Part 27 (1/2)

”Didn't kill him.”

I look down at my hands. There's no sign of the wolf in them. They're almost hairless. The fingernails are short and square. My stomach growls so loudly they must hear it in the apartment next door.

”So you slept with him,” Dad says. It's not a question.

”Yes,” I say softly, addressing my words to the backs of my hands.

”You lied to us,” Dad says. ”About your relations.h.i.+p with that boy. You knew it was dangerous. You promised us you would be careful. Smart. You were neither, and now he's dead. You killed him.”

”I did not! The white boy did!”

”The white boy? Oh, Micah,” Dad says. ”Don't. We've had enough of your bulls.h.i.+t.” My father never swears. ”This is what happens . . .” He stops, too full of despair to give me a lecture. This is bigger than that. ”You're going up to the farm. You can't stay here. You're not killing anyone else.”

”Dad! I didn't kill him. I didn't. The white boy did. He's a wolf, too. He did it. Not me. You have to believe me.”

Dad shakes his head. He's not even looking me in the eye.

”You can't send me upstate. I have to finish school. I've worked my a.s.s off to get this far. I've sent off my college applications. I've-”

”Let's say it is true,” my mom says. ”That there is this other wolf. It is quite a coincidence, no? That he is changed the same weekend as you?”

”Well,” I begin. It is a coincidence, I realize.

”The white boy, you say. He is a boy wolf?”

I nod.

”A boy wolf needs a girl wolf near so that he may change? That is how it works, no?”

”Yes,” I say.

”This boy wolf? He changes the exact same weekend as you?”

”Oh,” I say, realizing. ”He changed because I changed.”

Mom is right. Without a female around, male wolves don't change. The white boy changed the same time I did. Even though I'm sitting on the floor, I'm dizzy. This means I killed Zach. No. Let there be other wolves. A secret den in the city. Please don't let me have made the white boy change. All because I forgot my pill.

”Whether this white boy wolf exists or no, you must go upstate. You are a wolf,” Mom says. ”You cannot ever forget this thing that you are. Not ever.”

I don't. How is that even possible? It governs everything I do and say. Something they will never understand. ”I never forget,” I say. ”I'll find that boy. I will take him up to the Greats like they said. I'll fix this,” I say, even though there is no fixing it. Zach stays dead no matter what I do.

”Even if he exists, that boy is not the one who must go to the farm. You are. Your grandmere was right. There is no place for you here. You are too wild for the city. Too much for the city, too much for us.” Mom stands up, ducking to avoid the bikes, steps over me, careful to make no contact, and goes into their bedroom, closing the door firmly behind her. My mother has never not kissed me good night before. Not even when . . . not even the last time they were this angry.

Dad is leaning forward, his head in his hands. He's quiet but I'm afraid he's crying.

I get up, open the fridge, and pull out the remains of their dinner: half a chicken. I slip back down to the floor and finish it off, not bothering with knife and fork or napkin or ketchup, eating with my fingers, shoveling the food in so fast I don't even taste it.

Dad looks at me. I can see the disgust. My daughter eats like an animal, he's thinking.

I'm not an animal.

I am.

If it weren't for me Zach would be alive.

I can't think about that. I open the fridge, looking for more food. I think I will eat till I puke.

LIE NUMBER EIGHT.

So, yeah, I was a wolf the weekend Zach was killed.

Yes, that was a lie-yet another one-but not a total lie. I did track Zach in Central Park, did talk to him in the cypress tree, like I said. Just not that day.

There's truth in most of my lies. You can see that, can't you?

You can see, too, why I couldn't tell you? Think about it for more than half a second: back then I wasn't admitting the wolf within me. Once I did admit it, if I'd told you the truth about that weekend-what would you think?

That I killed Zach.

I didn't.

You want to know how I know, don't you?

I can remember what I do when I'm a wolf. Not every detail, not crystal clear. But hunts, I remember. Food, I remember.

Those four days, hiding in Inwood-not Central Park-I remember everything I hunted, everything I ate.

I ate fox, a feral cat, squirrel. Fox tastes G.o.d-awful. I remember every foul bite.

I did not eat Zach.

I did not see Zach.

Not while I was a wolf.

How could I have killed him?

In Central Park there aren't many places for a wolf to hide. Over the course of four days I'd've been found, locked in a cage at the zoo or something. And then-surprise!-I'd've changed back and they'd have a naked seventeen-year-old girl in a cage.

I couldn't allow that to happen.

But Inwood, Inwood is more wooded. There are caves to hide in, marshland, less people. That's why I headed there when the change started to hit and I knew I wasn't going to make it home.

Yes, I know Zach lived in Inwood but that's not why I went there. I'd figured out a long time ago that it was the safest place. h.e.l.l, it's probably the only place on the island a wolf could hide for four days. The only place that's how it was before white people, before cars, and pollution, and skysc.r.a.pers. The biggest and wildest the island has to offer.

I did not see Zach. I did not kill him.

I wouldn't. I couldn't.

AFTER.