She's packed up everything important in her room. Clothes, all her pocket money, Cooper's favorite bone. Now she just has to wait.
Two hours later Kit and Whitney finally head up to bed. Tory touches Cooper behind the ear to wake him, and signals him to be quiet. Training him has been her only solace this last month. He's smart and learns fast, even given their preternatural ability to communicate with each other.
Tory's feet are silent down the stairs because she knows where all the creaking steps are. In the kitchen she takes the carving knife. In the living room, she goes to the table her father's wallet sits on and empties it of all the cash. Sixty-three dollars which adds up to hers for three-hundred and four, all told.
Hopefully, that's enough to take her to the west coast.
Tory's always been vaguely in shape, but since the move she's been running for miles every day, to get out of the house, to pass the long hours when there isn't any school and she can't bear to sit still, haunting a place that will never become her home. Coop always follows her on her runs, and it's showing in his legs. They're long and powerful. He looks more like a wolf every day.
Tory's backpack is the hiking kind. It buckles over her shoulders, chest, and waist, securely. She knows it won't get in the way.
Two days ago she looked up what they do about runaways and kidnappings. Amber Alert, pictures in the news, tip lines. They close minor highways and set up checkpoints on major ones. She isn't going to risk that mess.
Tory faces west, and starts running.
The fences she climbs over. The woods hold no shadows to her flaring senses. The night is her bright kingdom, and the air is sweet because she knows that she is heading towards her pack members. She can feel them ahead of her, spread out across the miles, but all of them moving. Running with her. West.
In pure joy, Tory throws back her head and howls. After a heartbeat Cooper joins her. Soon she will howl with three more voices. Soon.
FIVE WEEKS AGO - TORY
Tory is the last one to leave the island, as she feels is right. She visits their old base with Coop, one last time, knowing this is one den she can never return to. She circles the whole island on foot, winding up back at the dock where the Sewee used to be tied. There she stares out over the horizon for a long while, until the sun starts setting and she knows Kit must be looking for her.
When Tory returns to the house, everything is packed up and away. Whitney has volunteered to drive the moving van to give Tory and Kit time to talk, but Tory has nothing to say to him. Some small part of her had still believed that adults were all-powerful, and could do anything. That part is gone. Kit just looks small and human now.
He does not look like family, like pack.
In the car, Tory is silent even though she can feel Kit preparing for an explosion from her. Cooper is in the back, whimpering with every mile between them and home.
"Tory," Kit sighs, finally. He seems ready to give a speech.
"Don't." Tory warns him. "Think this conversation through. Nothing you can say will make me feel better. It might even make things worse. You're wasting your breath and both of our lives."
Kit thumps the wheel in anger. "Dammit, Tory, I have to at least try to get you to believe that this isn't the end of the world."
Tory feels that tearing pain in her chest again. Her pack is so very far away. They can't protect each other. She stares out the window of the car and murmurs quietly to herself, "But it is."
NOW - TORY
Tory stops suddenly, pausing almost mid-step. She faces the dawning sky and inhales the breeze. Something is wrong.
Tory's been flaring for hours now, since she started running from that middle-of-nowhere gas station. She feels fine - not tired at all, though Coop beside her is taking deep, long breaths. They both look like they could go for miles more at this pace, if it were not for that part of Tory that tells her something isn't right.
She searches deep within herself, and finds the answer there.
It isn't her trouble she is sensing, but her pack's. Hiram has been captured. She doesn't know how she can know that, but he isn't moving any more, and from his astral self she is sensing an overwhelming despair.
Tory growls, and Cooper begins howling again. She joins him, howling to Hi that she is coming for him.
Far, far away, she knows he can hear them.