Chapter Text
Run Together // They’re Monsters
Nathaniel is six and his mother is the brightest thing in the world.
Her hair is always wild, a barrage of wavy blonde that falls to her shoulders and whips around her when there’s wind. She smiles whenever Nathaniel recites his latest lessons from his favorite teacher, Ms June. Nathaniel thinks it’s the best smile in the world, worth every grueling moment of writing his letters with a clumsy hand. So, he tries his best to make her smile as often as possible. So he can get a glimpse of the sun.
She cooks and smiles and plays music on the radio that she keeps tucked under the sink. Nathaniel knows it's been a good day when his mom pulls out the radio, she’ll give him a secret smile and a wink before setting it on the counter. The music is always warbly and full of static, but his mom will hum and dance and shake her hips to the music.
Nathaniel will sit at the kitchen table and watch her, a smile of his own, his homework laid out in front of him, papers with drawings and letters for him to practice. He’s been struggling with his b’s. He can’t seem to get the circle to go where it’s supposed to go. But it doesn’t matter when his mom is dancing and the radio is playing, and the food on the stove fills the house with a smell that makes his tummy rumble.
Then the front door will open.
Nathaniel is six years old when his father catches them with the radio in the kitchen. He’s never seen his mom look so terrified before. Her eyes wide with a fear that Nathaniel didn’t know his mom could feel. A fear he didn’t know was possible.
Nathaniel is six and his father smashes the radio against the wall behind him. Nathaniel can feel the wind whip past his face. Barely missing him by an inch
Nathaniel is six when he sees his father hit his mom for the first time. She has her hands up in front of her and she’s saying, “not in front of Nathaniel!” and “Nathan I’m sorry! It’s just the radio!”
Nathaniel is six when he realizes he isn’t safe
~~~
There’s nothing exciting about growing up in Baltimore. At least not for Nathaniel. He’s homeschooled with the other kids in the pack. Nathaniel is the only one who is different because he’s not a wolf like the rest of them.
Witch is what they call him. Sometimes it sounds like a curse word. He wishes the students wouldn’t look at him like that. Like he is less than the rest of them. The wolves all feel each other in their minds, smell each other. They’re pack. But Nathaniel is human, and he isn’t pack, not yet anyway.
He has friends in the pack. There’s Kevin, he’s the only one who doesn’t say witch like it’s a curse word. After the other kids have had their fill of poking fun at him, Kevin will stand with Nathaniel in the corner of the room and say wise things. Things that none of the other kids say to him.
“Witches are special,” Kevin says, “My mom was a witch. She told me that witches and wolves balance each other out. That they need each other. She said it's because the moon was in love with the sun.”
“What?” Nathaniel asks, because sometimes Kevin talks in riddles that he can’t seem to follow.
Kevin will just put a hand on his shoulder, it might have been comforting if it was coming from his mom, but this was Kevin and everything he did was stiff and awkward. Nathaniel leaned into the touch anyway. It still filled him with warmth.
“Someday we’ll be pack,” Kevin says, “Someday Riko will be alpha, and you’ll be his witch and we’ll run together.”
“But I’m human,” Nathaniel will point out unhelpfully.
“My mom used to run with the pack every full moon,” Kevin says, “Someday you will too.”
Nathaniel thinks that sounds nice. Sometimes, when he’s in a good mood, his father will take him out on a ride. The drive is always long and boring and his father never lets him turn on the radio and if Nathaniel fidgets even a bit his father will hit him. So, Nathaniel sits silently and still as a rock in the car.
When the ride ends, they always end up at the same place. A forest so deep and dark unlike anything Nathaniel has ever seen before. It’s always cold inside the forest but he knows better than to protest. His father brings him there and they walk, sometimes in silence, other times his father will tell him about the future. About the life that Kevin is describing.
“Remember,” His father would say, “The wolves need us. They wouldn’t survive without us. Witches are stronger than any of the wolves. They live by the pull of the moon, but we’re different. We feel everything.”
Sometimes if Nathaniel tries hard enough, he can feel what his father is describing. He can feel a pulse deep beneath his feet, an entire world hiding just out of grasp, he can taste it in his mouth, like when his father hit him so hard that he bit his tongue. Like blood.
When he’s lucky his father takes him out when the wolves are there too and, in the distance, in the woods, Nathaniel can hear howling.
And in those moments, all he wants is to run with the wolves.
