Grayscale Ch5

It wasn’t until they pulled into the grocery store parking lot that Jack realized the store probably had a phone he could use. He could call home and let his mother and sister know he was okay. His stomach knotted as he realized he had no idea what day it was – his father might be home. Jack didn’t know what might happen if he picked up.

He tried to shake the thought. Even if his father did pick up, it would be worth it to reassure his mother and sister. He only needed to shake Koz.

“I have to go to the restroom,” Jack announced as Koz grabbed a shopping basket. He didn’t really need to use the restroom, but he realized with a jolt that he could. He might just go in just to look at the toilet and appreciate its existence. God, he’d missed civilization.

“Alright,” was all Koz said as Jack slipped away. He almost felt badly for lying.

‘Shush,’ he thought to himself. ‘That’s just the Stockholm talking.’

There was no one at the customer service office, so Jack asked an employee to borrow their phone.

“We’re not allowed to have phones on the floor,” she said, looking bored.

“But you probably still have one on you,” Jack persisted, trying to dial up the charm. “Please?”

“My manager will take it away if I pull it out.”

Jack fought off frustration. “Is there a phone at the customer service desk I can use?”

“You can’t use it when no one’s in the office. The manager just went on lunch, so in half an hour you can use it.”

“If your manager isn’t here, then you can use your phone!”

“I’m sorry, sir,” the girl said, not sounding sorry at all. “You can use the phone by the door to call a cab, but it doesn’t make any other calls.”

“Thank you,” Jack said, sure to imply with his tone how not thankful he was. He headed for the door feeling frustrated and self-conscious. He half wanted to explain his situation to the girl – at least to make her feel bad for being so unhelpful – but he was also wary of looking like some weird homeless kid. People generally didn’t loan their phones to weird homeless kids.

Jack already felt weird enough. There weren’t many people in the store, but those that were all seemed to stare at him. He tried to dismiss it – he hadn’t been around anyone but Koz for who knew how long and he was just feeling a little unsettled. Plus he looked like a walking stick figure and he was wearing overly large clothes and shoes. Who wouldn’t stare?

‘Not that people are staring ‘cause I’m actually just being paranoid,’ he thought.

Jack walked past a line of newspapers, making for the cab phone by the door. He was debating whether or not he really wanted to take a cab and run away from Koz or just ask to use a cabby’s phone, when he realized his eyes had skimmed over something strange and did a double-take.

The Whitestown Word, the local paper, headlined: ‘Search Continues for Missing Teen’ and beneath that was a grainy copy of Jack’s school photo.

Jack stared at it a moment before he reached out and pulled the newspaper free. He was thinner than the boy in the photo and far more sunburned. He remembered the days leading up to picture day - his mother had wrestled his hair into a respectable crew-cut for the photo and given it just the barest hint of blond highlights – just so his bright white hair wouldn’t throw off the picture’s exposure. He looked like the photo if you thought about it, but he also looked completely different. Maybe, he thought, people really were staring at him.

His eyes landed on the sub-heading beside his photo, ‘Father brought in for questioning’.

Woah.

He tried to read the article from start to finish, but kept getting distracted by the strangeness of it all and his own imaginings of what the words described.

He’d been missing for almost a full three weeks. Holy crap, how was he still alive? Apparently the police didn’t believe he could have survived that long either. Their last search into the woods had involved dogs trained to sniff out corpses. They must not have gone too far into the woods, Jack mused, or they would have found the hunter’s bones.

Jack’s father had just been brought in for questioning after his mother admitted that he had been arguing with his son right before the teen’s (‘That’s me!’) disappearance.

There was allegedly a period of time after Jack left where no one could account for his father’s whereabouts and police had on occasion been called to the house on domestic dispute cases. Neighbors previously reported suspicions of domestic violence lead police to question the teen’s initial disappearance and - holy-fucking-shit-mother-of-Jesus did they think Jack’s father killed him?

He felt a little glad; his father wasn’t a murderer, but he certainly deserved to be treated like a criminal. Being kidnapped by Koz would almost be worth it if his father got treated like a murderer the rest of his life. But no, if Jack and his father both suddenly disappeared, it would destroy their family.

His father was an awful, toxic person, but he was also the breadwinner. Jack’s mom would have to work even harder than she already did. She’d be paying off Jack’s medical bills for years on top of their everyday expenses and he wouldn’t even be there to pick up the slack. Forget money, who’d be home to cook dinner? See Emma off to school and tuck her in at night?

