So Jack was an incomer: so what? She looked up the antonyms, too; she knew from Miss Berrin, her least favorite English teacher, that antonyms could help you figure out strange words. So she checked out related words, and some of those were fine and some of them were scary, a little.

Refugee. Relocatee. Foreigner. Those words made it sound like an incomer had things done to them, things they couldn’t help. Things that made her want to help them. Those words made her mad that the other cubs were being mean about Jack.

Migrator. Pilgrim. Pioneer. Those words made her proud that Jack was (sometimes) a neighbor. Lara had grown up less than thirty-three miles from Plymouth Rock. Pilgrims sought new challenges, wanted better lives for their families. Pilgrims braved hardship that would kill those who had stayed behind. Pioneer wasn’t just a good word, a pioneer was brave and sought new territory so they and their cubs could have better lives; pioneers were to be respected and revered.

Exile. Illegal. Alien. Those were scary. Those made Jack sound like he wasn’t just different, but that he could do things to them. Pol Pot and Idi Amin were exiles. (Cubs learned early what humans were capable of doing to their own packs. If she hadn’t seen the footage, she would never have believed they were capable of such utter insanity.)

Illegal made it sound like Jack was doing bad things, breaking Pack laws and other ones, too. And alien . . . that made it sound like he was strange and frightening and could do things no one else could.

Like his mother.

The sorceress.

The Pack was afraid of her, too, but that was a whole other thing, and it had nothing to do with why the Gardner litter had to move around so much.

Usually when Lara researched something, even when she found out bad or scary things, she felt better for knowing. After looking up incomer, she felt worse.

* * *

“This is gonna sound weird given that if you fall out the right door in this place you’re actually in the ocean,” her brother announced, slouching down the stairs, “but what smells like dead fish?”

Firmly back in the present (for the moment), Lara watched him come, amused enough to almost cheer up. Only Sean could make slouching an active verb. He was so laid back he almost came down the stairs lying down.

“You’re right,” she replied, “it sounds weird. Is this the part where I pretend you’re not down here to check on me because you and dad found the bat? Thanks for telling me, by the way. I know why Dad didn’t.”

“Yeah, he’s weird like that, what with loving you and not wanting you to worry on your first day and hoping it was some dumb coincidence. He mentioned his suicide theory, and I have to say, I was skeptical. I’m pretty sure that bat was murdered.”

“Makes two of us.” She stared into her cocoa. “I guess whoever it is left it on the kitchen stoop because there are a zillion scents around here at any time, especially the kitchen area, and it’s the busiest part of the house. It’s risky because someone might catch you sprinkling bat bits on the front stoop, but if no one does see you, it’s not likely to be discovered right that second so you’ll have time to . . . I don’t know. Get away? Get back to work? Is it supposed to scare me? I’m more annoyed than afraid. I told Kara I’d take care of the fish but she said not to worry about it. And I’m really not.”

“That’s the spirit. And to answer your question, no, this is the part where I pretend you’re not drinking the last of the cocoa, you heartless bitch. What?” he yelped, scanning the sideboard. “You scarfed all the juice, too? Green tea? That’s what’s left? Why don’t I just drink a nice cup of dirt? Huh? Is that what you want, Lara? For me to drink a cup of dirt? Will that make you happy?”

“Nice try, but I’m not distracted. Not much.” She sucked down more hot chocolate with a loud slurp. “Ahhh! Nectar of the gods.”

“Don’t blame you. People like us—”

“Here we go.”

“—who turn into wolves once a month and rut and poop on beaches and dig through the garbage dump are not known for our subtlety.”

“That’s true.” Lara smiled at him over her cup of delicious, delicious hot chocolate. “We’re not.”

“So who’s doing it? And why?”

“Extrapolate, Holmes.”

“No more word-of-the-day toilet paper for you. Listen, if somebody’s pissed about you running things, they can just roll on up and Challenge you. Now is the best time: you’re still feeling your way around, but you’re the boss now. If someone wants your throat, Dad can’t stop it. In fact, if someone wants your throat, and tears it out, Dad not only can’t stop it, he’s gotta pay fealty to the new Pack leader. Instead of leaving grotesque hope-you-fuck-up-the-new-job-bitch! gifts on the back steps, they should be kicking the door down and wanting to make with the rumble.”

“Rumble?” She almost laughed.

