Raised by Wolves

Chapter 6

CHAPTER 6

THE CHIEF LOOKS surprised for about a millisecond. Then he starts laughing, hard, like I’ve just told the best damn joke in the world.

“I don’t see what’s so funny,” I say.

“Sorry, you being raised by wolves strikes me as pretty unbelievable. And pretty humorous, too.”

“It’s the truth,” I say. “There’s nothing funny about it at all.” I point to my clothes. They’re old. Dirty. Claw-torn. “I found these in a dumpster. Because, remember, wolves don’t shop.”

The chief’s about to say something, but then another officer appears, dragging some kid over to the cell opposite ours. The guy’s about my age, and his hair’s a messy sweep of brown with bleached ends. He’s got big, sleepy eyes, like he’s really tired or else he just woke up.

The chief goes, “ You again?”

“Hey, Chief,” the guy says, like it’s no big deal.

“He was doing seventy-seven, and he got mouthy when I pulled him over,” the officer says. Then he looks over at us. “Are those the two juveniles that Randall’s trying to ID?”

The chief nods. Holo bares his teeth. In wolf language, this means I see you. Get lost.

Meanwhile, the shaggy-haired guy makes himself comfortable in his cell. He takes off his worn leather jacket and kicks off his scuffed black boots. When he sits down on the bed, he leans back and looks right at me. Then he smiles, slow and teasing, like he thinks it’s really cool that we’re in here together. “I’m Waylon,” he says.

Maybe it’s his heartthrob smile or maybe it’s because I ate six bags of chips and a hamburger, but my guts feel like something’s twisting them.

I growl.

I didn’t even mean to—it was instinct.

Waylon’s grin gets wider. “Yeah, I get that a lot,” he says.

Holo comes to stand next to me. He growls, too.

The police chief sighs. “Well, it looks like we’re going to have a slumber party in the jail tonight. Unless I can somehow get the wolves on the phone and ask them to come pick you two up.”

“Nah, they don’t get good reception out in the woods,” Dougie says, cracking himself up.

“ I could call them,” I say. “All I have to do is howl.”

“Do it,” Holo whispers. “I don’t want to be in here anymore.”

I put my arm protectively around him. “You know what would happen. They’d get shot the minute they set foot on Main Street.”

“They could come at night when everyone is asleep,” Holo insists.

“And how are they going to unlock the doors, Holo? I wish they could rescue us, too, but they can’t. We’re not going anywhere for a while.”

Holo nods glumly and walks over to one of the concrete beds. There’s a flimsy plastic mattress on top of it, and a yellowish blanket about as thick as the paper napkins that came with our burgers.

Watching my brother try to get comfortable on that skinny bed just about breaks my heart. I didn’t know what would happen when we came out of the woods, but I sure didn’t think it would be this. And as I lie down on my own hard bed, I worry that we’ve made an even bigger mistake than I thought.