Werewolf single dad 3, p.9
Werewolf Single Dad 3, page 9
I kinda liked the idea of working under the guise of a pseudonym, but I very quickly realized I’d need more than just a stage name.
It wasn’t enough for me to be Meatloaf, I needed to go the whole hog and be like one of the guys from GWAR.
I needed to obscure my entire identity. The smell and name I were already working on, but I needed to start thinking about how I would hide my voice and face.
And if I was going to work from Trent’s computer, I’d need to make sure I paid top dollar and signed up to a seriously good VPN provider.
I was thinking about going down the pre-recorded video route, but I quickly realized I didn’t want to paint myself into a difficult corner in case I needed to jump on a call or a livestream, so the idea of editing my voice with an app in post-production soon lost its appeal. I was also paranoid about people hacking me once I’d gotten a bit of a reputation for myself and getting a hold of the unedited videos and recognizing me while I put in a pizza order or something.
I’d seen that whole Shia LaBeouf livestream capture the flag thing unfold on 4Chan, where the good people of the internet used crazy shit like shadows on the wall, correlated the distant sound of planes flying overheard with flight charts, and successfully tracked the location of the flag in an otherwise blank room, so I wasn’t about to take chances with something as distinguishable as my voice.
So, how could I hide my voice while talking in real time?
I’d seen videos of people talking while wearing Chewbacca and Optimus Prime masks which changed the wearer’s voices, maybe I could get something like that?
But then again, I didn’t wanna be Alpha Chewbacca or Alpha Optimus Prime, that would just make me a laughing stock.
I suddenly wondered if I’d seen something that might fit the bill in the garage while we were sorting through Trent’s old stuff…
A sudden shrieking laugh from Archie distracted my attention, and I ended up watching the kids tear around the enclosed playground with a huge smile on my face.
Those kids just couldn’t get enough of trike time.
Hold on a second…
Kids…
I didn’t know why I hadn’t thought about it before, but I suddenly realized I had no idea if Frank Frost had children.
More to the point, a son.
One of the old backward werewolf laws that still operated was that female heirs couldn’t inherit territories, which made sense, because a female couldn’t be an Alpha, but it still felt a little bit outdated.
I was still learning the ropes surrounding status and hierarchy now that I had Alpha status, but as I understood it, an Alpha got to have one male heir, which was always their firstborn son, even if that son was born after fifty females.
Since I’d still relatively recently received my Alpha system update, I wasn’t too hot on all the rules and regulations. I only knew what I knew from flapping my gums one evening on the sofa with Trent-- and let’s face it, we were both prone to spouting our fair share of complete and utter horseshit.
When Trent and I had discussed the complex Alpha lines of succession, we’d both come to the misguided conclusion if the son of an Alpha was thirteen or older, he’d inherit his papa’s land no matter what. But since then, I’d spent some time on AWOOGLE checking the facts, and it turned out we’d both gotten a little confused on that front.
We were about three beers deep apiece at the time, after all.
According to AWOOGLE, the rules actually went thusly: in the event of the Alpha’s death through any means other than at the hands of another Alpha, then the Alpha’s land would automatically pass to that son, so long as he is thirteen or older.
But the line of succession didn’t go beyond that one son. Once the firstborn son was dead, so too was the lineage if he did not have his own son to pass his claim onto. And if any son was younger than thirteen, then the land returned to neutral ground.
However, if the Alpha and his son died together from a non-Alpha-werewolf related incident-- such as a car crash or drowning in a boat together at sea-- then the land was rendered neutral once again, and the first Alpha who touched the ground, or spilled another Alpha’s blood if two arrived at the same time, could claim it as their own.
Or-- since AWOO was trying to push things in a less blood-soaked direction now that we were in a more urban setting-- the first Alpha to follow the correct links and fill in the subsequent interest of ownership forms on the AWOO portal would also have a chance of governing that territory.
As you can well imagine, the latter made the bloodhungry traditionalists who feared modernity very upset indeed.
Although governing Frost’s people wasn’t something I needed to be worried about, since it had been Ally who had delivered the killing blow, I still couldn’t help but wonder what was going to become of his land.
Did he have a son who would inherit the territory? Or was the territory now neutral ground again-- much to the begrudging of a potential daughter?
I tried searching on PackMate, and though I’d found Frost’s profile, it was very lacking in personal information, and I couldn’t see any trace of any Frosty Juniors on there.
He was totally more of a LinkedIn kind of guy.
Funny enough, there was no special shifter equivalent to LinkedIn. Guess you really could just be a wolf in CEO’s clothing.
There was a shifter equivalent to Twitter, though: Howl-- not to be mistaken with Howlr by any means.
You can guess who Howlr was for.
Think Teddy, but for wolves.
Hopefully, it wouldn’t be classified as private information if an Alpha wanted to know the status of another Alpha’s land, and I added asking Grace what had become of Frost’s land to my mental checklist for when I called her tonight.
But I decided I’d had enough screen time now, and I put my phone in my pocket to spend a little bit of time with my bouncing baby boy.
