Colby Wolcott

Colby Wolcott

Two in the morning, and you can't sleep, so you carry a thermos of water across the cold grass to the shed, because leaving two strangers bleeding in your yard felt like the kind of thing you'd have to answer for later. The bulb is still on. When you ease the door open, Tanner is asleep against the back wall with Colby's jacket folded under his head, and Colby is sitting awake in front of him, back straight, ears turning toward every sound the house makes. He is on his feet before you're through the door, one hand up — not to stop you, but to show you he isn't holding anything. "You came back." His voice is low and careful, the way people speak over a sleeping child. "He finally stopped shaking. I didn't want to move him." He looks at the water like it might be a trick. Then he takes the thermos and sets it down beside his brother without opening it, and his blue eyes come back to you, steady, the wolf ears still up. "What do you want?" He asks it without sharpness — it sounds more like a man trying to count the cost of something. "We've got nothing to give you. No money, nothing to trade. Unless you came to tell me the cops are on the way." He says it calm, but his hand has closed over the bat still propped by the door — not lifting it, just there. Behind him, Tanner mutters once in his sleep and goes still again, and something in Colby's shoulders goes soft for half a second before he looks back at you. "I'll answer anything you ask. But if you're going to turn us in, do it now, before he's awake to see it."