It happened so fast. Alex barely had the time to fully process the fact that it happened again. She watched it all but she refused to believe it was real. She laid down in her place and just stared out at the cliff's edge. Not bothering to turn back into a human, she stayed there until she fell asleep.
When she woke up she was in the back of Michael's truck with her brother next to her. He was a human again but she wasn't, god only knows how they were cramped in the backseat together. Jonas was driving, his posture was stiff and his knuckles were white he was gripping the steering wheel so hard. Michael looked down at her when she sat up, his eyes were red and puffy from crying.
Alex suddenly felt nauseous, "Jonas. Pull over. Please."
He jumped a little, obviously spooked when she was suddenly talking, but he pulled over into a nearby gas station. All three of them got out and they got more than a few weird looks when Alex lumbered out still entirely a wolf.
"I'm going inside to get a slushie or something to drink. Either of you want something?" Jonas was tracing his knuckles when Michael looked over at him, "Just some water for both of us."
"Yeah, right. Okay," Jonas jogged off into the store.
Alex finally stopped vomiting and she turned to look at Michael, "We have the worst luck hunting."
He made a sad smile, "Yeah, no kidding. You're clothes are in the truck if you want to change back."
She nodded and he opened the car door for her, leaning against the truck after closing it. Jonas came jogging back with a small plastic bag, he handed Michael the two waters.
"Is she okay?"
Michael downed his water before answering, "Not really. This is the second time she's gone through this, it'll be a while before she's "okay" Jonas."
"Right, sorry."
Michael pulled Jonas' hat down over his eyes, "It's alright, Jonas. Thanks for coming get us."
"No problem. Do you have any idea how hard it is to get a cab out here? Like for starters there's only like one cab in the entire town and then I had to ask him to drive me like ten miles out of town."
That got a chuckle out of Michael, "Don't worry about it, you won't need to be doing it again hopefully."
"Yeah. Hopefully."
The car window was rolled down and Alex popped her head out, "Hey, guys if we could maybe move this along, that'd be wonderful. I'm starving."
"Jonas, keys? Mind if I take over?" Michael held his hand out.
"Yeah, here," he handed the keys to Michael and they got into the truck.
The drive was mostly quiet until Alex asked about David. She could practically feel Jonas' face fall before he turned around to face her.
"When you guys never came back when you usually do I didn't tell him at first. But then another hour rolled around and I had to, he left work early and he must've broken so many traffics laws because I swear to god he got to the house in record time. He was really worried about you."
A pause.
"He asked me not to call the cops, yet. Give it another hour or two first, eventually he caved and he was going to call but Michael called me before he finished dialing the number. He gave me money for a cab and stayed at the house. I don't think he could've handled it if he came with me."
Alex grabbed Jonas' hand, "He'll be alright. We'll all be alright. We have each other, right Mike?"
Michael gave a curt nod, "Yeah, you're not getting out of this pack anytime soon, jello. And neither is your father, you're both family now."
The rest of of the car ride consisted of Alex recounting what happened on the cliff with her mom.
They walked into their house and were immediately greeted by David, "Oh my god, you kids are alright! Thank god, you're okay!"
His hair was disheveled from running his hands through it and his eyes were red and puffy like Michael's. He had one of Alex and Michael's mother's sweaters thrown on over his business suit. Alex felt her throat block up, he never even changed out of his work clothes and it was almost three in the morning. Despite being in complete disarray, David had such a hopeful smile on his face.
Alex slumped forward and hugged him, "I'm sorry."
Gently she could feel David wrap his arms around her and hug her, "Oh, it's quite alright, Alex. Michael, Jonas, where's Angie?"
Michael looked at Jonas out of the corner of his eye, Jonas stiffened back up and was back to tracing his knuckles.
Michael looked back at David, "I need to tell you something. Preferably without Alex and Jonas around."
Alex letting go of David and looking up at him could see the fear and anxiety worm back into his mind. She turned around, "Jonas, c'mon. Let's go to the den."
Jonas followed close behind Alex out of the room. David didn't look like he moved a muscle since Michael spoke up.
"Michael? Where's Angela? Where's your mother? My wife?"
Letting out a shaky breath Michael answered, "My mom died when we were hunting, David."
"What?"
"When we hunt, sometimes one of us will go off apart from the rest to scout ahead," another shaky breath, "And when I left I think it was a large cougar or maybe a desperate bear, but whatever it was it cornered Alex and my mom on a cliff. My mom, she tackled it when it lunged, but both of them fell off the cliff. Alex barely managed to avoid falling with them."
