Ghost of Watikan Forest - 1. Ghost of Watikan Forest

Part One

Sniffing the air, my stomach empty and in need of meat, a sudden strong scent hit me and I froze. Ducking around a tree I heard the footfalls end abruptly. They were walking along the road that split the forest. Humans. I was used to smelling the scent of them. Across the road, a barrier I refused to cross. On the other side there were campgrounds and nothing for me, but trouble I didn’t need. In the height of summer, I could hear the noise of them all coexisting. Loud laughter of carefree children at play. Parents call their names when they get too far out of sight for safety. Being early in spring, foliage and undergrowth wasn’t as thick. Hiding wasn’t as easy. Hearing the human stop walking, I knew I had been spotted. Tucking myself behind a tree, I laid flat onto my stomach, ears perked towards the sound of the last step they took. Early spring meant hiking for visitors to these protected lands. It was a few more months until the campgrounds would open and I disappeared deeper into the forest wanting secrecy.

“I saw you,” a male voice said and I jumped and sat up. “Ghost of Watikan forest.”

Not expecting him to speak I turned to backtrack along the game trail I was following. This wasn’t wolf country, not anymore. I wasn’t supposed to be here, but the thick deciduous forest and rugged terrain meant that I had freedom of movement. I knew to stay off the designated hiking trails. Bears and cougars provided me a cover for my hunting and kept an air of fear for the humans to keep to safer ground. Not lingering after dark. Not to come out on full moons. I didn’t fear anything in this forest, but I wasn’t safe here either, so secrecy is what I needed.

“I know what you are,” he said, his voice calm. He wasn’t winded, but I hadn’t heard a vehicle on the road. This road wasn’t a public highway, the only people allowed on it were special permit holders, high dollar hikers that rented cabins on the outskirts and funded the protection of this forest. Mostly it provided a quicker access road for rescue vehicles. Pressing forward I ducked my head around the tree, nestling myself between it and a young fern. I saw he was a park ranger, possibly a biologist. “Werewolf.”

Hearing the monster I was thrown into the air; I stopped my retreat. Everything told me I needed to slink away, disappear as I always have. Wolves weren’t here, but I was. I knew I had been spotted, coming up on someone along a hiking trail. Curiosity got the better of me when I smelled missed things like beer and pizza. I haven’tt changed into my human form for well over a year now, I haven’t spoken outside of my own head for longer than that. I was hiding myself.

“You’re packless,” he said and I heard the heavy step he took into the treeline off the road. Darting back around the tree I felt my fur bristle along the scruff of my neck down my back. I didn’t want him to get closer, but he was speaking of secrets that I always thought were well kept. “I need your help, wolf, there is a young girl. She went missing not far past the natural rock crossing on Watikan river.”

Hearing about the girl, I felt my heart rush blood through my body. My vision blurred and I snarled as every bone, tendon, and muscle started burning and reshaping. Not changing for over a year, I felt like my body was trying to unfold into something larger in skin too small to allow for it. Growling, my eyes shot open when it croaked into a moan. Fighting for a breath I reached for the tree, my vision coming back to me. The sound of my heart hammered in my head, muddling any sense of where I was.

“Stay back,” I croaked, still on my knees, gasping for air like I had just broke the surface of water. My knees shook and threatened to double me back over. Joints popped and muscles stretched as I pulled myself up leaning heavy on the tree I hid behind. Looking around I saw that I was well above the undergrowth now.

“Come out from behind that tree,” he ordered, his voice not losing the calm of someone who knew what they were dealing with. Hearing that confidence gave me pause. We weren’t known, werewolves. Diminished to lore and fantasy, bestselling novels, and shitty online fiction.

“Leave,” I said, hearing that his voice was a lot closer now. Too close for comfort, but I hadn’t found my legs yet. Gripping the ridges of the bark of the large oak I heard it give way in my hands.

“The girl, we think she was abducted,” he said and I grimaced, gritting my teeth. “She’s been missing for three hours now. It will be another two or so hours to organize a search. We can’t get dogs up here until tomorrow morning.”

“Not my problem,” I breathed, turning my head towards his voice. I couldn’t see him, but he kept walking. He would be at the tree in a few strides, and I’d have to make up my mind to change and run or step out and face him. Swallowing, I took a deep breath. The air had shifted, hitting me in the face. I could smell the deer I was tracking along the game trail, but not him.

“Please,” he said, his voice breaking to a whisper. “She doesn’t have a lot of time.”

“You’re miles away from the crossing,” I countered, turning onto my side, still leaned against the tree. “Why are you here?”

“I sought you out,” he answered, “with you we can be on her scent and closing in and you won’t have your forest invaded by a hundred or so police officers and game wardens forming a search grid.”

“How do you know me?” I asked, fighting the urge to take the step out that would reveal me to him. He was close enough now that I could hear him breathing. He also stopped walking, telling me he was as close to me as he felt comfortable and wouldn’t cross that imaginary line.

“You’re too large of a wolf, you would be considered abnormally large for Yellowstone. You’re in what’s considered ancestral land, but no natural wolves have been reintroduced and the population too segmented by thousands of miles for one to be out here,” he explained and I struggled to keep track of his rambling reasons. “Your eyes give you away.”

“Eyes,” I whispered, sucking in a breath.

“The pictures we have of you, Ghost of the Watikan,” he said and I jumped when a twig snapped under his weight. “They show the human side of you.”

“You believe in what I am,” I said, feeling a warmth blooming from my chest. The ache of my bones threatened to shift me back to a wolf. Looking down at my hands, my fingers were starting to curl, my nails growing to sharper points. An increase in saliva forced me to swallow more.

“My grandfather believed,” he explained and my vision blurred. Taking a shallow breath, it came out ragged. “I read his journals, he was a biologist, in his spare time he studied cryptids. He disappeared at the border of Canada and Washington State, I believe there is a pack residing there.”

“I know there is,” I growled. Hearing him scramble backwards I shook my head. “Don’t move.”

“Calm yourself down,” he countered, his voice weakening, “we’ll talk about the girl.”

“I won’t help you,” I said as the world slowly came back to me as I shuddered and stepped away from the tree.

“If you help that little girl, I will help keep your secret,” he said and I took a half step around the tree, a fern ticking my naked skin up along my waist. I didn’t care that I was naked, it was something we had to get used to early on as a way of life. Younger and more out of control meant a lot of ripped and forgotten about clothes lost to the wilds. “Do you even know how well known you have become?”

“No,” I answered, gritting my teeth. I stepped out from behind the tree. Seeing him in dark forest green, he reached for his holstered weapon, but that’s as far as he went.

“The Ghost of the Watikan forest, the white wolf where he isn’t supposed to be,” he said, his voice sounding like he was quoting a headline. “You have made local news cycles since your first sighting in the fall two years ago. Your story will bleed out into the world whether you want it to or not.”

“Then you’re no help to me, I’m already dead,” I said, feeling my heart rate tick up in my chest. The only reason I wasn’t already dead is because I had been able to hide. I was given a head start into this life on the run. A betrayal that they didn’t see coming allowed me to put miles between us. A scent they couldn’t follow. If I had been spotted, if the strangeness of me was that noticed, I would be hunted again and this time I had no way to run.

“We’ll find a way,” he said, letting his hand fall back to his side. He hadn’t looked away from my face. Standing in front of him naked, his steady dark blue eyes kept me still. I felt caught in them, that if I moved in a way that surprised him that I’d feel the pain of a bullet. His black hair matched mine, my eyes the opposite of his. He was taller than me, I was standing uphill, but I barely noticed a height difference between us.

“You’ve wasted your time,” I countered, turning away from him, done with this. I hadn’t eaten for almost a week. Part of living here was having restraint. Not to draw attention. I feared my human form, so I didn’t risk it. I didn’t have the money required to make it in that world, so far removed from it as I was.

“No, I haven’t,” he argued and I stopped, half turned away from him. “You would have already left, silent and as a wolf.”

“If I help you,” I said, turning back to face him. “It will get me killed.”

“No one will know you were involved,” he offered, holding up his hand. “Me and you, you know these woods, you can track her scent better than any bloodhound.”

“You don’t know what you’re asking of me,” I said, shaking my head, fighting a sudden burst of rage catching in my chest. I hated being on the fringe of losing control. I hadn’t felt like this for years, control was something that was hard fought. He didn’t know what he was asking of me and I wasn’t going to tell him. The longer I stood in front of him, naked, smelling of earth, my skin blackened by the soil I slept on, the more I wanted to prove to him that I lost most of what made me human years ago. “And your promises mean nothing to me.”

“Let me prove myself,” he argued and I recoiled when he reached up, and I saw he was holding his phone in his hand. Turning the screen in my direction after punching in his pass code I looked down to see a young girl’s smiling face. Her curly blond hair, windswept, her cheeks flushed. There was a glint of joy in her eyes that felt like a distant memory. “This was taken an hour before she disappeared.”

“I am not capable of helping you,” I hissed, looking away from the screen when it dimmed before going back to the lock screen.

“Please,” he begged and I looked up when his voice cracked. “I know you can find her.”

“And if she was taken?” I asked, cocking an eyebrow. “You will see me for what I am.”

“Come with me,” he said, but I saw the break in eye contact. He understood what I meant and it surprised me that he didn’t turn and walk away. The set of his shoulders that hinted at confidence threatened to give him away. I was trained to study bodies. Hints of weakness, picking off the struggling and weak from the herds. That meant people too. He wasn’t weak, but he had a sense of morality I lost. The uniform I knew gave him a sense of duty, steps to follow towards justice, protection for the guilty until proven as such.

“How did the girl go missing?” I asked and I saw my decision made in the smile forming on the edges of his full lips.

“I’ll explain on the way, come to the truck,” he answered and I hesitated where I stood when he turned his back to me. Everything in me told me this was my opportunity to end all this. To turn and disappear or silence the loose end of him knowing exactly what I was. Following him, we made our way down the uneven ground. He wasn’t as sure of his footing on the way down, reaching for limbs and bending. I easily caught up to him but kept his pace. In the distance, off the road I saw a black extended cab truck. It had a forestry department sticker on the door. Yellow officer numbers that identified him along the bed of the truck closer to the tailgate.

“Tell me,” I ordered coming to a stop just before the step up onto the paved road. I hadn’t stepped foot on it since I arrived. Looking along the road, it was straight behind him, but the road curved just ahead of where he parked. His hazard lights flashing, I could hear the click of them now, but his truck was silent.

“Her parents walked back towards the rock crossing after telling her to stay on the trail. They didn’t want her to fall into the river below. They claimed to only have been gone a couple of minutes before finding her gone,” he said and I shook my head. They risked her for a picture.

