Page 6 of Fixer
I bent and picked up the snapshots, half-a-dozen of them, blew off the dirt, and focused on each one in turn.There was Shawn, smiling, walking, pulling down a flowering branch to smell the blossoms, looking at the camera with pale blue eyes so like our mother’s, and like mine.His blond hair, more kinked than my dark curls and longer than I’d ever seen it, caught the sun.He appeared confident, at ease.Real.“He’s alive?”
I hadn’t realized I’d said that aloud until Dustin replied, “Yes.Come on.”
My stupid sweatpants didn’t have pockets, so I wrapped the photos in the washcloth and clutched them safely in my hand.Dustin and I crossed the ball field side by side and headed out of the park.After a hundred feet of trudging silently shoulder to shoulder as shock and joy and hate and regret boiled inside me, I had to ask, “You swear?It’s true?”The instant the words came out, I realized how stupid asking for reassurance was.Dustin was a pack Fixer which meant he lied and twisted people and facts into pretzels to keep the pack safe as his job.Dustin promising should mean nothing at all.
Yet, when he said, “On my mother’s grave,” I believed him.We’d both lost our mothers young.When my mom died, Dustin was one of the people who’d been there for me, day after day, silent when I wanted silent, listening when I needed to talk, sharing fragments of his past with me.That was probably when my crush on him started, at eighteen.I’d despised my own foolishness, since if anyone found out I was attracted to a man, the wolf I was crushing on would be the one to arrange my death, but I’d been helpless against Dustin’s perfection.Sometimes I’d imagined he might save me, if that moment came.
Until he destroyed my younger brother.
Only apparently not.
I tripped over a crack in the sidewalk, still unsteady at the idea that Shawn was out there in the world.Seven years.We’d been close despite our age gap, bonded by all the changes and losses in our lives.Now I’d missed such a long and vital part of his.
Questions piled up behind my clenched teeth but Dustin was right.We needed privacy for this conversation, and once we left the park, there were still folks walking home or out on their stoops, having a smoke or a chat as evening came on.The scent of cigarettes and weed came to my nose as we passed the squat brick buildings.
Dustin paused at a rust-pocked old Chevy parked in a tight space along the curb and bent to unlock the passenger side.“Get in.”
He jogged around and swung into his seat.I hesitated, my brain still thinkingDustinandtrap, but I needed to know.I forced myself to slide into the seat, pull the door shut.The thunk of our doors locked me into this small space, way too heavily scented of Dustin and wolfdom.I held the scrap of washcloth to my nose and ground out “Talk.Now!”
Chapter 3
Dustin
Talk.Easy for Wade to demand.I’d spent years deciding what I’d say to him when I finally had the chance.I’dneverplanned to start by blurting out, “I’m gay.”Hearing the words come out of my mouth almost stopped my heart, but I couldn’t take them back.I held my breath, waiting for his response.
“You’rewhat?”Shock widened his eyes.
“Uh, yeah.So.”I rubbed my face.Not the plan, not the plan.But now I’d have to start here.I was good at improvising, and I realized I wanted Wade to know my truth.“I always felt only attracted to men.Except you know how well that goes over in a wolf pack.”
Wade grimaced, pressing his lips thin.“Like a fang to the throat, yeah.”
Like decades of nightmares.“I was lucky that Dad was pack Fixer.Also that he loved the hell out of me, because when I was thirteen, he started grooming me to follow in his footsteps.At the time, he said, ‘Everything I’m teaching you, son, you also get to use for yourself.The pack’s important, the Alpha’s our leader, but you don’t have to sacrifice yourself for them, if it comes down to a choice.’That was all he said, but I read between the lines.”
I’d been shocked to hear Dad tell me to put myself ahead of Alpha, but from that moment, I never doubted his love.Or his fear for me, which shoved caution deep into my bones and probably helped me survive.
“You think he knew?”Wade asked.
“Or suspected and didn’t want to know.I dated girls to look like all the other guys, but it was hard not to notice boys or get turned on.You understand.”
“Iwhat?”Wade glared at me.
I couldn’t tell if his anger was blind, or defensive.This was probably not the time to push him for any admissions, whatever I’d suspected about him at eighteen, and twenty-two.“Because of Shawn and what happened to him, I mean.How he couldn’t hide.”
“Oh.Yeah.”
“Anyhow, I made it through puberty and got myself under control, and when Dad passed, I solved a thorny problem for Alpha, and he decided I was ready to step into Dad’s shoes as Fixer.”I’d hoped to have a lot more years as Dad’s apprentice but we lost him far too young.My heart still ached over that.“Then along came Shawn, caught with that boy from his school.He wasn’t the first pack-member Alpha sent our enforcer to round up and haul in for judgement, but he was the first I was supposed to make disappear.”
“Yeah.I remember when Alfie got beaten within an inch of his life, but he got to stay with the pack.He got a second chance, even though he terrorized humans and stole their stuff.Shawn didn’t get any chance.”The muscles in Wade’s jaw jumped as he ground his teeth.“He didnothingwrong.”
Shawn got hard and smelled of arousal around naked men.He was followed and seen kissing a boy.That was Shawn’s crime.Who he was.Fifteen, full of hormones, and gay.He was caught in the trap I’d managed to avoid, and the punishment was death.
“I don’t have to tell you the packs are wrong about us.”I squeezed my eyes shut for a moment, remembering the terror of my teen years, all the times I barely missed being in Shawn’s place.
Wade gestured violently, whacking the back of his hand against the roof of the car and cursing.“Never mind that.Tell me what happened to Shawn.”
“I’d been planning for a while, working out what I’d do if… well, if he got careless.Your stepdad wasn’t the kind to support him or look the other way.”Kurt had stood by silently, glowering, while Alpha proclaimed judgement on the kid he’d helped raise.
“No.”
