Wolfsbane

The Aftermath

The sun was rising as we went through the commune looking for our own. Waine found Sam's body among some of the mutts bodies. I found Lana crying over Logan's body. I yelled for Waine and he checked for a pulse. "He's injured but he'll live." Lana cried harder in relief. Three more pack members, ones I had never met before tonight, were dead as well. The rest were mutts. I stopped short as I realized that I was referring to them as mutts just like the other pack members. When did that happen? I guess I'm one of them now. I heard a scream behind me. What now?  I turned and saw Lola. Her hair was greasy and tangled. Her eyes were red and swollen. She was in the same clothes I saw her in the night that I left. "You killed him!" She came towards me, her hands balled into fists. Her nails were long like claws and some of them were broken and jagged. They cut into her palms and blood dripped to the ground. "He was everything to me! You killed him and left him in the dirt like he was nothing!" I waved everyone back as they came to my side to defend me. I didn't think she would really hurt me. She kept walking towards me. "I'm sorry, Lola. I didn't know who it was. All I knew is that I was trying to escape and he was trying to stop me." She made an inhuman sound and lunged at me. I caught her in my arms. She sobbed and pummeled me with her fists. She ran out of stamina and then I was the only thing holding her up. She sobbed against my shoulder. "Lola, get your stuff and come to the pack with me. Start a new life." At first she refused vehemently. Joining the pack went against everything she had learned while she had been here but she finally reluctantly agreed.

We put the bodies of the mutts into the houses and set them on fire. Turning them into funeral pyres. It was quicker than trying to bury so many of them. We took our own and put them in the cars. They would be buried on pack property. Lola packed her things and set her own house on fire. There were no bodies inside. She was trying to burn the ghost of Joel. The flames reflected off of the tears in her eyes. "We need to go before anyone comes to investigate this smoke." We had to take some of the mutts cars to accommodate all the new people who wanted to join the pack. Lola sat in the backseat with me and Britney. She stared straight ahead as tears ran down her face. I reached out and took her hand. I thought she would jerk it away but she didn't. Her being here felt right. She was here at the start of my new life and now I would be there at the start of hers.