Jack put the paper back, stomach knotting in dread. He needed to get home.

He spotted the taxi phone next to the store’s notice-board. The handle was sticky when he lifted the old phone off its hook. He put the receiver to his ear and stopped.

His eyes had glanced over the notice-board and landed on a missing person poster. He stared at the photo, incredulous, then he looked beneath and saw Koz’s name.

He’d thought his photo looked bad – Koz’s was far worse. He was smiling for one thing. His hair was neater, his chin less scruffy, and while Jack had never thought Koz looked sickly per se, there was no doubt the Koz in the photo had a certain pinky, fleshy, healthy glow about him.

The photo had obviously been cropped from a group picture. There was an arm coming in from off-frame thrown around Koz’s shoulder. Koz had one of his arms around the shoulder of a young girl – half cut off by the edge of the picture. It could only be Seraphina, Jack surmised from the black hair and what little he could make of her face. She had her father’s nose.

A feeling tugged at his heart. Guilt? No, it was more complicated than that. Pity. Sadness. Frustration. Too many feelings to list. But certainly guilt made up a fair portion of it.

Jack swallowed. He’d always tried his best to help his mother, but at the end of the day, she was an adult. And while Jack had taken care of his sister, he wasn’t her parent. Neither of them needed Jack the way Koz’s daughter needed her father. If Jack was struggling to be away, even for a short moment of time, it must be torture for Koz to commit to never return.

Jack bit his lip. What would happen to Koz if Jack up and left? What if Koz decided to kill himself? Jack didn’t want him to die. As confusing and weird as things were between them, Jack liked Koz.

He sighed and put the phone back on the hook.

He stood there frozen for a moment, letting himself be buffeted by indecision. Was he making the right choice? What about his family? ‘I still need Koz though,’ he realized. ‘I don’t know the first thing about monsters or hunters and now I’m a monster and I’m going to have to start worrying about hunters. I still need him.’

And, he thought as he took one last glance at Koz’s missing person photo, if looking after Jack was the one thing keeping Koz going, then Koz needed him as well.

***

Koz was in the store’s rather pathetic international food aisle, debating whether or not tea would be considered an essential when Jack showed up.

The young man paused and for a moment, Koz got a wiff of anxiety from him. Then the boy smiled, taking in the sight of Koz holding three different flavors of tea.

“You look like a portrait of British-ness right now,” he said.

Koz sneered and put all three in his basket. “We’ve eaten so many hot dogs in the past few days,” he said. “I was afraid I’d lose my accent if I didn’t wash my mouth out with some decent food.

Jack snickered and busied himself looking over all the various teas the store offered. Something seemed a little off with him, but Koz couldn’t put his finger on what. It wasn’t until they finished their shopping and were walking out the door, grocery bags tangled around their wrists like shackles, that Koz spotted Jack’s photo on the local newspaper. He glanced Jack’s way and saw Jack looking pointedly in the other direction. He paused with a soft sigh.

“I’m sorry,” he said in a low voice. “I know it’s hard.”

“It’s fine!” Jack said quickly. “I still need to learn how to manage my change. I won’t be all that safe around them until then, so I might as well wait, right?”

“Right,” Koz didn’t want to argue with Jack’s desperate optimism. Maybe he was right. Maybe he could manage his change. Maybe he could be safe enough to be around his family. Koz had already given in to letting himself live - maybe he’d give in to this too.

Then he saw a missing person’s poster for himself. He stared at it a moment, dimly aware of Jack staring at him. He reached up, yanked the poster off the board, and crumpled it into a ball.

“Woah! Hey!” Jack hurried to follow him as he headed for the nearest trash bin. “What are you doing?”

“I’m trying to lay low,” Koz said, throwing the crumpled poster in the trash. “I can’t do that when my face is on the wall.” He couldn’t help that Jack’s face was in the paper, but he could stop at least himself from being conspicuous. “Honestly, I don’t know why they’d even make these,” he said. “I go on hunts all the time! I’ve been out-of-contact before and they haven’t put up posters!”

Koz was angry, but also frightened. Had they read his letters early? Did they suspect that he’d gone off to kill himself? Were they combing the woods for him? They’d know all the same safe-zones as he knew. Except the cabin.