“They’re liars,” I countered and stepped backwards when he opened the back passenger door. He leaned inside and I watched him shuffling things around. When he turned around, he was holding a hooded sweatshirt and pants. They were a matching dark charcoal grey.

“Here,” he offered and I watched his eyes tick down to my chest. “Until we get to the recovery point for the rock crossing.”

“Thank you,” I said, stepping up, I quickly snatched the clothes from his grip. He held his hands out for a moment not expecting the speed of me, before letting them fall back to his sides. He didn’t flinch like I expected him to. I wanted him to show fear, I expected fear. Not seeing it unnerved me, the last thing I saw in the eyes of the prey I chased along the safety of their worn trails was their fear of me.

The first time seeing the fear stopped me. The doe stopped and turned to face me, her ears pinned back. Hearing her sucking in breaths, I saw the trembling of her tired muscles. She had turned to face me knowing she would lose and there was nothing more she could do. She swayed unsteady, I chased her until she couldn’t go any further. Her fear in her eyes mingling with my reflection reminded me that I shared her fear once. That I was reflected in the eyes of the ones that hunted me. I was nine years old, left to play in the back yard of the homestead with my older sisters working in the garden. I wandered into the forest, barely out of sight, but it had been enough.

Now fear just told me that they were ready for me to take them, their fight was over and I had won.

Unfolding the sweatshirt I pulled it over my head to get it out of the way. Bending over, I stepped into the pants, stepping on the ends of them. They were his clothes, being two inches or so too long for my legs. Pulling them up to my ankles, pulled the drawstring and tied them on my waist.

“Thank you for this,” he said and I nodded my head as I pulled the hooded sweatshirt over my shoulders, sliding my arms into the sleeves. I smelled him, a soft floral mixing with sharper colognes clinging to the fabric. Warmth spread over my skin, but I barely felt the cold no matter what form I chose. Barefoot, I walked around the front of the truck. The asphalt felt warm under my feet, sharp and flat. He didn’t get into the truck until I opened the passenger door and climbed up onto the seat.

Inside, he started the engine. His radio came to life, he killed it. He got onto his other radio asking for an update on the missing girl. He didn’t wait for a response starting the truck he took off down the road fastening his seatbelt as he slowed to go around the curve. The Watikan River was a wide, but shallow river system with a lot of small tributaries snaking out from it. It wasn’t a dammed river; endangered fish were free to spawn here. Hunting and fishing weren’t allowed in the park. I had almost ten thousand acres of rugged forested land at my disposal. Home to small elk herds, blacktail deer, smaller things like hares. Wild boars were creeping in from neighboring land. Hunting them gave me a thrill, one of the rare things that fought back. I stole from bears and cougars whenever I could. Wild blackberries grew plentiful here as well, along the wooded edges where they got more sunlight. Fish in the shallower edges of the river also fed me whenever I could catch them.

“How are we doing this?” I asked, taking my eyes off the winding road, not being used to being in a moving vehicle. I felt every turn in my empty stomach.

“There is a marked access trail for rescue personnel,” he answered as he held his radio still waiting for the response. “It comes in at a forty-degree angle to the rock crossing, the path marked by white paint and orange ribbons on trees.”

“I’ve seen them,” I said as he tried for another update on the radio.

“Ranger Loren to base, over” he repeated and the air between us fell silent.

“Base to Loren, over” came after a shrill clicking sound on the radio. Hearing it break the silence, I jumped.

“Update on the missing girl, over,” he said and I watched the muscles in his jaws clench. I could hear him suck in a breath and hold it. He was clean shaven, no sign of the stubble. No graying at his temples, he looked older than me, but I hadn’t shown any signs of aging since I was eighteen years old. I could pass for someone in their twenties. I was supposed to be in my forties though, forty-three. Young enough to this life to still remember where I came from. To still have family that missed me, but they thought I was dead.

“No update, departments are gathering equipment and will be on route within the next hour or two, over,” came across the radio. He let out the breath he held and leaned against the head rest of his seat, but gripped the wheel tight enough for the leather cover to protest.

“Thanks, over and out,” he said after a pause. He put the radio back in its rest with a violent click. I heard him sigh as he took a curve too fast and accelerated just out of it. When he hit the sirens, I reached up and gripped the handle above my head. I wasn’t afraid of crashing, it would be painful and something that would take a few days for me to recover from, but I would. “Tell me something, to distract me.”

“Tell me how you will keep up with me,” I asked, taking a deep breath attempting to steady my growing motion sickness.

“You’re not used to riding,” he said and I turned to see him glance in my direction.

“No,” I offered, swallowing as he slowed to ease around the next curve. The road was a constant climb and fall.

“When we arrive at the pull off, I will allow you to change,” he explained and I nodded expecting that from him. I could track the girl as a human, but the pace would be slower, even for me. I didn’t expect him to be able to keep up with me if I was able to locate her at all. “I’m going to put a tracking collar on you; the same one we use for our dogs.”

“No,” I hissed, gripping the handle, but it snapped in my grip. Feeling the sharp pain of the plastic in my palm, I opened my hand and dropped the pieces.

“I’ll need the tracking to find you, nothing more,” he said as blood pooled from the cut in my palm. Holding my hand to my lips, I licked at blood. “Let me see your hand.”

“It’s nothing,” I said, shaking my head. The wound was already closing, the bleeding stopped. Holding out my palm towards him, I watched his lips purse.

“Can you be killed?” He asked and I looked over at him.

“In many different ways,” I answered, not planning to answer him any further than that.

“Silver,” he offered and I snorted and looked out the tinted passenger window. It will be dark in an hour, daylight was something I didn’t want to race knowing it still gets cold, too cold for a little girl. Nightfall would also slow them, and if they weren’t moving, it gave her abductors time to do other things.

“Silver was heavier and truer to hit its mark for the times,” I said, shaking my head, fighting my better judgement. “Now anything you people carry will kill us; you just have to aim for brain or central heart. Anywhere else will just slow us down.”

“The other ways?” He asked and I felt my face twist into a grimace. The other ways were a lot more violent.

“Use your imagination,” I answered and I was surprised by his laugh. Feeling myself relax, I looked forward. Talking to him like this was a death sentence if caught out, but it wasn’t something that worried me now. Me being out here was death sentence enough.

“Why are you packless?” He asked and I shot him a glare.

“I won’t answer that,” I growled. I felt the truck swerve, turning to look out the windshield, I saw him correcting back to his lane on the highway.

“Okay, sorry,” he offered, his voice careful. “We’re almost to the path.”

“Good,” I said and I grabbed the hem of his hooded sweatshirt. Pulling it up over my head, I felt the truck slow. When it was over my head I pulled it in front of me. I didn’t want to lose the soft warmth of it, not feeling anything like it for the past two years. I was tempted to pull it up to my nose and take a deep breath but didn’t. I knew what that would look like.

“Will you wear the collar?” He asked and I closed my eyes, willing myself to calm down. He needed to know where I was so he could follow me and still allow me the freedom to track the girl at a quicker pace. We were racing against things outside of our control. The motives of her abductor and daylight. I wasn’t going to wait for him, as soon as I caught her scent. My mind made up on the fate of her captors.

“I will,” I whispered, opening my eyes.

“Thank you,” he said and I heard him hit the hazard lights and pull onto the small shoulder of the road. I looked towards the river crossing. Mature trees and thick undergrowth, rolling hills and loose rocks were between us and the start of my hunt.

“I’ll meet you just inside the treeline,” I offered and opened the passenger side door. Climbing out, I closed it behind me. Walking around the front of the car, I jumped over the drainage ditch and into the tree line. Reaching down I pulled on the drawstrings and felt the release around my waist. Pulling them to my knees, I stepped out of the sweatpants. Not wanting them to get dirty I reached down and brought them up. Looking around I found a low hanging limb thick enough to hold their weight. Laying the pants across it, I heard him behind me. Turning, I saw him holding the collar and tracking system in his hand. The collar, a bright neon orange with a long antenna. The system in his other hand matched the color of the collar. There was a green flashing light erratic flashing at first, then it slowed to a rhythm. Seeing it, my heartrate picked up.

“I have her pillow here,” he said and I saw a large Ziplock bag tucked under his armpit.

“I’m going to,” I said, nodding my head.

“Can I watch?” He asked, but I had already turned and darted deeper into the forest. Shaking my head, clearing my mind to focus I felt the violent warmth flood my skin like I slid into scalding hot bathwater. My knees buckled, I hit the ground on all fours, the change from human to full wolf was painful, the rapid shrinking of bones, twisting of my ribcage and spine as they reshaped around my organs. Panting I closed my eyes as wave after wave of disorientating dizziness hit me.

When everything started to ease, I opened my eyes and refocused. Turning my body, lighter, more fluid movement. I looked over and saw the flashing light. He had followed me and found me. Stepping up to face him, past the thick fern between us, I held my breath when he knelt in front of me.

“I’m sorry,” he said and I fought to keep my paws planted on the damp earth when he reached forward and looped the collar around my neck. Feeling the weight of it, my body shook and I pulled against it despite knowing what he was doing. “Easy, I need to adjust it, I don’t want it too tight.”

Freezing in place, I felt his hands sliding through my grey-white fur, his eyes on the collar and not on me watching him. His face was determined, his breath slow and calm, but I could hear a rapid heartbeat that gave him away. Feeling the touch of him, not feeling the touch of anyone for so long my skin twitched.

“There,” he said and I felt the release of the collar. It wasn’t tight, as he checked it by placing three fingers between it and my neck. Shaking my head, not used to the weight of it, I looked up and watched him carefully pull the Ziplock bag open, holding the girl’s pillow. He held the opening towards me, and I inhaled deep, closing my eyes. To make sure I locked in the scent of her, I took a few more breaths and then turned away.

Looking over my shoulder, I saw him look up the steep hill we were about to climb. Seeing him step forward, I took off. A few strides of mine put me well ahead, I heard him call out for me, but I kept going. I wanted to get to the river crossing before the little girl’s scent left my memory. He didn’t know that I could smell more than just her shampoo, mixed with her flaked off skin cells. I could smell her; it made her unique in her strangeness. It was the same for him; I wouldn’t forget his scent either. She was at peace, a happy sort of peace when she last laid her head on that pillow and feeling that connection I pushed forward.

