Levi was absolutely not done hiding from the world that had opened up before him. Every ounce of that bravado had suddenly fled his body, replaced by a jittering anxiety that ran up and down his spine.

The SUV in front of the pack house was a rental. A shiny new Tahoe with Florida plates, Levi’s supernaturally sensitive ears could still hear it ticking in the driveway.

Inspector Lorraine was a tall, lanky man. He wore a pressed suit, navy blue head to toe, with an understated red tie that reminded Levi of the color of blood. His greying hair was trimmed precisely, the picture of a military man. His steps up to the front door were measured, controlled, calm. The man seemed to be in command of all things.

Two other men followed him, larger, stoutly made. Clearly security of some description.

When they reached the bottom of the stairs, everyone had gathered in a little knot of people by the doorway into the living room and kitchen. Everyone but Elizabeth, who was hurriedly preparing the living room to receive a guest.

“This isn’t a lot of notice,” Levi hissed.

“They didn’t give me any notice, I didn’t even know he’d touched down,” Derrick grunted in reply. Derrick took a deep breath. Three concise knocks came from the door. Derrick let the breath out and pulled the door open.

“Agent Derrick Brighton,” the inspector said. He wore a feint but easy smile on his lips, and the lines of his space said he wore that smile frequently. His voice, spoken with just a hint of a French accent, reassured Levi. It sounded smooth, polite, and in-control, a running theme with the man by the looks of things. “I’ve heard good things about your work. Quite the field agent, or so I've read,” he said. He extended a hand, and Derrick took it, giving a firm shake.

“Thank you for coming sir. This is Levi,” Derrick said. Levi stepped forward and Lorraine took his hand as well. The man’s eyes, sharp as glass, skimmed over him head-to-toe, absorbing every detail.

“Levi,” Lorraine said with his easy smile. “It’s a pleasure. May I come in? I came as quickly as I was able once the details of the case reached me, Redding has been a bit of a pet project of mine. I was tied up in a rather peculiar corn field in Indiana that has, so far as we have been able to determine, no actual end. I’m afraid I’m rather worn out.”

Derrick glanced at Baxter, who gave a covert nod, and they stepped aside to allow the man in. Entering the house of a wolf pack was probably some kind of big deal, Levi figured. Some kind of sign of trust. Rhea and Jace stepped out of the way as they entered the living room. Levi noticed that one of Lorraine’s bodyguards had followed him inside, while the other had stayed outside at the door.

The inspector sat on one side of the coffee table, Derrick and Levi sat on the opposite. Lorraine put a folder on the table. He accepted a mug of coffee from Elizabeth with a gracious little bow of his head, then turned back to the table.

He cocked a brow at something over Levi’s shoulder, and something in the glint of his eyes made Levi anxious.

“Miss Rosa Delgado? You’re welcome to join us, if you’d like. Agent Brighton tells me you’ve already become… familiar with the specificities of our operations.”

“Oh, no,” Rosa said from behind Levi. She sounded a tiny bit nervous, but it could have been Levi’s imagination. Rosa was almost never nervous. Embarrassed sometimes, scared sometimes, angry sometimes, never nervous. “No, that’s okay. Levi, holler if you need me. I’ll be in the bedroom.”

“Mm. Seems like a nice girl,” Lorraine mused. He turned his gaze back to Levi. “Now, we’ve got quite a lot to go through, so we’ll go ahead and leap into it. I made myself familiar with the history of the case and the Bureau’s involvement in it while I was on the plane.”

He opened his folder, pulling out several documents and photographs. He spread them across the table, meticulously organized and labeled. The man took a sip from his coffee as he organized the paperwork.

“Way I see it,” he said, tapping twice on one particular stack of documents, “a Mister Arthur Wood is the crux of this little incident. I would like to go through what documentation I have been provided and see if we can illuminate some of the dingy corners of this unfortunate incident. Agent Brighton, go ahead and break down the nature of your relationship with Arthur Wood for me.”

Derrick cleared his throat and straightened a touch in his seat. Levi’s head was already reeling. They were going over everything now? Already? It seemed like everything was moving too quickly for him to follow.

“Arthur was in my jurisdiction as part of a Bureau effort to integrate the Redding pack into the national registry. He was serving as an ambassador, and was originally from the Santa Cruz-”

“Pardon,” chuckled Lorraine. “I’m familiar with his reason for being in the area and his background. Mister Wood worked for the Bureau, after all. I meant specifically your relationship with him.”

Derrick paused, a touch off-balance. “Right,” he said. “Of course, sir. I was in the middle of casework when I ran into Mister Wood for the first time. In pursuit of an individual by the name of William Cartright. A young boy, believed to have inherited a curse from his grandfather.”

