Cherry trees sprinkled the gravel driveway of the farm like a pelt of pink snowfall. Matt watched the cows in the pasture as he passed, their coarse, mottled coats stuck with flecks of wet mud from last night's rainfall. It wasn't necessary to wash their coats, but it soothed Matt like slow, lyrical music. His meditation, he called it. A few moments in the evening sun where there was nothing but the brush and the heaving breath of a gentle giant. 

He parked his Wrangler in the guest house driveway, thankful that Jessica's pickup wasn't there to impose on his parking space. Much as Matt hated horses, he was thankful for Jess's. They kept her busy, and most of all, they kept her away.

The guest house was the size of a large apartment, built for his grandmother who died a week before she was meant to move in. It was clean, spaceous, well insulated, and more importantly than anything, a safe distance from his pop. For five-hundred a month, Matt had the escape he needed. The independence without the financial suffering. Only problem was Jessica, who had practically adhered herself to the walls from the moment he moved in.

As the rickety front door battered shut behind Matt, he was choked by the stink of hot, scented wax. A candle burned on the fireplace mantle, browning the paint on the wall beside it. Matt masked his mouth in his sleeve. "Son of a bitch, Jess." He dropped his things by the couch and blew the flame out in a hurry. As he reached for the candle, the glass seared into his fingers. He dropped it to the floorboards, jar cracking clean down the middle. Fucks sake, he hated candles. Hated the artificial stink, the way the smoke caught in his throat. More than anything, he hated them 'cause twice now they'd nearly burned the damn house down.

Candles, country music, her unhealthy obsession with horses—damn near everything Jess did cut cold shivers down his bones like nails on a chalkboard. But still, Matt wondered what life would be like without her. If being completely alone would destroy the last of whatever was left in him.

He opened the windows to waft out the smell, changed into his farm clothes and headed out toward the shed, fetching a bathing brush and a bucket of warm, sudsy water.

"Billy!" he shouted out into the breeze, setting a stool down on the gnawed pasture grass. When nothing happened, he cupped his hands to his mouth and gave his voice to the valley in deep, rolling echoes, "Billy!"

The fat Hereford cattle came bounding toward him, a small dot on the horizon. Matt could tell it was Billy all the same; he was the largest cow on the lot. Too fat to ever sell, too loyal a friend to ever slaughter. He thumped over, head low, snout gusting. When he caught a whiff of the soapy water, he swung his bulky hips over, nearly knocking Matt off his stool.

"Alright, alright," Matt said, wetting the brush. "Hold still, you bastard." And as every time before, when Matt went to work washing the mud and manure from his fur, Billy turned into a two-ton comatose hunk of affection. He swung his head, nipped and nudged at Matt's shoulder—more dog than cow, Billy. The only thing on this farm he didn't detest with every fiber of himself were the animals, but mostly Billy. He was just different. Understood Matt.

Raven's voice curled in his ears, thin and whispered like a breeze through an oat field. "Jesus kid, get yourself a girlfriend, huh?"

A crow careened down from the bare oak trees, long wicked toes clutching at the edge of the pasture fence. It's head snapped in all directions, black, bead eyes wide and unblinking.

"I have a girlfriend," Matt said, turning away from the bird and back to the soap on Billy's chestnut coat.

"Get yourself one you like. Or at least go stick your dick in something that doesn't make you hate yourself. Something that doesn't live on this farm, preferably."

He brushed a clump of dirt from the cow's hip and Billy shivered pleasantly at the rough bristles. Jess didn't make him hate himself. He did that all on his own.

"Get fucked, Raven."

"That's the spirit," Raven said. Several more crows descended to the fence, bouncing along the wooden planks. Left to right, left to right. It was almost as if they were searching for him—looking for Raven in the wrong plane of reality. Where did they come from and why did the crows love him so much?

A phantom sigh pulsed through Matt's skull. "A word of advice from your guardian angel?"