I didn’t know how far the river crossing was from the mapped rescue path up to it, but when I heard the trickling of the river grow to a roar from the shallow rapids I sped up. The sun never truly reached the ground in this thick canopy, but daylight still provided light. I had lost it, my eyes adjusting to the low crepuscular light. Panting, I sniffed the air when my feet landed on the edge of the rock crossing. Lifting my head I took deeper breaths, smelling for any sign of any other hiker being out here on this trail. Not smelling anything, I slowly crossed the elevated natural rock formation. It was about six feet above the river. On the other side I started down the trail knowing the girl was left somewhere down here so her parents could go back and take a picture together. Putting my nose back to the ground, I sniffed along both edges of the trail, weaving back and forth.

When a sudden flash of her face invaded my consciousness, I knew I had landed on her scent. Stopping, I sniffed where I found it. Then I did a quick circle on the path, but the scent of her continued down the hiking path. Picking up my pace, I kept my nose hovering just above the ground in a fast trot, my heart hammering in my chest. I fought against the urge I felt to run, to close the distance. I risked losing her scent, it was mingled with so many unknowns, I didn’t know what her parents smelled like. They had to continue the hike to get help, there was a faint similarity between some of those lingering scents that I knew I had to ignore.

Her scent suddenly stopped at a low point on the trail. Looking ahead, there was a sharp incline going up a hill. I knew the river snaked alongside the foot of this hill. Walking up a few yards to make sure she didn’t cross this low point to climb the hill, I wheeled back around not smelling her there. Backtracking back to the low point I turned towards the river, dipping into the woods I didn’t smell her. Turning back around, I lifted my head and crossed the path. There was a trickle of a spring that crossed this low point, water dampened the ground under my feet, I felt a chill in my pads. Looking down the natural game trail, I saw it begin to wind deeper into the forest. Swallowing I bent my head back to the earth and stepped off the path and onto the game trail. Smelling two scents there, one being her scent and the other a sweat-heavy musky scent stronger and newer I raised my head and smelled her more there.

She was being carried. Pressing forward I checked further in, when I kept smelling the faint smell of her mingling with the stronger smell of him, I took off in a loping, almost gallop. The uneven ground wasn’t a bother for me, as the game path wound around the hill then edged back parallel to the path, but heading away from the direction towards safety, back towards the rock crossing.

The game trail stayed parallel for what seemed like a mile or so until it edged deeper, but the scent stayed, growing stronger as I went. I knew I was closing the distance, feeling the true hunt begin, I opened my mouth, gasping for air, safe in the thought that I wouldn’t lose them now.

Pricking my ears forward I tried to listen more, wanting to hear her crying, a sign of life. A voice speaking to her, letting me know that she was still alive. The lower light in this deeper path between two hills didn’t bother me, my eyes easily adjusted.

Starting up a steep start of a hill, his scent grew stronger. I still smelled the little girl with him and my nose wrinkled when I smelled the sharp smell of urine. Lifting my head, I pressed forward, and I caught the smell of smoke. Not from a fire, but from a cigarette. Slowing my pace, my ears pricked forward, I started walking up the hill. It was steep enough that I saw where he struggled to keep his footing on the damp earth, sliding a few inches back. His boots were heavy, not meant for hiking.

Cresting the hill, I expected to hear them. I knew I traveled more than a couple of miles off the trail. It had been hours; he had a headstart. He was traveling in a determined direction, so he knew these woods. Using the game trail had been to ease his journey, but now he was off it, taking the hills, he knew he had to climb to reach his goaled destination. Sniffing in a small circle, I found his cigarette, it was still lit. Tossed and discarded on the ground, almost burned out. Lifting my head I heard him cough, freezing, I hunkered down below the line of the growth of ferns. I saw where he had crashed through them, breaking their tender branches and trampling them into the earth. Following it, I came to a small clearing. I saw the flash of the girl laying on her back, her blond hair spread out on the black soil. Seeing her I stepped forward. She wasn’t moving, tucked in at the base of a tree. When he coughed again, my head shot towards the sound. Seeing him a few yards away, standing with his back turned towards me and the girl. His broad shoulders, in dark muddy greens and browns of camo, I growled and stepped between him and his path back to the girl. Hearing me he whirled. I watched his eyes searching for me, and when they landed on me, they widened and I saw his fear.

“What the fuck?” He hissed as he backpedaled struggling with the gun holstered on his side as I leapt forward. Bounding across the ground, I closed the distance and jumped up catching his hand in my teeth. Hearing him scream out, I bit down and shook my head. He was dragging me along the ground as he fought to free himself.

I yelped and let go when his heavy boot caught my hip. Shaking the blow off, I darted forward again aiming to knock him off his feet. Hitting him squarely on his waist with my head I bit the front of his shirt. His scream and the fresh taste of blood told me I caught his skin. Pulling backwards, he followed me and when I pulled him down to his knees, I felt his heavy fist across the back of my head. It blurred my vision, letting go of his shirt, I looked up.

In one swift movement I jumped off my hind legs and went for his throat. When my teeth grazed his jaw, I bit down, then quickly readjusted my grip from his jaw to his throat. I could hear his breath sharply cut off, as he started thrashing at my sides. I kept hold of him. Shaking my head I tasted his blood in my mouth again.

Letting go after some of the fight left him, I stepped up onto his chest, blood pooling on his shirt front, I looked down at him. His eyes were locked with mine, he couldn’t talk, his efforts coming out in wet gurgling coughs.

I knew I wasn’t going to let him live; I knew that when I agreed to search for the girl. Some people didn’t deserve the breaths between freedom and justice. When he struck me again, the blow landed weaker, not enough to move me off his chest. He struggled to breathe; I could hear the blood bubbling in his lungs every time he inhaled. When his eyes became unfocused on me, looking past me to the canopy I knew his death was coming. Growling I lowered my head and bit down on his throat. Shaking my head, I felt the bones of his neck shatter under my teeth. His body let out a last and sudden jolt before falling completely limp. Stepping off him, I saw his nervous system make one last effort to bring life back to him. When his lungs released the air held in them, I turned towards the girl.

She was still limp and on her back. Stepping towards her, I felt the blood from the man dripping from my muzzle. Looking down at the droplets on the trampled ferns I walked away from the small clearing. Finding thicker, healthier plants I rubbed myself against them, when they were mangled like the rest, I slid across the ground trying to clean the blood off me. Standing up, I shook off the dirt and turned back to the girl.

Walking up to her lifeless body, I sniffed her. I could smell him on her; I wrinkled my nose and recoiled away. She was breathing, but I hated that she didn’t react to the touch of my nose against her stomach. Stepping back up to her I looked for a sign of damage, bruising or cuts. Something that would tell me that this was worse than it looked. When I sniffed her mouth, I smelled chocolate and a sharp bitter smell that I couldn’t place. Nudging her chin with my nose, her mouth opened and when she exhaled, I smelled it stronger. Backing away I sat down and waited, watching the flashing of green hitting her from the collar I wore that told me the ranger was on his way.

It was only a few minutes after I sat to wait that she started shivering. I looked around and saw that we had lost all daylight. I hoped that with me not moving it told the ranger that I had found her and that he had picked up his pace. Swallowing, still tasting the metallic taste of blood in my mouth I slinked forward. I didn’t want to touch her; I didn’t want her waking up and seeing me. I knew I was still covered in his blood. I knew I would be a wolf to her. I also knew that if I shifted to a human that I would scare her all the same. I’d have to put on the blood-soaked clothes of her personal monster. I knew her shivering wasn’t good for her though; she wasn’t awake enough to try and keep herself warm. Crawling on my stomach I turned away from her so she wouldn’t see the blood if she woke up. When I felt her body against my back, I laid more of my weight against her side and rested my head on my paws in the direction I came.

I didn’t know how much time passed before I felt movement behind me. When a small hand ran through the fur on my back, I jolted up to my feet. Turning to look at her, she was looking around, it was dark so I knew she couldn’t see. Feeling fur next to her frightened her though and when she screamed, I backed away and watched her scramble up against the tree and fold her legs up in front of her chest.

“Mommy?!” She yelled and I fought the urge to press forward again. After no answer came for her, she started crying. Turning away from her I walked to the edge of the path I came up. Looking down it, I saw a distant light, bouncing around the forest. Relief swept over me, so I turned around.

“Linley Mack?” The ranger’s voice yelled and hearing her name, her head shot up. I heard him start up the hill, his heavy footfalls struggling against the steep and wet ground. When his flashlight brightened the darkness, I darted deeper in the forest. “Linley, my name is Ranger Noah Loren, don’t be scared.”

“Help!” She screamed and I watched her unfold herself and struggle to stand. Still in the dark she tripped forward just as Noah’s light hit her. I watched her shy away from the light, seeing her; he shifted the beam of light to the ground in front of her. I watched her rush towards him, and he dropped to his knees to catch her. With her clinging to him, I watched him begin to search the clearing. His flashlight on the ground, it wasn’t pointed towards the man I butchered. The beam was a few inches from me as I sat nestled in the few undisturbed ferns left on the top of this hill.

“Where are you?” He asked and my ears turned towards his voice. When I didn’t move, he gently pulled the girl off him, letting her find her footing. “I need to look at you honey, are you hurt?”

“I don’t feel good,” she answered, as she broke down and started crying again. “A man grabbed me and made me eat candy.”

“I’ll get you out of here, back to your parents,” Noah answered, his voice falling soft and careful. “I just need to call in and let everyone know I found you.”

“Where is the scary man?” She asked as she crashed back into him hard enough to knock him off balance as he fished out his phone.

“I don’t know,” he answered and I watched him stop trying for his phone and reach for his flashlight. When he shifted it, the beam landed on me where it paused, and I looked away from the sudden blinding light. When it left me, I heard him swear under his breath and when I turned, blinking against the afterimage his flashlight left I saw that he had found the body. “Come, let's get you home.”

I watched him stand, holding onto her hand as he guided her back towards the path he climbed up. When they got to the hill, I saw him look down it, searching for an easier way down with his flashlight. Not seeming to see one, I saw him hand the flashlight to the little girl and start down ahead of her. With them making their way back down, I waited until their forms fell back into darkness. They were loudly going down the hill, him sliding and catching himself on branches and small trees, then instructing her how to safely follow. She was softly sobbing the whole time, taking shallow ragged breaths.

Following in the darkness behind them I caught up to them at the bottom of the steep hill. There he took the time to find his phone. The girl stood beside him, against his leg. He rested his other hand on her shoulder after he dialed the number he found.

“Are you calling Mommy and Daddy?” the girl asked and I heard a break in his voice when the person he called answered.

“I’m in a drainage on a game trail about three and a half miles off the Watikan natural rock crossing, I found Linley, safe, I’ll text you more details. I’m going to need the coroner and paramedics.” He explained before saying a quick goodbye before ending the call. I watched him play with his phone before sliding it back into his front pocket.