“The Black Hound,” Lorraine nodded. “I’m familiar with the case.as far as I’m aware, the boy’s whereabouts are still a mystery. Have you heard anything further?” he asked, casting his glass-sharp eyes at Derrick.

“No sir,” Derrick said simply, blank as slate. Before Lorraine could ask any further after the whereabouts of Will, Derrick pushed forward. “Arthur and I crossed paths while I was investigating the local Lycan population. Black Hounds have been known to integrate with Lycan populations, and so I figured it may have been a productive line of inquiry. Arthur Wood offered me assistance. While not much ended up coming of it, he and I maintained social ties. We were both strangers in the area with ties to the Bureau, and found it a useful friendship to keep.”

Lorraine nodded, jotting something down on a little notepad in neat cursive. His notes were in French, and Levi could not read them.

“So you were friends,” Lorraine nodded as he wrote. “You worked together to hunt down William Cartright. But your friendship persisted after you were reassigned?”

“Correct. When I pushed through the request to be reassigned to the new case worker position in Redding, him and I remained in touch. It was a casual acquaintance, though we still worked together some when it came to troublesome Lycan incidents.”

Lorraine’s smile reappeared. “I signed off on your papers myself, in fact. Your record was superb and your local experience made you an obvious choice. My peers and I have been very pleased with your work in the area. It has gone a long way towards encouraging the Redding pack to integrate.”

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

“That was more Arthur’s doing than mine, sir,” Derrick admitted.

“Nonsense,” the main said dismissively. He took a small sip from his mug of coffee. “Cooperation makes the world go ‘round, Agent Brighton. You should remember that.”

“Yes sir,” Derrick said obediently.

Lorraine turned his eyes on Levi. Levi jumped at the way the inspector’s eyes flashed over to him. He felt, in his bones, like the inspector was looking right through him.

“Mister Levi Gutierez. Grew up in a household with your father and grandmother. Father Joseph Gutierez is a professor of Astrophysics in Portland, Oregon. Grandmother, deceased. State math bowl champion two years in a row, excelled in school, fantastic academic record. Broke three state and one national record in track and field, as well as one in cross-country running. Competed internationally in Sambo. Three full scholarships from ivy-league universities, but never attended college. Most recently employed at a Bullseye Market in Redding, California. You are an interesting man to read about, Mister Gutierez. Very interesting.”

Levi’s mouth twitched.

Well. That was something. He had gone from viewing the man with fear to viewing him with disgust in about three full seconds of conversation. He bit his tongue, trying to keep from saying anything too snappy in reply.

“Calm,” his father’s voice told him. “He’s trying to get a rise out of you. He thinks he’s better than you, because he thinks you failed to meet your potential. But you told me a long time ago that you had a different definition of success. You don’t need to let him measure you.”

“Yes,” Levi said, voice a tiny bit gruff with something like a growl. “That would be me in a nutshell.” The sarcasm was unmistakable, but if Lorraine noticed, he didn’t comment on it.

“And now, so it seems, unreported Lycan.” Lorraine made a bit of a face, paused, looked off to the side, then back at Levi. “I’m sorry, I forget sometimes that reading up on a person like that is... off-putting. So much of my work revolves around knowing history that I tend to forget how to work with people. I’m sorry, Levi, that you’ve had to experience this.”

Yeah, right. Like the man really cared. This was bullshit... But he tried to force his instinctual repulsion down. He tried to take the man at his word, tried to trust him. It was... hard. His father’s stern scowl hovered somewhere in the back of his mind.

“Levi, can you explain to me what, to the best of your knowledge, happened to Arthur Wood?”

Derrick tensed but remained silent. Levi scowled down at the woodgrain of the coffee table, feeling the cool steel of the rail ties wrapping around his neck. When he spoke, his voice was soft and strained, nearly a whisper. Even now it was difficult to talk about, difficult to put into words without falling to pieces.

“Arthur and I were out for a walk,” he began. “We went on walks together sometimes, usually at night. Early evening, whatever. He liked having me there when he turned. He said I made it...”

“You made it bearable,” Arthur muttered. “You cared that I was in pain. You cared that it hurt. You wanted to help me through it.”

“He said it was nice of me to care, that I helped by being there. So, we went on a lot of walks. We were in a railyard when it happened. There was a train coming, I was seeing things. My mother. My grandmother.”

“In the name of God,” his grandmother hissed in a crazed whisper, pushing his head into the bathtub, “be reborn and be whole.”

