90 | CHRISTMAS EVE

I never thought I’d be able to remember so many names. The thirty names of my Pack members swirl in my head, along with their faces, lightly coloring their thoughts as they thrum softly in the back of my mind. I’ve started to get used to their ceaseless noise, a much quieter sound now that they’re all used to the area. Well…the one-mile circle around my home.

I hum tunelessly as I scrub down the last of the dishes, ignoring the whining from the younger Wolven no longer allowed in my kitchen, just on the other side of the wall. After a week of having my Pack here, completely refusing to leave for more than a few hours at a time, the little house I’d bought when I first came to Kiwina is a mess. There are several holes in the sheetrock, the front door’s been replaced twice, and the window I keep glancing out has three cracks in it from pebbles the pups like to throw when they’re board.

The one exception to the rule scurries into the room from the perpetually-open back door and silently hops up onto the counter beside me. His big eyes watch me expectantly, just like they did when he spoke up the night we first met.

Bones - yes, that’s his real name - is the only Wolven-kid responsible enough to not destroy any plates, accidentally jump when I speak, or smash into a wall. Out of all the kids, he’s the least terrified of me - in fact, he’s the only one who’s fully relaxed around me. I shut off the water and dry my hands before passing the ten-year-old a fresh towel so he can do his usual helping-me-dry-dishes routine.

“Dev still out with the others?” I ask him, already knowing the answer as I pass him a clean-but-still-wet-plate from the stack on the counter. Devina is his pseudo-mom, the woman who’s been taking care of the orphans in the Pack, four including Bones.

“Momma said she’d be back in an hour.” Bones nods to me, bobbing his head as he begins to wipe the plate dry. It makes the mass of dark semi-curly hair on his head move like a bush, little twigs and all. It’s clear he’s been running in the woods again.

“It’s only been five minutes.” I point out to the kid, trying not to smirk as he jerks his shoulders up in a too-quick shrug. I tip my shoulder and bump his with it lightly, the kid’s so wiry his whole body moves with the light tap, but I catch the fleeting grin before it warps into a scowl. “She’s fine.” I remind him, knowing that’s not the issue. He’s never been apart from Dev so much, and since the Wolven in my Pack have been here, they insist on patrolling the edges of my ‘territory’ every night after dinner. Even if it’s just a mile around the little house I own here.

Thank God for winter break! I don’t know how this is all going to work after break ends in a week, but I’m still going to try to convince the Pack to get back to the lives they had before. The adults are chatty after their runs, content and comfortable, and more willing to talk about their situations back in Berner territory. I’ve gotten some of the higher-ranking Wolven to talk to me at least.

The Enforcers are tough and fierce-looking, but relatively calm and easy-going. The two Betas, though much older than the rest of the Wolven in the Pack, are more difficult to coax information out of. And I don’t want to start ordering them around like their last Alpha did - the one before the Tiger-shifter. Most of the Pack is comfortable enough to carry out a conversation with me, but the few times I’ve broached the subject on returning to the land the Berner Pack is supposedly in charge of, they clam up. Not a peep slipping through the mental bond.

I get that they’ve all just been through something traumatic, but I don’t want to have thirty Wolven camped out in my backyard forever. They’ve all taken to sleeping outside in their wolf forms, insisting they need to stay nearby for one reason or another. Yesterday’s excuse was something about it being too late for everyone to run back across state lines and get back in time for breakfast. The night before, the older Wolven argued that the kids needed to be near their Alpha. The night before that one was that they were all still worried about the Pack’s safety beyond my tiny territory.

“It’s gotta be getting cold out there,” I think aloud, as we finish drying up the last of the dishes. The first night, it was clear I didn’t own enough dishware for everyone, so the Wolven who’d gone on the grocery run had brought a couple of extra sets. Which was great at the time…but now there’s only thirty copies of everything because the kids had a hard time not breaking them. Now the younger Wolven eat from shatter-proof dishware.

“It’s not that bad when we’re fury.” Bones replies with another one of those too-quick shrugs. I watch him as he spends extra time wiping at the completely dry plate.

“You should be in school.” I tell him, as if this isn’t the most obvious line of thought. Bones stiffens, his hands freezing. Of all the Wolven, Bones talks the most, even more than the older Wolven - and they all know it. I’ve overheard Dev scolding the kid about saying too much already, but he’s really the only one who’s let it slip that no one has their own homes to go back to. Not for a long time.

“I don’t like school.” Bones finally sets the plate on the stack of dry dishes and tugs anxiously at the towel in his hands, still not looking at me. The kid’s a born-Wolven, and I suspect he’s got some Alpha blood in him, by the ease at which he can normally look at me and talk so directly to me. But even he won’t dare disobey a direct order if I were to give it. I try to give my Pack the space they need to heal, but my time’s running out and I need answers.

“I like school,” I tell him honestly, leaning my butt against the counter so we’re facing the same direction. “I never liked bullies though, but most of the ones I grew up with were part of my family.” It’s the most I’ve told any of them about the Reiniers. I didn’t want them to get skittish around them if we ever have to work together or meet up or something. They still don’t even trust Blue, who’s been staying in his own territory for the better part of each day, only coming over to sleep as he always does. “But some of my best friends were in my family, too.” I add, feeling a little smile come to my face. “I like learning.” I change the subject before I get too stuck talking about my past.

“Humans are weird.” Bones mutters, letting the towel go still on his knee as he stares at the opened-back door.

“My best friend’s a human and she’s a little weird.” I agree with a chuckle. I feel Bones’ big, brown eyes flick over to me warily. He’s a smart kid, and knows where I’m going with this. “But there are other options if you really don’t want to go to school with humans.” I admit. “I just think you should be getting some kind of education.” I force myself to end the topic with that. “Christmas is tomorrow.”

“I don’t like Christmas.” Bones wrinkles his nose at me as he hops off the counter and follows my example of grabbing the clean plates to put away. I blink at the kid in surprise.

“How can a kid not like Christmas?” I muse aloud. Bones says nothing for a long minute, his brown eyes focused of the plates in his hands as he stares at them.

“Momma says she found me on Christmas.” He finally mutters.

“How…when?” I swallow my first fifty questions and try to be nonchalant about this new turn of topic.

“I was three,” He shrugs again, but his words are cold and devoid of his usual cheer and emotion. “Momma said she thinks they saw me shift and dropped me at the nearest Pack, but I tried to follow them back and got lost in the woods instead. Momma found me while she was patrolling.” I stare at Bones in silence. “That’s how I got my name,” He adds in a much peppier voice and smiles too-brightly at me. “‘Cause I was ‘skin and bones’ when they found me.” My mouth’s gone dry, something in my chest aching at the picture he’s painting in my head. All I can do is force a smirk to my face and reach over to ruffle Bone’s already messy hair.

“You’re still skin and bones.” I chuckle, forcing the sound out, though all I want to do is wrap this kid in a hug and swear that’ll never happen to him again. I don’t, because I can sense the paper thin armor he’s built around his heart and those memories, the barely-kept-at-bay fears that come with abandonment. And I know nothing I could say would ever be able to heal those soul-deep scars. “Speaking of which,” I begin ranting about the amount of food everyone’s been eating and how I’ll never be able to keep feeding everyone at this rate.

It’s something I’ve been telling the other Wolven for days, and most just shrug off the words, like Bones is doing right now. His body relaxes more as we chat about food and the sensibilities of ‘dog-piles’ in winter. We keep talking until all the chores inside are done, and the rest of the Pack has returned. I send the kid outside to play and call in the rest of the Pack for a conversation we’ve been dancing around for the last week.