For the first time, Koz was glad John had kept the cabin a secret.

“Maybe they’re worried you went all furry and hurt somebody,” Jack suggested. “Or that you got hurt?”

Koz sighed and tried to shake off his bad feelings. “Probably,” he said noncommittally. “But I’ll feel better when we get back to the cabin.”

Jack was looking at him in concern now and Koz didn’t like that. They walked out the store’s inner automatic doors, into the foyer. They passed another bulletin board and Koz glanced it over for any more posters featuring himself, but it was mostly yard sale announcements, furniture ads, and ‘free to good home’ pet flyers.

He walked passed these, Jack trailing behind, looking over the ads in more detail before he hurried after Koz.

Now that he’d permanently binned his plans to kill himself, Koz was ready to take charge of caring for Jack with renewed vigor. Mission number one in taking care of Jack was to get him back to a healthier weight. He took him over to the Dairy Queen across the street and bought him an ice cream cone.

Jack was thoughtfully licking away at his cone while Koz drove the van back to the park entrance when the boy spoke.

“We should do something tonight,” he said. “I mean besides just going back to the forest and eating and sleeping.”

“I just got you an ice cream – doesn’t that count?”

Jack groaned and rolled his head back against the headrest. “Why are you so old?”

They pulled up to a stoplight and Koz took the chance to look sideways at Jack. “I’m not going to any clubs or bars or whatever it is you ‘whipper snappers’ like to do for fun.”

“Clubs? Bars?” Jack laughed. “I have something much more immature in mind!”

“Okay…?”

“The board at the store said the circus was in town.”

Koz glanced sideways at his companion to see if he was joking. “The circus?”

“Yep!” Jack took a large bite out of his ice-cream cone, smearing it across his lips and chin and smiling cheekily.

He wasn’t joking.

The light turned green and Koz slowly accelerated. “I’ve never been to the circus,” Koz admitted. Jack gasped in mock dismay. “I never went as a child and Seraphina hates clowns so we’ve actively avoided them.”

“Well now we’ve definitely got to go!” Jack chuckled as he took another bite from his ice-cream cone. He peeled off the paper wrapper from the cone and nearly bit through half of it, ice cream dripping onto his fingers. Koz frowned.

“I don’t know Jack, there’ll be a lot of people and it will be at night—”

“I didn’t change last night!”

Koz rapped the heel of his palm on the steering wheel. “That doesn’t mean you’re safe. You could get stressed and change.”

“I was fine the last time I changed, wasn’t I?” Jack said, “Please, Koz! Tonight is their last night in town. ”

Koz pursed his lips. “No.”

“Please?”

“No.”

“Pleeeeease?!”

“Absolutely not.”

Jack huffed and nibbled thoughtfully on the last bite of his ice-cream cone. “Okay,” Jack said, thoughtfully. “So we can’t go to the circus because there’s too many people… but how about a smaller party?”

Koz flicked on his turn signal and slowed. Perhaps subconsciously his speed had gone down while they spoke. He wasn’t looking forward to returning to the cabin either. Which was why he indulged Jack and asked, “What did you have in mind?”

Jack held up his hand, showing off the phone number on his palm. “My friend’s party.”

Koz’s lip curled in revulsion. “Definitely not.”

“Aww, why not?” Jack pouted.

“I don’t want to go to a party with a bunch of twenty-something-year-olds,” Koz said. “Young people are fine on their own, but in groups? No. You wouldn’t like to go to a party with a bunch of five-year-olds, would you?”

“Excuse you,” Jack scoffed, popping the last bit of his ice cream cone in his mouth and crunching down on it. “I would be the life of that five-year-old’s party.”

Koz couldn’t help a snort. “You probably would, but we’re still not going.”

“There’ll probably be alcohol,” Jack said hopefully.

“You’re underage,” Koz pointed out sharply.

Jack shrugged like he couldn’t care less. “So what? You’re not.”

Koz sighed. He definitely didn’t want to go to some small party with a bunch of drunken college students. “You probably just want to go make-out with that guy,” he grumbled.

“I will admit, as the only semi-‘out’ gay boy in my small town high school, I am what you might describe as ‘desperate’—” Koz snorted. “—but I’d actually rather go, get you drunk enough that you’ll agree to let me drink, then we’ll both get drunk and eat a lot of s’mores and hang out, then leave.”

