Good Bones (15 page)

“Given up on going green?”

Dylan spun around so quickly that his phone slipped from his hands and went flying, shattering into pieces on the concrete floor.

“Wow. That’s a shame. Sorry about that,” Andy said, stepping out from the shadow between two SUVs. He was grinning delightedly.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” Dylan cringed at the way his voice shook.

“You didn’t want to talk to me last time. I was hoping maybe you’d change your mind if we were on neutral territory. Come on. We can go have a couple of drinks—”

“I told you I didn’t want to see you again.”

“Of course you were gonna say that, with your boyfriend standing there.”

“He’s just my neighbor.”

Andy’s smile didn’t dim as he prowled a few steps closer. “You sure about that, Dyl? I can practically smell him on you.”

“It’s none of your goddamn business.”

“Hey, it’s okay. He’s pretty tasty. We can add him to the pack if you want.” Andy licked his lips. “He’d make a nice little omega, wouldn’t he?”

Dylan’s fists were so tight that his nails were digging into his palms. His eyes darted from side to side, but he didn’t see anything he could use as a weapon, and he was pretty sure he couldn’t make it into the truck before Andy got to him. He could shout for help, but it was doubtful that anyone would hear—and even if someone did, he didn’t want to place an unsuspecting stranger in the middle of this. He didn’t know how much damage Andy could inflict in human form, but based on the strength Dylan had experienced in the tavern bathroom and on the way his muscles were bunched and ready right now, Dylan felt fairly certain that either of them was fully capable of killing a human with his bare hands. And teeth. God, Dylan wanted to bite.

He took three deep breaths and let them out. Maybe if he stayed calm he could make Andy just go away. But it was so hard to keep his cool around Andy. Just the sight of him sent Dylan’s emotions into overdrive. “What is it you want?” he said as calmly as he could.

Andy’s smile turned up a few notches, and he came even closer. Dylan had to fight the urge to back up against the truck. “I’m glad you’re finally ready to listen, man.” Andy was so sexy: his curls just a little too long, his brown eyes clear and bright, his heavy muscles visible under his tight clothing. Even the bulge at his crotch was clearly outlined. “Let’s go have those drinks. And maybe something to eat. I’m starved.”

“Just spit it out.”

“Okay,” Andy said with a shrug. “This thing with you and me—it was an accident, right? I didn’t mean to hurt you that night. I was trying to get out of the house, but sometimes it hits so quick— Anyway, I didn’t mean to make you like me.”

“Is that what this is all about? You’re trying to apologize—like a 12-step program for the supernatural?”

Andy shook his head and held out his hands, palms up. “No, man. I’m just trying to explain. I didn’t plan any of it—I’ve never been all that great at planning—but it happened, and we gotta deal.”

“You mean
I
have to deal. That’s what I’ve been doing, Andy, and I don’t need your help.”

For a moment, Andy appeared wounded, but then his easy smile reappeared. “Yeah, you got your Green Acres and everything. But you’re all by yourself, Dyl. Humans aren’t supposed to be alone, and neither are wolves. You need a pack, man. You need me.”

Dylan would have liked to call him a liar, but at least part of what Andy said was so true that Dylan’s heart clenched. Almost gently, Dylan said, “I do need someone. But you’re not that someone. I’m sorry.”

Andy’s handsome face twisted into a snarl. “I fucking
made
you! You might not remember what a loser you were before, but I do. All this”—he waved a hand in Dylan’s direction—“it’s my doing. That piece of ass out in the boonies, he wouldn’t have even looked at you before.”

“Maybe so,” Dylan replied evenly. “But that doesn’t change the fact that I don’t want you. I can’t. Not after—” His words choked off, and he looked away, his jaw working.

“That’s what we are, Dylan. You can sit there all day and pretend you’re this… this sophisticated man who has a fancy job and a Facebook page and GPS in his fucking truck, but that’s not what you are. You’re a predator, baby. Like me.”

“I’m not like you.” Dylan hoped he sounded more convinced than he felt. “Why are you so stuck on me anyway? You said it yourself—I was an accident. Go find someone else.”

“You think I haven’t fucked anyone since you? You think your ass is so sweet I can’t look at anyone else?” Andy cupped his hand over his dick. “Let me tell you, baby, that ain’t no problem.”

“Jesus, Andy, are you even listening? If you’re getting laid all the time, then what’s the obsession with me?”

