Bailey's hands didn't work.

That was all Matt knew about his current condition—that his hands didn't work. That when he helped him out of his shirt and the strange bandaging below, he found fresh marks along his back. Mauve pink scars on tan, sun-baked skin. They were a reminder to Matt. A reminder to be diligent about where he put his hands—when unbelting Bailey's slacks, when helping him out of them. When crutching his weight while they both stumbled into the bathtub.

Matt wouldn't leave him alone to shower—he couldn't. Not with the disoriented look in his eyes and the way his feet fumbled. So he dressed down to his boxers and they both sat at the bottom of the tub, knees to their chests and water coaxing the blood from their bodies. With a washcloth and a bar of soap, Matt cleansed Bailey's skin, starting at his hands.

He didn't know if Bailey hated it because it was too intimate, or if he hated it because being bathed made him feel powerless. But Bailey hated it. Too often he'd jerk away from the rag in Matt's hands, bump his elbow into the porcelain and curse. Too often he'd cringe at the soft cotton on his skin. Sometimes his breath would pick up. Sometimes he'd clench his teeth and curl his head back against the caulking of the tile wall.

He never asked Matt to stop, but he did. Several times.

"You remind me of a cat," Matt told him, once he'd given up and let the shower water rinse them down. "There was this stray I tried to take in when I was a kid. Cat was covered in sticky bobs. Tried to give it a bath and it cut me up."

"As one does," Bailey said, watching from half-mast eyes, "when you bathe them against their will."

Matt crossed his arms over his knees, hot water pulsing against his spine. "Figured out how to make it work. I put the cat in the shower, kinda soaped it up and tossed it in there and let it run out on its own. By the time it was clean, the bathroom was flooded. And you know, the damn thing ran right back out into the sticky bobs." He examined the rag in his hands, gave it a good ringing. "You're a lot like that cat."

Bailey's voice was frayed to threads. "What happened to the cat?"

"I wondered that too, for a long time," Matt said. "It stopped coming around one day. Then one summer, Dad was under the house workin' on some pipes. Pulled out a skeleton. Fuckin' thing was so hungry, it got into the rat poison. If it woulda just let me help, I could've fed it. Kept it as a barn cat to scare off the mice. It was too scared, I guess."

Bailey's gaze faded away to a distracted middle-distance. He thumbed at a bruise on his knee, and said quietly, "Does sound like me."

A silence took to the steaming air, and Bailey stayed there looking lost in thought, his cheeks red from the heat of the shower. Eventually, Matt stood and squeezed the water from his skin-flushed boxers. "I'll go get you some clothes."

As he tossed a towel around his waist and stepped out onto the plush rug, Bailey called after him, "Cowboy."

Matt turned to the sight of him, curled against the wall of the tub, his elbows rested on his knees and shower water beating off his shoulders. "Let's do this again sometime. When I've got the hands to touch you with."

Matt didn't know what to do but to turn away from him then. He ignored his red reflection in the mirror and swung back toward the door, heat curling in his stomach.

That night, Matt cooked a large meatloaf that he couldn't bring himself to touch. He sat on his side of the table with a spoon and a jar of natural peanut butter, and watched Bailey devour several pounds of beef in one sitting.

"Sorry about your cow," he said at some point with his mouth full. Matt could address the irony in it all night, but there was no sense in wasting the meat. It was a nice sight when he didn't take into account it was Billy he was devouring by the forkful. Watching Bailey eat felt like a small victory, but a victory still. He had never been much for food in the weeks he spent at the ranch, so Matt always assumed he hunted for most of his meals as a wolf. It was good to know he had an appetite. Plus, it gave Matt a still, quiet moment to evaluate him.

The haircut had given him years of youth, and as it dried from his shower, it stuck up in places—thick and feathered and naturally mussed, like he'd ran his hands through it a million times over. Just a bit longer and it'd start to curl, cover part of his brow. Longer yet, and it'd be just the same as it was on Perigee—that jet mop, billowing in the summer wind. From across the table, Matt noticed things he hadn't noticed before, like the way he held his fork in his fist rather than his fingers. The guarded body language, like a dog protecting its meal from what it couldn't see. The way his leg bounced, his patience too small for his stomach.

He watched Bailey eat until he looked physically nauseated, and slogged off to the front door with a hand on his stomach. Matt was relieved to see he had the energy to move on his own, but there was no way in hell he was sleeping in a barn so accessible from the outside that the wind nearly blew the door open some nights.

