Two days later, Matt found a note, slipped beneath his front door.

Don't let him find this, it read, followed by an address of a house in South Tacoma. A brief and don't die had been placed affectionately at the bottom.

For two hours, Matt laid in bed, tracing the numbers with his fleshy fingertips and his sleepless eyes. 5230, the house number read. 5230. And so he burned it to mind like a song he couldn't shake. A nightmare, stuck on the insides of his overworked brain. 5230.

I could take the shotgun, he thought, eyeing his cracked closet door where it sat stashed beneath camping supplies and blankets. No. He wasn't Raven. He couldn't shoot and reload with his hip and his hand. He probably couldn't even aim without a solid sixty seconds of adjustment. Maybe Dad's handgun. But he'd never allow it to leave his holster. And if something were to happen and that gun was found, it would be his father in handcuffs

His nerves were raw and awake, but Matt was anything but. He couldn't do this. He couldn't kill a man on his own—he wasn't good enough.

He sat on the edge of his bed, in the silence of a half-abandoned home, and rubbed his palm against his forehead. "Come on. I know you're in here—you gotta be."

The house settled, cracking its aching bones, but no crows appeared on his windowsill. No Raven.

He shut his eyes and tried again, fingers curling into his hairline. "I need your help, Raven."

Silence burned and beat in his ears. The cows mewled in the pasture. Matt cupped his face in his hands and breathed into them, dug his fingers up into his hair and whispered, "Please."

And when it was clear nothing would happen, he let his breath out and fell back into his sheets. For a moment, he considered calling Jaylin. Rico would be no match for a warden—especially a warden with a pack. But what kinda hell would that raise? What would it do to Jay? What part of his peaceful, happy life would it fuck up?

Something tapped at the window.

Matt lifted his head slowly to the sight of a curious, head-cocked crow. He stretched his blue moonlit feathers and let out a wretched sounding kawww.

Then his phone rang. 

Matt jumped and slid it from his pocket to a glare of unrecognizable numbers. He wasn't familiar with the area code—didn't look anything like a call from Washington. The nerves gnawed awake in his fingertips. Despite his better judgment, Matt hit answer and brought the phone to his ear. He'd heard Rico speak, right? What did that sound like again? Was it large and low, dark and raw? Did he have an accent?

The line crackled with a breath—maybe wind. Then softly, it whispered against his ear, "Cowboy."

He shot up. "Bailey? Bailey? Where are you? Are you okay?"

Another breath. A laugh, knowing Bailey—knowin' the way most of his laughs weren't laughs at all but breaths. Brief, forgiving little scoffs that made Matt feel like a funnier man than he was. "Boise," Bailey said. "I'm fine."

Matt fell back against his pillows, switching his phone to his dominant hand. These fingers shook a little less. "Gabe said you canceled your phone—"

"I don't want you talking to him." It was sudden, the way he said it. Like he had the pieces of it built already—had it sittin' in his throat, ready to fire. "Did he come to your place?"

"No," Matt told him. "Ran into him at a bar and he asked about you."

"I'm none of his business."

"Fine but you're mine." An itch clawed at Matt's dry, tickled throat. He cleared it quietly. "My business, I mean. And I wanna know...You got a place to stay, right?"

"Is that what you wanna know?" Bailey's voice went low—curled a little at the end. Matt could imagine the way he looked when he said it. That hooked grin, the slight tease of daring white teeth. "Don't wanna know if I crashed your car? Who's phone I'm using to call you?"

Matt's stomach tightened, less at the car and more at the who, but he swallowed. Readjusted the phone as it slipped against his sweaty palm. Lied as he said, "No."

"Got a job," Bailey said. "Got it to day. Burger joint. It's disgusting, but they're renting me the floor above the restaurant for dirt cheap. I'll send a check for the two grand when I—"

"Don't," Matt said. His voice caught against the receiver. He could hear the echo of his brash white noise clash back. "I mean—just pay me back next time you're in town."

Then Bailey went quiet. Another breath, but this one different than the ones before. It carried something with it that pulled at the walls of Matt's stomach. "I'm not coming back."

And then they were both silent. And whatever was left in Matt—whatever load-bearing thing in him that kept all the pieces up began to crumble. He laid there silent, streaks of moonlight rippling along the ceiling. Changing shape. Going blurry.

"That's why I called," Bailey said. "To tell you..." And when he faded back to that ugly silence and Matt still couldn't speak, Bailey whispered his name. "Matt." Not Cowboy, but Matt. Matt. Just Matt.

It was always going to be just fucking Matt.

"Don't—" Matt managed. A tear fell from the edge of his eye and wet the shell of his ear and he wiped away with frustrated, calloused hands. "Don't call me that."

