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I slunk back to the fleabag motel where my pack camped, exhausted and craving my family. Halfway there, my head started pounding. The sensation was sharp, intense...then abruptly gone.
I shook away transient pain and kept on running. By the time I made it to the foot of the stairs leading up to the motel landing, dawn was just beginning to gray the sky.
The hour was either very late or very early, depending on your perspective. I didn’t expect anyone to have waited up for me. But as soon as I shivered out of my wolf body, the door swung open above my head.
Darkness fled. Light cupped me. My twin stepped out onto the concrete landing and leaned down over the rail.
Like Justice and Bastion, Grace and I were biologically identical...yet we’d never be mistaken for each other. Grace was well named, her body slender where mine was athletically curvy. Perfectly managed hair poured over her right shoulder in stark contrast to my endlessly tangled mop of curls.
Until recently, we hadn’t spent more than a weekend of our adulthood together. Grace had focused on finishing up her undergraduate degree at RISD before landing a sought-after fashion-design internship. I’d been hunting criminals with Bastion while attempting to redeem my sins.
No wonder we had very little to talk about.
Now, though, Grace and I were united with one purpose. “How is he?” I asked, slipping past so I could peer around the door jamb. Justice was hunched over a computer in one corner. A dark lump on the opposite bed was smaller than it should have been.
“Worse.” Grace breathed out through her nose, as frustrated as I was. We both watched as Bastion turned restlessly underneath heavy covers. It was high summer, yet our cousin could never seem to get warm.
Then he moaned, and my feet carried me closer until I could lean over where he curled beneath the bedspread. Tomorrow, we would revamp our plan for finding Bastion’s pelt. We’d discuss avenues Justice might have found online while I was bounty hunting. Then the three of us would turn our strategy into fact.
Tonight, all I could do was give my favorite cousin a little fleeting comfort. My pelt slid off my shoulders as if it was a living being. I shook out the skin to its full extent, let it drift down to cover Bastion like a shroud.
No, not like a shroud. Like a blanket. A cocoon, both warm and healing.
For a moment, nothing happened. Then Bastion’s deep exhaustion bit into my bones.
He wasn’t just worse; he was floundering. There was little of my cousin left inside this body. Just fever and emptiness leading to dark, endless sleep.
His eyes had sunk into their sockets, his family resemblance to our dead parents during their last week of life starkly evident. Bastion was dying because of my mistake, just as Justice and Grace would decline if the thief started using their stolen pelts.
No wonder the pair wanted nothing to do with me. Yet when my legs buckled, hands were there to catch me. Justice on one side, Grace on the other. Together, my family lowered me until I lay next to Bastion on the bed.
A damp cloth materialized on my forehead. Someone’s fingers twined through mine. I barely felt the contact, so intense was the agony of virtual ice picks pounding into my skull.
Beside me, Bastion stirred. Sat up. “You shouldn’t...” His hand was steady as it peeled the pelt off his chest and shoulders.
As the fur lifted, pain eased within me. The two-day-old lines bracketing Bastion’s mouth tightened at the exact same moment.
Either I bore the pain or he did. I was grateful when Grace reached over and dislodged his fingers.
“Leave it,” Grace said sternly. “She wants to.”
The pelt fell. The pain returned with a vengeance. My head now pounded like a gong being rung by a dozen drunk chimpanzees.
And for once, my twin was right. I did want this.
I nodded. Bastion hesitated, then left my pelt where it had fallen across his body.
Relieved, I reached for returning agony as if it was a hand-quilted comforter, pulling it close around my sullied soul.
***
“GET UP.”
Hard hands pushed me off the edge of the bed and I didn’t manage to grab onto anything solid. I hit the ground butt-first—good thing my rear end is padded.
“Whereza fire?” I slurred as I blinked open my eyes. Sun poured through the window, turning Justice into a silhouette. But I understood his head shake. As he turned away, I could imagine him rolling his eyes.
No wonder he was pissed. It felt like only a few minutes had passed since I let unconsciousness salve my agony, but the sun’s position suggested I’d slept for most of the day. Behind me, Bastion was once again hunched under the covers, my pelt discarded. He must have soaked up every ounce of the energy I’d manage to store during my short time in fur the previous night.
Was it just my imagination, though, or did he seem to be sleeping more soundly than he had yesterday? That realization did more than an aspirin for melting away the pounding inside my skull.
“There is no dog.” Grace prodded me with a pointed boot toe, reminding me that I couldn’t sit on the mildewed carpet forever.
The floor slipped sideways as I tried to press myself up to standing. My hair frizzed across my face, blocking my view. I grabbed onto the side of the bed to balance myself while my balance spun like a tilt-a-whirl. “You know that how exactly?” I croaked.
“Went through their garbage.” I raised my eyebrows and Grace flushed. “Justice went through their garbage,” she corrected herself. “No Alpo cans.”
“So they feed it dry dog food.”
“...and I dropped by to see the town dog catcher. Nobody from that address has ever applied for a dog license.” This time, Grace didn’t wait for my argument. “Yes, I know that’s private information. But I dressed to impress. He looked it up for me anyway.”
I reached across the rumpled bedspread to regain my pelt. The fur was cold at first, but hairs warmed as I stroked them. Alertness unfurled inside my human skin.
With returning clarity came the harsh reminder of reality. One week after each of our parents had started to decline, they’d faded away at midnight.
My stomach clenched. That wouldn’t happen to Bastion. I wouldn’t let it.
“Today’s day three,” I said aloud, running the back of my hand across Bastion’s forehead. Beads of sweat came away on my fingers, but he didn’t move beneath my ministrations.
As best we could tell, being separated from our pelts only caused harm once someone started using the missing items. That same manipulation gave us a small window of opportunity when we could track down the stolen skin.
Unlike with our parents, this time we’d been lucky. Proximity and youth meant Bastion had been able to point us in the direction of his stolen pelt before he became delirious.
Unfortunately, he was no longer strong enough to narrow down the search window. Our luck was rapidly running out.
Or maybe not. “Five hours until showtime,” Grace informed me, waving what appeared to be a newspaper clipping through the air in triumph. When I just stared in confusion, she deigned to elaborate.
“Benefit party at the Smythewhites this evening.”
It was time to create our own luck.