I close my pinkie around it and we shake. She gives me a peck on the cheek before heading off to bed.

Sophie's a cutie, but I can't wait to crawl into bed next to Crow.

* * *

I take the steps slowly – my leg is killing me – up to Crow's little room. It is empty. Granted – it's been more like, forty-five minutes than the thirty I promised her – but I was really hoping she'd be here. "Crow?" I whisper. Nothing. Perhaps I should go looking for her. A stab of pain in my leg suggests otherwise. If I know Crow…

I snatch the particularly wise-looking book from a nearby shelf and open it. A small metal pipe. Pack of weatherproof matches. Little green bag.

What other use could they have for an old wise-looking book? I break the relatively fresh herb and pack the bowl. Laying back on the bed, I use the top of the book as a prep board before setting it all aside and striking a match. In the old days, they had morphine drips. Oh well…

My leg's still killing me.

But a bowl later I'm okay.

Man – this is a gorgeous room. I can see the floodlights outside. They mingle with the dust in the air. With my cigarette smoke. Suddenly, I'm hit with something. It feels like a revelation, but I'm all stoned – so whatever. Here's what it is; The little bits of dust that float in the air – that get caught in a beam of light – they are just like people. They are chaos. They all have their own little ideas and own little destinies. And as they collide and do damage and give and receive with thoughts only to their own objectives – they… There is no answer. I cock my head to the side. The only solution to chaos is implementing mass uniformity. But in doing so, we deny our own beliefs. Whoah. I wonder if I shoulda' told Michelle to hang back.

It's all good.

I'm good. I'm feelin' pretty tired, though.

Crow will come back.

I put out my smokes, kick off my boots.

I'm pretty tired.

* * *

* * *

it's gettin' near dawn / when nights close their tired eye / i'll soon be with you, my love / give you my dawn surprise / i'll be with you, darlin, soon / i'll be with you when the stars start falling // i've been waiting so long // to be where I'm going // in the sunshine of your love

* * *

* * *

I think I'm passed out.

I didn't smoke much – maybe it's just that I'm so tired. But she's here with me, now. She's warm. Her hair smells… like gunpowder.

My eyes pop open and I sit up.

"Li-" Her finger presses against my lips as she sits up and stares at me.

"It's okay. It's okay."

I slowly draw her finger away from my mouth.

"What are you doing in here?"

"I needed a place to crash – everyone's doubling up."

I narrow my eyes at her.

"Where's Crow?"

"On guard duty – she told me to tell you."

"Then I'll go have a chat with her-" but Lisa seizes my arm and pulls me back down to the bed. I am so tired. My eyes close.

"Ohhhh no, the leader needs rest."

"Naw, this ain't cool …"

"Cypress – we're just friends, right?"

"Correct," I mumble. I'm half asleep.

"And you feel, like – no attraction to me whatsoever, right? Friend?"

I open my eye a crack.

"…sure Lisa."

"Perfect," she says. I hear some shuffling, and then she pushes up against me. She's so warm. She's so…

"What's up?" I say.

"Nothing. I just hate sleeping with my clothes on. Buddy."

Everything freezes – on that sound;

Budd. Dee. My hand is on the swell of her hip – her skin seems to scald me.

Her pale hair is shining in the dim spray of light from the Market, and I am treated to her face near-profile.

Frozen forever.

Her pallid, clandestine skin. Slim, sharp eyebrows. Straight nose. Pale lips, curved in a soft, savage half-smile.

Pale brown eyes, looking away.

//

And I see it all.

I feel it all.

Standing on that windy mountaintop, overlooking the monestary. My robe flapping, black against the bloody sunset.

And I must choose.

The wolf is here – he's with me.

And we pause to consider a course of action.

He rises from all fours, and his huge head climbs to a good nine feet. He gazes down at me. Kind, burning red eyes. And I'm not afraid.

burn it all, he says.

I blink.

"What?"

been a while, he says.

"Ten years," I nod. He takes a knee and looks down over the monestary. "I didn't keep up with my regiment – I'll be up to speck soon."

you poison yourself

"I'm fine."

your center is broken

you must rely on me

His sharp, ruby eyes remind me. He would know.

"No," I shake my head.

then we perish

"I'm strong enough."

But his sharp, crimson eyes remind me. Bloody with so many men and women dead on the end of my father's sword. He would know better.

