Chapter 6

six

DEE

I stare down at the test like an idiot for far, far too long.

Two pink lines. A lot is going to change for me soon—but then, when it’s all over, it will un-change, reverse, walk backwards until I’m back at the beginning again. Right in the same place, with some other monster’s baby.

A shudder rolls down my spine at the idea of doing what we did with anyone else. No, that’s reserved. It would never be like that, it couldn’t be like that.

At the same time, knowing that I’m carrying the wolfman’s kid? I feel almost... warm inside. I’m already imagining the two of us, combined into a single embryo, the new life we created steadily growing inside me.

I drop the test into a plastic baggie, and stare at it a while longer. That stranger is now in my body, a permanent testament to the wonderful, wild encounter we had in that sterile room.

I wish it could have been somewhere else, somewhere where we could have taken our time, maybe even looked at one another. What would it be like to have Bill in a bed, surrounded by his arms?

I’ll never know. And that’s probably for the best.

When I make the call to DreamTogether about the positive test, I’m brought in right away for a medical exam. After confirming with blood samples and ultrasound that I am, in fact, pregnant, the doctor walks me through the steps.

I’ll gestate for approximately ten months, somewhere between the human nine and the wolf-people’s eleven. The baby might be a little bigger than the average human baby, but in the data the doctor found, not by much. It shouldn’t be a difficult pregnancy or labor—not more than usual, anyway.

Fuck. Labor . I don’t know why that had seemed so far off when I signed my name on the dotted line, but now it’s looming in front of me like a towering tidal wave, ready to smash down in ten months’ time.

On that bench, in that white room with Bill, was the moment my life veered to one side. Whatever flame had sprouted between us when we met, it’s become a bonfire. Now Bill the wolfman is the only thing on my mind. A complete stranger to me, whose face I’ve never even seen, is now the person who occupies most of my waking hours. It’s stupid, really, to fantasize and obsess over someone I’ll never see again, someone who I really only know because we fucked a couple times.

I would be lying to myself, though, if I said that’s all it was. But it can never be anything else, anything more than our two momentary collisions at DreamTogether. The company made sure of that. I don’t know who he is, and he’ll never know who I am .

Those are the rules. And I can’t even drink to wash it away.

After the doctor’s appointment, when all my results have been confirmed, I slog back to my apartment feeling heavy. I knew I’d be doing this completely on my own, but facing it is different. At least I have Liesel. Maybe she’ll come over and watch a movie.

When I walk in the door, I find the state of my home even more depressing. What an ugly place. Sitting on that couch in the dark corner, pregnant and watching television, sounds like someone should be calling CPS on me.

So the first thing I do is stalk back out into the hall, knock on my super’s door, and give him my notice. I have the money to do it now, so I’m getting the fuck out of here.

Even if it’s not born yet, my kid deserves a good life, and so do I.

RUSS

McFlips. That’s where Amanda used to work, I’m sure of it. And she quit recently, too, which will help.

But there are a lot of McFlips in the human city of Aston, and it’ll take me a while to inquire personally at each of them.

I have nine, maybe ten months to figure it out. That’s plenty of time. Whether I can hold my shit together that long and not bulldoze DreamTogether just so I can contact her... that’s the question.

When my shift at the hospital is over for the night, I start at the first McFlips on the edge of town. It’s the seediest one, and I hope that this isn’t the place she worked.

It’s late, almost 1 a.m., but that could be a good thing. Perhaps she was on the night shift.

I have to endeavor not to slam the glass door of the fast food restaurant when I storm in. I’m dying to see her already, even though I only got the news about our cub last night. The human clerk at the counter glances up with wide eyes when I come in, as if he was just asleep, and he was certainly not expecting to see a wolfman when he woke up.

“Oh, good evening, and—” He yawns. “—welcome to McFlips. What can I do for you?”

I lean forward across the counter, very close to him, so close he has to tilt back. The guy’s mouth falls open.