“It’s not the same!” Andy roared, then seemed to try to control himself. “It’s not the fucking I need. I told you—it’s… it’s family.
Pack
.”

Slowly, Dylan shook his head. “Not me. I’m not your pack. There must be someone else.”

A dark look came over Andy’s face, and Dylan’s stomach lurched as he realized exactly what was coming. Andy shook his head and in a low voice said, “I tried. I
tried
, man. But none of them…. They didn’t make it. That’s not what I meant to do, but once I change, once I smell them and I taste them….”

Dylan shuddered. How many others had there been before him, and after? How many men who didn’t have a steel door to hide behind when the wolf appeared? He felt like he might be sick. But Andy reached for him with one hand, almost but not quite touching him. “You don’t know, Dyl. Don’t know what it’s like…. It’s been a lot longer for me than for you. You’ll see. After a while it just eats at you, this fucking need. Like hunger, right? I found… a couple years back, I found some others like us. I tried to run with them for a little while, but it wasn’t the same. They weren’t mine.”

“I’m not—”

“Try it! Give that hillbilly a little nibble when the moon is full, and you’ll see what I mean.”

For a moment, Dylan could picture it clearly: his sharp teeth sinking into tan skin, hot, sweet blood filling his mouth. And then Chris would be his. No need any longer to run alone, no need to hide what he was, no more of this ever-present fear of hurting someone he cared about. Except… what if he went too far when he bit? What if he did to Chris what Andy had done to countless others? And even if he didn’t, even if he could somehow maintain enough control to stop himself, then he would be responsible for turning a good man into a monster. Just like him.

“I don’t belong to you, Andy, and I never will. Get out of my fucking life.”

Andy’s face went red with rage, and Dylan was positive that the man was going to go for his throat. But just then a car alarm beeped twice, startling them both, and they turned to see a man in a suit standing near one of the SUVs. The man had his key fob in one hand and his phone in the other, and he was staring at them, wide-eyed.

Andy turned back to Dylan with a silent snarl, panting heavily. “You’ll see, baby,” he growled. “You’ll see.” Then he spun around and ran for the stairs.

Dylan slumped against the tailgate and tried to slow his racing pulse.

“Hey! Are you okay?” That was the man in the suit, still keeping his distance but with his thumb hovering over the touchscreen of his phone.

“Yeah. Thanks. He’s just… never mind. Thanks.”

“I can call the cops.”

“No, it’s okay. I’m gonna leave anyway.”

The man looked slightly doubtful, but he nodded and got into his SUV. Dylan watched as one of the tires ran over the remains of his phone. With a heavy sigh and slightly shaking hands, Dylan opened the truck’s door and climbed inside.

He was now even less in a mood to have dinner with Rick and Kay, but he had no way to call them and didn’t want them to worry. He was slightly embarrassed to realize he didn’t even know their phone numbers—he usually just pressed a button in his contacts. So he exited the garage and made his way across downtown and onto the freeway. Halfway there, though, he was overtaken by such severe shaking that he had to take the nearest exit and pull to the side of the road. He turned off the engine and spent a few minutes breathing deeply, trying to calm himself. When that didn’t work, he closed his eyes and tried to imagine himself somewhere peaceful: on his own front porch, sweaty and sore after a day’s good work, Chris leaning beside him and smoking, clouds scudding over the newly tilled fields across the road.

But without willing it and before he could stop it, that tranquil scene was replaced by a very different one. He was in the living room of his old house, four weeks after Andy had disappeared. The wounds on his leg had healed, leaving pinkish indented scars, but that fall evening they were itching nonetheless. He felt as if he were buzzed on caffeine, as if he were waiting for some important event, and his T-shirt and shorts felt tight and restrictive. He’d noticed the way his muscles had grown over the past weeks. People at work kept asking him about his new exercise regimen and telling him he looked great. Men on the street and in restaurants were making eye contact with him, looking at him with hope instead of disinterest. He’d had to buy new clothes. He wasn’t stupid, and some part of him knew what all this signified, but another part refused to believe. Who the fuck believed in werewolves?

Just before sunset, when Dylan was pacing the room as restlessly as a caged animal, a knock had sounded on the door. When he opened it, Andy came barreling in, hair in wild snarls, eyes gleaming with a feral light. “Get out of here!” Dylan had yelled and tried to push him away.

