MetaViews - 4. MetaView 4: White Wolf Pack 4th Enforcer Warren L. Vanguard

“Hello, Warren,” the young girl said with her disarming, wide smile framed in those dark locks she shared with Jett. “Iris is not here,” she added quickly, turning around and walking back into the kitchen like the busy woman she was.

Warren dutifully scrubbed the dirt from the soles of his boots on the mat in front of the door before he followed her. “Are you on your own?”

“Yes. I’m a big girl, I can take care of myself …”

“You are a …,” Warren started, before he changed course. He had learned not to argue with women, irrespective how young they were. “Of course you are.”

Jenna beamed at the agreement when he joined her in the kitchen; as usual it was cluttered, as always full of scents of recently made food and cakes cooling down somewhere. His taste buds went into overdrive immediately. Since Colt had left for the hospital, cooking – even BBQing – hadn’t been on the agenda of the pack.

“Would you like to have some meat loaf? – Iris made much too much, I think she was expecting you …,” Jenna invited returning to her books.

“That would be nice …” Warren accepted the ‘offer,’ feeling he had been caught red-handed. “What are you doing?” he asked the girl with the dark locks and a light tan that gave her a certain angelic image, if she hadn’t had that quite feisty personality unbecoming for a young wolf female.

“Filling in this stupid questionnaire …”

“Questionnaire?” Warren cut off a decent – well, ‘solidly sized’ but not too big to raise Jenna’s eyebrows – slice of the loaf putting it on his plate. He added some mashed potatoes and ground a good dose of pepper over it. The inside of the loaf was filled with sausages and eggs: all healthy food in the end, he chuckled to himself.

“We have this new teacher; Mrs. Bode. You know, since Mrs. Mier had to retire because of her weak heart. And she wants to get to know us all so she gave us this questionnaire.”

“That’s new,” Warren managed to comment after the first – huge – bite had disappeared. This was heavenly.

Jenna grinned.

And Warren blushed.

“Can’t you show me some moves instead?”

Warren wiped his mouth; the puree had stuck to the corners. “Maybe this evening. First I need to talk with Iris … and you have homework …”

“Why would an enforcer need school?”

Warren tilted his head cautiously. Jenna had tricked him before; if she had been a boy, she would be a perfect beta candidate. “They need to be able to use advanced weaponry, communicate clearly across the pack and packs, understand the orders of the alpha, betas and chief enforcer, behave when in company of alpha, and aren’t just some meat loaf brutes …”

Jenna sighed.

“Let me help you then. Why don’t you ask me the questions? – And then you write down your answers …”

“Okay,” the girl agreed grudgingly. “So what do you want to become when you’re grown up?” she read the first question.

“Well, I’m already grown up,” Warren teased.

“Daaa,” Jenna mocked him. “Did you always want to become an enforcer and policeman?”

Warren shoved another fork-full of meat loaf into his mouth, before he answered. “I always wanted to be an enforcer; but I never thought I would become one …”

“Because you like …”

Warren shook his head. “No, because I was fat.”

“You were fat?” Jenna put down her pen and looked at the young blond wolf in disbelief.

“Yes. I felt in me it was my destiny to protect, to serve, to be strong … but it was ridiculous given I wasn’t fit at all to do that …”

Jenna made a sad face with her lips. “And policeman?”

“It was easier to become a policeman. I did the course, the tests, even the physical was easier than enforcer … so I thought if I cannot be a wolf enforcer I can at least be a LEO,” Warren explained.

“’Leo?’” Jenna asked slightly confused. “A lion?”

“Law Enforcement Officer.”

“Oh.”

“Now you need to write down what you want to be when you are grown up,” Warren pointed with the back of his fork to her paper work.

“That’s easy,” she answered and started to write, giving Warren time to work through his meat loaf without having to talk.

“What is your greatest weakness?” she suddenly asked.

“That’s on your questionnaire?” Warren asked with doubt.

“Yes. Here,” she turned the paper around as a kind of evidence.

Warren shook his head bit. “I don’t always believe in myself. It is always others who see something good in me, not me myself.”

“Like you becoming a big enforcer?”

Warren nodded thinking of the old man in the hospital. He bit his lip and then finished the loaf.

“Mine is being a girl,” Jenna stated firmly.

“That’s not true,” Warren pulled himself out of his misery to contradict.

“It is. If I was a boy, everyone would support me becoming an enforcer …”

“Jenna.”

She ignored him resolutely. “What was the biggest mistake you made in your life?”

“Only one?” Warren asked with a hint of cynicism.

“Well, it says ‘biggest,’ so one should be the biggest,” Jenna pointed out quippingly.

