Wild at Heart (In Major Editing)

Chapter 13: Running From Darkness

This chapter is dedicated to three amazing people!!

@XxSnowLionessxX for helping me edit this monster!!

@Courtnicorn for allowing me to use her greatness in this book!!

And @night_silence for cheering me on in getting another chapter written!! y'all should go look at her book called The Huntresses!!!!

-Mo

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Chapter 13: Running From Darkness

May's P.O.V.

By the next morning, I didn't recognize where I was.

It was much colder here, so I had known I had gone North, but the little town was dead in the center of a forest of tall and looming pines. The local roads wound through hills, paved by dirt flattened by a million tires. A single highway sat dipping into the far side of town but never quite made it through before turning back toward civilization.

I walked with my hands in my hoodie pockets and not a clue or a care of what to do. The tiny stores that lined the Main Street held no interest for me as I thought. Maybe I could get a fresh start here, try and begin a new life. I was officially sixteen as of yesterday, so I could find a job hopefully.

But mostly, I just wished for the comfort of something familiar. This town, so much like Hidden Valley, was making an ache grow in my chest for the longing of home. An ache I didn't want to deal with.

So I moved on.

Eventually, I found myself in a cargo port beside the churning grey sea, debating whether or not to sneak abord. It would be too easy with the ship ramp left unattended. I hadn't the slightest clue where it was going but that was the rush, wasn't it? Did I want to leave America?

The answer came easily. Yes.

So I shifted to my cougar and tucked myself deep into shadows before slinking quickly up the ramp and darting behind a crate. My plan was to hide in one of the many vid cargo carriers stacked among the ship, getting to it in the cover of darkness.

The sun was beginning to set and I didn't have much time left so I quickly searched for a open carrier. My eyes darted around the stacks within sight, searching for a target. There! It was red and stacked a few up. It would be a difficult climb but nothing I couldn't handle.

So I waited until the sun finally dipped below the horizon, gathered the shadows around me, and raced out as fast as I could. When I reached the lowest carrier near it, I bunched my muscles and leaped as high as I could, landing barely at the top.

From carrier stack to carrier stack I jumped, until I had just a stretch of connected carriers to walk across then leap directly into my open carrier. I relaxed as I padded along, the ship dark and the occasional flash of a crew member's flashlight somewhere on board.

I paused as I heard a humming began like something mechanical starting up. Then suddenly, the ship was lit up brightly by huge industrialized lights that sat at intervals. I burst forward, pelting across the carriers and taking a blind leap at my open one.

I almost didn't make it. My paws hooked the edge and I scrabbled up, hearing shouts about a live animal on board. The carrier was filled with huge wooden crates of what was labeled 'The Fate's Tavern' products of some kind. I quickly leaped onto the nearest one and slunk to the back to curl up in the top corner, gathering my shadows thickly around me.

There was the clink of metal and a latter came into view, a gruff man climbing it to peer into the darkness for a moment. After what felt like years, he shouted,"Not in here!!" before closing the door with a loud bang.