"You can have my bed," Matt said before he could go.

"No offense, Cowboy," he replied with that raw, grated voice, "but I'm tired of sleeping in other men's beds."

"The sheets are clean. I'll take the couch." When Bailey looked as if he'd leave anyway, Matt said more adamantly, "Sleep in my bed. Please."

And for whatever reason, that please seemed to do him in. He sighed and abandoned the door, disappearing down the hall toward the bedroom. Matt slept on the couch. Tried, at least.

He feared if he shut his eyes, he'd think of the night. Of the gunfire and the blood and the screaming. The sound of Gannon hitting the floor, soft and wet. He stayed awake in the strobing light of the television and thought of the shotgun tucked away in his closet. Of the gaping hole it made in Gannon. Of the blood on Bailey's sleeves. Of the locks on his front door, and if chain could hold back a wolf.

It was nearly two AM when Bailey crept out of the bedroom and stood in the doorway of the hall, wearing the sweats Matt had given him that bagged at the hips and came up short at the ankles, and the shirt from his first job at Pro Bass. "Matt," he said.

The sound of his real name knelled in his ears like an alarm. Matt jolted up. "What? What's wrong?"

Bailey gestured toward the hall with that elegant neck of his. "Come on."

Matt expected he had something to show him, so he followed down the hall and into the bedroom—only for Bailey to climb beneath the sheets, and gaze up at Matt with tired, expecting eyes.

Matt hesitated at the foot of the bed, until Bailey let out a sigh and flung the sheets down. "Just get in, dumbass."

"Are you sure?" Matt asked.

"Get in."

So Matt sunk down beside him and watched him sleep exactly as he did that Perigee night, turned away with his arms crossed over his chest. Matt listened to his breath, watched the round of his shoulders—the dip at the nape of his neck where his hair fuzzed. He brushed the buzzed hair, and when the hound didn't tighten or flinch or snatch his hand away, he ran his fingers through it until sleep sunk into him like an anchor.

And when Matt removed his hand to fall asleep, Bailey reached blindly behind him, patting around the sheets until found it. He took Matt by the fingers and placed his hand back on his head.

So much like a cat, Matt thought, fingers scraping through his hair. All the hissing and swatting, all the scratches and bites, just to bunt against his hand when no one else was around to see it.

Matt wondered when he'd be allowed to touch the rest of him. He wondered what it would be like to pull Bailey into his arms. To sleep there with his limbs curled around him and his face in the soft fuzz of his hair. He wondered if Bailey would even realize if he lassoed him in, breathing deep and asleep as he was. Then Matt found the tattoo on his shoulder, the round impressions of teeth burned below it. Don't touch.

That night, he slept with his arms crossed, too.

By morning, the wound in his shoulder burned so terribly, Matt woke with an agonizing cry. The pain gnawed him down to the bone until suddenly, Bailey was pinning his arms down with his knees, cutting his shirt open with a pocket knife that'd seemingly appeared from nowhere, and peeling the gauze from his wound. "Hold still," he said as he prodded the flesh with his bare fingers. All the nerves flared and Matt jerked beneath him with a weak, terrible sound—until Bailey withdrew a tiny chunk, drenched in blood. "Silver," he said, turning it between his fingers.

Matt had never felt a pain like that. It was like lava, dripped into the raw wound—setting every nerve and fiber of flesh on fire. It ebbed after Bailey removed the shard, and the hound sat back on his stomach, that prized jewel between his fingers. "Hm."

"What?" Matt asked, hands trembling as he wiped the mist from his eyes.

"If you're not a wolf, this shouldn't have hurt you. And if you are a wolf, you should've healed by now."

"You haven't healed, either," Matt said, finding the inflamed gash on his cheek. He knew what was coming when he reached for Bailey's face—expected the hard hand that caught him by the wrist. Matt let him grip it there in the air between them until his vise eased. Then he reached for Bailey's face again—just enough to touch the skin around the wound. A butterfly touch. A feather-light brush of his fingertips.

Bailey shut his eyes and let Matt trace the shape of his face—but light as his touch was, it wore on him like agony. His throat swallowed and his nostrils flared, and he wanted so badly to flinch away. It was obvious and terrible. And as Matt's fingers met the bruised side of his neck, Bailey tore his hand from his skin like it had branded him.