Levi shook his head, trying to shake the memories free of his head, or the bath water out of his ears, one or the other. “I wouldn’t move. I couldn’t move. I was standing on the tracks. Arthur tried to pull me off of them, and I thought... I thought he was my grandmother.”

Lorraine nodded, jotting something else down on his notepad.

“I can understand why that would make you react so violently,” Lorraine said quietly. “I know there were several... incidents. Child Protective Services got involved. Your mother, she died right after your birth?”

Levi tried to hide his frustration. Lorraine had said it as if it were a question, but they all knew the answer. This man clearly thought he knew Levi, that those words on a page were him, and not some paper mâché approximation of his life. His life, as told by the individual events that transpired, rather than by who he was.

“Yes,” he managed to grunt out.

“Please, continue,” Lorraine prompted.

Levi sighed, and the breath came out shaky. “He tried to get me off of the tracks. I wouldn’t go. He managed to shove me off of them but I lashed out at him. He stumbled back and the train just... Just...”

His fists were clenched so tightly that blood seeped through his fingers, dappling the white of the carpet. Some distant part of him decided Elizabeth would probably kill him for that.

“The train hit him. One moment he was there, he was Arthur... The next he was nothing. Just... a mess.”

Derrick gently grabbed his right hand and started working the digits apart, forcing him to stop hurting himself. Levi didn’t resist the man’s efforts, and Derrick didn’t look away from Lorraine. Levi was a touch surprised that he didn’t feel the sick sorrow and rage thrumming in his veins now that he had felt when he’d confessed to Derrick. There was anger and pain, yes, but it was a dull throbbing ache, and it felt almost entirely separate from the words coming out of his mouth. His body was reacting without his mind, and vice versa.

He forced himself to replay the night in his head, to remember details. His train of thought was interrupted by the man’s next question.

“Agent Brighton, how did you and Levi meet?” Lorraine asked.

“Through Arthur, sir,” Derrick said simply.

“Describe to me,” Lorraine said, his words suddenly sharp as broken glass, “the specifics.”

Derrick paused for longer than Levi thought he’d get away with, but Lorraine didn’t press him. Finally, the man spoke. “When Arthur became aware of Levi’s infection, he came to me for help.”

“Not the Bureau?”

“I am the Bureau. Levi was reported to the almost immediately, as soon as infection was confirmed.”

Levi blinked at Derrick. The man was maneuvering himself expertly. First he lied to the Bureau about Will, now he was stretching the truth to suit his purposes. But Levi could not, for the life of him, figure out what those purposes were.

“He was reported,” Lorraine mused, “yet he was never properly registered.”

“The submission of his registration paperwork was delayed by rising tension with the Redding pack,” Derrick grunted. “Increased Bureau pressure to integrate had the local Lycan population riled up and, given his bloodline, it was worried that the Redding pack might view a second Santa Cruz wolf in the area as a trespass. Official submission was put on hold, since it was thought likely that Bureau personnel working on the integration would leak that information to the pack.”

But... that was a lie. Just how comfortable lying to this man was Derrick?

“That seems farfetched.”

“That’s the truth so far as the personnel on the ground saw it, sir. Arthur and I set about keeping Levi safe, while attempting to convince him to go to Santa Cruz for proper pack rites. The situation devolved rapidly from there.”

The conversation was moving quickly, each man speaking in short, clipped words. Lorraine snapped his sharp gaze to Levi.

“When Mister Wood died, what was done with the body?”

Levi swallowed heavily. He remembered a grassy bog, his feet sinking into the mud, the humid heat of the last breaths of summer. “There wasn’t much of a body left,” he said, looking at the floor. “I collected what I could, and I took it to the end of the track on the edge of town.

“The stone, the one where the Redding pack meets,” Lorraine nodded. “Why?”

“Because... because Arthur said that if something ever happened to him, I needed to take his body to other Lycans,” Levi thought for a moment. “He said he needed to go back to the moon.”

“Mister Wood did not go back to the moon, Levi,” Lorraine said, his voice suddenly steely and cruel. “Mister Wood’s remains never went back to the site of his den mother, the birthplace of his bloodline. Tell me, Levi, have you been hearing voices?”

“Why are you calling me by my first name?” Levi mumbled. “You call everyone else by their last name...”

“Have you been hearing his voice?”

Silence filled the air of the room. It dragged on, and on, and on, as Levi’s pulse hammered in his ears.

Lorraine broke the silence. He took a slow sip of his coffee, then set the mug down back on the table. He stood.

“Well. This has all been very enlightening. Thank you, gentlemen, for your time. I think this little story will be an excellent cautionary tale for those that take issue with the reporting requirement placed upon Lycan populations. Alpha Reinhart, you may join us now.”