Pack: The Wolf Within

Chapter Two: Interloper

Rebel Harrison

--Two weeks later--

I wanted to go home.

I paced nervously at the airport, feeling trapped and alone. I watched all the families going by, holding hands, smiling, laughing, kissing as they walked past and I couldn't help but feel homesick. I missed Trish like crazy. No matter where we were, what we did, she always made me feel safe, made me laugh, made me feel loved and wanted. She was a couple of years older than I was, but she was practically a mother too me.

The airport was crowded with travelers and I couldn't help but think someone in this crowd was my "family." At least for the rest of the summer. My nerves were jangled as I paced, circling my luggage which was piled next to a row of tapioca colored plastic seats. I plopped down in one of the chairs and sigh. Digging through my carry on, I grabbed my ipod. I started to put in the earpieces but, what if they call me over the airport speakers? I crammed the ipod back into my bag.

"Rebel?"

I looked up.

My Mother. I recognize her from her photos.

My mother, her smile hesitant, stood at the other end of the row of seats. I'm sure I looked like a scared rabbit or something, ready to tuck tale and run. I nodded, casting my eyes down.

She stepped closer, her steps small, hesitant, like she was approaching a predator, one of her hands reaching out to me.

She's pretty, her smile warm, her blue green eyes warm, her face is beautiful, like sculpted porcelain. Her hair is long and blond but she has it pulled up. I noticed that she had my eyes, or I had hers. I could smell her perfume, a floral scent that calmed my nerves.

"I'm sorry I didn't get here earlier. I got a late start." Her apology is sincere and I smile with what I hoped was reassurance. With my smile, she seemed to stand taller, not the least bit hesitant and took another step closer to me as I stood. "You're so big."

Her accent is charming, if Californians has an accent. It's not a harsh sound, but rather soft and disarming. We stare at each other for a moment longer and then she breaks eye contact, looking down at my luggage.

"Let's get you home, shall we?"

I reached down for my luggage grabbing the handle for the largest of the bags and lifted, but this sent my carry-on to the floor. My iPod clattered across the floor to the big window through which I could see planes taking off. I wished for a moment that I were on one of them, heading home instead of just arriving.

My mother gave me up for adoption just after I was born. It's a rather cliché story. Pregnant at sixteen, she was bound and determined to run away to Hollywood. Become a movie star. But she couldn't do that with a baby in tow.

"Here, let me help you." She took the large bag from me as I ran over and grabbed my iPod. I grabbed my other bag and hefted my carry on, adjusting it till it hung comfortably and wasn't digging into the soft part of my shoulder.

Her car is a Hummers, black tinted windows and silver paint job., chrome accents If I weren't so nervous, I'd probably be acting like a complete tool. She smiled and stowed my luggage rather easily in the back of the behemoth while I held my carry on like a security blanket.

"How was your flight?"

Our small talk kept me a bit occupied. I was hesitant with my answers and she nodded with each one, but she looked like she was contemplating her next question, trying to put me at ease. Looking out the window, I marveled at everything. The people walking to and fro, they all seemed impeccably dressed, mostly dark attire and fashionable. I felt a moment's excitement for my first shopping excursion. Then I shook my head. Don't be gay.

The first sign of traffic put me on edge. The lines of traffic stretched on and on and some cars seemed to dart in and out of the traffic, weaving like bees through metallic flowers. My mother seemed oblivious to my concerns that we were both about to die. I'm sure I left a handprint embedded the armrest.

"Home" reminded me of a movie set. It was the largest house I think I had ever seen. Behind an ornate gate, a perfectly sculpted lawn stretched up to the house and then out and away behind it. Sumptuous marble steps led up to wide dark double doors.

One door opened before we reached the top. "They're here! They're here!" A freckled little girl in strawberry blond pigtails bellowed over her shoulder into the house.

"Elizabeth. Don't make a spectacle." My mother looks back at me and reaches for my hand. I looked back at the car, wondering about my luggage. "Come along. George will get the luggage."

I took her hand and followed her in, looking at everything. Sensory overload. The smells, the sounds, a flat screen to my left covered half the wall, the sound of Elizabeth's shoes on the wooden floor, bright sunlight flooding the room through floor to ceiling windows at the back of the room. I looked up the wide extravagant stairs as we walked past and they seemed to go up forever. At the top of the stairs, three stories up, I saw a mop of dark hair and a pair of blue green eyes peering over the railing. I felt a jolt in my stomach as they disappeared from view.

"George. George. We're home." She looked at me again. "Would you like something to drink. Water, soda, tea?" A large man, his t-shirt stretched over a hard muscled chest and torso, stood from one of the leather chairs in the corner. My mother gestured me towards the chairs. "Sit."