"I found Alex, asleep or passed out a little ways from the cliff. David, I'm sorry."
"You didn't do anything, Michael. We can get a small search team to retrieve the body. Is there any special funeral or burial you'd like your mom to have?" David looked up at Michael.
"No. No, we don't have a pack anymore. A normal funeral will do just as well."
"I'll make the arrangements then," David walked over to his bag and retrieved his laptop, "Michael?"
"Yeah?"
"Make sure you, Alex, and Jonas get some rest. I'll call Alex and Jonas' school and tell them they can't attend tomorrow."
"Thank you, sir."
"We're a family now, Michael. It's what we do for each other."
A week after the funeral there was a hard knock at the door. Alex rushed out to answer but found David already talking to the person. The man was obviously a skin walker, his clothes were caked in mud and his eyes were fogged up. The fur-lined cloak draped over his shoulders was the only pristine thing about him.
"Good day, ," The man grinned, his lips peeling back and jagged teeth jutting out and every which angle, "My name is Henry Griffin."
"Hello, is there something I can help you with?"
"Yes, if I'm not mistaken your wife, Malik Torres' widow, she died recently."
David tensed up briefly, "I...yes. Angela died last week, what does her death have to do with this meeting?"
"Her children are still alive and they still take up residence here as well, right?"
Alex jumped when she felt a hand on her shoulder, she turned to see Michael with a finger up to his lips. They both looked back at David and Henry.
"Get to the point or I'm shutting this door in your face, ."
Henry waved a hand dismissively, "Right, of course. , I'm here to tell you that you should turn in those kids to us in the Creed of Clarity."
"Excuse me?"
"Surely you understand that dangerous monsters such as they do not belong in your household. They're a danger to you and your son, ," Henry talked rather calmly in the face of David.
"I do not have a son. I have two sons and a daughter. Alex and Michael are family and surely you understand that if you don't leave us alone, I'll call the cops," David went to slam the door but Henry caught it.
The skin walker reached through the crack and handed a small business card to David, "Give us a call when you see, ."
David opened the door back and Henry looked rather pleased with himself. David held up the business card between them and ripped it in half. The skin walker certainly didn't expect that if his face was any sign.
"Don't come back to my house," David slammed the door completely this time and stormed off past Alex and Michael.
Another week later Michael was woken by a sound outside. Using his phone as a light he started making his way to the front yard, only stopping when he realized Alex was already opening the front door herself.
"Did you hear it too?" Alex nodded in reply.
They both stepped outside, a cool wind sweeping over them as they searched around the yard.
"Michael! C'mere, I think I found the culprit," Alex whisper yelled and Michael jogged across the yard.
His sister pointing out two ends of a slashed power line, "Guess we should be glad the grass isn't dry, huh? Should we call someone?"
"What time is it?"
"Like five-ish. David will be up in like 30 minutes."
Michael nodded, "Go back to sleep, I'll stay up and tell David when he gets up."
"Alright," Halfway back to the door Alex stopped, "What do you think happened?"
"A witch maybe," Contemplating it for a few more seconds, Michael changed his answer, "That skin walker, probably. Henry Griffin or whatever."
"He said he was part of some "Creed of Clarity" right? I can try googling them later."
"Okay, did you tell Jonas about that guy?"
"No, did you?"
"No, we can tell him later and then we can all try and dig up some information on them," Michael picked up a stick and stuck it into the ground next to the wire before following Alex back inside.
Jonas doesn't know what he was expecting when Michael and Alex walked into his room at six am, woke him up, shut and locked the door, and told him that they needed to talk. But he certainly wasn't expecting to hear about a skin walker cult after his siblings.
"What!?"
"Skin walkers are witches, we don't know how old they are or any real specifics about their magic. We know there's stories of similar witches all over the globe but the most common stories came from Native American tribes," Michael explained but was soon cut off by Jonas.
"Wait no, I've heard about them but what is this crap about a cult of them? Or how about the part where they're all but outright threatening my dad because they want you guys?"
It was Alex's turn to explain, "We don't know Jonas. That's why we're telling you, we know the cult is called the "Creed of Clarity" and we can only assume it's a skin walker cult since skin walkers aren't really fond of anyone but themselves."
"But that still doesn't explain why they want you guys?" Jonas felt like this entire conversation was pointless, try as he might, he just couldn't comprehend monsters and witches sometimes.
