Sixty Eight. You Think It's Over? Think Again.

I can’t move fast enough to get the jump on my psychotic older brother. He has his feet firmly planted by the time I reach the truck. One look at my expression, he just scoffs in disgust, flips me right over his head and pins me to the ground by the throat. Aiden and Liam are shouting at me, and baby Jack is wailing, as my father and Felix run over to maybe back me up and pull Mike off of me before he snaps my neck?

Nope. Mike shrugs off their far too tentative hands, so I try to break a few of his teeth.

My dad catches my fist, helping to pin me in place. “Dad, you don’t know what he’s--”

Mike’s hand tightens around my throat, choking off my words as he presses his forehead right to mine and growls right in my face, “No, you are clearly the one who doesn’t know shit. But I think I get it now. Cassandra wiped your memories, now didn’t she?” My brow furrows. Why would he even try to claim Cassi was the one who did this? Only a witch could erase someone’s… “Tried to spare you all that pain of what happened out in the woods last night? Seeing her horrifying true nature and all that?”

“Let him go, Mike,” my dad orders, and my brother angrily releases his choke hold, climbing off of me, though dad and Felix stay pinning my arms.

“Why the hell would you believe a single word coming from that murderer?” I cough, eyes boring into Felix, because dad may have been blacked out and half-monster barely even aware of his surroundings these past five years, but Felix knows all about Mike’s killing sprees working with that witch.

“Well Mike is the only one who seems to know what’s going on here,” Felix shrugs off, “and you’re the one freaking out and attacking people, kid, so just calm down already.”

I stop trying to throw off their hands and let my head drop back against the grass, forcing long, deep breaths, but still glaring suspiciously off after Mike. He’s stalking right up to Aiden, maybe because he wants some savage back-up for the next time I attack--

Nope. He wants a human shield I guess, which is why he most tenderly lifts that wailing baby from Aiden’s hands, cooing into his ear until he calms down.

“You can’t trust him near that kid,” I mutter, “not this near the full moon. He could go red-eyed again at any minute and full on--”

“Jack is Mike’s son, Jase,” my father informs me, and my eyes widen. “You don’t even remember that much?”

I let them lead me inside and sit me down at the table. Mike takes the seat right across from me and explains to all of us what happened last night, how Ravenna betrayed us, trying to renew our curse, so me and him, working together side by side, we stopped her, saving his son and freeing our clan from demonic control.

I cannot believe his lying claims that Cassi is a witch. Except… my entire family already knew that apparently, even Liam. They all know how she tricked me and covered up her true identity, and… I can’t manage to feel angry about this. I can’t feel any real betrayal, because I don’t even know this girl. I just met her today, at least as far as I remember… In my mind she’s just a nice girl terrified of the werewolves who kidnapped her.

Why would she put on that act? What was the point of it all, if she just wanted to leave me at the end of it?

I should be focusing on Mike’s story, not obsessing over Cassi again. He’s recounting all these details, mostly for my benefit, of how he was never truly an enemy of this family. He was just being duped by Ravenna, but now he’s finally in control of himself again, just like dad.

Aiden is certainly listening with laser-focused attention, sitting silent and still for a personal record breaking thirty minutes, until he finally loses patience, cutting off Mike’s tale of ancient siren demon Cassandra with the repeated demand, “So where is mom?”

Mike hesitates, just the briefest second, but I don’t like that look in his eyes, those empty, unsettling eyes… “Don’t know. You say she went out looking for me two nights ago?” he asks Grace, and she gives a wary nod. “Well then, maybe she wound up at my house. I haven’t been back there yet, but I’ll head over there tonight, try to pick up her trail.”

“We’re going with you,” Aiden resolves, and Mike rolls his eyes.

“Come on, kid, this close to the full moon? You’re going to be a full on wolf tonight. I’ve seen Jase keep in control, just like his older brother.” He smiles, and I really just want to punch him again. I don’t care how the rest of my family has seemingly fully forgiven and excused him. I don’t trust a single word coming out of his mouth. I just can’t. “But the rest of you… Best just stay on lock-down out here until you’re proven cured. I’ll bring back Kathy, get her home safe for dinner.”