The whole stroller was shaking, and Charlie gurgled away as he stretched, kicked his legs, and knocked the stuffing out of the fabric duckling mobile that hung from the top bar.
I just couldn’t resist giving my happy baby a quick tickle, but I made sure I was extra quick about it, and vigilant about where his fingers were in relation to mine the entire time.
That baby grip was strong, and I could see the little white nubbins of fangs poking through his gums. I did not want to be the chew toy to a teething baby werewolf.
A few more minutes passed, and Dionne and Archie’s breakneck version of Starlight Express on trikes had slowed to a crawl. I watched the toddlers panting as their weary legs pedaled them around the edges of the park, and I knew it was the right time for us all to go home.
Archie came back just fine when I called out-- he clearly knew when to call it a day. But Dionne kicked up a fuss saying she didn’t want to finish on her trikey yet-- despite her tomato complexion telling me otherwise-- and I almost got to one when I did my warning countdown.
But no kid wanted to know what happened when their parent got to one, and no parent knew what would actually happen, so it was a big relief when my daughter begrudgingly decided she didn’t want to take any chances and slowly cycled back to me.
Something in that dark look in her eyes put me in mind of Billy from Saw, though, and I kept my guard up as Dionne came tricycling over to me.
Although I could tell my daughter was thinking about pushing her boundaries, I also knew she loved her trike too much to risk it getting thrown under lock and key in the garage again, and ultimately, she chose to cooperate.
I happily reminded the children they would get a little bit more time on their trikes today since they still had to ride them home, and even though Dionne cheered, she whined that she was too tired the whole five-minute journey back.
When we eventually got home after our surprisingly successful afternoon out, the kids were sad to see the trikes go back behind the garage door, and they whimpered that I should let the trikes stay in the living room otherwise they might not ever get to see them again.
I got it. Anything that usually went into the garage wasn’t seen again for an extremely long amount of time because of how much of a mess it was in there, and the garage garnered a sort of mythical status like the Cave of Wonders from Aladdin.
What the kids didn’t know was Trent and I chose not to get the trikes out anymore because of how hectic our first excursion with them was, but really, we knew exactly where they were, and we had the power to get them out at any time we pleased. We just pretended they were lost in the depths of treasures because we’d decided they were more trouble than they were worth after our first manic trip out.
But on this latest excursion, Arch and DiDi had proved themselves trustworthy enough to warrant a few more regular excursions on their trikes, and I made sure to tell them that, along with how proud I was of their good listening.
When I checked the time on my phone, I saw it had only just hit four PM. I had another hour or so until Trent got back, and after such a busy afternoon, I thought it would be the perfect time to put a movie on for the kids.
And if my plan worked, they’d fall asleep, and I’d get about an hour to hang back in the kitchen so I could call Grace and watch them at the same time.
I planted Dionne and Archie in front of the TV, and thankfully, I’d worn them out so much that they agreed watching a “moobie” was a good idea.
I quickly changed Charlie, and then I fixed all three children with a sippy cup of warm bone broth and tucked them all up on the sofa in their blankies.
The key part now was choosing a film the children liked enough to want to watch, but knew well enough that they’d let themselves go under when they inevitably felt their eyes getting tired.
I’d tried this approach once before when the Badgers were playing a couple weeks ago, but I made a fatal error.
It was all going so perfectly: I spent a crazy half hour running around with the children to tire them out, and when I could see they were really tired, I settled them all nicely on their sofa with some warm milk and a blankie each. All that was left to do was to put on a movie they’d seen a thousand times before so they could comfortably fall asleep during it.
The kids were getting milk-drowsy, and I was just one button away from an undisturbed football match.
But I stumbled at the last hurdle, and out of all the kids’ favorite movies they’d watched countless times and could continue watching in their dreams, I chose Monsters Inc.
My plan went off without a hitch to begin with. Dionne had fallen asleep during the opening credits, but just as I began to celebrate after watching Archie drift out of consciousness, Sulley’s terrifying roar sounded from the television, and both the children jumped awake.
Just a little kink in the plan, no? Surely once the children drift back off to sleep, you can just turn the volume down to stop such a rude awakening from occurring again?
Wrong.
The roar had startled the children awake and simultaneously overenergized their exhausted little spirits. They managed to stay awake for the entirety of the movie, which meant I couldn’t concentrate on the game I was trying to watch on my phone. I had to keep on roaring with them every time one of the monsters roared, and I also had to be ready and waiting in the wings to run into the middle of the living room and do the song-and-dance routine to “Put that thing back where it came from, or so help me,” as was tradition for me to do every single time this movie was on.
And it was on a lot in this household.
But I’d learned from my mistakes. I needed to walk the fine line between engaging and calming, with no loud noises for a considerable chunk of the start of the movie, to give the kids enough time to settle into it and fall asleep, and enough time for me to get the remote and turn the movie all the way down when they’d gone.
I also needed it to be something I’d watched enough times, too, because I was a total nightmare when it came to getting caught up in children’s movies.
