Chapter 21 - Kyle

I knew by the scent who it had to be. I just didn’t want to believe it.

Rider was my close friend in the Sawpit Pack. After my initiation, he took me aside and told me I’d done well. That so long as I kept Jethro pleased, I’d be safe there.

“This is the place for lost and forgotten wolves,” he said to me as we drank moonshine on a mountain ridge. “The rogues that no one wants and nobody cares about.”

While I watch him walk out of the trees, memories come flooding back. There is so much of my life that I’d like to forget, and I never thought that friendship would be one of them.

But I had no choice. I was going back to my family, my real pack. I couldn’t stay with Rider for the rest of my life.

From the way he’s looking at me, I know he did expect us to be friends for life. Now, instead of being his hope that sympathy between people can exist, I’m just another example of how humans fuck each other over to serve their own ends.

I remember running in the woods with him, crisp snow under my paws and my breath fogging the air as I raised my head to howl. I was afraid in Sawpit Pack—it was violent and unpredictable, but it also allowed me an outlet for my rage.

I was completely validated in my feelings that the world is not safe, and since we had been abused and abandoned, we owed the world nothing, and it was only right to take what we needed to survive.

But innocent people got hurt.

According to Jethro, there is no such thing as an innocent person. Everyone was one major life event away from turning into a savage killer. As for wolves, they weren’t even born innocent.

“No one deserves our mercy. We take from them, as everything has been taken from us.”

Jethro said this in his nightly talks to the pack. He was a man of some charisma, with piercing, slate-blue eyes that could look right through you. No matter how much violence he forced us to endure or how much fear he used to rule us, he was convincing, winning our hearts as well as our minds.

Most nights, Jethro would hold ring fights. Names would go into a hat and get pulled out at random. He said it kept us sharp, kept our brutality alive. Sometimes people got killed, and Jethro considered this a necessary evil that kept the pack strong—like pruning withering stems from a rosebush to make it bloom.

One night, I staggered from the ring in more pain than I’d ever known in my life. I didn’t know if my opponent was dead or alive. I’d tried to hold back, but Jethro had screamed that if we didn’t fight properly, he’d shoot us both. I knew enough of him to know he meant it, so I went into the fight with all my strength.

I felt something break inside me. I passed some sort of barrier in my mind, a red wave of complete and utter rage. My body had never felt so strong, and I didn’t feel a thing as I pounded my opponent with my fists. Once he was down and my haze faded, there was complete silence in the pack.

“Well done, Kyle,” Jethro said quietly. “You’ve done well, boy. I won’t forget this.”

I managed to walk away a few steps, collapsing by one of the trucks. Rider appeared before me with a jug of moonshine, offering it to me. We weren’t close friends yet, but this was the moment our bond was forged.

“That was a tough one, eh?” Rider asked.

I nodded, my chest heaving with hard breaths. Blood was drying all over me, some of it mine, most of it from my fallen fellow. I took the jug and drank down a huge gulp of it.

“Is the other guy…” I begin.

“Dead?” Rider finished my sentence. “No. Fucked up, but not dead.”

“Okay,” I muttered.

“Look, you did good. I know how it feels, but you have Jethro’s respect now.”

“I’m not sure that’s something I want.”

“You’ll be safe now. That’s the important part. He knows that you’re savage to the core.”

“I am not!” I snapped, drinking some more of the moonshine.

“But you are,” Rider said, leaning closer to look into my eyes. “Behind all the guilt, beneath all the constructed, false platitudes and standards of decency imposed upon you by society, there is something else. Something living deep in here.”

Rider jabbed me in the chest with two fingers, making me jump.

“Somewhere behind your heart,” he whispered. “You enjoyed it, didn’t you?”

I stared at Rider for a long time. My body was so numb, I could barely feel it. There was so much pain in me, I could barely breathe, but Rider was right. There was something running in my veins right now that made me feel good.

I’m free.

“Yes,” I said, and Rider smiled.

Looking at him now, I know he is remembering this night as well. After we had some more moonshine, he took me out to the nearby falls to wash, and most of my wounds healed. I came out of that icy water completely clean, a new man with a fresh purpose.

We ran on the snow-covered peaks, a sense of understanding between us that no one else could fathom. Rider was like me—he had no family. He’d been discarded and screwed his whole life and had to fight for survival.

For a long time, I thought he was the only one who could truly understand me. It broke something in my soul to run out on him and let him think I was dead.

“I mourned you,” Rider tells me softly. “I grieved for you, my brother. I took out my rage on everything I could see, punishing the world for taking one more thing away from me. But now I find the world is even more cruel than I thought… that a brother could fake his death to abandon and betray me!”

