Chapter 8 – The Wolf Child

Joss decided to return to the spot she saw the teen Wolf to begin her search. Cray dropped her off on the corner and she walked to the spot where she had last seen him and stood still while she closed her eyes and opened her Wolf senses to their fullest extent.

It took her a few minutes to sort through all the information. Manhattan is a densely populated area, and though Wolves were only a small percentage of the population, there were still quite a few Wolves within her range. After several minutes, she was able to hone in on the one that felt the most like the youth she had seen the previous day.

She felt John through their mating bond, searching for her. Joss had learned long ago how to the dial back the intensity of the connection; it allowed her to save her sanity when John was doing something, like "interrogating" a suspect that could upset her. It also allowed John to do his job without her emotions distracting him. Joss turned down the connection for now; she didn't need John showing up and scaring the kid when she was so close.

She rapidly began walking in the direction of the teenager. She found him in an alley huddled behind a dumpster with his knees drawn up to his chest and his arms wrapped round his legs, hugging them tightly to his body. As she stepped around the dumpster, he looked up at her with wide terrified eyes. Joss sent soothing vibes to him and, using the dumpster for leverage, lowered herself down so she was eye level with the kid. She was careful not to crowd the frightened child and she left him plenty of room to bolt if he needed to.

"Hi there," she said, keeping her voice soft and soothing. "I'm Joss, who are you?"

The boy kept his arms around his legs, hugging them to his body, looking at her over his knees. "Don't hurt me, please." He spoke with a heavy Eastern European accent.

"I won't hurt you, I promise. I have a son around your age." Joss assured the boy.

"You're Wolf." It was more of an accusation than anything else.

Joss maintained her calm. "Yes, I am. You are too."

The child would not look at her. "Wolves are bad. Wolves are born to serve evil."

Joss was stunned by the matter of fact way the boy said that. "How can you think that? You're Wolf," she asked keeping her voice low, warm and friendly.

"My family says so. They say Wolves are sinners." The teen continued to stare straight ahead, refusing to look at her like she was some sort of evil temptress.

Joss tilted her head to one side and frowned. "Your family isn't Wolf?"

The teen continued to refuse to look at her. "No, they took me in and gave me a home when my parents died," he stated flatly

"Oh, I see, you're adopted." Joss knew he probably wasn't adopted in any official sense, nor had his "family" done it out of love or concern.

The boy simply shrugged.

"What's your name?" Joss probed gently again.

"Tibor."

"No last name?"

"No, no last name. My family does not want a Wolf using their name, so I am just Tibor."

"Well Tibor, I know you can feel me; do I feel bad to you?"

"No, you feel…nice. You care about me." The boy looked surprised as he realized that. He finally looked at her.

Joss smiled at him, glad to finally have a reaction from him. "Yeah, of course I do. You look like you could use a friend."

The child's large blue eyes looked so sad, Joss physically hurt for him. "I have no friends."

Joss smiled again. "Well I'll be your friend. I like having friends."

Tibor seemed almost puzzled by the idea that Joss, a Wolf, would have friends. "Do you have lots of friends?"

"I have a whole pack full."

"You have a pack?" The boy's eyes opened wide in wonder. Joss struggled to keep her anger in check, his adoptive family must have kept him completely isolated from his people.

Joss nodded and kept her voice soft, willing herself to betray no trace of the anger she was feeling, "Yes, and they are good people who will be friends with you if you want. They're not evil at all; you'll see."

Tibor finally let go of his legs and Joss could see his thin body. Dear God, didn't his family ever feed this child? Joss was familiar with how growth spurts could make a child look awkward and thin; Taylor had gone through a couple of gangly stages in his early teens, but this kid looked like a concentration camp survivor.

"Are you the Alpha?" Tibor asked eagerly, turning in her direction. "I have never met an Alpha before."

Joss beamed at the kid, now they were getting somewhere. "Yes, I'm an Alpha." She wondered if she should call John, if Tibor wanted to meet an Alpha, there was an Alpha for him, but decided that John's imposing presence might be too much for the shy child. Joss was shorter than Tibor, and looked very non-threatening, but John would tower over him. Not to mention his vaguely menacing air would probably terrify the skittish teen.

"You know Tibor, this alley smells bad. How about we go somewhere else and I buy you some lunch?"

Tibor looked hesitant, so Joss upped the ante "I'll buy you a burger," she said in a wheedling tone of voice.

Tibor's eyes lit up, "I have not had a hamburger. I have always wanted one."

Joss held out her hand, "Well then, I think we need to get going."

Tibor shrank from Joss's hand in a gesture that was characteristic of an abused child. Joss looked at him sharply but kept her voice soft and gentle, "Does your family hurt you?"

Tibor hung his head, "I am bad."

Joss shook her head, "I don't think you're bad." And she wagged her hand at him in a "come on" gesture.

He looked shyly at her, then slowly reached out to take her hand.

Joss took Tibor around the corner to the local diner and ordered him the biggest burger they had on the menu and watched in amusement as he gulped it down.

"You remind me of my son the way you eat," she smiled at him.

"You have other children?" Tibor asked pointing to her stomach.

"Yes, I have son who's a couple years older than you. And this," Joss patted her belly, "Is a little girl."

"You have a mate?"

Joss smiled fondly, thinking of John. "Yes, I have the most wonderful mate in the world. I love him very much. He's saved my life several times. Tell me about your family Tibor."

Tibor looked down at the table and sadly shrugged. "I have a mother and four older brothers. They don't like Wolves. They don't like me."

Joss's heart hurt for the poor lost little Wolf sitting across the table from her. This poor child had probably never known love.

"How long have you been in this country?"

"Mama and I have been here for a year. I learn English and I learn my way around New York. My brothers have only been here for a few weeks. They do not know English yet."

