Cleanup

“What are you doing?” Malcolm hurried into the room, then slowed and tried to saunter.

Jeremy picked up the receiver. Malcolm grabbed it from his hand. Jeremy steered me into the front hall and took our coats from the hall stand.

“Where are you going?” Malcolm said.

“To finish my phone call.”

“Who are you calling?”

“You know very well who. Dominic.”

“For what?”

“Stock tips,” Jeremy spat, then inhaled and met his father’s gaze. “You know why. To tell him what you’ve done.”

“To tattle.”

“Yes, to tattle.”

Jeremy helped me zip up my coat. His fingers were trembling. He shifted sideways to block them from Malcolm’s view.

“I’ve never told Dominic anything you’ve done,” Jeremy said. “He’s asked. He suspects you’ve killed humans, but he needs proof to banish you. I’ve always refused to give him that proof. It seemed…safer.”

“Avoid confrontation at all costs. That’s my boy. A coward to the very—”

“I told myself I could handle it.” Jeremy’s voice was as calm and emotionless as if he was reading from a book. “Better for you to be in the Pack, subject to its laws, than living outside it, with nothing to stop you from killing whenever the whim strikes.”

Malcolm stepped in front of Jeremy. “I have never killed any human who wasn’t a threat to the Pack. That’s the Law. If a human threatens us, we can kill him. We’re supposed to. I was only following the Law.”

“That poor girl in there was no threat until you brought her into this house. You broke the Law even by bringing her here. That’s proof enough.” He stopped fidgeting with his jacket, pulled himself up to his full height and looked down at Malcolm. “I told myself I could handle it. But it’s not just me anymore. I have other responsibilities. Other considerations.”

“You mean this stray—”

“Do you think I’ve forgotten?” Jeremy roared, making me stumble back, shocked. He advanced on his father. “Do you think I forget what you did? Do you think I forget the last time you killed in this house? I was nine years old. You told me it was my fault. Well, it wasn’t my fault, and this wasn’t his fault, and I swear you are never going to do anything like this again. It ends here.”

He took hold of my shoulder and turned us toward the front door. As his fingers grazed the handle, Malcolm’s voice cut through the silence.

“I’ll leave,” he said.

Jeremy paused, then turned slowly.

“You want to protect the brat from me?” Malcolm said. “Fine. I’m not the one he needs protecting from, but have it your way. I’ll leave for a few weeks—”

“Ten months.”

“I can’t—”

“Until the end of the year. I’ll give you enough to live on, but I don’t want to see you again before Christmas.”

“And how’s that going to look? Me taking off for nearly a year? The Pack will know something’s up if I don’t go to the Meets.”

“Then they’ll know something’s up. As for the Meets, come up with an excuse and I’ll go along with it.”

With that, Jeremy led me upstairs. No parting shot. No final threat. No “be gone before I come down.” He had what he wanted. Malcolm was leaving.

Jeremy took me into his room and set me on the bed, then crouched in front of me. For several minutes, he studied my face.

“Are you okay?” he asked finally.

Was I? I wasn’t sure. The death of the woman meant little to me. I’d say it meant nothing, but I feel I should leave some opening for interpretation on the matter. To admit that I, as a child, felt nothing at seeing someone die shifts me into the realm of unfeeling monster. So I’ll say I felt little.

I knew, even then, that I should feel something. I saw it in Jeremy’s expression, the expectation that I should be at the very least shaken. But the woman was nothing to me, so how could I mourn her passing? Her death was wrong. Unjust. That I understood. The law of the wild is clear on such matters. You kill to survive—for defense and for food. There’s no excuse for anything else. But to feel more for a stranger? It was, and still is, beyond me.

Footsteps sounded in the hall. Jeremy stopped, tensed and swiveled his head to track them. Along the hall. Down the stairs. Slam. Jeremy rocked back on his heels and nodded.

“He’s gone.” He swiped his bangs back from his face, then met my eyes. “There’s something I need to do now. I’m sorry, but it must be done right away. I’ll make sure he’s gone and I’ll be close enough to hear him if he comes back. Can you wait here?”

“Go?” I tried again. “Go with you?”