~~~
Nathaniel is seven when his father brings him into the Alpha’s office for the first time. The Moriyama’s are a secretive family. Nathaniel only knows Riko because they have classes together, he’s bossy and stubborn and Nathaniel doesn’t like him very much. But he knows he should. He’s going to be Riko’s witch someday.
His father sits him down in front of Kengo Moriyama. He’s an intimidating man. Nathaniel has only ever seen him in passing, when he comes and goes from their house, always secretive and quiet. He’s never paid Nathaniel any mind until now.
“Nathaniel,” Kengo says, and his voice is warm but gravelly. It puts Nathaniel on edge. “Your father tells me that you’re becoming a promising witch. He says your magic is strong, as strong as his.”
Nathaniel looks to his father for guidance. Nathan looks like he’s miles away, his hand lands on his shoulder and squeezes. Nathaniel turns his head back to Kengo.
“I hope so,” Nathaniel says, trying to sound braver than he feels.
Kengo’s smile is nothing like his mother’s. It’s more like his father’s. Mean.
“Your father believes it’s time to start your markings,” Kengo says, “To bring you to your full potential.”
Nathaniel wants to look to his father again. For guidance, for help, for anything. But he doesn't; he pretends he’s in the car on the drive to the forest. He’s as still as a rock.
“Do you think you’re ready, Nathaniel?” Kengo asks.
Nathaniel doesn’t know what he’s talking about. He nods anyway.
Kengo’s smile widens and it’s cruel and vicious. All teeth and gums. His eyes flash red. The red of an alpha.
Still as a rock, Nathaniel tells himself, Still as a rock. Still as a rock. Still as a rock.
That day is the first day his father marks him.
His father stands before him, his sleeves rolled up to his elbows, something Nathaniel never sees, something his father never does when they’re in public. His arms are covered in markings, drawings unlike anything Nathaniel has seen before. Roses and thorns and nettle, sharp and twisting. His arms glow as he takes the tattoo gun in hand.
Kengo watches while his sons hold Nathaniel down. His eyes flashing red. Red like an alpha’s gaze. It burns and burns and burns.
“It’s going to hurt,” Nathan says, he’s towering over him, his eyes are blank, his face a mask, “You will endure. This is how we bring out your full potential.”
Nathaniel screams when the needle touches his skin.
~~~
Nathaniel is nine and his mother never smiles anymore.
He tells her about the pack, about Kevin and Riko, about how he’s going to be their third. He tells her about the new boy that just joined them, Jean. He tells her about how Riko bosses them around.
“Oh!” Nathaniel says in the middle of his ramblings, “Dad says I’m halfway done with my markings! Soon enough I will be as powerful as him! Isn’t that amazing!”
His mother’s shoulders shake. He tilts his head and watches her as she cries.
“What’s wrong?” Nathaniel asks, reaching out to her. His mother takes one look at his arm, covered in his father’s thorns and nettle and roses, and she visibly recoils from him. Nathaniel pulls his arm back, his hand suddenly feeling like a weapon he didn’t know he had.
“What’s wrong?” Nathaniel asks again, pleading.
His mother wipes her eyes and kneels in front of him, her hands cupping his face.
“Listen to me, Nathaniel,” She says, she squeezes his face so hard it hurts. He tries to pull away, but her grip only tightens. “You need to understand. All of this is wrong. Magic, wolves, it’s wrong, Nathaniel. These people, these wolves, they want to use you, they want to make you do terrible-”
“Mary.”
His mother is gone as quickly as she had grabbed him. Nathaniel watches his father walk into the room. His face curls and curls and curls into a smile that makes Nathaniel’s skin crawl. He doesn’t look away.
“I was just-” His mother starts. Nathan stops her with a hand to her elbow. He squeezes so tightly that Nathaniel swears he hears her bones creak in protest.
“No more, Mary,” Nathan says. He drags her out of the room. He spares only one glance at Nathaniel before he goes.
His smile is worse than Kengo’s.
The next day Nathaniel comes home from classes, warily walking into the kitchen with his bag of assignments. He worries about what his mother will say to him today. If she will look at him with as much disgust and fear as she had the day before.
He didn’t have to worry. When he walks into the kitchen he finds his mother humming by the stove. Her hair is loose, and it sways side to side with the movement of her hips.
“Mom?” Nathaniel asks as he stops by the table.
She turns to him and her smile is back, as wide and wonderful as ever. She reaches out and ruffles Nathaniel’s hair then goes to the sink. She winks at him as she bends over and digs around, looking for the radio that isn’t there.
“That’s strange,” His mother says. She stands up straight and closes the cabinet door.