Koz sighed. Nothing about the party seemed appealing except that Jack really wanted to go – and if he was honest – the alternative was to return to the cabin where there was no television, books, or internet. He was a little worried about Jack transforming, but the risk was significantly smaller at a small party than it was in a crowded, noisy circus tent, and it would be easier for Koz to remove him from the situation if things got, well… hairy.

“I didn’t want to force an ultimatum on you, but you have two options,” Jack said, “go to the party or go to the circus.” He held up both his hands in front of him and Koz wasn’t sure if he were miming holding the options or if he’d finally realized that getting ice cream on your hands makes them sticky.

They were coming up close to the turn to get to the park and Koz was driving even slower than ever. “No to both options,” he said.

“Then I shall sing ‘I am Henry the Eight I am’ until you submit,” Jack said without missing a beat.

“Like in Ghost?” Jack hadn’t seen the original Teen Wolf but he’d seen Ghost?

“Exactly like in Ghost,” Jack said with a cool confidence that was almost sexy, “and just like in Ghost, I will win.” Definitely sexy.

Koz cleared his throat. “You’d get too annoyed first.”

“I don’t know about that,” Jack said as he started to lick the ice cream from his fingers. “I have a high threshold for annoyingness; I have an eight-year-old sister.”

“I see your eight-year-old sister and raise you a thirteen-year-old daughter.” Yes, think of your precious daughter and not Jack’s licking sounds.

For a moment Jack seemed to give up the fight and focus on getting his hands clean. There was a tenseness in the air that said the boy hadn’t given up yet though, but maybe that was Koz’s idiotic sexual frustration.

Finally Jack spoke. “And I swore I wouldn’t speak in British accents any more.”

It was so unexpected Koz let out a bark of a laugh. “Used up your best bargaining chip early on, I’m afraid!”

Koz turned on his turn signal and paused at a red light. They were almost to the entrance of the forest. He saw out of his peripheral vision Jack turn to look at him slowly. “Okay,” Jack said in a dangerous tone. “How about we talk about that kiss last night.”

Koz eyes widened and he turned to look at Jack fully. He’d pulled his leg up onto the seat and was resting his elbow on his knee, two fingers in his mouth. He looked at Koz expectantly as he pulled the fingers from his mouth with an obscenely wet noise. Koz’s jaw dropped and Jack smiled a sultry, dark smile.

Koz would like to have said he was a mature adult and rose to Jack’s prompting with ‘yes, let’s talk about that’ but instead he turned the car around and nearly squeaked. “Let’s go to the circus, hm?”

*
Now that his seduction trick had gotten him his way, Jack was back to acting like an oversized child. He was practically vibrating with energy the closer they got to the circus’ location. Koz wasn’t sure if he was having another bout of high energy or if he was just excited.

The circus was in the middle of a field just outside of Whitestown. It didn’t look like a huge affair like the circuses that advertized on television, but there was a nostalgic small-town feel to it.

Koz parked in the grass in front of the large white and red tent and Jack bolted from the car.

Koz hurried to follow after. He was still kicking himself that he didn’t have the courage to talk to Jack about the kiss. He just wanted the chance to think it over first, he reasoned to himself. At the moment, he was still torn – it had been nice! He liked Jack and he liked kissing him, but it was probably a bad idea. He hadn’t picked apart the finer reasons why it was a bad idea – but that just doubly meant he needed time to think about it.

He figured the circus might just give him the time to pause and think that the party might not have. Plus he really didn’t want to go to some party.

Although the circus was starting to look like a good plan after all. The crowd wasn’t as large as he’d feared and Jack looked happy. He seemed to realize Koz wasn’t going to join him in bounding to the big-top and quickly returned to Koz’s side, trying to suppress an adorably sheepish grin.

People were lining up to file into the tent or else stood queued at the ticket booth. There were several smaller tents outside the big top with signs designating them as ‘Petting Zoo’, ‘Face Painting’, ‘Test your Strength’, and other carnival attractions – but they had all closed down now that people were being herded inside.

As Koz and Jack waited to buy their tickets, Koz reflected on how he’d worried that Jack would have a sensory attack, and now he was a little worried about himself. He was nearly overwhelmed by all the scents in the air. There were so many and they all tangled together so that he could hardly distinguish one from another. Many he didn’t recognize at all, although there were a few he could identify offhand. Popcorn and grease, fried batter and baked pretzels and sugar all mixed together - not quite masking the scent of trampled grass, sweat, traces of anxiety, and animal smells – lots and lots of musky, unpleasant animal smells.

