Collin didn't need to shrink to properly enjoy the lither arm that finally took him. Perhaps it was the giant that was the prince then, adamantly waiting for approval from the Wicker King, blessed by crusade, and returned wordlier than any of the peasant savages. He still hunched slightly, to accept the embrace, but it was the kind of snuggling a tiger shares with uneducated venison. Volk clapped the shoulder farthest from him and swayed with his childhood friend. They had both climbed their own spines, and stretched the bones in their legs. Collin and the game his father could shoot and his mother could season had only done it with more enthusiasm. The city girls aren't much for lumber limbs, at least not the visible ones. With a palm that would rather bring his bike out into the road, with Reno right there behind him, he squeezed the rounded cap holding Collin's thick upper arm to his torso. "You've been buttering your scones, boy." he said, wasting syrup on unwashed ears to buy beloved sister a fighting chance.<br/><br/>He didn't mind the groveling. Boys want other things from each other than they do skeletal pretties like Reno. Volk smiled for a living, and could make people who knew about the transaction forget. He'd never been in this position with Collin, but that was long ago. The brute nature in the seething local had matured into something bear-cunning. Volk didn't have that leash, anymore, to parade him around cleverly. Could Collin feel the winter in big brother's blood when his last love was stuck into the ground by a gaggle of men? Volk had mastered his own face, he thought, but he couldn't stop looking at her. Perhaps he held on to Collin harder - for support and creeping retribution. He could take insult, he could drink it down without choking and let his acids turn it into new tides. But this wasn't him, this was the girl. The last responsibility. The hyenas were soiling the final redemptive shard of his stained glass.<br/><br/>"Hey." Collin beckoned and clapped lightly on Volk's cheek. It was a soundly touch, nonetheless, and it drew the attention of Reno's male shackles. Violence is drawing. Volk slowly turned, the upward bends of his precious lips slowly loosing bounce, but staying where they were, like ragged billboard paper. "I know you're happy to have her back, but I'm here too, you should..."<br/><br/>"Yeah, yeah. How about we have a drink. You smell like you brought some. Ren, you, me could sit down in the house, the boys can play out in the yard, right?" he tried, mask breaking like mountain sides opened up by veins of frozen water. The finesse in Volk's beautiful façade was being ravaged by the dire of the hyenas antics. What had they done to her in the car? Why was her clothes so out of place? He was feeling the center of his being die in a dense dahlia, spreading to encompass all the men here. Black roots in his lungs, his heart. It was becoming increasingly hard to pretend at being human. Collin snickered, disappointed at the fall from composure.<br/><br/>There was no need for him to slay the brother deeper, when the handsy few around Reno started scripting their own assumptions, and forcing her to confirm like an oracle plugged into the wall. Volk was even able to forget whatever fancy he had toward Reno's perfect beauty in her dismay. Girl knew thrived in torture. He could deal with that shame later. For the little girl who'd clung to his back because she was tired, and believed in him when he'd been quietly carving her family life up at night, he listened to the smudge-people ask her insulting things while groping sordid places. There was an anticipation in her body, of discomfort, the kind that had felt this before. Collin could see the tremble that made the pretty jaw almost invisible as the brother bit back all the natural violence eager to jump over the fence of teeth.<br/><br/>"I don't know you." Volk replied with none of the familiarity he owed Collin. Some unknown, Volk had seen the face, but he'd been insignificant. The answer was enough to make Carl try to subtly hide behind her when he swallowed. Bending wolf boy, waiting for a chance to spring and play in intestines. "But I recognize you. Did I beat your face in with a crowbar once, and that's why you look like healed over dogshit?" he pressed. It was as impressive as words could be, and it sobered long haired Carl. It also roused his ego, and he pulled the girl tighter to himself and raked her throat with his nails. Volk clutched the roof of his mouth with his tongue and hissed, avoiding her eyes. "Let's fucking go, Collin. I don't wanna watch this." And it would look a lot like ancient abandon to Reno, when Volk turned and walked toward the woods, arm still around the steward of Burning Bear.<br/><br/>Carl gasped when the two were outside of range for their words. His mouth stayed open when he turned to his friends, and then he lowered that excited, drawn thin face to press against hers. "Big brother left you with us. You know what that means don't you?" he asked, pulling up her skirt like he was owed another view of her underwear. "It means he wants nieces and nephews." It took absolutely nothing for the mob of elated libidos to hoist and slam her down on the Blazer's hood. The engine underneath wanted to burn her to the paint. Her legs were over the edge, banging on the dirty grill, and parted easily, one boy on each limb and Carl in the middle. "Maybe I could smell him on you, since you don't want to answer?" he suggested, bending to hover his lips close to her forcefully offered up, barely clothed mounds.<br/><br/>"I know what you're doing." Collin said in the murk at the edge of his headlight's reach. The trees were barring the light. They were their memories now, playing on the makeshift tents Reno used to build of her blanket, flashlight and toy catalogue in hand. Their shades were ill-meaning. The thickly raised man picked up a branch fitting the hands that could snuff Reno by her neck. He wasn't going to bet on an honorable Wicker again. "But you're not going to get the better of me in here." he swung the chunk of wood to test its weight. It was the killing kind of heavy. "You're not going to cheat your way out of this one."