"Kit Reed - What Wolves Know" - читать интересную книгу автора (Reed Kit)

At night she lingers in the hallway outside the room. She does not
speak. He wonтАЩt, or canтАЩt. Sometimes he hears her crying.

Happy waits. Sooner or later she always goes away. She leaves
things on the kitchen table. Meat, which Happy devours. Fruit, which he
ignores. Something she baked. She leaves the door to that old, bad
bathroom open so he wonтАЩt have to go outside to relieve himself. WhatтАЩs
the matter with her, did she forget? The sight of the toilet, the naked hook
where the belt hung, make Happy tremble.

Outside is worse than inside. Nights like these make Happy want to
throw back his head and howl. Alone in these parts, he could howl to the
skies and never hear their voices. The other wolves are deep in the old
woods, and he is far, far away. He wants to cry out for Sonia, for the past,
when everything was simple, but one sound will bring police down on him
with their bats and rifles, visors on bug helmets covering their faces.

Happy knows what wolves know. You never, ever break cover.

Wolves know what Happy is only now learning. He canтАЩt go back!
HappyтАЩs feet are soft and his muscles are slack from days under the crib.
HeтАЩd never make it and if he did, Timbo would outrun him in seconds.
Timbo would kill him in one lunge, and even if he could kill Timbo? His parts
and the bitch wolvesтАЩ parts donтАЩt match. They have forgotten he was ever
one of them.

He sits on his haunches and tries to think. He is distracted by the buzz
of blue lights on poles overhead, where he is used to looking up and
seeing trees; by a sky so milky with reflected glare that stars donтАЩt show; by
the play of strident human voices in the houses all around, the mechanical
sounds of a hundred household objects and the rush of cars on the great
road that brought them here. Looking up at the house, he groans.

He doesnтАЩt belong in there.
 He doesnтАЩt belong out here, either.

He gets up. Sighs. Stands back. Upstairs in the house, there is a
single light. She is awake. Now he knows, and knowing hurts somehow.
She doesnтАЩt go into her lair and sleep after she leaves HappyтАЩs door the
way he thought she did. She sits up all night waiting. He steals back inside
and goes upstairs to his room. Inside, he closes the door. Tonight, he will
not turn the lock.

****

After not very longтАФdid she hear or does she just know?тАФthe
bedroom door opens. She says his name.

тАЬHappy?тАЭ