Gwen
My tiredness definitely felt more like exhaustion as I closed the heavy steel door behind me. She had almost gotten me. Her reach was further in her brute form, and that mistake could have cost me my life.
But she knew I was serious now.
I didn’t want to pull the spear on her, but it was the weapon I was most comfortable with. All of my hours of practice had been with that spear when I wasn’t shooting cans. In a pinch, I could use a wolf’s speed against themselves - I’d impaled one before with that spear.
I didn’t want to think about that now, though.
Wearily, I set the plate in the sink - that could be Tomorrow-Gwen’s problem. I was wiped.
As I stripped my clothes off in my bedroom, kicking them into the heap of dirty clothes I needed to take care of, I sighed. I felt bad for Victoria. I had heard some of the stories from River’s pack, how hard life as a Trueborn in a human world had been, how they never fit in.
Victoria had gone through that too, and it was heavy on my mind as I climbed naked into bed, pulling my laptop off the table. It wasn’t her fault that she hated humans, her first change must have been terrifying. As if having a period wasn’t hard enough for a teenage girl, she found out she had a second “time of the month” that no one had prepared her for.
If a pack had found her before her change, like others generally were, she’d probably be better adjusted, calmer.
Less likely to murder.
From what I understood, the wolves kept tabs on their potential offspring in the human world, teaching them before the first change, giving them an opportunity to get away from a world that was subconsciously aggressive toward them, unwittingly frightened of them.
Victoria never got that. No one ever taught her. She had no one to help her, and it broke my heart. I had to put on a stern face when I was down there with her, but I wasn’t happy that she was in the cage. I didn’t like threatening her with the spear and I didn’t like using her own bodily functions against her to get her to put the collar back on.
I had to get her past the anger, into anything else. Granddad’s book mentioned that several times, that there was no working with a wolf while they were angry. Sad, scared, hurt, upset, anything was easier to work with than anger, and anger was what came naturally to them. I felt bad about it, but I had to goad her, to humiliate her and embarrass her. I had to get her past that rage if I was going to save her.
I wanted to save her. There was something about her, maybe I saw myself in her struggles. I hadn’t exactly had an easy childhood, but it hadn’t been as hard as hers likely was. But there was something there, something in my heart that ached for her. I had been working up to this since I was a teenager. I had sworn to Granddad that I would help the wolves. And this was my first real chance to do exactly that.
Opening the laptop and accessing the security system, I was surprised to see her in her wolf form, curled up and sleeping. Backing up the recording, I couldn’t help but laugh as she flipped off the room in all directions. I had six years on her, she was practically a kid to me, twenty-one had been a tough year for me too, but there was something endearing about the fire in her.
I just wished it hadn’t come from so much pain.
I set the security system to detect loud sounds, just in case she tried to force the cage open with her brute. I was pretty sure it would hold, the hinges were reinforced and the latch was out of reach, on top of the cage, but it was better not to take chances. I didn’t want her to hurt herself trying. Hopefully she wouldn’t, and she wouldn’t have to learn that I already had ways to handle her while I was away.
Yawning, I rolled the recording back further, watching our interactions. Watching her body language. I zoomed in on her the best I could, wanting to see if there was anything I missed, but the image quality left a lot to be desired when it was zoomed in. I was proud of the way I had managed to keep my cool the entire time… though looking again at the fear on Victoria’s face as I jabbed the spear at her didn’t feel good.
The room was dark as I removed the only source of light remaining - the laptop, closing its lid, not wanting to look at that image anymore. A weary sigh escaped me, and I settled into my pillow, pushing the laptop away from me on the big, empty bed.
Why did I get a king-sized bed? I never have anyone over for more than a night or two.
I asked myself the question for the thousandth time. And it had been a long time since I had anyone over to warm that spot. The guilt that was quietly gnawing at the edges of my mind mixed with the loneliness that was always there in the background… and it took me a long time to fall asleep.
◐
Camping. I loved camping. I loved the smell of the woods, the shine of the stars, a roaring campfire, and flaming marshmallows. And this was my favorite place to camp. We had come here every year when I was little. When Mom was still alive.
After she died, life had been duller, blander, washed out and sand-colored. But here, in the woods, in our old favorite spot, I could see in color again. The space where she should have been was a light blue, hovering in the air. Nothing there but an ache in the heart.
I could tell it was hitting Dad really hard.
It was in his eyes when he declared the tent up. He would always say it with such force, such confidence that Mom and I always giggled together. The smile wasn’t the same in his eyes this time, this first time without her.
We missed her.
I hadn’t been that close with Dad before Mom died - everyone always said I was my Mother’s Daughter, and she just made more sense to me than he did, even when I was too little to really understand it. Now I was in my teenage years and while the few friends I did have at school were rebelling against their parents, I was growing closer to mine.
My remaining parent.
The ache in my heart became an ache behind my eyes. I had no idea why I did this to myself, why my inner monologue focused on the negative, Mom hadn’t been like that. She was always looking on the bright side. I was more like Dad this way, but I couldn’t remember if I had been different before…
The woods felt welcoming in a way the city never did. Denver was great and all, but we didn’t live anywhere near a park that had a feeling like this. Not that I could explain the feeling. It just felt… right.
A tiny inferno burst to life on the end of my stick, consuming the marshmallow - they were best when the outside was black, when the bitter taste of char went along with the sugary sweetness of the molten insides.
“Really Gwen?” Dad laughed, carefully browning his own marshmallow. “C’mon, that’s enough.”
“Not yet!” This was my rebellion, I supposed. I was fierce and quick to defend my preferences. It hadn’t won me many friends, but it had earned me a few enemies. “It’s gotta be black.”
As if in response to my words, the shadow was on the other side of the campfire. The big, black, inky wolf that wasn’t a wolf. Dad never saw it coming, even though I was screaming with everything I was. I was frozen in place as the black wolf tore out Dad’s throat, he never made a sound. I watched as it ate him before it turned to me.
But it wasn’t a wolf. It was a man. A man with pale, pale skin, black veins crisscrossing his arms, his torso, leading into the fur on his arms, the fur that trailed down to his hands which were black like they were made of nothingness, with long, horrible obsidian claws.
“I love you Gwen.” The man-wolf lunged at me, and I could finally run. I threw my still-flaming marshmallow at him, and I heard the sound that no human could make. The scream of pain with a wolf’s howl in the center of it.
And I understood the howl. The words inside it. The thought it carried. “I will find you, Gwen. Someday I will find you, and I will do to you what I did to your father.”
I felt his claws tear into my side. The scream that tore from my throat sounded strange, robotic, cutting off suddenly.
◐
I sat straight up in bed, drenched in sweat, my hand going to that spot on my left side near my armpit, the three jagged lines of scar where the inky black wolf had gotten me all those years ago. The scar tissue that had turned black, like a tattoo I never wanted. I wasn’t bleeding. It was an old wound, just a nightmare.
The robotic screaming was real, however.
My phone had an alarm going off, and I had a strong feeling which one. I tapped the silence button on it, grabbing my laptop from beside me and wincing at the light when I opened it.
There was Victoria, on camera, holding her hands over her ears.
5:13 AM.
I had gotten maybe two hours of sleep thanks to the guilt I had felt about what I was doing to Victoria. Guilt that I didn’t feel in that moment.
Half-falling out of bed, I pulled on a heavy flannel robe and a pair of slippers, rubbing my eyes and shuffling my way toward the basement. I knew better than to go down there like this, but it wasn’t like I had been wearing armor before.