Fur

14 | Night Stroll

A hand curls around mine, solid and supporting. Zakai's face is stoic.

"Tell me what's happening."

I wish I could.

~~~

I shut off all the lights, lock all of the entrances, and leave the café in darkness. Zakai and I walk through the parking lot to where I'd parked my shiny black hummer, but we stop three meters from reaching it.

All four tires are flat. The vehicle sits on its rims.

"Call a taxi," I order, closing my eyes in a vain attempt to calm down, "We're going to Reinberg."

Zakai bars me from storming past him with an arm across my collarbone. I grab it and throw it away only for him to replace it and double down with another arm across my shoulder blades. The peak of my shoulder digs into his sternum as I struggle for freedom and he wrestles for restraint.

"Leila, let's talk about this first."

"There's nothing to talk about. We know they did it!"

"What are you going to do in Reinberg?" He grunts through his efforts to hold me.

"Find them!" I answer as my elbow jabs into his abdomen.

My feet leave the ground abruptly and I kick vehemently in open air, the momentum swaying us violently to the point that we might topple.

Zakai stabilizes us, but leaves me suspended and thrashing. "Then what?" He asks, almost as if it's a challenge.

He thinks he's winning.

My leg is able to wrap around his, where my heel hooks the back of his knee. I pull, he buckles, and we land in a heap of elbows and knees on the blacktop. I scramble up and away on all fours before he can reestablish any grip.

"I'll ma—" Just as suddenly as I begin, I deflate, dropping like a sack of sand onto my butt as I realize. "Damn it!"

"You know the laws," he says, sitting up and brushing off dirt and dust. I'd only made it a safe meter away before dropping. "They're humans. If we want justice against them we'll have to go through more humans."

The laws: one of the few things I have difficulty adapting to with this human lifestyle. Werewolves settle conflicts themselves. Werewolves act as judge, jury, and executioner against their offenders, but humans have a long, complicated process in which the offended has nary an ounce of control.

I ran away to the humans. Within them I sought asylum. But sometimes I wonder...

"You know, Zakai," I climb to my feet before going over to offer him a hand up, "Humans don't always follow their own rules."

He gifts me with a pointed look as he stands. "What are you saying?"

"Breaking the law would fit in with the human lifestyle. It would add authenticity to the role."

"Leila..."

"No. No, I'm sick of this shit. Strangers are showing up and they're doing whatever the hell they please and we're just expected to take it? Lattie's best friend is dead, a man tried to break into her house last night, and you're not the first werewolf to show up to this town which is supposed to be werewolf-free for over two centuries. Now this." I gesture angrily toward my immobilized vehicle.