Brown trees, brown grass, brown as far as the eye could see—which, up here, was really not that much. April was an ugly time of year. Sam didn't understand the joy people got from it. Until the leaves were fully blooming, she found spring to be tiring. Endless bare trees with patches of snow at their feet rolled past the windows with little else to liven things up.

How long had they been driving for? What year was it? Sam had been in that car longer than she had been alive. She had doom-scrolled through every social media platform she was on—twice—and read an entire book since they left late at night. All that on top of having done a four hour shift behind the wheel.

Driving to Thunder Bay had sounded like a good idea at the time. Somewhere around eight in the morning she stopped feeling that way. Now all she wanted was to be at home having a hot meal and relaxing on the couch. Instead her butt was sore and she was losing feeling in her right leg.

Aidan was a little too comfortable behind the wheel. Sam did her best to ignore the speedometer as it crept closer and closer to 130km/h in an 80 zone. He drove one handed, the other leaned on the door with his fist propping up his head. They had been mostly alone on the seldom-used highway. Thunder Bay sat on the north-west border of Ontario about as far away from anything as a city can be—if it could be called a city.

For the dozenth time Sam longed to be back in her living room that evening of the funeral. She had thought of about a twenty different things she should have said. The whole day had been too overwhelming and she wasn't thinking quickly. Ada seemed to think her story was inconsequential next to their own, but Sam disagreed wholeheartedly.

Ada stared at the floor the entire time she told her story. She grew up with two older siblings, Charles and Jocelyn, who were six years her senior. Unlike Sam and her sister, Lori, they didn't bond as well. Nonetheless, Ada adored them. She wanted everything to do with anything they did, but was often ignored and excluded. When they suddenly wanted something to do with her, she jumped on the opportunity. It started small, a chocolate bar from a convenience store, a toy from the dollar store, and other easily concealed items. And at first, Ada thought it was fun. They rewarded her with praise and attention whenever she did. When she got caught, they explained it away as a young child having slipped away when they were distracted, just a silly mistake. Ada's record was remarkably clean.

Time passed and their appetite grew. They began stealing larger things, like clothing and shoes, then video games. By the time she was sixteen they had moved on to full-blown burglary. The first house they ever broke into was Mrs. Lemieux, the tenth grade math teacher who failed Jocelyn and made her take the class again. They stole her television. At first, they had nothing they could do with the larger things they stole. After all, they couldn't take them home, and they couldn't sell them. At least, not yet.

It was Charles who made the connection. Toronto was a big city, he made the right friends, and found his way to a fence. Then, things really picked up. What was just an occasional pass time became a means of income for them. It became a monthly event, one Ada couldn't get away from. They were too noticeable, and she had learned a lot from true crime podcasts, enough to give her a conscience about what they were doing. She stopped enjoying it, resented it, in fact. She couldn't get away from it, though. Jocelyn threatened to turn her into the police. After all, Ada was the one doing the breaking and entering. She was the one with the tools, the books, the YouTube history. One cursory police investigation would tie her to it all. Jocelyn and Charles, on the other hand, kept nothing around to link them to the crime. They always wore gloves and hats (as did Ada) and kept none of their spoils. The cash was the only thing that could possibly tie them to it, and even that would be iffy. Ada knew better than to ignore Jocelyn. She never bluffed, Ada didn't think she was capable of it. Full, intense honesty was the only way she lived.

Last year Ada had had enough. She went to the police in secret, arranged an immunity deal, secured a safe future for herself. She gave up the fence first. He had to move the items they sold him, and that would take time. The day after their latest heist was when she did it. They had stolen a Playstation 4, along with the television. It would have the player's account information on it still, which the police could track back to the house they burgled. Then, she wiped down her lock picks and hid them in Charles' truck. No one could prove he didn't know a single thing about how to use them. The search warrant came just days later. Police swarmed her parent's house and tore it apart for evidence. Though the search was mostly unsuccessful, they found the kit as she had hoped they would. It secured her immunity deal, and she packed up and moved away of the belief that she was safe at last.