"George, I'd like to introduce you to Rebel... my son."

George came closer, towering over me. "How was your flight?"

"Fine. Thank you."

Elizabeth had situated herself right next to me, staring up at me. She looked as if she were about to reach out a solitary finger to touch my cheek to make sure I was real. I could feel her eyes on me. I could see her in my peripheral vision as I looked at her father, waiting for another question. He looked back at his wife, as if he had done his duty and welcomed me properly. He shook his paper out in front of him again and started to read.

"Elizabeth. Go up and get your brother."

"SCOUT!" My ear rang as she yelled for her brother; she was that close to me. "Mom says come down!"

I winced.

"Elizabeth!" My mother seemed scandalized. She looked at me. "I think my Elizabeth is taken with you."
I blushed and looked over at Elizabeth. It was her turn to be scandalized. "Mom!"

I heard footsteps coming down the stairs. They were plodding as if each step was a struggle.

I knew the sensation. I hated meeting strangers. Even worse, I was going to be living here for the rest of the summer, having to share his things. I was an interloper and he had to come and make nice. I looked at the stairs expectantly and it was an eternity before his legs appeared. Long and lanky, clad in a dark pair of jeans. Then I saw his hand on the railing, silver rings on three fingers. His t-shirt was black with what I assumed was a band. I recognized the hair, blond, long and straightened, a curtain covering his forehead and his eyes were an intense green, seeming to be lit from behind, they were so bright, even in his complacency. He looked at his mother and then at me. He eyed me up and down, and then the scene around me; taking in my luggage, his father behind me with his paper, his mother and his sister still staring all googly-eyed at me.

"Isn't this just the picture? The perfect family unit."

"Scout, we talked about this." My mother looked at him expectantly.

I tried not to look at him too intently, tried not to recognize the scorn in his eyes as he looked at me again. There was a distinct animosity to his glare, I could almost hear a growl coming from him and I couldn't help wondering why.

"No. You talked about it." Scout looked back at his mother. "Nobody asked me. Nobody gives a damn what I..."

"Scout!" His father slammed his paper to the table and stood abruptly, the chair scraping back across the floor. "You'll not speak to your mother that way."

I jumped to my feet and yipped at the sudden wave of anger that washed off his father. I tapped my heels together. There's no place like home. There's no place like home. I think I might have been rocking a bit back and forth because suddenly the room was quiet and calm and everyone was looking at me. "Sorry."

"She's not my..." I heard a door slam and I turned to find Scout gone.

"Shit."

"George!"

"Sorry Beatrice."

I turned and the two of them were staring at each other, my mother, her eyes shining. She looked over at me, suddenly remembering I was there. "You must be tired." She looked at Elizabeth. "Could you show Rebel to his room." She busied herself with something on the countertop behind her, wiping at her eyes . Mr. Willingham, George, put a hand on her shoulder. I looked away, embarrassed at catching them in an intimate moment.

Elizabeth hopped up from her chair beside me and grabbed my hand and tugged me along with her. She practically raced up the stairs, taking two at a time first to the second landing and then to the third. The house seemed to grow as we worked our way up until we got to the third floor. She opened the door to the left. Like everything else, the room was extravagant. A large canopy bed and a wardrobe were the first things I noticed. I walked to the large bay window behind sheer curtains that looked out onto a "backyard". An decorative wrought iron fence surrounded the property with an intricate gate. I saw Scout sitting on a bench in the center of the garden.

"He likes you, you know." I looked down and saw Elizabeth standing next to me by the window. My doubt must have been obvious. "He puts on a show of not liking you. But he's been waiting for you to come since Mom mentioned it. It's just since..."

"I've got your luggage." George stood in the doorway.

I turned, startled. "If you need anything, Scout's room is across the way." He gestured towards the closed door across the landing. "Bea and I are on the second floor with Elizabeth. Come along Elizabeth." He looked over at me. "You probably want to rest." I could only nod.

I went back to the bay window and looked out. Scout still sat on the bench in the garden area, but seemed to realize I was looking at him as he turned and glared straight up at me. I took a startled step back and watched as he bounded back through a gate at the back of the property and into a crowding thicket of green held at bay by wrought iron fence. I watched for a moment, trying to peer into the woods but Scout was gone.

I tested the bed. It must have been comfortable, because the next thing I knew, I woke to the sound of a slamming door, the light from the window a bland gray. I looked around, momentarily confused, my heart racing a bit. Once I realized where I was, I settled again. I looked across the room to Scout's door. Music suddenly blared. It was too loud. It felt like I was in the room with it, the speakers blaring against my eardrums. I raced to Scout's door and pounded on it.

"What?"