“I can’t walk no more,” the girl said and I heard Noah take a deep breath.

“Okay honey, come here.”

When she held her arms away from her sides, he picked her up. She held the flashlight in front of them, and I watched him start walking with her. It was going to be a rough trek with her; the man had almost four hours and got her three miles off the trail. I watched him readjust her in his arm, freeing one hand to help steady his balance. He grabbed the tracking device that was clipped to his belt. Watching him bring it up, the screen lit up. I saw him pause and turn to look over his shoulder in my direction.

“Go get yourself cleaned up,” he ordered and I stepped out onto the path. I didn’t know if he could see me or not, but I slinked past him, careful not to brush against them. Ahead of them I ran along the path towards the river.

Panting, I didn’t stop until I bounded over the riverbank and into the water. The sudden cold water was a shock against my warm body. I shook off, sending water droplets flying off me. Lowing myself into the water, I inched deeper in until I had to start swimming. Making a small circle, I could see the green flashing from my collar bouncing off the flowing water and the clear rocky bottom of the river. Heading back to the bank, I held my breath and dipped my head, fully submerging it. The cold water sent a rush of pain through me, forcing me to surface and take a breath. Shaking my head, I made my way back to the bank. Climbing it, I shook off until I stopped dripping.

Running along the river, I made it to the crossing. In the distance I could hear sirens. Stopping at the edge of the path I sniffed the air and looked around. Not hearing voices or smelling new scents, I toed out into the hiking trail and started walking until my feet hit the rock crossing over the river. Still damp, I made my way down heading towards the sound of the sirens until I could see the flashing lights.

Stopping I stayed in the deeper undergrowth as I heard rushed voices directing orders. The new set of sirens cut off when they made it to Noah’s parked truck, his hazard lights still flashing. There was a line of different colors flashing, bouncing off the trees. Spring meant everything was just thick enough for me to hide a few yards off the road. Sitting down, I heard them discussing what could have happened. I heard the text Noah sent read aloud more than once. I learned that he told them the abductor was dead, killed by an animal. Then he found Linley, after hearing her screaming out for her parents. I knew it was a lie, but he told it to save me. I didn’t know how he was going to explain the animal attack. Killing the man and leaving a screaming child alive. When they study the scene, they will find my pawprints. Standing I looked towards the river crossing. The Ghost of Watikan forest, suspected in the death of a child predator. I knew I’d be hunted either way. A wild beast not where he’s supposed to be, killing a human. A lone wolf capable of killing an armed adult man that knew the forest.

Not having a way to know time, I only knew Noah made it back with the girl when a hush fell over the crowd that was quickly followed by clapping and loud squeals of celebration. I could hear her cry out for her parents, who cried out for her. Standing I walked deeper into the forest as more flashlights started darting around the road. I could hear Noah explaining the coordinates of where he found her. Where the body was going to be and all the evidence of what I had done. Feeling a sudden rush of betrayal, I bounded up the hill, turning to look over my shoulder briefly before continuing up it.

I got a few yards more when a sharp beeping sounded in my ear. The shrill sound made me hunker down not expecting it. Shaking my head, I stood back up and heard the sound again. Sitting down I pawed at the collar, the sharpness of the beeping disorienting me. When it cut off, I took a breath and closed my eyes. Willing myself to change, I gulped air, my body tired and in need of sleep I growled but froze when I heard heavy footfalls coming my direction. Reversing mid-transformation was excruciating, falling to my side I felt myself shrinking as hair raced back across my body, gritting my teeth to keep from yelping out in pain. Blinking, I sat up when Noah, flashlight in hand, found me. Panting as I stood on trembling legs, I saw the tracking system in his hand. When he clipped it back to his belt, I backed away from him, my lips curling.

“Quiet,” he hissed, motioning for me to come towards him. “Let me get that off you.”

Stepping forward, I felt him blindly searching for the buckle of the collar. When he found it, he pulled the collar free and I felt the weight of it leave my neck. Shaking, I turned to leave him where he stood. Walking a few feet up the hill I stopped.

“Wait for them to clear, then go to the truck,” he ordered, but I turned and kept walking up the hill. I heard him turn and walk back down the hill towards the flashing of lights. It would be hours before they cleared, knowing the long trek they had, then a murder scene to clear. Not wanting to be in the area, I took off running up the hill but stopped when I cleared it. Turning back around, through the thickness of the forest I couldn’t see anything, but I lowered myself onto the ground and curled up against a tree and waited for daylight.

Part Two

Waking up, sniffing the air. Something had stirred my attention. Looking around, I stood and bent forward as I stretched. Seeing the owl perched over my head, looking down at me I lifted my leg. Emptying my bladder, I walked forward looking through the undergrowth. In the daylight I still couldn’t see the road. Noah wanted me to meet him, but I didn’t. Curiosity getting the better of me, I took off down the hill.

Running along a game path until the trees started to thin nearer the highway. Slowing to a walk I sniffed the air. The smell of all the humans was still strong. It won’t be good hunting in this stretch of forest for a while. Coming to the edge of the forest I looked down and saw his truck still parked off the shoulder. It was the only one. Inching forward I turned and walked parallel to the road until I was at the driver’s side door of the truck. The windows were tinted, but I could just make out the outline of someone reclining in the front seat. Looking around I turned around and headed up the hill opposite the truck. Ducking in behind a tree I focused on changing. The pain wasn’t as intense, my body remembered the transition again.

Sighing as my fingers dug into the earth, I pushed myself up onto my knees. There was heavy dew that I felt more on my naked skin. Shuddering I winced as I stood. Above the undergrowth now, I looked around for any sign of other people I might have missed earlier. Still seeing the form of his truck, broken up by the trees blocking my line of sight, I walked back down the hill. Jumping the ditch, I glanced down both sides of the highway. Glancing into the windshield as I made my way around the front of the truck, I saw Noah asleep. His face was covered by a green ranger’s hat shielding his eyes from the light.

Grabbing the passenger side door, my fingers slipped off the handle when the door didn’t give. The sound of me trying to get into the truck woke him. Jolting forward he looked around, his hat falling to the steering wheel before sliding onto his lap. Looking around, I reached up and tapped the window. Seeing me, he readjusted his seat to sit up straighter before clicking the passenger unlock button.

Hearing it click, I opened the door. Smelling the scent of him strong in the vehicle, I wrinkled my nose. In the seat was the folded up jogging outfit I wore yesterday. Grabbing it, I looked up to see him watching me. His eyes were lidded and heavy, covering most of the blue of them. There was a flush to his tanned skin. Stepping into the pants, I grabbed the hooded sweatshirt before I climbed up into the seat.

“You came back,” he said, then coughed to clear his throat. His voice had come out croaked and mostly air.

“I never left,” I countered, glancing past him towards the hill I slept on top of last night. “What are they saying?”

“They know it was you,” he answered frowning and I turned to look out the windshield. “I led them back to where the body was, I tried to cover your tracks, it being dark I couldn’t find them all. There was also wolf fur in his hand.”

“I’m as good as dead, then,” I said, turning to look out towards the treeline on the opposite side of the road. The forest I’ve known for two years wasn’t ever truly going to hide me. I knew that.

“Why did you kill him?” Noah asked and I turned to look down at my hands. Dirt darkened my nails and the tips of my fingers. Rich soil from the old forest that fed the trees growing above it. Always damp, even during the dry months in the summer.

“You knew I was going to,” I answered, seeing dark blood stains along my left wrist disappearing underneath the dark grey fabric.

“He could have been someone else,” he countered and I shot him a glare. “I know he wasn’t a good guy, but we didn’t know that.”

“You came to me,” I growled, balling the soft fabric up into my fists. “I told you what would happen, you could have left me.”

“I needed the girl found,” he said but his voice was strained by more than the long night he had. “We wouldn’t have found her in time.”

“I am what I am,” I countered, my voice falling to a whisper. “You have to live with your moral convictions, but they do not have any weight with me.”

“Is that it, then?” He asked and I jumped when the truck came to life. Looking over I saw him gripping the wheel as he switched gears.

“Yes,” I answered, his blue eyes finding mine. I watched him swallow and tense his jaw muscles before he nodded. “I’ll go; I need to start putting distance between me and this forest.”

“Don’t,” he said as I reached for the door.

“You’re not okay with what I’ve told you, I see it,” I countered, still holding onto the door handle. I expected him to leave me to my fate. If my pack paid any attention, if they were still looking for me, then what happened last night would give me to them.

“I’m not,” he agreed and I heard his heart rate pick up in his chest. “I’ll have to come to terms with what asking you makes me.”

“It doesn’t have to make you anything,” I countered, smiling when he frowned and checked the rearview mirror.

“Yes, it does, I will have to work through that,” he said, “but I don’t blame you, I can’t know that it would have changed anything if it had been me.”

“The only difference would’ve been you wouldn’t be feeling the weight of your guilt,” I offered, but I saw he didn’t believe me. I wanted him to. I hated that I wanted him to. I knew I wasn’t going to convince him. It would have taken him having a gun pulled on him, forcing his hand before he saw that last night would still have ended with one person dead. Seeing him now, at war with himself, I’m glad I was the one that crested that hill first. He can think I’m ruthless, a monster. But he was alive, a girl was safely reunited with her neglectful parents. He was a hero. I was just the tool that allowed him to be one. I hoped one day he would come to see that.

“How did you know?” I asked, letting my hand fall back to my lap, breaking the silence between us. “You said you read your grandfather’s journals, but what made you believe them?”

“I can show you, if you’ll let me,” he answered as released the brake and started driving.

“Where are we going?” I asked grimacing at the approaching curve. This road snaked along the forest and hiking trails on the left, camping grounds on the right. It went on for miles.

“Home,” he answered and I turned to look at him.

“Your home,” I said, shaking my head.

“I need food, a shower, and a change of clothes,” he said smiling briefly as he drove along. He wasn’t looking at me, focusing on the road. It didn’t ease my stomach any, despite him taking the curves smoothly. I wasn’t used to cars, the last time I was in one was just before I ran from the pack.

“It isn’t safe for you to be around me,” I said as the trees began to thin and cleared hills took over. Between the scattered trees I saw buildings, mostly cabins. Watakin Lake was on the right side of the road. The real tourist attraction that brought people to this place. Everything else was built around it, but I had only seen it the day I arrived. I waited in a hotel room that I paid with the last of my cash for nightfall. I ran in the cover of darkness to this forest not knowing if I was going to see another morning. That was just over two years ago, I was just starting to feel like I could settle down.

“Because of what you are,” he said and I heard the smirk that played on his lips when I looked at him. “Right?”

