A.N. The first thing that I would like to do is to thank everyone who had been voting, commenting, adding my story their lists, and even reading. Because of all of you, Triplets has over 5k readers! That is honestly crazy to me. When I had first started writing this it was because nobody was doing what I wanted to see and read so I decided to do it myself and now I am sitting here typing this while being teary eyed because I opened Wattpad today to 100+ notifications and almost double the amount of reads I had last time I checked. So, again, thank you very much, everyone!
Anyways, this chapter is special because I thought that maybe Ryan should make a friend.
RYAN'S POV:
Today was the day I was finally going to explore the woods in the backyard.
I have wanted to do so for a while now, I just haven't gotten time to do it until now, because everyone is doing their own thing.
I quickly pull on a pair of workout pants with pockets and the loose long sleeve since the fall is starting to make is cold now. I then put on some joggers and start packing my bag.
My bag was a normal backpack, with normal things.
Watter bottles, first aid kit, granola bars, knives, a gun, extra ammo...
Okay.
Maybe everything isn't normal to have...
Anyways, I grab my earbuds as well as my phone before I start walking out of my room, down the stairs, and outside to the back yard.
When I reach the beginning of the woods, I am suddenly glad that I decided to bring a first aid kit because it doesn't look like anyone has been through the woods in years. I will definitely end up with some type of injury after today. Even if it is just a couple of scratches from the trees.
When I was a kid and we lived in France, we used to have a small pond in the backyard. Behind the pond was a small number of trees, but we all used to call it the forest and the lake.
Granted, the pond was much too small for us to actually swim in, and it was disgusting in every which way, we loved it. And we did swim in it. The nice woman who ran the orphanage, Susan, would always scold us for going in there when we weren't meant to.
The small forest, however, was what we could be in for hours. Most of us played hide and seek as well as tag in the woods. We learned how to climb trees and make things out of the sticks we found. I remember my twins and I decided we were going to make a covering with sticks so we could sleep out there when Susan refused to give us a cookie. It rained that night, and we ran inside immediately.
Many people came to the orphanage and wanted to adopt one of my twins or I.
But that was the problem.
They only wanted one of us, and I wasn't about to let that happen.
We begged Susan to let us never get adopted without all three of us going out of the system at the same time to the same place.
She only agreed if we picked up on extra chores and started to care for the babies.
We quickly accepted the offer.
Then I, as well as a ton of other girls, were kidnapped from the orphanage.
I still don't know how they got in.
Shortly after I was kidnapped Susan had found my twins a home.
Arlo.
My younger brothers quickly enlisted Arlo's help to get me out of the French Mafia.
They finally found me after two years and blah blah blah.
My attention snaps up when I hear a stick crack near me.
It was then I realized I have probably been walking for a couple of hours and was now in a small clearing with a stream running along it. There were wildflowers everywhere, some of which I noticed were poisonous, and some of which were medically proven to help do stuff medical stuff.
However, what caught my attention most was a bush that was rustling and shuffling.
(A.N. Ya'll, take you guesses on what it is here. I wanna know what you guys are thinking)
I slowly creep up to the bush to see what it was.
The first thing I saw, being a trained assassin, was that there was blood. A lot of blood.
I continued forward a little bit more quickly now, just to come face to face with a greyish brown furball with mesmerizing greyish blue eyes.
Like me.
I was looking at a wolf dog.
Not fully wolf, but also not fully dog.
From what I could tell it was pretty injured. Its leg had a giant gash on it and was losing blood pretty quickly.
I decided to move quickly, and cautiously because I don't exactly want to die because my dumb ass wanted to help a hurt wolf, I grab my first aid kit from my backpack.
I flip it open to get the disinfectant.
Then, I look at the dog.
I coo lowly, "Hey buddy. Can I help you please? I just want to make sure you don't get an infection or die at all." I hold up the bottle of alcohol. "I will put of this on there, which may hurt a little bit at first, but it is to make sure it gets clean." I grab some gauze out of the first aid kit. "And then I will put some of this on it."
I look to the wolf dog, which probably understood nothing of what I just said, with hopeful eyes.
I see him turn his eyes downward and bow his head little bit.
Permission?
Progress.
When he lifts his head again, I close my eyes and bow mine a little.
A mutual sign of respect.
I work quickly, after I pet his head a little bit. As I poor the alcohol on his wounds he whimpers loudly, and I do my best to distract him from that by petting his head and neck.
When I am satisfied with how clean the wound is, I dry it before wrapping some gauze around it.
When I finish, I look up to the dog. He was watching me the whole time.
I inch my hand closer to him slowly, the way you are meant to with dogs, and put my palm face down for him to smell. When he does, he sniffs for a while before deciding I was harmless and resting his chin on my hand.
I laugh because I thought I was about to die for a second there.
I go back into my backpack and grab a granola bar, which was the only thing I had, and open the wrapper and offer it to him. He still seems cautious, but he took it anyway.
As he munches happily, I look into his eyes.
"Hey buddy, how would you like it if I give you a name, huh? Cause you know, I would like to see you more often, and if I want to do that you need a name, don't you?"
