Fated to the Alpha

3

Alice

That night, fear introduced itself to me by a new name. Its name was Rapid River. At first, I was unable to see anything from under the tarp.

After five minutes of the boat bobbing and lurching, I finally peeked my head out from under the tarp to make sense of where I was. As it happened, the moon had gone back behind the thick velvet of rain clouds, casting total darkness everywhere. Panic, thy name was Alice.

In the middle of all this falling-off-the-hill and being-thrown-into-a-boat business, I had completely forgotten the revelation that werewolves existed. I’d only seen it for a split second, but there was no doubt in my mind that I had seen Brandon transform into a beast. And Estelle. Oh, God. Meek and mild Estelle who had pitied me and given me a job, even though it was minimum wage and involved pouring sweaty and smelly lumberjacks gallons of coffee.

As the boat turned in the riverbend, the moon finally revealed itself. I looked back and saw the gushing white waters that I’d miraculously survived. Ahead of me, the waters were surprisingly still and clear. I managed to get a hold of the oars and began rowing. It was janky but I slowly got a hold of the mundane mechanism that allowed me to row forward.

The river ran from Rapid Hill along the town, past the suburbs, and into the wilderness where it joined the other tributaries. Somewhere along its path was my home.

Mom had moved here on short notice after my episode. Here’s the thing they don’t tell you when you move into a new town with a meager budget and no prior warning—all the realtors are ready to gut you. My mom wasn’t naïve, though. She did manage to get a deal on a house on the outskirts. The reason it was so cheap? It was a century old, barely had any gas, all the plumbing was leaky, and the electricity went out without warning. On top of that, it was two miles away from Rapid Falls.

For the past couple of nights when I had lain awake by the intrusive sounds of nature, I had heard the river’s constant slushing and shushing coming from my window. It meant that I’d somehow swim by my house in this boat.

My arms were sore and heavy from all the rowing, my body drenched in freezing river water. I made out the main road leading into town and the giant inflatable clown that marked the Seven-Eleven near my house. I continued to row, praying my mom wouldn’t be home. I’d get bombarded by questions and next thing you know, I’d be grounded.

I guided the boat to the bank and tucked the oars under it. I mean, it was borrowed property. Sooner or later, Brandon would come by for it. Wouldn’t he? I covered the boat with the tarp and tied it to a tree trunk nearby, hoping that would be enough.

Soaked and shivering, weak and bewildered, I walked up the forest trail that ended at the back of my house, praying to all the gods there ever were or had been that there would be no more wolves around. Given how every single muscle in my body was throbbing with pain, I decided I’d lie low tomorrow and won’t show up to school.

I could make out the outline of my house in the distance. I summoned just about enough strength in my legs to run the rest of the distance. It was all right. I was home now. Safe.

I peeked through the windows, looking for signs of life inside the house. Not a single light was on. That may as well be the spontaneous power outage. Erring on the side of caution, I climbed the patio’s roof and snuck into my room through the window.

After a warm bath and changing into my pajamas, I crashed into bed and fell asleep, dreaming of red-eyed wolves chasing me, dreaming of Brandon turning into a wolf, and Brandon telling me that I might be a werewolf, too.

Dreaming of Dad.

I woke up to the sound of loud knocking at the front door. Another feature in the house that kept on giving was that everything echoed. They never told you this about wooden structures, but most of them were hollow, and whenever someone clattered or knocked or banged something, it usually rang throughout the whole house.

I slapped the bedside table, trying to get my phone. Then, remembering that the phone had been lost somewhere between me running for my life from the wolves and falling into the river, I quickly rose from my bed, the events of last night coming back in full color.

I looked out the window. The sun wasn’t out. Then again, in my time here, it usually was never out. One would expect that it would rain nonstop every day given how many rainclouds always seemed to hang in the sky, but it never actually rained that much. Just a couple of hours every other day.

Through bleary eyes, I looked at the clock and saw that, despite the lack of sun, it was noon. The incessant knocking didn’t stop. I braced myself for the worst and headed down. Neither Mom nor Elma, my sister, were there. There was a note on the fridge, but I was too far to make out what it said.

I went to the door and pulled it open.

It wasn’t the police.

It wasn’t someone from the diner, inquiring about the murder.

It was Brandon.

“Stay back, man, I’m warning you!” I said, using the only thing that I could get my hands on as a weapon—the umbrella by the door.

“Hey, whoa, whoa, I come in peace,” Brandon said, lifting his hands up. “And, also, for the boat. Where is it?”

I smacked the umbrella on Brandon’s shoulder. “You have got some nerve showing up to my door like this, asking about your freaking boat. You threw me! Jerk! Twice!” With each word, I smacked him again to emphasize how pissed off I was.

