Memoirs of a Girl Wolf (25 page)

In the meantime, I couldn’t do homework. I couldn’t pay attention in class. I couldn’t make it to class on time. I couldn’t participate and I couldn’t sit still and write a five page paper. I mainly went to school to see Reign and have our time together in the morning on the drive in, at lunch at our table in the back of the cafeteria, our brief moments at our lockers, and the drive home. That was all school had turned into for me. I didn’t even know what chapter we were on in Biology and why should I care about biology? We were learning about the human body, but it was something that I couldn’t identify with. Was my body the same as the girl sitting behind me? I knew I had different genes. My DNA was different. Were my organs too? Did my heart pump blood differently? All my senses were heightened, and I had strength that was increasing daily—I definitely did not have a normal human body, so what could I really learn of any importance in Biology?

I finally decided on “Keeping up with the Kardashians” when the timer on my phone went off. Pushing myself off of the comfortable couch, I walked toward the kitchen. The pizza smelled good and I was reminded of how hungry I was. I hadn’t eaten since before Mom left that morning.

I ate all of the medium pizza. I didn’t bother to eat at the table. I cut off pieces and ate standing at the counter. Occasionally, I picked pieces of fallen topping off the front of my shirt and dropped the fallen pieces into my mouth. While I ate, the water for the tea boiled. By the time I was full and washing my hands after finishing, the hot water was bubbling on the front right burner.

I soon realized, however, that I didn’t know how to make the tea. Mom had always, every night, fixed the warm, sweet drink for me. It wasn’t easy like dropping a tea bag into a cup of water because the tea was loose leaf and I didn’t know how many tea leaves I needed in order to make it strong enough to knock me out for the night. I was worried about brewing too much tea leaves and not being able to wake up in the morning at a decent time, but I guessed anyway. Taking a black, plastic tablespoon from the drawer beside the sink, I scooped one spoonful out of the box and turned the spoon over into the diffuser. Then second guessing myself, I scooped half of the spoonful, now at the bottom of a metal diffuser, back into the box and nodding my head with satisfaction, I poured the hot water over and the diffuser into the mug till it spilled slightly over the brim of the mug which I sucked on and cursed myself when the hot liquid burned my tongue, but with the ability to regenerate I suffered only a couple seconds and then did it again and repeated this all the way up the two flight stairs to the attic, so that by the time I reached the tall book case, I had already finished the tea.

I followed the now normal routine of moving the bookshelf away from the wall and opening the door which was growing lighter and easier to open since the first night I discovered its existence. Mom and I had talked about how I was going to ensure my security in the room and we decided to have dead bolts on the inside of the door as well as on the out so that on nights she couldn’t be there to lock the outside, I could lock myself in by turning the dead bolts on the door inside which I did after shutting the door in place once stepping inside the room. The light flickered on like it always did when it detected motion and then I sat in the center of the room and locked the chains around my ankles with a small key that I kept on a necklace around my neck, but I fumbled with the second chain on my left ankle because the tea was starting to affect me and my eyelids kept growing so heavy I could barely hold them open. Every cell in my body relaxed and urged me to surrender to restful sleep, but I tried my hardest to lock the chain around my foot and when I thought I heard a clasp, I pulled slightly on the chain to see if it was secure it seemed like it was good enough, so I fell back and by the time my head hit the tile I was asleep.

I immediately knew something was not right before I even opened my eyes. I dreamed I was swimming in the lake with Reign and he kept pushing me under by jumping on top of my head and holding me under the current with both his hands on my head. Under the water, I tried fighting back by grabbing his legs, but I couldn’t. He was too strong. In my dream, once he released hold of me and I bobbed back up to the surface I swam away from him and got out of the lake and wrapped a towel around me, but I was still wet. I was really wet and then I started drifting out of sleep and into consciousness, but I kept my eyes shut tight because I still felt so wet, and I felt a sharp pain from the front of my head down to my tail bone. It was a dull, throbbing pain that was so painful it made me nauseated.