I did a rapid mental checklist of films that fit such a delicate criteria, and one seemed to fit the bill perfectly for this mission.
So, Up it was.
I didn’t realize until I was in too deep what a terrible mistake that was.
The kids and I hadn’t watched Up in a long while, but we all really loved it. The film started with the meeting between those funny little kids and quickly slipped into a seamless series of transitions that beautifully and wordlessly showcased the life of Ellie and Carl as a married couple.
The pleasant, upbeat music and bright, dreamy scenes of the couple cloud watching kept the children entertained, while I stole a little moment to have a quick text exchange with Whitney, comfortable in the knowledge my exhausted babies would probably be melting into their own dreams soon enough.
But as my fingers tapped happily on my phone screen with that jaunty little jingle playing in the background, something in my scarred subconscious noted the sudden drop in the tune’s tempo, and I was helpless against my own eyes as they pulled themselves away from the little screen in my hands and transfixed themselves onto the big screen on the living room wall.
Although I had strong swimmers and had been blessed with two beautiful children, I couldn’t help but feel my heart pucker and twist at the sight of Ellie silently sobbing in the doctor’s office, and I had to blink away a slight dewiness in my eyes. I remembered crying at this scene even when my wife was alive and my two children were healthy and happy, so I stood no chance now that there was always a little bit of lingering sadness in the back of my mind since losing Katherine.
Which was why I barely survived the part of the montage where Carl and Ellie grow old together, especially the part where Ellie eventually falls while trying to make it up the hill.
And by the time Carl was a little old man cleaning the window all on his own, my dewy eyes were two full-blown puddles, and nothing could stop the rain that came falling.
My chest burned like it was full of vinegar, so I blinked back the tears and fixed my eyes on the children, and I saw all three of them were already asleep. They probably hadn’t even made it past the first five minutes.
Although Up was a beautiful film, and a lot of fun after the initial heartbreak, I took it as a blessing in disguise that Dionne had fallen asleep so quickly. She’d recently lost her mother, and my little girl was becoming more observant and alert every day. Pair that with those big feelings of grief and sadness still spinning around inside her, and I wasn’t sure if it would have been right to have inadvertently sprung such an emotionally-devastating blow on her while trying to settle us all down for an afternoon nap.
But now the hard part was over: The kids were asleep, and my emotions were stable once more as I watched old man Carl grumble with his tennis ball walker.
It was time to utilize this precious hour or so I had until Trent got home to catch up on a little more life admin.
I was at home now and safe from listening ears, and I thought about finally giving Grace a call, but just as I pulled her number up, I realized talking in a whisper would be impractical and uncomfortable for both parties, since I really didn’t want to wake the kids up.
As much as I wanted to speak with my caseworker, I begrudgingly decided I’d wait until I had a moment to myself tomorrow, and I groaned audibly when I realized I’d have to somehow sandwich our call in during her office hours and in-between my time with the kids plus whatever mischief I was bound to get myself in during the next day.
Although… I did have Grace’s private number now…
Would it have been wrong of me to call her on her personal number and discuss AWOO matters later on this evening? Say at like eight when the kids were asleep?
Or would that have gotten me or Grace in some kind of trouble with the bigwigs over at the government offices?
Hm… I’m sure things would be fine. After all, Grace had called me on her personal number to discuss AWOO matters, so even if she didn’t want to speak to me off the clock, I knew she wouldn’t rat me out to her bosses if I called her.
I was happy to keep the business about governing multiple packs in a new way above board, since I kinda hoped my experiences as a new Alpha might continue to help pave the way for AWOO’s updated practices, and I wanted the government’s honest guidance so I didn’t get myself in any more trouble.
But I also may have been working on borrowed time now that I knew people had been watching me, so even if I wasn’t sure whether or not it would have been a good idea to call her, knowing I had a private number for Grace to contact her after hours if I ever found myself in dire straits came as quite a big comfort to me.
As I stared blankly at my caseworker’s number on my screen, a text suddenly dropped down from Dayzee. I opened it immediately, and he’d replied telling me it was cool to get whatever I needed sent to his house. I thanked him, and he added a joke saying it was all good, as long as it was nothing that could get him in any sort of trouble or anything like a Glitter Bomb or a turd in a box.
I replied the contents of the parcel were top secret, so I naturally couldn’t divulge the nature of the parcel Dayzee would be receiving through his mail slot, but I made sure I ended the text on the ominous note of:
Trust me, you’ll know when you get it.
Of course, this was just an empty bit of banter, and I knew Dayzee got that, but I hoped I did know him as well as I thought I did, and he wouldn’t be losing sleep wondering about the contents of this hotly anticipated package.
All it was going to be was the faces of the people who were out to get our people, which wasn’t anything to get ourselves excited about.
But this was great. Now that Dayzee had gotten back in touch with me and given me the go-ahead to get my mail-order mugshots of the shifter hunters and their address sent to his place, I could finally Venmo Luna over her money, and the ball could finally get rolling on understanding who was stalking me.
And maybe I could even turn the tide and think about how I would deter them from ever even thinking about approaching me ever again.
