When you were a kid, some crazy drifter would come to your house every few weeks, and your mom and dad would help them out. A roll of twenties, a burner phone, a change of clothes. You always had responsibilities: you bought food and clothes, walked around town so you knew where cop cars liked to hide, checked Facebook and Twitter for certain words.
It was like a game when you were little, but that didn't last. It kept getting weirder. Age eleven: an old man falling onto the porch with broken teeth embedded in his skull, covered in blood. Age thirteen: animal screams at night, every night for a month. Thousands of dollars vanishing into supplies, legal challenges, new cars; cops always in and out because of noise complaints and you had to convince them to go away, and one day you looked around at your family's once-fine Queen Anne, with its wraparound porch and its little decorative turret, and realized that you were living in a trash-strewn hovel. McDonald's wrappers and torn clothes all over the floor, blood in the kitchen and bathroom, animals fucking in the basement.
And your parents told you to stop daydreaming, get some bleach, and clean up. And you just…got so angry.
Afterward, that old guy you sometimes took care of—he called himself Clay—picked you up and took you away from the burning house. He wasn't happy; your parents had been useful, more useful than some new cub. It was a damn mess, is what it was. But you belonged to him now.
And now…where is Clay? He should be here with the others. With the pack. Where is everyone?
Next