Wolf for Hire

Chapter Twenty Five

The
night air was crisp and humming with insect life as we ran, paws
pattering against the gravel beside the train tracks. For a brief
stretch, the wolf followed the rails, her body drinking in the speed,
the space. But soon she veered off, crossing over into the woods on the
other side—not aimlessly, but with purpose. Following the path she'd
carved the night before, when for the first time, she'd been free to
roam a forest of her own. My body—no, the wolf's body—moved with
effortless grace, slipping in and out of shadow, a creature built for
this. The freedom, the sheer exhilaration of motion, sent a thrill
through me that was alien and intoxicating.

Was
this what it felt like to be in shape? To have a body that didn't rebel
against the slightest bit of exertion? I'd done sports before—track and
field in high school, mostly at the insistence of my stepmom. It'd get
me in shape, she said. Be more athletic. That I'd feel better about
myself the more I did it.

What a miserable affair that had been.

But this? This was flying.

And
yet, beneath the rush of movement, something gnawed at her. Hunger.
Deep, insistent, primal. No joy could fully conceal the hollow ache
steadily growing at her core. All that speed, all that strength—it had
to come from somewhere. The moon gave her the power to change, to
amplify her body beyond the natural limits of her kind, but she still
had to provide the basic building blocks herself.

She needed protein. And lots of it.

With a body like hers, she was basically a 2,500-calorie furnace in need of fuel.

Boden
was still her top priority, yes, and she'd get around to that soon
enough. But, right now, the wolf wanted—needed—one thing more than
anything else.

Food.

Fortunately, she'd left herself a snack for later.

The
wolf followed her nose, weaving deeper into the woods with
single-minded purpose. The scent she tracked was pungent and potent,
laced with something earthy and metallic. To her, it was alluring. To
me, it was... itchy. Familiar in a way I couldn't quite place, like a
half-remembered dream.

Despite
our shared, smell-o-graphy memory, I was being thrown off by the fact I
was using her nose and not mine. Her perception of smell was so
different, so much more vivid, that I struggled to match the sensations
with my human experiences. But we shared a headspace. If she could rifle
through my memories like an encyclopedia, then maybe I could do the
same.

Alright, big girl, I thought. What are you after?

Food, she replied, blunt and obvious.

No shit. What kind of food?

Meat.

Helpful.

I focused, digging into the olfactory data like I was tuning a radio dial. Trying to figure out what she was after.

Venison.

Day-old, sun-warmed, half-fermented venison.

Oh, no.

Absolutely not.

The
wolf pushed through the last of the underbrush and stepped into a small
clearing—one she and her dog entourage had trampled into existence the
night before, gathering here like a pack for dinner under the stars.

And there it was.

The deer carcass. The mostly eaten, fly-ridden, dead deer I'd come across earlier. Right where she'd left it.

If
I had been there in person, the scent would have turned my stomach and
left me retching—a wave of thick, overripe decay that my human instincts
would have immediately recoiled from. The wolf's reaction, however, was
disturbingly enthusiastic. Vultures and black-feathered scavengers
scattered as we approached, dark wings beating against the night. What
had been a fresh kill was now bloated and slack, hide peeling, flesh
glossy with rot. The air buzzed with flies, and the soil beneath the
body glistened dark with fluids that had soaked into the earth, forming a
rank, squelching halo around the carcass. The trees stood still and
watchful around us, as if unwilling to get involved. Even the moonlight
dimmed here, as if in deference to the grotesque banquet awaiting us.

Through
the wolf's nose, though, it wasn't rot. It was richness. Aged, cured
carrion. An aroma layered with complexity and promise.

No, I said firmly. You are not eating that.

God forbid I woke up with some of it still in my teeth.

She sniffed at the exposed ribs, her eyes glinting with anticipation.

It's covered in flies, I argued.

More to eat, the wolf thought.

It smells awful.

It smells delicious.

It's tough. It'll take forever to chew.

Time has softened the flesh.

Damnit! That's exactly the problem!

I
scrambled for leverage. If she ate that, I'd have to sit through every
bite of it—experience every taste, every texture, every chew from the
inside. And as much as I hated the idea of waking up with a shred of
decomposing venison stuck between my teeth, what disturbed me more was
how vividly I would feel her enjoyment. I wouldn't just witness it. I'd feel
it. The revulsion, the horror, the grotesque sensory overload would all
be mine to process. And worse yet? A part of me might even like it.
Again.

The subjectivity of it all being a double-edged sword.