“Don’t you remember?” Nathaniel asks.
His mother looks at him oddly then, her head tilted to one side. This is the moment when Nathaniel realizes that her smile really isn’t as dazzling as it used to be. It’s because of her eyes. They’re dark and empty.
“Remember what?” She asks.
Nathaniel doesn’t have the heart to tell her.
“Never mind,” He says.
She looks perplexed but she just keeps on smiling.
Nathaniel decides to go do his homework in his room instead.
~~~
Riko makes them play Royal Court during break time. He’s always the King. Announces it like it’s the most important news of the day. The other kids seem to think the same thing as Nathaniel, that the game is boring and unfair because Riko is always in charge.
None of them say anything.
Kevin is always Riko’s right hand, his most trusted advisor. He gets to sit next to Riko on his makeshift throne at the top of the playground. Nathaniel is always his knight. Sometimes, when Riko is in a good mood, he lets Nathaniel sit next to him up there on his throne.
Most of the time it’s just Riko and Kevin.
Riko will order them around, make the other kids in the pack fight until someone is crying.
All the while he sits at the top of the playset and smiles and smiles and smiles.
His smile isn’t like his father’s, or Nathan’s, or Mary’s.
It’s dark, it’s chaotic, it’s terrifying.
When Nathaniel is feeling brave, he complains to his father about Riko’s playground antics. His father always says the same thing,
“Riko is never going to be an alpha. His brother Ichirou is going to be the Alpha when Kengo steps down. Riko will never have the power that he thinks he will have. But you will. You will still be the witch to the Moriyama pack while Riko is nothing more than a beta.”
Nathaniel will listen raptly. He always thought that Riko was going to be his alpha. That’s what Kevin says that’s what they all say.
“That’s the problem with wolves, Nathaniel,” His father says, “They always overestimate their own power. And they always underestimate ours.”
Nathaniel thinks about what it would be like to knock Riko off his throne during break time tomorrow. Then he thinks better of it. Someday he might be as powerful as his father says he will be, but for now he’s human, with only a few more markings to go.
Nathaniel looks at his father while he speaks. There’s something burning behind his blue eyes that Nathaniel has never seen before.
“You’ll see when we finish your tattoos,” His father says, and the fire burns and burns and burns, “We’ll always be more powerful than the rest of them.
~~~
Nathaniel is ten and his mother is acting stranger and stranger and stranger.
Some days she grabs Nathaniel by the arm and pulls him towards her and tells him over and over not to trust the wolves, never trust the wolves, don’t listen to your father, he’s doing something to be, Nathaniel, Mommy doesn’t feel well, don’t you understand what I’m trying to tell you? Listen to me. Listen to me. Listen to me.
Those are the worst days. Those days Nathaniel goes straight to his room and cowers with his head under the covers. He thinks his mother is wrong. He likes the wolves. He likes spending time with his pack.
He can feel them now, more than he did before. Like a whisper in the back of his mind. Witchbrotherpack. A quiet chant that he can finally share with the rest of them.
Other days his mother is her usual self. She forgets things, she smiles and smiles but it doesn’t glow like it used to. She asks Nathaniel the same question three times in a row. She burns dinner because she forgets it was on the stove.
Nathaniel doesn’t know what’s wrong with her. He asked his father only once. His father had hit him so hard he saw stars and then said, “She’s under the weather. Don’t ask again.”
Nathaniel never asked again.
~~~
He’s in the office again. Kengo’s second is there, his brother Tetsuji, along with Riko and Ichirou. They hold him down while his father makes his marks. Nathaniel can’t help but scream and scream. He can’t help but thrash around and try to lose their grip on him. But they’re wolves and they will always be stronger than he is.
Kengo will smile when his father is finished. He will take Nathaniel’s arms into his own and look over the work. The roses are so realistic that sometimes Nathaniel can smell them on his skin.
“Almost done,” Kengo says, the same mean smile on his face, “You’ll make a fine witch for this pack someday. When Ichirou is Alpha you will be his.”
Nathaniel doesn’t look at Ichirou or Kengo or his father, he looks at Riko. His face is contorted, his lips pursed, the look he gets when no one is listening to him or taking their task seriously when they play Royal Court.
Kengo tightens his hold on Nathaniel’s arm until he is forced to turn back and look at him.
“A fine witch indeed,” Kengo says, “Remember where your loyalties lie. We need each other, Nathaniel. Witches and wolves. Connected. Always.”
Ichirou lingers behind while the others leave the office. He bows and offers a hand to Nathaniel when the others have left.
