Memoirs of a Girl Wolf

by Lawrence, Xandra

  Sighing heavily, I went back into the house and trudged up the stairs to my room where I sat at my desk with my feet tucked under me as I tried wasting time on the internet. Everyone on social media was posting about prom. The dance would start in the next few hours. I slanted my eyes toward my closet and caught a glimpse of the full length ivory gown that was wrapped in clear plastic hanging from a pink hanger in my closet.

  Seeking a much needed distraction from this choice I was wrestling with, I went to my closet and pulled the dress off the hanger. I ripped it free from the plastic and held it in front of my by the thin straps. I figured it wouldn’t hurt to just try it on. I changed into the dress and then I brushed my hair and applied mascara and dark liner under my eyes. I rubbed my lips with lip balm. Stepping back from the mirror, I surveyed myself. The gown was beautiful against my pale skin. It billowed out from my hips and almost covered my feet which I slipped into black heels and now I was all dressed. I didn’t want to go to the prom, but I thought back to Reign’s request earlier in the afternoon. I decided maybe we owed each other one dance after all.

  Lifting the gown up, I ran out of my room and down the stairs; out of the house and into the woods. I ran so fast my feet barely touched the ground which thankfully kept my shoes and bottom of the dress from tracking muddy water. When I broke through the woods on his side, I came to a stop and stared up at his window which was open.

  I knew, with his heightened senses like mine that his hearing was just as impeccable, so I said his name in a normal tone and soon he was looking out of his window and at me with a bright smile and warm black eyes. He didn’t have to say anything and I didn’t wait for him to. I ran forward and into his house and toward his room where he stood holding his door open

  “Still up for that dance?” I asked. His smile was so contagious, that I couldn’t stop beaming back at him.

  “I feel a little under dressed,” he said.

  “You should.” I twirled around him. My long gown spun around my legs.

  “You look beautiful,” He said and pulled me toward him. We ignored everything that had transpired between us in the last few weeks. It was just the two of us again in love and interfused and I clung on to this because I was terrified of losing him again even though I knew in my heart and in my mind that depending on the choice I made I may lose him. Where was my loyalty? It was something I had struggled with since I first found out about myself. I wanted to make everyone happy, but in the process I had hidden from myself what I needed to do for my happiness and wasn’t that most important?

  He released his hold of me and turned on his music. We swayed back and forth as the orange sun set and the night creeped over the sky. He held me close with my head under his chin and pressed to his chest. I listened of his quick heart beat which had changed over the past months. I knew it was Hunter’s blood pumping through him and growing stronger, but I didn’t want to think about that, not right now. Right now I was a sixteen year old with my boyfriend enjoying prom, kind of. I lifted my head from his hard chest and looked up at him with a slight smile. He looked down at me, smiling, as well. I wished we could stay like that forever: just me and him in our own little world. I wanted to be selfish. Why couldn’t I be? I wanted him and a normal life. I never asked to be a wolf and carry on my ancestry. I never wanted it. I wanted him.

  Yes, I made a decision. He lowered his head and kissed me as if he had seen the flicker in my eye that I had chosen him, but then suddenly a sharp pain in my heart seized me and a desperate call echoed through my head. I pulled away from Reign and looking out the window I breathed, “Phoenix.”

  Reign released his hold of me. He stepped back in disgust. “Seriously?”

  “No.” I held my hand up to silence him as I listened harder to the sounds of the woods. The pain took hold of my again and chocked me. “He’s hurt.”

  Then a door slammed below us and Orgon’s thunderous footsteps vibrated through the house and up the stairs. He called to his son. “I got it. I got the dog.”

  Reign and I looked at each other and in a second I flew from his room, jumping out the window and falling to the wet ground. I took off in a sprint into the woods with my ivory dress and fiery red hair flowing behind me. I knew father and son were close behind me. A Hunter can run sometimes as fast as a wolf, and with Reign’s youth and Orgon’s experience, I knew they were fast.

  With my nose in the air and my mind on the pain, I tracked Phoenix’s scent and finally found him in a heap on the wood floor with his hind leg trapped, broken and bloody. He lifted his head at me and rolled on to his back, happy to see me.