As it turned out, there was an oversight when writing up the warrant. Charles' truck was actually in their father's name, and only their own vehicles were listed as searchable. As soon as the defence attorney saw that, he had the warrant thrown out as evidence, and the lock picks along with it. With nothing else to tie him to the crime, Charles was released. Jocelyn had never been charged; the only evidence to potentially link her was a spotty eyewitness account of the three of them leaving a home. She couldn't be positively identified, and so she was never charged.

Ada was lucky. Her immunity deal was contingent on a successful charge of them both. The only reason she wasn't in prison was because the lead detective on her case had chosen not to. He still believed he could make the charges stick, and honoured the deal anyway.

That led to Ada and Sam meeting, which she couldn't be upset about. Sure, the circumstances sucked, but meeting Ada was one of the best moments of her life. Amalie's death had made Sam cherish their time all the more.

Sam hadn't thought about the funeral in a while. She scrubbed sleep from her eyes and fished her phone out of her pocket. She pulled up Amalie's profile and began to scroll. It took a while to find any posts that were actually from her, the rest were words of regret from those who mourned her. What she found made her hollow. Photos of the sky, squirrels, her friends, everything that made her happy, it seemed. They took up most of her feed. She found the odd pencil drawing of animals, a post or two of her meals, and even a few motivational quotes. All this gave Amalie more shape in Sam's mind, which as it turned out made her feel much worse.

"Did you know she liked to cook?" Sam asked without preamble.

"No, I didn't." Aidan's voice was soft. "Are you on her profile?"

Sam nodded, then confirmed aloud. "They made her sound like this meek child, the way they talked about her at the funeral, but there was so much more to her. She volunteered at at least two different charities and was part of a book club."

Aidan sighed lightly. "I don't think looking at her posts is a good idea. We can't bring her back."

"But we can remember her." Sam scrolled for a few more minutes, then sighed. "How much longer?"

"About an hour."

Sam bit back a groan. She really had to pee, and there wasn't a pit stop in sight. Just trees and grass and more trees. The only variations were directional signs and the occasional side road. It all blended into one endless landscape with a classic rock soundtrack and a soft-spoken radio host.

When the first signs of town appeared it was none too soon. Her stiff joints pestered her for relief. She was about to comment as much when she caught a glint through the trees ahead.

"Speed trap."

Aidan just grinned, more mirth on his face than she had seen in weeks. The trees parted and sure enough, there was the cruiser with two bored looking officers. One glanced at the speed gun, but the other gestured just as Aidan gave a casual wave over the wheel. Their postures relaxed and they waved back.

"What the ..."

Aidan chortled. "Cain never was good at staying out of people's business when they're in need. Stuck his nose in a search party for a missing kid, literally. Ended up saving one of the officers' lives. They don't know what we do, but they know it's something strange. We have an unspoken understanding: we come and go as we please, and they can come to us for off-the-books help on cases."

I had so many questions I didn't know where to start. "What happened to the officer?"

"He thought he heard something and started to run in the dark. Tripped in a mole hole and broke his right leg in two places. He was losing a lot of blood and went into shock before he could radio the party. Cain smelled his blood and ran to help. He set the bones and sewed up the puncture wound, then carried him back to the rendez-vous."

Sam frowned. "Why did he have sutures on him?"

Aidan shrugged. "Cain doesn't leave the house without basic first aid supplies. He used to be the medic for the pack, before he left. Call him paranoid, but he's saved a few people that way."

"Did they find the boy?"

"Yeah, he took the wrong fork on his shortcut home from his friend's house and got lost. He didn't get far, just kept walking in a circle."

"Well ... how do they know you're different? It doesn't sound like he did anything too weird."

Aidan raised a brow at her. "Cain was a kilometre away from the guy when it happened, and not even the people nearest the officer heard him fall. Not to mention, the guy was around a hundred kilos and Cain carried him the whole way back. Word spreads, theories mutate. You know how it is."

Sam conceded he had a point. Still, it was surprising to her this situation existed at all. He had made their worlds sound so divided, which she supposed was why she was so thrown off. She didn't have time to ask, because they were slowing to turn down a driveway marked only by a blue number plate, and she was distracted.

