Blood Siren

𝟙𝟟 - 𝕋𝕙𝕖 𝕆𝕟𝕖 𝕨𝕚𝕥𝕙 𝕥𝕙𝕖 ℕ𝕖𝕔𝕜𝕝𝕒𝕔𝕖

I pulled out my pen and highlighter, struggling to find a pattern like I had thought I found before. Her trail always diminished as soon as I'd catch wind of it. When I finally think I've caught up to her, she's always gone. I'm always two steps behind her and one step behind them.

I needed to get ahead.

For the next hour, I tried to think of how I could track her down without letting her know that I'd caught onto her trail. She was a smart woman with undeniably advanced talents. Trying to stay ahead of her would be a long shot.

I was beginning to get frustrated. How could I get ahead of someone I knew nothing about?

Then I realized.

I knew one person that knew exactly how to find her.

But I'm not sure I was exactly happy with how I was going to get there.

~

My wolf let out a howl as she ran through the woods, the wind rushing through her fur and the freedom of running through unclaimed territory making her uncharacteristically peppy.

Though it's been 2 years, the trees and the mulch still smelled as they did the last time I was here. There was still that same diner at the edge of town and the same pothole just up the road. There was still that huge rock that sat in the center of the woods and the same hollow tree trunk I used to hide inside when I was younger.

Deciding it was a good place to shift back into my human form, I quickly shoved on the clothes I had tied to my ankle and swung my backpack over my shoulders. My hand gently hovered over the hollow trunk, a small smile tugging at my lips as I examined the engraving I burned into the tree when I was 10.

I began walking down the familiar trail, inhaling the crisp air that had always seemed to give me allergies as a kid. Good and bad memories flashed through my head as I thought of wonderful moments I had spent here as a child, compared to the horrid scene I'd ran from the last time I was here. As I neared the beginning of the territory, I had to hold my breath to keep myself from falling to pieces.

The last time I was here, everyone I loved was slaughtered before my eyes.

It's okay. My wolf comforted, though I could feel her distraught just as prominently. We'll do this together.

Taking that small notion of comfort, I nodded to regain control of myself and took a deep breath.

After feeling around for any hint of a living being around the territory, I let out a sigh of relief as soon as I confirmed that nobody was here.

It was just me.

Stepping out of the woods, I half expected to see corpses and bodies slain on the ground with blood splatter everywhere, just as I had seen before I ran. But to my surprise, I saw nothing but a ghost town. There were no bodies, no bones, no trace. Just nothing.

I held my breath as I began walking towards the familiar-looking civilization, the very one my ancestors had built millenniums ago. The buildings were all the same, the well still sitting in its same place. My childhood home was still standing tall in the center of the territory. My childhood home doubled as the packhouse since my Mom was the Alpha and she wasn't around very often.

The playground still had the same swing I had fallen off of when I was 6 and the roof of the packhouse still had the ledge I'd sneak onto in the middle of the night after I woke up from dreaming about my mate. All of it was still the same.