• • The Wolf Pack
• March 31, 2024

The Wolf Pack (Chapter 36)

The Name

THE HOOD

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This is a strange sensation. My helmet isn’t on my head but it’s still covered.

The eyeball that’s free to the world, it’s so crusty I can barely open it, the other… the other is gone. I don’t… there’s less weight, so either its gone or most of it is burned away…

No, there was an explosion, something… something blew up in my face.

When my remaining eye opens there’s this gross snap, a quiet one, but loud enough to make the weight on my arm stir. It takes seconds to realize that I’m in a hospital, even less to realize that someone managed to take off my armor and helmet.

I wonder who made that happen.

Emily lifts her head from my arm, and I feel the blood rushing back. I see the bed head in her hair, and the tired lines under her eyes. I didn’t think she got tired like that anymore.

After she rubs her eyes and she looks down at my open one, her shoulders finally drop. She rests her elbows beside my side, and rests her head gently on my stomach. “You’re awake,” she whispers.

There must be someone else. I turn my head and right behind her sits Claire in a chair, snoring away. Okay, maybe not snoring.

Something’s strange about Emily, and it takes me a moment to realize that I haven’t seen her in normal clothes in a long time. She’s not done up, she’s had no time to prepare. The makeup has come off, her hair isn’t down, she’s just natural, still beautiful, still her. I like it, it’s just… not Espada. It’s nice.

Though, she’s wearing a sweatshirt, big and stretchy, and it’s strange for me at least. I’m sure she’s never seen me shirtless so maybe it’s a similar experience.

Why am I…? I must be on drugs. How long have I been out for?

Doesn’t matter. I’m staring at her, and I can’t quite grasp that she’s not in costime.

“You’re not wearing your costume anymore,” I point out, whispering too.

“It got destroyed in the blast, the same one that hit you in the face,” she says, and she chuckles as one is wont to do before a joke. “Ion’s explosion destroy a lot, Sarem actually gave me her cloak, you missed out.”

“Was it really that fun?”

Her smile faltered. “No, there was… a lot of screaming, hysterical crying, we thought you were dead,” She looked back to Claire in her chair, still asleep, “she thought you were dead.”

“Huh,” I think out loud, “well, I’ll be sad for everyone then.”

“Huh?” Emily got a little lost.

“Sad that we didn’t get to oogle your tits, sounds like it would have been better than worrying over me.”  

She gives me this awkward chuckle, either beause I’m not good at jokes, or because the memory of me nearly dead is still fresh. Probably both.

Definitely both.

I, for one, find it hard to laugh for many reasons. For one thing I don’t do it, the rare instances are anomalies, it also hurts to do, and most importantly, I still feel the stress I had from before I fell unconscious.

“I can’t believe you tried to tell a joke about wanting to see my tits, maybe you are a real boy,” Emily says, not haivng a real life at my expense.

Wait, no, this is a mistake. I close my eyes as I groan, thinking about the rooftop, our last private conversation.

“You know this doesn’t change anything,” I tell her, keeping my eyes closed so I don’t have to see her reaction. I don’t want to have this conversation now.

“What do you mean?”

She knows what I mean. “I’m still sick on the inside.”

Goddamnit, why do I have to keep repeating myself.

“I think things can change.”

“Emily, don’t start with that bullshit, I’ve tried with others before, there’s nothing to fix, this is who I am.”

“Changing you is not what I meant,” and I have to open my eyes… my eye at that. I want to know what she means. “I meant other things can change,” and she looks away from me this time, looking up into the air because it pains her to say, “like how much I pretend to know, and how many people you kill in front of me.”

No, no, no… She’s not supposed to change for me, that’s never been the goal. I don’t want her or anyone else to throw away their morals, I want her to… I want her to… I want her…

“I don’t want you to try and change for me,” I say, trying very hard not to sound like I’m pleading, even as I try to reach my hand around and find hers. It takes a moment, a moment of her recognizing what I’m searching for before she lets me take it.

Emily’s eyes find mine again when I hold her hand, conveying to her the best way I can think of that I don’t want her to change. But, based on the way she smiles at me, the little patroniziation in the look of her eye, I realize I don’t know everything going on in her head.

It may not actually be about me.

“I have to,” she says, “not just for you but everybody. How many people have died because I won’t kill, how many will…

“Our friends have had to because I won’t, I still won’t, but I want you to do that for me.”

For once, honest to god, “I don’t understand.”

She leans down towards my head, her other hand coming to my face, my many bandages, to stroke my covered cheek. “I want you to do what is necessary, what I won’t do, it’s what Claire said back when we first met.”

She won’t kill, she still won’t. Good, thank god, I’ll do whatever it takes to keep that from ever happening.

“Okay, I’ll do this for you.”

Her eyes don’t shift upon me saying it, only her lips do. “It’s really easy to believe you when you’re not wearing the helmet.”

Talking to the mask will never mean as much to her. So few people look at the mask, and want to see what’s underneath. Emily wants to see me, and all the horror that could entail.

I don’t know if I’ll ever understand why.

Though, with the bandages, she can’t really see all of me.

“Can you take some of this off?” I ask her.

“It needs to be changed anyway, but…” she hesitates because the last time I showed her my face, it was after a fight. I want it to mean something else, not only to her, but whoever’s waiting outside for me.

Maybe it’s the drugs, the concussion, the near-death experience, but I want to show my real face, for one day. I want to meet him through others.

Yeah, it’s definitely the drugs. I’m going to regret this later so I’d better do it now.

