I'm tired. I mean, I'm always tired, but today I feel more tired.
"You okay?" Chloe says touching my forehead to check for fever.
"I'm good. Must be the weather or something," I say.
Chloe, Ivan and I are at the town's water reservoir. It needed some repair work and cleaning, so we hired a crew to get it done today.
Jackson and his friends have gone to the Croan Waterfall a few miles East to my packland. I guess they were getting bored. However, I did offer to take Jacky out on a date, but he wasn't in the mood.
I think it was a miracle I managed that day to drag him to the movie.
Sarah, a techie who works for me, arrives at the reservoir. She comes over and whispers, "We caught it on camera."
I leave Ivan and Chloe and follow Sarah to what we call the office. Whose office? Nobody knows. It's just a shack under a tree that we use for meetings and such.
For the most part everyone in my pack either calls me or my friends if they need anything, so we don't use a workplace to work from. But it's handy to have a place like the shack to put up equipments.
At the office, Sarah fast forwards the video until the wolf appears. Although the black and white video's scale doesn't do justice to the wolf's real size, the animal still looks big enough on the screen as it crosses the video's frame.
"It appears here at 11:23 PM," Sarah says, "Then leaves at 11:45."
"Where's that camera?" I ask.
She looks through some papers and says, "At the Reath Bridge." She takes out a map to show me. "It's okay," I tell her. I remember where that place and camera are. I was the one who mapped out the cameras' locations, and was there when each one was installed, to make sure we have as little blindspots as possible.
I leave the office for Reath. I stand at the bridge and think. Twenty minutes, the wolf was in and out. It couldn't have gone far into the land, and there aren't that many structures nearby this place.
"Shit," I say and start walking towards west. There's only one notable building around here. It'll take me ten minutes to reach there by foot. For that wolf, with its long strides and four legs, should've taken only about five or so.
I reach my destination, and get a call from Ivan.
"Found anything?" Ivan says.
"The wolf was caught on the camera at Reath Bridge around 11:20. It went back twenty minutes later."
Ivan says, "Reath Bridge? That's—"
"I know," I say, staring at my house, "It's near my place."
"Did it came for you?" Ivan says.
"I don't know. It could just be a coincidence. Is Chloe with you?" I say.
"Yeah," Ivan says.
"Send her to me. I'll be at the guesthouse."
After ending the call, I enter the guesthouse. In spite of three guys having lived here for almost a week the house looks remarkably tidy.
I sit down in the living room, thinking. Everything is becoming more and more eerie and disturbingly close to home.
I also am beginning to feel hotter. I turn on the A/C and lower the temperature.
A while later, Chloe comes in. "Jeez, it's freezing in here," she says.
"Really? I still feel hot," I say.
"Is it true? The wolf came to your place? Was it watching your house?" Chloe says.
"I found its paw prints nearby," I tell her, "Don't tell Ivan."
"Shit," Chloe swears. "Shit," she says again, and a few more times. "It's Hermann, isn't it?"
"I don't know. But if the wolf's got anything to do with him, and it's about what happened in the past, then there are only two people who need to watch their back in this pack. That's you and me," I say to Chloe.
She stops pacing and sits down.
I continue, "Tonight you'll stay with me. Tomorrow I'll send Jackson and his friends back to their packland, and we'll move to this guesthouse. You can't cross the border under any circumstance, and at night you'll either be with me or Ivan. You understand?"
"Fuck," Chloe says, "Are you sure it's him, and it's about what happened back then?"
"I told you, I don't know. But I'm not gonna take the risk. That rabid wolf came to where my family is. And if it's got anything to do with Hermann then I gotta worry about you, too."
"It happened so many years ago. We were kids. It's not our fault. We didn't do anything to him," she says.
"That's why we have to watch our backs now. We didn't do anything back then. Kids or not we should've done something."
Both of us go silent for a moment. Chloe says, "Should we tell Ivan?"
"I don't know. I don't want to," I say.
"Me neither," Chloe says.
"I'll place a few guards near his place, too," I say, "For now let's just focus on catching the animal."
"What about Jackson? Are you okay with him leaving this soon?"
"I don't want him here now," I say, stretching out the collar of my t-shirt to cool my neck.
"You sure you're okay? You look pale," she says.
I get up. "I'm going to rest. Be back by night."
I reach my room, lie down, and fall into a what seems to be a restless sleep.
End of chapter