He resolved to buy a bag of popcorn as soon as possible – of all the food smells, it seemed the strongest and most masking.

He paid for their tickets and a clown gestured them into the circus tent with a roll of his arm and a bow. Koz eyed him warily as they went past. He’d fibbed a little when he’d implied Seraphina was the only one who didn’t like clowns.

It was noisy, crowded, and ten degrees warmer inside the tent. Koz was a little surprised there was such a large crowd at such a small venue. They barely managed to find two seats together.

They stood at the end of the aisle, ready to shuffle past a row of waiting spectators to get to a pair of seats in the middle of the crowd when Jack spoke up.

“How about you save us seats and I’ll get us snacks?” He suggested.

It was so reasonable and normal Koz almost agreed immediately – but he and Jack weren’t normal.

“I don’t think we should split up,” he said, trying to speak quietly yet still be heard over the clamor of the crowd. “If you have an attack—”

Jack let out a huff of a laugh and barely managed to suppress an eye-roll. “I’d be better off by the concession stand than I would be in this huge crowd.”

Koz shook his head. “Then I’d rather I went with you.”

Jack quirked an eyebrow. “But then we might not be able to sit together – and what if I have an attack during the show and you aren’t there?”

Koz frowned. Jack had a point there. He sighed and tugged his wallet from his pocket.

He handed Jack two twenties. “Bring me a popcorn, get as much as you like.” Jack could use the calories – he was still tremendously thin. Jack probably wasn’t thinking about this, but his face lit up anyway as he took the money and bolted down the bleacher steps with a hastily uttered, “Thanks!”

***

To say Jack was excited would’ve been an understatement. After so long stuck in the woods staving off boredom, exhaustion, and oh, yeah – ravenous werewolves – a night off was just what he needed. Plus, he’d just realized he was sort of on a date. Maybe-not-really-but sort of! Things were looking up!

That should’ve been his clue that something was about to go wrong.

The concession stand was squeezed between two sets of bleachers. Jack wasn’t put off by the massive crowd surrounding the stand. He was plotting to fulfill the last of his childhood dreams by buying and consuming a jumbo-sized bag of cotton candy – he didn’t mind a wait.

The crowd jostled him as he tried in vain to find the end of the line. A frazzled-looking girl behind the counter called out a number and the crowd shifted and shuffled around as someone stepped forward to claim their order of hotdogs and pretzels. Jack squeezed past one person after another. He felt a little overwhelmed. He’d almost forgotten what it felt like to be around so many people. ‘Keep it together!’ He urged himself. ‘This is no different than the cafeteria line, if you can’t hand this – how can you say you can handle the rest of high school?’

He squeezed passed a cluster of teenagers and was promptly bumped into by an irate father. He stumbled out of the crowd and into the narrow alley between the concessions and the stands - smack into a popcorn vendor. The good news was that he wasn’t carrying any popcorn. The bad news was that he was still wearing his carrying basket – which proved surprisingly sturdy to the misfortune of both boys. Jack and the poor vender fell to the ground in a heap – all the wind knocked out of them.

Jack gasped for breath, scrambling to his knees as he struggled to apologize.

The popcorn guy was faster, hopping to his feet and offering Jack his hand. “I’m so sorry,” he said, “are you alright, sir?”

There was something familiar in the earnest way the young man spoke. Jack jerked his head up. Blue eyes met brown and for a moment the two boys stared at each other in mutual shock and alarm.

“J-Jamie?!” Jack gasped.

Jamie’s head snapped around, giving their surroundings a quick glance over before his gaze fell on Jack again, brows furrowing. Then, before Jack could move, he grabbed him by the arm and hauled him away from the crowd and into the darkness under the stands.

Jack sucked in a deep breath. “Ko—!” Jamie clapped a hand over his mouth, cutting off his cries.

“Don’t scream!” Jamie said in a shrill sort of half-whisper. “I don’t want them to know you’re here!”

Jack flailed, trying to free himself but damn, the kid was surprisingly strong! Still, his kidnapping would have worked better if he weren’t wearing the basket still. As it was, the wire frame dug into Jack’s back – and undoubtedly, Jamie’s stomach, but the boy didn’t let up.

