Bloody Paw Prints

Ch 15 Shoot me

My house –or should I say my parent’s house- was on the wolves territories –barely. I look at it from the tree line, remembering how for years I’d sit out on the back porch drinking hot chocolate with a blanket wrapped around my shoulders. I remember how I’d heard the wolves howling some nights, how I’d seen their ghosts dashing silently through the trees. It seemed so long ago.

It seemed like that was a life time ago, and in a way it was. I was a wolf now, I wasn’t living there.

I lay down, watching my mum pottering around in the kitchen. Dark circles were under her eyes, her hair was pulled into a tangled bun and she hadn’t worried about dressing nicely. It was painful to watch her. She thought I was dead and was grieving. But most of all I missed her.

Ash cocks his head at me but I don’t move. Inside I could hear the news over the TV that my mum wasn’t even watching. It was talking about me, about how they suspected I was killed by the wolves.

Ash lies down next to me so our shoulders were nearly touching. With a huff he lays his head onto his paws, watching the house.

An image of me sitting on the porch wrapped in my tiger blanket with a cup of hot chocolate and a book in my other hand enters my head. I look at Ash realizing he showing me a memory of his.

I send back one of seeing the wolves all but shadows as they darted soundlessly through the trees. I’d loved the wolves then, when they sang at night and seemed to be figments of my imagination. But that was when I hadn’t known they were really people who turned into wolves. Somehow it dimmed my view on the mystical, ghost like wolves that moved silently through the trees.

Ash suddenly looks up so swiftly I wouldn’t have seen it if I hadn’t been watching. I turn to see what had captured his attention.  At the open in the trees stood my brother, his school bag hanging loosely from his shoulder.

At the sight of Max my heart lurches. He looked slightly older then he had before I’d been attacked by the wolves. Under his eyes was darker from not sleeping properly and he looked sadder then I’d ever seen him. He must have had to have grown up and take more responsibility weather he liked it or not when I was ‘killed’. It made my heart sink at through of him having to come home and do dinner when mum or dad wasn’t home, or for him to be strong while mum cried her eyes out.

Max walks towards the house, scuffing his shoes on the snow. Suddenly he looks up and stares at me and Ash who were lying in the snow 20 meters away. He blinks like he thought he was dreaming as I fight the urge the run to him and hug him.

“Why? Why wasn’t it me, why her?” Max says looking at us coldly. “She didn’t deserve to be killed, it should have been me”

A muscle twitches in my shoulder and my paws twitches on the snow. I wanted to change back and tell him I was alive.

The back door slides open and my mum looks out at Max. “What are you doing out here, it’s cold. Came in side”

Max points a finger at us and I feel Ash stiffen as my mum looks at us, a look of fear crossing her face. “Max, come inside right now,” then she turns and shouting into the house she shouts, “John! There are wolves outside!” Fear makes her voice high and squeaky.

Ash stands up and makes a small half whimpering sound at me. He motions to the trees and with a heavy heart I stand up too then see my father stumble of the house with a gun. Ash throws his head and pushes me towards the trees as I freeze.

 My father was going to shoot me.

A gun shot goes off and bark from the tree in front of us explodes as a bullet hits it. Ash barks at me, shoving me with his shoulder causing me to stumble. I pull myself up right and dart into the tree’s, Ash on my tail as I hear my dad shouting after us, another gunshot echoing through the trees. Ash’s shoulder brushes my flank as we scurry through the snow, racing past trees and bushes.