He went very still, then squeezed my hand. “No, Clayton. I’m sorry. I don’t want to leave you right now, but—”

“I am okay.”

He blinked, as if startled, then he hugged me, a spontaneous two-second hug, broken off quickly and hidden under the guise of an awkward back pat.

“You’re a good boy, Clayton,” he whispered as he drew back. “I’m sorry…I’ll be back as quick as I can and we’ll talk. All right?”

“I am okay.”

A twist of a smile, and he was gone.

Just enough time passed for me to wonder whether I should go after Jeremy, make sure Malcolm hadn’t come back and hurt him. Then I heard the bathroom taps running full tilt, water thundering into the basin and down the ancient pipes.

I crept to the hall bathroom and inhaled. Jeremy. Good. I turned the doorknob. With the sink water running, I knew Jeremy wasn’t doing anything private but, the truth is, I would have opened the door anyway. In the transformation from human to werewolf, some learned behaviors slid free from my brain. Some, like the proper use of a telephone, I recovered. Others, like the concept of privacy, never returned. Undressing, bathing, urinating, defecating, it was all a normal part of life. You weren’t doing anything wrong, so why did you need to hide to do it?

I pushed open the door. Jeremy was hunched over the sink, his back to me. At first, I thought he was throwing up, having had some experience with this myself only a week ago, after I mistook a carton of cream for milk. I inhaled, but didn’t detect the sour taint of vomit.

Jeremy’s shirt lay in a heap on the floor. I stared at it, scrunched up in a ball, nowhere near the laundry basket.

“Jeremy?”

The rush of water drowned me out. Jeremy leaned down until his face was nearly in the bowl. When he shifted, the light caught the sweat on his back, the rivulets cutting through a fine dusting of dirt. He splashed water on his face. Then he turned off the taps and braced his forehead against the mirror.

Even now, I have to remind myself how young Jeremy was when he found me. He never acted young, never did the sorts of things you’d expect a young man to do. He couldn’t. Long before I’d arrived, he’d had to take on adult responsibility, getting a job, running a household, looking after his father. Looking back on that moment in the bathroom, I can see how young he was. Young and tired and confused, not yet confident enough to be sure he was doing the right thing, but trying so hard to do it.

I wish I could have done something, said something, to make him feel better. But when I looked at him then, I saw only my savior, my protector. An adult, with no needs or fears of his own. Standing in that bathroom doorway, staring down at that discarded shirt, I saw only a sign that the world was off-balance, and wanted only to right it again, to get my Jeremy back.

“I am sorry,” I said.

He turned, saw me and rubbed his hands over his face, finger-combing his hair in the same motion. Then he dropped to one knee before me, took hold of my shoulders and looked into my eyes.

“You didn’t do anything wrong, Clayton. Absolutely nothing.”

“Get rid—” I stopped and restarted. “I try get rid of him. Scare him. He not like. Say he get rid of me. Want me kill her. Make you mad.”

Jeremy took a moment to assimilate this, then sighed, dropping his head forward. “So that was his plan. I thought—” He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. You had absolutely nothing to do with what happened tonight. It wasn’t your fault. Do you understand that?”

I nodded.

“What he did, Clayton, was wrong. Killing that woman was wrong. You understand that, too, don’t you?”

“No kill humans. You say that. I remember.”

“Good. That’s a good boy. I’m sorry you had to…to see that. It was wrong. Very, very wrong. I should have been there. I shouldn’t have left you alone. I should have known he’d—” Another shake of the head. “I should have made sure from the start that he never got that chance. He’s gone now, Clayton. Do you understand that?”

I nodded.

“Gone for a long time,” Jeremy said, pushing himself to his feet.

“Will come back.”

“That’s for me to worry about, not you. It’ll be a long time before he comes back and, when he does, I’ll work something out. You don’t need to worry about him. I’ll make sure of that.”

I looked up into Jeremy’s eyes, and I knew, if I hadn’t before, that what happened tonight had nothing to do with me, and everything to do with him, with hurting him. As he vowed that I wouldn’t need to worry about Malcolm, I made a vow of my own. Someday, he’d never need to worry about Malcolm again. I’d make sure of it.