Chapter 3
Luther was almost entirely healed by the next morning. However, with news about the supposed bear attack circulating through the town, his parents had decided that keeping him home was probably the best thing to do. With his father manning the bookstore, his mother attending a lunch with some lady friends, and Bruno traveling out of town for his college classes, Luther was left alone in the house. Taking the opportunity, he threw himself headfirst into research about whoever might have written the crumpled note that lay before him.
His study of vampires was by and large fruitless. All of the differing descriptions and accounts of them could not explain the hulking beast that had torn him to shreds in the woods, and there was no evidence that they had any kind of relationship with native americans or La Push. He sighed and closed his laptop. He needed a break. The wolf, however, had other ideas. Suddenly, images of the portion of the battle in the woods that he had been asleep for flashed through his head. He could see his attacker. Huge. Covered in coarse black fur. And... lupine?
According to the wolf's vision he had encountered another wolf, but it was massive. There was no way it was an ordinary animal. There was no way it was lycan, either, unless the guy was ten feet tall when he was in human form. He opened up the laptop again and altered his search. What he found made his blood turn to ice in his veins. Terrifying encounters with guardian spirits, wendigoes, and shapeshifters crowded his Google search. Any of these things could be guarding the La Push reservation, but the same creature could be guarding all of the forests in Forks for all he knew. He had thought the incident in Montana was bad but this seemed like it could easily be worse.
Luther rubbed his hands over his face and groaned. Couldn't anything ever be easy? The wolf nudged at his mind, slipping images of raw meat in between the increasingly worried thoughts that were piling on top of each other. Luther sighed. The wolf wanted a reward for the information he had given. He set the laptop aside, kicked off his blankets, and made his way downstairs. There was bound to be something the wolf would be satisfied with.
He opened the door to the refrigerator and jumped at a knock on the back door. Mike was smiling at him from the other side of the glass. Quickly, Luther adopted a more pained posture and shuffled to the door. Mike bounded in when he opened it and looked him over.
"You look really good for surviving a bear attack," he observed, raising a curious eyebrow.
"I'm a mess under the pajamas," Luther explained while he did his best to look drugged and achey, "they gave me three blood transfusions."
Mike swallowed, "Whoa. What are you doing out of bed? How are you even walking right now?"
Luther shrugged uncomfortably and blocked Mike's scrutinizing view with the refrigerator door, "I got hungry and nobody's here. It's survival mode, I guess."
His friend immediately grabbed him by the shoulder and steered him to a chair at the dining room table. He slipped out of his backpack, dropped it on the floor, and flung open the refrigerator.
"What do you want to eat?" he asked.
The wolf forcefully plastered the image of raw meat across his vision yet again. He did not want to be cheated out of the exchange of food for information, and Luther knew that if he didn't get what he wanted he would take it by force. He had to think quickly.
"You know, I'm really craving breakfast food right now. Maybe some bacon?"
"Sure thing," his friend replied, searching the refrigerator.
He thought that if he was quick enough, he could snag a couple of raw pieces while Mike was cooking. His heart dropped when Mike pulled a package of pre-cooked bacon out of the fridge. Since when did his mom buy pre-cooked bacon, anyway? He fidgeted nervously. The wolf was getting more than impatient. A familiar burning prickle teased the skin along his spine.
"Hey, uh, on second thought, maybe I should just go to bed. The painkillers I take make me nauseous," he said hastily, very aware of how gravelly his voice was quickly becoming.
Mike turned around to reply, but his words died in his mouth. He shut off the burner that he had just gotten to light and took a few steps toward Luther.
"Hey, man, you okay? You look like you're going to pass out."
Luther waved a shaking hand, all the while fighting with all he had to keep the wolf at bay, "I'm fine, I'm just tired. What if I text you later and we can hang out then? I think I need sleep more than food right now."
Mike furrowed his brows in concern, "You sure? I mean... if you haven't eaten much today-"
"Really, I'm okay," Luther said a little more sharply than he intended to, but followed it up with a much gentler, "my brother should be home soon. I'll just sleep until he gets here and he can make me something then."
Mike begrudgingly pulled his backpack onto his shoulder, "Well, if you're sure. Text me, alright? I might not be home tonight. I'm supposed to go to La Push with some friends, but maybe I can catch up with you tomorrow."
Luther nodded weakly and forced his usual closed-lipped grin despite the spreading burn on his back, "Sounds good, man."
As soon as Mike was out of sight Luther ran to the basement door, flung it open, threw himself onto the top step, and locked the door behind him. The change ripped through him the moment the lock clicked. Had Mike stayed only a couple of seconds more the wolf would have destroyed him. Instead, he destroyed everything he could get his teeth on; paper towel rolls, canned vegetables, boxes of nicknacks with Luther's scent on them... all of it was mangled. He kept Luther awake for the whole ordeal, and was sure to punctuate the destruction with images of bloodied snow and the sounds of shotgun fire as he saw fit. He didn't trust Mike. He could wield a gun just as easily as the men in Montana. This was Luther's punishment for letting the boy get so close, and for cheating him out of a meal.
After somewhere around an hour, Luther emerged from the basement with the remnants of a destroyed childhood blanket wrapped around his waist. He had just set one foot on the stairs to his room when his mother came through the door. He made a mad dash up the stairs. The last thing he needed was for anyone to see him mostly naked and splattered with different varieties of canned foods.
"Luther?" she called from the kitchen, "You okay, honey?"
"Fine, Mom," he called back halfway convincingly, "just tired."
"Have you eaten yet?"
"Not really."