“Stop—” Jamie’s cry was cut off as Jack threw his head back, his skull colliding with Jamie’s mouth.

Instantly, the younger boy let Jack go, backing away and pressing his hand over his mouth. “Owwwie!” He groaned.

Jack wished he could say he made an impressive escape, but he felt like he’d knocked a few screws loose when his head collided with Jamie’s. Instead of running he held the back of his head, cursed profusely, and tripped over one of the stands’ support beams. He fell onto the grass face-first. But at least he hadn’t said ‘owwwie’.

“I’m sorry,” Jamie said, his words muffled through his hands. “I just didn’t want my sister to see you!”

“Really?” Jack snarled, hurrying to his feet. He felt dizzy and took a few tottering steps to a vertical beam supporting the stands. He fixed Jamie with a glare and rubbed his sore head. “A second ago you were saying ‘them’! Is your buddy the White Wolf treating you to a night at the circus or something?”

“Um…” Jamie gingerly checked that his lip wasn’t bleeding. “No?” He pointed to the popcorn basket. “I work here.”

“Oh.” Jack checked his palm to see that he wasn’t bleeding. “Sorry. Right. No-no! Not ‘sorry’, I take back that apology! What the hell? What the hell—”

“Are you here getting treated to a night at the circus with that black wolf?”

“—is wrong with you? Yes! I’m here to relax because believe it or not the last month of my life has been a fucking nightmare – thanks to you!”

Jamie seemed to shrink somewhat. “The Czar told us to watch that cabin and kill any hunters that came to use it. It was supposed to be an initiation test for us and well… we kinda messed it up.”

“So sorry about that,” Jack said, face deadpanned.

Jamie winced. In the dim lights shining between the audience’s feet, Jack could just see Jamie’s cheeks reddening. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t want to but… it’s been so hard…” Jamie put a hand up to his face, his shoulders trembled. Jack stepped back, startled and slightly alarmed. The boy was crying.

Jack felt a twinge of guilt, then a rush of anger. Why did he need to feel guilty? This boy and his family tried to kill him! It was because of Jamie that Jack was a werewolf – he would never be normal again. He might…. He might never be able to go home again!

Jamie rubbed tears from his eyes furiously and Jack’s lip curled in disgust, fists clenching at his sides. He was the one whose life was ruined - he was the one who should be crying!

“I’m sorry,” Jamie gasped, “I’m so sorry. I know everything is messed up for you and I – I helped but… My dad… he-he killed my mom and took my sister and me and we had nowhere to go and we were h-homeless for years and the Czar gave us a place to sleep and food and he told us everything was going to be okay and there was nothing wrong with us and all he asked was that we stop people who would try to hurt us.”

“By killing people?” Jack snarled.

“I don’t want to!” Jamie said, “I just wanted… I wanted to feel safe again. Do you know what that feels like? To spend years never feeling safe?”

Jack swallowed bile. Yeah, actually he did. Thoughts of his own father reminded him of Aaron, Jamie’s father. He inhaled and tried to ignore a wave of nausea at the memory of Aaron writhing on the ground - of sitting in a hot pickup truck and covering his ears and still – still – hearing the gunshot that ended the man’s life. “I’m sorry too,” he said at last. “About your dad.”

Jamie looked at him, eyes wide in surprise before he let out a wet laugh. He rubbed a hand over his eyes. “As if you don’t already think I’m a bad person… I’m actually relieved he’s gone. He was…” Jamie grimaced. “He wasn’t that great a person. Made an even worse father. My uncle was no better.”

“If that girl was your sister, then it must be hereditary,” Jack noted, assuming Sophie was Jamie’s sister.

Jamie winced and looked down at his hands, fiddling with the popcorn basket. “My sister… she was too young to remember my mom, or even what it was like to be human. She doesn’t remember what it was like before, just that we were always hungry and once a month we had to hide in the sewers while we changed, but then the Czar came along and gave us food and said we didn’t have to hide.” Jamie’s hands grew still. “It made sense to her.”

Jamie sniffed and rubbed his nose. Jack didn’t know what to say. Jamie was just the right mix of pathetic and relatable to his own situation; he was finding it hard to stay angry at the boy.

