Chapter 9
"I don't like it," Dane complains for what feels like the twentieth time. "You don't even know this guy."
"It's no different than if I'd found a roommate the usual way," I counter.
"Yes, it is," Dane argues, unwilling to yield the point. "It's fishy as fuck. Some dude lives alone in a giant mansion and wants a 'housemate' to help him look after the place? Give me a break."
"What?" I demand, feeling defensive and angry even though part of me thinks he's right. "What's wrong with the idea? I'm looking for a place, he's got a place, our interests and needs just happen to align. It's a perfectly normal arrangement. Besides, I can take care of myself. I'm a Wolf, remember? He's the one who should be worried."
Dane scowls and glowers but helps me unload the rest of my things from my car and carry them up to my new rooms without another word. Thorne isn't home, and I let us both in with the set of keys he'd given me the day before.
"Shit," Dane says, surveying the place. "You weren't kidding."
"I know. It's like Downton Abbey, or something," I say.
"What's that?"
"A TV show. You wouldn't like it."
I stop to study one of the portraits hanging in the hall. It looks a lot like Thorne but must be at least a couple hundred years old, judging by the style. An ancestor, I guess.
"Huh. Well, it's creepy as fuck, if you ask me. You couldn't pay me to live here."
"Luckily, no one's asking you to," I reply evenly. "Look, Dane—Dr. Thorne's a little strange, I'll give you that, but I think he's a good person. He saved the dog I hit, and then adopted it. Then he saw I needed a place, and he offered. And, as he said, if it doesn't work out, I'll leave. It's a casual arrangement—there's not even a formal lease or anything. And just look at this place!"
I spread my arms wide and take a deep breath of the antique-scented air.
"It's perfect," I say.
It's quiet and empty, isolated and morbidly alone.
Thorne was right. I fit right in.
Dane's mood doesn't lighten, though, and to my surprise he turns and wraps me in a hug before he leaves.
After a moment, he sighs and lets me go.
"Noah, be careful," he says. "Just because you're a Wolf doesn't mean you can't get hurt. Call me if you need me—any time—and don't forget we're meeting to discuss the case tomorrow night."
I nod and assure him I'll be there, and then he leaves.
I shut the door and lock it after him, and then stand in the silence, staring at the keys in my hand.
Dane doesn't have to tell me. Nobody knows better than I do how much I can be hurt. But I'm a quick study, and not about to make the same mistake twice.
I don't trust Thorne any more than Dane does. Given what happened the last time I trusted someone, it's a feeling I have in very short supply.
~ ☾ ~
The memory rises in my mind against my will.
I'm in the university library, hiding behind a stack of books at a corner table, doing my best to be invisible while I finish some final research. The manuscript is done, really, and I'm just double-checking sources now.
This is what has all my attention and energy at the moment—completing my book. The working title—A History of Words in Action—is a bit bland, but it's an academic subject, after all, even if it's aimed at a lay audience.
In the meantime, Thom has told me not to worry about the plagiarism charge. He says it amounts to slander and libel, and if we sue, the university will have no choice but to provide the evidence on which they've based the false claims. Then it will simply be a matter of proving my work is my own.
It shouldn't be hard, once I know what I'm up against. I've always kept detailed notes.
A pang of hunger strikes me below the ribs, and I realize it's almost four. I've been here all day with only water to drink. Rising, I gather my books and place them on the cart for the library volunteers to re-shelve, and then head for the exit.
I'm passing an aisle when a pair of familiar voices catch my ear. Professor Harper and Professor Liu—members of my former department. What makes me stop though, is a familiar name.
"Did you see Flynn is publishing a book?" Liu is asking.
"No, when?" Harper returns.
"In just a few weeks, I guess. He must have been writing it on the sly."
Thom is the only 'Flynn' I'm aware of and, curious and confused, I stop to eavesdrop from the next aisle down.
"Isn't he, you know, 'involved,' with Noah Hunter, though? Won't the scandal rub off on him?"
Liu scoffs. "That old rumour? I doubt it. Flynn's straight as a ruler. Besides, everyone knows Hunter's, like, a eunuch or something."
Harper laughs.
When I'd first joined the department, it was true I'd sparked interest in a number of my colleagues, Liu included. She was young and beautiful, and hadn't understood when I'd tried to explain the range and limitations of my sexuality. She probably would have accepted it if I'd just kept it simple and said I was gay. Instead, she didn't understand how, if I could be attracted to women, I wasn't attracted to her, and taken my rejection to heart.
"What's it about?" Harper asks. "The book, I mean."
"Oh, something to do with words. It's a popular title—not a textbook. I'm guessing he's hoping it'll be a bestseller or something. Feather in his cap, you know."
By this point, I'm shaking with a surge of adrenaline. Had Thom inadvertently let news of my book slip, and someone had misunderstood the authorship? My agent was only just finalizing a deal, and in the meantime I wasn't supposed to say anything about it.
