It seemed simple enough. Katey looked between the guys, wondering if this was a joke. Running from one point to another was child’s play. Why did it matter for her to be able to do that well or not? Then she saw Ben pull out a stopwatch. Darren took a step back to give her space to brace herself.
“Ready... Set... Go!”
Katey took off toward the tree at the fastest speed she could manage, the world blurred around her and she closed the distance to the tree in mere seconds. When she realized that she had passed it, she skidded to the stop, but slid on dead leaves and toppled onto her side.
“You all right?” Dustin asked.
She pushed herself up and dusted off the debris. When she looked up, she realized that she had passed the tree by nearly five yards. She slumped her shoulders in disbelief that something so simple suddenly became something almost unattainable. “Yeah, I’m fine,” she grumbled, knowing that they would hear her regardless.
“Okay, come back and try again,” Darren instructed.
Katey shook out her legs a bit and took off for the gazebo. She did her best to stop before she reached it, but once again her shoes made her slide on the smooth grass blades.
Logan saw that she was about to collide with the railing and whipped his arm out to catch her around the waist. He whisked her back to face them and heard her breathless giggle as he set her back on her feet.
“How does that feel?” Darren asked.
“I’m not even tired!” she exclaimed. “Before, I wouldn’t be able to get half as far without losing my breath. It’s kind of awesome.”
“Good, because we’re going to keep you running until you have enough control to stop on a dime. Get ready again.”
Katey eagerly did so and flew off once again. This went on and on, running back and forth, back and forth. Each time she missed stopping at the tree when she needed to and she made her frustration known by stomping her sole into the dirt with her face twisted in a sour pout.
Katey knew she was the only loup-garou female on the planet, but she was determined to be the best pupil as well. How sad it would be if she was a loup-garou, but failed miserably in her basic training. More than proving herself to her pack, she wanted to prove herself to the world once they would permit her to be a full-fledge part of it.
Back at the gazebo, the guys watched her and each time Ben clocked her on the stopwatch, keeping record of her time.
He leaned over to Dustin and ribbed him with his elbow. “She’s beatin’ your time, by the way.”
Dustin rolled his eyes and shoved Ben. “Knock off.”
Logan couldn’t help but watch with brimming pride as Katey was getting closer and closer each time she ran. “You’re doing fine, Katey,” he would encourage occasionally when he saw her face wrinkle with defeat.
Then, her labors paid off and she was able to stop right at the tree. Katey could express her elation in no other way besides giving a loud “woop” of victory and shaking her hips in a little jig.
She ran back and stopped right in front of Darren. Thinking that she would crash into him, he staggered back a few steps. “I got it! I got it!” she cried, her smile bright and cheerful.
The others laughed at her childlike giddiness.
“Good job,” Darren said heartily. “But, you’re not done yet. Have you ever climbed a tree?”
Katey’s face fell as they led her over to the tree line. She didn’t expect any more training for that afternoon. “I climbed little trees when I was a kid.”
“Well, it’s time to take it a step up. I want you to climb this tree to just over half way to the top and wait for further instructions.”
Darren placed his hand on the rough bark of a pine tree that must have been over one hundred feet high. Katey craned her head back to stare up at the daunting task ahead. The nearest branch was nearly ten feet above her and no one was running to fetch her a ladder.
“How am I supposed to get to the first branch?”
Dustin stepped forward and leaned against the trunk. “You can either grow wings, jump, or eject those claws you have hidden in your fingers and climb straight on the bark.”
Judging by the broad grin on his face, Katey wondered if he was teasing her about the claws. Then, he glanced to her empty hands, as if waiting for her to whip them out just like he suggested. He was completely serious and she heard a light snicker from Ben behind her.
Katey laughed. “Growing wings sounds easier.”
“Let’s try a jump first,” Darren suggested and they all took a few steps back from the tree. “Get a fast start and try running up the tree after you’ve jumped as far and as high as you can.”
Katey took a deep breath and paced herself back a few yards from the tree. Her eyes traveled up to her target branch and the claws began to sound easier than the jump.
She ran, leapt, and managed to latch onto the trunk just a few feet below the branch. Her hands tried to grapple and claw at the bark, but gravity became her enemy and she slid all the way down to the bottom, cracking a few fingernails on the way down.
Logan rushed forward and caught Katey up into his arms before she hit the ground. “You okay?” he asked, looking her over for any serious damage as he set her right on her feet.
She followed his roaming eyes and shook her head. “I’m fine. Didn’t hurt that much.” Then she looked at her nails and let out a cry. The edges were jagged and broken down to the quick. Normally not a vain girl to begin with, Katey nonetheless, liked her nails and how evenly trimmed she had been able to keep them up to this point.
Darren approached them and inspected her nails and the scars in the bark. “At least we know your limit for jumping. Let’s try the climbing approach. For the sake of time, give me your hands.”