He tried to think what he would have done if his father had turned into a werewolf, killed his mom, then turned around and kidnapped him and Emma. If he had to watch Emma grow up hungry, homeless, and still suffering under his father’s abuse – what would he be willing to do to stop that?

Jack took a deep breath. “So… things are a little complicated right now. I can’t say for sure that I forgive you. Maybe one day I will. Or maybe I’ll just grow to hate you.” He sighed. “I know a little of what you’re going through. I mean… about not wanting to be afraid. So I suppose, if you guys ever decide to leave… look me up? I have no idea where I’ll be.” He ran a hand through his hair. “But I’ll probably need the company.”

Jamie offered him a disbelieving smile. “Thank you,” he said. “Maybe… maybe one day I’ll take you up on that offer.”

“Jamie!” A voice cut through the din on the other side of the stands and both boys looked up to see Sophie standing just outside of the shadows, brightly colored uniform glaring in the circus lights. Her gaze fell on Jack and then her eyes narrowed, lips rising up over her teeth in a snarl while her green eye glowed.

“Jack?”

Jack jumped and whirled to see Koz at the other end of the bleachers. He stepped into the shadows, brows furrowed as his eyes focused on Jamie. He slowly raised his hand towards his chest – no doubt reaching for his weapon.

“Guess this is goodbye then,” Jamie said quickly, backing away.

“Yeah,” Jack started walking towards Koz, hands raised in what he hoped was a placating gesture. “See you around Jamie,” he said, half meaning it.

“Are you alright?” Koz asked as he drew near, watching the Bennett siblings over Jack’s shoulder, hand still up under his jacket.

“Just had a little chat with Jamie, that’s all.” Jack shrugged and glanced back at the two. Sophie’s golden hair fell in a curtain over her face, but Jack could tell by the way she was leaning in, hands tightened into fists, that she was giving her brother a thorough chewing out. Jamie weakly tried to shrug it off and steer her out of their sights.

“What? Did he try to recruit you?” Koz asked, putting his hand to Jack’s lower back. He gently steered Jack behind the bleachers towards their seats.

“Technically, I think it was more like I tried to recruit him,” Jack said. They crossed the circus entrance and Koz lead him out. “Wait,” Jack slowed, “Why are we going this way?”

Koz looked down at him, eyebrow quirked as if he’d just asked a bizarre question. “We’re leaving.”

Jack stopped. “What? No! This was supposed to be our fun night out!”

“And it ended the moment our enemies showed up.” Koz took his hand and tried to lead him away. Jack took a few steps before he planted his feet.

“Seriously Koz, it was a harmless conversation. He apologized for fucking up my life. I apologized for helping you kill his dad. It was magical! Almost as magical as the circus we paid to come see!”

Koz sighed like Jack was being an unreasonable child. “Jack—”

“Koz,” Jack snapped. “Please don’t make me go back to the woods. We just got here, please.” Jack’s voice shook and he hated it but he ignored it. “Please let me try to be normal for one night.”

Koz opened his mouth to speak, face drawn, when he suddenly snapped his head around, sniffing the breeze.

Jack felt his hair stand on end as a feeling of dread stole over him. He looked the same direction as Koz and saw a small group of circus performers exiting one of their trailers and approaching the back of the circus tent.

There were four men of identical height and build in skin-tight green and white suits, a woman covered in sequins spinning a pink parasol, and an enormous man in black spandex who could only be the strong-man. Leading the lot of them was a tall, thin man in a black top-hat and a red split-tailed coat, casually pulling on a pair of white gloves as he walked. His face was covered in stage make-up, but he was still obviously pale and while he appeared young, his hair was a snowy white.

His eyes glanced their way and landed squarely on them.

The bottom dropped out of Jack’s stomach. The man’s eyes were red.

He smiled at them and tipped his hat with an air of familiarity that made Jack want to vomit. Then he pushed aside the tent flap and ducked inside.

Jack looked up at Koz and found the man was pale. Jack shrank against his side and Koz’s eyes flashed down to him. For a moment they locked gazes, sharing their mutual horror in a way words couldn’t express.

Jack glanced back to where the White Wolf had disappeared into the circus tent. He felt dizzy and drew in a long breath. He’d forgotten to breathe… He looked back up at Koz. “I want to go home,” he said in a small voice.

Koz clenched his jaw, his eyes dark and distant. He put an arm over Jack’s shoulder and started leading him away. “Me too.”