Failine - 6. Chapter 6

At the end of the clearing, I stopped. Running into the forest didn’t seem to be a good idea, especially with a frightened kid on my arms. Moreover, I wanted to stay close to Dillon. I didn’t know what I could do to help him, but I had to do at least something. I sank down on my knees. My breath came in heavy gasps, though I hadn’t sprinted for long. Was there something like emotional exhaustion? Jamie was still sobbing, and his tears soaked my shirt.

“Hush, shorty, hush. Everything’s alright.” I dandled him.

Jamie moved back his head, away from my chest, and wiped his nose with his sleeve. “Was that a lion?” For him, curiosity always won over fear.

“No.” I swept away the tears from his cheek. “That was a cougar, a puma.”

“I’ve only seen lions on TV.” He snuffled. “Have they offed him because he is dangerous?”

Where had he caught the word ‘offed’? Lions were not the only thing he had learned about from TV. “No, no. Dillon is not dangerous. The adults just got a little scared about nothing. And he is not dead.” Perhaps I was lying. I just could hope that I wasn’t.

Jamie nodded and creased his forehead. “What is a Failine? Daddy-sir said that.”

Yes, he did. “It’s a cuss word, a bad word.” That wouldn’t satisfy his curiosity. “It’s a play on words. You know what a fail is?”

Jamie nodded again. “When something goes wrong.”

“Right. And ‘feline’ means that something has to do with cats. If you combine them, you get Failine.”

“I don’t understand. Something goes wrong with a cat?”

“Dillon’s parents are both wolf shifters, but Dillon shifts into a cougar. Normally, wolf parents don’t get cougar kids. Something has gone wrong.”

His forehead creased again. “I don’t want to be a cat.”

“You won’t. This is very, very rare.” The last case had been recorded some 400 years ago. Under different circumstances, being able to witness Dillon’s transformation into a cougar would have been a godsend.

Jamie came close to my ear. “I don’t want to be a wolf either.”

Two shifters having a non-shifter was even rarer. There was only one incident in all of the 3000 years of written shifter history. I pressed him close to me, but didn’t have the heart to break those bad news to him.

“Jamie! Elias! Are you alright?” Mom stood in the door of the cabin. As she saw us, she began to run.

I got up with Jamie on my arms. The moment she reached us, Mom snatched him away from me.

“Are you alright, honey?”

I clenched my fists. “You didn’t worry about this when you shifted and let him alone in there.”

Mom looked at me with eyes wide open. I never had talked to her like that, and I expected a harsh reprimand in return. She kept silent, knowing that I was right.

“Eli saved me,” Jamie said. The little one felt that something was going on between Mom and me and tried to help. How parents like ours could have an empathetic kid like Jamie was short of a miracle.

“Yes, he did, honey.” She didn’t take her eyes off me, and perhaps she was trying to stare me down. This time I wouldn’t relent, because I had the truth on my side.

“What about Dillon?” I said. On a second thought, if Dillon was dead, I wouldn’t want to hear it from her.

My sudden change of topic caught her off-guard, and she hesitated. “The pack overwhelmed him, and no wolf was harmed. They shackled him up in the store room.” She turned to Jamie. “We’re safe, honey.”

Overwhelmed? Safe? She was kidding me, wasn’t she? I walked off to the cabin, ditching her where she stood.

“What are you doing, honey?”

“Commending a dozen of seasoned shifters for the feat of overwhelming,” I gave the last word special emphasize, ”a defenseless kid of my age. That makes me feel so much safer.”

She said something, but I blocked her out because I wouldn’t stand another of her two-faced remarks without replying something I really might regret later. As I entered, the members of the pack stood close together, talking in groups of two or three, absorbed so deeply into their discussions that they didn’t notice me. The room smelled of adrenaline and Dillon. Where he had laid, a small pool of blood began already to clot, and a red, smeared trail snaked its way to the store room. My chest tightened.

“Has anyone taken care of his wound?” I said.

They didn’t hear me or just ignored me. They talked across each other, and I couldn’t single out a discussion, but I picked up words like ‘enemy’, ‘cat bastard’, and ‘death.’ That was absurd. They couldn’t actually discuss about killing Dillon. Dad wouldn’t allow this, mustn’t allow this. I smashed the door close. That got their attention.

“Tell me that you’re not seriously considering to kill him, Dad.”

My heart pounded, and in this silence, everyone had to hear its beating.

Dad made a step forward and extended both his arms, waving them in a placatory motion. “Elias, boy, you can’t understand this. The cat shifters are our sworn enemies. We are in war.”

The memories of my parents tended to be selective when it came to facts. “War? There hasn’t been a single fight since the truce of 1914. This war has been cold for a hundred years.” I pointed at the pack. “Has anyone of you ever come across a cat shifter until tonight?” I turned to Dillon’s parents. “Mr. and Mrs. Goddard, do you think that your son is dangerous and an enemy?”

Mr. Goddard kept silent, and his gaze switched between my dad and me. Mrs. Goddard stared at the floor with empty eyes.

My dad answered for them. “The well-being of the pack is paramount. All other considerations are secondary. We are not taking this decision lightly, and we’ve contacted the Elder Council for advice.”

Dillon’s fate was to be decided by some old men and crones who had never met him. This pack was a bunch of cowards. Dad was a coward. The last remnants of respect I had for him passed into oblivion. My parents were two pathetic characters, blinded by delusions of grandeur, just because some hillbilly idiots had declared them their king and queen. Even a 16-year old boy could see this. I had to get away for good. Aunt Monica hated Dad, and the enemy of my enemy is my ally. I’d take Dillon and Jamie with me.

“Where is the first aid kit?”

“You want to waste it on a cat which is as good as dead?” Craig Brauner said.

I wanted to kill him. I wanted to lay my hands around his fat neck and wring it until his beery breathing stopped once and for all. Calm down! You’re not like them! “Last time I checked, Dillon was human. If you also qualify as that, give me the first aid kit.” I was shocked by myself. Where did this authority come from? Being told over and over again that I’d be pack master one day did have an effect at last.

“It’s in the store room. Left-hand of the door,” Mrs. Goddard said.

All eyes of the pack were on her, and she lowered her gaze again.

“If Elias volunteers to treat the Failine’s wounds, he may do so,” my father said.

He knew that I wouldn’t let anybody stop me, and he presented it as an act of mercy granted by the great pack master. He was truly pathetic. Using ‘Failine’ instead of Dillon’s name was a message for me, but I was beyond listening to anything he had to say.