"It was in the department newsletter, I think. The one that went out this morning," Liu says.
Hurriedly, I scramble to pull out my phone. My university email is still active, and I quickly log in and scroll through the list of useless announcements no one ever reads until I find the newsletter. Opening it, I quickly scan it and find the 'Featured Faculty' section. My heart begins to thud painfully in my chest as I read.
Professor Thomas Flynn, PhD, announced the publication of a new work of popular non-fiction this week. 'Word Wars: How Conflict Shapes the Way We Speak' hits shelves this autumn. His first work for general audiences, the book is already receiving stellar early reviews, and is expected to have broad appeal in both academic and popular circles. Stemming from his lifelong interest in how words influence actions and beliefs—
An unconscious sound of distress escapes me and my phone falls from my hand and hits the carpeted floor. In the next aisle over, Harper and Liu fall silent, distracted by the noise. I snatch my phone up and, struggling against the panic seizing my lungs, do my best not to actually break into a run as I retreat.
"Was that...?" I hear Harper ask.
"I think so," Liu replies. "Creep."
I make it to my car and then collapse in the front seat, my mind desperately seeking some way to make sense of what I'd heard and seen. It must be a mistake, I conclude. Thom will explain when I get home. He has to.
When I finally trust myself to drive, I take myself there, to our modest apartment—our comfortable, safe, shared home.
My key doesn't work. I try it and try it, thinking I'm just stupid with nerves, but eventually I'm forced to accept that it is the right key, and it just isn't opening the door.
"Forgot something?"
I turn and see Charlie Zhao, the landlord, watching me from the bottom of the stairs, dark eyes glinting in his wrinkled face.
"F-Forgot?"
"Yeah—the movers said they took everything, but I know how it is. They left a bunch of crap by the curb, too. This isn't the municipal dump, you know."
He moves past me, pulls a bundle of keys from his his belt and begins searching through them.
"M-movers?" I stammer, aware I sound like a demented parrot at this point.
He nods. "Your, er, 'roommate' said he closed on his new house sooner than expected. Guess that kinda leaves you in the lurch though, huh? Anyways, I always have the locks changed as soon as a tenant vacates."
"Va...vacates?" I echo once more, wondering if, like Echo herself, I've lost the ability to speak words of my own.
Mr. Zhao nods. He's about the same height as me, and I focus on the bald spot on the back of his head as he bends and squints to fit the key in the lock.
"Yeah—I read this story once about this guy who made copies of his old key, and then later he came back and murdered the new residents, and the landlord got sued. I love me some good true crime, but it sure does make me paranoid!" He laughs.
With the door open, he steps aside.
"Anyway, take your time. Lock up when you're done."
He leaves me, retreating back down the stairs. Meanwhile, I stand frozen in shock, staring at an empty apartment.
There's nothing left.
No cozy chairs, no Japanese art prints on the walls, no bookshelves stuffed with obscure texts. I wander from room to room, hand on the wall to steady myself, trying to understand.
It makes no sense.
Just this morning, I'd woken up in a bed in a room that's now bare, cooked breakfast in a kitchen where not a crumb remains, said goodbye to a man who—
Falling against the wall, I slide to the floor, still not fully comprehending what's happening to me, but beginning to understand that it isn't good, and that Thom...
That Thom is not the man I thought he was.
I have to find him, I realize, I get him to explain just what the fuck he's done.
When I can stand again, I find Mr. Zhao outside, inspecting the pile of trash bags and boxes next to the garbage cans on the curb.
He looks up as I approach and sighs, scrubbing a hand over his sparse salt-and-pepper hair. "Look at this mess. Now I'm going to have to pay for it to be removed. Maybe I'll ask the professor for the name of that moving company, just so I can call and complain."
Casting a dazed glance over the rubbish, I recognize it for what it is.
My things. My clothes, my books, the dishware I'd bought a few months back. Everything that I could call my own.
"Don't worry about it, Charlie," I say, tonelessly. "I'll take this stuff.
"Really?"
"Yeah. Hey, did Thom leave a forwarding address?"
"Oh, er..." Suddenly he looks very uncomfortable and won't meet my eyes. "No, sorry, he didn't."
Liar.
I could go wolf on him—scare it out of him—but I don't. It's not my style.
Instead I just thank him and start loading my stuff into my car.
A few uncomfortable phone calls later, and I have it—Thom's new address. I drive straight there, not knowing what I expect to find, what I imagine he might say, and not willing to admit how pathetically I'm clinging to the hope that this is all just some weird mistake—Thom's strange plan to surprise me somehow, though he'd never surprised me with so much as a birthday card before.
Parking at an angle in front of the modest home's two-car garage, I see Thom giving instructions to a couple of men unloading boxes from a moving van. He looks up and spots me, breaking off the conversation and dismissing the movers with a wave. Then he walks towards me where I stand beside my car, running a hand through his thick gray hair.