The sun goes down, and we do all of us turn into wolves again, but for the first time that I can remember it happening, everyone seems fully in control of their animal side. There’s no burning yellow eyes, no foaming mouths or compulsive need to rip free of their collars and set out hunting. The only aggressive one is Aiden, and that’s just ’cause he’s hangry and he gets cagey, being locked up in his cell of a room.

I stay watching the cameras with Grace all night, a full wolf myself but one who refuses to be on lock-down, because I know I am fully in control of my instincts.

My brothers and dad all turn back into themselves come dawn, and I start asking them how they were feeling last night. They never remember what they get up to on a full moon night normally. Everyone but me just blacks it out, but not this time. They each of them were truly themselves inside that furry flesh.

We may still be wolves, but we are no longer tormented half-breeds fated to turn evil and insane. We really are cured.

I make us a semi-festive lunch of Shepherds pie to celebrate. It’s one of dad’s favorites.

Then I promise Aiden he and I will set out looking for Kathy ourselves, right after we eat. “Assuming you’re cool working alongside a traitor that is,” I joke, but there is an honest edge of worry to that cavalier remark.

“Your stupid chemical injection and your ancient evil girlfriend undeniably saved this family actually,” Aiden mutters, “so I guess I can’t keep calling you a traitor, you omega. You still should have gone after mom right after hitting up that clinic of yours though.”

“I know. I’m sorry,” I apologize, and he gives a curt nod, cutting up our vegetables with still a somewhat worrying amount of force.

We never need to head out in search of our missing mother as it turns out, because Mike keeps his word and brings her right back to the house that very afternoon. She is looking a little pale, but far too happy seeing dad and all her boys together and fully human again to fixate on her own discomfort.

“What happened to you?” Dad is the one to start the interrogation, giving a worried scan over her collection of scrapes and scars.

“Michael’s witch of a wife nicked me with some poisoned thorns,” she shrugs off, “had me out cold for a while, but apparently he had an antidote on hand to cure me. I’m still feeling a little chilled though.”

“Should fade in a couple of days,” Mike assures her with that unsettling, evil smile of his. “Now, you’re good with watching Jack again tonight. Right, pops?”

“Of course,” dad offers, kissing the baby’s forehead with one arm still clasped protectively around his wife. It’s unsettling and uncommon to see her leaning on him like this, eyes so distant and troubled. “But aren’t you staying for lunch? Jase made Shepherds pie. Your favorite.”

“Tempting, but no. I’ve got a date,” Mike deflects, nodding back toward his car.

I didn’t catch the scent of that blonde woman lounging in the passenger seat of his Bentley before this, since she kept all those tinted windows carefully rolled up.

Weird that Mike would be picking up some girl and bringing her by the house so soon. He just lost the woman he was married to for the past five years. It hasn’t even been forty eight hours since he lost her, and sure she may have been a witch enslaving his free will… But going out on a date? Right now? It’s callous and unsettling.

Everything about Mike is callous and unsettling.

I want to follow them back to the city, make sure that girl stays safe, but mom catches that look in my eyes and forbids me from following through on that instinct, sitting me down at the table so we can all enjoy the meal I’ve been slaving over before it gets cold.

Mike never comes back to pick up his son. None of us have his phone number these days, so after three days of extended babysitting from the new grandparents, mom and I set out back to that mansion he was living in to demand what he’s been up to. The house is completely cleared out, no sign of Mike and no sign of Ravenna.

Mike did say that Cassi defeated her rival and imprisoned her forever beneath the earth alongside her demonic master, so of course there’s no sign of Ravenna.

But...

I feel the need to go back to those woods to check on that supposed burial site myself, in light of Mike’s sudden disappearance.

I can’t remember where that battle against Ravenna took place though, and the scent trail has already gone stale, too hard to pick up this many days after Halloween, especially in these high winds and coming snows.

I guess there’s no reason to suspect Mike went and dug up his defeated, imprisoned witch.

And I guess there’s no way her spirit could have been freed from the shriveled mummy she was apparently doomed to forever reside in.

No way she could have taken over some innocent woman’s body, a body like say that pretty blonde who was lounging in the passenger seat of Mike’s Bentley, refusing to come inside…

I have no reason to be worrying about this. The witches are both gone, both Cassandra and Ravenna. They’re gone from this city, and mom is home safe and sound, and that is all that matters, right?