“Because I’m being hunted,” I answered, taking a deep breath as my pulse started pounding in my head, blurring my vision. “And they don’t like loose ends.”

“Is that what you are?” He asked and I let out a breath.

“Yes,” I answered, not wanting to get into it any deeper than we already were.

“How many of you are there?” He asked and I looked over to see him glance in my direction. The road had straightened out. He probably lived around here somewhere, one of these little out of the way towns just outside the tourist hubs.

“We’re going extinct,” I answered, smiling at the thought of what was coming to an end.

“How so?” He asked as he slowed at a red light. When he came to a stop, he relaxed his shoulders and turned to look at me.

“We can’t hide and it is too difficult for us to make more of what we are,” I answered looking down at my hands. We were getting too close to the answer that brought me out here.

“You can’t just bite someone?” He asked and I reached over and ran my finger over one of the only scars that lingered on my body. A ragged line of torn and knit together flesh on my forearm, a shade lighter than my pale milky skin, because I was never human long enough to tan.

“We can, but there’s a high mortality rate,” I answered, shaking my head, remembering the two days that followed being taken from my back yard. “The change acts like a virus, it ravages through our bodies, we try to fight it off. It will either kill us or make us into what we are.”

“So you were bitten,” he said as the light changed and he started driving again. There wasn’t a lot of traffic around us, being early in the spring. I didn’t know what day of the week it was either, but figured most people were working jobs and kids would be in school.

“I was one of the survivors, yeah,” I answered, remembering the sweating, the nightmares that I couldn’t wake from. Hearing muffled voices that didn’t make any sense. I wanted to hear the familiar sound of my human father’s deep and gentle voice. The easy laughter of my two older sisters, and my mother soothing me like she always did when I was sick. I fought for two days before I changed, my eyes shooting open as I howled in pain. The sound of bones breaking and reshaping, learning how to become more fluid than what bones are ever meant to be. When my vision cleared, I felt hands on me. Smiles from people I didn’t know but told me that I was family to them.

“Why are you being hunted then?” He asked and I sucked in a breath.

“I’m not answering that,” I answered as he slowed and turned onto a street. Looking out, there were identical looking houses on both sides of the road. It ended in a loop, some of the yards were completely open with young trees growing out front. The first house on the right had toys scattered on the front lawn.

“Why not?” He asked as he took the loop, then turned onto the paved parking in front of one of the two-story grey metal panel houses. There was nothing that stood out about it, no toys, no young trees. No chairs out on the porch, or flowers planted along the front steps.

“You’re not going to know me long enough,” I answered, turning away from the house as he killed the engine. This was a street built for families. Swallowing, I watched him unfasten his seatbelt and retrieve his keys. The houses were new enough that the lawn around the houses hadn’t thickened and matured all the way in some places.

“You don’t know that,” he said, cocking an eyebrow, smiling briefly.

“I do,” I said as he opened his door. “If they’re coming, there’s only two ways this can go. I get away, or I’m killed.”

“Come in, I’m hungry,” he said and I looked back to the house. Two years I felt the damp earth of the forest. I slept in ferns at the base of trees. I felt the rain, the heavy dew that weighed down my fur. The smell of decaying leaves, the sharp earthy smell of fertile ground. The ever present smell of water, because there was nearly constant rainfall during parts of the year. A house was something families got to enjoy and I had none. It was too much and he didn’t know what he was risking.

“I should have stayed where I was,” I countered and I heard him sigh as he closed the door. I watched him walk along the front of the truck, the dark grey hood had a layer of yellow-brown pollen on it, but everything did this time of year. The sun was tucked behind a thickening layer of clouds, it might rain later, I could smell it in the air.

When he got to my door he pulled it open, and I felt the swirl of cooler air hit my face. Being this close to him, I wanted to sink into the seat. Instead, he pulled the door open wider and stepped out of the way. He smelled of exertion, a night trekking through thick vegetation and uneven ground. He had a shadow of hair from not shaving. When he smiled, I swallowed and sniffed the air. I knew what my pack was capable of, something told me that he did too.

“Come on,” he said and I sighed and stepped out onto the pavement. It was cool to my bare feet; smoother than the road I walked on earlier. Stepping out of the way he closed the door behind me, then led the way up to the front steps. Following him, I looked around at the street, it was quiet. No one else was outside, there were only two other vehicles on the street, both silver bland looking SUVs.

“Can we leave after you finish showering and eating?” I asked as I watched him unlock his front door. A door that wouldn’t stop them if they found me. I doubted I could stop them long enough to give Noah time to escape, and I hated that I even knew his name.

“What’s your name?” He asked after opening the front door. “I don’t know it and it feels weird.”

“Letting me into your home knowing what I am, but not my name?” I asked and he smiled, nodding his head. “My name is Nicholas.”

“Nicholas,” he repeated, his smile brightening as he stepped out of the way and motioned for me to enter first. “What’s your last name?”

“No,” I answered hesitating at the doorway. “I am just Nicholas.”

“You once had a last name,” he said as nodded his head towards the door.

“I still have family that thinks I died as a boy,” I countered looking forward, I could see a beige couch in the dimly lit living room. There was a lamp emitting a soft low light on the other side of it, on an end table. A chair matching the couch squaring off the room. A hallway led deeper into the house, but there weren't lights on down it. Standing out in the light, my eyes couldn’t adjust enough to see down it.

“You can trust me,” he said and I felt his hand slide along my slower back, pressing me forward. Jumping, I tensed, glaring at him I felt the release of his hand.

“I won’t know you well enough,” I answered, but stepped inside feeling like I was stalling, slowing him down when I wanted him to move faster.

“I’ll turn on the television, to see what the news has gotten out,” he said after he followed me inside and closed the door. He flipped the switch to the ceiling fan light in the living room, blinking, I looked around. The room was plain, the cream off-white walls and neat trim of the living room darkened to a less boring grey of the kitchen opposite it. There was a breakfast sort of table that divided the room, a lot of new steel, polished, and clean. The house had a mixture of scents; some I knew he couldn’t smell unless he entered the room that held them. I could smell the laundry powder, a soft bleachy chemical smell and artificial lemons.

When the television turned on, I saw him scroll the channels until he found national news coverage. Seeing a group of people centered around desks arguing with one another, I gave up not understanding what they were talking about. Standing at the door, I watched him enter the kitchen, he washed his hands, drying them on a towel that had been folded on the counter. They were darker grey marble swirling with an ivory white. Tiles made up the wall behind the stove between the cabinets with plane glass doors above his head.

“Are you hungry?” He asked looking over his shoulder as he approached the refrigerator.

“Yes,” I answered, my stomach threatening to give me away, so I knew I couldn’t lie to him if I wanted to.

“You probably want a shower before you eat,” he said and I glanced down at my bare feet. There was a dark stained hardwood floor, cold and smooth. It all felt familiar and foreign to me. It wasn’t something I thought I’d ever get to see much of again, not after deciding that living out in the wild as a wolf would be easier and safer than living as a human. The family home was more of a cabin that had patchwork upgrades over the many years they lived there. Money came from crafts and labor work that we could pick up easily and be choosey about.

“I don’t need a shower,” I answered after I realized that I had let this place distract me. Shaking my head I wanted to reach for the door and keep running. It was daylight though and I didn’t know if there were people currently in these other houses. All this flatter ground and manicured lawns, the wilderness beaten back by miles in either direction. I couldn’t run undetected. I was trapped here until nightfall, but even then, it would take me miles and time I knew I didn’t have to get to safer ground.

“Do you want one?” He asked, closing the door to the refrigerator, I noticed he hadn’t taken anything out of it.

“Yes,” I answered, wanting to feel hot water running over my skin again. I didn’t care for the chemical smelling scents that lingered on our skin after showering. Being what I was, it wrinkled my nose. We didn’t use soap knowing it would catch us out, but we had too much of an advantage against our prey for it to matter in the end. It just meant a longer pursuit.

“I’ll show you the bathroom then,” he said smiling as he came around the marble topped breakfast bar.

“I didn’t think you’d live on a street with families,” I said when I started moving to follow him down the narrow hallway. He flipped on a light overhead, and I met more bare white walls.

“It’s close to work,” he answered, coming to a stop at the first door on the left. Pushing it open he reached in and flipped on a light. I could hear the slight shift in his tone, from hovering on amused, to distant. Looking at him, he smiled briefly, but his eyes held the question that I asked, and I knew he wasn’t telling me the truth.

“Thanks,” I said, smiling briefly as I shouldered past him and into the bathroom. It was a brighter white, with wider tiles on the walls. Looking down, I felt glossy tile under my feet, a similar marbling to the counter tops in the kitchen. There was a toilet at one end of the bathroom to my left, nestled alone. In the middle of the room was a plush white rug on the ground in front of a double sink, a smooth white countertop. Looking up I found myself in the mirror. My face was clean shaven, my black hair falling just below my ears in a wild mess on top of my head. Reaching up I tentatively tried to smooth it down. There were flashes of deep reds on my face, and I knew that it was dried blood from last night. Seeing it I looked behind me in the mirror and saw that Noah had lingered in the doorway, watching me.

“I’ll go get you some clothes,” he said and we both nodded before he disappeared.

Not wanting to see myself in the mirror, toned, but thin, almost swallowed in the borrowed clothes that I wore. Reaching up I found the hem of the sweatshirt. Pulling it up and over my head I looked around until I saw the hamper. It was empty, so I gently dropped the shirt inside. Turning back to the mirror, my black chest hair formed a line of soft, thinner hairs down my stomach that thickened again around my navel. I could see my ribcage under the ever-present muscles that came from constant movement. There were moles dotting along my skin, and a scar on my chest, a jagged line of four marks. I remembered the night I earned that scar. I had bested my father, a bit of sparring to where he always had the upper hand, but I had tricked him. He repaid me with a deep slash across my chest. Seeing it I reached up and felt my fingers through my chest hair, feeling the ridges of them beneath my fingers.

“How’d you get that?” Noah asked and I jolted, not used to any of this, especially someone talking to me.

“I showed my father that he was getting older,” I answered, seeing the realization in his eyes before looking away, my chest torn open. It would take longer to heal the damage inflicted from another wolf.

“But he wasn’t really your father,” he said as he held up the folded pile of clothes. Seeing the pair of boxers on top, I stepped out of the way and let him lay them on the counter between the two square shaped sinks with the steel faucets arching above them.

“No, but he was the brother of our…” I said trailing off, shaking my head.

“Tell me something,” he said and I hated that he lingered in the bathroom. It was big enough for easy movement. The shower on the right wall took up most of the space in the room, but I felt trapped here with him by the door. “You know I’m curious.”