Katey eyed him curiously, brushed off her dirty hands onto her jeans and held them out for Darren. He took one and began massaging on a few pressure points. She hissed in pain as she felt her nails grow long, sharp, and hard with a tinge of tawny yellow, like an animal’s claws. She stared at them in amazement as Darren repeated the process with the other hand. Now, she didn’t feel so bad about a few cracked human nails when she knew she had such vicious loup-garou claws at her disposal.
“We’ll teach you how to make them come out on demand later. They won’t stay like that for long, so get to climbing.”
Darren turned her about the shoulders and gave her a guiding push toward the tree. Katey took a deep breath and then stuck her claws into the bark of the tree. Finding that they were firmly in the wood, she reached up and planted her other set in.
Gradually, she managed to climb her way up the tree without much difficulty, though she could feel the strain of her weight against her claws. She was amazed that they didn’t break off or rip from her fingers.
She made it to the first branch just in time before her claws retracted back to normal. Inspecting them once more, the broken human nails had healed themselves and regenerated along the rough edges.
“Great, now just climb to that halfway mark,” she heard Darren call from below as the others moved in to act as a safety net if she slipped.
Katey’s eyes searched for the best way to climb and took it, pulling herself up to each branch with ease. Her muscles tensed and pulled beneath her skin, but they wouldn’t give out on her like they would have if she were human.
A fiery determination drove her to climb higher and faster, knowing that they were all watching her closely. Over and over in her head, she told herself that she had to make them proud. She had to impress them and show them after her episode earlier that day, that she could handle her new body. The wolf within her seemed to approve and helped her along the way, keeping the desire burning in her chest.
With a final grunt and pull, she was over fifty feet in the air. A few birds were startled by her presence and fluttered away at the sight of their new threat. Katey gazed around and found she could see for miles and miles into the forest ahead. It was an amazing sight and gave her heart a th
rill beyond measure. How many people could say they had reached such a height without the aid of tools and pulleys? Katey had gotten there by her own strength and agility and for a moment, she realized how amazing it was to be a loup-garou.
She breathed in deeply, relishing the pure uncivilized scent of the forest and pines that surrounded her. For a moment, she was glad she had waited to come to the woods until she was loup-garou. Somehow, she knew she could appreciate its splendor more now than as a human. She much preferred these sounds and smells to that of the school. Out here, there was only nature. The chattering of woodland creatures, the gentle grazing of a deer half a mile away, the cool breeze ruffling her hair. Yes, this was what it meant to be loup-garou, part of the wild and yet, not wholly one with it. Not yet. But one day, she’d shed her human skin and run through these trees. The wolf within her rejoiced at the idea.
“What now?” Katey called down to the pack below.
“I want you to practice jumping from tree to tree. This will hone your dexterity and balance. If you fall, one of us will catch you, so don’t worry about that.”
Katey wasn’t worried about falling or being caught as much as she was concerned about successfully completing her training. She looked to an adjacent tree a few yards away. She balanced herself to stand on her branch and leapt for it.
She caught herself upon it and hung from her hands like she did on the monkey bars at the playground as a child. The branch shook and creaked from the new weight it acquired, but it didn’t break. Katey pulled herself up and crawled up to squat in place.
“Don’t just grab for the branch, land straight on it as if you were jumpin’ on stones in a creek,” Ben coached.
Katey had to laugh at the comparison. Stones were easy to jump to and from because they were safely lodged in the ground and the worse that would happen wass if she missed and twisted an ankle. These branches were high above the ground and there was nothing but a pair of strong arms to catch her if she missed.
She steadied herself onto the branch and sighted her next target. She jumped, but fell short. She waved her hands frantically for the branch and caught it by the tips of her fingers.
“You got this, Katey!” Logan urged. “Just pull yourself up and try again!”
“It’s not as easy as you made it seem,” she groused under her breath as she pulled herself up onto the branch.
“Get used to it!” Dustin replied.
Katey let out a low, short growl at his comment and crouched down onto the branch again.
She wasn’t tired, but she was growing aggravated with her own incompetency. Even though she was completely new to the body and her abilities, somehow she thought she should have been able to nail these tasks down. Something in her said that she was better than that. She could succeed and she would, even if it killed her. They depended on her to get this right and she was resolute to not waste their time.
She took a few calming breaths and focused. She was going to beat this one way or another.
Katey jumped for the next branch and nailed it perfectly.
She leapt like a frog from one branch to the other, growing more and more precise with each jump.
The guys below did their best to follow her into the woods, keeping their eyes fixed upon her in case she missed again.
“Much better, Katey! Try doing it standing up, not crouched down.”
Katey stopped and stood up straight on the branch, balancing herself like a tight ropewalker. She bounded for the next branch. It wobbled a little underneath her, but she resisted the urge to stoop down to stabilize herself. She continued her course. Soon, it became just as simple as Ben had said in his reference to stepping-stones.
“She’s going good,” Ben remarked as they continued to follow her.
“Better than you did the first time,” Dustin quipped.
“Shut up,” Ben grumbled, pushing him playfully into the trunk of a nearby tree.
“You’re doing great, Katey!” Darren called up to her. “Just a few more times and we’ll be done with the exercise for now.”