Brandon’s hand wrapped around the umbrella and yanked it out of my grip. He set it on the stand and stepped inside my house. It suddenly made me very apprehensive, standing in the shadow of the tall, broad, mysterious, might-be-a-wolf, man.

“Hey, I saved your life, dude, in case you’re having trouble remembering,” he said.

“And you expect me to go into fits of grateful arousal, oh my hero?” I snapped back.

“Well, a thanks and a coffee would be nice.”

“Coffee?”

“Yeah. I mean, I did skip school and came looking for you the first chance I got. Coach’s gonna give me hell tomorrow for skipping practice.”

“Coach? Practice? School? What about the fact that you turned into a wolf last night?” I asked, aghast.

“Well, I was hoping to clear things up if you let me take you out for coffee,” Brandon said, gleaming.

“Are you literally asking me out right now after I had the worst night of my life?” I couldn’t even take it. My hands were up to my face, my eyes were rolling in their sockets. The absolute nerve of this guy.

“It’s a good coffee place.”

“Fine. Fine. If that gets you out of my house. Fine. I’ll go out with you. You happy?”

“I am,” Brandon said softly. “Knowing that you are safe. The boat was just an excuse. I came to check up on you. Last night was rough, I’ll give you that. We met in the weirdest of circumstances. I’d like a redo. A normal version of us meeting. For coffee. Does that make sense?”

“Weirdly, it does,” I said. The smooth son of a b***h had just disarmed me and there was nothing I could do about it. Now that I’d calmed down a bit, I couldn’t help but notice how fresh he smelled. There was a glow on his face, too. The kind that came with elation, not with men’s facial cream. “All right, fine. When?”

“Rapid Falls has this amazing coffee place called Espresso Lounge. How about I pick you up in the afternoon?”

“How about I drive up there? I’ve got some errands to run in town anyway,” I said. “And look at me. I’m a mess right now. Let me take a bath, brush my teeth, put some makeup on, and wear something that’s not my pajamas.”

“It’s a date,” Brandon said, still gleaming.

“Don’t get cocky,” I said, closing the door on his face. When I was sure that he couldn’t see me, I broke into a smile myself. A date with Brandon Caufield? Jesus Christ.

There was another knock on the door, this time a softer knock.

I opened it again. It was still Brandon.

“I nearly forgot about the boat. Where is it?”

“Oh, right. It’s parked by the bank, tied to a tree,” I said, distractedly.

“See you when I see you, Alice Hawkins,” Brandon winked at me, and disappeared behind my house.

I headed to the kitchen to read what my mom had left on the fridge.

The note on the fridge said: “Baby, I’m headed to Chicago with Elma to pick up the rest of our stuff. There’s lasagna in the fridge and coleslaw salad from yesterday. Make sure you go to school! Xoxo”

Near-death events tend to do a number on your hunger. I fixed some cereal for myself, though, feeling guilty that I’d not gone to school. I felt fearful about the wolves that I’d run into and how I’d come across Estelle’s dead body. There was only one thing that I could do to take my mind off things.

While still sitting on the kitchen isle, half-heartedly chewing down my Cheerios, I clicked away on the keys of my laptop. I knew it was futile. I knew that after a decade of searching for my dad, he wouldn’t just show up on the internet out of nowhere. Still, I tried. You never knew what you’d end up finding. After all, it was the internet.

Dad’s disappearance had been sudden and without warning. I was eight. That’s all I could remember about him disappearing. It was my eighth birthday and I’d been waiting for him to come back from work. He had promised me, mom, and Elma that he’d take us to Long John Silver’s for a family birthday dinner.

I’d been sitting on the living room sofa, my birthday cap on my head, a streamer in my little hands. My mom was in the kitchen, baking me a cake. Elma was far too young to be doing anything. She was in the cot, playing with a Buzz Lightyear action figure. Any minute now, dad was supposed to come back.

Except that he didn’t.

He never got back in touch with any of us.

The police couldn’t find him anywhere in or near Chicago.

Whenever I asked Mom about it, she would confront me angrily, telling me that she had no idea where my dad was.

When I discovered the internet in my teens, the first thing I searched was “Briar Hawkins.”

The only couple of results that showed up back then were about him graduating from his alma mater and how he had won a basketball scholarship to Berkeley. Nothing about his disappearance. Nothing about him going missing. That didn’t stop me, however. I searched for him every day, just as I was doing today.

“Where are you, Dad?” I whispered. “I really need you right now.”

Radio silence on the dad front, just as it had been for the last ten years. What was I expecting? That he’d show up out of the blue and provide a plausible explanation for why he’d ran, leaving my mom to raise her two daughters all by herself?

I wiped the tears off my face and headed up to my room to get ready for a day’s worth of errands in the town and my date with Brandon.