Behind the Lines

“So, what did you want to talk about?” I ask nervously.

“About what we are,” Lloyd says softly, but his voice covered with authority, sounding close to dad.

“Uh… what are we?” I ask. I nervously glance around the room to see the expressions on the boys’ faces, but all of their heads are down. Are mom and dad finally disowning me and making my brothers do all the work? And now we worry…

But it was not that at all. Lloyd, being the blunt guy he is, comes straight out and says it.

“We are werewolves.”

He says it with pride in his voice. I search my eyes to see if he is lying, but his eyes only hold sincerity. I wish I could believe him, but I cannot picture my brothers turning into wolves. Wolves are too cool to become these douche bags. I love wolves. They are my favorite animals ever. They are so majestic and graceful, and caring. And I say caring because every time the bullying becomes too much, or if I just want to get away from the world, I go to this secret spot in the forest near the park near my house. I got lost there when I was little and a wolf guided me back to safety. When I was rejected, I went back to that same spot, to see the same wolf, only slightly aged. A few days later, he came along with six other wolves. Every time I would go to the forest, there would always be at least one wolf keeping me company and listening to whatever I had to vent. They showed more emotion than my own family. Of course, these wolves were bigger than average and a bit too… humane, but they cared. But I could never get past those green eyes that looked so familiar to my own. The wolves never threatened me, and I even gave them each names, not wanting to call them “wolf.” They may be animals, but they are individuals with personalities. It is like calling a human “human” every time. A name is a personality—not everyone can have the same name.

Going off tangent there…. Anyway back to reality.

I still do not believe him. There is no way they can turn into wolves.

“Am I being punked?” I joke.

But before anyone could respond to my lame excuse for a joke, Lloyd disappears, and in place of Lloyd, stands a wolf with striking green eyes that I have seen too many times in the forest. With every defined feature, I take in Lloyd’s sudden transformation. Around him, are the remainders of his clothes, as his wolf form is too big to keep them on. Gone is the red plaid shirt and blue jeans he was wearing, only to be replaced with dark brown luscious fur, like his hair, but with a patch of blond on his underside. He really is a beautiful wolf—one I’ve seen too many times before. He is huge—almost up too my shoulders if I was standing and I am five feet eight inches.

So all those times I talked to these wolves, it was my family the whole time? I knew that female wolf was too motherly for my liking. And that time when I was six, it was my father that guided me back to the park.

I do not say anything but stare at the wolf in front of me. I find myself walking towards my brother and reach out to touch his fur coat, like I have so many times before. I run my hands through his fur with ease, enjoying the softness of it—like running your hand through silk. It felt just how it looked. It is like great conditioned hair, but better. I start to scratch my brother behind his ears and he wags his tail in satisfaction. I start to giggle when he knocks me down to the floor with his head, softly, and starts to lick my face. I swat his face away with my hands, still laughing, and I manage to move his tongue away from my face. He is still on top of me, and I look up to see him letting out a wolfy grin, with his tongue hanging out by the side of his mouth, which me makes me giggle a bit more because of how silly he looks.

“I’ve always wanted a dog,” I joke, earning a low grumble from Lloyd, and chuckles from the rest of my brothers. If I have learned anything from my trips to the park forest, it is that never call a wolf a dog. It is demeaning and they feel offended. I learnt that the hard way when they ignored me for relating them to snow dogs.

All this time, they were with me in the forest, listening to every single complaint and troubles I had with my life. Now I know why their eyes held some guilt when I talked to them. But I still do not get why they ignored me and treated me like shit when they were in their human forms.

“Why did you always ignore me and pretend you hated me?” I ask the question plaguing my mind. Certainly they did not hate me if they were with me the whole time, wolf form or not.

Lloyd looks down at me with sad eyes. The happiness that was in this room moments ago was gone. Call me a party pooper, but I need to know!

He nuzzles his head between my neck in a caring way, and I hear a faint, “I’m sorry” in the back of mind, but I ignore it when Lloyd bolts from his position in top of me, and runs up the stairs.

I turn to my other brothers, now looking up.

“Where did he go?” I ask, getting up from the floor.

“I doubt you want to see your own brother naked,” Garrett says, nodding his head in the direction of Lloyd’s shredded clothes.

“Oh… right…” I trail off. An awkward silence fills the room, since no one knows what to say. But the silence is conquered when Justin releases a huge loud burp, erasing the deafening silence. There is one more second of silence, as we all look at each other back and forth, before bursting out in laughter. The only one not laughing is Justin, who is blushing red due to embarrassment. Some of us are laughing on the floor and others are wiping tears from their eyes. I am among the ones on the floor laughing like hyenas, with Miles and Garrett, and Brandon is the one shaking violently since he cannot breathe and is wiping tears in his eyes. Suddenly, a loud noise overpowers the laughter, and leaves the house shaking and ceases all laughter.

