Chapter 1: Headlights and Hard Truths at the Drive-In
The last of the sun’s blood-orange light bled out behind the skeletal frame of the drive-in screen, leaving the world in shades of bruised purple and grey. The abandoned theater on Route 17 wasn’t just empty; it felt gutted. Weeds clawed their way through cracks in the crumbling concrete rows, and the crumbling speaker posts stood like headstones. The air smelled like rain-that-wasn’t-coming, old gasoline, and rot.
Garret rolled to a stop on his skateboard at the edge of the massive, empty lot, the wheels crunching on loose gravel. The only illumination came from the twin spears of headlights cutting through the settling dust. Connor’s black Mustang. Engine idling with a low, impatient growl.
He took a breath, the air cooling his lungs. Part of him wanted to turn the board and push off, disappear into the scrub pines behind the fence. Another, older part knew better. You don’t skip a summons.
He popped the board up into his hand and walked toward the car, the long, weird shadow of his wolf-ears and muzzle stretching ahead of him in the headlights. The passenger door was unlocked. He slid in, the scent of cheap cigarette smoke and Connor’s cologne hitting him instantly, with a hint of his musk. The door chunked shut, sealing him in.
For a long moment, there was only the rumble of the engine and the faint hiss of the radio tuned to static.
Connor exhaled, a plume of smoke rolling from his nostrils and fangs, illuminated in the dashboard’s green glow. His paws were on the wheel, black-tipped fingers tight on the leather. His blue eyes, the same shade as Garret’s but harder, colder, stared straight ahead at the blank screen.
“You’re twenty-three minutes late,” Connor said. His voice was low, a grating calm.
Garret tossed his skateboard into the backseat. It clattered against the metal. “Had better shit to do.”
The silence that followed was heavier, a living thing pressing against Garret’s ribs. Connor took another deliberate drag, the ember of his cigarette flaring bright in the dim cabin, casting sharp, dancing shadows over the sharp angles of his muzzle and the black hair of his temples.
Suddenly, Connor moved. It wasn’t a lunge, but it was too fast to avoid. His left paw shot across the console, thick fingers clamping around Garret’s slender muzzle. He didn’t squeeze hard enough to hurt, but hard enough to immobilize, to force Garret’s head around. The grip was impersonal, like handling an object.
Garret froze, every muscle locking. He could see the individual strands of Connor’s fur. He could smell the anger on him, sour and sharp beneath the smoke.
Connor brought his cigarette up between them with his other paw. He held it there, the glowing tip a tiny, dangerous sun between their faces. His eyes locked onto Garret’s.
“Look at me,” Connor said, the words barely a whisper. “You don’t get to disappear on me.Ever. You don’t answer your phone, you’re late, you pull that vanishing-act shit like Mom does, and it ends. Right now.”
Garret’s heart was a trapped bird in his chest. He wanted to snap something back, something sharp about Connor not owning him, about being nineteen and not needing a keeper. But the words died in his throat. The grip on his muzzle, the intensity in Connor’s eyes—it wasn’t just anger. It was something more frantic, a fear Garret rarely saw.
“You hear me?” Connor’s voice dropped even lower, a rough tremor in it.
Garret gave a single, stiff nod against the restraining grip.
Connor held his gaze for another eternity, the cigarette ember dying down to a dull red. Then, slowly, he released Garret’s muzzle. He took one last drag and flicked the butt out his half-open window. It sparked on the asphalt.
The tension didn’t break; it just changed shape, settling into the space between them like a third passenger. Connor put the car in drive, the headlights sweeping across the faded marquee as they pulled out of the lot. The tires crackled over more gravel.
The tires crackled over more gravel, then met the smooth, silent asphalt of the two-lane highway back to town. The only light came from the dashboard and the occasional yellow slash of a reflective road sign. Connor drove with a stiff, silent intensity.
The silence between them was a familiar battleground. Garret rubbed the side of his muzzle where Connor’s fingers had been, staring out at the pines rushing by, blacker than the sky.
“So what was the emergency?” Garret finally asked, his voice deliberately flat. “Pull me out of my thrilling Friday night for a lecture?”
Connor’s jaw worked. He didn’t look over. “Saw you at the Quik-Mart yesterday. Talking to that Jenkins kid. And his sister.”
Garret felt a cold trickle down his spine. He kept his gaze on the window. “It’s a small town. We were getting slushies. We barely talked. It’s nothing.”
