How do they do it? The humans, I mean. I lasted about five minutes inside the nylon sleeping bag, surrounded by that shell of polyester and silicone, before I bolted out, falling to the grass, my feet already lengthening.
Before I leave the basement, I pull the hoodie tight around my head to hide my telltale hair. I am a silver. Silvers aren’t common, but we aren’t rare either. It just means a wolf with light underfur and pale gray fur on top. In skin, their hair tends to be dark blond or light brown.
When I’m wild, one tendon stays too tight and cripples me. When I take on skin, my hair stays silver. Just so I never forget who and what I really am.
Gran Tito is up early as usual. His nose has started to fail, but I still steer clear of him as I make my way to the med station behind John’s office. Two hospital beds with bedside monitors, ventilators, a freestanding anesthesia system, ultrasound. Mobile storage units are loaded with drugs and first aid necessities. We’re strong and resistant to illness and heal quickly, but if we get injured, we can’t go to the hospital. Everything about us—our lung function, blood composition, urinalysis, resting heart rate, everything—screams alien.
Two big bottles of saline wash, gauze, erythromycin, absorbable suture, lidocaine. Electrolytes.
Someone has started the coffeemaker, which means the Pack will be up soon. Moving carefully out the front door of the Great Hall, I sling the backpack on and make a headlong rush deeper into the trees.
By the time the door closes, Home Pond is behind me.
I’ve never walked this far in my skin. I’m slow on the path and even slower when I leave it, and at least one of my two feet snags on every bush and root and rock and fallen tree. At Clear Pond, I heave myself into the water, panting like a hunted elk before filling up the water carrier.
The Shifter doesn’t wake up easily, even when the saline sluices over his torso and his jacket. I give him water and wait until I’m sure he’s awake to give him a tablet the size of a water bug. I add electrolytes to the rest of the water because if he gets the heaves, he’ll vomit up the antibiotic.
I cut away at the gore-glued jacket, pouring on more saline and letting it soak, while I wash my hands with chemical cleanser and pull on the gloves.
“You the bitch from last night?” he croaks.
The jacket is still sticking, so I drench it with more saline.
“I said, you the—”
What he says next silences the birds for miles. He curls into a fetal position, his teeth grinding audibly.
The torn and bloody remnants of the jacket hang slack in my hand. Wow. What happened to you? Because ripping away the remains of the jacket has exposed not only the explosion of claw marks underneath, but also the vestiges of a whole lot of other savaging. He’s got neat slices, like knife cuts, on one forearm. Three small craters at his left shoulder. I’m guessing a “hunting accident” like Sofia’s “hunting accident” from twenty moons ago, when a hunter shot her twice. It was no accident, but we continue with the fiction because the pups already have so many nightmares about humans.
But the scariest marks? They’re claw-made. Most Pack have scars of some sort, though John has asked that we avoid muzzles during fights, because gouged eyes and clawed cheeks make potential Offland employers nervous.
Still, our scars are not like this. They’re not like this tattered collar at the base of his throat. One of the tears stretches all the way through his nipple.
The worst thing is I can tell they are old and he isn’t.
“What…what wolf would do that to a child?” It’s no more than a voiceless whisper to myself. He shouldn’t have heard, but I think he may have.
“Do me the favor of losing the tragic face, runt.” His voice isn’t angry, just brusque and cold and quiet.
“Turn over,” I say and start to pour chemical cleanser into his wound. “I will not answer to ‘runt’ or ‘cur’ or ‘dog’ or ‘bitch.’ Now, if you feel like playing nice, I can give you a local. If you don’t, that’s fine too, and I’ll stitch you up raw. I’ll warn you, though: I’ve helped doctors do this, but it’ll be my first time doing it myself.”
He licks his cracked, dry lips and with one hand gestures toward the wrapped lidocaine syringe I hold in my hand. I inject it in a circle around the wound.
“You were really lucky.”
“This is lucky?”
“Well, what I mean is, something like this? There’s always gut damage. But not here. There was some hemorrhaging, but that’s already stopped.”
“I heal quickly,” he says, craning his neck to watch me cut the flat plastic container holding the suture and the needle. Starting with the muscle, I set the clamp. He lies back down and stares at me. I’m not used to being noticed, and it makes me uncomfortable. It’s one of the perks of being a subordinate wolf. As long as you do your work and don’t get in the way, nobody pays attention. Not like the dominant ranks, where someone’s always watching to see if you’re getting sloppy or slack or stupid and it might be the right time to take you down.
Hard to tell what he’s thinking. Leonora, who teaches human behavior, says humans rely on words more than “nonverbal cues,” but that we should still be careful because what humans say isn’t always what they mean. Humans convey disapproval in many ways, she says. Unfortunately, none of them are as clear and expressive as carnassials slicing through your calf.
“Can we start over?” he finally says. “What’s your name?”
“Sil,” I say, holding the skin up with the clamp for a new anchor knot. “You can call me Sil.”
“Sill? Like windowsill?”
“No, Sil like Silver.”
His hand moves up to a silver strand that worked its way loose from the messy knot at the back of my head. He has long, strong fingers, smooth dark skin, and kempt nails. Not like my own rough, pale hands crisscrossed with scars from downed hawthorn branches and weasels that didn’t want to be eaten.
“It’s short for Quicksilver. It was meant as a joke. Irony.”
“Well, Quicksilver, you can call me Ti.”
“Tie? Like tie-dye?”
“No, like Tiberius.”
“Pffft. No irony there.”
“Nope. None at all,” he says, his voice tight and fading. “Are we almost done?”
“Two down. Only four more to go.”
“You know, if it’s all the same t’you,” he slurs, “I was thinking I mi’ pass out.”
And just like that, he does.
Fever, blood loss, shock, and cold all conspire to keep him passed out through the last stitch and the bandaging. I tape the edges of the dressing. This is going to leave a big scar. Another big scar.