  “I’m here,” I said and ran over to him. I stroked his fur before tending to the trap which I tried prying open though the silver burned my hands. I yelped in pain.

  “I don’t know,” I said, near tears. I was growing frustrated, but my frustration was soon replaced with fear as I heard Orgon and Reign come to a stop a few feet from me and Phoenix. I stood and turned to face them.

  “You really don’t want to piss me off,” I snarled at Orgon who stood in awe as he realized I had been a wolf this whole time.

  “This is rather disappointing,” he said looking at Reign then me. “To think my son has been going around with something like you.” He started to laugh. “I thought . . . I had my suspicions about you, but I kept telling myself that my son wouldn’t have anything to do with a thing like you. But of course it’s you: the female wolf we came here for.”

  Reign didn’t say anything. He stayed silent caught between his father and me.

  “You can make it up to me, son,” he said. He handed the gun to Reign, “Shoot him, and for her,” Orgon pulled a silver blade from his belt, “we’ll take her heart.”

  Reign shook his head still speechless. He pushed the gun away from him, but Orgon held it in place and shoved it into his son’s hands.

  “You’re either the hunter or the hunted, boy, which are you going to be?” Orgon said in a gruff voice. But when Reign still didn’t act, Orgon sighed in disapproval and tried taking the gun back.

  They struggled and then

  BANG

  My eyes shut.

  I was shot.

  I was.

  I could smell the blood, but placing my hands over my stomach was relieved to find no whole or warm blood seeping from me, but I could smell the blood and feel the wound. It was someone else. It was someone I loved or else I wouldn’t feel it, but who? Reign or Phoenix one of them was dying.

  Oh, God.

  I opened my eyes and looking down to my right, Phoenix whimpered with his eyes closed, but surveying his body, I didn’t see any wound which was disguised by his coarse black fur until the thick blood started tricking on to crumpled yellow daffodils under him.

  I was furious. As the smell of his blood overwhelmed me, I barred my teeth and growled.

  “I warned you,” I snarled. Growling, I lunged at the two Hunters: one pointing a gun at me and the other watching me with pleading ember eyes.

  Black out.

  33

  The engine of a roaring truck woke me. I opened my eyes slowly, hurt all over, and confused. Above me I saw a canopy of dark leaves and bent branches highlighted by yellow moonlight that found its way through the looming trees until the trees were replaced with blue sky. The sound of the engine cut off.

  I rolled onto my side, wincing. Inches away from me was Phoenix. He was sitting up holding on to his stomach as blood tricked between white fingers.

  “Phoenix,” I said, raising myself up into a sitting position.

  Before I could crawl over to him, someone jumped into the bed of the truck and grabbed hold of me. Digging my fingers into the pink flesh of the hairy arms around me, I kicked my legs and cried out, but I calmed down as soon as I was set down. Whirling around, I saw that the person who had grabbed hold of me was Viktor. He pushed me aside and grabbed hold of Phoenix who he gingerly carried in his arms from the truck to the house. I was surprised to see Mom standing in
the doorway with her hand to her throat as she stared at us. Her eyes were wide with alarm.

  “Where’s Reign,” I asked, spinning around. The last thing I remembered was lunging at both him and his father. Did I . . .

  Nobody responded. Mom stepped out of the way and touched Viktor’s face with her hand as he passed her entering the house and then Mom followed behind him, shutting the door and I was left, ignored and forgotten, in the front of the house by the truck which I realized was Reign’s.

  My heart quickened and squeezed. I grabbed my head in my hands and shut my eyes trying to focus and sense him. I had killed him. I knew it. I knew I did. Where else could he be? I couldn’t feel him.

  This couldn’t be happening.

  My knees buckled. I fell to the ground in tears. I was a monster, a beast, an evil, boyfriend murdering beast, and then the passenger side of the truck opened. Reign jumped out of the truck.

  “I’m right here,” he said, but he didn’t look at me. He pulled an unconscious Orgon out of the truck and safely into his arms.

