Peace and Quiet

"If you ever learned to shut up, maybe. You got the build for it, but I ain't heard of one of us going in after they was..." I just let it go, realizing I was getting a bit heated already.

"You can tell me to stuff it, but you didn't get turned by choice, did you?" He was genuinely concerned. Kid had a good heart.

"Stuff it," I said, although I smiled enough to let him know I wasn't really upset, it was just a touchy subject.

"I'm stuffed," he said and for the first time in a good long while I laughed. He grinned back and we finished up our work.

The rest of the days I spent at the Wolf were probably the best time of my life since I got home from the service. I was up at dawn with Jessup doing chores, helping Brigid around the place when I saw a hand was needed, helped Zeke repair a roof a few doors down cause he was just too big to do it. Just simple living, nothing complex and nothing asked for that was too much. And slowly I began to find a bit of peace again. People hired me for odd things here and there. Shopping for an elderly lady who was convalescing after minor surgery, wood cutting for a family who just got a new wood burning stove and wanted to try it out, even walking dogs. Those were funny because dog normally avoided Lycans but they seemed to like me. So my savings was increasing.

As was my smiling. Zeke was the main source for that. I could sit and listen to him blather on all durned day and just marvel. He never did take a breath. It had to some sort of super power cause he could natter on about this person from high school who was dating this other person who was cheating on them with this other person. The ladies in the beauty parlor had nothing on his gossip and I just sat there in awe. Times he would just say something stupid to get a reaction out of me or pull a funny face and it would always make me laugh. I hadn't laughed like this in years.

And then, all of a sudden, I had saved enough to buy a plane ticket home. I would be finally going home. To forget my past, to forget about being in society, to keep safe my shame. Yet I had found a place here at the Lone Wolf. A place I would always have fond memories of. Zeke and his chatter, Jessup and his ability to get everything across with so few words and knew when words were not needed, Brigid and her little things. Things that said I was welcome here as long as I liked. Things my mom would have done. Mrs. Jenkins and the her prized Pomeranian who'd be walked by no one but me. Here was a place I would come back to and know I would have smiles waiting instead of pity in their eyes.

Jessup saw my bags were packed one day. "Finally leaving."

"Yeah. I got enough to get me home on a plane." He nodded and for him that was that. He didn't need to say goodbye. He didn't need to say he liked having me there. I knew it.

Brigid was a bit more open. "You've been a saintly guest, Quintin, and you'll be sorely missed around here. If you're ever in the area look us up."

Zeke seemed to take it the hardest. "You really gotta go? I mean, I know you do, but I hate to see a friend leave." He ran his hand through his hair and toed the dirt of the drive.

"I have to go or I'll never leave. You 'n your family have been great. Just what I needed to get a bit of peace back."

"You could stay. I know the folks agree with me. Heck the entire town likes you. No one has said one wrong thing about you and I been listening."

I know he had too. Like I said earlier he loved to gossip but not the evil kind that hurts. "I know, but my mama ain't getting any younger. High time I went home." I would have gone on but what I saw made my blood run cold.

Amos was stalking up the road and I could tell he was pissed. How the hell had he followed me here? I had used multiple forms of public transportation and my trail was a month gone cold even for the best nose. His face was hard and his fists clenched as he spotted me. "What's wrong, Quint?" He looked to where I was looking and I smelled him get wary. "That's the one that turned you." It was no question. "Dad!" he called and something in his tone brought the man out with Brigid beside him.

"Kitten, I have spent a month looking for you. It is time for you to come back home now." Amos's words nice enough but his tone said he would drag me there if he had to.

"So you can hit me again? And I told you to stop calling me kitten. I ain't your kitten. I ain't even your friend anymore, so go home to Oklahoma and forget about me. Go find some other boy to whip on." I knew better than to turn my back on him because he would grab me and then I would be hurting. Problem is he scared the shit out of me like combat never had. Jess and Zeke were big but they weren't bad. Amos was big and mean. I was shaking with fear and anger.

"You best not talk to me like that, kitten..." Amos stopped as Brigid took a step forward. They were the same height but right now she looked damn taller.

"You get off my property before I call the sheriff. If he doesn't come within ten minutes I'm calling the local Hunter to put a silver bullet between your lynx eyes. You try and take one of my guests, you will see why they say never mess with a she-bear."

"This don't concern you, ma'am. I came to get what is mine."

"One," she said and Zeke grabbed his cell phone from his pocket. He handed it to her. Amos eyed it like it was solid silver. "Two," she said and flipped it open.

"You will be coming home now or later, kitten," he said as he turned to leave. "There ain't no place you can hide from me." He didn't leave fast enough. For her.

