by Jolie Day
When she returned to her desk, Avery was twice as aware of the stares she got from her co-workers. She was aware of the whispers that stopped as soon as she got close enough to discern what they were saying. They must have thought they were being so subtle about it, too, but Avery caught the mention of her name from Grace—one of the designers—before the blonde’s lips clamped shut and she avoided her gaze, looking down instead at the tablet in her hands. The woman she’d been talking to, Naomi, was a little less surreptitious; her eyes followed Avery all the way back to her seat.
It made her feel uneasy, to be watched so closely, even though there was a wall that separated her and Edith from the rest of the office. She felt like all those eyes on the other side of it suddenly had some kind of X-ray vision that could look straight into her mind and see all the secrets she had hidden there.
She’d tossed out the newspaper as soon as she’d finished reading the article, shredding it into tiny strips so that nobody else could read it, and buried it under a mountain of paper towels. She’d feel guilty about the environmental factor later, but she couldn’t stand the thought of somebody else in the office finding it and reading all the…the trash that a certain journalist had written about her. And Joel. And JR.
They still hadn’t named her in the article and she wondered if that was because they didn’t know her name or if they thought that calling her the “faceless business associate” would add something like drama to the story. Either way, the fact that her picture was plastered all over the article wouldn’t keep her anonymity in the office if anybody was to happen upon the paper in the trash, so she had dealt with it the best she could.
Apparently, that hadn’t been enough.
Avery found an identical newspaper on her desk as she sat back down and she almost fell out of her chair at the sight of her own face staring back up at her from the front page. Her eyes flew up, looking all around. The only other person whose face she could see was Edith’s and the older woman had her eyes trained on her screen, as always. Avery opened her mouth to call out to her—to ask who had dropped the paper on her desk—but she swallowed back the question, shaking her head, and stood up.
She was halfway to Joel’s office when Edith spoke up behind her.
“Don’t do it.” Her voice was barely above a whisper, but it might as well have been a shout in Avery’s ears as she spun around to face her, eyes wide.
“What?” she asked. “Wh-why?”
“Because you don’t need to be making things worse,” Edith hissed. “Sit back down and do your work. Stop worrying about what other people are saying and get on with your life before you do irreparable damage.” The older woman didn’t take her eyes away from her computer screen for one second as she chastised Avery, but still she felt cowed. She returned to her desk with her eyes facing the ground, watching the toes of her shoes as they moved across the office carpeting.
As she sat back down in her seat, Avery spared one last, longing look at Joel’s office door before looking down at the blueprints open on her desk and picking up her pen. She forced her eyes to remain on her desktop until there was nothing more to read or write.
******
When five o’clock came, Avery was already boarding the elevator.
She had forced herself to stand up from her desk when the rest of her co-workers started to pack up and make their way out. She had resisted even glancing at Joel’s door as she handed the blueprints and pamphlets, that she’d spent all day making notes in, to Edith and said a soft goodbye. Edith had given her a tiny, somewhat consoling, smile and shooed her out the door. Avery had avoided pulling at the neck of her sweater as the itching around her bites suddenly became ten times worse in the presence of her peers.
She ignored the whispers and the stares, kept her eyes downcast and her lips pressed into a thin line so as to avoid responding to their laughter. Her fist clenched around the strap of her messenger bag around her shoulders and her breathing—by some miracle—remained even, despite the claustrophobic feeling of the tiny elevator. It had almost reached the lobby when she felt a tap on her shoulder and restrained herself from groaning out loud as she turned.
She recognized the woman, somewhat, but didn’t know her name. She had dark skin and glasses and curly black hair and freckles, but she didn’t work on Avery’s floor. “Avery James?” she asked. Avery nodded, wordlessly. “Are you…is it true that you danced with Antonio Juarez-Ramos?”
Avery sighed and rolled her eyes, shaking her head. Then she nodded. “Yes,” she said, curtly.
“So it’s true that you went home with him, as well?” the woman asked. She looked and sounded young; her voice was high and her eyes were bright. She might have been an intern.
“Why not?” Avery replied, not caring what this particular person thought of her.
“But I thought you went home with Mr. Harper,” another person she didn’t recognize piped up. It was a man this time; tall and redheaded and gangly. Probably another intern.
“Why not?” Avery repeated, tonelessly.
“So which one was it?” Grace asked, from the back of the elevator. “JR or Mr. Harper?”
“Why not?” Avery said, for the third time, as the elevator doors opened and she walked out. Her steps were quick, but not rushed. She didn’t want them to think that she was running away from them, but she also didn’t care to stick around.
When the brisk autumn air wrapped around her, Avery let out a deep breath and allowed herself a moment of stillness in the otherwise exuberant and ever-active city that surrounded her. Cars continued to race past her on the street, pedestrians brushed by on their way home, and the sound of construction flooded her consciousness, but she still felt utterly alone. For once, that loneliness was comforting instead of stifling.
And then it wasn’t.
Avery felt her chest tighten slightly as she began to move down the street, keeping a quick pace as she weaved around the bodies traveling in the opposite direction. She forced herself to breathe evenly and kept her hands wrapped tightly around the strap of her bag as she hurried towards her building. She nearly walked into oncoming traffic before somebody pulled her back.