Nathaniel takes his hand. It’s warm, it’s nothing like Riko’s or Kengo’s. It’s gentler somehow. New.
“My witch,” Ichirou says, like it’s an honor.
Nathaniel bows his head in turn.
“Alpha,” He says back.
He notices his father’s sour look as they get in their car and drive back to their house. Like he just ate a lemon.
Nathaniel doesn’t dare speak. He wants to ask his father why it’s Ichirou and not Riko. He wants to ask if Ichirou is like his brother. If he’s bossy and mean and likes to make people do things for him. He wants to know what he will have to do when he’s the pack witch. Will he have to fight? Will he finally get a chance to run with the pack?
He doesn’t ask any of those things. He watches his father’s profile as he starts the car and drives them home.
“They’re nothing without us,” His father finally says, “Remember that, Nathaniel. Before anything else, remember how strong we are.”
Nathaniel just turns his face away and looks out the window.
When he gets to school the next day he doesn’t correct Riko when he says he’s going to be alpha.
He plays along just the same.
~~~
Nathaniel is eleven and Kevin really is the only friend he has.
They sit together during their classes, they sit together during mealtime, even through Riko always sits between them. They can’t spend time together during break, because Riko makes Kevin sit at the top of the play set with him. But on the rare day that Riko is gone, off doing family business with Kengo and his brother, it’s just Nathaniel and Kevin.
Kevin tells him the stories that his mother told him. About the sun and the moon and the love they had for their little creations. Kevin tells him that wolves are children of the moon but witches are a gift, something to watch them when there’s only sun.
Nathaniel feels special when it’s just the two of them. He knows it will never happen, that it isn’t possible, but he pretends that someday the pack will be just him and Kevin.
Kevin as an alpha, Nathaniel as his witch.
The thought makes him happy. Happier than thinking about his future beside Ichirou.
“Have you picked out a tether yet?” Kevin asks him one day.
Nathaniel has only ever heard that word in passing. His father told him once that a witch is only as strong as his tether. It keeps them grounded. Keep them human. Keeps them from losing themselves to their magic.
The wolves are the same, they all need something to cling to their humanity. Something to keep the wolf at bay.
When Nathaniel had asked what his father’s tether was, he had hit him so hard that he bit his cheek and his mouth filled with blood.
“Never ask me that again,” His father had said, “It’s private. It isn’t for anyone else to know. That’s dangerous.”
Nathaniel can’t help but wonder if his father’s tether is his mother.
“No,” Nathaniel says, “My father says I won’t need one yet. Not until I’m older.”
“You should think about it,” Kevin says, “My mom always said that tethers are important. That we’re only as strong as our tether.”
“What’s yours?” Nathaniel whispers, because he wants to know all of the inner secrets that Kevin will share with him. Asking feels like prying. Like asking for something so intimately private that he can’t help but whisper the question.
“My mom,” Kevin says easily, like it isn’t a great secret. Like he’s sharing the weather. And it makes sense. Kevin is always talking about his mom.
“But she’s dead?” Nathaniel says, confused.
Kevin just gives him a sad smile. He ruffles Nathaniel’s hair like he always does when he thinks Nathaniel is being childish. Nathaniel lets him.
“The memory of my mother,” Kevin says, “She’s my tether. Even when she isn’t here. I always feel her.”
“What was she like?” Nathaniel asks, “When she was still here.”
“She was like the sun,” Kevin says, and he sounds so fond, so elated. Nathaniel wishes he felt like that about anything. “I always wanted to be around her.”
Nathaniel used to feel that way about his own mother, until she started acting strange, forgetting things, holding Nathaniel so tight that it hurt.
Now he isn’t so sure.
“If you had to pick a tether, what would it be?” Kevin asks, “Have you thought about it?”
Nathaniel tries to think about something that makes him feel warm. Something that makes him feel human. Less witch, less pack, more himself.
He doesn’t have a good answer.
Instead, he says, “Does it have to be a person?”
Kevin shakes his head, “My mom’s tether was a stone wolf. You know about those, right? All born wolves are given a stone wolf. They give it to their mate when they find them. My mom had one. She never told me who it belonged to. She gave it to me when I was old enough, right before she died. It was her tether as long as she had it.”
Nathaniel doesn’t know much about mates or stone wolves. He hears the wolves talking about it sometimes at lunch or during break. He knows it’s important to them.
But Nathaniel is human. A witch. He doesn’t have a stone wolf or a mate.
“I’ll think about it,” Nathaniel says very seriously, because it’s serious business.
