How It Needed to Be Page 3

  There was another page, with Ruby’s name written in cursive. He read that one, too. “Ruby. I never got the chance to meet you, but I saw you through the window once. You were walking by the visitor room with another inmate and Vager pointed you out. Vager asked me to send you his letter after he was gone. People like us can never get stuck in the place he was and make it out, so he wanted you to know you were a bright spot in there. You gave the wolf something to protect at the end. You saved countless people, even if you don’t understand how. Just know you did, including parts of my son I wanted him to keep in the end. You have the fealty of Vager’s pack. Every Friday at ten when you hear our song, know that it’s a tribute to you, and for what you did for Vager. You have protection. If you ever need anything, please ask. We owe you one favor, however big or small you wish it to be. One favor and we will take care of it, and the song will stop. Thank you for what you did for my boy.” Divar’s voice cracked, and he rubbed his beard roughly before he read the signature line. “Tessa Hoda.”

  “Owoooooooooooooooooo,” came the cry of the first wolf from deep in the woods.

  The fine hairs on Divar’s body lifted with the next eerie howl that joined in and matched pitch. Another howled, and another, and when the first died off, the first wolf rejoined almost instantly.

  “Do you understand what you meant to him?” Divar asked.

  “I think so. I can’t go down to solitary without hearing his growling echoing off the walls. Or the times when he was done with his Change and he would say to me, ‘It’s done for now,’ in that hoarse, tired voice. He was my friend.”

  “To Vager, you were more than a friend. When the animal becomes protective, you are bigger.” Divar sighed and folded the letters, handed them back to her. “You would be better off without their attention. Wolves are crazy.”

  She held the letters tightly against her chest, and shook her head. “These are different then. They’ve never tried to talk to me, never come onto my property. They just sing to remind me of the good I did once. Someday I’ll use my favor, and I’ll be sad when the song stops.”

  “Why?”

  “Because then I’ll be alone.”

  “You have family. You have friends.”

  “That’s not what I mean.”

  “What do you mean, then?” he asked, confused.

  “I figured out werewolves really exist, and I’ll take that to my grave. How can I go back to understanding my world again? It doesn’t really exist.”

  Divar frowned and stared into the woods for a few seconds as the wolf howls died to nothing. “Why did you tell me all of this?”

  “Because we need each other.”

  “No, we don’t. I don’t need anyone.”

  A soft smile stretched Ruby’s lips. “I need you to fill the hole Vager left in me. To ease the guilt, and to give me purpose again. And you need me to stop you from what you’re doing.”

  “And what is it you think I’m doing?”

  “Dying. Throwing it away. Hunting so that you’ll be hunted.”

  How? How did she know? How did she understand? How could a human be so intuitive?

  “You gonna save me, Ruby?”

  “We are going to save each other.”

  Divar huffed a breath and shook his head. “You’re bat-shit crazy, just like those wolves out there.”

  He stood to leave, but her voice stopped him. “I don’t want to be alone.”

  Her admission was so vulnerable, and raw, and for some reason, it angered him. He didn’t like all of these feelings swirling in his middle. “God dammit, Ruby, you aren’t alone. You aren’t. You have a human life. Human friends. Human family. You just need time to forget. You might have hard days after what happened, but your life will be better if you forget all of this and leave it behind. Pretend it didn’t exist.”

  “I made you food—”

  “Are you listening to what I’m saying? Call in the favor. End the song. Quit the torture. Stay away from solitary. Heal up. Move on—”

  “Is that what you did? You ran? Is that why you’re here, in a town that doesn’t know a thing about you? I know, because I asked around. You’re a ghost, Divar. I’m not asking for much. I’m asking for friendship.”

  “I don’t make friends with humans—”

  “But you can—”

  “I’m not him, Ruby! I’m not Vager. My problems aren’t the same, my life isn’t the same. My fuckin’ animal isn’t the same.” He clenched his fists in frustration. “You know too much and you say too much and you call out too much, and that’s against the rules.”