“ENOUGH!” Lloyd booms, scaring all of us and causing objects on walls and tables to shake and rattle.

We all shut up and turn around to see Lloyd shaking. No, not in anger, but in silent laughter. The bitch scared us on purpose!

He starts laughing uncontrollably and we all stare at him in shock.

“Y-you should h-have seen your f-faces,” he stutters, trying to stop laughing, but failing to do so and laughs harder.

“Asshole,” I grumble, earning hushed chuckles from Miles and Garrett and a glare from Lloyd.

“Let’s sit down and talk,” Lloyd mumbles, sitting on the lone recliner at the head of the room.

Everyone else picks a seat. Garrett and Brandon sit on the love seat, while Justin, Miles, and I sit on the couch adjacent to Lloyd. Miles is on my left and Justin by my right. We face Lloyd and wait for him to talk.

“Now that you know what we are, you must be wondering who else is a werewolf here,” Lloyd starts and I nod for him to continue. “Everyone here is a werewolf. Everyone in this town is a werewolf, and we all belong to one pack called the Red Sun Pack. We are one of the largest and strongest packs in North America. When I am done with this discussion, you will also be a part of the pack and will be able to share the mind link we have. A mind link helps you talk to everyone in the pack through your mind. You sound the same in your mind as you sound when you are talking. You can block out voices and you can select certain people to talk to, as well. I am soon-to-be beta of this pack, meaning I will be second in charge, while Landon will be the alpha,” he explains.

“Landon will be in charge? Why?” I ask, suddenly infuriated by the fact that he is going to be in charge of everyone. I do not want to listen to him.

“His dad is the alpha right now, and dad is beta. Since we both are the eldest, he has the alpha gene and I have the beta gene, which means we are next in line,” Lloyd explains.

“There is no way he is in charge of me!”

“Chill out! He had a reason of doing what he did. You need to ask him though,” he says, referring to the past and why I am so adamant about being in the same pack as his.

“Now I have to talk to him,” I grumble.

“Just shut up and listen,” Lloyd sighs and continues, “Anyway, when Landon turns eighteen in three months, the position of the alpha will be handed down to him, and I will be beta,” he states.

I wonder if I am a werewolf, but I am showing no signs of it yet.

“You must be wondering if you are a werewolf or not. The answer is yes. You are. But a lot of female werewolves don’t change till they are seventeen. If they don’t change before they are seventeen, then they will change the day of. So you will be changing any day now. Males change at a very early age—as early as three and as late as ten,” he explains, noting the fact that my birthday is in a week.

“What happens during the transformation?” I ask.

“The first shift is very painful. The worst possible pain you have ever felt. It’s a pain you’ve never felt before--- it’s worse than dying a slow painful death. During the shift, you will wish you were dead. All your bones will crack and break. There is no way to make it less painful. It’s like a bulldozer repeatedly running over you and a wreck ball falling on top of you a hundred times. All you can think about is the pain. There is no way to make the pain less painful. Nothing, not even morphine can help induce the pain.

“But that’s the worst part. After all you bones are cracked; your body will begin to change. It will reshape its bones to that of a wolf, and that will cause little to no pain at all, depending on how big you are. The bigger you are, the more it will hurt, but it is not intensifying like the first part. When you shift, your senses will have heightened. Your hearing, sight, and smell while all be advanced, and they will carry on with your human body, when you shift back. With your sense of smell, you will be able to identify humans from werewolves. Werewolves have a particular smell. A bit woodsy, or something relatable to nature, while humans have more metallic smell from their blood. With your advanced sense of smell, you can tell if there is any present danger, and you can tell apart people. Our scents are like DNA—they are all different. Neither one is the same. They will be similar, but not the same. Your scent of smell will also help you find your mate.”

“What is a mate,” I interrupt.

“A mate is your other half. Your one true love. When you meet, you cannot live without your mate. They become your everything and you would do anything for them, even die,” he said with a twinkle in his eye that could only mean one thing.

“Have you found your mate yet?” I ask, already knowing the answer.

Justin and Lloyd looks at each other before breaking out in huge smiles.

“Yes,” they say at the same time. I roll my eyes, not showing my excitement about having sister-in-laws.

“Who are they?” I ask.

“They are both cousins that belong to the same pack—the Starlight Pack, who are one of our neighboring packs. A lot of their members go to our schools, since they live close by. The girls are related, as I said before. My mate, Brie, is the daughter of the alpha. The beta of their pack is Brie’s mother’s brother, her uncle. The beta’s daughter and Brie’s cousin, Hailey, is Justin’s mate,” Lloyd explains, with a love struck expression on his face.

“Whipped,” Brandon sings, causing Miles and Garrett to laugh, but they cover it with a cough when they receive a glare from Lloyd.