Tibor glanced up at the clock and suddenly leaped up, "I am late; I must go. Thank you, nice lady." And he ran out the door.

Joss briefly considered chasing after him, but knew in her current condition she had no hope of catching him. Heck, even if she hadn't been pregnant, she probably would have trouble catching the fleet footed teen.

She paid the tab and made her way to the library. She needed to tell the rest of the team about this.

When she got to the library, John was breathing fire in his quiet, menacing way. "Where have you been?" he demanded. Joss was about snarl back at him when she realized that what she was feeling through their mating bond wasn't anger, it was worry and fear.

Joss stood up on her toes and kissed her mate gently, "I'm sorry I worried you, baby. But I needed to find that Wolf child. And I did."

John grabbed her upper arms in vise like grip and looked her in the eyes, "You went out looking for the Wolf Hunters ALONE?" Joss could tell he was making a Herculean effort not to lose his temper right then and there. His eyes were as hard and cold as she had ever seen them and his lips had vanished in a thin line.

Joss tried to reassure hr mate. "John, it was just the child and he was alone. I was perfectly safe, I promise."

With a visible effort John released her and stepped back. "Tell us what happened," he commanded.

Joss told them about Tibor, how he was raised by the Wolf Hunters, just as Cohen had surmised, and how they'd treated him horribly, forcing him to cooperate.

Finch looked thoughtful. "He's only been here for a year? And members of his family have only been here a few weeks? Mr Reese, I think I know what our eight digit number is!" Finch exclaimed.

"What is it, Finch?"

Finch smiled in triumph. "A visa number."

Finch sat down at his computer and began typing furiously. "It will take awhile to hack the immigration database, but I should have the information by tomorrow morning."

Reese growled impatiently, "Another Wolf could be dead by tomorrow Finch!"

Finch stopped typing and looked over at Reese impassively, "It takes however long it takes, Mr. Reese. The immigration database is particularly secure. I'll do my best, but it will take time."

"Let me know when you find something." And John dragged Joss away from the computer room to their makeshift bedroom on the next floor. Once they safety inside the room with the door shut John grabbed Joss into tight hug and buried his face in her hair.

"John, you're going to squeeze the baby out of me," she was barely able to gasp out.

John did not release his hold. "Do you have any idea how scared I was when I found out you were wandering the streets alone? You promised me that you wouldn't do that!"

Joss wrapped her arms around her mate's waist and tried to hug him back to reassure him. "John, it was the only way I could find Tibor and get him to talk to me. If I had you or Fusco with me, he would have been too scared."

John finally released her and held her face in between his hands, forcing her to look into his eyes. "Promise you won't do that again," he asked while his thumbs gently stroked her cheeks.

Joss looked into to his eyes, "John, he's our only lead so far!"

John shook his head. "Finch will have the Visa information soon. You don't need to put yourself in danger again. Shaw and I can take it from here."

Joss would have protested further but John began kissing her and she soon lost the ability to think straight.

Tibor sat a few blocks away, waiting for his family while he tried to make sense of what had happened that day. He had not met very many Wolves, he usually just pointed them out to his family and then went home while they punished the sinners. But lately everything had felt so WRONG. Tibor's power was growing, he was feeling more and more emotions from the Wolf People, and he was starting to understand that they weren't as evil as his family had led him to believe. He had been having doubts about his family's work for some time now.

Tibor had been told his entire life by his family that Wolves were unredeemable murderers. They taught him that to be born Wolf to be born evil. Wolves served the Devil, and they were to hunted and killed so the Savior could return. But, as Tibor searched his memory, he could think of single Wolf he had felt any evil emulating from. He could not think of a single murder that he knew of had been traced back to a Wolf. But he knew of many murders that his family had committed. The more he thought about it, the less sense it made.

As Tibor began to question his family's mission", they reacted with violence and threats. They hit him. They withheld food. They hinted to him if he didn't cooperate they get rid of him and find another Wolf child who would be more willing to find redemption in their work. Tibor learned to keep his questions to himself, but he still had questions and they gnawed at his battered conscience.

He thought back the Wolves his family had killed since they had been in New York. The first one had recognized them was Wolf Hunters and was so terrified that Tibor had to run far away while his older brothers killed him. The second one, the old man, had been calm and accepting, but Tibor remembered all the photographs scattered through the apartment. Pictures of him and a family at various ages and in various locations. The whole family looked happy. Then there was young woman who had begged to be allowed to live. Tibor sensed that this woman would not have hurt a fly, but his brothers brutalized her even worse than the two men. They seemed to enjoy it and there was something very wrong about that. If Wolves were evil because they killed, what did that make his family who enjoyed killing? What did that make him?

Today, he had a chance to actually talk with another Wolf. Jocelyn was nice, she cared about him even though she had just met him. She cared for him more than his own family did, and it puzzled him. All his life he had been told that Wolves were pure evil and must be destroyed at all costs. But Tibor now knew that wasn't true, and he was confused.

Truthfully, Tibor hadn't felt any evil from any of the Wolves of New York since he had been here. They loved, they grieved, they laughed and they cried, just like everyone else. His family had lied to him all these years, so who were the real sinners? He didn't like the answer he got.

Tibor allowed his feelings to wander until he was in touch with Jocelyn again, but she wasn't alone, she was with her mate. He could feel the loving bond they shared and he gasped out loud at the power of it. This was not evil; this was love.

Tibor was no longer confused. Everything was very clear to him now.

Tibor felt the strength of Jocelyn's mate and a plan began to form in his mind. It was time to put an end to the evil he had aided and abetted, and in a flash he knew exactly how to do it. He felt like a great weight had lifted off his thin shoulders and he knew peace for the first time in his life. He knew what the right thing to do was and he was ready to do it.