It couldn't really be called a driveway, it was more of a bike path with how overgrown it was. Sam worried the branches would scratch her car, but after only a moment the canopy swelled into a tall arch. She watched the light filtering through branches and spruce fans overhead in wonder. Sure, she was used to a rural lifestyle, but to live out in the bush like this must be something else. A little slice of green paradise. When the driveway opened up a minute later, it was to a gentle slope on which a cozy log cabin perched. It would be a spectacle in any other season, but the drab landscape retracted from its beauty. Still, Sam could appreciate the facade and its humongous windows.

"You live here?" she asked in hushed awe.

"Yeah, but not so much these days. Come on, he's excited to meet you."

Aidan got out and went to the trunk for their bags. Sam just stood by her door and gaped at the sight of the house against the brilliant blue sky. Her nerves mounted. What if Cain didn't like her? What if he was offended by her existence? That was a thing, right? Every werewolf novel she had read had a distaste for bitten werewolves, it seemed. What if that was real?

"Come on," he said again as he passed.

Smoke plumed from the chimney, the rich aroma of wood smoke in the air. If she thought the air at home was clean, it was nothing like here. It was crisp, clear, so pure she could smell the sap of the trees in the surrounding forest on the breeze. They were set so far back from the highway she couldn't even hear the cars with her heightened listening skills.

Aidan was long gone by the time Sam worked up the nerve to go inside. She kicked off her shoes in the short hall, and she took her first good look around. Open concept, polished floors, and black leather furniture offered an inviting first impression. The kitchen to the immediate right was alive with activity and colour. The man cracking eggs over a copper skillet was just as tall as Aidan, but maybe half the width. A burgundy apron shielded his simple outfit. Was it the clothes, or was he really so lanky?

Like Aidan, his hair tended toward broad curls, though his were kept to a manageable length. He glanced over, and for the first time she noticed his close-cropped beard. It did make guessing his age a bit challenging, but he couldn't be more than forty. And when he smiled lightly, she guessed even lower.

"I hope you brought an appetite." Cain's French was good, but his accent was thick.

"Always." Aidan threw his weight onto the couch, which was set two steps lower than the rest of the room.

Cain scoffed. "I wasn't talking to you."

Sam returned his smile as best she could and rubbed her palms on her jeans. "It's nice to meet you, I'm Sam." She spoke in English for his benefit. It was no skin off her nose.

Cain rinsed his hands and met her halfway. Piano fingers enveloped hers with the warmth of a mug of hot cocoa, and she grinned without thinking. The effect was soothing on her frazzled nerves. She let him guide her to the island and she climbed—literally—onto one of the stools. In seconds there was a cobalt mug and a matching cream jug in front of her.

After quickly doctoring her coffee, she excused herself to the washroom—one of three doors on the far wall. 18 hours in a car is not comfortable. She fixed her bun and rinsed her face with cold water before emerging, hoping it did anything for her puffy, sleep-deprived face.

Neither would talk business over lunch. Cain filled Aidan in on local news he had missed, the people who were asking about him. She just sat watching each speak, finishing her lunch. Sam didn't know what to say. She didn't know any of these people, let alone the events they were talking about. So when Cain turned his attention on her, she was a deer in headlights for a moment.

"How long can you stay with us?" he asked in that soft, slow tone of his.

She shrugged to bide her time. "Kathy was all right with me taking a few days off, but I don't think I can get more than five without a good excuse."

Aidan and Cain shared a conspiratorial grin, and the latter asked, "What sort of excuse?"

"Um ... like a doctor's note or a sick relative?"

Cain pushed back from the table and sauntered to a mahogany desk she hadn't noticed. He flipped through folders in the deepest drawer, humming lightly. Eventually he emerged with a single sheet with nothing but a letterhead. He fetched a black pen and glanced at her.

"Do you have your tonsils still?" After a long pause, she confirmed. He scribbled something, read it, and then straightened. "Does your library have a fax machine?"

Sam pushed her chair back, chortling, "Does my library have a fax machine ..." She punched the number into the off-white machine.

"Congratulations," Cain said with a smile. "You now have complications from a tonsillectomy and require two weeks of strict bed rest."

"Will it hold up to scrutiny?" she pondered aloud.

He winked. "Doctor Richardson may not be professionally trained, but he sure sounds like it."