  “What rules?”

  “My rules! The rules of my people!”

  “If they’re your people’s rules, and if we are so very different, I suppose I don’t have to mind them.” She’d said it in a soft, steely voice, and he didn’t even know how to respond.

  This one was way too smart to get sucked into a debate with.

  “I made you food,” she repeated.

  “I’m not him.”

  “I know. I made you food.”

  Divar’s growl came out utterly human. Where was the bear now? Now? Now he didn’t have anything to say? He talked twenty-four seven and now he was nowhere to be found? Divar smacked his head a few times and strode for the woods. “Don’t look back,” he muttered to himself.

  Look back.

  “Oh, there you are. Back just in time to be unhelpful,” he snarled to the bear.

  “Who are you talking to?” Ruby asked from behind him.

  Look back.

  “Fuck!” Divar turned and stared at her. “There. Are you happy? Are you happy now?”

  Yes. She’s good. Earlier you said you are good, but you aren’t. She is. She is nothing like you. Now turn around and walk back to your car. We will hunt again tomorrow. Never forget your role in this world.

  “I made you food,” she repeated softly.

  And he got stuck. Stuck between Ruby’s sweet offer and the bear’s promise of destruction.

  He wanted both.

  “Good luck with the wolves,” he murmured.

  And then he forced himself to leave. This time, he didn’t look back. He made it into the woods and out of sight of the lights of her home before he squatted down and gripped his hair at the back of his head. He gritted his teeth as a snarl rattled his entire body. He’d never been so confused.

  She’s dangerous.

  “To who?” he asked the monster inside of him.

  The bear didn’t answer, and Divar eased his eyes open in realization. “She’s dangerous to you,” he said on a frozen breath.

  Heart drumming in his chest, he grinned and stood.

  No.

  “Yep,” Divar growled as he strode through the snowy woods back in the direction of Ruby’s house.

  He opened up his senses and took a good look around, memorizing the trees, the landscape, the smells. The moment he’d realized the bear didn’t want to be friends with Ruby for his own benefit, Divar had decided he would definitely be back here again. “Maybe me and my new best friend will paint our fuckin’ nails together and watch soap opera marathons,” he gritted out.

  The snarl that rattled up his throat made him happy enough to damn-near skip through the last line of trees. The back porch heater was already turned off and Ruby had gone back inside. He made his way to the front door and knocked on the hard, cold wood.

  Ruby opened the door, her eyes full of question.

  “You said you made me food.”

  Her little confused frown was pretty damn cute.

  He sniffed the air and his mouth watered. “Beef stew?”

  “And cornbread.” Ruby stood to the side to allow him space. “Come on in. Friend.”

  Chapter Four

  Divar was as big as the house.

  At least, that’s what it felt like. The man seemed to take up every molecule of space. His spoon scraped the bottom of the bowl as he cleaned out the last bite of his third helping. Holy moly, that m
an could eat. He hadn’t said two words during his meal. As he stood to gather both of their dishes, he finally broke the silence. “What does being friends with a human entail?”

  “Are we setting ground rules?”

  “Yes. I do better with structure. I like to know what to expect.”

  “Uuuh, okay,” she said, stalling as she racked her brain for how friendship was supposed to go. “A good morning and goodnight text would be nice. Care about my day as much as I will care about yours. We both have to listen to the others’ advice, even if we don’t take it—”

  “Because we are grown ass adults who can make their own decisions—”

  “Yes. That. Even if we don’t take the others’ advice, we have to listen with an open mind.”

  He was quiet for a minute as he scrubbed out the dishes and set them into the dishwasher. Gentleman. She was impressed. “Thank you for doing that,” she said.

  “If I don’t get back to a text immediately, you have to control your girl-rage. I’m busy. I have a busy work schedule.”

  That perked her up. “Really? What do you do for work?”