Connor was silent for a long moment, his eyes fixed on the dark road ahead. His expression was unreadable, almost contemplative. Then, very slowly, he spoke, his voice soft and unnervingly sure.
“You’re lying to me.”
He didn’t say it like an accusation. It was a statement, a fact dropped into the space between them. A soft, knowing taunt.
Garret’s ears, which had been perked forward in false defiance, flattened back slightly against his skull. He turned his head to look at Connor. His brother’s profile was sharp in the dashboard glow, a statue carved from tension.
Connor finally glanced over. It wasn’t an angry look. It was nonchalant, almost casual, which was infinitely worse. A small, cold smile touched the corner of his muzzle.
“You know what I do when you lie to me, Garret.”
Before Garret could form a reply—a denial, a sarcastic remark, anything—Connor’s demeanor shifted. In one fluid motion, his foot slammed down on the accelerator.
The Mustang’s engine roared, a sudden, violent animal sound that swallowed all other noise. The force shoved Garret back hard into his seat, the seatbelt locking across his chest.
As the speedometer needle climbed, the trees outside blurring into a solid wall of black, Connor spoke again, his voice cutting through the engine’s snarl.
“I break things.”
The car was a missile now. The dashed yellow line in the middle of the road became a solid streak. The world narrowed to the cone of their headlights and the scream of the engine. Garret’s claws dug into the fabric of the seat. His heart hammered against his ribs, a frantic counter-rhythm to the vibration shuddering through the chassis.
He couldn’t look away from Connor. His brother’s face was calm, focused. This was the Connor that lived beneath the jock charm, the one who came back from four years with their father. This was the real thing.
“Anyone saw you?” Garret managed to yell over the noise, his voice strained.
Connor’s gaze flicked to him, then back to the road. A humorless smirk. “Trust me,” he said, the words laced with a bitter pride. “I don’t want anyone to find out we’re related.”
It was the truth, and it stung more than the grip on his muzzle had. Garret, the closed-off skateboard rebel, the sarcastic moody kid—he was an embarrassment to the polished, violent legend Connor had built for himself.A liability.
As quickly as it began, it ended. Connor’s foot eased off the gas. The roar subsided to a menacing purr. They were still going fast, too fast, but the world began to separate back into distinct shapes. Garret’s breath came in shaky gusts.
They didn’t speak again until the first sickly yellow streetlights of the town limits appeared ahead. Connor just drove, one paw back on the wheel, the other resting on the gear shift, his bright blue eyes scanning the road as if the last sixty seconds had never happened.
Connor just drove, one paw back on the wheel, the other resting on the gear shift, his bright blue eyes scanning the road as if the last sixty seconds had never happened.
They passed the cinderblock shell of the old tire shop, the neon ‘E’ burnt out on the motel sign. The town seemed to shrink under the weight of the night, holding its breath. Garret watched his own faint reflection in the window, the outline of his ears, the scruff of rusty brown fur on his jaw.
“This town is shit,” Connor said. It wasn’t an opinion. It was a verdict.
Garret shrugged, watching a lone streetlight flicker. The silence felt like a dare. He spoke to his reflection more than to Connor. “It’s not that bad.”
The car didn’t slow. Connor didn’t turn his head. But the air in the Mustang turned brittle.
“What?” Connor’s voice was low, a quiet blade. “So you like it here now?”
The edge in his tone made Garret’s stomach twist. He’d stepped on a tripwire he hadn’t seen. He looked away from the window, down at his own paws resting on his knees. “I never said that.”
Connor snorted, a dismissive puff of air through his nose. His thumb moved on the steering wheel, pressing a button.
With a quiet electric hum, the window on Garret’s side began to slide down. The rush of cool night air flooded the cabin, carrying with it the scent of damp earth, cut grass from someone’s late mowing, and the distinct, heavy, pungent smell of manure from the Gilroy farms on the east edge of town.
Connor inhaled deeply through his nose, a theatrical, awful performance. He glanced over, his blue eyes glinting with something mean and triumphant.
“Smell that, Garret.” He said it slowly, letting each word land. “Literal cow shit. That’s what you’re defending?”
The smell was thick, earthy, and humiliating. It was the smell of being stuck, of being nothing. Garret’s throat tightened. He wanted to roll the window up, but touching the controls felt like admitting defeat, like acknowledging Connor had made his point. So he just sat there, breathing it in, the vulgar truth of the air mixing with the fading scent of Connor’s cigarette.
He didn’t answer. He just stared straight ahead, letting the wind whip through the fur on his muzzle, his ears pressed flat against the roar.
