I Run With Wolves

Chapter Four

Ren

I woke up and looked around; this wasn't my room. Where the heck was I? I craned my neck to look around the large room, the small movement sending a spasm of pain from my neck down my spine. "Oooww!" I howled in pain.

At the sound, a boy was next to my side in an instant. I didn't know who he was, but damn was he cute! Then I remembered; he was the boy from earlier who brought me to this room; this house. What was he doing here? Why did he bring me here? How did he find me? A million questions ran through my head. 

He looked straight into my eyes, searching them; for what, I wasn’t sure, but at that moment, everything else disappeared and it was only the two of us. 

"Are you okay?" he asked quietly as if he was afraid of scaring me. 

I nodded my head ‘yes’, but then I got another flash of pain and winced, squinting my eyes shut against the unpleasant feeling.

"What's wrong? Is there anything I can do?” he asked, worried. That was strange. I slowly shook my head ‘no’; I didn't think so. "I'm Jack," he informed me after a brief awkward pause. I smiled; Jack; that was a nice name. He looked like a Jack. "What's your name?" he asked me curiously. 

I paused, hesitant. Finally, "Ren," I replied quietly, maintaining eye contact with this beautiful stranger. Jack smiled like he’d just won a million dollars.

                "Ren,” he tested the name out on his tongue, grinning as he did so. “A beautiful name for a beautiful girl,” he breathed quietly. I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to have heard that or not, so I stayed silent and let my gaze flit around the room, taking in my surroundings. “I love that name.” Jack spoke a bit louder this time, causing my eyes to come back to him.

"Thanks," I told him sincerely, feeling a small smile slip onto my face. "I got it for my birthday.” I smirked and winked, causing him to laugh. I couldn’t help but laugh with him. I had been nervous he would get offended at my sarcasm; when I got nervous, I usually got sarcastic.

I had nothing to worry about, though. “Well, Ren. You have a beautiful name." Jack smiled when he spoke, and I heard the truth ringing in his words. He had a gorgeous smile; two rows of perfectly straight, glistening white teeth. I did, however, notice that his canines were a bit sharper than a normal human's. ‘Kind of like mine,’ I thought to myself, finding it extremely puzzling and interesting at the same time. 

I had an itch on my ear, so I reached my right hand up and scratched it, feeling completely normal. That is, until Jack looked at me with a look that essentially asked, “Do you realize what you’re doing?” I was mortified at what I’d just done, but I had always scratched my ear like that. Now that I thought about it, it was similar to the way a dog would scratch their ear with their hind foot, only I used my hand.

"No, not like a dog," Jack said out loud. "Like a wolf." My head snapped up; ‘How could he possibly have…’ "Known what you were thinking?" Jack said, finishing my unasked question. "Well for one, you’re talking out loud,” he informed me. My eyes grew wide and my face heated up; I hadn’t even realized I had been talking aloud; oops. “And two,” Jack continued, “I know your secret.”

Instead of being scared or surprised, I was confused. What did he mean he knew my secret? That I had run away from home? I didn’t think it was much of a secret; that much had probably been obvious by the bag of belongings I had with me and the fact that I was traveling on foot - alone. Raising an eyebrow, I looked him dead in the eye, waiting for him to go on.  He took a breath as if he was preparing himself for what my reaction to whatever he had to tell me would be.

“Do you really not know what I’m talking about?” he asked me with curiosity and a sliver of desperation in his voice. I rolled my eyes and glared at him. Obviously if I knew what he was talking about, I wouldn’t have been so confused. “Okay, well I don’t really know how to say this,” he started slowly. I got aggravated at his beating around the bush; I liked things told straight.

“Just spit it out already,” I mumbled, annoyed.

“Ren, you’re a wolf.” My eyes flew open, wide as saucers; ‘Didn’t see that one coming.’