Yet,
fully closing off my mind to the wolf came with the unaffordable risk
of slipping into unconsciousness. Without the sensory input from the
wolf, I'd lose all track of time, cut myself off from the world,
trapping myself in my own little headspace. I'd closed my eyes for what
seemed like a moment, only to find it to be morning, myself naked, and
in someone's yard, yet again.

Last
night, when the deer had first fallen, I'd tried to shut it all out by
finding a way to distract myself with things like mental math, going
over excel commands, and coming up with an updated grocery budget. But
the heat of fresh blood, the electric pulse of the kill, the grim
satisfaction that followed—it had seeped into me. Making it not just
hers, but mine too.

And when the others joined in, tearing into their shared meal, she had radiated pride. Like a mother feeding her pups.

First day on the job, and we were already dog-moms.

And then there had been the Purina.

We'd
negotiated that meal. Or more accurately, she'd strong-armed me into
eating enough food for four dogs. Granted, four dogs that were half her
size, but still. She didn't care that I felt bloated or uncomfortable.
Thoughts of inconveniencing me rarely crossed her mind, particularly
when it came to food.

The real trick wasn't just bargaining—it was understanding how she thought. How any food-motivated creature thought.

Perhaps a bit of compromise was warranted.

If you wait, I bargained, I'll
help you find something better. There are restaurants along the tracks,
with dumpsters full of leftovers. We could find you a burger. Fries.
Another rotisserie chicken. Something fresher than this.

I paused, letting the thought sink in.

Wouldn't you prefer that? I asked.

Of course she would.

The wolf loved dumpsters. Loved them the way someone with a gambling addiction loved corner store lotto tickets.

I
knew this because, before I figured out how to properly lock her away
inside my apartment, she used to go out on her own. Wander the streets
during full moons, chasing strays and digging through trash. I
remembered fragments of those nights like dreams soaked in fog. The many
treasures she'd uncovered rooting through people's garbage. And her
desires lingered in the daylight, bleeding into me as subconscious
urges. Little things. The desire to peek into alleyway bins. To follow
the scent of meat someone had tossed out unfinished.

Dumpsters were her box of chocolates: never knew what she was going to get.

Not
only that, but the wolf loved human food. Even dog food was technically
human food to her—created, packaged, and seasoned by people. It had
complexity. Variety. Flavor. And we humans, in all our wasteful glory,
threw out so much of it for no good reason.

Grocery stores. Restaurants. Dumpsters packed with meals that never got eaten.

The wolf loved to capitalize on it.

But the worst part?

Sometimes, I caught myself checking, too. Sometimes when the Auto-dog got the better of me. Sometimes out of sheer curiosity.

Hell,
there was a whole online community around it. Dumpster divers.
Freegans, they called themselves. People who raided grocery bins and
scored full hauls of fruits, vegetables, canned goods—entire boxes of
perfectly good food. The wolf, naturally, was fully on board with such a
movement, whereas I just abhorred the idea of waste. I who'd barely two

dimes to spare on expense.

So
yeah. I was willing to swap rotten meat for garbage food anyday, and
call it progress. Besides, if I wanted to keep the wolf from tearing
into a bloated carcass like it was fine cuisine, I was going to have to
make some concessions.

The
wolf weighed my offer with a flicker of consideration. And, just as I
suspected, she was all for it. Dumpsters? Human food? A moving buffet of
smells and surprises? Yes, please.

The
wolf stepped back from the carcass, suddenly eager to try her luck with
the unknown treasures waiting in the many fragrant metal boxes
scattered across the city.

Relief washed over me.

Now I just had to figure out how I was going to talk her out of eating actual trash when the time came.

But
then the wolf's stomach rumbled again—that second brain of hers already
daydreaming about another rotisserie chicken haul. I felt her mind
pivot.

She stopped.

Turned.

Because of course she did.

She needed a snack for the road.

Wait—

Before
I could stop her, she shoved her head into the deer's chest cavity and
tore into the remaining flesh. I screamed in protest, tried to rein her
back, but was overwhelmed by the sensory input. I would say that I was
in agony, but the wolf was enjoying herself. Thoroughly. So objectively,
the input itself wasn't bad at all. In fact, I could easily enjoy it
too.

This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

You know, if I could overlook that fact we were eating a rotten corpse.

The
rich, fatty taste burst across our shared senses, like some awful ASMR
mukbang I couldn't mute. I tried to recoil, to mentally turn my chair
around and face the wall, but I couldn't fully sever the connection.

