It's strange how Zeke's demeanor changes after I threaten him. He's still hard to read, with his face all covered, but he comes along and follows directions without the weird moodiness of yesterday. Around noontime I pull him deeper into the trees alongside the road and ask him to wait. In seconds I shed my clothes and turn wolf.

A family of rabbits has dug a burrow nearby, and I sniff it out, then kill two.

When I return to Zeke, relieved that he hasn't run off, he is starting up a fire. He stares at me while I transform, then quickly averts his eyes.

"It's weird," he says finally. "I could smell what you caught. I figured cooked rabbit would taste better." He throws more wood onto the flames as I zip up my jeans. "Have you always been... this way?"

I unsheathe my knife and start preparing the rabbits. "I guess. I mean, I was born this way... but I didn't know it until I turned thirteen. That was the first time I changed."

"Didn't you know you were different, though? Before?"

I shrug.

Zeke comes over and starts on the other rabbit as I'm skinning the first. "I can smell things I never thought had a smell. I can hear things that must be miles away like they're right next to me." He looks at me. "You must have known."

"I had no idea," I say.

I almost can't believe it myself, but growing up I was so isolated. My parents and Kayla, they all had the same powerful senses. It didn't seem abnormal. They never told me I was abnormal.

(would've been nice if they had, maybe then I wouldn't have spent three years running from myself)

Only the kids at school, but they were mean about everything.

what did you say danny you think i smell like shit well smell this

The swirlies in the boys' bathroom, one time getting upended into the trash can in the cafeteria. The constant headaches from the too-loud chatter of a hundred children all at once, the scraping of chalk on the blackboard, the stink of the dumpster behind the school.

look who smells now but you always smelled like trash didn't you danny you and your drunk-ass dad down there in that trailer your whore of a mother

My grip tightens around the knife and I rip out the rabbit's innards with enough force to spray its coagulating blood across the snow.

(it was a long time ago)

(none of that was as bad as what dad did)

It's all in the past, and besides, they didn't pick on me very often. Mostly because I could hear them coming and hide. I thought they bullied me because I wasn't a townie or a rancher. I thought they bullied me because my family was white trash.

Definitely not because I was a werewolf.

After we've eaten, put out the fire, and started walking again, I offer Zeke my idea. "Do you know how to drive a car?"

"I drove my dad's truck a couple of times. Like two feet forward, or backing up."

I nod. "That's good."

"What, you don't know how to drive?"

"No."

"Really? I figured you were old enough to have your license already."

"Nope, just turned sixteen a couple months ago."

"So... if we were to steal a car, you could drive it?"

"Driving on a highway is a lot different from backing the truck up in front of my house." We walk on for a few more minutes. "Besides, you'd need to find a car with keys. I don't know how to hotwire a car. And it'd have to be an automatic. I have no idea how to drive standard."

"It won't be that hard."

By nightfall the big green highway signs tell us we are nearing Hyannis. There's some traffic on the road, but not much. No one slows down for us, anyway. No one wants to pick up two hitchhikers.

"Let's go down into a neighborhood," I suggest. "We check cars in people's driveways. There's gotta be some trusting person who leaves their keys in their unlocked car."

We hit the houses where the lights are off. It's pitch black out now, most people in bed. Zeke takes one side of the street while I take the other. It gets to be a routine. Open the door as quietly as possible. Check the ignition first. Then the visor, then under the floor mat, then the glove box. Then close the door as quietly as possible and move on to the next car. I find a set of keys in a Dodge Ram truck, then notice the stick shift. Zeke hasn't signaled me yet, so I guess he's having the same luck as I am.

We're about halfway down a street called Manderson Ave. when I smell the dog.

It's on Zeke's side, kept in on a screened porch. We must be downwind, because it hasn't scented us yet. From across the street I watch Zeke go right into the driveway and open the car door. He must not have smelled the dog, or maybe he doesn't realize the sort of effect our kind have on dogs.

I shut the door of the Honda I was checking and lope across the street.