"What would we do?" I ask.

comfort this one – but leave quickly

there are other things to attend to

"And I break my word to Crow."

it is no matter

"No, fuck this! Ten years is a long time to deal with life without you-

//

And the pallid, clandestine moment is gone.

The descision made.

My fingers graze up her hipand across the small of her back as I slip out of the bed behind her and grab my boots.

I haven't snapped away like that in eleven years.

I shake it off.

"Why are you doing this, Lisa?"

She sits up and grins.

"Doing what, pal?"

In all fairness, she is raising temptation to an artform. But the moment is gone – descision made. And not even her… well, spectacularly formed breasts will sway said descision.

"Alright, it's not that there's no attraction, it's that I'm not willing to do anything about it, and at least cover yourself up, Goddamn!"

"But…" She's batting those big eyes. "…I thought we were just friends. You mean…" The blanket drops. "You really think of me sexually?" I'm still stoned. I'm just tripping out.

Where's Crow? Find Crow.

"Where's Crow?"

"She's a Beta, Cypress," she says calmly, patting the bed.

He skin is so perfect.

"Whatever – so am I!"

"Don't go."

"Blankets!"

She covers herself. I light a smoke.

"…why are you doing this?"

"Y'know – between the five of us – us girls? We always said that if you ever kissed us, we'd kiss you back. No matter what the situation. Crow would understand," Lisa says.

I can only stare at her.

Women are insane.

"She's not good enough for you," she says now.

This upsets me, and old unconscious habits kick into gear.

//

I feel the crunch of the stones on the mountaintop under my feet.

He wants to chat.

//

I shake it off.

"That's not for you to decide," I tell her.

"…what's wrong?" She is genuinely concerned about something.

"Nothing!"

"Cypress – wait!"

And that's how I leave her. Sitting, naked on the bed in Crow's room.

I sigh. Perhaps this is the plague that destroyed the world. Overzealous passion. As I descend the stairs, I come to a stop at the bottom and slump into the wall, falling to sit.

Ten years.

Fuck.

* * *

* * *

no muscle man no candy cane no pack of sexy starvin' wolves no money talkin' moonlight walkin' lady-schockin' big-cold-cockin' us pretty folks can go to blazes here and there go pretty faces all the rest don't ask my stuff'n only one thing's got me huffin' // i'm jealous of your cigarette // and all the things you do with it // i'm jealous of your cigarette // the pleasure that you get from it // and not me

* * *

* * *

I limp through the empty corridors of the Johnston Terminal. It seems everyone has genuinely gone to bed.

Pausing, my eyelids fall shut and I leap into my Memory Files. In my head, I flip through a cabinet of maps and pull out the Johnston Terminal. The shops – the floor layout. Where is the most isolated part?

In the cramped mall-space quarters offered by the Terminal, the only area that could possibly be called isolated is the long glass hallway that still remains along the north side of the building, facing the Market on the ground level. Long since spraypainted black, the glass walls have long since been reinforced with countless yards of electrical and duct tape.

If one piece of glass falls – the rest are held in place.

It's called structure.

Shiff-thump, shiff-thump.

I limp along.

Nothing.

Clickity clickity click click clitckity.

I spin.

Down, far down the hallway near the mall, a large black wolf peeks its head around the corner. Dimly lit by the gloom cutting through the patched windows, it doesn't move, and I dare not blink.

I don't blink. I don't look away. I want to be positive. I hear something behind, and before I think to stop, I've looked away.

And the wolf is gone.

I hop-limp to the corner it was at.

I can't see it.

But I can hear the claws.

Clickity click clickity…

I follow them in the darkness, sometimes catching a hint of tail. Down into the basement. A sub-basement. Sometimes I see it staring back at me before it continues down a shadowed corridor.

Before long, I've got it cornered, I know it.

I'm limping into a pitch black dead-end.

I can't hear it walking.

But I can hear breathing.

Breathing.

My fingers fumble in the darkness for my lighter, and for a moment it blinds me as I limp forward.

"Crow," I whisper.

She's staring at me, dumbfounded for a moment – her face pale in the flickering Zippo.

"How did you…?"

"Where's the wolf?"

"What wolf?"

"Didn't you hear it?"

"Cypress, what are you doing down here?"

"Looking for you," I tell her.

As I sit down she draws her legs away, but the blaze of my Zippo shows her huge cracked-ice eyes staring straight at me. Wet. And she wipes something from her red nose, leaning forward to blow out the light.