She hit a speed dial number. "Tommy, it's Brig. We got a Lycan here who is trying to take Quint without him wanting to go." She hadn't called the law, she'd called the Hunter. "Uh huh. Lynx. 'Bout six foot five and two hundred thirty pounds. Tawny hair, ugly look in his eyes."

Brigid handed me the phone as Amos was walking away. "Hello?"

"Do not leave the Wolf until I get there. If he tries to take you by force the Whitebears can use lethal force with permission. I know you hate being cooped up, but right now stay there." He hung up and I handed the phone to Zeke.

"Looks like I'm staying until Tommy gets here." Brigid nodded sternly then her expression softened as she looked at me.

"If he tries anything you call me. I like you, Quintin, and no one will hurt you while you're a guest here. You bought that train ticket to the West yet?" I was about to correct her but her eyes flicked to Amos's back. He was still in hearing range.

"Yeah. Leaves Wednesday." I hadn't bought my plane ticket yet.

"Good. Tommy will be here tomorrow likely and he'll stay to see you off. Now c'mon inside. I just pulled a pecan pie out of the oven."

I was looking out the window that evening when Zeke tapped on the open door. "You got a minute?" he asked. I nodded and looked at him. He came in and sat at the desk chair looking at his hands. "You can tell me to stuff it, but he wasn't just the guy that turned you, was he?" I closed my eyes and shook my head. "He didn't tell you he was Lycan?" Again a shake. "I know you ain't part of the Pack, but infecting someone against their will is punishable under Pack Law, even for nomads. It's like rape and you can tell Tommy. He's ain't closed minded like some people and with Mom and Dad backing you it would not take much for that thing to be taken out back and removed."

"I don't want him dead, Zeke, I want him gone." I looked back outside and could see my reflection on the window which meant Zeke could too. He could see the hurt I felt. It was more for the peace I had found. That was gone now. "I thought I could get away and start over and let the past stay there. I'm tired of being me, Zeke. I know you were born Lycan, but I wasn't. I don't see it as natural. It's a shameful thing what he did and it makes me feel like I'm a shameful thing. I don't feel human much any more. I feel like a caged thing too sorry to leave but wishing I could."

"But you did leave. You left that shit stain."

"Did I? Had I left he wouldn't be there." Zeke looked out the window and he could just barely make out Amos in the night. "He hasn't left yet for more than a few minutes. I never left my cage, I just changed cages."

Zeke scratched at his head. "Tomorrow night is the moon. You one of those that have to get out?" I shook my head. "Then stay in. Dad and Mom have to be outside, but I can stay with you if you want." I looked at him with a small smile. "I may not be full grown yet, but I have never heard of a lynx, Lycan or not, that can take on a thousand pound polar bear."

"You really are white bears then?" He nodded. "I thought it was tribal."

"It was about ten generations back. Then we got hairy." I grinned and turned away from the window. "Look. You been here a month and I feel I can say you never deserve to feel like you've anything to be ashamed of. Being Lycan ain't so bad." I just looked at him. "Hey, I'm serious. I mean I don't get to play contact sports in PE and a few of the guys don't want me to sit with them during lunch, but that's their problem. I got a bunch of friends, human and Lycan, who don't care that I turn into a polar bear every month. I had a human boy friend who used to ride around on my back." That made me laugh just picturing it. "I mean we were thirteen so there wasn't anything more than kissing, but he didn't care. He didn't see it as something to hide from anyone. Folks around here don't care else they wouldn't live here.

"I know what I'm saying won't change anything right now, but maybe you can think about it. Even after you leave us for home, maybe you'll look back and think about us here. Maybe you'll see being Lycan in a new light since you seen people who don't hide it. We don't find shame in being what we are. I mean I wouldn't go around some other town yelling I'm a werebear. They'd lock me up in the loony bin." I nodded and chuckled. Just having him here was pushing the blues away. "All I'm saying is think about what you can do since you can't undo what he did." Without much more he left me to think on it.

And I did think. I thought real hard. I turned out the lights but I just lay there. I could still feel Amos outside, but it was more the thoughts in my head than anything he was doing that kept me awake. I was going home. I was not the same person at all, even before I got infected. I'd been places, seen things that would give nightmares to murderers, and come back from the military. I was a soldier who had seen combat. If that don't change you nothing will. Now I was Lycan. But was that who I was? Was I the trauma I had seen? Was I the screams in the night? Was I all that?

Logically no. I wasn't all that, but it was part of me. Part of who I had become. All I had to do was take all of that and make something out of it. It would take awhile, but Zeke was right. Why should I feel shame? I didn't when I came home from the front and I had killed people. I ain't killed no one when I got hairy. "Say it, Quintin," I chided myself. "I'm a Lycan." I said it out loud and it made my stomach tie up in knots but when the knots left they took some of that shame with it. It might take years, but now is when I had to start.