“Please,” I ask Emily.

She’s almost too excited to start unwrapping me. I expected some hesitation, but there was none, just this smile on her face. She was gentle, but she was quick to see me with my consent.  

Now she gets to really look at me, rather than worry about me yelling back at her. I look like Claire, I have that same skin tone, the pointy chin, the long face. I think my mother looks more like me and Claire than my father, who was actually Claire’s blood. I have the five o’clock shadow, and my hair is like wool, not straight like Claire’s. That’s why I cut it so short to my head.

One thing Claire and I have in common are the scars. Her’s may heal but I’ve seen her touch the same spots over and over. Everyone can see them on me. The lines on my chest and my arms, ninety percent of my skin body is easily scar tissue, and it applies to my face now too. A line through my eyebrow lines up with one through both lips on the right. A line across my left cheek, though a burn scar may cover that one now. My left eye where Ion blasted me me was already permanently swollen and was smaller than my right. It’s only worse now.

“Pretty, right?” I try to say. I hear that when an ugly person calls themselves pretty, it can be funny.

“You’re fucking ghastly,” Emily says. I don’t laugh, I only chuckle. “Now say it again.”

“I’ll do it for you.” Emily places the bandages to the side, and rests her head on my chest again. She continues to hold my hand and kisses the top of it. She keeps staring into my eyes.

“What are you thinking about?” I ask her.

“Just the past few days,” she answers, “how I was kidnapped, mind controlled, terrorized, and heartbroken, twice.”

“How are you doing now?”

“Now?” she asks back, her eyebrows raising at the question, but she hasn’t moved from atop my chest. “Now all I can think about is what would have happened if you came to fight me instead of Claire. What if it was you I put my hand through.”

I chuckle at the thought of Emily putting a hole in Claire’s chest. Only because I know it will heal and Emily’s never been so violent.

She isn’t chuckling though. “If it had been you, you’d be dead,” she reminds me. A fact not lost on me, but more so ignored.

I remind her in turn, “But it wasn’t me.”

“Hmm,” is all she hums, and she lets me stare at her before she asks, “if I ever turned evil, or got mind controlled again only permanently, no chance of being freed, would you take me out?”

“Of course,” I tell her, that’s a no brainer.

She squints her eyes at me, finally smiling again. “That, was not the correct answer.”

“I figured you’d rather die than lose what makes you you,” I explain.

She rolls her eyes, and they fall into empty space. “I mean you’re right, I hated not being me, someone else deciding for me.”

I keep to myself how, as a Burke, it’s probably a familiar feeling.

“Emily,” I call her name, and she turns her eyes back towards me, “I’d find a way.” I could never actually kill her. Knock her down a peg or two sure, but end her life? Never.

“That’s so cute,” she teases, and this ‘she’ isn’t Emily, just the definition of a mood killer.

Emily turns around towards Claire as I glare past her. “How long have you been awake?” I ask her, cold and all.

Claire’s face shifts into a smile, as she admits, “I don’t sleep through much that’s worth listening to.” She opens one eye as she teases us, “You two really are adorable.”

I can see Emily’s face pull back with her frown, but I guess it’s perfect timing as any.

“I guess it’s good that you’re awake, I wanted to ask you permission for something.” I immediately get both of their attentions back, Claire even leaning forward out of her seat to listen.

“Shoot, Clay,” she says. She knows she’s poking me.

“For so long, the four of us, five even, we haven’t had a name as a group,” I begin to explain.

“Please don’t say superfriends,” Emily teases.

“Shut up,” I groan at her. “It, it actually came to me when we’re fighting Automata, then again as we fought the Savaage. We’re at are best when we’re together.” I can see in their faces that they agree, or at least appreciate the sentiment. Emily’s ears twitch with excitement at hearing me talk like this. “I don’t, I don’t have friends.”

“Never would have guessed,” Emily teases some more.

“Shut up, character development is going on now,” I tell her, “and because of that I’ve always been a loner, a lone wolf, but with you, for lack of a better phrase, I’ve learned how to run with a Pack.”

Emily grins from ear to ear and shakes my arm gently. “Stop teasing me,” she says, “tell us the name.”

“It’s simple,” I explain, “maybe a little too much, but I think the name, Wolf Pack, gets the idea across.”

Claire leans back in her seat, bringing her hand to her face. “So,” she begins, “you want to call the team, the Wolf Pack? Alright,” and she shrugs, “little extra but okay.”

She’s too old to say ‘extra.’

I’m not too young to say, “Oh, fuck you.”

“I said I like it!” she says.

“No you didn’t.”

“Maybe I didn’t, but I do,” she corrects herself now. “Wolves, they’re tough, strong, perceptive, and they make for badass uniforms, I think it’s good.”

I turn my eyes towards Espada, because she hasn’t said anything about it. “Do you like it?” I ask.

Her face is a mask until  her mouth slowly curves into a shit-eating grin. “It’s so cheesy, but at the same time, all the better ones are taken,” she laughs, “but I would be honored to be a part of a pack.”

“Goddamn assholes, all of you,” I bitch and moan.

Claire points towards the door and reminds us, “You know, there are two, maybe three if I can work my magic, who are waiting outside to see you and hear about this name you have in mind.”

“Let me get your helmet,” Emily says, but I squeeze her hand.

“No,” I say, because it’s finally time. I’m not going to pour my soul out, but there are some things I can let go of. “They can see my face, Marie and Tommy. It’s about time.”

I didn’t think Emily’s smirk could get wider, but it did when she said, “You think?”