Eyes of the Wolf

15
My dad drove me to the park that Saturday. I fidgeted in my seat all the way there. Trees whooshed by the windows as we pulled down the drive. The woman in the booth to let us in looked irritated when she saw us through the windshield, and I wasn’t surprised, once I recognized Nicole. Without so much as an acknowledging nod, the horizontal post rose to let our car through. When I looked back in the sideview mirror, she wasn’t there anymore.

“The girl manning the booth didn’t seem very friendly,” Dad remarked to me as we drove through the windy roads.

I nodded. “That’s Nicole. She’s Niko’s sister, and she acted the exact same way when we went to Laser Quest with her.”

He didn’t reply. I looked up through the windshield—the moon was beautifully full, and stars scattered around it like the remains of an incandescent hailstorm. The sight amazed me; being in a town where skyglow was a considerable factor in the lack of stars visible, the sheer amount of extraterrestrial bodies in the sky was stunning.

“You okay?”

“Yeah,” I answered, brought back to earth. “Did you see the sky, Dad? I’ve never seen so many stars.”

He slowed a bit as he leaned forward and raised his eyes. “That is a lot of stars,” he agreed, his foot returning to the gas pedal and his eyes to the road. The tires grating against the rocks became a more prominent sound than our voices. I fidgeted again, checking to make sure my phone was in my pocket again. I really didn’t like the pockets on my new jeans—they were much shallower than the ones I usually wore, and pressed my phone tight against my hip.

“This it?” my dad asked, pulling into a drive, at the end of which was a small scattering of houses. He stiffened visibly in his seat as we saw a large dog loping around someone’s front yard. Porch lights came on on one of the houses, and as we parked the car, a familiar figure trotted out the door. I stepped out of the car, a grin sliding onto my face. Seeing my dad eyeing the dog out of the rearview, I said quickly, “Niko, my dad’s allergic to dogs.”

He turned and understanding flickered in his face when he saw the big brown dog. At a quick few words, someone called the dog inside. Safe, my dad opened his door and emerged. He looked around, then came over to Niko and held out his hand.

“Hello, young man.” His smile was remarkably friendly, considering his immediate reaction the last time he had seen me with Niko.

“Hello, sir,” Niko answered, his tone lacking the usual mocking lilt it usually held as he grasped my dad’s hand with his own. My dad frowned, glancing down at his hand, but it was momentary. He smiled and released.

“What time should I pick her up?”

“We can take her home,” Niko volunteered instantly. My dad hesitated. “Sir, I know it’s a long drive. You shouldn’t have to pay gas prices for two trips here. She’ll get home safe.”
The scrutiny directed at my friend was kind of scary. My heart fluttered a bit when I admired Niko’s meeting my father’s eyes despite the intensity of the gaze.

“She gets home before two.” The tone allowed for no argument. Niko nodded soberly. My dad held his eyes a couple seconds longer for good measure, then turned to me and hugged me, giving me a quick kiss on my head.

“Call me if you need anything,” he instructed me, releasing me and moving back to the car. Niko and I watched the car leave, and when I turned to look at him, the usual smirk was back on his face.

“You wanna come inside?” he asked. Now that his guard was down, he was exerting a powerful vibe. He was wearing the usual black shirt, but all the snaps were undone. In lieu of the usual leather collar, he wore a silver choke chain, tightened so the looping ring settled in the hollow of his throat and the part where the leash would attach trailed down to the center of his chest, the blue dog tag attached to the ring there. His eyes were bright and his face seemed incredibly open, and he was suddenly quite as entrancing as the sky above us. Mutely, I followed him into the house.

The interior was hard to picture, considering the sheer amount of people in it. For a moment, that was all I could take in. There seemed to be hardly any room to breathe, let alone stand and mingle. Then, as I adjusted, I noticed the people. They were of a variety of ages, from forty to sixteen to sixty to six. As one of the last age group, a girl with black hair, chased a muddy, dobie-sized brown dog past my legs, I scooted closer to Niko and asked nervously, “What kind of party is this, again?”

The people all fell silent almost instantly, as if triggered by my voice, though they couldn’t possibly all have heard me. My voice does not project itself under any circumstances. Niko put his arm around my waist.

“This,” he said, holding me to his side, “is my family.”

SHIT.

*His FAMILY?* I thought, panicking. *I’m at a party with his FAMILY?*

The silence had the same kind of dead weight as the kind I’ve heard corpses described. Nobody spoke. Nobody moved. Then, slowly, a middle-aged man with massive scars coming from beneath his halfway-snapped shirt, stretching from at least his chest up to his mangled-looking ear, stepped forward with a strained smile that did not expose his teeth. His hair was a mane of rumpled gold, and his eyes were the same bright blue as everyone else’s seemed to be.

“Hello, young lady,” he greeted me civilly, extending his hand in front of him. As I took it, my eyes travelled up the rest of his arm, and noticed another nasty scar disfiguring his bicep. Despite the marks, the limb was even more muscled than those of the younger generation I had already met. Shakily, I smiled back at him, having only just remembered that it would probably be polite. It felt like my heart was trying to force my stomach into my toes, for it was already sinking rapidly toward my pelvis.

“H-h-hello, sir,” I stammered, somehow unable to force air out.

So much for a good impression. Was I underdressed? I was wearing a T-shirt and jeans, and everyone else was wearing snap-up shirts with collars or loose, flowing dresses. The most informal thing in the room that I could see was Niko’s chosen neckwear. What the heck was he thinking, bringing me here? I wasn’t even his girlfriend yet!

“What’s your name?” the man prodded gently. I realized dimly that he had released my hand, so I brought it back to my side, then clasped it with my other behind my back.

“M-Maya,” I answered. How could he do this to me?

“James,” responded the man. “Welcome.”