His non-bloody hand splayed over his face, and as if he could read Matt's thoughts, he said, "Don't tell me you're sorry again, or I swear to God, Cowboy."

Matt didn't have it in him to apologize. His shoulder ached and his eyes burned, and he wanted only to touch Bailey. Anywhere he could, for as long as he could. The room was dark, the curtains drawn and morning sealed firmly away. But somehow the sunlight still wet those black eyes like obsidian marble.

Matt laid there with his hands by his head, watching a streak of light ride over Bailey's face. "Know I'd never hurt you, right?"

This warranted a strange look from Bailey. His brows fell, and his face creased with wary shadows. Matt couldn't tell if he was confused or angry. "It isn't about you," he said.

He climbed off and when his weight left, it was both a relief and tragedy to Matt. He laid still and watched the ceiling shift in shades of sunlight, while Bailey snapped open drawers and shuffled through his belongings.

"Can I have this?" he asked.

"Yeah," Matt said without looking.

When Bailey appeared above him again, he was donned in Matt's favorite hoodie. A black, wicking sports sweatshirt with the symbol of a seagull on the left breast. He rolled the sleeve up so it wouldn't touch the blood on his hand. "You cry a lot?" Bailey asked.

Matt sat up, squinting at a ray of light from a crack in the curtains. "Low pain tolerance."

"Pain is just a thing," Bailey said, plucking a baseball cap up from atop Matt's dresser. "And then it's gone." He examined the cap and placed it on his head the correct way, first—then backward.

"What are you doing?"

"Getting dressed," said Bailey, disappearing into the bathroom.

"For what?"

The faucet turned on briefly, then off again. When he appeared, slouched against the door frame, his hand was cleaned of blood. It was strange seeing him dressed like this—slender neck sprouted from the swooped collar of his sweater, short hair sprouting through the hole in his hat. Matt suddenly felt parched. "We're going to the clinic. You need stitches," Bailey said.

Matt shoved himself up from the bed, shoulder searing. "I'm fine."

"You're a moron."

Matt ignored him, tossing open the bedroom door to fetch a glass of water. He wasn't expecting the alpha that stood in the living room, examining the old baseball plaques on the wall.

"Didn't want to wake you," Quentin said. "We agreed on ten AM, right?"

"Sorry." Matt ran a hand through his bed hair. "Didn't realize it was so late."

Quentin smiled and took a hand out of his pocket to gesture toward a spiky-haired redhead who was currently trying to work her mind around the mechanics of the leather recliner. "This is Jan. She's a talented pediatric nurse and a knowledgeable were-medic. She's gonna be taking a look at you, while I—"

"What are you doing here?" Bailey had slipped out of the bedroom to stand behind Matt's shoulder. His heat seeped through Matt's shirt like a furnace.

Quentin cocked his head in a slight, puzzled gesture. "I'm surprised you didn't hear me come in."

"I didn't." Bailey's voice held a bite that Matt hadn't expected. He looked from the hound to the alpha, trapped in the tense static in the air between them.

"We need to talk about what happened," Quentin said. "You both need to be medically evaluated and—"

Bailey scoffed out a disgusted sound. "Pass."

Matt tossed a look at the hound and whispered in warning, "Bailey."

His narrow eyes flicked to Matt and his chest grew and then fell with a sigh. He brushed past Matt, past Quentin, through the front door.

"Take care of him," Quentin said to the medic, then he followed after.

She was a sweet older woman, Jan. She sat Matt down and shined a light in each eye. "Tell me about this Raven character," she said, checking behind his ears and the skin between his fingers. "Have you heard from him since the incident?"

"Not a word," said Matt. He hadn't seen any crows since yesterday, either. "You know anything about it? Whatever's wrong with me, I mean."

"Nothing's wrong with you," said Jan, coaxing his slashed shirt up. Matt tore it off over his head and she retrieved an antiseptic wipe from her bag. It seared when it touched his marred flesh. "Have you noticed any enhancement to your senses? Any accelerated healing?"

"No."

"Any flu-like symptoms?"

"No."

Jan didn't ask any more questions after that. She hummed, applied local anesthesia around his wound and sewed him up with a needle and thread. "It seems to me that you haven't experienced your chrysalis yet. But I was told this isn't the case."

"I don't know," Matt said. "I don't remember anything from that day. You sure nothing's wrong with me?"