"Alex just said we don't know, spongy, c'mon keep up. We're going to be looking for any articles or webpages or stories of people running into this cult so we can maybe see why they want us and we figured you'd want to help."
Jonas nodded, "Okay, fair enough. But wait wasn't the power line cut last night? It's not fixed already is it?"
"What?" Alex looked bewildered, "Dude, witches. The line is totally fixed or at least almost done being fixed."
"I've lived here for 3 years, almost 4 and I haven't once heard about witches having that ability, Alex."
"Power lines don't ever just casually snap, marshmallow."
"Oh, ha ha, you're fucking hilarious with all those synonyms for soft and crushable," he got up and pulled on a pair of sweat pants, "But really, this hasn't come up once that witches could do that kind of stuff."
"Witches can do almost anything, once they find the area they're best at there's almost nothing in that area they can't do. Say you get two witches, one who's great with electricity and another with man-made things like plastic or rubber. You can fix a power line in like half the time of a couple of humans and their tools."
"Okay, so aside from being completely OP is there anything else about witches you're hiding from me?" Jonas put his hands on his hips and smiled, "I mean at this point you could tell me I'm a witch and I'd totally believe you. I know I'm not but I would totally believe you guys without question if you aid I was."
"Like 'Yo jellyfish! You're totes a witch, you could be shooting flames from your fingertips right now if you wanted!' and I would totally be like 'No way! Really? Holy fuck I'm gonna light the house on fire!' ya know?"
Another thing Jonas didn't expect was silence. Not a single laugh or any comments adding to the joke, just silence from the two werewolves. It took a lot for them to not talk sometimes and it was never a good thing, he turned around to see both of them awkwardly staring at the floor.
"Guys?"
Michael let out a loud sigh, "I'm not the one that promised shit I can totally say this and not feel bad about betraying David. Jonas you're a fucking witch and you can in fact probably shoot flames from your fingertips...with practice."
"Michael!"
"I just said I didn't promise shit, Alex! Don't get mad at me, this is your problem!"
"Guys? What are you talking about?"
"You're mom was maybe kind of a witch and you're maybe kind of also totally a witch and I may have promised your dad to make sure this conversation never happens but here we are," Alex pulled her phone out, "I need to tell David, do you think he'll pick up?"
Jonas sat down on the desk behind him, "I'm a witch...my mom was a witch..."
"It's okay. When Alex was little I tried convincing her she was a faun," Michael rustled Jonas' hair, "Granted it was less effective but it's kind of the same level of betrayal."
Jonas was not amused by Michael one bit and left the room. Alex strung along, Alex still trying to get a hold of David. Once he was outside he sat down in the damp grass and lit a cigarette.
Alex sat beside him and put her phone up, "Jonas, I'm sorry we didn't tell you before. I mean I really only promised to keep you from practicing not knowing but-"
"Then why the fuck didn't you tell me, Alex?"
She pulled her knees up against her chest and rested her head, "I don't know. It made my job easier, I guess. There was no chance of you trying if you didn't know it was possible."
"But it wasn't you job. I'm not some responsibility that you can just avoid," His voice wavered.
"I'm sorry that I made you feel like that because of this. If there's something i can do to fix that, you can totally ask for it, Jonas."
"Is there something else you're hiding from me?"
"I...it's really something you should talk to your dad about. It's not my place to tell you anything-"
"Alex, please just tell me."
"Right," Alex grabbed Jonas' hand, "It wasn't an accident that that man killed your mom. He killed her because she was a witch, it was a hate crime."
Jonas put the cigarette butt out in the concrete in front of him and turned his hand over to hold Alex's. She could feel the dull tips of his nails digging in to her hand. She lowered her knees and scooted closer to him, leaning against him and resting her head on his shoulder.
"You can cry if you want to. I won't think you're weak or whatever," she heard him sniffle once.
He rested his head on hers and soon Michael's large body lumbered out as a wolf. He laid down and rested his own head in Jonas' lap and let out a whine. Jonas began running his free hand through Michael's thick fur, silent tears streaking down his face. He smiled weakly, they must be quite the sight, all bundled up an hour before the sun even begins to peek above the horizon, he's crying and there's a massive wolf half on top of him. They stayed like that, silently comforting each other for a while before Jonas spoke up softly.
"Thanks," another few minutes of silence, "I don't think I could've asked for a better family."