I did a mental check. I was on flat on my stomach, with my arms by my side, and I was wet and in pain and the air smelled fresh. A gust of wind blew on my face and through my hair. The sounds of nature grew louder. I could tell also that outside was getting brighter, but how? The only light in the room was the flickering light on the ceiling that only sprang on if I moved. Then I put it together. I was outside. I bolted upright in surprise, or I tried to but I was unable to sit up because I was under something. Opening my eyes in terror I turned on my back and looked up to see what was above me: wooden planks. Quickly I looked around me and saw the water to my right. I was under the back deck of my cabin.

After crawling on my stomach, I stood, shakily, and paused for a moment staring around me and hugging my arms close to my body. How did I get outside? The only answer I to my worrisome question that I could think of was that someone let me out, but who? It had to be Phoenix. I continued staring around me mainly focusing on the patch of woods, scanning the trees for the black wolf, but I saw no one. No lights were on in the house across from me either. I was completely alone and it was still early in the morning though the sun was rising slowly in the bleak sky.

I walked around the house and to the front door which was open. For a split second I didn’t want to go inside. I thought about calling the police. What if someone was in my house? But who? If it was anyone, it was Phoenix and why should I be afraid of a possible intruder. Wasn’t I really powerful? Or so Phoenix said.

I took my chances and entered the house and even though I searched every room and concluded it was empty except for me, I was still freaked out. I decided that after changing and breakfast I would see if Reign would come over for the rest of the day.

I needed a better idea of what happened last night, so I went directly to the attic and found it in a horrible state. The book shelf had fallen forward and broke the coffee table in two. The couch was ripped as were the pillows, Mom’s poor pillows, and the steel door on the little room was not only completely off its hinges, but also across the room. The door was dented right in the center as if something had rammed itself against it repeatedly, and I knew that someone was me. When I walked into the little room, I saw the chains ripped from the floors and walls. The locks on the chains were broken. I had seen enough.

Clearly, I broke out last night just as Phoenix had warned and predicted, but I was thankful that my family had been gone and I had gotten lucky that my wolf-self stayed so close to home. I didn’t know what I would I do about tonight, but I didn’t want to think about it not at the moment. I wished silently that Mom was having luck in Peru. If not, we would need a stronger door and locks.

I was depressed, angry, worried, and scared. The sun wasn’t even fully up, I didn’t need to know right away what I’d do with myself at night until Mom returned. I took a long, hot shower and then fixed myself a huge breakfast of bacon, eggs and biscuits even though I didn’t feel hungry. I sat on Mom’s couch eating breakfast and watching TV, trying to calm my emotions down, when I heard a knocking on the French doors. I turned my head and saw Phoenix, furious, staring at me as he continued pounding on the door.

24

He stormed through the doors before I even had a chance to get off the couch and greet him. Without saying a word, he walked right up to me and took the remote from my hand and changed the channel until finding the local news.

“What?” I demanded.

“Look,” he interrupted, pointing with the remote at the screen.

I turned my attention to the two news anchors in navy blue suits reporting on a breaking story. Brenda Hastings, the newswoman, spoke in a sympathetic tone about a teenager—the name had yet to be released—who was camping with this family last night in the woods. In the middle of the night, he was dragged from his sleeping bag about one hundred feet from his camp site and mauled by what they believed to be some kind of animal.

I stopped listening. My head started throbbing and all noise was replaced with a sharp ringing. My vision blurred. My stomach tightened.  I felt hot. My breathing stopped. My hands trembled, and my eyes shut so tight my jaw hurt. I wanted to disappear. I wanted to cry. I wanted to yell. I didn’t know what I wanted, but I didn’t want to open my eyes and have to look at Phoenix who knew what I knew, and if I saw his face he, would confirm my worst nightmare.

