Sinner

Even lower to the ground, he slunk away, fast, but there was still nowhere to go. He was trying to look brave and aggressive, but this world was small and unfamiliar and fiery, and he couldn’t bluster himself out of this trap.

It was starting to get hot in here. Come on, Cole. Come on.

The burning display began to release uneven smoke in opaque clouds. In two seconds, the fire alarm was going to go off.

All I needed was for the fire department to show up and call the cops to shoot this wolf.

Isolate the worst part of the problem.

I took my chances. I grabbed a vegan leather jacket from the wall and bolted across to the burning display. I beat the flames.

I didn’t know what vegan leather was, but it melted.

As I hit the flames again and again, the wolf shot away from me, back toward the front of the store. His eyes were locked on me. Making sure I wasn’t a threat. Or maybe looking at the fire, making sure it wasn’t a threat. In any case, he didn’t see the frontmost display in time. He barreled right into it. This one was lit with low, stubby candles that wouldn’t tip. But he crashed right into it. I smelled a quick flash of singed fur.

Overhead, the fire alarm went off. Loud and pure and continuous.

And he broke.

The wolf clawed up the table opposite, dashing candles every which way. Everywhere, I saw flames catching and holding.

The tables of shirts, the racks of leggings, Cole’s piled clothing. Even Sierra’s plants gave themselves up, dried leaves curling first, and then the others wicking the fire hungrily. It was as if this entire place had been rigged as a bomb.

I dashed to the back counter and got my bottle of water. I soaked the edge of one display. It was such a useless gesture. In the back room — was there something larger? When was the fire department going to get here? Did I just let the wolf out into the street?

I couldn’t think. The fire alarm screamed at me to get out.

Cole had pressed himself into a corner, ears flat back against his head, shaking.

“How can this not be hot enough for you?” I snarled.

But it was hot enough. Because he was shaking with the shift.

Now his paws had become fingers, and they clutched the wall and scrabbled on the concrete, and his head was bent, shuddering, and then it was Cole, the boy, the monster. Naked and human, curled in the corner.

I hurt. Everything in my heart hurt so bad, seeing him, smelling the wolf, watching everything get absolutely destroyed.

His eyes were wide. Flames flickered in the shine of them.

“God,” he said.

The flames came no closer because of the concrete floor and walls. The only thing in here for the fire to eat was everything Sierra had made and everything I’d grown.

I heard sirens in the distance. Fire. Police. Cameras. Proof.

“You can’t be here,” I told him, more furious than I could imagine, though I didn’t know yet what, exactly, I was furious at. I hurriedly kicked off my boots and peeled off my leggings from under my long tunic. I threw them at him. “Put those on.

Get out. Go out the back.”

The windows out front were suddenly filled with the dark red of the fire truck.

“But —”

My stomach felt sick with the ruin of all of it. In five minutes, Sierra was going to pull up. Nothing felt real. Or else, this was real, and nothing else had ever been.

I screamed, “Get out of my life.”

Cole shook his head like he was angry, and then he jerked on my favorite leggings. The front door came open, a suited fireman framed by it.

“Are you alone?” shouted the fireman.

I glanced over to the corner. Cole was gone.

When something caught on fire, you could say It went up in flames or It all burned down. Up and down at once. Everywhere.

It was all just destroyed.

I said, “Yeah.”

Chapter Fifty

· cole ·

This is what they don’t tell you about being a werewolf.

They don’t tell you you’ll have to run from a burning building wearing a pair of too-tight rainbow-skull-printed leggings to avoid being implicated in arson. They don’t tell you that when you run to your car, you’ll remember you threw your car keys into a potted plant in front of the building you just burned down and that you’ll have to return to the scene of the crime with as much discretion as a three-fourths grown man in a pair of very shiny leggings can manage before the personal effects can be found by someone who might rename them “evidence.”

They don’t tell you that when you kneel with grace and dignity to retrieve the keys, you’ll rip the seam of the shimmery leggings right up from the ankle to what God gave you.

They’d probably tell you that being na**d in public was illegal, if you asked.

But they don’t tell you how tiring it is to run from cops when you’ve just been two species in quick succession and then had to run to your car and then back again.

They don’t tell you how this long-haired guy will try to give you his number as you’re running and flapping and bouncing your way back to the parking lot in the most circuitous way possible, so as to not lead the cops back to your Mustang, which by now you wish had died in the last fire you set.

They don’t tell you how many people are going to get photos of Cole St. Clair, three-fourths naked, running around Santa Monica.

They don’t tell you how hot black cloth seats get after the sun’s come out and you sit in them and you’re wearing nothing or next to it.

They don’t tell you how even though you won’t remember a thing from when you were a wolf, you’ll remember the look on your now-ex-girlfriend’s face right before and right after for the rest of your life.

They don’t tell you anything. No, that’s not true.

They tell you, Come on, be a wolf. You’ve been looking for something for a while, and this, boy, is what you were looking for.

Chapter Fifty-One

· cole ·

f live: Today on the wire we have young Cole St. Clair, former lead singer of NARKOTIKA. We had him on the show five weeks ago, just after he signed on with Baby North of SharpT33th.com. Did I hear a collective gasp? No worries, he’s survived, it seems. You’re just about done with the album, right?

cole st. clair: Da.

f live: How would you rate the experience on a scale of one to ten?

cole st. clair: Somewhere between an F and a hydra.

f live: That’s the kind of math I expect from rock stars.

You told me before we started rolling that you had just one track left to record. Then what?

cole st. clair: You tell me.