To
abandon awareness was to let go of the wheel. There was too much at
risk, and I wasn't ready to meet Childs face-to-face in court so soon.

So I endured.

The
wolf's delight was unfiltered and deeply inconvenient. The warmth, the
yielding texture, of what was probably the deer's spleen. Or maybe the
kidney? I didn't know—JT was the vet, not me. All I knew was that she
was having a great time, and I was having to suffer through it like I
was stuck at the table with someone chewing with their mouth open.

Bloated
black flies buzzed lazily around our head, landing on our ears with the
casual entitlement of creatures that knew they were unwelcome and
didn't care.

Then I felt it—something creeping along the back of my neck. Slow at first. Then quickly.

A flicker of movement. The faint squish of a dying fly as two inch-long fangs sank into it.

Oh great. He was still here too.

Elmo.
Who'd managed to cling to the nape of our neck throughout the entirety
of the prison break, had come to join us for dinner.

Just the company I was looking for.

The
wolf had returned to the train tracks, her paws once again pounding
over the gravel. We passed beneath a corridor of high-voltage power
lines, the air thick with static, the wires humming like invisible
wasps. The charge in the air made her fur bristle—thrilling,
uncomfortable, alive. The tracks led us through a narrow ribbon of
trees, threading a border between the sleepy neighborhoods of Shadow
Ferry and Garden Creek, the rails serving as a border between these two
lesser kingdoms of suburbia.

We
skimmed past Springfield Elementary, its dark windows like bland, empty
eyes. Then we dipped under the yawning span of the Ashley River Road
overpass, the underside of the concrete bridge decorated with graffiti
and Virginia Creepers, before veering toward the same-named river.

The
wolf exited the corridor of trees as she crossed the Ashley River,
leaving behind West Ashley—now just a smear of dark woods and scattered
porch lights. Ahead, North Charleston glowed in the night, countless
lights twinkling through the haze, the scent of the city riding the
wind. The drawbridge was down and its control booth unmanned.

Well, damn.
Here, I'd been hoping that the wolf's night would've come to an abrupt
end. But there was no boat traffic at this hour to warrant raising the
tracks.

I could only be so lucky.

The
wolf stole across the bridge, paws whispering over the asphalt, the
wind combing through our fur. Even at this pace—a casual lope, by her
standards—we were easily breaking a four-minute mile. Who needed a car
when you could outrun Forrest Gump? The wolf exulted in it—the speed,
the power, the effortless rhythm of muscle and momentum.

She could easily outrun any Olympic sprinters with what was basically a warm-up jog for her.

I,
on the other hand—or paw—was understandably fixated on the sinew still
caught between our teeth. It wasn't the taste that bothered me—the
wolf's palate didn't register it as foul—but I knew it would be there
come morning. She'd had her snack, and now she was enjoying a nice jog.
Me? I was obsessing over how foul my breath was going to be in the
morning. I'd need to scrub my mouth with actual detergent, maybe gargle
bleach. And whatever had ended up in my hair? I'd have to deal with that
too, and the thought made me shudder.

And
then there would the inevitable crash. Returning to my own body after
this—after feeling so light, so strong—was going to be hell. I hadn't
properly slept in days, nor had I eaten any real food that didn't come
in a can with a dog on the label—aside from a sole bag of mixed salad.
Tomorrow I was going to wake up sore, moody, and feeling like I had a
hangover, but without the fun of partying. The wolf wouldn't have to
deal with any of that. She'd be long gone, curled up somewhere in the
back of my mind, leaving me to pick up the pieces—with sluggish limbs,
the itchy skin, the sour sweat, the aching joints.

How
was I supposed to go back to normal? To live in this meat suit of mine
and pretend everything was fine? I definitely needed to hit the gym,
maybe do some cardio that didn't involve being chased by my own life
choices. But if I could barely afford rent, who was I kidding thinking I
could swing a gym membership?

But
then again, gym memberships were actually kind of practical when you
were homeless. A locker to stash your things, showers to stay clean,
equipment to keep yourself in shape. Working out helped with stress,
too. But mostly, it kept you from looking and smelling homeless—which,
let's be honest, made a big difference when trying to hold onto a job.

Hard to get a job, or keep a job, when you smelled like you never bathed.

The
marsh stretched out around us as we reached the eastern bank of the
Ashley—a mile or so of black mud and reeds sprawling in every direction.
The air was thick with salt and pluff mud, the night alive with the
chirp of crickets and the click-bubble chatter of a thousand fiddler
crabs. The night was quiet—no engines, no horns—just the kind of
stillness that made every small noise seem louder by contrast.

