For a week, Matt hardly said more than a word to Bailey. He helped heave an old leather couch up to the loft one late night, but for the most part, his father assigned the hound to distant parts of the farm where he wasn't much but a shadow in the sun. Occasionally, Matt saw him pruning the orchards or fixing the decaying boards in the pasture fence, but he was a passing thought. One that passed by more often than Matt would've liked.

For the past two nights, Matt had taken the fostering papers out from the crack beneath his nightstand and paced the kitchen, reading through the pale moonlight of the window. Bailey Walters was taken in at ten years old, fostered to a Jenny and Craig Compton. Socialites at their community church and owners of an antique shop in the city. Three months later, his placement was terminated. No rhyme or reason, just the big, red rubber-stamped words. TERMINATED.

He couldn't bring himself to look any further. Despite his curiosity, Matt was an honest guy. He felt bad snooping around, and a part of him wasn't sure he wanted to know Bailey at all. He was a stranger and sometimes strangers were just meant to be strangers.

"Instincts, princess," Raven would whisper to him on occasion. But when Matt asked what he meant, the ghost in his head was long gone. Sometimes he wondered if Raven was always in him. Some kinda subconscious bullshit that'd been awakened by the whole dyin' thing. He never seemed to have a lot to say about Bailey though, and that was what unnerved Matt the most.

Bailey was an anxiety that'd stuck him down to the bones. Every whistle of wind or rap of a tree limb woke Matt from his sleep. And when he did dream, he dreamed of dark eyes and sharp teeth, glowing like a burnin' thing in the dark.

Bailey was more infection than man.

Matt did catch a glimpse of him, there was never a change to his face. Always emotionless like whatever dark soul was in him couldn't ever reach the surface. He wasn't human, Bailey. Didn't seem like it, at least—not until a Friday evening, when the hound had taken it upon himself to tend to the cows in the pasture.

Matt had been watching through the kitchen window, a cup of luke-warm coffee in his hands. For all of dusk, Bailey sat on the ground in Lucy's isolated field, petting the hard round dome of her pregnant belly. He didn't move, didn't say a word to her—didn't smile when her horrifying serpent tongue wormed over the toe of his boot. He just sat there, brushing down her spotted side with slow fingers, like a robot programmed to do only this one pointless thing.

Matt thought back to the smiling face from his foster papers—the beaming grin and the Bambi eyes. How in the hell was he the same kid from the photo?

"You know, I tried to say hi to him." Jessica's strong chin jabbed into the back of Matt's shoulder, her arms wrapping him from behind. "Do you know what he did?"

Matt watched through the window, the sunlight submerged in the horizon. A breeze laid flat the fields in the distance, swept Bailey's hair up in a twist of wild black flame. Still, no expression.

"Did he glare at you? All he ever seems to do to me."

"He scoffed at me," Jessica said. "Scoffed like it was funny and sad...not so much like I offended him. Makes me wonder, though. What's he doin' here?"

"Dunno," Matt said, her embrace squeezing him hard. He shifted where it pinched under the ribs. "It won't be forever."

"He's been all about Lucy. Seems to really like her."

He did seem to favor the animals on the farm. Even caught him grooming a chicken from time to time. But still, some part of Matt didn't want to admit that there was at least a bit of humanity to Bailey. "Everyone likes Lucy."

"Why don't you invite him inside sometime? Bet it gets cold at night in that barn."

Matt set down his mug, the rays of orange sunlight beaming through the gaps in the trees. It probably was cold out there, but wolves didn't feel the cold. Did they? "He's a stranger, Jess."

"Well alright," she said, her fingers moving down his stomach. An innocent touch, but enough to add inflection when she said, "I kinda like our space anyway."

Matt unhooked from her arms. "I gotta go fix the coup before dad blows a gasket."

But as he took a step toward the door, Jessica reeled him around to face her. "Hold on a minute, we haven't talked all day. You know the news made it all the way to North Carolina? Grammy called this morning—"

"Jess, I have to go," he said, shrugging her hands off. "Dad'll kick my ass if another hen goes missing."