I felt a coarse hand take hold of my elbow. “Come on, Maya,” urged Niko. “I want you to meet my little sister.”

I let him lead me to the girl who had been chasing the dog earlier. She was sitting with a young boy with tousled brown hair.

“This is Summer,” he introduced me. “Summer, this is Maya.”

Summer looked up at me, but, unimpressed, tried to throw dirt at her friend instead, which she seemed to have grabbed from her pocket. At least my clothes fit in with them—they were both wearing overalls. I turned to talk to Niko, but he wasn’t there. He had disappeared in the throng of people, several of whom were tossing disdainful looks at me every so often.

So I sat quietly as Summer and her boy friend played together. After awhile she seemed to get mad about something, and she crouched down on all fours and grrred rather menacingly. The boy did the same, and they jumped at each other and started clawing, punching and—much to my astonishment—BITING each other. Frantically looking around, I saw that no one seemed to be bothered to stop the children, so, bracing myself, I scooted closer and grabbed them both by the backs of their shirt collars. I struggled to pull them apart, but, what with them being almost my size already and quite determined, I was failing miserably. The little boy actually bit my hand trying to get Summer. When I pulled back, my hand flying back to me where I could assess the damage, the same rough hand that I was getting so familiar with fastened on my wrist. I turned as Niko examined the mark. Leaning closer, I saw that it hadn’t broken the skin, but it had left red spots.

“Hmph,” he exhaled. “Not too bad,” he remarked cheerfully. “You wanna go outside?”

I nodded, still in shock about the violence of the children. As we got up, Niko barked, “Enough!” at the pair, and they stopped. He led me through the kitchen and opened the fridge.

“Water?”

“Uh, sure,” I replied, and took the bottle offered to me. Remembering what my dad told me about drinks at parties, I unscrewed the cap, and felt better when I heard the plastic bindings snap. Still, I took a tiny sip, and felt a trickle of water slide over my tongue.

“Come on,” Niko called from the other side of the kitchen, his hand on the doorknob of the exit. I followed him, feeling odd holding the bottle loosely by the top and wishing that it would fit in my pocket.

Outside it was bright enough to see clearly, even though the porch lights had been turned off. Niko led me past a few trees, then stopped and turned.

“What’re you doing here?”

“I was sent to make sure you didn’t do anything you weren’t supposed to,” Adam replied stiffly, walking slowly behind us. When Niko looked like he was going to argue, he said softly, “James said so.” His voice seemed to trail off a bit by the time he reached the end of his sentence, and he seemed determined not to meet Niko’s eyes. I thought it sounded odd, but Niko huffed what seemed to be almost a laugh.

“Alright then,” he—sneered?—at him, then turned, putting his hand back to the small of my back and leading me forward again, blatantly ignoring our blonde shadow.

We walked in silence through the trees. Everything had a beautiful silver shadowing over it, looking like some kind of dream. As we walked down a few steeper trails, I grew grateful that I had insisted on tennis shoes earlier that week.

A wolf howled in the distance. I paused, stopping, and looked around. Niko stopped too.
“It’s way off,” he assured me, squeezing the opposite side of my waist. I nodded and started walking again. The footsteps behind us started up again as well.

After another several minutes, we reached a large rock. Niko released me and sat on it, and, when I walked over to it, I found that there was nothing but space where that rock ended. Carefully looking over the edge, I amended that there was nothing but space…at my level, or anything that could reasonably be considered CLOSE to my current altitude.

“Sit down, Maya, before you get vertigo and fall,” my companion advised, his tone edged with amusement. I did as he asked and looked straight ahead. The moon was in our sight, and it was framed in the silhouettes of all the trees…it was like something out of a picture. Reminded by that thought, I set down the water on the rock beside me and pulled out my phone, flipped it open, and took a picture. It wasn’t as pretty on the phone, but I kept it anyway. Glancing at the top-left corner, I realized that I had absolutely no bars. Well, good thing Adam was chaperoning. I just hoped Dad didn’t decide to call.

Looking back to the view, I sighed.

“It’s beautiful out here.”

“Isn’t it? I thought you’d like it.” A wolf howled in the distance, and was answered by another that seemed much closer. I glanced around below us for the source, but I couldn’t see anything.

“They’re not close, Maya.” He was awfully sure of himself. I bristled a bit at his tone. I looked sideways at him, but his eyes were on the moon, making them shine and glimmer. The strange aura was pulsing from him as it had before. Something about him seemed wilder than usual, even though he was sitting so still next to me. It was hard to be mad at him, yet…

“Hey, why didn’t you tell me we were meeting your family?” I demanded, elbowing him in the arm. He shrugged. “Do you have any idea how horrified I was?”

“You seem to have survived.”

Really? REALLY? I swatted him in the shoulder with my water bottle, making him jump.

“Hey, now!” he yelped. His hand caught my wrist and held it firmly. I glared at him. He grinned and kissed my palm. It immediately went numb, and my heart crashed into my ribs. Heat rushed into my face, and my mouth went absolutely dry. I heard a rustle to my right. *Adam, stay still, dang it,* I thought.

Distracted for a moment, I hadn’t noticed Niko getting closer. When I refocused, he was less than a foot from me, and, just as that registered, he kissed me. Electricity zinged up and down my spine, and that bipolar organ in my ribcage went silent, even as my stomach seemed to imitate a hot air balloon. I could feel his breath on my face, and he was incredibly warm. He scooted closer so we were hip to hip, his arm came up around my waist again…

Something growled behind us, and I heard Adam swear. Niko and I broke apart, and by the time I had registered the blue eyes and the white teeth in the bushes to the right, Niko was on his feet. As my brain rebooted, I recognized that, barely yards away, there was a gargantuan wolf emerging from the brambles, head low and teeth bared.