❝ Sheep abide by the herd complex; safety in numbers. When all are the same, no one can be singled out.
A fox among sheep is able to infiltrate the herd only a handful of ways: under the veil of dusk, or by clothing itself as the prey, shedding i...
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THEIR CONVERSATION OF the aftermath refused to leave his conscience.
"What was that?" Jonah panted the words, collapsing on the riverbank on his hands and knees. He couldn't remember swimming back to the surface. All he could recall was opening his eyes to see Opal, his arm resting over her shoulder, while they walked through thigh-deep water to the other side of the lake from where the beast hung over them.
"A wolf," Opal breathed, crawling beside him. The contrast of the mud on her porcelain skin, combined with the freezing air, gifted her a deathly pale image. Her lips were blue and goosebumps textured her skin. She looked like a corpse.
Jonah didn't even want to imagine the state he was probably in; ready to be boxed and buried in a coffin. That, he was certain.
"N-No, that wasn't a wolf." His teeth chattered and he shook his head. That thing was not a wolf. Jonah recollected how the beast was suspended above them like a shadow, the outline of its snout was far too large and broadened to be a wolf's. He was sure of it. "That isn't what I saw."
"What was itthen, Jonah? What did you see?" Amber eyes glared at him as water dripped from her ebony locks like melting icicles, tinting them impossibly darker. Supporting her weight on her elbows, Jonah eyed the grey top clinging to her waist like a second skin, contracting and expanding with every movement of her body.
Jonah had no choice but to cave. "A wolf," he sighed.
It wasn't. Something deep down was telling him it wasn't a wolf and Jonah believed it. However, he couldn't say what it was he saw, either, as he didn't know himself. All he could decipher was a sinister darkness that ambushed them; nothing anyone would believe. So a wolf it would have to be.
He knew they were prey caught in the jaws of the predator. If it were a diseased wolf, wouldn't it have reunited them with their fathers in death without a second thought? Wouldn't it have dragged them from the lake by its teeth and torn into their flesh, letting their screams fill the forest and alert any and all near to know the horrors of their fate? Jonah's blood couldn't have been a louder invitation.
Animals with rabies are known to have an irrational fear of water; that could be a possible explanation, Jonah considered.
For whatever reason, the creature hesitated and refused to clamp down on them even before someone shot it, or scared it off. He didn't know which, but the only thing conclusive to Jonah was that something wasn't right.
He heard heavy footsteps and shouts rushing their way, the vibrations bouncing against his skin from the dampened ground. Jonah's head snapped up, fearing the beast had decided to come back and finish what it started.