  “I build decks with some of the dumbasses at the trailer park I live in.”

  “That’s awesome. So you’re handy with fixing stuff.”

  Divar narrowed his eyes. “I’m handy enough. Do you have things that need fixing?”

  “Maybe when we are deeper into our friendship, I’ll have you take a look at something out in the barn.”

  He wiped his hands on a dishtowel and admitted, “The barn sounds much more interesting than texting rules. Negotiation: I fix stuff for you, and you don’t gripe at me for being shitty at the rest of this.”

  She snorted, and nodded once. “Negotiation accepted.” She shrugged up her shoulders. “I don’t think there is a right or wrong way to be friends.”

  “Rule number whatever, you can’t fall in love with me.” He gave her a wicked grin. “It will be very tough.”

  “I think I can mind that rule,” she popped off. “Arrogant boys aren’t my type.”

  “I’m not arrogant. I’m confident. Confident men should be everyone’s type.”

  Well, he had a point. Confidence was actually the sexiest trait to her. “Fine. Deal. But you can’t fall in love with me either. There will come a time when you bring a Subway sandwich to me at my job for a lunch break, and you will see me slow-motion-walking out of the jail, bun extra tight so I have no wrinkles on my face, sauntering toward you with my clunky boots and my hand resting casually on the butt of my Taser, boobs bouncing slightly, false eyelashes blowing gently in the wind as I blink something out of my eye. Then I’ll fall, roll, bounce off the curb, and you’ll have to save me from a passing car. And then you’ll be looking down at me with my windswept eyelashes and watering eyeball, lips parted as I say something charming like ‘did you remember to get mayo on my sandwich this time?’ and you will want to kiss me, but you have to resist because it’s against the rules to fall for me.”

  He was grinning by the end of her speech, and his deep chuckle filled the air. “I think I’ll be able to control myself.”

  “Okaaay,” she drawled out in a teasing voice. “But I’ll have you know, sometimes I can be very seductive without meaning to be. It’s just my natural state.”

  “You’re wearing parachute-sized pajama pants with ducks on them,” he deadpanned, his eyes dancing with the veiled insult.

  Pointing her finger in the air, she said, “But I can cook.”

  He laughed and nodded. “I’ll give you that. That was the best dinner I’ve had in a long time.”

  “I think you ate two gallons of stew,” she pointed out as she stood and followed him to the front door.

  “I could’ve eaten more but I was trying to be polite.”

  “You should just be yourself instead.”

  He snorted. “Are you saying I’m not polite?”

  “Naturally?” she asked. “Hell no. You’ve given me four dozen dirty looks today.”

  He belted out a laugh, and she fell for the deep timbre of it.

  She wished he didn’t have to go. She wished he would stay and share that laugh with her more.

  ****

  It had been a while since Divar had laughed like that, and it felt nice being entertained by someone. For a little while, in the warmth of Ruby’s home, he’d gotten a break from the bear’s hunting. His head had gone quiet. She would never, and could never understand what a relief that had been.

  A part of him didn’t want to go.

  Out on the front porch, Divar pulled his jacket on. He didn’t really need it but he’d learned a long time ago that humans got all fidgety when he wore a T-shirt in the dead of winter, so here he was, cursed to sweat for the rest of his existence just to make the humies comfy.

  Ruby had told him to be himself though, sooo…on second thought, Divar pulled his jacket back off and tossed it inside before he closed the door behind him. When he turned around, Ruby was smiling all pretty. If he thought she was pretty. Which he didn’t, because she was a human and also annoying.

  “That’s better,” she murmured.

  Divar shoved his hands into his pockets and sauntered past her down the porch stairs, leaving her to trail behind as she wrapped a gray scarf around her neck. She jogged clumsily behind him, her fur-lined boots crunching in the snow. The barn was old and the red paint on it was peeling, but the door slid open easily enough. At least until the halfway point, when it got jammed.