He held up the sheet, which indeed read Dr. C. Richardson, MD, followed by a fake address and a telephone number, which he explained was one of his cell phones. If Kathy wanted to snoop, she wouldn't find anything out of order. Just a suave werewolf to dissuade her. Sam was marginally less stressed—this wasn't a vacation, they were here for a reason.

After settling into the living room with more coffee and a plate of shortbread cookies, they fell into serious discussion. Cain crossed one leg over the other, eyes shifting from Aidan to her and back again. It was time to face the music.

"We have no idea where he went," Aidan stated without inflection. "We followed his trail for three hours to a strip mall, where it seemed he went into a thrift shop. The trail stops there."

"No one saw him get into a car, no one at the shop remembers him. They don't have security cameras. He could have been there at any time, maybe after hours. If he broke in to steal clothes it would explain why no one remembers him." Sam sighed as she finished.

"You're probably right, there." Cain nodded slowly. "Noah wouldn't risk leaving during daylight. He knows you have a job, you're less likely to be out in the middle of the night off the full moon. There are less people to see him. It sounds like him."

"I don't know how we're going to find him again. He's not likely to hurt someone this time, with so much public attention. What would we even begin to sweep for?"

"What do you mean?" she asked Aidan.

"Before now we found him by running an ongoing search for specific keywords like 'wolf,' 'dog,' 'bite;' you get it. But he's already made some big waves from targeting two people in one town so close together. He's either going to run far and do it again, or fall back into the shadows until the heat is off."

"It happened before?"

Cain pursed his lips. "Not exactly, but he has gone into hiding before when we got too close."

"How long did you lose him for?"

The two shared a look and a long silence. Finally, Aidan said, "A year."

A rock settled in her stomach. "So what do we do?"

"I've put out some feelers with some people I know, but I'm not hopeful. But at least we have some eyes out there. Other than that, we can mostly just hope he slips up." Cain's tone was heavy.

Sam rubbed her lip in thought. "Can I see your search keywords?"

Aidan woke the desktop and pulled up a text document filled with code. He scrolled until he found what he was looking for and highlighted the bunch for her to read. Sam made a few more suggestions, mostly drug related. It seemed that was a bigger thread than she had previously considered. If they couldn't find headlines related to his attacks, maybe he would slip up trying to get a fix.

There was little they could do in the meantime. Cain suggested a run, and she echoed agreement in a monotone. It was something to do, and at least her conscious would be shut off for a time. Plus, the wolf couldn't harass her when it was in control. They followed a narrow path beaten through the dense woods. A few minutes in, two more forked out to either side. Cain took one, Aidan the other, and she followed the dwindling path in hopes of finding a suitable spot she wouldn't need to clear first.

The ground was soggy under her bare flesh, chilly runoff from the melting ice. Muck between her fingers was an odd, yet welcome change to what she was used to. With her eyes shut against the pain, she focused on smell as a distraction and was overwhelmed by Cain's scent, mingling with Aidan's fainter one. These weren't fresh smells, rather old trails she happened to be on top of.

When she poked her head through leafless brambles, the two were waiting for her. Aidan's head was on his big paws, and a dark-chocolate wolf, Cain, sat proudly next to him. There was a smile in his eyes.

They ran hard. She might have been tired, but the freedom pushed it to the background. The air wasn't so thin here, it felt different on each breath. She was in the middle, with Aidan leading their mad dash over the gentle hills surrounding the cabin. She did her best to overtake Aidan, but he always remained just out of her reach. She rarely saw Cain, who brought up the rear. She had a feeling he could catch up with ease, but his momentum was more purposeful than enjoyable. His avid stare swept side to side. She didn't know if he was worried or just being prudent.

Aidan picked up the scent of a deer and took off before she had finished registering the scent fully. Sam still hadn't hunted large game, just the arctic hares prevalent around her hometown. Cain passed on her right. His eye gleamed over his shoulder. She kicked into gear and charged after them. It took some serious effort, but she did regain her position and she was fairly sure they weren't accommodating her what with their fixation on that flicking white tail.