  “I was just making sure he was still out,” Reign explained.

  I lifted myself up and ran forward, elated to see him and relieved, but Phoenix was still hurt, badly and I didn’t want to lose a boyfriend or a friend. I told Reign to follow me and I ran toward the house.

  Mom and Viktor tended to Phoenix who was sprawled out on his back on top of the kitchen table.

  “Put him on the couch,” I told Reign.

  Reign, gently, set Orgon on the living room couch. With his arms now free, I wrapped myself around him, hugging him tightly then pulling away to examine him for any damage I may had caused.

  He slanted his eyes and did his best to hide the right side of his face. Lifting his chin with my fingers, I saw a deep gash that ran through his right eyebrow and stopped near his ear. I grabbed hold of his hand and led him into the kitchen where the medical supplies were set out on the bar. Reign sat down on a stool as I tended to the gash.

  “Is he okay?” I asked, Mom over my shoulder.

  “I was shot,” Phoenix said.

  “Stop talking,” Viktor said as Mom handed him a pair of tweezers.

  “Silver bullets kill wolves, Mickey,” Phoenix said.

  “I made the bullets,” Reign said.

  We all turned our heads slightly to look at him as if we all remembered at the same moment that Reign was still the enemy.

  “Congratulations, your boyfriend killed me,” Phoenix said, wincing.

  “No, I made the bullets. After Mickey told me she was a wolf, I stopped making them with the silver compound,” Reign said, looking at me as he spoke.

  “If that’s true,” Viktor began and then Phoenix whimpered just as the bullet popped out of his side fell on to the table and rolled over the side and onto the floor with a clang. Viktor picked up the small bullet. We all stared at it in his cupped hand, “then his system will reject it as it begins to regenerate.”

  “I don’t lie,” Reign said with a shrug.

  “How did your dad not know?” I asked.

  “I painted the shells with chrome nail polish to make them look silver. He trusted me,” Reign said, tensing up a little as his eyes fell on the back of the couch in the room across from him.

  Mom still worked on Phoenix, cleaning his wound and wrapping him with bandages as I also finished cleaning Reign’s face.

  “What happened?” I finally asked after moments of silence.

  “I got caught in a trap. You found me, you went wolf crazy, and you jumped your sweetheart here. Viktor showed up jumped that Hunter,” Phoenix pointed to the couch, “and knocked him out then tackled you to calm you down. Your sweetheart ran and got his truck and now we’re all here.”

  “You’re bleeding,” I said touching, a red stain on Reign’s shirt.

  “Just a scratch. I’m fine,” he said with a forced, tight smile.

  Mom helped Phoenix sit up and then stepped back from the table and crossed her arms as she stared at us. Her face was still drained of color and filled with worry. Viktor placed his arm around her which caused her to relax a little as she eased into his hold. My stomach flopped as I watched them. I didn’t like it. I had never see a man stand so close to Mom before and look at her in that way, nor had I seen Mom respond toward someone like that. They clearly cared for one another, but that didn’t make me feel less uncomfortable. Now wasn’t the time to dwell on it though, so I turned my attention away from them and took a seat next to Reign on a bar stool as Phoenix hopped off the table and stood, crossing his arms, and resuming his normal, cold stance as best he could, he covered his pain though his eyes deceived him.

  “What are we going to do about them?” Phoenix asked Viktor.

  “Them?” I asked.

  Phoenix pointed to the couch and then to Reign.

  “No,” I shouted. “He’s not going to hurt us.”

  “I’m not. I love Mickey. I’ve been tracking with the group in order to dismember the traps and I must have missed the one that caught him,” Reign said.

  “I think you’ve proven that, but your father is still a threat,” Viktor said, sympathetically.

  “Eliminate him,” Phoenix snarled.

  “Kill my dad?” Reign’s eyes watered. He stared at me.

  “No, we’re not gonna kill your dad. Right? We can’t—I can’t kill someone,” I said, searching Viktor’s face and when I could tell he and Phoenix had made up their mind I turned to Mom with a pleading look because I knew if I could have any effect on any of them, it would be her.