  “It never really opened all the way,” she explained as she pulled the other slider open halfway too.

  Divar studied the tracks of the door. The bottom one was bent out of place but it was fixable with a well-placed kick and some WD-40 that he found on an old workbench littered with tools. He worked on it until it opened all the way easily.

  “That was awesome,” Ruby said through a megawatt grin.

  “You could’ve fixed that.”

  “Hmm,” she murmured, twirling a small screw between her fingers. “I like that you have faith that I can handle stuff like that.”

  “You work in corrections. You can probably do anything a human man can. And you probably excel when people say you can’t so something. You don’t need a hero, Ruby.”

  Ruby made her way to a pile of equipment covered by a huge brown tarp. “I think you are very observant.” She tossed him a cheeky look over her shoulder. “Ready?”

  Divar leaned up against the tool bench and crossed his arms over his chest, then nodded.

  With flair, Ruby yanked the dusty tarp off a small fleet of four-wheelers.

  “Whoa,” he murmured, making his way over to her. There were six of them in different stages of disrepair. A couple of them looked like they had been used for parts, and the others were just Frankenstein’s monsters of ATVs, all patched together. “Where did you get these?” he rumbled, kneeling beside the first one to check the foot shifter, which was loose.

  “The guy who owned the house before me was some kind of hobby quad-builder. Or a fixer, maybe. A few people in town said he fixed machines for them years ago. The realtor said he used to build these with his son, but he was deployed and the old man let them sit. When he sold me the place, he left everything in this old barn behind. I’ve never had a four-wheeler before, and now I have six.”

  “That don’t work,” he guessed.

  “That don’t work,” she agreed. “I don’t think the man’s son came back.” She shrugged up a shoulder. “I thought it would be nice if I finished the job for them, so I’ve been reading all these books on fixing them up. I tinker around in here when I can, but I still can’t get any of them to work.”

  “Is there more light in here?” he asked. She’d only turned on a single light switch at the door to a bulb high in the rafters.

  Her breath froze in front of her face as she answered, “I can try to find some.” She was smiling again, and her cheeks were rosy. She looked happy and excited, but cold.

  Without thinkin
g, Divar reached over and pulled her hood up over her head, tightened the draw strings, and then zipped her open jacket. Her breath caught in her throat, and he realized what he was doing and flinched back.

  No touching, Bear reminded him.

  “You could’ve said that while I was doing it,” he muttered to the animal as he forced his attention back to the ATVs.

  Ruby hovered for a few seconds, and then he heard her footsteps fade off as she trotted over to the wall of tools and boxes on the opposite side of the barn.

  “You talk to your animal, don’t you?” she asked.

  That’s none of her business.

  “Does that piss you off?” he asked Bear. “That she figures you out so easily?”

  We should go home. We should be in our den.

  “Yeah, I talk to him,” he answered Ruby’s question. “The animal is an asshole and has an opinion about everything.”

  “He speaks in English? Or does he growl a lot and you just interpret?”

  Divar stopped pumping his foot on the throttle of one of the ATVs and frowned at the back of her hood. “I don’t know. I’ve never thought about it before. I just understand him. Always have.”

  “Does he have a name?”

  “Asshole.”

  Bear.

  “He says it’s Bear. I say it’s Asshole.”

  She gasped and froze, her back to him. Slowly, she turned, and he could see it in her eyes—a hint of fear. “Are you a bear?”

  Oh shhhhit.

  Way to go, Numbnuts.

  Divar didn’t know why, but he felt tricked. He’d never been tempted to tell anyone about himself or his animal. That was very, very personal, but she was drawing him out like it was nothing. Like it was easy. He didn’t like it.

  “You need more light in here,” he growled. “And fresh gas in those tanks,” he said, pointing to the trio of red cans along the wall. “And someone with time who actually knows how to fix these. You won’t get all of them working, but maybe these two.” He jammed his finger at one in front and one in the back corner. “The rest are missing half of their parts.”