Kevin smiles and it’s warm. Warmer than any of the other smiles that people give him. Almost as warm as his mother’s smile.
Nathaniel wonders if that’s the feeling Kevin thinks about when he thinks of his mother.
~~~
Nathaniel’s father takes him to the woods again. It’s a long drive. Nathaniel is as still as a rock.
This time his father takes him farther into the woods than they have ever gone before. It feels different out here, stronger than anything Nathaniel has ever felt before.
When he tries really hard, he can feel the pull of something beneath his feet. It’s easier than ever to feel out here, deep in the cold dark woods. It feels steady and strong, a pulse like a heartbeat under his feet.
His father takes him to a clearing.
There are wolves.
Nathaniel watches with awe, his eyes wide, his heart swelling. The wolves are running, all of them pouncing around each other. The young wolves are there, many of them haven’t had their first shift yet, they laugh and laugh as they older wolves nip at their heels, making them run so they can chase them.
Nathaniel watches.
It’s all he’s ever wanted. He feels awe at the sight of it.
Nathaniel looks for Kevin but can’t seem to find him in the clearing. He wonders if he’s already had his first shift. If he’s one of the lucky ones that did it sooner than everyone else.
A wolf approaches them.
He’s dark, darker than the night sky, with tufts of white around his face and feet. He approaches them slowly, his head lowered, his shoulders going low to the ground. Making himself look small.
Nathaniel steps forward.
The wolf steps closer.
He reaches out a hand. The wolf presses his nose into Nathaniel’s palm. It’s warm and wet.
Nathaniel can feel him. He can really feel him deep in the back of his mind. The strings that connect them all together.
WitchPackMine
He knows immediately that it’s Ichirou. The one who will be his alpha. The one that he will stand beside when it’s his time to run the pack.
Ichirou raises his head and happily bounces around Nathaniel, his tail curling around his middle. He’s taller than Nathaniel in wolf form, he towers over him, but Nathaniel isn’t afraid.
He laughs when Ichirou puts his nose against Nathaniel’s cheek and snorts into his hair.
Another wolf approaches them, taller and bigger than the rest. The biggest wolf that Nathaniel has ever seen.
Alpha.
Kengo goes to Nathaniel and presses his nose to the top of his head. Nathaniel’s eyes are wide in awe.
More wolves come to them then, not that Nathaniel has been accepted, marked. They all nip at his heels, encouraging him to run.
He sees one unlike the rest, he’s lean and brown with speckles of black. Nathaniel recognizes him immediately.
Kevin.
He presses his nose against Nathaniel’s hand and then forces his hand up and between his ears. Nathaniel laughs when Kevin sneezes on him. He presses his hands into the soft fur on his back. He’s all legs, unlike the other wolves, he isn’t as tall or wide, but he’s perfect. Just the way Nathaniel had imagined him to look.
He presses against him and in his mind Nathaniel can hear WitchBrotherPack. Run with me so I can chase you. Run with me so I can catch you.
Nathaniel wants nothing more than to run. So he does.
They wolves take off after each other, running and howling at the moon. Nathaniel feels the pull of it, the way the earth shifts under his feet, the way the moon shines overhead, large and immovable.
His skin feels warm, when he looks down and pushes up his sleeves he sees that his tattoos are glowing.
When Nathaniel looks back at his father he sees a scowl on his face. His eyes so dark that the blue has turned a dangerous shade of black, dark like the ocean.
There’s a fire burning behind them again. It’s dark and terrifying.
It burns and burns and burns.
Nathaniel doesn’t care. Because he is here. He is with his pack. And he is running and running and running.
His father doesn’t keep him away from that point on. He goes every month to run with the pack on the full moon. Ichirou is always the first to greet him, he nips at his hand and presses his nose against his face. Kevin is always right beside him. The thrum of packpackpack strong between them.
His father always looks angry.
Nathaniel doesn’t know why.
~~~
Nathaniel is twelve when things start to change.
His mother is worse than she has ever been. She smiles and smiles and it never reaches her eyes. Some days she’s smiling and crying at the same time.
Some days his father takes his mother from the room and locks her away in their bedroom. Sometimes Nathaniel hears yelling.
He hears, “I know what you’re doing! I know what you’re doing to me!”
And, “You can’t hide her from us! You can’t do this, Nathan!”
And, “Stop! Stop! Stop! Get out of my head!”
Whenever they fight his mom stays in her bed for days on end. Nathaniel will go outside her door and listen to the sound of her crying, her mumbling, sometimes her snoring.