  She nodded, rubbed her lips together, and then said, hesitantly, “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but we can give him the tea.”

  “I don’t think now is time for a tea party,” Phoenix said, ignoring the look Viktor shot him.

  “No, the tea that is going to sterilize the gene in Mickey. Would that work on him too?” Mom asked Viktor.

  Viktor nodded slowly. “His is a gene mutation as well. The drink would work to erase his gene and possibly dissolve his memories associated with hunting.”

  “Let’s do that,” I said.

  I ran around the counter to begin boiling water for the tea, but Viktor stopped citing that it would be faster to inject the drink into Orgon. The “cure” as Mom called it was in powder form. She mixed the red powder with saline as Viktor found a clean syringe in the first aid kit and knelt next to Orgon. He started poking Orgon’s limp arm looking for a vein. Once he found one, Mom handed him the mixture which Viktor filled the needle with and then looked at Reign for confirmation. Reign nodded, but turned away just as Viktor stuck Orgon with the needle.

  Orgon’s body jerked and convulsed. His face turned red and the veins in his neck protruded. Viktor held him down on the couch and then a minute later he was still.

  “What now?” Mom asked.

  Viktor felt for a pulse. He nodded once he found one and Reign ran around the couch where he knelt next to Orgon, who was still unconscious.

  “Take him to hospital,” Viktor said. “When he wakes up tell him he had a hunting accident. Send the group of Hunters away. Don’t let them see your father.”

  “You said he won’t remember anything about hunting,” Reign said.

  “He will remember amateur hunting as a sport. He won’t remember anything about hunting Morphics and it’s up to you to make sure of that,” Viktor said.

  Reign scooped Orgon up into his arms. I walked with him to his truck where I helped him place Orgon inside and then we embraced tightly, but Reign collapsed in my arms. The sudden weight caused me to slump to the ground as I shouted his name. He was unresponsive. I lifted his shirt and saw that it was not a scratch like he said, but a deep wound. I couldn’t wait for the others in the house to help me. I lifted Reign and put him in the cab of the truck next to Orgon and then jumped into the driver’s seat, started the truck, and sped out of the lane and down the road toward the hospital.

  34

  In the days that followed, Vi
ktor stayed with us and Mom was the happiest I had seen her in a long time. I stayed mostly in my room waiting for Reign to call me. He had been absent since the night in the woods and I was miserable.

  Because of their loyal friendship, Viktor wanted Phoenix to stay with us while he recovered, Though Mom wasn’t happy about the idea, she allowed him to stay in the twins bedroom, but only for a few night because she had plans to bring the twins home now that she believed things may be safer.

  “There’s still enough for you,” Mom said, one morning at breakfast.

  “What?” I asked.

  “The powder. There’s enough for you,” Mom said.

  Viktor cleared his throat and said, sharply, “Erin.”

  “I’m just saying there’s enough.”

  Before I responded, there was a knock at the door. I quickly left the table thankful the distraction.

  I opened the front door to find Reign standing on the front steps with his back to me and his hands stuffed in his jean pockets. I was overcome with excitement to see him after not hearing from him since he was discharged from the hospital. He had lost a lot of blood from the wound that I had inflicted when I jumped him as a wolf. I figured if my heart was able to give Hunter’s strength then so could my blood, so as soon as Reign was checked into the hospital I donated my blood for a blood transfusion and he healed within twelve house, but he was avoiding me. This was the first time I had seen him in a week, and as excited as I was to open the front door and see him standing before me, his demeanor kept me from approaching him. Instead, I stepped outside and shut the door behind me.

  Standing next to him with my arms crossed, I waited for him to say something, but he resumed looking down at his boots and avoiding my eye contact.

  “How’s your dad?” I asked.

  Reign nodded. “Good, he doesn’t remember anything.”

  I breathed a sigh of relief before saying, “Nothing at all. That’s good right?”

  “It’s gonna be hard to keep his friends away, but I think we’ll be okay and your safe.” He took hold of my hand. “That’s all that matters.”