“I don’t care,” I countered, frowning. “What do you want from me?”

“I don’t know anything past your name,” he offered shrugging as he pushed himself off the bathroom counter. I watched him swallow, but set his shoulders, his hands falling to his sides. He looked confident, but I could hear his heart rate quicken in his chest. He was still dressed in his uniform, the forest greens. His badge and name tag on his chest, catching the light. He had taken off his gun belt, probably more out of habit than anything else. Seeing it gone, I tensed, thinking he was foolish.

“You won’t know me long enough for anything deeper than that,” I said, shaking my head. “Maybe you should have left me.”

“You’re here now,” he said smiling. “I want to know you, please.”

“You’re just trying to convince yourself that I’m not the monster that killed the man in the forest,” I hissed, reaching forward, I gripped the edge of the counter taking a deep breath. “Ask me if I was in that clearing where they found your grandfather’s body.”

“Were you?” He asked and I blinked, not expecting him to ask me. His voice, void of anything that I could cling to and understand.

“Yes,” I answered, remembering us coming along a game path. I had spotted him in the distance, a slightly younger than middle-aged man wearing glasses, still fit for the rugged terrain we lived. It was the glint of the sun off them that caught my attention. I had stopped in the clearing. The rest clued in that I had spotted something by the set of my ears pointed towards the intrusion. I watched them slink back into the tree line, to disappear. The young man had a camera, but then he called out to us. Calling us by what we were. “He called out to us, just like you did. He knew what we were and that got him killed.”

“I’ll let you take your shower,” he said, swallowing. I nodded as I reached down and pulled the drawstring of the sweatpants. The weight of them on my thinner frame pooled them around my ankles. Turning away from him I stepped out of them completely as I opened the shower door and stepped inside. Turning on the water, I looked over to see that he had left the bathroom.

Letting the hot water run over my head from the rain shower head above me, I watched the black soil circle then go down the drain. Reaching up I ran my fingers through my hair, feeling the weight of the wet strands. Stepping out of the water I looked around, finding the bodywash. A cream color with a red cap. Opening it I wrinkled my nose at the sharp cologne scent but squeezed it into a washcloth. Lathering it up I brought it up and rubbed it along my chest. Watching more of the lingering blood from last night washing away I started smelling the scent of what Noah was preparing in the kitchen. Feeling my mouth water, I swallowed at my stomach growled.

Not wanting to hurry the shower, but my stomach begging me to, I stepped into the shower and rinsed away the soap. Feeling it slowly slide down my skin I grabbed the shampoo. Squeezing some into my hand, the deep blue liquid; so intense to me I sneezed before I ran it through my hair. Massaging my scalp I closed my eyes smiling.

“You’re gonna run me out of hot water,” he said and I jumped and looked through the water-streaked glass to see him hovering by the sink. I hadn’t heard him enter the room, but he hadn’t closed the bathroom door and I hadn’t either.

“Sorry,” I offered as I stepped under the water and let it rinse the shampoo from my hair, feeling my face warm with him watching me.

“There’s some BLTs waiting for us,” he said as I stepped back out of the water before turning it off. Seeing me moving again he walked back out of the bathroom. Shaking my head I felt my hair resettle along my ears and the back of my neck. It took effort for us to grow our hair, me living as a wolf for two years had stunted its progress.

Stepping out of the shower, I grabbed a towel from the shelf beside the mirror. Unfolding it, I smelled him on it, the same detergent he washed his uniform with. Bringing it up, I took a deeper breath, it was a heavy chemical floral smell. Drying my face, I ran it over my hair then down my body.

Dry, I walked over and grabbed the pair of boxers. They had no way of staying on, so I set them aside and pulled on the light gray T-shirt. The navy pair of shorts had strings, stepping into them I pulled them up and tied them before I gathered up all the dirty clothes and placed them into the hamper.

Stepping out of the bathroom I walked barefoot back down the hallway. Finding him sitting on the couch, I looked at the television. He was finishing off his sandwich as he found the local news station.

“They’re talking about you,” he said and I looked up to see a man hovering beside an overhead drone map of the forest. There was a marker labeled as the natural rock bridge. Then a couple miles deeper past it, he pointed to the hill where the girl and body were found.

“And there is where they found the body of Drake Criley, authorities say the girl he abducted was unharmed, given sedatives in chocolate,” he went on to say. Knowing the man’s name, I listened as they explained the charges he had prior to coming to my forest.

“I need to go soon,” I said and he looked over his shoulder. He was chewing the last bite he took of his sandwich.

“I can keep you safe for the night, we can talk about getting you somewhere safer tomorrow,” he said and I shook my head, turning towards the smell of the food. Seeing the bacon on a plate I had to swallow as I grabbed the empty plate. He had laid out the slices of bread, and I grabbed three pieces of bacon and placed it onto one slice. Then the lettuce and tomato on top of it. There was mayonnaise in a jar with a knife resting on top of it. Grabbing it, I dipped it into the mayo then smeared it on the other slice of bread. Screwing the lid back on, I walked over and placed the knife into the sink. Turning back around, I gently placed the bread on top, completing the sandwich. There was a glass of ice water next to the plate. Standing at the breakfast bar, I finished off the sandwich in a couple of bites, not caring about the water until it was finished.

Taking a few drinks, I looked back down at the rest of the bacon, then over to the back of Noah’s head. Taking a slice, I bit it in half, chewing it as I came back around and into the living room. It was still daylight out, glancing at the clock on the stove it was after three in the afternoon. Seeing the news telling the story of the Ghost of the Watikan forest, I smirked when the official statement from park rangers was still up in the air about what to do about me.

“What is the real official statement?” I asked as the screen went blank as he shut off the television.

“I think the public would be pretty pissed if we killed you,” he answered as he scooted himself off the couch and stood. “They seem to think you took down a pretty sick man.”

“I should be put down,” I said, shrugging when he started around the couch carrying his empty plate and glass. When he stopped, he looked at me then at the television.

“If you were thought to be killed, then there wouldn’t be a reason for you to run,” he said and I followed his eyes to the blank screen. “I won’t be that well liked in town, I don’t think.”

“I’d still have to leave,” I countered, turning back to him. He frowned briefly before he started walking again.

“Let me show you something,” he said, nodding his head towards the hallway.

“Okay,” I said and stepped out of his way as he entered the kitchen. He put his dirty dishes into the sink, then cleared the bar before turning back to me.

“It’s in my office,” he said as he came back around the breakfast bar and I followed him down the hallway, past the bathroom. Off to the right there was a set of stairs that went up and then turned to go to the second level. They were carpeted, but he turned down a short hallway that dead ended just past the back door of the house. Opening the door, he walked in and turned on the light.

Stepping in behind him I saw a desk in front of the window. The blinds pulled down over it blocking out the dull light from the cloudy day. On the desk was a laptop, the screen black, but left open. Looking over I saw a map; it was a detailed landscape of my forest. Stepping closer to it, I saw the designated rescue areas for the three hiking trails through the park. The river stood out, across the road I saw the campgrounds nestled against the lake. Along the other wall was a gun safe and the mounted head of a blacktail buck. Seeing me looking at it he smiled but pulled open a drawer.

“Here,” he said and I stepped up to his side and looked at what he lifted out of the desk. There was a green folder. Still in the drawer was a stack of leather-bound small books, they were old and worn, the thin material curling at the edges. When he opened the folder, I watched him fish out a set of developed photographs. There was a stack of them, and I instantly recognized the jet black fur of my father alongside his brother, the leader. Swallowing, he looked over at me before he moved that photo so I could see the next one.

“James, Paul, Ida, and Violet,” I said listing off their human names. When he stopped shuffling the photos I looked up at him. “The two black wolves are my father and his brother. The red-brown one is Ida, and the smaller black wolf next to her is Violet.”

“Your pack,” he said and I nodded.

“My pack,” I repeated, but I hadn’t seen a picture of me. I wondered if it was before they took me. With Violet being smaller than Ida, that told me she was younger, but when he shuffled to the last picture, I saw me in a clearing, looking directly towards the camera. There were wildflowers, an assortment of yellows and whites in a thick blanket around me. I stood out, grey-white against them, coming up to my shoulders.

“There you are,” he said as he held it out for me to take. “You have a distinct darker graying along your flanks, and along your ears,” he said as I stared down at my photo, willing my breath to even out. Seeing them all with me, loping along. I hadn’t stopped to look at his grandfather, maybe I hadn’t seen him that day. “Look at your eyes, the deep brown of them.”

“We look like normal wolves,” I said as I gently handed him back the photo, not wanting to look at it any longer. I couldn’t remember if that was the day I noticed his grandfather on the edge of the clearing opposite us. I was looking in his direction, as if I was making up my mind to cross the clearing and go towards him. My mouth was open, I was relaxed and the sun had brightened the picture.

“Now look at this picture,” he said and I watched him bring his laptop to life. He punched in a pass code then opened a file. “This was taken by hikers just off what we call plateau ridge.”

“They were drinking and grilling burgers,” I said, remembering the day. I didn’t know they had taken my picture, but when I saw a zoomed in picture of me sitting just inside the treeline. A grey-white figure staring back at me.

“Same eyes, same coloring along your flanks, but look, you have a small white dot on your nose in both pictures,” he explained and I swallowed and looked away. “Over twenty years apart and thousands of miles.”

“It very well could’ve been two different wolves,” I said and he cocked an eyebrow and smiled.

“Maybe my grandfather’s enthusiasm convinced me,” he offered as he let the screen on his laptop darken. “You looked happy with them.”

“I was,” I said, shaking my head. “I think it’s time for me to go.”

“Stay the night,” he said and I looked up at him. “It’s not a full moon.”

“Be quiet,” I groaned and smiled when he laughed.

“Why are they hunting you?” He asked and I sighed. I felt my resolve fading each time he asked. I knew that meant I needed to put distance between us. The pack is the only ones I was to know, to believe in. I didn’t get to know anyone else; it was by design. Especially me, bitten for a purpose. There was a lot of hope on my shoulders once.

“No,” I answered, turning to leave the room.

“Please,” he said and I felt his hand find my wrist. Jerking it out of his grasp I turned, glaring at him as I took a breath.

“Don’t do that again,” I growled and I watched him take a half step back.

“Sorry,” he offered as I closed my eyes, releasing the breath, it came out ragged and shallow through my mouth. Taking another calming breath, I opened my eyes.

“I’m not as in control as I used to be,” I said grimacing at the thought of admitting that to him. “Control comes with practice and I’m two years removed from that.”

“If I go shower, will you be here when I get out?” He asked and I met his eyes and closed my mouth.

“I don’t know,” I said and he nodded, but stepped past me.