He never asks his father what’s wrong with her.
Nathaniel is twelve when he meets Lola for the first time. She’s small and lithe, her smile looks the way his father’s needle feels in his skin. Her eyes are impossibly dark and her hair impossibly blonde, so light that it seems to be void of any color.
He’s never met her before, but his father seems to be close with her. He has a hand on her always, even when Nathaniel is looking.
He thinks about tethers.
Lola becomes a permanent fixture in his life. She picks him up from school when his father is too busy or his mother is too sick. She has long nails and whenever she holds onto Nathaniel’s arm they dig into the marks on his skin.
“Are you a wolf?” Nathaniel asks one day.
She smiles and it’s all wolf, sharp teeth and narrowed eyes. Her smile reminds him of Riko. Dark. Wicked.
“No,” She says with a sneer, like the suggestion makes her sick, “There are better things to be than a beast.”
Nathaniel doesn’t like the way she says it, but he doesn’t say anything in protest. He doesn’t think the wolves are beasts. Not really. He thinks they’re wonderful. Full of life. Full of strings that flare and pluck when they run together during the full moon. Full of packpackpack.
His father seems to like Lola. She’s always around. When his mother finally comes out of her room and sees Lola there she says nothing, but her mouth tights into a thin line that tells Nathaniel that she’s not pleased to see her.
“Mary,” Lola will say, “How’s your head?”
His mother isn’t a wolf. Or a witch. Or anything other than a simple plain old human. But the look she has when Lola asks is so vicious, Nathaniel is surprised she doesn’t grow teeth and claws and rip her into pieces.
~~~
Ichirou takes him to the clearing. His father isn’t with them. But Kengo is there, waiting for them, sitting in the center of the clearing with his head pointed up towards the sky.
Nathaniel goes to him, because that’s what a witch does. Goes to their alpha.
Kengo smiles at him, it’s all teeth and gums like it always is. His face is wrinkled with age, but there’s something ageless about him. Like he’s lived forever. Like he will continue to live forever.
“It’s almost time,” Kengo says, and he sounds proud when he says it, like there’s nothing better in the world, “You’re going to reach your full potential soon.”
Nathaniel sits in front of him in the clearing. Ichirou at his side.
“You feel it don’t you?” Kengo asks, “It feels different than before.”
And it does. The world feels different. Every mark his father gives him makes the hum louder. It makes the pulse beneath his feet more prominent. He can feel everything when he tries hard, he can feel every grain of dirt, he can feel the blades of grass, he can feel the life that pulsates off of every tree and leaf and root. He can feel something lower than all of that, something deep and impossible buried beneath the ground.
Sometimes when he feels too much the lights will flicker, once he was so frustrated with his homework that he threw his hand on the table and every piece of glass in the kitchen cracked. He thought his father would be angry with him. But he wasn’t. He was proud. The proudest that Nathaniel had ever seen him.
“Power,” His father would say, “Power is what we have. We’re Wesninskis. We are nothing but power.”
Nathaniel is afraid of himself sometimes. He’s afraid of what his father means. He saw the look on his mother’s face after it had happened. She’s afraid of him too.
“Yes,” Nathaniel says, “I feel-”
He looks around the clearing. It’s always dark here, even when the sun shines overhead.
“I feel everything.”
Kengo’s smile is sharp. His eyes flash red. The red of an alpha.
“Someday you will be the witch of the Moriyama pack,” Kengo says, “You will stand beside my son and you will rule the wolves.”
“All of them?” Nathaniel asks, feeling nervous. It sounds like a lot of responsibility.
“All of them,” Kengo confirms, “Do you know what I am?”
“Alpha,” Nathaniel says, because that is what he is.
“I’m more than that,” Kengo says, “I’m the Alpha of All. The Alpha of every pack in North America. They all answer to me. They obey me. And someday they will obey my son, Ichirou. Riko will be his second, although he has a lot of work ahead of him, too stubborn that boy is, full of himself, but he will make a good second someday strong.”
Nathaniel thinks that Riko will never want to be second to anyone. Not even his own brother.
“And you will be his witch,” Kengo says, “You will be his.”
Nathaniel doesn’t spare a glance at Ichirou. He doesn’t know him well enough to know if being his will be a good thing or a bad thing. He’s afraid to know.
“When that day comes,” Kengo says, “You will have to choose. You are human. The problem with humans is that they are weak. That they feel too many things. That they can’t see the world for what it is. They see too many variables. Too many things in black and white. Being a wolf is better. You see the right from the wrong and you make the difficult choices that need to be made.”
