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It's a dead end town, and they're not much like wolves - most of them. Dogs, running in circles in the dusty yard, sniffing their own tails.
Angelina works hard. Gail used to work hard, too, but more and more Gail's hands shake. She gets up in the morning and Angelina sees where she's gnawed her knuckles bloody in the night. Angelina isn't sure if it's in her dreams or because Gail can't sleep.
Sometimes Angelina sits by the front window, twitches the lace aside, watches the trees with her hands in her lap.
He's got a pack in the mountains, John says, and Angelina bites her cheek until it bleeds.
A pack in the mountains sounds nice on its own, about as nice as the soft folded-over post cards and brochures she leaves scattered across her dresser - no shoebox under the bed for her, too cliché, and fuck hiding her thwarted desires away from herself. These days she needs them just to get through the day. A pack in the mountains doesn't sound so bad as an end goal - after she's traveled the world.
But Connor's done it all wrong, just like Connor went wrong himself.
He's a wolf, like her. The golden buzz of the corn and the washed-blue cry of the sky and the sweet soprano of the moon should live in him, in his gut and veins, same as it does in her. Then again, she wishes it would live in the town wolves, too, so they wouldn't wring their hands and then give her patronizing smiles when she passes by. Their sacrificial fucking goat.
Sometimes she lay in bed at night and wondered if leaving the baby would hurt.
Gail had been close to sober the first time John had broached the subject. "You're out of your fucking mind," she'd said harshly, eyes round, lip curling back from strong white teeth, fingers clenched around the glass. "You're going to let him rape my sister? And after that you're saying we leave the kid with him?"
"It's fine," Angelina had interrupted, keeping her voice soft and level.
Gail had tossed the glass she held down on the table. Amber liquid slopped across the table, shocking Angelina - it had been a long time since Gail was careless with her booze - and she'd smelled blood as Gail's fingers bit into her own hand. Shadows almost, but not quite, crossed Gail's cheeks. Fur promising and receding, as always. "It's not fine!"
Angelina had used the whipcrack voice she used sometimes in the backrooms. When she was wiping up spills and Gail had fucked up real bad. "I've made my decision," she said, and Gail looked at her all big-eyed, mouth open, lost.
"Baby girl," she'd said, like Angelina hadn't been carrying her weight for the past four fucking years, and Angelina had loved her and hated her so much in that moment she'd had to get up and leave the house.
They never spoke of it again. After that, Gail never sobered up. If she wasn't a werewolf, her liver would be fucking shot. As it was, occasionally she strained herself, howled and squealed and clawed at the floor, and padded out into the woods for the night.
Hate it, she says to Angelina once. Sobers me right up.
Angelina folds the bar towel in response, cracks open two beers, doesn't look up.
Gail stumbled away into the back. Sister moment over.
Everyone is so goddamn heavy in this town.