"No."

"Stop being so fuckin' afraid of the world. They never made a movie about the guy who was too pussy to change his life. You know why?"

"Don't care."

"Woulda been a boring movie. A real piss-fest. I'd rather watch someone shit in their hands and paint the Mona Lisa in excrement than sit through a movie about your life."

The crows cawed, the suds on Billy's coat covering Matt's hands in the stink of manure. He felt like gagging on the imagery. "Leave me alone."

"I say this with love—"

"No you don't."

"You're depressed. Do you know how I know?"

"Because you won't mind your own fuckin' business?" Matt asked.

"Because you washed this same cow yesterday."

Then the birds scattered to the skies as if they were spooked, black feathers falling behind them like dead leaves from a charred tree. Usually meant Raven had left him alone. Usually.

Matt's phone buzzed in the pocket of his jeans. He dipped his hands into the soapy water and scrubbed them clean, wiping the wet on his knees. He couldn't answer quickly enough at the sight of Sadie's name.

"Yeah?" he said, phone slipping down his wet fingers. "Sadie?"

"Unfortunately, no," said the man on the other end. "The queen's a bit occupied at the moment, but she's requesting your presence at the citadel—"

"Castle," hissed a voice somewhere in the background.

"At the castle," the man said. "Though, it's really more of an estate—Ow, fine! Castle, it's a castle. Jesus." He cleared his throat and repeated quickly, "The queen is requesting your presence at the castle."

"Right now?" Matt asked. "But—"

"At your soonest available convenience. Your flight will be paid for in full. We'll arrange a taxi. Please text with your availability and arrangements will be made."

At a single, emphatic beep, the line went dead.

Matt stared at the black screen of his cell. A breeze pushed through his hair as Billy gave his head a sniff. Then the cow let out a gust of breath that flecked his face in snotty spittle.

-

It was a Wednesday afternoon when Matt packed his bags and boarded a plane to Maine. He was chauffeured from the airport to the beautiful brick mansion, built in the heart of Maine's dense woodlands. Sadie's castle. The guy on the phone was right though, the place looked more like an estate for some rich, isolated old quack. He climbed the wrought-iron railing of the stairs and knocked on the dark, wooden doors with the gargoyle ring beneath the peak-hole.

The doors swung open and a boy stood there, the same height as himself. Matt couldn't decide if his hair was pink or blond, or just tainted with the evening sun. His face was soft and angled, eyes round and gentle—more a painting than a person. He stepped back and waved Matt inside. The foyer that greeted him was breathtaking—black granite floors and tungsten silver, shimmering from lamps and clocks and the art pieces that hung from the walls. A fire billowed from the hearth in the center of the room, pouring flickering light over every glittering thing inside. Above it was a hand-painted portrait of Qamar. Her eyes seemed to follow him, haunting and animate.

"This way, please," said the soft-faced man, guiding Matt through the yawning mouth of an arched hallway. Photographs hung from the walls with names beneath each image. Some of the faces looked familiar, like Matt had seen them once in a dream.

"What is this?"

"The commemoration hall," the man replied. "The Queen's way of admiring our lost family."

Family. The word pinched at him. They used to be Sadie's family—Tisper and Jay and himself. He held the grudge warm to his heart. She wasn't even a wolf.

A set of doors swung open and Matt was led into a room where the floors sheened with mother-of-pearl and ivory-colored walls rose up to a lace skylight in the ceiling. A red velvet carpet crawled up a set of dias steps, where Sadie sat atop a throne—no, Ziya's throne. Something awful welled in his stomach.

That glorified chair was the last thing Matt saw before he died.

Sadie watched him enter with dagger-sharp eyes. Her thick, curved body had been bound in a dress—tight at the cinched waist, relaxed and flowing at the hips with a skirt of silver lace. Rubies dangled from her ears, her eyes struck sharp with black liner. She stood from her throne, her stiff, statuesque body language holding him at a cold, aloof gaze. He hadn't seen her in so long and she was looking at him the way a queen would look down on a peasant, rather than a friend. He was an ant beneath the weight of her clout. A pest, miles and miles beneath her. He didn't like the cold air she brought. Didn't like the chills it gave him.