It was quiet again, and then there was a laugh—the dry, crumbling kinda laugh. It was nothing like Bailey's usual laughs; this one, he didn't control too well. This kinda laugh had tears and broken skin and shattered bone. It was a dyin' kinda laugh.

"You're breaking my heart, Cowboy."

Silence again. Tears again. Matt pushed them away. Pushed them and pushed them. And when Bailey breathed into the phone this time, it sounded too much like the way Matt had breathed every breath since he left. The shaking, broken kinda breath that cut the walls of his throat open and sat noxious in his chest.

"I know you think I can make you right, but that's not how it works," Bailey said. "We're fixing broken parts with broken tools."

"I never asked you to fix me. I don't need fixed."

"I do," Bailey said. His voice was too soft—didn't sound like him. Matt hated it. "I can't do that there."

Matt's collar went too tight around his throat and his face prickled hot and cold at once. His voice cracked when he said, "So you're just never comin' back?"

"I don't know." A long beat of silence took the line. Bailey let out a breath. "There's a lot to draw here."

Matt's fingers went numb about his cell phone and he shut his eyes. Let those words sear their way into his ribs.

I draw the things that make me feel alright.

"I should go," Bailey said. "We closed an hour ago. I'm not even supposed to be down here." And when Matt couldn't speak past the lump in his throat, Bailey whispered, "Say something."

So Matt said, "Goodnight."

And Bailey hesitated in that terrible ugly silence. And again, Matt heard the tilt of tears in his voice when he said, "Night."

And when the line went dead, Matt laid there, listening to his own pathetic heartbeat, one arm splayed over the sheets where Bailey slept. Where he used to sleep.

That's not how it works.

Broken parts.

He was so fucking tired of being broken parts.

Matt climbed out of bed after that. He washed his face in the sink so no one would see his tears, changed into a pair of jeans and a black t-shirt, and heaved his father's shotgun case into his arms. Cold licked at the sweat on his back as he crossed the farm to Jack's house. It was nearly midnight, but golden lights still poured through the filthy kitchen windows, and the television cast flashing colors on the gossamer drapes in the living room. Matt pushed his way inside and set his things down at the door, unsurprised to find Jack Richards strung out on the kitchen floor.

"Dad." Matt gave him a nudge with his boot and the drunken old man stirred, conscious but just barely. "Alright. Come on, get up."

Matt took him by the hands and pulled him upright, just enough that he could sling an arm around his shoulders and heave the drunk up from the floor. Jack muttered unintelligible things as Matt carried his father down the hall toward his bedroom, where clothing piled the floor and photographs of his mother still laid face-down on his dresser beside a portrait of Clara. Matt's photo was the smallest—five-years-old, tiny and tucked in rain boots, holding his first fish and crying because the hook had cut in too deep. Good as dead, his dad had said. No point in letting it go now.

It was ironic, Matt realized as he helped jack into his bed and pried the filthy boots from his feet. I could say the same about you.

"Fell, probably," Jack grumbled as Matt tossed the sheets over him. "Bet I fell again."

"Bet you did," said Matt. "Those chairs are slippery, huh?"

With remarkable effort, Jack pried his eyes open—squinting at Matt's face in the shadowed dark of his room. "Poor bastard. You got my face after all. Always hated that. Wanted you to look like your mama."

"Nah," Matt said. "Receding hairlines run in her side of the family."

"I wanted to put you up for adoption," his father slurred. "Did'ya know that?"

Matt sunk down against the edge of his nightstand. "This is a great talk, Dad."

"Still wish I had," said Jack. "I was never the right man to raise a boy that looked so much like me."

"Why not?"

Jack's heavy lids fell shit. "'Cause I thought I'd never be able to love ya' for it."

The words bite deep and Matt let them. He wanted to feel the teeth. He felt the bite and wondered when all these strange shadows had started to haunt his father's face. Wondered when the liquor would shut him down for good.

Then Jack said, "I did, though. Loved you real easy."

And by the time the words had settled into Matt's ears, Jack was asleep.

Matt pried the sweaty cap from his father's head and hung it from the post of his bed frame. He watched the old man choke in a snore and turn his toward the window, and Matt whispered while he still had the chance, "Love you too, Dad."

Then he left. Gathered his things from the front door, took the keys to Jack's pickup truck, packed his shotgun in the back and retrieved Gabe's note from his pocket.

5230.

For a long while, Matt drove circles around town—to clear his mind, to gather the courage, to settle the sick feelings in his heart. To hope that, by some impossible science, Raven would appear in the sear next to him like he did that day on the interstate. Then, when it was clear Matt would have to fight this battle alone, he drove in the direction of the address Gabe had given him.