I didn’t have long to sit in still darkness with my eyes shut. I was jerked out of it when Phoenix grabbed both my arms pinning them to my side and shook me back and forth until I opened my eyes; now watering with hot, painful tears. I glared at him.

“It was me?” I asked, quietly.

“You got out,” Phoenix said. “I told you . . .”

“Stop!” I shouted. I was clearly upset was it really necessary to rub it in my face that what he had predicted came true? “I hurt someone? Is he . . .” My throat closed.

“No, but he’s in critical condition,” Phoenix said, straightening up. He crossed his arms in front of him and stared down at me, coldly.

I needed to be comforted. I had hurt someone and I didn’t know how I was going to live with myself now knowing that I was violent and dangerous. I was a monster. I needed to cry and I needed someone who loved me to hug me, but all I had was Phoenix who wasn’t offering any bit of comfort.

“What happened?” I asked, finding my voice after minutes of silence.

“You tell me,” he replied.

“I don’t know. I woke up out there.” I pointed towards the open doors. “The chains and door upstairs are busted.”

“You broke out because you’re stronger,” he said. “You probably ran into the woods and found the kid at the campsite.”

“Isn’t that kind of far from here?” I asked.

“Not for a wolf with the speed you have.”

“Oh, my God.” I covered my face with my hands and suppressed a cry. I just couldn’t break down in front of Phoenix. He expected me to be this amazing, strong wolf girl and I didn’t feel anything like that, but he still wasn’t exactly someone who encouraged you to show emotions.

“What do I do?” I asked, my voice trembled.

“Stop being upset,” he said.

“I hurt someone!” I yelled. I couldn’t control my emotions any longer and I fell forward on to the couch in sobs.

“Look, you can’t dwell on it. You did something bad so own up to it and make it right. The first thing you need to learn is to not be controlled by your emotions. You have to make choices using reason and letting emotions get in the way could put you and others at risk. As a leader, you’ll need to realize this.”

“Leader? I don’t want to be a leader and I don’t want to be a sociopath, unemotional person like you. I just want to be normal,” I whined.

“Well, you’re not, so time to deal with it. You think your mom is gonna return with some magic juice that makes you normal so you and your boyfriend can go to prom together? It’s time to accept reality. Your mom isn’t gonna find anything and you need to own up to what and who you are meant to be or else that,” he pointed to the TV which was showing footage of the teenage boy being carried out of the woods on a stretcher and placed in an ambulance, “will be a daily occurrence.”

The camera zoomed in on the unconscious boy’s bloody, scratched face. Seeing the footage made it clear to me what I needed to do and no amount of chains would hold me in the attic anymore. Phoenix was right. It was time for me to grow up, so I nodded my head and said, “Okay, I’m in.”

“Give me your phone,” he said. As he typed an address into the GPS he told me to meet him by nightfall and we would start my training. Then without a goodbye or a smile or any flicker of emotion other than his cold stare he walked out of the room and back through the French doors and out of my sight.

I sat on the couch for a few minutes staring at the TV without paying attention. I was trying to calm myself down and trying as hard as I could to remember last night, but then I realized maybe it was better that I didn’t remember. At the moment, I was disconnected from myself as a wolf. That wasn’t really me. I didn’t really hurt anyone because I didn’t know what I was doing, but I still felt ashamed that I was a monster and it terrified me that I had no control over that monster and would the next person I accidently hurt be someone I loved?

I had lost all hope in Mom. Phoenix was right. Deep down I knew she wasn’t going to come home with anything close to a “cure”. I couldn’t live in denial anymore. It was time to face the monster and turn her into the powerful leader that Phoenix kept saying I was.

Reign called me all day. I ignored him. I was too upset and I couldn’t talk with him about it. I didn’t want to lie to him, if he noticed I was distant. I turned my phone off and tried to do my homework, but couldn’t. I felt too guilty. I called the hospital to see about the teenager, but not knowing his name made it difficult to find out his status and not being a family member meant the nurse wouldn’t talk to me at all even if I had known his name.