A Fox Among Wolves

Chapter Fourteen

The jangling of a doorknob draws me to the front door. There, shivering from fear and a lack of proper clothing, is the frail human. Taking a step closer, I try to make my way over to him without frightening the already terrified boy.

"Hey," I say, voice gentle. He whips around to look at me, pressing himself against the door in order to get as far away from me as possible.

"Just let me go, okay? I-I won't tell anyone that I was here," he says, tears streaming down his face.

Taking a hesitant step towards him, I hold my arms up in a placating manner, trying to show him that I do not want to hurt him. "I'm not going to hurt you, and you can leave anytime you want. You probably shouldn't though, seeing as you are still recovering from all of your injuries."

He presses himself further against the door, trying to put even more distance between us, even though I am still at least three feet away from him.

"I-I can go?" he questions, eyebrows scrunched up in confusion. "I don't have to stay?"

Cocking my head to the side, I take in his bewildered expression. It's as though he cannot wrap his head around the fact that I am not forcing him to be here against his will. "No, you don't have to stay, even though I would highly recommend it. You won't get too far with your injuries, and not all hybrids are as nice as us. They could really hurt you."

He stares at me in silence, many different emotions flickering across his face as he tries to absorb what I just told him. Finally, he pulls his hand away from the knob, but he does not move away from the door, eyes fixed on me the whole time.

"I warmed up some leftover soup from the other day. It's pretty good, if I do say so myself," I say, giving him a reassuring smile. He squints his eyes at me, probably trying to decide whether or not to trust me. "Come on, we can go and sit down in the living room while we eat, maybe watch some television."

Turning around, I start walking back towards the living room, not bothering to check if he is following me. He doesn't really have much of a choice, though. If he were to leave right now, he would most likely just stumble into the hands of someone else, maybe even someone who will not be so kind.

Soft footsteps trail behind me, and I smile to myself, a little bit happy that the human decided to stay in the house after all. Making it into the living room, I sit on one end of the couch before picking up my hot bowl of soup sitting on the coffee table in front of me. The human slowly walks into the room, taking in everything that he hadn't seen from his position on the couch.

Once his eyes land on the soup, he scrambles towards the table, kneeling on the carpet before picking the bowl and taking a mouthful of the hot liquid. He doesn't even seem to mind the temperature of the soup, instead choosing to eat every last drop in the bowl in a matter of minutes. I sit there, stunned at his ability to drinking that much soup so fast and not even seeming to be bothered by the steaming liquid.

"Wow, that was... impressive," I say, a little lost for words. Shaking my head, I pick up my spoon and start eating my own soup at a much slower pace than the boy sitting in front of me. A blush spreads across his face as he sets the bowl back down on the table.

"I haven't eaten in a while," he says in a soft voice, eyes looking at the ground instead of meeting my own. Gradually, he hauls himself back up onto the couch, leaning back into the cushions before grabbing the blanket that had been covering him earlier and wrapping it around himself.

"Really? Why not?" I hedge, trying not to be too pushy, but I am truly curious as to why he came to us in such a bad state and why he even exists in the first place. I would never say that last part out loud, though.

"They didn't give us much food," he says. His hands find their way to his hair, and as he runs his fingers through the blonde strands, he seems surprised. It must have been a while since he has had clean hair.

"Who didn't?" I sit my now empty bowl onto the coffee table before leaning back onto the couch and pulling a blanket around myself.

The human stares at me long and hard, his eyes squinted in a scrutinizing manner. Instead of answering my question, he just turns his gaze away from me, fixing it onto the wall right behind me.

"Okay..." I say, accepting the fact that he will not give me the answer to the question that has been running through my head for days. "Can you at least tell me your name?"

He continues his bout of silence, eyes shifting around the living room. Just when I accept the fact that I will have to go another day of calling him 'the human', he speaks up. "Alex."

"Hm?" I turn to look at him, seeing that his eyes have stopped their cataloging of my house and are now once again staring at me.

"My name is Alex."

"That's a good name," I say a bit awkwardly. "I'm Henley. I'll introduce you to the others tomorrow if you're up for it."

His eyes widen a tad bit at what I said, a little bit of the earlier fright creeping onto his face again. Slowly, I slide across the couch so that I am only a couple of feet away from him. He turns to look at me, his eyes still wide.

"You know, we aren't monsters," I whisper, meeting his gaze. "Someone chooses to be a monster. It doesn't matter their species. I know plenty of hybrids in our history who were monsters. There were probably a few in the human history as well." My eyes sweep across his face, trying to see if he is really understanding what I am trying to say. "You have to make your own judgments of others, not listen to what others tell you. Cause I'm assuming that the reason you are so terrified of hybrids is because of what you've been told, right?"

He nods his head yes to my question. I give him a small smile before giving him a small clap on the back. "That's how it has been for us over the past few months. Our leader keeps trying to convince us that all humans were bad before they went extinct." A look of confusion crosses Alex's face. "Well, you're supposed to be. At least that's what they told us. Anyways, back to what I was saying before. You can't always listen to what others say. You have to form your own opinions of things, not just go with the flow. I hope that one day you can see that my friends and I are not monsters, even though there are others out there who might think so."

I get up from the couch and grab our empty bowls, taking them into the kitchen to be cleaned later. Alex doesn't say anything, just watches as I leave the room. I come back into the living room and resituate his blanket and pillow. He lays down, too many emotions flashing across his face for me to interpret.

"If you need anything, my room is the farthest one down the hall on the second floor. Don't hesitate to ask, I won't be mad."

Turning around, I start to walk up the stairs, but before I make it to the first step, Alex says in a soft voice, "I'm sorry I said you were a monster."

I shoot him a quick smile over my shoulder before climbing up the stairs. "It's okay, Alex."