Chapter 20: Unravel

MIKO

Miko Ojo learned to knit from the Fates. Her aunts taught her everything about threading and binding the universes, looping around until things were “just so.” It seemed chaos to lesser beings. Even gods found it confusing. But if there was anything that Clotho, Atropos, Lachesis, and Miko agreed on, it was this:

The worlds were not chaos. 

Oh, there were mistakes—stitches that might send the whole pattern careening. Fixing them wasn’t hard. You simply held the thread tight with the needle in your right hand, pulled back until—fwip!—you flipped the mistake to the other side. 

But if your mistake was several rows down—

If you made a mess of things across patterns—

Across ages—

Across worlds.

Then the work was harder.

Stitches would have to be unraveled.

And only the sharpest tool would do.  

PENNY

Penny examined her reflection, poking at her face, trying to see if there was something more wolf-like about her. Spoiler alert: there was nothing she could see, although the phone vibrating in her locker sounded like a growl. In fact, if she brushed her hand against the metal and compressed wood, she could pretend it was a rumbling in her chest and not her best friend calling.

Yes, it was shitty to avoid Alice, but what could she do? Their dynamic was all off. It was supposed to be “hot mess single mom” and “sharp-tongued best friend.” Phone calls were for Alice to bemoan some short-sighted emotional decision while Penny talked her down from the ledge. Alice was the dreamer, and Penny was practical. Alice followed her heart, and Penny followed the plan. And when all else failed, they had a bitchfest.

But now, Alice’s calls were full of plans—finally opening an art studio, getting Gwendolyn dance lessons, and paying off her debt. And this time, they were real because “New Boyfriend” was happy to bankroll whatever she wanted. He doted on Gwendolyn, took Alice to the library for dates, and cared about what got her off—which, come on. Was he some sort of saint? Penny was all for orgasms, but she and Anastasia didn’t sit around talking about their kinks like it was some sort of therapy session.

And Alice didn’t care that all the help she took from him was just giving him ammunition. To her, the admin of life was so painfully boring that she didn’t mind handing “New Boyfriend” the knife to stab her in the back, no matter what Penny advised. It was fucking ridiculous.

With an actual growl, Penny left the locker room and ran straight into an elderly woman with long silver hair whose scent screamed: “Werewolf!

“Are you Matilda?”

“That would be me.” She frowned, not bothering to hide her disappointment.

Penny introduced herself anyway, Pizzazzes didn’t let anyone know they were rattled. “So Anastasia told you about me?”

“She mentioned you were without a pack, and so far, you’ve made no progress in securing one.”

Something else for the list of things Penny didn’t know and Anastasia didn’t tell her. She tucked back a stray piece of hair, “I’ve been pretty busy. I’m a journalist. I ran into a wolf while chasing a story, and I’m sure you can guess what happened.”

“I’m aware of how often mortals provoke attacks, yes.” Matilda’s face tightened, “If you had taken up with werewolves rather than vampires, you’d have a better sense of these things.”

Heat flared in her chest unpleasantly. Penny knew she was fucking this werewolf thing up, but Matilda was rapidly confirming just how much.

“Membership is always open with my pack,” the werewolf continued, “It would take hard work, but we’d get you up to speed.”

Pizzazzes weren’t afraid of hard work. But Penny did worry about how long she’d spend at the bottom of the group. “Maybe we can start with the basics, and I can see about the pack later? I’m a fast learner.” She glanced around, trying to anticipate what they were about to do. “Are we doing some yoga or something before you tell me about my new diet and the full moon?”

“That depends,” the corner of Matilda’s mouth kicked up in a sneer, “Do you want to break out into a murderous rage and kill everyone you know?”

“What the fuck?” Penny stepped back, “No!”

“Then we train. Werewolves build up fury inside them—a rage we can’t control because it’s unnatural. To combat that, we have to wear ourselves out.”

As if summoned, Anastasia appeared at the bottom of the steps. “Careful, wolf. The holy mother of the occult would not take too kindly to your description of her supernatural gifts.”

Matilda gave Ana a look that Penny could not decipher—except to know that it was unfriendly as hell. “Wolves don’t take to your blasphemy, vampire. Have you come prepared to work?”

Ana popped a hand on her hip and flipped her hair. “Always. Shall we?”