“Turn your picture over and read the description,” he said smiling as he turned away from me and kept walking.

“Why?” I asked as he continued out of the room. Turning to the desk I saw the stack of photos laying on top of the folder that held them. I was more interested in the journals, but didn’t want to pry into them, not knowing what I’d find if I did. Walking to the desk I picked up my picture and turned it over. “Young male, smaller than the others, taken May 17th, 1997, Wildfire clearing Washington State.”

Putting the picture back down on top of the rest I turned back towards the door. Walking out of his office, I made my way back down to the living room. Looking at the front door, I took a deep breath smelling the mixture of the same shampoo and soap that I used. For some reason I liked the mixture more now than I did earlier. Opening the front door, I stepped out onto the porch, not bothering to close the door behind me.

I heard the sound of children laughing before I scanned the houses along the street. There was a group of them playing on the road, one of them skateboarding. A small group of girls drawing in chalk in front of the middle house on the left. More cars were parked out front. A lot more life and eyes stopped me from bounding down the stairs. I was going to leave, I was going to find a small treeline, or a quiet out of the way place.

“I’ll take you back,” he said and I looked over my shoulder. He was standing in the hallway with a towel wrapped around his waist. His brown hair spiked in all directions from towel drying it. Noah was tanned, his chest and stomach covered with darker hair. Seeing him I turned and walked back through the doorway and closed the door behind me.

“Thank you,” I offered and he smiled and nodded. “I don’t think I have thanked you yet.”

“No,” he said laughing. “Let me go get dressed.”

Walking around to the couch I sat down and listened as he bounded up the stairs. Hearing him dress above my head I looked at the blank screen mounted on the wall. There were no pictures of people in this room. On either side of the television were landscape pictures, they weren’t from here. Maybe pictures he’d taken while traveling, the thought of asking him crossed my mind. The coffee table was bare aside from a stack of coasters for drinks. It was a lighter wood that contrasted the darker floors. He lived alone, but something hinted at that not being true from the beginning of him living here. Where there should be something, there was empty space that hadn’t been filled. A missing plant in the corner beside a window where it could catch some morning light. Portraits along the wall that held nothing. Standing up I walked over and saw small holes in the drywall.

Hearing him come back down the stairs I turned away from the wall and sat back down on the couch. When he entered the living room, he wasn’t dressed to go anywhere. When I stood up, I saw a matching grey T-shirt to mine that fit him better because he filled it out and a gray pair of shorts. Barefoot he walked towards me, his blue eyes catching me where I stood. He had shaved, losing the shadow of hair on his face. It made him look younger, clean-shaven, his lips fuller.

“I’ve been thinking about the plan to fake your death,” he said smiling. “You could stay: you just have to get better at hiding.”

“I need to leave,” I said, nodding towards the door. “If they’ve caught on to my story then they’re already on their way.”

“Tomorrow, I’ll announce your death with evidence,” he said, raising his hand as he made it around the edge of the couch and I realized I hadn’t moved out of his way. “Shot through the chest, central heart. I’m a damn good shot; people will believe it.”

“And then what?” I asked when he came to a stop right in front of me.

“Then you’re free,” he answered and I felt a shockwave of relief race across my body. I had thought I was free in that forest, but I knew I wasn’t. I wouldn’t be until I was either dead or they were. “I can see you clinging to that, let me help.”

“Take me to the forest then,” I said, looking away from him.

“Just stay the night,” he countered and I looked back to see him smiling.

“Who did you live with before?” I asked and when he blinked, I frowned.

“My girlfriend,” he answered, turning back to me. “She waited three years for me to ask her to marry her, but I never did.”

“Why not?” I asked and I saw him clench and relax the muscles on his jaws.

“Why are you hunted?” He asked and I grimaced. “See, I guess we both have shit we don’t want to talk about.”

“Sorry,” I offered, stepping backwards before turning away from him. “I was meant for Violet, that’s why they changed me. I refused her when we were both old enough.”

“Refused her,” he said and I turned to see his eyebrows furrowed before he sat down. Following him, I sat on the other end of the couch, a space between us that I didn’t feel comfortable with. “Is she ugly?”

“No, she’s six foot three, raven black hair, a tight body and fucking gorgeous,” I answered and when he laughed, I looked down at my hands. “I didn’t desire her and that was my sole purpose for existing with them.”

“They couldn’t let you stay with them and find someone else for her?” He asked and I shrugged.

“I survived, I don’t know how many before me didn’t,” I answered. Hearing me, he winced and I knew I was getting into topics that he didn’t want to hear. I never asked either, but I knew there were women picked for my father, but they never survived. I didn’t know how many boys were snatched from their families before they found me.

“And they couldn’t find another wolf for her?” He asked and I sighed looking towards the blank wall again. When I heard him let out a breath, I turned back around to see him looking past me at it.

“What?” I asked, when he tensed his lips into a thinner line then swallowed.

“I thought I knew who I was when I met her,” he said, smiling briefly. “I mostly tricked myself into thinking that I could settle into the idea of marrying her. I did love her, but I finally came to terms with what I was doing.”

“You don’t like women,” I said and he shrugged.

“Sometimes I do,” he countered, moving to rest his leg between us on the couch. “Not enough to build a life on.”

“They want new blood in packs, swapping wolf for wolf doesn’t help,” I explained and he nodded. “But I was someone they settled with for Violet, when I refused them, they took it as an insult. My father overheard them discussing the culling of me, he grabbed me out of bed one night and told me to run. So, I ran.”

“And you think they’ve held on to that for two years?” He asked and I nodded my head.

“My father seemed to think they would until I’m dead, despite his flaws I don’t think he’d lie,” I said as I reached up and rubbed the scar on my chest. “And he knew them before me. Your grandfather is wrong too, I wasn’t young in that picture, I’m just smaller.”

“You’re not small,” he said, cocking an eyebrow, a playfulness bright in his eyes. When he smiled, I fought a smile and shook my head. “So, the plan, I take you back, we get you bleeding and you change into a wolf, and I take pictures of your body.”

“They may come looking for my body to confirm,” I said, not wanting to feel any semblance of hope. Not after two years of hiding, not knowing if they were closing in. They had to be closing in by now. It has been hours since I made that kill and saved the girl.

“I can release a statement that we collected your body and cremated it out of respect to all involved and to keep people from combing the forest looking,” he countered leaning back to rest his head on the back of the couch. When he stretched his leg out, I felt his ankle slide against my knee. Looking down, he moved it away. “That’s pretty standard after rabies and disease testing, we typically do some cremation.”

“Okay,” I said, nodding my head. “But take me back, if they get here before we’re ready I want to be alone.”

“I’m not leaving you like that,” he countered, lifting his head off the couch to look at me.

“I am always going to be what I am, don’t be foolish about this,” I said looking down at my hands. “This is all I know.”

“You can stay here as a human,” he said and I felt his ankle slide against my leg again. “You can adapt.”

“I can’t stay,” I countered, feeling my heart rate pick up in my chest. “The flaw in your plan is on your desk. You knew me from a picture that I didn’t know was taken. The world is shrinking, they won’t believe a second lie.”

“Stay with me,” he whispered, then coughed to clear his throat. “I’ll take you back in the morning but stay.”

“I can’t,” I said as I stood. I wasn’t going to, so close to him that they wouldn’t flinch to kill him after finishing with me. The shift in him, small that it was, told me that he was no longer seeing me for what I was. That he was willing to think about my past, what that all meant. He would someday weigh it against me, I knew that. The man who took that little girl won’t be the last human life I’ll ever take. I didn’t want to see him understand the full weight of me in his eyes, not after I saw them soften. “It’s time to take me back.”

“Okay,” Noah said and I smiled relieved to finally break him into getting me out of the house. Nodding my head I walked past him as he shuffled off the couch. “On one condition.”

“Yeah?” I asked as I turned back around to face him.

“After you’re supposed to be done cooking, you let me take you out to dinner,” he said and I smiled and shook my head.

“And when I prove to you that I am still the one that killed that man last night?” I asked and I saw the glint leave his eyes as his smile faltered.

“Maybe you just need convincing there’s more to you, Nicholas,” he answered as he reached up and I took a step back but stopped when he held up his palm.

“Nick,” I said, my voice airy and weak as he stepped closer to me, my eyes watching his every move. Everything telling me that I should shy away from him. To turn towards the door and force him to take me back to the forest, so I can move deeper. So I could put the needed distance between us. So that I could sneak away from him and let the hunt begin without the thought of them pursuing him after they’ve dealt with me.

“Nick,” he repeated, smiling when he slowly reached out his hand and I felt his fingers slide through the hairs on my arm. He grazed over the scar from the bite that changed everything, if he felt it under his fingers he didn’t show it. When his hand made it to my shoulder, he took a half step forward and I swallowed. Leaning into his touch when his fingers traced my collar bone up along my jawline, he held me, like he felt me about to step away from him. Bringing up his other hand he leaned forward, and I closed my eyes just before his lips grazed mine.

Going tense I sucked in a breath when his lips softened. Parting mine I reached up and grabbed his elbow, moving my lips against his. Feeling him smile I opened my eyes when he broke the kiss. When he stepped back, I heard him sigh as he let me pull his hand away from my neck.

“Take me back,” I said and I saw him look past me towards the door.

“I can’t convince you, can I?” He asked as he looked back at me.

“No,” I answered, as my heart rate slowed and I saw him nod his head.

“Alright then,” he said, sighing and I frowned, almost telling him that I changed my mind when I saw the sudden dutiful set of his shoulders as he scooted past me and headed down the hallway.

Part Three

The ride back, knowing that I was heading to the forest, eased my mind. Distance with Noah is what I wanted. For his safety, so I could think about what happened next. He kissed me, something I allowed but didn’t expect. I knew he would think about what that meant tonight alone in that house. We weren’t a full day into me killing someone in a forest, something he struggled with. He hadn’t cleared his mind on the fact that it was my pack who killed his grandfather, a young father, innocent in a hobby that only few people still believed in. He had to be younger because I remembered that face young, maybe closer to thirty than twenty. Glasses askew on his head from taking a photo, a smile before he realized that we had turned from our path and were heading for him. I saw the moment he realized what was about to happen. He barely had time to turn his back before they were on him, he didn’t make it out of the clearing.