“Watch an old movie. Just once. That’s all I ask. Once. And you know I’m right; you know a Challenge works way better than a gut-laden welcome mat. You’re still thought of as an annoying little kid even though you’re an annoying adult. So what’s with the dead pets? It’s so dumb.”

“Not pets. A bat and a fish.”

“No, Lara. A pet fish and a pet bat.”

Shit. “I didn’t think of it like that.”

“That’s okay.” He yawned, grabbing a double handful of bacon from the sideboard. The breakfast room was splashed with so much sunshine Sean’s eyes were almost closed in a squint. He’d worn sunglasses every day for a month until their father had had enough and banned them. “You know we don’t keep you around for your great big brain.”

“So . . .” She pushed her mug over to her brother, staring at her iPad while he gulped the last three scalding mouthfuls. “Do I call Dad first, or them?”

Sean didn’t say anything, which she should have guessed. He’d tease, they’d banter, he’d make pointed remarks about her dreadful clothes or morning breath or lack of boyfriends, but for a real question? He knew it was her call. Literally her call.

She opened her mouth to make it, but cut herself off.

He’s here!

“Lara?” Debbie, one of the kitchen staff, poked her head around the corner. “We got that mess on the step cleaned up—sorry we didn’t catch it.”

“Never apologize!” Sean’s voice was muffled with bacon. “You had two hundred bacon strips to fry. That comes before everything.”

Debbie laughed at him; she’d been working in the Wyndham kitchens since their father was Sean’s age, and feared none of them. “Listen to you, boy. Slow down! Lara, hon, Jack Gardner’s here to see you. And, Sean? We can put on a new pot of cocoa if you like.”

“No, my sister’s backwash dregs are all I’m gonna need. So it goes for Pack peons. Hmm, I might have to start a club. The PPs. We’ll need a kicky slogan, though. Wait, what? Jack’s here, finally? Lara, that’ll put a smile on your hideous ugly face! I know you were wondering why they didn’t stop by yesterday.”

He was coming. She couldn’t hear him, but she could feel him.

“Lara?”

She hoped dead pets and Gardner’s arrival were only coincidences. She had no taste for what she’d have to do if they weren’t.

“Hellooooo?”

Almost there. Almost there. Almost there. She was on her feet and had no memory of moving. When had she stood? Had she always been standing?

A polite rap on the doorway (there was no actual door, just an open space that led from the kitchen hallway) and he was there. He was right there, filling her senses, her world. She could hear him filling her—or was that just the thrum of blood in her ears, the call of hers to his?

Someone was speaking to her, but their voice was tinny and fading. A tall, broad-shouldered shape and fog-colored eyes and her-his-their instant desperate need, that’s what she saw and felt.

“Hi, Jack! Great to see you! I know it’s been a couple of years—are your folks here?”

Had she always been waiting for him to return to her life?

“Are you okay?”

Yes. She had. When had the world gotten so small? It was her. And it was him.

“Jack?”

That’s all. That’s all the world was, now.

“Oh my God.”

I can’t be feeling like this unless he is, too. Impossible. Impossible. Oh, I’m not lonely anymore . . . and now I know why Dad isn’t, even if I never noticed, or thought to ask.

“Oh my God! Don’t! Don’t do anything yet!” She could almost hear the sound of furniture being knocked over in Sean’s haste to leave. “Look, I’m going, I’m going! Jack, move out of the doorway and I will leave, I promise. Jack! Move so I can flee! Jaaaaaaack!”

At last, at last, at last, Jack was moving, and he took the quickest path to her, he took two steps and then stepped on the chair and then used the chair as a stepladder to the table and plates crashed and broke and glasses shattered as he walked through bacon and broken crockery and a plate of scrambled eggs and stepped in the butter and knocked over the vase of sunflowers and plodded through the plate of sliced tomatoes to get to her and it was all taking so long.

Why, he’s been walking through breakfast looking at me for days and days! And who is screaming?

“Please wait until I get clear of the building, for the love of God! Yuck! Yuck! No, Deb, do not go in there, for your life. Or at least your eyes. No one go near this room for the rest of the day! Do we have any crime scene tape?”

CHAPTER NINE

By the time Jack reached her, he was pulling at his shirt and she had torn hers off (though it was so ancient it hadn’t needed much force). She tried to step toward him and tripped; he caught her before she went sprawling.

Then he was kicking out of his dark brown boat shoes, their bottoms caked with bacon and butter and glass shards—

(maybe he should leave them on)