He just stared straight ahead, letting the wind whip through the fur on his muzzle, his ears pressed flat against the roar.
“And whose fault is that?” Connor said, almost rhetorically, a flat statement thrown into the rushing air.
The word slipped out of Garret, a quiet, venomous whisper mostly for himself, coated in pure disgust. “Yours.”
Connor’s head turned a fraction. “What was that?”
“Nothing.”
A dangerous smirk twitched at the corner of Connor’s muzzle. Garret immediately looked back out the window, pretending the rush of wind had swallowed the exchange.
“You say it’s my fault?” Connor asked, his tone almost amused, still nonchalant.
Then, his face shifted. The smirk vanished, replaced by a stillness that was worse than anger. He spoke again, his voice dropping to a soft, calm, unnerving register. “Whose fault was that?” This time, it wasn’t a question for the void. It was a direct, serious command.
Garret kept staring at the blur of dark trees, his heart beginning to thud against his ribs. He was supposed to stay quiet now. The rules were unspoken but absolute.
As Connor stared at the road ahead, he slowly, coolly, almost tauntingly, spoke again. “Garret.”
Then he swiftly turned completely towards Garret, his bright blue eyes wide and burning, and screamed, “SAY IT!”
His paw slammed down. The Mustang’s engine roared with a furious, tortured shriek, a burst of raw mechanical violence. The acceleration was a physical blow, crushing Garret into the seat. Connor, without a word, turned his cold, angry stare back to the road, his knuckles white on the wheel. The world dissolved into a tunnel of screaming metal and shredded asphalt, the trees a rushing, solid wall.
The world dissolved into a tunnel of screaming metal and shredded asphalt, the trees a rushing, solid wall. Garret’s breath hitched, a sharp pain in his side where the seatbelt dug in. The speed was a physical terror, a rising pitch in the engine that felt like it would tear the car apart. He clawed at the door handle, not to open it, just to feel something solid. His vision blurred at the edges.
Then, ahead in their lane, just past the bend where the old railroad tracks crossed, he saw them.
Two figures on bikes, the wobbly red glow of reflectors. The Jenkins kid, maybe fifteen, and his little sister with the pink streamers on her handlebars. They were pedaling slowly, taking up the shoulder.Just kids. Out too late, probably racing the sunset home.
Garret’s blood went cold. He jerked towards Connor, his voice a strained crack against the engine’s roar. “Okay, slow down. Connor, slow down.”
Connor didn’t slow. His head tilted slightly, his eyes fixed on the bikes. A small, unnerving smile touched his lips. He gave the engine more gas. The Mustang surged.
“Those your friends, eh?” Connor said, his voice almost conversational, lost in the noise.
The distance closed sickeningly fast. The bikes were fifty yards away. Forty. The kids hadn’t looked back. The sister’s streamers fluttered.
“Stop!” Garret’s alarm spiked into pure panic. He slammed a paw on the dashboard. “Stop it!”
Connor’s smile widened into a full, sinister smirk. His bright blue eyes flicked to Garret, gleaming with a manic light. “Think I can get them both in one go?” he yelled, his voice giddy with a terrible kind of excitement.
“Stop it! Connor!” Garret screamed. It was a raw, desperate sound he hadn’t made in years. It tore his throat.
The memory hit him, bright and awful as the headlights.
Eighth grade. Two guys from the high school, just stupid, shoving him into the lockers, calling him a runt, a freak. It had stung, a hollow, lonely humiliation. Connor found out. Not from Garret. He just knew. He’d shown up at the park where they hung out. Asked which one was which. Calmly. Methodically.
He’d broken the first guy’s nose with a sound like a branch snapping. The second one tried to run. Connor tripped him, knelt on his arm, and slammed his foot down on the elbow. The scream was different. Sharper.
Later, when teachers asked, both guys said they’d fallen. They wouldn’t even look at Garret in the halls. They’d walk the other way.
Afterward, Connor had found him behind the school. He wasn’t breathing hard. He’d lit a cigarette, looked at Garret with an expression of pure, flat annoyance. “You’re a piece of shit,” he’d said, calm, matter-of-fact. “But we’re family. So I have to look after you.”
He hadn’t said want to. He’d said have to.
The bikes were twenty yards away. The sister turned her head. Garret saw her face, pale and round in the headlights, her mouth a small ‘o’ of shock.