But Andy was bigger and stronger, and he’d folded his arms around Dylan’s body, holding him tight. “Hang on, baby,” he had rasped in Dylan’s ear. “You’re in for a ride.”

Dylan hadn’t struggled, and within minutes he’d felt the unnatural bending and stretching and tearing that had later become so familiar, the fundamental restructuring of a human body into something smaller, stronger, faster. He had writhed and shrieked on the living room floor in front of his gaping suburban front door, and when the change was finished he had howled his grief and hunger and excitement.

He had followed the other wolf—his alpha—out into the night. The neighbors had already gone indoors, but if any of them had glanced out a window they likely would have assumed that they saw a pair of big dogs. Shepherd mixes, maybe. They might have considered calling animal control but then decided to make dinner instead.

Andy and Dylan had loped for a mile or two until they came to a greenbelt that ran along a creek and smelled of a thousand people, of their dogs and their children, of discarded food wrappers and cigarette butts and ancient wads of chewing gum. The mixture was intoxicating. Dylan’s mouth hung open, and his tongue lolled out as he ran. The blacktop was slightly rough on the pads of his paws.

And then Andy had banged his shoulder into Dylan’s and yipped softly. They ran full out, faster than Dylan had ever moved without a vehicle. It felt fucking wonderful, all that speed at his command, his legs so powerful. He now realized he’d been slow and weak all his life, nearly deaf, hardly able to smell. How had he managed?

He didn’t know how long they ran. Time had become nearly meaningless, anyway. There was a bit of Before and a hint of Later, but mostly there was a whole lot of Now.

Dylan had fallen slightly behind when Andy picked up a particular scent and bayed at him to hurry up. Dylan barked back and followed his alpha away from the greenbelt, down a quiet street where plastic toys littered front yards and a For Sale sign squeaked quietly in the breeze.

A cat darted out from some bushes, and Dylan leaped after it until Andy growled at him. Somewhat reluctantly, Dylan rejoined his companion on a sidewalk that still retained some of the day’s warmth. They ran onward three blocks, then four, and that’s when Dylan realized what scent they were following. It was very fresh, no more than a minute or two old, and it was human.

They turned a corner, and Dylan saw him up ahead: a jogger with his earbuds playing tinnily, his shoes slapping rhythmically on the ground. He smelled good—sweat and youth—and as he ran Dylan found himself irresistibly drawn to chase. The man didn’t yet hear them and was too oblivious to notice, but he was prey.

It didn’t take long to catch up to him. Dylan thought Andy would leap on him from behind, and he readied his muscles to do the same, but instead Andy ran ahead and circled around, blocking the jogger’s way. The jogger yelped with shock and skidded to a halt. “Hey! Hey, shoo!”

Andy raised his hackles and growled.

“Uh… good dog. Nice dog. I’m just gonna….” The man tried to back away and nearly tripped over Dylan. “Oh, fuck!”

The wolves circled the man, who now reeked of fear, a scent that made saliva pool in Dylan’s mouth and drip from the corner of his lips.

“Help!” the man suddenly shouted. “Somebody help me! I’m being attacked!” Nobody opened their front doors to look, and no people appeared at front windows. Maybe nobody could hear the man over the babble of their televisions. But the man screamed again anyway. “Help me! Call 911!”

Dylan had retained enough of himself to be amused. What the hell good did this guy think calling the cops would do? By the time the patrol rolled up there’d be little left of him but bones and gristle.

Maybe the man realized that as well because he shut up. He swiveled his head from side to side and then rushed past Dylan, dashing headlong at the nearest house. He never got there, of course. The wolves outpaced him easily and cut him off. Andy huffed softly, and Dylan knew that his alpha was only playing with the guy, working him up a little just for the fun of it. But then somewhere a few blocks away a dog began to bark. Andy’s stance grew tenser, more businesslike. He growled again, a deep rumbling in his chest, his head held low and his sharp teeth showing.

“Oh no, God, no, please.” The jogger’s distress had made him all the more delicious. Dylan longed to bite, but he wouldn’t, not yet, not until his alpha signaled that he should.

And then Andy had swung his head to the side slightly to make eye contact with him, yellow eyes meeting yellow eyes glowing eerily with something wild and ferocious. No longer men, but something straight out of a million horror movies. A couple of monsters.