He was imposing, although he was a little bit shorter than I was and he seemed a slip of a boy, so thin, almost waifish, but something about him filled the doorway and made me take a step back. I stood in silence, unable to respond. I had never felt such a presence so overwhelm me. His eyes drilled through me and it was difficult to keep eye contact with him.

"Oh. It's you." And just like that, he was just a normal boy, suddenly more beautiful than foreboding. I could smell him, his deodorant, the scent of his shampoo, the soap he had used and beneath that, a natural scent; a basic scent, maybe the scent of the garden where he had stayed this afternoon. He smelled green, like the scent of trees and earth. I took a step closer and his eyes widened a bit, his lips pulled back baring his teeth.

I stepped back quickly but I was drawn to him and felt an internal struggle, something tidal, a pull and push, because this boy was a stranger and he repelled at me, yet his eyes beckoned me closer still.

Mate.

I whimpered. The thought resounded so loudly, echoing and drowning out every thought I might have.

MATE!! The word rebounded through my mind. I closed my eyes and faltered back, unsteady on my feet.

"Are you okay?"

"Huh?" My hearing suddenly became acute, as if up until that moment I had been deaf. I could hear him breathing, hear his heart beating in his chest, hear my own. I felt my pulse in my fingers.

The scents that I had noticed earlier seemed even more acute, more defined. I could smell his sweat, smell his bed, the scent of s*x buried in his sheets.

"Bathroom?" I pleaded.

"You can use mine." He gestured with his head to an open door at the back of his room.

I staggered forward, my shoulder glancing off of his as I passed him and the sensation overwhelmed me, left me light headed, rocked me.

MATE!!

"Who are you?" I didn't think I had said it aloud, merely thought it, but part of me knew that he had heard. He seemed just as surprised. He shook his head as if he were trying to clear his mind. He fell back and sat on his bed, his eyes large and bewildered.

I closed myself in the bathroom and stared in the mirror. My eyes were dark and intense. I noticed flecks of gold in them, I'd never noticed before. "What the f**k is going on?" I ran a hand through my hair. Threw water on my face. It had a chemical stink and I winced, snuffing the scent from my nose. I needed to get out. Suddenly I smelled the scent of dyes, of the cleaning chemicals, the paint on the walls, the smells in the carpet. I winced at the light from the bulbs overhead. I watched my pupils shrink to pinpoints, then expand. I went to the frosted glass window and worked it up, letting a blast of fresh air wash over my face. The aromas of nature, of animals, of trees, grass, of the water evaporating from the sprinklers I could hear in the distance, those scents and so many more, fertilizers, car exhaust, the oily smell of cooling asphalt, a thousand different scents were a pungent assault on my senses.

I grew lightheaded and everything went dark. I heard muffled noises, exclamations, smelled Scout's proximity. I tried to sit up, but felt Scout's hand on my chest. I grabbed his hand and his scent exploded as he tried to pull his hand from my grip.

The music was still blaring.

"Turn it off." I wailed. I pressed his hand to my ear and my own to the other to muffle the sound.

Scout had a baffled expression on his face. "Turn what off?"

#

"Good God. Could you turn that damn music off? I'm trying to sleep here." Trish glared at Dalton "You trying to wake the dead?"

Dalton reached over and slapped the power button on the remote for his iPod, glaring up at Trish from his bed.

"Do you even know what you're doing? I can hear him. From California." Dalton's eyes were filled with worry. "He has no idea what's happening and we let him go before we could tell him, before you could tell him." His voice was filled with accusation.

Trish glared back. "What do you mean, you can hear him?"

"I mean, one second, there was nothing, and then the next, his thoughts were broadcasting in my head. Are broadcasting. Sometimes I barely hear anything but right now, he's confused. At first I thought it was someone else from the pack, but then..."

Trish was shaking her head. "No. No." She was insistent. "No. He can't. There's no one close enough for him to communicate..." Trish's eyes rounded. "This doesn't make sense. He...He doesn't even know."

"That's what I'm trying to tell you." Dalton paused. "There's something else."

"What?" She was wary.

"The one thing I'm hearing quite clearly, beyond the fear, the confusion; he's met his mate."

Bewilderment was plain on her face. "How could he meet his mate?" Trish sat on the edge of Dalton's bed. "His pack is here. None of this is supposed to be happening yet." Trish looked around, absently tapped her pockets. "Where's my phone. I have to call him. He needs me."

"Trish? How come you didn't hear him?" Dalton shook his head. "How come you don't hear him?"

Trish stood abruptly and went to the closet. She pulled out a small suitcase. "Pack a bag."

Dalton felt his neck bristling as she glared. "If that shewolf can't control her litter...I will."