“A girl,” I say, a growl to my voice. “A girl worked here. Black hair in a braid. Quit two months ago or so.”

He blinks. “N-no girl has quit recently,” he says, clearly shaken. I wonder how many monsters he sees out here. “Not since I’ve been here. Though turnover is high in the service?—”

I cut him off. “Are you sure? Not even on the day shift?”

He rapidly shakes his head. “Not that I know of.”

I reel back from the counter and turn around, striding out of the building as quickly as I entered it. Maybe I understand better now why Amanda took the job at DreamTogether, if this was the kind of place where she spent all of her days.

At least that was quick, so I can get to the next one.

Unfortunately, the following stop proves to be just as fruitless. There are about 250,000 people in Aston, and four different McFlips just within city limits. She might not even live in Aston, I realize as I drive towards the next one in the dark. She might live in one of the smaller towns outside of it, farther from DreamTogether.

Fuck. I didn’t think of that. That adds at least another three or four locations to my list.

The second stop is even less useful to me, because the two employees behind the counter aren’t sure who works the day shift. It looks like I’ll have to come back again in the morning, so I buy a burger and leave.

I decide to go home and get some shut-eye before I have to be back at the hospital tomorrow. There are a couple of planned C-sections, and who knows what else might come up.

I fall asleep hearing Amanda’s cries as I plunge into her, and hoping I’ll pick up her scent again soon.

I’m exhausted by the end of my shift at the hospital the next day, but I’m still intent on carrying out my search. There are three more McFlips to hit in the city and find out what I can about Amanda. Part of me hopes that if I can even pick up just a hint of her smell, I might be able to track her down. It’s a long shot after so much time has passed since she quit, but you never know.

The first place I stop, the swing shift manager is working the counter. He cheerily asks what I’d like to have.

“A friend of mine quit a McFlips a couple months ago,” I begin. “She said she left a pin in one of her uniforms. She really loved that pin but has given up on it.”

The manager thinks. “Hmm, there was someone who quit just a couple weeks back, but she was like, forty. How old is your friend?”

I have to think about this, and the manager starts to look suspicious. “It was her birthday last week,” I explain. “I’m trying to remember if she’s twenty-eight or twenty-nine.”

“Definitely not the woman who quit, then,” he says, and I want to flip over the whole counter. “Sorry.”

I clench my hands into fists and manage to keep from letting out a roar of frustration. I give him a quick nod and stride out, then once I’m in the parking lot, I howl a long, mournful howl. A couple in the parking lot quickly dart away and head for the door.

I try the same gag at the next McFlips, but they haven’t lost any employees recently. I’ll have to come check these places again during the day, I decide, because I didn’t trust the young girl behind the counter to have even been around long enough to know if Amanda worked there or not.

When I get back to my house, I feel like I could pass out at the wheel. I stop in front of my gate and lean out the window of my car, then push the code. The gate groans as it opens, and I think that I should probably come out here with some WD-40 and take care of that.

I haven’t been able to hire anyone for anything around the house since I started saving up for DreamTogether, and it shows. The lawn has grown wild, but I manage to avoid HOA penalties because of my gate and the hedges. None of the flowers came up this year, and the yard is simultaneously withering and out of control.

The inside isn’t much better. I’ve been working so many hours that all self-care has gone out the window, from cleaning up my dishes to sleeping enough to getting exercise. I have a treadmill in my big bedroom, right in front of the second-story windows, but it’s covered in dirty laundry and stretching bands I don’t use.

If I had someone like Amanda around, I would never have let it become like this. I just have no reason to do better when I’m the only one living here, not even a cat or a pet hamster in sight.

I sigh and flop down in one of the living room chairs. This is one of the only clean rooms, simply because I never use it.

I suppose for the sake of the cub, I should get my act together. I’ll have to do a lot better than this if I’m going to become a full-time father in a matter of months.

But for now, I need some fucking sleep.