“Rider—”

“No, fuck you! What can you possibly say to me to make this right?”

“If you didn’t want to hear what I have to say, you wouldn’t fucking be here!” I yell back.

Rider cocks his head to the side and growls. “I should fucking kill you,” he hisses, his hands clenching at his sides. “But I know Jethro has something very special planned for you, and I wouldn’t want you to miss it.”

A chill runs through me. I know exactly what Jethro’s plans are like. I’d rather throw down with Rider right here and now.

Except that Leslie is standing right behind me.

“Rider, I meant everything I said when I was in the pack with you. I’m your friend, your brother, truly I am—”

“Oh, shut the fuck up,” Rider cuts me off. “All of those things might have been true if you hadn’t cut and run back to that fucking pansy Bailey. What do you owe him? Why would you betray us—me—for him?”

“Because he’s my family,” I say softly.

Rider’s face goes red with rage. “We were your family!” he screams. “We took you in, gave you a home, and protected you!”

“Really? Jethro deciding to randomly kill members of the pack is considered ‘protecting’ us? There are innocent people in that pack, Rider, and they deserve to be saved. I don’t want to hurt anyone, I just want to stop the violence.”

“Well, you certainly fucked that right up,” Rider snaps. “Jethro’s howling for blood now, quite literally. At first, it was just territory. He wanted to muscle you guys out of the way a bit so that we could grab some resources. Now, he wants to slaughter everyone in Bailey’s pack and the Decker Pack.”

I can see by his expression that he’s deadly serious. I know underestimating Jethro would be a very stupid thing to do. He has enough numbers to do some serious damage to us.

If we could only convince the others that they don’t have to fight. They don’t have to follow Jethro. They could come to us and be safe.

“Hey there, girly,” Jethro taunts, shifting to the side so he can make eye contact with Leslie. “Did you know your boyfriend was a savage killer?”

“Actually,” Leslie shoots back, “he’s my husband.”

Rider’s smile dies, and his eyes grow even colder. He glares at me.

“So that’s where it’s at,” he growls. “You were never really a brother to me, because you had this waiting for you. Why would you choose to stay with our pack when you had this juicy, ripe plum waiting for you?”

“Rider,” I growl, taking a step towards him. “Don’t.”

“Don’t what?” he laughs. “Don’t talk to your girly? Hey there, girly. Do you like rough guys? Filthy, dirty, violent guys? You must if you’re with this nasty creep. He’s not just unbridled rage, he’s creative, too. You should see him torture someone, or hit a gas station for loot. It’s a thing to see.”

“Shut the fuck up, Rider!” I yell, taking another step towards him.

“Aw, what’s the matter? Your delicate, soft little lady can’t take the truth? She’s not what I’d consider to be your type, either, I—”

“Rider, if you don’t shut your fucking mouth, right now, I will tear you to pieces.”

Rider stops talking, but his smile is demonic. He’s watching me carefully, and he knows I’m ready to fight.

He also knows that everything he just said about me is true, and I am fully capable of ripping him apart.

“Alright, I’ll tell you what,” Rider says casually. “I’d like to help you out one last time. For the sake of friendship and brotherhood.”

He chuckles, shaking his head a little. I can’t stop the growl that rises in my throat. He glares at me, responding to the threat.

“We are coming for your pack,” he says, almost whispering. “All of us. The foray into Silverton was just a light run, testing the waters. It wasn’t a full show of strength. We did pretty well there, I think. Crunched up one of your boys like mincemeat.”

“You shut your fucking mouth!” I roar, starting to charge at him.

Leslie grabs my arm and shakes her head, begging me not to fight. It takes all my strength to hold myself back.

Rider laughs. “We’re coming for you. All of us, even me. And like I said, Jethro has something special planned for you.”

He gives Leslie a wink and blows her a kiss. I clench my fists so hard, my knuckles crack.

“See you soon,” Rider says. “Sooner than you think… in the shadow of Mount Sneffels!”

He turns and runs. I leap after him, but Leslie holds me back.

“Don’t! Don’t do it, Kyle,” she begs me. “We have to get back. We have to warn Bailey right now!”

“You’re right,” I whisper, watching the thick scrub where Rider disappeared. I know she’s right, but that doesn’t stop me from wanting to chase Rider down and make him pay for everything he just said.

“Come on,” Leslie says, tugging on my hand.

I let her lead me away, my head spinning with all the threats Rider just made, and with the memories of our friendship that will echo in my mind for the rest of my life.