"I'm sorry I was late..," I start.

"Was she a good lay?" she says quickly.

"…what?"

"Was Michelle good?"

The Zippo flares to life, revealing our pale-seeming faces against the forever-black surroundings.

"What the fuck are you talking about?" I say. I don't mean to, but I know I sound angry. Now she looks angry. And leaning forward, Crow blows the flame out.

"Well, Sir, you said a half hour. So I waited a half hour. So then, fine, you're five minutes late. But then you're ten minutes. And then you're fifteen. And then I went looking for you, and Lisa said I shouldn't go into the restaurant. 'Cause you're in there with Michelle. And didn't want to be disturbed. And I asked her what the fuck does she mean by that? And she says oh, well, y'know. And so I try to get past her – but she stops me. She says you ordered her to guard the entrance."

Shink. Foomp. The Zippo blasts us with light again.

"Look at me – look at me," I say. And finally she does. "That's all bullshit."

But she's still crying.

"But someone was… I heard it, Cypress."

"Heard what?"

"Someone was… sounded like… they were… having sex in the restaurant. And someone said "Cypress – oh my God!" again and again and again and if it wasn't Michelle then who?"

She's staring at me. Staring at me.

"Look, there's an explanation for what you heard, but I had nothing to do with it."

"Well who was it?"

"I can't tell you."

"Why not?"

"I promised I wouldn't tell."

"That's bullshit, Cypress." She leans forward again, but I pull my Zippo out of reach.

"No it's not," I say.

"Look, if you're just going to sit there and lie to me-"

"I never lied to you," I hiss. "Everything I do is about you. And it's not easy. Sophie's trying to kiss me, Michelle wants to know why I never gave her a shot, Lisa's saying you guys have some kind of arrangement where no matter what the situation it's okay for any of you to kiss me-"

"No," she says. "The deal is, if you kiss us, we can kiss you back."

And I can't help it.

//

I'm back on the mountaintop.

I try to will myself away, but I find I don't have the strength.

Let him say his piece, then. And then I'll get back to digging myself out of the new hole life has dug for me.

I'm in a chair, looking down on the valley. His humped back rises at the arm of the chair, as he curves around it in a half-moon.

He raises his shaggy head.

welcome back

"It's not by my choice," I snap.

nor by mine, he tells me.

"Well I sure as Hell didn't-"

yes you did

I look away.

you're tired, Om

"I can handle it."

let me help

"Fine – let's hear it."

leave her

she has become a drain on you.

"This is all just a misunderstanding..."

that we cannot afford in this time of need

"No – case closed."

there is much at stake-

"Drac, my friend, the decision isn't yours."

you've become so aggressive…

//

"…did you guys ever think to let me in on your little arrangement?"

"No," she whispers.

"Crow, you have to believe me-"

"Who was it?"

//

I slam onto the gravel of the mountaintop, inches from the Wolf.

"Stop it!" I shout.

you come when you're in need, Om

I don't bring you

"I'm Fine!"

//

"It was Sophie."

"What? Sophie and who – are you okay?"

"It's nothing. No, it was just Sophie."

"Just Sophie? Why was she calling your name?"

"Because I walked in on her."

I light the Zippo again, but she smacks it away and it goes tumbling into the blackness.

"Cut it out!" she snaps.

The mountain pulls, but I thrash against it.

"Crow – look – please. You have to believe me – it was completely innocent."

All I hear is her breathing.

"…Crow? Beth. Talk to me."

It sounds like breathing at first, but the raspy-whisper sounds form words;

"…I don't believe you…"

I feel like I might be having a heart attack.

For a moment I can smell the air on the mountain, but I hold tight to Crow.

"Crow…"

"I don't believe you," she says again.

No.

No fucking way.

"Crow, no! I didn't do anything!"

"I just don't understand why you'd do this…" she's crying.

"Because I wouldn't."

"Why can't you just admit it-"

"It never happened!"

"You expect me to believe that? When Lisa tells me you're in the restaurant fucking Michelle, I hear a girl screaming, calling your name, and last I heard you were in the bar with the Alphas drinking. You even admit hanging back alone with Michelle."

I'm dumbfounded. Astounded.

Knocked on my ass.

"It didn't happ-"

"Just admit it. I just want you to admit it."