“How do you know they are your mate by their smell?” I ask curiously.

“When you are in close proximity, you can smell each other’s scent. It will be the best thing you have ever smelt. It will immediately pull you in like a rope, and you will most definitely walk to each other. The first time you see each other, your gazes will lock, and it will almost be impossible to grasp hold of reality. You will know immediately, and your wolf inside will also know and practically demand you to stalk them. Your mate is already a wolf, but he will not know he is your mate until you change. For all you know, it may be the creeper down the street,” he explains, still smiling like an idiot on pot, thinking about his mate, while I shiver at the possibility of Hobo dude being me mate. I will not elaborate—you do not want to know.

“Man you sound like a girl,” Brandon mumbles, earning a much deserved glare from Lloyd. He is going to get his assed kicked tonight.

“What is your inner wolf?” I ask, gaining Lloyd’s attention back.

“Your inner wolf is basically the beast inside. Werewolves are much more humane than real wolves, but much more crazed when their wolf takes over. In both forms, your wolf will just be a voice in your head, but you can talk back to it. It can get pretty annoying because it will always think it is better than you,” Lloyd says.

“Cool,” I say. This is a lot to take in. But I still do not understand why they ignored me.

“But why are you telling me this now?” I ask, not quite understanding they chose to talk to me now.

“There is a reason why you were framed that night. It wasn’t the original plan though. The original plan was a lot less brutal than what actually went down. Only a few people know what happened, so people do think you actually did it, which was a part of the plan. We just wanted people to ignore, you not hate you. But the plan went wrong, and we went along with it, because it was for the best. We didn’t like it, but it was an alpha order, meaning we couldn’t reject it. I can’t tell you the reason why we did it, but know we were always around you. You need to ask Landon why. He ordered us not to tell. He wanted to talk to you first, and as much as we want to tell the reason, we can’t,” Lloyd explains.

“So, Landon wants to tell me the reason?” I clarify.

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“You’ll have to ask him.”

“Do you even know the reason?”

“Yes.”

“Tell me.”

“Can’t.”

“Alpha order?”

“Pretty much.

“Great! Now I feel like a dick for not talking to him!” I remembering the times he wanted to talk to me.

“It’s not your fault. You didn’t know what he wanted to talk about!” Justin reassures.

“But I would’ve known if I had listened to him!” I yell, leaning back on the couch.

“Don’t get your panties in a twist!” Justin says in a fake British accent.

Everyone starts to laugh at his failure of an accent, including me.

“I want ice cream,” Brandon mumbles after the laughter died down.

“Me too,” Justin and Miles agree.

“Guess we are going for ice cream!” Lloyd screams and jumps out of his chair and grabs the car keys. He may be the beta, but he is still a child.

We get up from our seats and head out the door and into the car.

It is great to have my brothers back, I think, smiling and shaking my head, as Brandon and Justin fight over who gets shotgun.

~~~

So instead of getting ice cream, Garrett thought it would be a great idea to go to the Laser War Arena, to play laser tag. Everyone agreed, except Brandon who wanted ice cream, but he shut up when Justin said they had ice cream in the arena.

So now, here we are gearing up as we wait for some of my brothers’ friends to show up. They are the few who knew about the plan, as Lloyd said, so they would not be rude. I also invited Blaine and Marissa, so they would be here soon. I also told Blaine everything over the phone, when I excused myself to the bathroom to talk privately. After I was done talking to him, I asked Lloyd if werewolves can have mates of the same sex. Apparently, they can. Go Blaine!

Five minutes later, and eight noisy people walk through the doors. The group consists of Landon, Chris, Macee, John, Natasha, Saxon, Nate, and Ria. Just as they enter, Blaine and Marissa follow behind. Perfect timing.

“Hey guys,” the ten of them greet, and they run over to get their supplies.

Once we were all ready, we came to stand in a circle.

“Okay,” Justin spoke, “let’s make the teams. It will be eight versus eight, which is perfect. Blaine and Landon will be the team captains. Blaine can go first, since he is cooler,” Justin finishes, receiving a fist pump from Blaine, and a playful shove from Landon, who just laughed off the insult.

“JOURNEY! COME TO PAPA!” Blaine yells, holding his arms out for a hug as I run up to him, laughing.

“Hey papa bear,” I greet.

Landon goes next and they go back and forth till no one is left.

The teams ended up as Blaine, Saxon, Brandon, Nate, Miles, Natasha, Ria, and me against Landon, Chris, Macee, John, Lloyd, Justin, Garrett, and Claire.

“Let the games begin,” Claire said, smirking evilly, and we all entered the arena.

I gave a quick peek at Landon and hoped I would not have to talk to him about… the past today. I did not want to quite know just yet, but I will forgive him knowing it was in his best intentions. For now, he would have to earn my friendship back.

Game on.