The wolf slowed as we reached the mainland, her gait relaxing. She listened, she sniffed—curious, alert. Taking in the night.

And then she stopped.

Her head turned. Ears flicked forward. Nose quivered.

She'd smelled something that caught her attention.

And it didn't require a lot of brain cells to figure out what it might be.

It was food. Obviously.

The aroma of seared meat, grilled vegetables, and charcoal smoke.

Well. Shit.

It was the smell of a cookout.

I
had hoped the wolf would be too fixated on running, sufficiently
satiated from her snack to notice something like this. I was already
dreading how I'd keep her out of trash cans once we hit downtown—I
hadn't even considered that something else might tempt her before she
even got there. Which, in hindsight, was shortsighted. It was a holiday
weekend. People were apt to celebrate early. A little backyard cookout
here or there. Some families jumping the gun by a day or two in advance.
Hell, some folks were already setting off fireworks—sporadic pops
echoing in the distance, some blooming into bursts of color, others just
making a racket.

So yeah. She had smelled food. A lot of it.

A curious scent she hadn't smelled before.

The wolf rifled through the AJanencyclopedia™,
pulling up old summer memories of backyards and ball games, folding
chairs, paper plates, and meat that hissed when it hit the grill. I
hadn't always been a vegetarian—I'd grown up Southern, after all. I'd
attended more church potlucks, park cookouts, and family barbecues than I
could count. So yeah, I had a comprehensive mental catalog of
everything edible you might find at a gathering like this.

At
first, the wolf was confused by the burnt smell, but once she accessed
my memories of burgers and hotdogs and charred corn on the cob, her
interest sharpened. Her mouth watered.

I cursed myself. Me and my life experiences. I was only making her hungrier.

She
followed the scent into a neighborhood, slinking low as she left the
tracks and passed through a shallow patch of marshy grass. The ground
was damp and soft beneath our paws, reeds brushing our sides. She
slipped into the brush that bordered the yard, the house a modest brick
one perched along the water. It wasn't much for size, but the lawn was
generous—an open sprawl of grass edged by shrubs and patchy brush, with a
few narrow footpaths snaking toward the marsh, likely for fishing or
launching a kayak.

It looked like half the neighborhood had shown up for the occasion.

Tiki
torches sputtered against the dark, casting golden halos over a circle
of people standing around a fire pit. On the deck, someone manned a
grill, flipping burgers with casual ease. Folding tables held trays
covered in foil, plates stacked high, red Solo cups scattered across
surfaces like petals.

The
wolf crept forward through the brush, drawn by the smell but wary of
the crowd. She moved like a shadow—slow, fluid, calculating. Her mind
was already working out the logistics: wait near the edge, snatch a
burger from an unsuspecting guest who wandered too close, and disappear
back into the thickets.

A hit-and-run snack attack.

To
be fair, she wasn't the only one considering it. A handful of dogs
already roamed the party, eyes locked on their owners' plates, waiting
for that one distracted moment. Didn't matter if it was meat, coleslaw,
or potato salad. Food was food.

One
of those dogs—maybe less hungry or more vigilant than the rest—lifted
his head as we moved. His head turned, focusing in on our location.

And then—a bark.

The
dog—muscular, maybe part Staffordshire, maybe part Doberman, definitely
part high-strung—locked eyes with us. His hackles shot up, and he
launched into a barking frenzy, yanking his leash free from his owner's
grip. Then he charged, crashing through the underbrush—

And stopped dead.

The wolf did not move. Did not bare her teeth. Did not even raise her hackles. She didn't need to.

She
growled. Low. Deep. The kind of sound that made your spine tingle and
your teeth rattle. She didn't lunge or snap—just wanted to see how sure
of himself this little tough guy thought he was. A test of nerves,
nothing more. How he handled a taunt from a creature that knew she could
end him in a single move, but chose not to.

The
dog's bravado crumbled. He shrank, ears flattening, tail tucking
between his legs. He let out a small, panicked yip and bolted back to
the safety of his people.

The wolf held her head high, gloating, proud of having put the little tough guy in his place.

But the victory was short-lived.

Chairs
scraped back. People stood, turning toward the dog that had just burst
from the brush. A few backed away from that edge of the lawn, uncertain.
Others crept forward, peering into the dark hedges.