She looked broken for a minute, hands curled at her sides like he'd fallen right through her fingers. Guilt pelted Matt at the sight of her, but he didn't have an option. Any talk of the crash that day ended in a night of sex he just couldn't stomach right now. He had to get out of the house and away from her hero-fetish.

But by the time Matt had reached the coup, the chicken wire was already replaced, the boards nailed into place. Dad must've given up on him and assigned the task to Bailey. There was no work left for him to do, but he couldn't go back inside now.

He took a long look around the farm. Some of the extra farm-hands were cleaning up equipment and locking up the took shed, but Bailey was nowhere to be seen. The cattle had been moved in for the night which meant he'd probably disappeared to his loft.

Matt walked to the old storage barn next to the coop and knocked once before rolling the heavy door open. A dark shape set at the bottom-most steps of the stairs, glowing joint in his mouth. When he spoke, the smoke clawed out at the sky. "Didn't say you could come in."

"Why the hell's it so dark in here?" Matt asked, flipping on the single bulb above. It lit the room, but no more than a candle flame. Bailey's shirtless skin shone beneath the light, bare and filthy—dirt staining his tattoos, hair hanging down one shoulder, tangled and wet with sweat. "Christ, you need a shower."

"Not exactly a guest bathroom in this place," Bailey said, wiping the dirt from his hands. "I was going to turn. There's a place around here where I like to go running." He tapped his ashes against his boot and brought the paper to his mouth again. "I'll wash in the lake."

That paper crackled and the cherry swelled in the shadows. For a moment, Matt was brought back to the city streets outside St. Terrance. The taste of cheap pot, the rough fingers against his lips.

"You and I both know you won't let him," said the voice in his head.

Matt wanted to scowl at the blackbirds scuttling along the barn roof. Why not? He can hose off in the cold for all I give a shit.

"You're intimidated," Raven said. "You see a snake in your garden, but you're not looking at the big picture. You have a ticket of abstinence right here for the taking, big boy. Jess won't even kiss you in public. She's not gonna fuck you in front of the farmhand."

He was right. Matt hated to admit it, but Raven was right. Maybe Bailey was the interruption he needed to kill Jess's libido—at least until he had the strength to end things with her.

"Come in and shower," he said. "The neighbors are always shooting at coyotes and I don't want your blood on my hands."

"Thought I wasn't allowed in your place?" Bailey said, pressing the nub of the joint out on the edge of his boot, "Worried I'd shit on the carpet or something."

"Come in to shower," Matt said. "Breakfast, lunch, dinner—you can come in for all of it. Just...y'know, sleep out here."

Bailey stood, taking the shirt from his front pocket. A deep bruise marked his left rib and the insides of his arms were pricked and red from carrying hay. When he unraveled the filthy shirt, Matt caught the dirt stains and the hole ripped clean up the side-hem.

"Is that all you have?"

"The other two are covered in cow shit, so yeah. I'd say so."

"Are you kiddin' me?" Matt ran his hands through his hair and heaved out a deep, tired sigh. "You only have three shirts to your name?"

Bailey's bored, neutral gaze was an answer in its own.

"Fine. I have extras. Come in for a shower and we'll wash your clothes tomorrow." Then Matt turned for the barn door.

"I'm not an idiot." Bailey's voice gripped him there at the open arch of the doorway. "I know what you're doing and I'm not being paid to twat-block for you."

Matt turned to him as Bailey stepped into a streak of light flooding in through the open door—the tattoo on his arm glinting like graphite in the distant motion lights of the guest house. "How'd you—"

"I can hear a pin drop from a mile away," Bailey said. "I've been using the hose outside your house to shower. I hear it all." A strange kind of smirk lit in the dark—just faint enough that it put a terrible feeling in Matt's belly. "A pretty girl wants to ride your hips to dust and you look for every excuse to keep your dick in your pants. What exactly are you so afraid of?"

Matt didn't answer. He found Bailey's eyes in the dark—black and slick as the eyes of a crow. And for some reason, he found himself searching them, lookin' for that green he'd seen once before.

"Who are you?" he asked.

Bailey let out a humorous breath. Then he turned from Matt and made his way up the stairs to his loft.

"Who knows anymore."

A.n.; Trying to keep the chapters short so expect a few brief ones like this. More on the way.