Connor wasn’t slowing. The smirk was frozen on his face, a mask of ecstatic cruelty. He wasn’t going to stop. The thought wasn’t a possibility; it was a certainty that filled Garret’s lungs with ice.
He acted without thinking.
Garret lunged across the console, throwing his full weight onto Connor’s arm, his paws scrabbling for the steering wheel. He didn’t try to wrestle it away—he just shoved it hard to the left.
Connor swore, the wheel jerking in his grip. The Mustang veered violently, tires screeching, leaving twin black streaks on the asphalt. They missed the bikes by inches. Garret caught a blurred snapshot: the boy yanking his sister sideways, both bikes toppling into the dry ditch, the raw terror on their faces.
Then they were past, the car fishtailing, Connor fighting the wheel to straighten it out on the empty road.
For a second, there was only the ragged sound of their breathing and the dying whine of the tires.
Then Connor let out a wild, manic laugh. “Woooo! Holy shit! That was so good! Did you see that? We were this close!” He held up his thumb and forefinger, a millimeter apart, shaking with adrenaline. His laughter was too loud, too sharp. It filled the car, bouncing off the windows.
Garret slumped back into his seat, trembling. A full-body tremor he couldn’t control. His paws were numb. He stared at his knees, the world outside still blurry. The smell of burned rubber seeped in through the vents, mixing with Connor’s sweat and cigarette smoke.
In that moment, hunched over and shaking, Garret genuinely wondered. How far would Connor have gone? His brother was a line of constant contradiction, a protector who used terror as his tool. He knew, he knew Connor wouldn’t have actually hit them. It was a taunt. A lesson. A demonstration of control so absolute it could play with lives.
But for that one second, with the headlights blinding those kids and the engine screaming, had Connor known where the line was? Or had the line disappeared in the thrill of the game? The echo of his ecstatic laugh said maybe, just maybe, it had.
And that was worse than any fist.
And that was worse than any fist.
The laughter cut off as abruptly as it started. The only sounds were the engine’s low rumble and Garret’s own heartbeat, a frantic drum against his eardrums. The silence that followed was thicker than before, a heavy blanket smothering the cockpit of the car.Connor drove. Just drove. His face had settled into a flat, neutral mask, the manic light gone from his eyes as if it had never been there. He didn’t look at Garret. His knuckles were still white on the wheel.
Garret kept his gaze fixed on the passing darkness outside his window, seeing nothing. His mind replayed the instant of impact that hadn’t happened—the crunch of aluminum, the scatter of plastic reflectors, the sound a kid makes when the air is knocked out of them. He rubbed his muzzle again, the phantom pressure of Connor’s grip mingling with the fresh, acidic fear.
They passed the rusted water tower, the 24-hour laundromat with its flickering sign. The neighborhoods became familiar, streets lined with small, boxy houses, their windows either dark or glowing with the blue pulse of television light. Connor turned onto Sycamore without using his blinker. Garret’s street.
The Mustang slowed to a crawl, then came to a full stop in front of the small, beige ranch house. The porch light was off, but the living room window cast a weak yellow rectangle onto the overgrown lawn. Garret’s mother’s car, an old sedan with a dented passenger door, sat in the driveway.
Connor put the car in park. The engine idled. He didn’t turn it off.
Garret reached for the door handle, the click unnaturally loud in the stillness. He swung his legs out, retrieving his skateboard from the backseat with clumsy paws. He stood on the curb, the night air cool on his fur. He didn’t look back, didn’t say a word. There was nothing to say that wouldn’t be a lie or a plea.
He heard the soft squeak of the screen door hinge.
His mom, Lillian, stepped out onto the dark porch, peering into the gloom. She was a slight figure, her fur a softer, greyer version of Garret’s. She wore a worn housecoat over her clothes. “Garret? That you, honey? You’re late, I was starting to—” Her voice, always a bit frayed at the edges, trailed off.
Her eyes had adjusted, moving past Garret to the idling black car at the curb. She took a small step forward, one hand rising to her chest.
“Connor?”
The name left her mouth softly, a fragile thing. A mix of hope and something like fear.
Inside the Mustang, Connor didn’t move. He sat perfectly still, staring straight ahead through the windshield, not at the house, but at some fixed point in the distance down the dark street. The dashboard glow lit the sharp planes of his muzzle, the set of his jaw. He looked carved from stone.
Lillian took another hesitant step down the porch stairs, her housecoat fluttering slightly. “Connor, sweetie? Do you… do you want to come in? I could make some coffee, or there’s leftover…”