Nathaniel doesn’t like the sound of that.
He says, “What kind of choices?”
Kengo says, “The alpha has to choose between life and death. We have shielded you from the world, from the business of pack, but you’re older now. Your marks are almost finished, and now is the time for you to see what pack is all about.
“It’s a messy business. It’s full of difficult choices. The Alpha of All is the one who imposes peace between all packs. Sometimes it is better to cut the strings than let a loose end dangle. It threatens to unravel everything. Do you understand?”
Nathaniel feels a chill down his spine. He clenches his hands around the fabric of his t-shirt. Clenches and unclenches. Then he remembers where he is.
Still as a rock.
He stops.
“I told your father it was time you had more responsibility. You will sit in on our meetings from now on, with Ichirou. You will learn,” Kengo says, “For now just feel the breeze. Let the world whisper its secrets to you.”
He closes his eyes. Nathaniel spares a glance to Ichirou and sees him frowning. When he notices Nathaniel’s eyes on him he wipes the look away and then smiles. It’s small and secretive. Meant for just the two of them.
Nathaniel doesn’t know if he wants to be a witch anymore. It sounds like too much responsibility. He doesn’t like choosing. Especially not when it’s important.
What if he chooses wrong?
He stops thinking and does what Kengo says. He closes his eyes and feels the world around him. He feels the grass, the trees, the leaves, he feels the dirt beneath the grass. He feels the wind against his skin, in his hair, in his ears. He feels everything.
Suddenly he realizes what his father had meant about witches being powerful.
He feels. Everything.
~~~
His father takes him on a trip out of state. Lola comes with them, so does Ichirou and Kevin and Riko. The car is full of wolves. Nathaniel feels like his skin is crawling. He doesn’t know where they are going, but he knows what Kengo had told him. That it was time that he was part of pack business. That he learned.
They end up in Ohio. A small town just outside of Pennsylvania.
There is a pack there with a witch. Nathaniel can feel the wards as soon as they enter the town. His father has been showing him how to put up wards. He follows him around Baltimore on his weekly trips to strengthen the wards. Nathaniel sometimes reaches out with his magic and feels the tendrils of his father’s.
They feel the same.
The town is eerily quiet. No one comes out to greet them as they pull up to stop in front of a large farm house.
Nathaniel follows his father. Ichirou in front of them.
That’s the first day that Nathaniel sees a wolf die. That’s the first day that Nathaniel sees a child die. He watches his father set fire to the farm house. He watches as the alpha of the pack, a woman in her 40’s with wavy blonde hair like his mother, begs them to reconsider. That she’ll do whatever she has to do to make up for what she’s done.
“I won’t help any more omegas. I promise. I promise. I promise. Just don’t hurt the pups. Please don’t hurt the pups.”
Nathan doesn’t listen.
This is what they meant by pack business. He watches the house burn. He imagines the faces of the children he saw inside. Children the same age as him.
His father and Kevin stand on either side of him. Riko has a sick smile on his face. Ichirou has a grim look in his eyes. Kevin is crying.
“This is what it means,” His father says, while the house burns in front of them, “This is what we have to do.”
Lola laughs and laughs and laughs.
Nathaniel lasts for another minute before he has to look away.
He’ll never forget the smell of fire again.
~~~
“Why did we have to do it?” Nathaniel asks Kevin one day. Riko is gone so that means that Nathaniel has Kevin all to himself.
Kevin doesn’t speak. He’s picking apart his ham sandwich. Nathaniel’s lunch is untouched in front of him. He hasn’t eaten since they got back from Ohio. He doesn’t think he’ll ever be able to eat again.
“You’ll have to ask Ichirou,” Kevin mumbles, “Or your father.”
The problem is that Nathaniel did ask his father. His father had told him that the pack had been helping fugitive omegas. That omegas were dangerous to all wolves. They were packless, without tethers, monsters just moments away from snapping. An omega loose in the world was a risk to all wolves. To everything they lived for.
Nathaniel still didn’t understand why they had to die. When he said as much his father had beaten him so badly that he couldn’t walk for the rest of the day. His mother had come to check on him after. She put her cold hand on his forehead and cried.
“Don’t worry, little dove,” She said over and over and over, “We’ll be okay. We’ll be okay.”
He didn’t feel okay.
Kevin doesn’t say anything else.
Something shifted after that day in Ohio. Nathaniel can feel it. Riko is meaner than ever. Ichirou always visits Nathaniel when he has free time. He always looks sour, like something wasn’t sitting right with him. He never said why. Nathaniel never asked.