“Thank you,” Avery breathed, turning to the teen boy who’d wrapped his hand around her arm. He gave her a polite smile and a nod, before returning to bop his head along to the music he was listening to, his headphones taking up nearly half of his head. She turned back to look at the crossing signal across the way, getting lost in her thoughts once again as she caught her breath.
She couldn’t stop thinking about Joel; about the weekend they’d spent in one another’s arms; about the promises he’d made her, about staying together no matter what; about his assurance that he could keep Kara off their case; about the fact that she hadn’t even seen him since noon, despite working less than twenty feet away from one another.
She wanted—no, needed—to speak to him. To find out if this, whatever it was they had together, was still on; if she could believe him when he told her that he’d take care of everything. She could feel her phone in the pocket of her pants, pressing hotly against her thigh. Her fingers itched to reach in and pull it out; to call him and get a straight answer, once and for all.
At the same time, she was terrified of what that answer might be.
When the traffic light turned green and the crossing signal turned white, her feet automatically carried her across the street with the rest of the crowd and by the time she reached the other sidewalk, her phone was in her hands as her thumbs punched out a text. It was short and simple; four one-syllable words in a row.
We need to talk.
Avery’s finger hesitated over the screen, just a breath away from pressing “Send”. It wasn’t too late to erase the message, to pretend like she’d never even tapped it out in the first place. She could turn off her phone right now, place it back into her pocket and continue to her apartment, ignore the ache in her chest. She could make dinner for
herself and go to bed early. She could fall asleep alone, with thoughts of Joel swimming around in her head—but alone. She could do it.
But she couldn’t do it. Not really.
Avery pressed “Send” and shoved the phone back into her pocket as she continued to walk the rest of the way to her apartment, forcing herself to take deep, even breaths.
There was no response by the time she reached her building. Still no response by the time the elevator reached her floor. No notifications as she pulled out her key and unlocked the door. Silence as she slipped into her studio and silence as she rid herself of her bag and shoes. Silence as she padded down the hall to the bathroom.
Just…silence. Too much silence. It didn’t unnerve her until she was washing her hands in the bathroom sink, but suddenly the hair on the back of her neck was standing up and Avery’s ears perked up when she heard a noise coming from the main room. She swallowed thickly as she listened closer and her ears picked up the sound of…footsteps.
Avery’s eyes widened and she threw open the door, making her way back down the hall, her heart pounding as she got closer and closer to the main room, anticipation crawling up her spine. “Joel?” she called out as she entered the room. She didn’t see anybody there and she thought that perhaps she had just imagined it. Her shoulders drooped as she stepped further into the room, turning all around. “Joel, are you here?”
The bedroom curtain fluttered and she whipped around, eyes widening as her lips stretched into a smile, expecting her lover to step out and greet her with that beautiful, charming…
Avery’s breath caught in her lungs and her heart was gripped with the icy hand of fear, her feet automatically carrying her right back to the bathroom at the sight of the large creature staring—no, glaring—back at her. Its eyes tracked her across the living room and Avery watched as it bowed slightly, clawing at the ground with its enormous paws, and she knew that she wouldn’t have very much time to make it back to the bathroom before it pounced.
Still, her steps were careful, cautious. She moved gently across the floor, making sure that she never looked the creature straight in its ice-blue eyes, keeping watch of its body as it inched forward. When Avery saw the muscles in its back tense, she took off running, screaming as she made her way back to the bathroom. She heard the growl that ripped from the creature’s throat as it chased her. Avery could feel it growing nearer and nearer and she just barely had enough time to shut and lock the door behind her as she ducked into the bathroom.
The doorknob rattled as Avery moved away from it, grabbing her cell phone from where she’d dropped it on the counter and backing up to the tub. She didn’t know how that might make her safer, but at least it was something. She checked her phone and found, with no small ounce of relief, that Joel had finally replied to her texts.
I’m on my way home now. I’ll meet you at your apartment.
Avery’s eyes widened and she hurriedly tapped out a reply, praying that he would receive the message in time.
Don’t! Wolf! Call Police!
The door continued to rattle as she pressed “Send” and then dialed 911, pressing the phone to her ear. She jumped as the door began to splinter and she could hear the harsh breaths and the scraping of the creature’s teeth and claws as they began to rip through the wood.
“911; what’s your emergency?”
“There’s a wolf!” Avery practically screeched as she caught sight of a flash of sharp, white teeth coming through the door. There was now a jagged hole in the center—and it was getting bigger.
“Where is the wolf, ma’am?” the operator asked in an annoyingly calm voice.
“In my apartment!” Avery exclaimed, pushing herself against the wall, as far from the animal as possible as its snout appeared in the hole. “It’s in my apartment! It’s trying to kill me!”
“Ma’am, please try to remain calm. What is your address?”
“I…I have no idea,” Avery whimpered. She’d never memorized the building number. She barely even knew what apartment she was in. “The building belongs to the Harper family,” she tried, praying that the operator would know who she meant. “Elizabeth Harper? Joel?” Silence. “Hello?”
