Five
1545 Words
The cold wind pushed through the parking lot harder now, carrying the scent of rain and wet pavement with it. Somewhere overhead, distant thunder rolled quietly through the mountains.
Most humans probably wouldn’t have noticed it, but I did. Will did, too.
“Keep pushing,” I said.
“Or what?”
“Or your training starts tomorrow morning instead of Saturday.”
Will let out a scoff. “You wouldn’t.”
“Try me,” I say, briefly meeting his gaze.
Will only blinks. “You love making my life miserable.”
“I love discipline,” I corrected.
“No, you love violence.”
I nodded in agreement. “I like violence.”
“See?” He pointed dramatically at me. “That. That’s exactly why people are scared of you.”
“Good.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I.”
“You can’t just threaten people into respecting you.”
“I absolutely can.”
“No, Raven.” He adjusted the backpack hanging off one shoulder and glanced toward me briefly before looking away again. “You can threaten people into fearing you.” The words settled heavier than they should have.
For a moment, all I heard was the soft tapping of rain against parked cars. The distant slam of doors. Engines starting. Teenagers shouting to each other across rows of vehicles.
“You know,” Will said more quietly now, kicking lightly at a c***k in the pavement as we walked, “everyone thinks you don’t care about anything.”
“I don’t need everyone to like me,” I answer.
“That isn’t what I said.”
I pressed the unlock button on my key fob and the BMW chirped back immediately.
“People think you don’t care,” he repeated. “About the pack. About leadership. About us.”
My fingers tightened around my keys as the familiar irritation rose immediately. It wasn’t because he was wrong. It was because he was right.
Or at least, that was what everyone thought.
A few raindrops landed against my jacket, cold and sharp.
“You spend so much time trying to act like you don’t feel anything,” Will continued carefully, “that people forget you do.”
I opened the driver’s side door harder than necessary. “Get in the car, William.”
“Raven—”
“Now.” My tone left little to no room for argument.
He stood there for another second, watching me and thinking. He was almost far too observant. Eventually, he sighed heavily and climbed inside.
I stood beside the car a moment longer. Rain speckled across the black paint. Wind pushed through the trees lining the edge of the parking lot. The storm overhead rolled darker.
Will thought I cared too much. Everyone else thought I cared too little.
Maybe both sides were wrong. My eyes drifted toward the tree line beyond the school grounds.
Or maybe they weren’t wrong enough.
Something uneasy twisted low in my stomach. There was that feeling again. The same one that had sat beneath my ribs all day. It was sharp, persistent. Wrong.
And suddenly, despite the cold rain falling around me, I couldn’t shake the feeling that we weren’t alone.
The driver’s side door sat open beside me while rain slowly gathered across the black paint of the BMW. Water rolled in thin lines over the hood before disappearing over the edges, the clouds overhead growing heavier by the minute until the entire sky seemed to darken with them.
Students continued filtering through the parking lot around me, some running toward their cars with jackets thrown over their heads while others walked casually through the weather like they had all the time in the world. Human teenagers rarely paid attention to things around them. It amazed me sometimes.
It also terrified me.
A twig snapped somewhere beyond the edge of the school property, quiet, subtle, easy to miss to someone that wasn’t a wolf. But the sound was clear as day to me.
My head turned automatically toward the tree line.
The woods sat beyond the football field, stretching outward into dense forest that eventually blended into the outer edges of White Wolf territory. Normally, there would have been birds moving through there. Squirrels. Something.
Now there was nothing. No movement. No sound. Just trees standing motionless beneath darkening skies.
“Raven?” Will’s voice cut through my thoughts.
I blinked hard once before finally climbing into the driver’s seat and pulling the door shut behind me. The sound felt unusually loud inside the enclosed space of the car. Rain tapped steadily against the windshield while the scent of damp pavement drifted faintly through the vents.
“You okay?” Will asked carefully.
My gaze briefly returned to the tree line before focusing on the inside of the car. “I’m fine.”
“Raven.” Will’s tone told me he didn’t believe me.
“I said I’m fine,” I said quickly.
“You’re doing that thing again.”
I shoved the key into the ignition. “What thing?”
“The thing where you’re pretending everything’s fine while clearly acting like it isn’t,” he said, buckling his seatbelt.
The engine turned over beneath us, steady and grounding in its rumble.
“I’m not pretending anything,” I said.
Will nodded, giving me the space. “Okay.”
“You’re annoying,” I mutter, throwing the car in drive.
“I know.”
“You should work on that.”
Will shook his head, giving me a smile. “Nah.”
I pulled out of the parking lot, letting the school disappear behind us while rain steadily strengthened overhead. Wind swept fallen leaves across the road ahead, the forest growing thicker the farther we moved away from town. Buildings slowly gave way to trees. Pavement narrowed. Familiar roads twisted deeper into pack territory.
Home. Or at least the closest thing to it.
“You know,” Will said quietly after several minutes, “you never answered me.”
“About?”
“Why Alpha Jon called.”
My fingers shifted slightly against the steering wheel. “I told you. Leadership meeting.”
“That isn’t what I meant.” I already knew that. “You think something’s wrong.” It wasn’t a question.
The problem with Will wasn’t that he lacked awareness. The problem was that he paid attention. Too much sometimes.
I glanced toward him briefly.
At sixteen, he still carried youth in places life hadn’t carved away yet. It lived in his expressions. The openness of them. The way concern crossed his face without being hidden. The way emotions still came naturally to him instead of being shoved down and buried beneath responsibility.
It made him a good person. It would also make him vulnerable.
“You remember training last winter?” I asked quietly.
“The tracking exercises?”
I nodded. “What’s the first thing we’re taught?”
“Notice changes,” he answered smoothly.
“And?” I pressed.
He thought for a moment before speaking. “Anything unusual matters.”
“Even if it ends up being nothing,” I add.
“Especially if it ends up being nothing,” he corrected automatically.
Good. At least he listened sometimes.
The rain strengthened outside and the windshield wipers swept steadily back and forth.
“You smelled something,” he said after a moment.
I pause before answering, wondering if I should answer. “Yes,” I said finally.
“You think it was a rogue.”
My answer was immediate. “No.”
His brows pulled together. “No?”
“I think if it was a rogue,” I said quietly, eyes fixed on the road stretching ahead of us, “my instincts wouldn’t still be bothering me.”
Silence settled over the car after that. A thoughtful silence that lingered and let memories wander where they wanted.
My eyes drifted briefly toward the tree line passing outside. Toward the forest, the territory. Toward home and safety.
The strange feeling twisting beneath my ribs tightened. Something wasn’t sitting right, but I just couldn’t figure out what.
“Raven.” Will’s voice breaks the silence, soft against the hard patter of rain on the car.
I don’t take my eyes off the road. “Hmm?”
“You know I can handle myself, right?” He asks.
The words settled strangely inside my chest, slow and heavy. “You’re sixteen,” I murmur.
“I’m serious,” he said.
“So am I.”
“I’m not helpless.”
I shook my head. “No one said you were.”
“You act like it.”
“I act like your Protector,” I said firmly. The answer came too quickly, too easily.
Because that was the truth. Because somewhere along the way, without realizing it, Will Martin had stopped feeling like responsibility. And started feeling like family.
That was dangerous because emotions complicated things. It complicated leadership and judgment, and judgment kept people alive.
Rain continued falling around us. The mountains stretched dark against the horizon. And somewhere beneath the sound of tires against wet pavement, something deep inside me whispered,
Pay attention.
- Writer