"Zeke," I whisper as loudly as I can.

He sees me coming and looks around, presumably to see if the owners of the house are still asleep. All the lights are still off, and so he shrugs at me and continues searching the car.

Maybe it's my footsteps slapping against the pavement, or maybe it's the muffled "Yes!" coming from within Zeke's scarf. Maybe the scent of us two together. The dog launches out of sleep and into a barking frenzy.

"This one has keys!" Zeke says, not even whispering as a light goes on upstairs.

I don't say anything. I shove him into the driver's seat and climb over him.

He takes the hint and closes the car door, puts the key in the ignition.

Then he stares at the steering wheel.

"What are you waiting for?" I hiss. The dog is leaping up against the screens on the porch, its nails scratching. White strings of saliva fly out from its snapping jaws. "Let's go!"

I'm not sure what Zeke says, because most of it is lost in a growl. His mittened hands are clenched into fists.

"No, no, let's just go," I say. "You don't need to fight that dog. Come on. Just turn the key and go!" Inside the house, heavy footsteps are coming down the stairs. Soon the owner is going to stop being pissed at his dog for waking him up and start being pissed at the two delinquents stealing his car.

A growl rises from my own throat as I pull Zeke over to the passenger side hard enough to knock his head against the window. I settle into the driver's seat and turn the key. The car – a messy compact – grumbles to life. I stare at the shifter. Reverse, I need to reverse. There's a red R, must be reverse. I slide the shift to the R.

Zeke roars with vocal chords that are no longer human.

I hit the gas, managing to keep my hands on the steering wheel despite the fact that they are trying to change into clawed paws. As the car spins backward into the street, the pads of my hands slip.

A tearing sound fills the air as Zeke's clothes split.

"Go go go," I tell myself. If I can get Zeke away from that dog's sound and scent, maybe he will calm down. The numbers on the shifter aren't corresponding for me. There's no G for Go, no F for Forward. What is N? What is D, and D2? I try N.

Nothing happens.

"Why the fuck is there a gear that does nothing?" I yell, slamming the shifter clumsily to the next one down, D. The car lurches forward. "Yes!"

Zeke is scrabbling at the door handle, doubly awkward with his mittens and the paws inside of them. Most of his clothes are still on him, though split to accommodate the change. His face has elongated into a wolfish muzzle, but there's no fur. I tear my gaze away from him to hunt for the button that will lock all the doors, it doesn't seem to be there. And I'm still driving, sliding across the icy road much faster than I want to be.

Finally I find the button, and just in time, too – I'm at Route 2, sliding into the road, my foot pressing down on the brake. Bright lights, a long blaring horn, Zeke slams sideways then on top of me, then he rights himself. The car slides off the road and into a low snow bank. Stops. Finally.

I take a moment to breathe and get myself together. The windshield has fogged up and is slowly clearing with the heat blowing. "Okay," I say. "Okay."

I look at Zeke.

"You'd better get a little closer to human," I tell him. When he stares at me blankly, helplessly

(I don't know how to do this)

I growl at him. "Change back!" I bark. The slightest hesitation from him, a shifting of his eyes and I'm on him, holding him with my stare. "Human. Now."

With our eyes locked together, his pupils dilate. Beneath my hands I feel his body shifting. I return to the driver's seat, still maintaining eye contact.

"That's better."

I take up the wheel again, relieved that the snow bank has kept the car from rolling away.

"How did you do that?" Zeke asks. His voice is clear now. I glance at him – there's no trace left of the wolf in his face. "It's like your voice... did something. Activated the change. You told me to change and I had to do it."

I say nothing. Keep my eyes on the icy black road ahead. It did feel like that, like a pull on my brain, a push of energy, giving him my power to control the transformation. Kayla never mentioned anything like this, although she did something similar a few times. Calmed me down so I didn't change. Some kind of psychic injection of calmness.

It's interesting but I can't think too much on it. My knuckles are white on the steering wheel. It hits me: I'm driving for the first time.