"All of you, out," she ordered. "I'd like a minute alone."

The tall, leggy woman by her side lifted her lip in a sneer and bounced down the dais steps. She slipped out of the room with a muscled man, and the strawberry-blond who led Matt in from the stoop. When the door shut, it was only Sadie left.

She took one step down the dais and her veneer peeled away.

"My little bumpkin!" she squealed, tiptoeing down the steps in a hurry to meet him. She swallowed him up in her arms, smelling like strawberries and rich wine.

"Jesus, Sadie," he said, wrapping his arms around her middle. "Thought you were gonna feed me to your hounds."

"I'm sorry." She pulled back and took his face in her hands, looking him over like she was comparing the image from her memory to the boy in her palms. "I have to look tough or they won't take me seriously. Plus, Drew says I'm too soft."

"Drew?"

"The pretty-boy who let you in." There was always a strange tune to Bronx's speech—some kinda accent in him, nearly chipped away by the years. The ghost of it still blotted his words now and then, but sometimes Matt wondered if he was the only one to notice. The alpha stepped toward him from seemingly nowhere, fixing the buttons on the wrists of his shirt. "Nice to see you, Matt. Saw you made the front page."

"What's goin' on?" Matt asked him, eyes darting to Sadie. "Why are we here?"

"Because I need your help," Sadie said. "I've been working with the council to formulate a plan. We're abolishing the dens."

"And you need me for that...why?"

"Because you've been in one," Sadie said. "And because it pays, Matt. Huge. I'm talking a month of work for the kinda check you only see on TV." The sound rang on in his head like dinner bells, but Matt kept his composure. Nothing worth so much could be that easy.

"I want numbers," he said. "How much are we talking?"

Sadie's eyes roved to Quentin, chin jerking as if to say, you tell him.

"It's a six-figure job," Quentin explained. His hair had grown out a bit since Matt last saw—long enough to start that wavy Disney prince bullshit. "You'll have a partner to give you a hand and I'll keep things smooth behind the scenes."

"A partner." Matt scoffed. "Two people? How many dens are you expecting us to...What the hell are we doing again?"

"You're destroying them," said Sadie. "Gasoline and a match—that's all you have to do. We've delivered notices to every hot-spot rogue location we could find. Those who don't want to listen have to be smoked out."

Matt shivered at the way she said it—like it was a simple fact that didn't bear repeating. "Damn, Sadie. You've gone hard."

"Not yet, but I'm getting there," she said. "About half of the dens have disbanded on their own. The other have seem to be refusing, and there are a few that we...just can't find."

"Why not just send in a militia?" Matt asked. "I mean, I could use the money, but this is a little above my pay grade. Every wolf in this place is probably a better fighter than me."

"We need to stay discrete," Quentin explained. "I have patrols in the police force who can dust away our metaphorical fingerprints, but we can't make a scene. The only pull we have is within our own society. I've met with crime scene detectives who have assured me that arson is our best method of action. We don't need to hurt anyone, Matt. We just need to take away their meeting ground."

"Werewolf crime scene detectives?" 

"Right."

God, this all sounded fuckin' ridiculous. 

"They'll find other places to gather," Matt said.

Sadie stuck him with her dark, cat-lined eyes. "And we'll burn them to the ground."

"Hold on just a minute." Matt took his cap from his head and ran his fingers through his sweaty hair. "Listen, I think you're overestimating my capabilities here."

"You don't have to tackle all of the dens, Matt," Sadie said. "I have other teams working in different areas of the country. I want you clearing out Quentin's domain, that's it."