"I'll make you something. What do you want?"
"Something raw, I don't care what."
He heard her grow quiet. She wasn't moving. She was probably holding her breath, too. He rubbed his face and sighed. She knew what his request for raw meat meant, and he knew how she would respond. At least she didn't know about the mess in the basement yet.
"I've got a steak thawing in the fridge. Just hold on, okay?"
"No rush, Mom. I'm okay," he reassured her before going into the bathroom to clean the canned food off of himself.
As Luther predicted, his mother was both clingy and skittish when she brought up the steak. She felt his forehead with the inside of her wrist and looked him over. Her eyes were shining with unspent tears of concern.
"Will this be enough? I can go get more if-" she began.
"Mom," he said quietly.
"I don't want you to have to fight this whole month-"
"Mom."
"If you were found out like last time I don't know what I'd do-"
"Mom," he said more sternly and stood to hug her, "I am fine. This isn't Montana. I'm taking care of it. I'll ask for help if I need it. Please, stop worrying. You're making him nervous."
It was true. The wolf cared deeply for Luther's mother and felt a need to protect her. If she was scared, the wolf would respond to whatever threat he thought caused it, either real or imaginary. It was fighting to take control even as Luther hugged her. If she didn't calm down soon, it would take more than meat to quiet the wolf.
She took a deep breath that shuddered ever so slightly and nodded her head. She lifted his shirt and examined his stitches.
"Look at that," she sighed, hastily wiping away the tears that had gathered in the corners of her eyes, "not even a scratch left."
Luther sat on his bed and pulled the plate of raw meat onto his lap, "Yeah, I don't know how I'll explain that when I get back to school."
"About that," his mother said with a smile, "your father and I asked your teachers to put together your classwork for the next couple of weeks. We thought that would be long enough to let the news blow over. Your father had the idea that we might visit Alaska for part of your time off. He wants to show you a few tricks he learned from grandpa."
Luther nodded, taking a rather bloody bite out of the steak, "Thanks, Mom."
She patted his knee and left him to his meal. When she closed the door to his room, he sighed and flopped back on the bed. He had no idea how he was supposed to look into the local native american folklore if he was holed up in some little cabin in Alaska with his parents. They meant well, and he did appreciate the effort, but this was getting too complicated. The wolf, on the other hand, liked the idea. He sent images of himself rocketing across the snow after a hare. Luther would be lying if he said the idea wasn't a little exciting.
Bruno wasn't anywhere near as pleased when he got home from school. Luther could hear his grumpy mumbling and heavy pacing from the basement as he cleaned. He stuffed the last of what childhood possessions he could salvage into a box and wiped his dusty hands on his pants. He took a deep breath before heading back upstairs. Bruno might not have had a wolf inside him, but even a seasoned lycan would have been fooled by his temper. On top of that, Alaska was somewhere that he had been wanting to visit for years now. This wasn't good.
There was no avoiding him. He was slumped against the wall in the kitchen, which was in full view of the staircase, when Luther climbed the stairs. Bruno levered himself off of the wall with a jerk of his shoulder and stalked toward Luther.
"Tell me something. How is it that you get rewarded when your wolf throws a fit, but I work my ass off and get punished for it?"
Luther held up his hands, "Hey, it wasn't my idea. I'd rather stay here."
"Oh, sure, act uninterested. I know you love Alaska like I do. Do you think that's going to make me feel better?"
The wolf inside of Luther bristled at Bruno's tone. The human may have been Luther's elder, but he was weaker. There was no place for such insolence in a pack, and he was Luther's pack. The wolf had let these things slide before because Luther asked him to, but he was sick of allowing behavior like that. The human would learn some manners.
Luther backed away when he felt the wolf pushing for control, "I don't know what to say. I didn't choose to go... Look, I'm going to head to my room."
"Sure," Bruno growled, "run like you always do."
Flashes of Montana came unbidden into Luther's mind, and this time it wasn't the wolf's doing. He knew that Bruno didn't mean it, but it was a low blow nonetheless and it caught him off balance. The wolf took the opportunity and wrested Luther's body from him. Bruno went pale when he saw his brother's expression. The wolf took a moment to let the fear build before baring Luther's teeth and stalking toward Bruno.
"Luther?" his brother's voice had lost all of its fire, "Hey, buddy, come back to me. I didn't mean that. I-I shouldn't have said that."
The wolf circled Bruno, deciding just how he would take him down. The man was larger than Luther but had no knowledge of fighting. He barked often but hardly ever bit. The wolf lunged and snapped Luther's teeth at him and he clumsily tried to dodge. The wolf then used Luther's leg to trip Bruno and pounced before he hit the ground. Just as the wolf readied to sink his teeth into Bruno's neck and shake the insolence out of him Luther came fully awake and shoved the wolf away.
He scrambled to his feet and pressed himself against the kitchen wall. He had never let this happen before. Bruno was pale and trembling. Luther held out a hand to help him off of the ground, but his brother flinched. Luther's heart crumpled. On the other side of the house, his dad's office door creaked open.
"Boys? What's going on?"
Luther couldn't face his father. He couldn't face his brother, either. He darted for his room and locked the door. This was too much. First he had gotten the attention of not one, but two different kinds of monsters and drawn them closer to him and his family. Now he had nearly torn his brother's throat out. It was past time to leave.
He grabbed his school bag, emptied the contents onto the floor, and began jamming as many of his belongings into it as he could. He didn't know where he was going. Right now he didn't care. He had to leave, and he had to do it quickly. Inside of him, the wolf rejoiced.