They didn't know what had spooked the dog—but they all knew something was there.

Saltwater
crocodile perhaps. Or perhaps a bear—but let's not get ridiculous here.
A bear, this far down the peninsula? That would be as unheard of as...
well, a werewolf.

The wolf began to retreat, slipping backward into the shadows before any eyes could find her.

Alone,
humans were weak, slow. But together, they could be dangerous. She
would not test them tonight. She didn't fear a lone human. But a pack?
That was different.

Packs were always stronger.

That dog was part of their pack too, I chimed in. And he protected them by warning them of you.

The wolf considered this.

I pressed on. That's what people do. We make packs. Not just with each other—with animals, too.

I
wasn't totally sure where I was going with this. Ad-lib philosophy at
best. But the moment felt right—like I had a chance to make a point to
her about something. Something about thinking beyond her
single-mindedness. Something about the bigger picture.

A thought flickered through the wolf's mind. Monty?

Ah. So she was getting it.

Yes. And Carl. And the others at Sandy's, I said. Not just the dogs. They're all part of our pack.

I let that hang for a moment, then pushed further. And so is JT. So is Sandy. They're here to help us. And we'll in turn help them.

It was a little "do as I say, not as I do," considering how much help I'd let JT offer me.

Still. I wasn't wrong.

She
absorbed this, thinking—circling around the idea as it began to take
root. Not just Sandy's animals. Not just the dogs. She was reassessing
the way she categorized others. A quiet relabeling. People could be part
of her pack. People like JT.

But she kept sorting through my memories, evaluating more faces. Judge Childs surfaced.

Pack?

Uh... no, I said, not sure how to explain.

Enemy?

Also no.

Then what?

I'd have scratched my head if I could.

It's. Well... complicated. Leave that one alone for now.

The next thought came with a voice. Vanessa, V, from the phone call earlier.

Pack?

Sort of, I replied. More of a friend.

The wolf decided friend was just another flavor of pack.

Then came Patty, the woman from the church who helped with Phin and Ferb.

Pack?

An acquaintance, I said. Kind of like a potential friend.

The wolf added that one to the pile, too. Another subcategory of pack.

You know, if you want them to be your friends, part of your pack, I continued, you have to earn it.

She didn't resist the idea. Just turned it over, thoughtful.

How?

For starters? Don't hurt them.

A
memory surfaced—one we both shared. JT, seated in the grass, clutching
his arm and chest, reaching over to pet Maggie. The wolf lingered on the
image longer than I expected. I felt her thoughts catching on a snag,
puzzling out a contradiction: if JT was supposed to be part of the
pack... why had we hurt him?

I stiffened. That was different.

She disagreed. You hurt him.

I was protecting him from you! And you know it!

The
wolf paused again, chewing over what I'd said. I could sense the gears
turning, her frame of mind shifting—subtle, but familiar. The same shift
I'd felt before, that moment she outmaneuvered me by thinking more like
a human. When she'd tapped into her own Auto-Jane.

Then came the question. Or more of an idea, but formed and directed at me with surprising clarity.

Are we a pack?

This made me pause.

The
wolf had never acknowledged me directly like this. Not really. I'd
always felt like her shoulder-angel, the nagging voice of reason perched
behind her ear. Meanwhile, she'd been my shoulder-devil—my Auto-dog,
barking for chaos and indulgence.

And now here she was, actually addressing me.

With a heavy question to boot.

I hesitated, thinking carefully.

No, I said slowly. We're not a pack.

If anything, it felt like we were more of a pact than a pack.

You resent me?

Again with the heavy questions from left field.

Yes, I said.

Why?

Because you ruined my life.

Silence stretched.

Then, she spoke again. You made this pack.

What? I thought, trying to parse this question.

The
wolf tried to clarify. She dug through our shared history, tracing
backward. She recalled last night, when I'd called to her, woken her
early, so we could face Carl together. The night before that, when I
lulled her to sleep, and several other nights like that. The memory
blurred as it stretched further back, dissolving into something
abstract. A dream half-remembered.

To something before. Before, when...

She couldn't remember.

Her
stomach growled, and just like that, the introspective, borderline
philosophical wolf vanished. The moment snapping like a twig. Whatever
complex thoughts had been unfurling in her mind were replaced with a
single, insistent craving.

She nudged me—less a request, more a reminder. I'd promised her food, and she hadn't forgotten.

Of course she hadn't.

So much for a constructive conversation.

I sighed. Fine. Let's go find a dumpster.