I knew they were going to kill him. Unspoken, their intentions were known to everyone when Ida pressed lower into the grass, subtle as it was, I knew. I couldn’t stop the attack. I wouldn’t have, I was newerr to their world and thought we lived with a stronger moral absolute. That our secret needed to be kept, so that we could live safe and free. Fear drove me, the instinct to stay alive. They convinced me that I was one of them, that our shared blood made us more. I believed them because they were family. Even after I walked up to his grandfather’s dirt stained and mangled body after nightfall when they left him there. Smelling his skin, I caught the scent of familiarity on him. He was just a human, half of what I was, and they killed him just to keep a secret. The state of his torn flesh told me they enjoyed the kill.

Looking across the console, Noah glanced in my direction, sensing my eyes on him. When he smiled, I looked ahead. We were driving into the early evening sun, still bright with no gold or pinks painting the sky. It would be hours, but deep into the woods in the underbrush that I was in, I missed the sunset. The clouds had barely cleared up to accommodate the sun as it was, and it didn’t look like it would last. There were clearings in the forest, old logging areas that hadn’t been retaken by mature trees yet. I could look above the ferns and blackberries and see stars, but I had no reason to linger. I didn’t want to. There was nothing more lonely than looking up at the stars alone.

Noah didn’t like the idea of leaving me in the forest tonight. After he left the living room, he returned wearing a pair of jeans. His gun holstered on his side. Seeing it, I looked up and he smiled briefly, but it didn’t crease his eyes. There were thoughts he was working through and I was letting him; I had my own.

“How will I find you tomorrow?” He asked, breaking the silence between us. I was holding the rest of the bacon in a paper towel in my lap. The BLT felt heavy on my stomach, not having cooked food for over two years. The ride on the increasingly curvy road wasn’t helping either.

“I’ll return to the spot where you leave me,” I answered and he smiled nodding his head.

“How do I make you bleed without hurting you?” He asked, I saw him wince and tighten his grip on the wheel.

“I can do that, if you don’t want to,” I answered, the thought sending heat racing from my chest. Self-preservation was also something beaten into me at a young age. Even with our enhanced healing. It was an instinct to protect myself against all threats. “Just bring a sharp knife, to make it easier.”

“Maybe I can just get you somewhere away from here and safe,” he said, glancing in my direction. “Somewhere they won’t find you.”

He seemed to hate the idea of that just as much as me bloodletting myself so that it would look like I had been shot and killed. I knew I was playing along with his plan. When he dropped me off, I was going to keep running. I wasn’t going to look back. He didn’t know me well enough to know that I wasn’t telling the truth. That I was giving him hope that I hated to feel in myself. The plan he created in the living room kept tugging at me. I could let him cut my skin; I would bleed.

It may take a deeper cut into the muscle and not just my skin for it to stay open enough to create a bloom of blood that would look fatal. I would need to be a wolf when he did it. I would have to control my instinct to fight back.

Seeing the entrance to the staff park road, I felt myself relax. Smiling at the thickening of trees, covering all evidence of man, I looked ahead. The road was thin, one lane and snaked along for miles. It split the park, an old logging access road that had no traffic and what traffic it held were rangers and rescue or recovery vehicles. I had to endure hikers in the woods from late spring until autumn. The park closed to hiking after late October, wanting to see the leaves change that is when most people hiked.

I preferred the renewal of life spring held. The deer and small splintered herds of elk were weaker, coming out of winter. The does had fawns to raise and protect, but I left them alone until winter. With feral hogs growing in numbers, I found myself targeting them more often. They were easier to find, louder and they grew rapidly. I was just now seeing that I could settle in and begin a life here, instead of just hiding. I hated thinking that me stepping out from behind the tree ruined that, but I would have done it all over again. That much I knew. I remembered what it felt like being taken from safety, I wasn’t going to let that little girl live longer in that than she already did.

“What are you thinking about?” He asked and I smiled as we passed familiar bends in the road. We were getting to the heart of the refuge now.

“The little girl,” I answered shrugging. I didn’t want another lie to fall between us before I left him.

“You saved her, in more ways that we knew,” he offered and I smiled.

“You saved her,” I countered as he slowed the truck and pulled onto the narrow edge alongside the drainage ditch on this side of the road. “I killed her monster.”

“Maybe I would have too,” he said, turning to face me. “He was armed.”

“He was,” I added and then we fell silent, me working up to a bolt from the truck wanting that distance between us now that I could see it.

“Can I stay with you for a little while?” He asked as he unbuckled his seatbelt. Chewing on my bottom lip, I wanted to tell him to stay. To keep me company until nightfall, but I suddenly thought that was too big of a risk.

“No,” I answered, shaking my head as I grabbed the paper towel wrapped bacon and sat it on the console between us. “If you try, I’ll run.”

“I know,” he countered, sighing as he let go of the wheel. I let him reach across the console and I sucked in a breath when his warm hand slid across my arm just above my elbow. His hands held strength in them that I knew I would miss. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Okay,” I said, wincing when my voice came out in a ragged growl. Hearing it I saw his lips twitch, fighting a smile. I didn’t move until his hand left my arm. When it did, I quickly opened the door.

Looking around, seeing that we were the only ones here I walked around the front of the truck. I heard him roll down his window as I pulled off my shirt. Jumping the ditch line, I dropped the gray shirt on the pavement. Turning to look over my shoulder, I dipped just inside the ferns and pulled down the shorts.

“You’re making it hard to leave,” he yelled as I tossed his shorts towards the truck. I heard him kill the engine, but I jogged up the hill, warmth pulsing through my skin from my chest. When my knees buckled, I hit the damn ground, smelling the black soil under my hands. Gritting my teeth I grabbed the soil, feeling it slipping from my grip.

Panting, I turned around and watched him gather his discarded clothes. When he turned towards the forest, I knew he couldn’t see me when his eyes scanned the tree line. Sniffing the air, I trotted up the hill only to realize that this was the same spot where he called out to me. Continuing up the steep hill I listened for his truck, but I wondered if I hadn’t already gone too far to hear him driving away.

Stopping, I turned back around, turning my ears towards the road, waiting. Wanting to go back, to make sure he held up his side of the plan, despite me knowing that I wasn’t going to hold up mine but hoping I would change my mind.

I could wait for daylight here. I could take a trip down to the river, to drink and be back here. I was tired, not having slept much. All I had to do was believe in him, that he would be waiting for me. We could convince the world that he had no choice but to kill me. That I was a ghost in this forest that wasn’t supposed to be here. A wild beast that lost its fear of humans, that it was luck that I hadn’t noticed the prone girl tucked into the ferns, asleep and quiet because she was sedated. I could have a life. Maybe even a life that allowed for him.

Turning towards the river, I sniffed the air. The soft wind had changed directions. Taking a deep breath, I froze. The sudden smell of wolves, strong in my nose, I hunkered down, my stomach hitting the earth. Listening, I inched forward to a group of ferns growing together. Lifting off my stomach I saw the form of a red brown wolf, she was naked, standing on two feet her claws extended, her brown hair a ridge down her back. Three black wolves flanked her.

“There you are little one,” she whispered and I turned and crashed through the ferns, her howl splitting my eardrums and the peaceful silence of the forest.

Crashing through the ferns, I felt them closing in on me. Glancing behind me, Ida had transformed into her full wolf, leading the others. It was her hate that fueled their hunt in the first place, she was the one that held onto a future where I stood beside Violet, even though they measured me and I fell well short of their true vision.

Taking deeper breaths, I turned back, dodging them as I bounded down the hill, attempting to put distance between me and them so that I could start doubling back and twisting through the ferns and thicker underbrush. The only hope I had was for them to lose my scent long enough for me to make tracking my scent into a puzzle. I had to break their line of sight first. Them finding me so quickly, meant they likely waited for me in a spot where they smelled my scent the strongest. They could have watched me leaving Noah’s truck, biding their time, I too distracted to notice that I wasn’t alone here in my forest.

The thought of them knowing Noah, I fought the urge to stop. To turn around and face them, knowing what would happen when I did. Cheating a glance behind me, I saw they were still gaining on me. I was about to the edge of the road, a road I wouldn’t cross, because that meant I would crash into the campgrounds not far into the other side of the forest. Lunging to the left, I started running parallel to the road, I could hear them ripping the soil behind me with every stride.

Violet overtook her mother, we grew up at a distance, kept separate to make sure we knew our roles. Living with my father, him training me, I remembered the first time I was allowed to meet her longer than a few moments. She was taller than me, I had just celebrated my eighteenth birthday. She was a couple years older. Her confidence shook me, her smile didn’t give me any comfort, but she knew what her role was and welcomed it. I was the one who kept a secret that threatened the future we had.

Hearing their breathing, I knew if I didn’t make a decision soon they would close the gap and be on me. Looking up the hill, I didn’t know if I could gain ground by climbing. Still afraid to jump the ditch to enter the road I made a sharp turn up the hill. I was a few strides up when I yelped as pain erupted in my back leg. Feeling myself pulled back down the hill, I turned on my attacker and bit down on the scruff of black fur. When Violet yelped and recoiled, I didn’t run. They had caught me halfway up the hill. Backing up, I sank lower into the ferns, feeling a weakness in my bitten leg. Cornered, they let Ida step ahead of them, when her lips curled, she launched forward. Opening my mouth, I bit at her, catching the side of her face, but Paul shouldered past her, and I let go when he bit down on my shoulder. Ida recovered as he pulled me away from the tree I had backed myself up against, feeling my skin being ripped from me. When her teeth found my throat, I felt her bite down, cutting off my air. I stopped feeling pain, as another set of teeth found my stomach, feeling myself being pulled further down the hill. Then as the sound of their growls faded my senses became dull and unfocused I heard the sharp crack of a gunshot.

Feeling the release of pressure on my shoulder I heard another pop, as the growls turned into yelps and snarls all their attention leaving me behind them. Opening my eyes, I sucked in a breath unable to lift my head. There was a ringing in my ears that I couldn’t shake, everything was muffled and I couldn’t focus.

Hearing another gunshot, I was left alone where I laid, my heart failing in my chest. All I could see was black fur lying still beside me, blood splattering the mangled ferns. Breathing, I heard another shot, this time a larger, more booming sound. I knew the brown tones of the black wolf belonged to Paul, but my eyes wouldn’t focus. I was still having trouble breathing as another shot rang out, I felt myself fading back under.

There was a pulse of pain that erupted in my head that further blurred my vision. Gulping for air, I tasted blood and dirt. Coughing, I felt my body seize and convulse then everything started to fade around the edges of my vision. Blinking against it, I saw the shape of him as he laid down a rifle.

“Nicholas,” Noah said, his voice just past the ringing in my head. Trying to focus on his voice, I coughed, hearing a gurgling sound in my throat. “Stay with me.”

I knew I wasn’t going to. His voice an echo that sounded miles away and under water. So deep that I couldn’t break the surface. I fell into a silent darkness and then there was nothing.