Jack's old pickup was a nightmare. The gearstick stuck, the engine smelled like burning oil, and the shot suspension threw him from his seat for every pothole it barreled over. Funny thing was, the Wrangler had been gone for over a week. Jack either hadn't noticed or hadn't bothered to ask. Probably wouldn't know that Matt took his truck, either—probably wouldn't ever notice it gone. Fear panged in Matt's chest as he merged onto the highway, overtaking a Prius with one cracked light. Rico was gonna kill him. Soon as he got those burly hands around Matt's throat, he was gonna squeeze the brains from his skull.

But what if he didn't? What if Matt's fate was worse than that?

He brought his phone up and thumbed through the glaring light of the screen until he found Jaylin's name. The phone rang twice—then answered to the soft, fading jangle of piano music. Matt hit the speaker phone.

"Hey, Jay?"

"What's up, Matt?"

The engine gnarled as Matt pressed on the gas and roared past a minivan that'd started to lag in the middle lane. "Didn't wake you, did I?"

"Nah. You okay?"

"I dunno," Matt admitted. "I dunno, Jay."

"What's going on?"

"Nothing. I just—y'know after we graduated high school, I thought we'd go our separate ways, like people do. But we didn't. Sadie left for a while, but you me and Tis—you two..."

Jaylin's voice tilted with worry. "Matt."

"I don't know how things are gonna go by the end of the night. Guess I just wanted to say thanks. Let's go for a beer after this."

"After what?" Jaylin asked. "Matt? Are you doing something stupid?"

"'Course I am," said Matt. "Night, Jay."

Then he hung up—tossed his phone in the passenger sear beside a half-drunken bottle of his father's favorite scotch. He'd just pulled off the highway when the gas gauge hit empty and Matt pulled into a gas station with only two pumps. He stepped inside the store and lingered in the liquor isle for what felt like hours. He knew each of these labels—saw them at one point or another in his fathers scuffed hands, smelled them when they'd been digested and ejected again on the kitchen floor. If it weren't for Jay and Tis—if it weren't for the way they taught him to love, he would've ended up just like Jack. Filling his arms with liquor brands he'd never heard of, hoping one of them was the right kinda wrong medicine.

Matt put the dark beer he'd chosen back in its cooler and selected an energy drink instead.

Maybe this was what Bailey meant when he said he couldn't fix him. Maybe this was why he'd never come home—cause all Matt's life, he'd known his fate and waited for it. All his life he'd been a sitting duck.

Just once, he wanted to throw the first punch. He wanted to fix himself.

He handed the cashier a twenty for gas and filled his father's tank with diesel. And when he was done, Matt climbed back into the passenger seat to find his cell phone blinking with several missed calls—some from Jaylin, some from Quentin, some from Tisper, who'd likely been woken up out of dead sleep by several texts from a worried Jaylin. Then there was a call from one number Matt didn't recognize.

His heart leapt at the thought of Bailey, and he returned the call. Matt leaned into his seat and shut his eyes to the ring of the speaker.

The voice that answered was far deeper. It spoke with a cold mass that put a chill up Matt's arms.

"You're getting colder, hero."

Matt's throat tightened. "Who is this?"

"Why don't you tell him?" said the voice.

There was a crackle as the phone shifted. A deep, rugged breath that Matt knew too well. "Son."

"Dad—"

"I want you to call the police," he said, his voice still drown in scotch and sleep. "Want you to tell 'em I'm in the old abandoned house off 84th."

The phone was torn away and that thunderous voice beat against the speakers. "You got that?

"How did you..." Quentin had sentinels guarding the farm. Guarding his father.

"The girls left to look for you," Rico said with a hearty laugh. "Been waiting days. Ever since Gannon's runt came back from nowhere smelling like cow shit. He was my partner, you know. My first recruit. Been friends ten years, Gannon and me. Heard you blew off part of his jaw. Heard his whole ear was gone. Would'a killed the kid if he hadn't been one of Gannon's favorites. Plenty fucked up though." Something creaked—maybe a chair or a door. "Turns out he did me a favor. Been watching your pop for a few days now."

A car honked behind Matt—impatiently waiting for the diesel pump. He ignored the glare of its headlights, his heart pulsing in his ears. "Don't hurt him."

"I don't want him, boy. I want you. The abandoned house off 84th. Ditch that shotgun of yours and come alone, or I'll tear his throat from his neck. Understood?"

Matt started the engine with a trembling hand. "You're watching me."

"I got eyes in the dark. Do you know why, hero?"

His throat swallowed.

"Cause my boys fear me far more than they'd ever fear you or that alpha of yours. They know I got promise—know I keep my word," Rico said. "You got thirty minutes, then I start pulling. Nails. Teeth. The lashes from his fucking eyes."

"You hurt a human and they'll—"

"I stopped caring what they'd do the second you killed Gannon. If I die, I die on a bed of bones." His breath scraped the speakers. "Decide if you want them to be yours or your pop's."

Then the line went dead.

An; by the way, if any of you are interested, you can find the Mongrel playlist here under Matt x Bailey on Spotify.