I sat up strait, my breath catching and my nerves oversensitive. The sound came again, a head slitting howl that made my skin prickle and my breath to catch. “Christian! Ember!” Bray shouted, doors slamming. “Ash! Get your fucking asses up! Sky, move!” Bray barked and I heard people running around urgently, a thump on the wall, curses and people running scuttling around the halls and rooms.
Another howl ripped through the night, making me flinch and throw myself out of bed. I didn’t even see the clock as I stumble to the door. The hallway light was on, harsh and bright against my eyes. Bray stood in the hallway, only wearing a pair of sweats. I noticed he too had scars criss-crossing his chest and wondered if it was from him and Ash fighting like Ash and I had last night.
Carson tumbled out of the room behind Bray as Sky entered the hallway and tears down the hallway before throwing himself down the stairs. “Irana” Carson says surprised and stops, looking jittery. “It’s nothing to worry about. Go back to bed; we’ll be out for a while. We’ll be back before morning. Don’t leave the house, no matter what!” Carson then hurried down the stairs.
“Christian!” Bray shouts motioning me back to my room. “Get the fuck out of bed you lazy, good for nothing shit!”
Christian spills from his room, hair sticking up at odd angles. “That was mean,” argues without stopping.
“Don’t care,” Bray states as Christian bolts down the stair at top speed.
“Ember!” Bray shouts and marches over to my door and forcibly pulls it shut in my face.
I hear Ember retort something then feet stumbling down the stairs. The next thing I know a door slams outside and turn around, scrambling over the bed and nearly collided with the window as I jumped off. I thrust the curtains open and catch the shadows of the wolves dashing into the trees.
Another urgent howl splitters the night air, ringing through the house and making a shiver crawl along my spine. The door opens and I jerk around. Mikki stood in the doorway. She was silhouetted by the hall light, casting her face into deep shadows. “They went to fight a neighbouring pack. Their a real nuisance, keeping everyone up at night and always looking for a trouble”
“Another pack?” I ask frowning. Over the week I’d been here I’d never thought of there being another pack around.
“Yeah, I’ve never seen them by Ember says there leaders…” she pause, having to think over the word “Fetching”
“You’ve never seen them?” I ask frowning at her.
She nods and makes her way over to the bed where lowers herself, looking into the vacant hallway. “They don’t take new wolves. We haven’t been trained properly. It could unsafe for us. They’re a small pack, only consisting of 5 or something, but what they lack in numbers they make up in strength.”
“Why are they stirring up trouble?” I ask flopping on the bed next to Mikki. Pale moon light pushed through the window, leaving a stretched rectangle over the floor and halfway across the bed.
She shrugs and looks out the window. “Wanting more land or something.”
We sat there for a long while before Mikki stands swiftly. “You hungry?”
“Kinda” I say dragging myself off the bed.
Half the house was lit. With the pack leaving suddenly the hallway light was on, the lounge room, the kitchen, several rooms and the down stairs bathroom. Mikki started rummaging in the cupboard, searching for food. “So…. Do you like any of the guys?” she says still poking her nose around the cupboard.
I think for a second. “Not really”
“Why not?” Mikki asks turning to look at me for a second before grabbing something and tossing it onto the table. The packet slid to a rest in front of me. A packet of biscuits.
“I just…. I don’t know. I’m just not interested,” I say with a shrug. Vic, Bray and Vic were too old. That left Christian and Ash. Neither of them was what I wanted. Christian was more like a brother, a very annoying, childish brother who loved to provoke me. And Ash…. Ash was like the guy at school who you found irritating, always getting in the way and trying to tick you off, and not in the good way.
Mikki considered this then ripped open the packet, plucked a biscuit out and bit into it. “Can I tell you something?”
“Of course,” I say grabbing my own biscuit.
“Don’t freak out or anything, but…” she hesitated and bit her lip like she didn’t know if she could trust me. I just waited. “I wanna run away,” she says picking at her biscuit.
I blink at her. “Okay.” The way she’d said made me think she was going to say something dramatic, but that seemed a bit off set. Like she was saying that instead of what she was really going to say.
She paused and looked up at me. “No argument?”
I shrug. “Why? Where are you going to go? Home? Your parents think your dead. Everyone thinks you’re dead. If you just waltzed out of nowhere everyone would be asking questions. Press, police, parents. My point is it would be worse doing that….unless you wanted the fame” I realize my argument had nothing to do with my point right then. “Why do you want to run away anyway?”
Mikki crushes a piece of biscuit between two fingers then lets the crumbs fall onto the table. “It’s boring. There’s nothing to do. Bray wants me to control my changing but I can’t, besides a barely shift”
I stare out the window for a second. “Give it a few more days okay? Do that for me? Besides, you can go on the internet. Just, stay off Facebook and twitter or anything else that people know you’re on,” it felt awkward giving advice to someone who’d been here longer than me.
Mikki nods mutely. She grabs a few biscuits and heads towards the stairs. “Night”
“Night” I sigh before putting the biscuits away and turning off all the lights. My bed greets me with warm arms as I crawl into it and before I know it I’m asleep.
YOU ARE READING
Bloody Paw Prints
Werewolf'I close my eyes, unable to keep the heavy lids open. But the darkness which is supposed to be my safe haven is haunted with wolves, the wolves with my blood covering the muzzles, their breath, which had not long ago been hot, caressing my skin, tee...