I get no acknowledgement from the apparently starving wolf dog.
"I'm thinking... Ace. How does that sound? Do you like Ace?"
He perks up a little when I say his new name. He edges himself closer to me and then puts his giant head in my lap.
Since I was sitting crisscrossed, his head took up all of my lap.
(A.N. Guys I had to look up other ways to say 'criss cross applesauce'. I am still a preschooler istg)
He lets out a big exhale. I laugh. "Yeah, alright. We will call you Ace. Do you have a family, or like, a pack?"
He glances up at me before looking back out to the meadow.
"Well, in case you were wondering, I have a family. A pack, I suppose."
I am for real having a conversation with a wild wolf dog.
Oh well.
He is mine now.
For the rest of the day, we sit in silence.
At some point, I ended up laying completely at the ground and Ace ended up sprawled completely on top of me.
We both just listened to the bird's chirping.
♤♡◇♧
I, somehow, ended up falling asleep.
I mean, can you really blame me? I am surrounded by the birds that are making music with the trickling sound from the stream. Not to mention I have a huge, warm fluffball laying on top of me, also sleeping.
However, this didn't stop the shot of panic that ran through me when I realized I had been out all day since before anyone in the house was awake and they were probably having heart attacks.
I took out my phone, which barely had any service, and noticed the hundreds of missed calls and text messages.
What kind of an idiot leaves their phone on silent when they go hiking. Especially after not telling them where you went.
I nudge the sleeping dog to wake him up. "Hey, Ace. I have to get going. I will try to come back out here soon to check on that leg of yours, okay?"
He reluctantly gets off of me and stands, stretching himself a little in the process.
When I finally stand up, I realize just how big ace is compared to me.
His greyish brown fur covered head reached up to my waist, maybe a little bit above. He looked well fed, but not enough to make me feel good about leaving him here, even if he is a wild animal. Since it was fall, his coat of fur was decently thin, but you could tell his winter coat was slowly starting to come in.
I start walking, and with a start, I realize that the wolf dog is following me.
I turn towards my new friend. "Hey Ace. You can't come to my home with me. This is your home. This forest is where you live. And plus, if you came to my house, everyone would probably freak out." I was crouched down, so we were level with each other. He stares into my eyes for a while before nudging my shoulder with his head. This makes me lose my balance and start to laugh.
"Bye buddy. I will see you soon." I kiss the top of his head before I start wandering back to where I assume the house is.
He still follows me.
I let it be for the time being, that way we could meet up closer to each other than the meadow.
All too soon, which was really only about an hour, I got to where the trees grew a little bit further apart and I started to see the house in the distance.
"Okay this is where you really have to stop, mister." I tell Ace in a fake stern tone. "I promise to visit. This is where I live in case you ever need me, okay?" I look down at his injured leg. "And try to stay off of that thing, will you?"
He gives a small bark in reply to me, which causes me to smile.
I start to walk away, and this time there are no footsteps following me.
When I finally reached the house, I was about to open the backdoor when it was opened for me by Lorenzo, who immediately crushed me into a hug.
"You don't get to do that. You don't get to just disappear without telling anyone or leaving a note." He pulls back from the hug to take in my appearance, which I am sure made him less than impressed because I was more than likely covered in mud and dried leaves, as well as some of the occasional scratch from a tree branch. "Are you okay? Or did you get hurt? Where were you?"
I laugh a little bit. "Enzo, I was just exploring the woods a little bit and then found myself in a little meadow that was so pretty I ended up falling asleep there."
My brother beams at me for some reason.
And that is when I realize I just called him Enzo for the first time instead of using his full name.
He pulls me into another short hug before leading me inside.
"Who was that?" One of my older brother questions from where they all are in the living room.
Alessandro is on the phone yelling in Italian, Marco is pacing like a maniac, Xavier and Matteo are staring at absolutely nothing, Xander seems to have punched a couple too many walls, Christopher is going through and sorting medical supplies, I would guess in case I got hurt, and my lovely twins look like they could be literally anywhere else at the moment.
Marco is the one to see me first. He pulls me into a hug that nearly suffocates me and then proceeds to give me a once over to be sure I didn't get hurt.
While the middle brother was rushing over to me, he got everyone else's attention. Now I was the center of the room.
"Don't you dare ever pull that shit again you hear me? I was so scared. I thought I lost you." Marco continued to rant, and most brothers ended up nodding in agreement.
I chuckle at the concern. "I am sorry for worrying you guys. I went to explore the woods and walked myself to a meadow. It was so peaceful I ended up falling asleep."
Alessandro walks towards me now.
He unexpectantly pulls me into a hug. "I am glad your safe kiddo."
The hug is over almost as soon as it started.
Then, I am practically passed around to each of my brothers and they all hug me. They either gripe about my minor scratches of the mud and leaves all over my clothing and hair.
Xander gives me a short hug before giving me some advice about the forest.
"Be careful. Those woods are full of those wolf dog things. Not a huge fan of humans."
I raise my eyebrow at him. "Really? I ran into one and he was quite friendly."
The room goes pin drop silent.