When I was nine years old, something happened to me that would forever change my life. I remember that day as if it happened yesterday; everything is still as clear as a bell in my mind. It was the first day that my mom agreed that I could walk home from school with my friends, and I felt like I was ten feet tall. Of course, I didn’t have many friends seeing as how Mom and I had just moved into the neighborhood two months ago, but I had one or two good friends that I hung out with.
My friends, Thane, Rose and I were walking home that Friday and I remember thinking how breath taking everything looked in its entire fall splendor. Rose was the first of our group to turn into her drive way. Thane and I waved goodbye at her as we continued walking. It was about three-fourths of a mile to Thane’s house, and I lived just two blocks behind him. We were laughing and talking about the history project that our teacher would start assigning Monday morning.
Thane was hoping he’d get Davy Crockett while I didn’t care what the teacher chose for me to research. We soon reached Thane’s house and I watched as he ran towards the front porch. I was just a few feet from his driveway when the sound of screeching tires and doors slamming open grabbed my attention. Everything started happening so fast.
An earth brown van stopped beside me and several huge men surrounded me. I could hear Thane yelling my name as I fought against them. But something deep down within me told me two things would happen: Thane wouldn’t reach me in time and it would be a very long time before I would ever see my mom or my friends again. I was no match against the men who seemed to be professionals. They grabbed me and tossed me into the back of the van.
The doors slammed shut and from the small back window I watched as Thane’s form grew smaller and smaller. I was scared, what nine year old girl wouldn’t be, but for some reason I knew that these men wasn’t planning on physically harming me in any way. But at that age I didn’t know that I had something that was irreplaceable, something they planned on killing. And that was my wolf.
For ten and a half years, I was chained to a steel wall in their basement. My chain had just enough slack for me to reach the little bathroom where I would shower or take care of business. Aside from not being with my mother and having my freedom, they made sure that I didn’t want for anything. By the time my fifteenth birthday rolled around, I was passing college level classes, speaking fluently in French, German, Italian, and Spanish, and I was a black belt in martial arts.
Every morning when I ate, I would have to take four pills. I asked one of the men that took me once what the pills were, but all he told me was that it was the cure for a disease that I had been born with, a disease that would ruin my life once I turned twenty. I was young and uninformed about who and what I was. I didn’t know that your wolf was a blessing and not a curse, not a disease that had to be eradicated. So I took the pills like I was told and never knew the toll of what it was doing to me and my wolf.
It wasn’t that long after I turned nineteen that my world changed again. I was in the basement going over a homework assignment that I had been given when the silence was shattered by a piercing wolf howl. The five men rushed up the stairs and I heard the door slam shut. Concentrating hard, I could hear what sounded like seventy to eighty wolves outside. Feeling confused and nervous, I laid down on my small bed, for once wishing that I was home with my mother.
As the hours passed, I let my thoughts drift. And I found myself curious as to what I looked like. In the back of my memories, I had a faded image of what I was like when I was taken, but nothing else. The men hadn’t allowed any form of glass in the basement. I was wondering if I looked like my mom or like the father I never knew when I heard the basement door being kicked in.
I rushed from my bed to my hiding spot just behind my dresser, but it didn’t hide everything. My chain was still in plain sight when a double handful of people I didn’t know entered my room. I heard them talking, but I blocked them out. As much as I wanted to be rid of this place, I didn’t trust them. I moved just a breathe of an inch, but it was enough for the chain to start moving.
The voices became excited and several faces appeared in front of me. The dresser disappeared and a man was slowly undoing the cuffs that bound me. Feeling his eyes on me, I slowly raised mine to meet his. He spoke softly and slowly. “We’re here for you Callie Malloy. We’re taking you home.”