Claws

Chapter Three- Monster

    Three 

      I had finally started to doze off into sleep, maybe after three hours of shaking to death, terrified. People my age, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, shouldn’t ever have to witness what I had. No one any age ever should. I didn’t know why, how, or when, but whoever delivered Mitchell to his gruesome death definitely wasn’t a human. 

     Maybe I was just freaking myself out and there was nothing to worry about... but I just couldn’t help thinking that, in some way, Jack was linked to Mitchells death... 

     Nightmares greeted me when I finally hit unconsciousness. And they were confusing nightmares.

    I was standing in the woods, with Jack and Sydney at my sides... I heard a low rumble emerging from the dark trees in front of us and out they came... three giant wolves, one russet, one black, one gray, snarling, they’re snouts wrinkled up in fury, their red eyes--they had red eyes!-- were glinting, hungry, angry, waiting... They stalked forward, the hackles on their backs standing up... I couldn’t understand. I couldn’t understand why we weren’t running for our lives. Any normal human being would be! But there we stood, waiting for our predator to close the short ten feet space between us... 

     I sat straight up in bed, gasping and trying to hold back a scream when I heard a low tap at my window. My hands were both clasped tightly over my mouth and my eyes were wide as I slid out of my bed and slowly tiptoed over to my window on the far side of my small bedroom. 

     I forced my shaky, sweaty hand to move upward, towards the blinds, sticking my thumb under a single tab and slowly, very slowly, lifted it up. 

    I staggered back when the first thing I saw was a pair of eyes. I was breathing erratically, leaning against my nightstand until I realized I knew those eyes... knew them well... 

    I stomped back over to my window, and yank the string, making my blinds fly up. Sure enough, those eyes were familiar. I unlocked and slid open my window, agitated. 

     “Jack, what do you think you’re doing here?!” I hissed. 

     “Let me in.” he demanded. 

     “Wait, wh-” 

     “Kay, just trust me on this, okay? Let me in now.” 

      I opened the window wider, allowing him enough room to climb in and take a seat on my bed. 

     “Jack, it’s almost three in the morning, why are you here?” I asked. He stayed silent for the longest moment, staring at the picture of me and him sitting in the window cill. 

     “Listen, we’ve got to get out of here.” he whispered intently, his muscular body rigid and tense. 

     “What? Why?” 

     “It’s an... extremely long story.” 

     “Tell me.” I insisted, though I wasn’t completely sure I wanted to hear. 

     “There’s no time!” he exploded, angry. I was taken aback by the sharpness in his tone and I backed up into the wall beside my closet. He sighed and sat down again. 

     “I’m sorry.” he apologized. “But there’s literally no time.” 

     “Jack, please,” there was a catch in my throat and I just knew that I was going to cry. I walked up and knelt beside him, putting a hand on his knee. “just tell me what’s going on.” 

     “We’re in danger, Kay. Good enough? A lot of danger.” 

     “Wh-”

     “I’ll explain later.” he cut me off, standing up. “So, if you’ll just pack a few of your things, I think we should get going.” he turned around to see that I hadn’t moved an inch. “Kaylee, come on, we need to leave!”