Cain broke off to the right and took a wide arc she immediately recognized. He would check his path, and then his target in alternating beats. Once the gap was wide and he was just a few strides ahead, he cut a sharp diagonal with his ears flattened and his head low. The buck didn't see him coming in time. Fangs flashed, a small spurt of blood, and the beast hit the ground in its final spasms.

Bellies full, muscles tired, they trotted back as the sun set. She trailed behind, and when they parted ways to shift back, she tried to indicate they should go back without her. She wanted a nap in this form, where her nightmares couldn't haunt her. Aidan wagged his head and disappeared.

It had started five days ago; well, ramped up. Those intrusive thoughts she couldn't source grew louder, more cohesive. She soon understood. Though it had been far longer than Aidan anticipated, the wolf was truly taking hold. Her senses were only marginally weaker than Aidan's, her temperature running nearly as high—apparently that's a good thing for them. And that little voice behind her thoughts was picking and tugging at memories she thought long repressed. She was exhausted. She rarely slept longer than three hours at a time. It seemed when she was unconscious the wolf could really go to town. Her dreams would be dragged from her control and suddenly she would be back in middle school, or at that fucking school dance ...

Sam stamped down some dead plants and settled into the damp mush, those thoughts drifting away like leaves on a river. Her weary bones thanked her and sleep found her fast. Her dreams were colourful, bright, full of movement. She couldn't remember them when she woke bare and freezing. Muck covered her left side and her hair; she swiped off what she could before pulling on her clothes.

Aidan was the first thing she saw when she emerged from the woods; he leaned on his forearms on the deck railing with a steaming mug. He smiled, and straightened as she approached. There was a pink flush to the tip of his nose.

"Been out here long?" she called.

"Just long enough."

"You didn't have to do that." Sam climbed the steps in her bare feet.

Aidan shrugged, pinched eyes belying his calm exterior. "Just in case; can't be too careful with Noah on the loose."

"Well, thanks." She stopped a few steps away. "Is this what the next few weeks are going to be like? Running to kill the time and hoping for the best?"

Aidan pressed his lips into a line, curved up slightly. "Probably."

After a few moments, she said, "I'm going to take a bath," and gestured to the brown stripe along one half of her hair.

Steam filled the small space, vanilla permeating her senses. Sam restored the bottle of bubble bath under the sink, stripped off her damp clothes, and sank into the half-full tub. Water rushed around her submerged toes. She plugged her nose and ducked under the surface for a long moment. Then, when the tub was full, she dried her hands and scrolled through her contacts.

"Hey! How's the boonies?" Ada's energy was infectious. Her grin returned.

"It's gorgeous out here. There's almost no snow left, can you believe it?"

Ada chuckled. "We got ten centimetres last night. I'm jealous."

"At least the snow is scenic. Everything is brown and dead out here."

"It will be like that here, soon. You might see buds before I even see my dead front lawn."

"Any sign of ..."

"Not a hair."

Sam sighed her relief. "If you do-"

"I'll call you right away. I've got that picture in my wallet still."

Aidan had given her a Polaroid to reference; it was somewhat dated, having been taken on Noah's birthday the year after he left home. His arm was slung around Aidan's shoulders, a beer in his free hand. There was raw joy in both their faces.

"How's Percy?" Sam asked after a long beat of gathering silence.

A light laugh. "He caught his first bird this morning and left it in the kitchen, headless."

"Aw, he thinks you can't feed yourself. What a gross angel."

Her musical laugh softened the knot between her shoulders. Sam relaxed against the sloped back of the deep tub and shut her eyes. Bubbles fizzled against her skin.

"Oh, I forgot to ask you something before I left: could you water my plants, please? Just twice a week."

"An excuse to use the key? Absolutely." She sounded excited, and it echoed within Sam.

Yes, Sam had given Ada a key, and no, it wasn't just because she was going away. She actually gave it to her a week before they decided to head out here. Honestly, nothing happened since the funeral. She might even have been imagining it, but she dared to think there had been a shift in their energy—for the better. When Sam gave her the key it was intended to be in case she ever needed somewhere to go. It also happened to fuel this momentum, wherever it was going. There was actually a small bud of hope in her, and it gave her something to look forward to when all this dark business would finally be over.