"But I didn't-"

"Goddamnit, Cypress!" she barks, standing. "If you're going to start playing leader, at least fess up to it when you stab a friend in the back."

//

The mountain.

//

But I fight it.

I'm grounded. I stay with Crow.

She's leaving – running.

I hobble after her – catching up halfway to the ground floor in a stairwell.

I've got her by the belt, but she spins.

"Just let me go!"

"Listen, let's go find Sophie. She'll tell you-"

"Oh, Sophie would say anything for you!"

She tries to pull away, but I hold fast.

"Let me go!"

"No!"

Her fist pounts into my jaw, then my chest just below my throat. Lack of sleep combined with injury take their toll, and I fall back down the stairwell fighting to get my breath back. For a slight little thing, she's got a wicked punch.

"Cra…" and my voice fails me.

"Just leave me alone!" she shouts, pounding up the stairs.

I lay, a twisted heap in the shaft of light that filters through the exit to the ground floor.

//

My feet strike windswept pebble, and I look from the bloody sunset over the far mountain range to the Wolf. He doesn't look up.

so soon?

I hit the pebbles at his feet and bend my legs into the lotus position.

"Be quiet – I need to meditate."

just let me help-

"I'm fine. Now be quiet."

* * *

* * *

i spend all my time on the telephone line / tryin to say it just right this time / something that could change your mind / i know this is love and the feeling, though / i whisper somethin so sincere / exactly what you want to hear

* * *

* * *

My vision does not snap on.

It fades in slowly, to discover a set of huge, brown eyes floating in front of me in a dim, flickering light.

I crease my brow and cock my head to the side.

…who the Hell…?

She cocks her head to the side, and a curtain of burning red hair falls across her face. Oh, thank God.

"…are you okay?" she asks.

"Oh, thank Christ it's you –" I lay back on the concrete floor and take a breath. Michelle hasn't fucked me over. Yet.

"How long have you been down here?"

"I don't know – what time is it?"

"Oneish. Cypress, stand up…" she pulls at my arm, and I let her half-drag me to my feet. As my left foot hits the ground, I'm reminded how many holes I have in me. I didn't know it was possible to be this fucked up and still alive.

"I need… I need some pot," I tell her as she leads me up the stairs.

"No you don't – you just need rest and a cup of tea."

"And painkillers. Tea and painkillers."

* * *

We sit on the bed – I in a sweater and my black boxers – she in a tank top and her under… things. Our legs form two pointed peaks as she cleans the newly-opened wound on mine, and I check the bandage on her thigh.

It wasn't cleaned well in the first place.

"Who sewed this up?" I ask.

"Saku."

"She did a shit job."

"We know – but no one has the heart to tell her. She just likes doing the motherly thing."

And as we dab at each other's cuts and lesions with antiseptic solution, we suffer through an uncomfortable pause. The candlelight flickers, and can hear the hum of the floodlights over at the Market.

"So…"

"Buttons."

"What were you doing down there?" she asks. I look up from my work for a second – glance off her eyes.

But that's always the problem with Michelle. I look at her eyes once, and it's clear we're on the same page. That she already knows what I'm going to tell her – she just wants to hear me say it.

"I think I got dumped," I say, returning to her thigh. She jumps as the cottonball strikes a nerve, and her attentions to the wound on my side pause.

"Why?" she asks, as if it's the most ridiculous thing in the world.

"Lisa told her I had sex with you in the bar."

"And she believed it?"

Funny – it really does sound like the first she's head of it.

"There were additional factors that complimented Lisa's lie," I shrug.

"Don't move," she says, re-dabbing a small cut on my throat. I never noticed that one. .

"You think I should just re-sew this?" I regard the patched hole in her leg with scrutiny.

"It's a half-day old already," she says. "Just try to clean around it."

"Yeah, but who knows what crap got sewn into you?"

Her hand finds mine, and it's reactionary. It's an automated equation.

She touches your hand, you look at her.

A plus B.

And my head shoots up.

"Saku did it – it's fine," she says.

And then her eyes drop down to my lips and hang there.

I don't look at her lips.

I can't.

If I do, I'll kiss her.

Michelle has spectacular lips.

//

why not?

But I am calm. I am zen. The wind whips against my robe and plasters his midnight-dark, spiky fur across his massive torso.

"I'm not here for counsel," I say. "I just need the calm once in a while – that's all."

I blink out, staring at the bloody sunset, and I know what he's thinking.