<br/><br/>Volk shook off the clever host and shrugged into his real disdain, shoulders vast and eyes tired in their consuming rage. Shadows of a wolf in his forest. He turned at a distance that was hopeless, even for the hulking tree arm. Half his face was obscured by the night yet to be shredded by the insolent car's eyes. "Oh," he awarded Collin's little speech, puffs of smoke that shouldn't be there curtaining his cheek. His shape shifted and dug around with its heels as though readying a run. Collin bent his legs ready to receive an ill-advised tackle. "I wasn't just better than you at cheating, Collin." he reminded. "I was also better than you at sports." It grated the bigger boy but he didn't see the relevance. "Running. Jumping." Maybe Volk was trying to get him out of balance. Childhood bravado was Collin's only bravado, and his light had to be found in Volk's aftermath. He moved closer to the fidgeting wolf, tiring of whatever game this was. "Soccer."<br/><br/>Volk's endless leg twitched forward, sending a fist-sized rock on its surgical trajectory. Collin didn't understand what had brought his head back, or why his legs were dough. When he was blinded by the salt of his own blood, right-side, he let go of his weapon to cup his forehead. Anger and decades of frustration wailed out of the wound, a never ending supply of regrets and defeat squeezed up by a sullenly erupting heart. His arms were sluggish and his retorts were porridge on his tongue. Not again. He cried, clamoring to stay at least upright when Volk quietly walked past him. With his teeth showing, Collin clawed at the beautiful jacket but slid off with crimson trails, his angle closer to the earth and woodchips now. Volk didn't even stay to make sure he fell. But he did.<br/><br/>Carl was becoming familiar with her, nose to that intimate fabric, breath on the material to wet it with his lungs. He looked up at the streaks of her mascara and her stunning struggle. Useless bird in spider's net. How did she even think that she'd get away better, when she was this gorgeous? Burning bears it all the beautiful things they see. The holding boys let go long enough for Carl to get her underwear off. They were suddenly parched for girl's juices. They were going to cannibalize her and see if she liked it.<br/><br/>The car itself seemed to come to her aid, and bowed low once to return up with heavy force. It made Carl stumble, and it banged the red surface against his chin. He groaned as he fumbled back onto his ass in cheap, incorrectly sized denim. He'd bit both his lip and his tongue, somehow. "Fuck you, Gee!" he shouted with the now cut muscle. The sound was not so imploring as he'd meant, with the new lazy lilt.<br/><br/>"I didn't do anything, it's like someone loaded a fucking chimney on." Geoffrey tried. He looked at the other, who had her other leg. Chris shrugged quickly and that made the collar of his jacket finally fall down into place. The three looked at each other in the purest instance of confusion before quick taps on the car roof solved their impasse. Volk put a snowflake on the glass as he stomped off from his vantage and sunk his boot toe into Gee's cheek. The hardly handsome head had no choice but to follow along with the advance of the far-cocked kick, and landed dumbly, unmoving along with its accompanying body on the recently cut grass.<br/><br/>Volk, who flung himself to provide as much cranial disrupt as possible, continued his flight over his sister and down the height of the car, landing on the sitting Carl, proceeded by his dense fist. Carl either died or blacked-out from either the punch or the impact of his skull to the ground. He was as animate as Gee. Chris pulled Reno to him, now without her panties, and hugged her as closely as any shipwrecked would a buoy. Volk, who'd lost his jacket so his nude arms could move like the scythes he never found in dad's shop, stepped closer with the continued adrenaline of vengeance by blunt trauma. Chris shook his head when that arm stretched for the girl, but didn't fight when Volk brought her to him.<br/><br/>"You fucking idiot." he whispered in to her hair but sighed with torturous relief. He pushed her along to Jonas's truck, which wouldn't be able to depart through the Blazer, but she'd know to climb inside when she finally had her keys back. "Don't fucking move from there, okay?" But it wasn't really a question, it was just an order for confirmation. He slammed the door himself, trapping her in steel, and finally coughed out a breath with all the worry that had been setting root in him since he saw in the other backseat, his dahlia pulled from the minced-meat earth heart, and flying onto the glass like fog and jellyfish legs. He closed his eyes with accomplishment, and rested his head on the plain Reno used to want rolled down when the rays were frying her too hot, there, in the middle of everyone who loved her. Lanky protector, finally, in his gray tank top and string muscles, reveling in her safety. Skin marionette for all their history. Volk lifted his attention again, the way he used to look at her, when he came and got her for<br/><br/>three hours of life.<br/><br/>And then he was wrenched to the side by a hard tackle by a vengeful Collin, right into the arms of Chris who wanted revenge for his own cowardice. In the moment of standstill in the air, Volk stared at his sister, and then he was a victim of too much; gravity, force, cinnamon poison, regrets, pride. Adoration.<br/><br/>Her brother was on the ground soon, with Collin's log legs kicking great welcome-backs into his side, and Chris adding to the canvas of destruction from above.