‘Beta material indeed,’ Warren told himself. ‘Or are there female metas?’ he asked himself. ‘Not possible,’ he answered for himself. ‘”Meta,”’ he suddenly repeated to himself. “My biggest failure is not having been able to protect Colt. He was imprisoned by vampires, drowned by an evil wolf and nearly attacked by vampire queen …”

“He survived all of it,” Jenna interjected.

‘Just to die alone in a hospital bed,’ Warren answered in silence. “He did. Still, I failed.”

“And what did you learn from this?” she asked reading from the sheet of paper.

“That I’m not good enough,” Warren answered instinctively. “But that Fate is giving me second chances.” – ‘Not this time, though,’ he concluded.

Jenna’s big dark eyes looked at him with warm interest.

He nearly felt she wanted to get up and pet the big Husky dog begging with his sad blue eyes. “And yours?” he asked to change the dynamic.

“I’m not tidy,” Jenna started to write down. “My mum always complained about my room looking like a pig sty. She was very unhappy with me. Iris doesn’t mind so much,” she mumbled.

But Warren felt something else. “Do you miss your mum?”

Jenna looked up, her lips quivering. “Yes. I thought …”

Warren reached over with his big hand and squeezed the small delicate one carefully. “You’re not alone, Jenna.”

“I know.”

“And your parents will come to visit soon.”

“They say maybe I should join them in summer, when school’s over,” she sighed.

“That might be nice.”

“But you need to teach me to fight,” she challenged him.

“I can do that when you and your parents return,” Warren offered. He got up to put his plate into the dishwasher.

“What would you like about your future job?” she read; the pain in her voice gone.

“I like when I can lock up a bad guy. No,” he corrected himself, “I like when a whole day passes and there is no crime. When everyone can live peacefully, in my pack, in my community. When I don’t have to lock anyone up,” he offered. ‘When Colt undresses me with his cold grey eyes, because he finds me irresistible in my police uniform. When he pounds the hell and my insecure self out me on the desk in my office,’ he completed in his mind. Jenna was too young to be exposed to that pleasure of his job. “And now you!” he decided with authority filling two glasses with water.

“Okay,” she conceded with annoyance, but dutifully wrote down her answer. “How do I spell ‘insubordi…?’” she asked.

“I.n.s.u.b.o.r.d.i.n.a.t.i.o.n. I think. Why? That’s a tough word for an answer.”

She instinctively pulled the paper to her chest, so Warren couldn’t read it when he put her glass of water next to her. She took a sip and completed her writing, before she asked in her reading voice: “How would your friends describe you?”

Warren giggled.

“What?”

“’Adorable,’” he answered chuckling.

“Really?”

“Yes, well, the friends who were girls. I didn’t have any boy friends … I mean friends who were boys …”

Jenna rolled her eyes. ‘Getting old,’ she seemed to think. “And today?”

“Loyal. Maybe a bit too eager. Calm. Kind. I hope, strong.”

“Nice?” she added. “Caring? Listening? Thor-like strong?”

Warren blushed. “Maybe.”

“You need to spell ‘tenacious’ for me,” she went on to her own answer.

“You mean ‘stubborn?’” he clarified.

“My mother calls me ‘stubborn.’ Mrs. Mier called it ‘tenacious.’ I prefer Mrs. Mier’s word, but it’s tough to write,” she explained.

Warren spelled the word for her, hoping he got it right. He didn’t want to get chewed out by a nine-year-old girl for advising her wrongly. While Jenna wrote down her answer in her beautiful handwriting, he stared at some of the paintings hanging at the wall of Iris’ kitchen. One of them showed a young boy, not unlike Warren. He knew Iris had had a child before, who died a long time ago. Given the style of the boy’s clothes it must have been really a long time ago. That made him even sadder. Colt dying alone, Iris’ boy dead.

“What do you want to do in five years?” she asked.

“Huh?” he jerked out of his thoughts.

“In five years?”

Warren shrugged. He didn’t know. He had had the plan to get old with his pack, with Colt, Prime, Brian, CE, Sam and Isaac. Maybe another enforcer if Colt had filled the ranks. Watching Forest and Arthur, and all the other pups, grow up. Handing over to Forest when he was 30. They had killed most of the queens and the Lord; they had deserved that great time together. But Fate was a bitch. – He didn’t know what he would do in five years. Not without Colt. – Maybe he would get fat again.

“I want to train as enforcer,” Jenna answered for herself and started to write. It seems she hadn’t picked up on Warren’s mood.

He was relieved.

“Last question,” Jenna announced with sudden energy.

“Okay.”

“If you were Fate, what would you change in your current life?” she asked.

Warren wanted to answer: ‘Bring Colt back,’ when his phone rang. “Warren,” he reported recognizing CE’s number.

And then he turned white.

He shouted his good-bye to Jenna and ran back to the main house.

It seemed he was Fate.

Colt was back.

But at what cost?

‘Be careful what you wish for,’ he remembered Iris telling him.