"But you don't get it. I'm not like the others, I—" Matt never really wanted to be one of them, but for some reason, it felt bitter to say it. So sour, he could hardly swallow. "I can't turn wolf. I don't think I even am one. Look." He lifted his shirt and poked at his stomach—pale and soft from all the days of lounging around, watching security cameras and eating jerky. "Do you see any abs? It's like Wonder Bread." His shirt fell and Matt paced backward on restless feet. "I'm soft, I'm a shit fighter, and no news-flash or anything but I bruise like a fuckin' peach. I know I somehow miraculously came back from the dead that day, but I'm not one of them."

"But that's just it," Quentin said. He stepped uncomfortably close and leaned in, hands in his trouser pockets. At first, Matt thought he was taking a close inspection, then he let out out a breath and straightened. "Nothing. You don't smell like a wolf. You don't smell like a human. You have no traceable scent, and as far as rogues go, they have nothing to track if they haven't got a scent. Our safest bet is you."

Matt hunched, hands on his knees, and let out a deep, overworked breath. Ricco nearly killed him the last time he stepped foot in a den. Cracked his head on the wall like a melon. But working day and night for thirteen bucks an hour was killing him. A six-figure deal and he could quit this shit job—he could live on his savings until he found something that didn't make him feel like a waste of breath.

He could live on it until he passed another police exam.

"Gasoline and a match?" he asked.

Sadie nodded, ruby earrings catching the light.

"This shit better be as easy as you make it sound."

-

Matt stayed for a night, ate breakfast with Sadie in the morning, then climbed into a Taxi for another nine-hour flight back to Washington. It was seven in the evening by the time he stepped out of the cab and onto the farm. Billy followed him along the fence, huffing and grunting until there was no pasture left to chase. "I'll be back before bed, boy," Matt promised him, walking the long gravel road back to the guest house. The door shuttered closed behind him and he tossed his bag on the couch, the hair on the back of his neck rising. Something wasn't right.

Soft music came from the back of the house—or maybe the whispers of a TV. It wasn't Jess, though. Her truck hadn't been in the driveway. He reached over for the kitchen broom and held it securely across his chest. "Jess?" he called, and when she didn't reply, a second wave of uneasiness crawled up his bristled arms. He moved down the hall, floorboards creaking softly under the weights of his steel-toe boots. Through the crack of his bedroom door, light flashed in erratic strobes. Sitcom laughter played softly in the background. Had he left the TV on before leaving to Maine?

A soft tap tap came from beside him and Matt jumped, scouring the empty living room until he realized it was only a crow, pecking at the window pane.

"What are you planning to do with that, big guy? Beat them out with the bristles like an old lady? Sweep 'em off their feet?" Raven's barking laughter clicked around in the back of Matt's skull. "Oh, you charmer."

Matt clutched his broom a bit tighter.

Heart in his throat, he reached for the doorknob twisting slowly until the latch popped. Then he kicked the door in, broom clutched over his shoulder like a baseball bat. Mid-swing, Matt faltered. The broom slipped from his hands, clattering to the dusty floorboards.

The figure on his bed sat slouched and cross-legged, a beer tipped in his hand. His dark eyes hadn't changed since Matt last saw him, but nearly everything else had. His hair was longer, top half tied up, the rest grown out enough to rest at his shoulders. A small tattoo stained his forearm, one on his shoulder where the shirt had been lopped off at the sleeve. The left leg of his jeans gaped with a severe rip at the knee, and not in a fashionable kinda way. He'd been frozen there since Matt's interruption, beer bottle still raised to his lips. Something silver glinted in the light of the TV and Matt's eyes fell to the switchblade held descretely in his other hand. 

All at once, Bailey relaxed. The blade collapsed into the handle, he lowered the beer from his mouth—and the crooked grin he gave Matt next struck through him like lightning.

"What's good, Broke Back Mountain?"

An; hey y'all. Querying depression is real as hell. Comments would cheer me up a lot so please comment as you read! <3