Katey nodded and made a few final jumps perfectly before shimmying herself down to the lowest branch on the last tree. Her lungs filled with a satisfied breath as she looked down on their smiling faces.
“How do I get down?” she asked, peering over the edge to the teachers as they congregated around the base of the tree.
“Listen closely,” Darren said. “You’re going to jump and roll across your shoulders. Did you ever do gymnastics and learn how to roll like that?”
Katey scoffed. “No!”
Darren shrugged and stepped back a few paces. “Just do the best you can. We’re right here.”
Katey looked between them all, but only found true comfort in Logan as he braced himself to run to her aid. She inhaled and jumped from the branch. Wind roared past her ears and she endured the gut tickling sensation of falling. She remembered this sensation from the dream that she had about the teachers, when she stumbled and fell into the blackness. But this wasn’t that nightmare and she wasn’t going to float to a stop before hurtling to the forest floor.
Her feet touched the ground first and crumbled beneath her as she tucked herself and rolled. But something wasn’t right and she knew it wasn’t a well-executed tumble.
She cried out as pain shot through her arm and elbow, rolling long-ways across the leaf-littered ground. She let out a shrill whine and clutched her arm tightly to her chest as the pack rushed to her side. A million questions bombarded her as Logan sat her up straight.
“I think I broke my arm.” She had never broken anything in her life, but she also knew that she had never felt this kind of pain before.
Ben leaned forward and took her wrist. “Quick, let me see.”
Katey extended her arm for him as she sniffled back the urge to cry. The broken bone was threatening to puncture through the skin on her forearm. Bile rose up in her throat at the sight of it and Katey quickly looked away.
Ben skillfully took her arm in his hands and set it back into place with the flick of his wrist. She whimpered at the second volley of pain and he laid her arm back across her chest.
“Okay just give that a second to heal and you should be fine.”
“Just like that?” she whimpered, already feeling the bone begin to mend itself within her arm. Logan began picking out the twigs and bits of crumbled leaves from her hair, smoothing back the strands.
Ben smiled down to her and nodded. “Just like that.”
“Where did you learn that from?” Katey asked, rubbing the moisture away from her cheeks.
“I was in four wars. It pays to know how to set a broken bone.”
“We’ll work on the rolling thing later from a safer height,” Darren said, standing up and sticking his hands in his pockets. “You did better than Logan’s first time, though. He broke his neck.”
Dustin laughed and sat back on his heels. “I wish I could have been there to see that.”
“Can you wiggle your fingers for me?” Ben asked, keeping his diligent attention fixed on Katey. She flexed her fingers. “Hurt at all?” She shook her head.
“Great. How do you feel? Tired yet?” Darren asked.
Logan gently took Katey in his arms and hoisted her to her feet. She extended her injured arm, twisting it around and felt absolutely no pain in it anymore. It was like the fall had never happened and Katey was confident that she could get use to this new invincibility.
“I’m not tired at all. What other training is left?” she asked eagerly, forgetting the pain of just a few moments ago and excited to learn what more she could do. Beside her, Logan couldn’t suppress his face-splitting grin.
6
The sky was alive with shades of bright orange and purple twilight when the pack came back to the gazebo behind the house. Ben ran inside to flip on the exterior lights so they could continue training. Spotlights installed around the rooftop edges illuminated the grassy field around the gazebo.
“
Okay, one more thing and then we’ll go inside and get some dinner.” At the mention of dinner, Katey felt a flash of nausea in her stomach. She had already eaten enough meat to make her nearly sick of it.
“We know you’re a big girl and can take care of yourself,” Darren continued, “but if you’re going up against another loup-garou, you’re going to need to know how to fight and disable one. Let me show you a trick.” Darren said as he stepped up to Dustin. “If you ever have the advantage over an opponent, get them in this hold and you’ll have a good chance of incapacitating them.”
“It comes in handy, especially if you ever cross the paths with a rouger,” Dustin added.
“Rouger?” Katey asked.
“Kind of a nickname we use for a rougarou,” Ben answered.
Darren raised his hand and wrapped his fingers around a specific spot on Dustin’s shoulder.
“Oh, no, not me!” Dustin cried. “Do it on Ben or some-“
Too late. Darren squeezed the nerve and Dustin growled and winced in pain. Katey watched in utter fascination.
“This is pressuring on a particular nerve that only loups-garous have in their shoulder. If you just gently squeeze on it, they’ll be nearly paralyzed with the pain and can’t fight back. If you squeeze even harder, you can end up making them change involuntarily. So, be very careful to never give your shoulder to your enemy like that. It’ll turn the course of a fight.”
Darren let go and Dustin dropped to his knees to catch his breath. Katey watched as the beta flexed and rubbed at his sore shoulder. At his expense, it was a good demonstration.
He then turned to Logan and inclined his head to Katey. “Wrestle her,” he ordered.
Logan, along with the others, looked to Darren as if he had just told them to put a silver bullet to Katey’s head.
“What?” Logan asked.
Becoming the Enigma (The Loup-Garou Series Book 2) Page 8