"Thom. What's going on?" I ask, stepping towards him.
"Noah," he says, and sighs. "Look, it wasn't supposed to happen this way. They caught me off-guard with that newsletter announcement. I had no choice."
"I don't understand."
He gives me a look. "Don't you?"
The truth, which I've been refusing to look in the face, stabs me through the heart.
"You stole my work," I whisper.
He shakes his head.
"No. Just your ideas, and you can't copyright an idea. It's all my own words."
"But the work...the research..."
"Can't copyright that either, I'm afraid. That's just the name of the game, bucko—'he who publishes first, gets the prize.' And of course, with you discredited now, your word against mine won't really hold water, will it?"
"But...why?"
It feels like there's something stuck in my chest, a fist slowly crushing my lungs.
He shrugs. "Because I could," he says, and then he sighs again, moving closer and setting his hands on my shoulders. I flinch beneath his touch, but with my car at my back, I've nowhere to go. "I didn't set out to do this, Noah. It just happened. The moment I met you, I recognized your brilliant mind—chock full of ideas like sparkling gems. I couldn't resist mining it. That's all I intended at first—a friendship from which I might gain the benefit or your brightness—but then, after I learned of your...predilections..."
He pats my shoulders, then drops his hand and steps back a pace.
"It wasn't easy for me, you know. If only you'd been a woman." He shakes his head, frowning like it's my fault—like I'd checked the wrong box on a form somewhere—and his expression speaks clearly of a deep disgust. "All the soap in the world couldn't make me feel clean, after the things I had to do."
"You didn't have to," I say, my voice a thin, strangled thing. "You didn't have to do anything."
"Sure I did," he counters, almost mildly, like he's reassuring a stupid child. "I had to sell it—to make you believe. At least you can't say I didn't pay you for your work."
By this point, I'm sweating, shaking, and barely remembering to breathe. I'm furious, beyond mortified, and hurt in a way I can't even process yet.
"How could you?" I ask, starting to gasp for air. "I thought you...I thought you..."
Somehow I can't even say it.
"Loved you?" He laughs. "Don't be naive."
I start towards him as anger finally ignites and burns away the confusion fogging my mind, but he holds up a hand and then points behind him to where the movers wait, one of whom holds a phone.
"I think you better leave now, Noah," he says, "before the cops arrive."
~ ☾ ~
I come back to myself, still standing in the entryway of Ambrose Thorne's massive house, clutching the key in my hand. I'd been holding it so tightly it had dug into my palm, and a trickle of blood drips down my arm.
When Thom had said those things to me, I'd wanted to kill him.
I could have, too.
I could've turned wolf—torn out his throat—ended him right there. But that would've been the end of me, as well. If a Wolf kills for any reason outside of pack law, it's up to the pack to put that Wolf down. I couldn't do that to my parents—much less to Freya and Dane. So I'd let him go.
As for human law, Thom had been careful and clever in his own awful way. Of course it was he who had accused me of plagiarising his work, and provided all the proof anyone would ever need to see.
I'd thought he was so kind and helpful, always willing—eager, even—to read my drafts and proofread my papers for me. I gave him copies of everything. All he'd had to do was write up his own version and send it to a journal before I sent in mine. As for the book—well, that was the coup de grâce.
He'd known that once news of it came out, his 'cover' would be blown, so he'd planned his move down to the minute. The moment I'd left that morning, he'd tossed everything into boxes and bags, and then the movers had arrived and taken it to his house, which he'd actually owned all along.
He'd wanted to erase all evidence that we'd ever been more than casual, professional acquaintances. He cancelled the lease on the apartment, too, and it was only when I'd demanded that Mr. Zhao show me the documents—which might at least have backed up a claim that we'd lived together—that I discovered he'd signed them with a false name.
It wasn't impossible for me to bring a case against him, but he'd made sure it would be a very difficult, and a very embarrassing, task. Given my temperament, he probably knew I'd rather let him win than subject myself to such unkind scrutiny.
So, disillusioned and with my heart and career destroyed, I'd abandoned everything, and come here, hoping that maybe, if I learned not to think about it, I could also learn to forget.
I clearly wasn't doing very well so far.
A whining sound distracts me from my thoughts, and I look down to see the dog staring up at me, its brown eyes innocent and pinched with an expression that looks very much like human concern.
He paws gently at my leg, and I can't help smiling.
"Hey Dougal," I say, bending to scratch his neck under the cone. "Good boy."
I'd thought that hitting a dog the second I arrived in town was just another bead on my string of bad luck; but as I look around me at the spacious house, and the dog licks my hand and matches every bit of my affection with ten times worth of his own, I realize that maybe I was wrong.
Maybe it was actually the first good thing to happen to me in a long time.
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