She stuck a stethoscope to his chest and went quiet as she listened for the heartbeat. "Nothing at all," she said, packing her things away. "You have the heartbeat of a wolf, but none of the luxuries. It's my personal opinion that you may be somewhat of a...late bloomer."

"Story of my life," Matt said.

Jan gave him some suggestions of ways to speed up his chrysalis, a list of foods to avoid and a brief explanation of chakra and meditative poses that Matt had no intention of investing his time into. When she was finished, they stepped outside into the mid-day heat. The cows were far off in the pasture, sunlight beating down onto their backs. A few farmhands carried lumber in the distance—probably to patch up the coup again.

Jan was going on about the farm her stepmother owned when a crash came from Bailey's barn. The door opened and Quentin stumbled out like he'd been shoved. The door slammed shut again.

Matt hurried toward him, several more crashes rocking the barn walls. The sound of something heavy slamming to the floor. "The fuck did you do, Bronx?"

He started for the door and an arm came out to bar him. "Hold on," Quentin said, but it was the look on his face that made Matt pause and stagger back. 

"What? What did you do?"

"I asked him to turn," Quentin said.

"And?"

"And he couldn't."

Matt searched his face and found only a grim, burdened look. "What do you mean he couldn't? Why?"

"Rogues have a particularly gruesome punishment for the wolves that disobey," he said. "They crush the hand—the weight of a boot is usually enough to bring the claws out—and then they take them. Rico keeps them on a chain. Wears it around his neck sometimes."

"What do you mean they take them?"

"They rip them out," Quentin said.

A sick feeling climbed Matt's throat. Something glass shattered inside the barn. "What does that have to do with turning?"

"There are situations," Jan said, stepping toward the conversation, "where the wolf is known to abandon the body. Usually, it happens when a body part is amputated when in wolf-form. You remove a part of the wolf from your body and the soul leaves with it."

Matt remembered the night they laid beneath the stars. How fondly Bailey spoke of his wolf.

If I could go wolf forever and never turn back, I would.

An agonizing cry came from the barn. He shoved past Quentin and the alpha caught him by the arm. "Hold on," he said. "Running was everything to Bailey, and they just took his legs. I think you should give him—"

"Don't act like you know him better than I do," Matt snarled. "You think—what? That he should be alone? How long have you left him alone?"

Quentin's face went soft and shamed. Matt felt his hand slowly unhook. He shoved the door open to the lightless barn, just as something glinted in the dark, soaring down from the upstairs loft. It hit the barn wall and cracked, splintered pieces scattering to the ground. Matt hadn't realized it was the Xbox until Bailey chucked a controller after. It smashed against the wall with the sound of cracking plastic, toppling to the floor beside a shattered chunk of the flat screen TV. Pages of Matt's portrait, torn from the walls, sheets and pillows toppled to the ground.

In the upstairs loft, Bailey was ripping the stringed LED lights from the wall.

Matt jogged up the steps as he tore the wire from its hook. The light snapped free from the outlet and Bailey dropped the cord to the floor, the bulbs cracking beneath his footsteps. He took the lamp from beside his bed and hurled it at a mirror that sat slanted against the wall. The glass shattered and spilled to the ground and Matt caught him by the arm before he could break another thing.

Bailey jerked away from him, but Matt had him by the sweater—reeled him back in and took him by the sides of his head, hair flattened beneath his palms. "Bailey, calm down!"

The searing look in his eyes settled on Matt and Matt on his eyes—then the rest of his face. He was grimacing, tears falling slick and sudden down his cheeks. Angry, hyperventilated breath spilled out between his gnashed teeth. He pushed at Matt's chest—pushed and pushed, pulled and clawed at his wrists, his hands. And when Matt didn't budge, Bailey let out a helpless sob and crumpled forward against his shoulder.

Matt stood there like that, hand on the back of his head, fingers curled in his hair, holding Bailey close while he cried. Listening to his broken words when he said, "I didn't think—he could take anything else from me."

And maybe it was that moment, or maybe it was the look on Quentin's face when Matt found him watching from the door of the barn—the expression he made at the sight of Bailey in his arms. A look like hell had just frozen over. Maybe it was the shaking hands on his back, or the trimmed hair beneath his fingers, or the way Bailey felt so much skinnier than he remembered when he slid an arm around his waist and held his body close.

But Matt decided, in that moment—with or without Raven—he would burn the dens. With or without the money, he was going to flush out the circles. He was going to end the rogues.

He was going to find Rico and he was going to kill him.