Then there was Kevin. He was nervous. He had a twitchy hand. Nathaniel couldn’t figure out why.
“Someday,” Kevin says, looking down at the torn apart sandwich in front of him, “Someday it will be you and me. And we can run with the moon as far as we want.”
Nathaniel thinks that sounds nice.
He also thinks that it will never happen.
~~~
Nathaniel is thirteen and close to his last marking. His father tells him as such. Tells him that soon he will unlock his full potential. Then he will be in control of his power. That he will be as strong as Nathan is.
Nathaniel hates to admit that he never wants that day to come.
His mother is acting strange, but there’s a light in her eyes that Nathaniel hasn’t seen in years. She whispers into her phone when no one else is home, when it’s just her and Nathaniel in the kitchen. A place so haunted with bad memories that Nathaniel feels on edge whenever he sits at the table.
He knows that something is coming. He can feel it. His father comes home and tells him that tomorrow is the day.
Nathaniel pretends he’s excited.
His mother holds him that night, cramped together in his small twin sized bed. She holds him and squeezes like she could meld them together.
“Just a few more hours, dove,” She says, “Just wait. Just wait. Just wait.”
Nathaniel doesn’t want to wait.
She says, “We will be free.”
She says, “Don’t worry, little dove. I will never let anything happen to you.”
She says, “I’ll never let him hurt you.”
Nathaniel thinks she’s lying. She’s never stopped him before. How would she stop him now? She’s human. Weak and small and fragile, like the glass that Nathaniel keeps cracking in the kitchen. Like the windows of the farmhouse that exploded from the heat. She’ll break. His father will break her before the wolves get to her.
It’s five in the morning when Nathaniel smells something burning. He wakes up to his mother standing over him, her hair a riot all around her, wavy blonde hair sticking in all directions. Her eyes are wide, she’s covered in a thin layer of sweat.
She smells like fire.
“Get up,” She says in a whisper, but it’s commanding. Nathaniel can do nothing but obey.
They sneak down the stairs as quietly as they can. Her hand never leaves his elbow, it’s squeezing so hard that he’s sure she’s going to leave a mark.
“Where are we going?” He whispers. His mother’s other hand comes up to smack him over the mouth, it stings.
“Don’t speak,” She says.
The smell of fire gets stronger downstairs. It’s unbearably hot. Nathaniel can barely breathe.
He looks down the hallway to see that it’s completely encroached in flames. They lick up the walls of the parlor and bellow against the ceiling.
“Mom,” Nathaniel says, terrified.
“Shush,” Mary says, she sounds so serious, more awake than she has in years, “Hush.”
Nathaniel stops speaking.
They make it out to the front lawn when Nathaniel hears yelling. He sees figures in the windows of his father’s house. People running and scrambling. His mother drags him away, down the street into the darkness of the night.
“Where are we going?” Nathaniel dares to ask again, because this is his mother and he isn’t afraid of her like he is his father.
His mother’s grip tightens. She says, “We’re leaving and we aren’t coming back. I’m taking you far away from here. We are going to be safe, hear me? Just you and me. You’re father he- he’s a monster. He’s been doing something to me. I couldn’t see straight. I couldn’t remember. And that woman. These people. They’re monsters, Nathaniel. You have to listen to me, they’re monsters. The wolves. All of them.”
“They're-” Nathaniel says then stops, he wants to tell her that she’s wrong. He wants to tell her that they’re not all monsters. Kevin isn’t a monster. He thinks Ichirou isn’t a monster either.
But then he thinks about all the rest.
Nathaniel thinks of Riko’s smile as he sits at the top of the playground. He thinks about Kengo’s eyes and mean smile. He thinks about Ichirou offering his hand and calling him his witch. He thinks about Kevin saying, we’ll run together someday. All of us. He thinks about Riko’s smile as the farmhouse burned. He thinks about the smell of fire that has permanently etched itself into his nose. He thinks about his father throwing the radio against the wall. He thinks about every hit he’s ever taken from him. He thinks about being held down by so many hands while his father carved magic into his skin. He thinks about the fire behind his father’s eyes. Burning. Burning. Burning.
Monsters. Monsters. Monsters.
All of them.
Nathaniel doesn’t fight. He lets his mother drag him to a car parked at the end of the street. He hears sirens and yelling behind them. He doesn’t dare look back. He gets in the car and he watches his mother start the car and drive.
He doesn’t look back.