“I’m tracing your phone, Ma’am. Please stay on the line.” As if she’d hang up!
“Hurry, please!” The hole was getting bigger; the wolf was almost completely through. One of its paws was now visible, reaching out for Avery, sharp claws extended. She cowered further, shielding her face with her hands, as if shutting out the image of the attacking wolf would make it disappear for real. “Please,” she sobbed into the receiver.
“Ma’am, please try to look for an exit. We’re going as quickly as we possibly can.”
But there were no exits. Avery knew it already. The only fire escape was in her living room. The bathroom window wouldn’t even lead to a ledge and she was too far up to safely jump to the ground. She’d die upon impact. All she could do was sit here and wait for the inevitable; for the wolf to—
Suddenly, Avery heard it. Or, rather, didn’t.
Silence. There was nothing but silence.
Peeking out from between her fingers, she looked back towards the bathroom door and was shocked to find that the wolf that had been attempting to get in at her was suddenly…gone. Just like that. The only trace that it had been there was the splintered wood; the door was practically ripped in half, the doorknob hanging on by a thread. Avery swallowed thickly, the phone dropping from her hand as she slowly stood up in the tub. She could hear the operator’s voice calling out for her, but she couldn’t make out what they were saying.
Because suddenly she was alone again and relief coursed through her like the sweetest drug. The silence enveloped her once again and for a long moment, Avery didn’t question why she was alone again. For a moment, she allowed herself to breathe deeply.
And then she heard another growl.
Avery ducked back down in her tub, once again covering her head as more growls filtered through the hole in the door. This time, however, instead of growing closer, they grew further away, as if that wolf-like creature was being dragged away. Avery hoped that meant that the cops had arrived and were taking care of the problem—though she doubted it.
She waited for a long time, for some kind of sign that she was definitely, completely safe. She waited for the silence to return, for a kind voice to call out to her and tell her that it was all over. For another “Ma’am” that would make her world make sense again.
Eventually, it came.
“Avery?”
Her head popped up as the voice sent tingles up and down her spine and Avery once again got to her feet. She didn’t think twice this time as she jumped over the edge of the tub, heading straight towards the familiar voice.
“Avery?” Joel called again.
“Joel?” she called back, as she ripped the door open, uncaring as the doorknob came off in her hand. “Joel!”
He was standing at the end of the hall, his clothing ripped and hanging off his large body in shreds, his glasses cracked and askew, his blue eyes solely on her. Avery ran at him, throwing herself into his arms. Joel caught her, lifting her up so that Avery’s legs could wrap around his waist as she kissed his face, her hands running through his hair.
“Oh my god, Joel,” she sighed, pulling away to look at his face. “Are you okay? How did you fight that beast? Where is it? Did you kill it? How did you get here so quickly?”
Joel just shook his head and pressed his lips to hers, taking her mouth in a hot, passionate kiss that left them both breathless, before pulling back and wrapping his arms around her in a tight hug. Avery melted into his embrace, pressing her lips against his neck as tears sprung to her eyes. She held onto him for dear life and suddenly words were unnecessary.
She was safe now. They both were.
*****
There was a wolf in the middle of her living room. A bloody, beaten-down, knocked out wolf. It was cu
rled into the fetal position, its chest moving raggedly with its breaths. Avery kept a safe distance away as Joel stroked its head, her eyes wide as she stared at him. The care with which he touched the creature was…confusing.
She didn’t understand how he wasn’t terrified of it. She didn’t understand how he could be so calm and treat it with such gentility after it had tried to kill her—kill both of them. His fingers stroked through the blood-matted hair with reverence and…love. She could see the emotion shining brightly in his eyes and she wanted to ask him why but she couldn’t find the courage to speak right now. Not while that thing was still in her living room.
So she waited.
She waited for the cops to get here. Or animal control. Or whomever Joel had called after he hugged her ten minutes ago, assuring her that everything was alright and that she was safe. Before he crouched down in front of a literal wild animal and started to stroke it like it was a puppy. She listened as he whispered soft words into its ear and wondered what on Earth was going on.
Then, before her very eyes, the creature began to shift.
It was slow at first, and barely discernable. First, the wolf’s fur began to recede into its skin, getting shorter and shorter until all Avery could see was bare skin. Then, it’s spine began to morph, straightening and shifting until it had a distinctly human shape, its skin pinking up and smoothing out as its head changed shape. It’s breathing got a bit quicker and the paws changed to hands; the front legs turned to arms and the hind legs shifted to look more human. Breasts appeared on the creature’s chest and hair sprouted from the top of its head.
Before Avery’s very own eyes, the wolf changed into a woman—a familiar woman.
“Mrs. Harper?” she gasped, her eyes widening as she took a few steps back, staring and gaping at the figure on the floor, her eyes flitting to Joel. “Joel?”
He refused to look at her for a long moment, his hand stroking through his mother’s hair, watching her chest move as she breathed. Elizabeth Harper was as bloody and scratched up in her human form as she’d been as a wolf. Bruises and scars littered her body, both old and new. She shivered, goose bumps appearing on her bare skin and Joel finally turned away from her, grabbing a blanket from the couch and laying it over his mother, keeping her warm.