Taym
Don't Cry Wolf
“There’s something out there. Something I don’t want you to meet. I haven’t the slightest clue what it is… Only use your powers when you must, Taym, control yourself.”
No matter how hard I’d try,I couldn’t seem to shake off Rick’s warning. I needed to think, and to nobody’s surprise I couldn’t. Not while Rita and I were in the same room.
“Sixty eight dents and thirty seven bloody scratches!” Complained Leah’s sister tapping the rough wooden table top furiously and breaking the silence as we rested in the town’s diner “So you aren’t going to tell me, are you? My car is in the intensive care unit, and you’re still not going to say anything?”
“Rita, it’s just maintenance! And we already told you, we don’t know!” Leah exasperatedly said, her head resting on her hand.
“Doesn’t your cousin know anything about this? What about the research?” Rita pressed on, rubbing her forehead.
“Rick warned me about this but –” I began to say before Rita cut me off.
“He –what?!” She barked, almost getting off her seat, her fists clenched, “And you went on with this, like some school fieldtrip?!”
“Rita! Calm down! I wasn’t sure at first, but now that we’ve actually encountered him I am. I caught a glimpse of this guy –the day we rushed out your café.” Leah cut in desperately.
“Wait… what?” Rita closed her eyes and took in a deep breath. “This is just getting worse and worse…”
“Taym, this is beginning to escalate! It’s not going to end well!” Leah hastily hissed in my head, and for the first time after that wild chase our eyes met. At that moment, I had finally uncovered the source of my troubled feelings. She was in deep danger, and I wasn’t able to save her.
“That’s it. We’re going back home.” Rita tyrannically declared.
“What?! No, Rita! We’ve gone through all this; we can’t just give up now!” Leah frantically attempted calming her down.
“Leah, your safety is at stake. This is for your own good; you’ve got to trust me on this.” Rita coldly said, unmoved.
“Taym! Need some help here!” Leah’s anxious voice in my mind hauled me into action.
I turned to face Rita, “How did you do it?” I irrelevantly wondered, my mind racing, “How did you do it, Rita?”
“Did what?” She abruptly said.
“You know! Leah and I both have special powers, and we couldn’t stop him. You thought of something brilliant so quickly and you saved us. So how did you do it, Rita?”
She sat back in her chair, and raised an eyebrow at me, “Are you mocking me?”
“No! Seriously!” I exclaimed.
She flipped her hair to the back conceitedly, as I caught a glimpse of Leah’s wide grin,“Well, let me enlighten you, kid –”
“Your dinner is ready, folks!” said a rushed waiter rapidly throwing steaks onto our table.
“I guess I’m going to have to tell you right after we eat!” Rita murmured, slightly smiling and casually went on, “You got the address, Taym?”
“Yeah! Of course I do!” I hurriedly said, hardly able to believe how quickly she’d changed her mind.
I unfolded a crippled paper I had previously stuffed into my pockets and took one closer look at it.
“13th Hickory Lane. This address better be right, I am definitely in no mood to pay that postman another visit.” I groaned.
We dug into our meals, and laughed at the old thick clerk who had given us a lecture on how to properly write an address.
The next sixty minutes were probably the most relaxed i'd felt today, until we got to Rita's car, and started all over again...
“Sixty eight dents and thirty seven bloody scratches.” Rita once again babbled as she circled the vehicle for the seventh time at the mechanic’s, “You guys owe me big time. All we got fixed were the mirrors…”
“Alright Rita, let’s just get over with this!” Leah pushed her sister in, in attempt to avoid any more nagging.
Considering the size of the town, we expectedly got to our destination swiftly and there it was, Pet Care.
I stepped out of the Toyota, and as much as I tried to deny it, I couldn’t help but notice the eeriness in the air.
"Alright, this is it! Lets go!" Leah said, passing by me. I held her by the shoulders and spun her around to face me.
"Where the hell do you think you're going?"
She looked at me wearing baffled face, "Inside, of course!"
"No! You're staying in the car."
"I thought we were a team here! We've got to find him together!"
I lowered my voice and locked eyes with her, "Leah, what if he was as evil as the other guy we met on the road? Im not taking any chances losing you."
"Oh, so you can risk your life, and i cant?"
"I can manage, i've been living like this all my life. Dont worry."
"Oh, hell yeah you can manage! The way you 'managed' on the road eh?" Rita loudly exclaimed, snorting, from behind the steering wheel, "The boy's got a point, Leah, get back in here!"
I prodded her into the car, leaving her with no other choice.
Almost the instant I walked in, dozens of dogs began barking at me, birds began to angrily chirp at me, and cats hissed as I walked past, “Excuse me, anyone here?”
“I’ll be with you in a minute!” Exclaimed a strong feminine voice from the back of the clinic leaving me aware of the fact we thought it was a guy all along.
“Yes, dear? I see you haven’t got any animals?” She readily said, smacking on a pair of plastic gloves.
“Er… Actually I was looking for a Swallow…” I awkwardly said eyeing her from top to bottom, and taking her age into account, she couldn’t be the one.
“Sorry, but we’re a vet here; we don’t sell any birds.” She said, her tone dense with disappointment.
“No! That’s not what I meant! I meant my friend, Swallow.” I hastily said, giving it my best shot.
“Oh! Alright… I didn’t know Scott had any friends, but well… you’re ought to know, he is where he always is –behind the hill, the woods!”
Great. What better place would an animal hated person such as me be, looking for someone I didn’t think I could point out, than the woods?
“Okay, thanks.” And with that I stepped out and quickly walked up the hill towards the woods on the other side of the road, completely disregarded by Leah and Rita who were too deep in conversation to notice me.
My eyes were wide open constantly scanning the area, and my ears listening hard for any unusual movement.
At first, all I heard was the rustling of the leaves as the wind blew past them and their cracking noise as I landed my steps.
All I saw was the back and forth swaying of the branches over the breeze and my Syrascale’s light grow stronger as I moved forward.
All so natural until what I most dreaded rocked my eardrums.
I suddenly stopped and held my breath, but the deep rough constant resonance triggered goose bumps and sent shivers all over my body.
Growling.
I slowly turned around –nothing too quick, just in case, and there it was.
Its mouth was partly opened, drooling as its tongue wriggling within.
Its entirely black eyes were fixed on me as it lay low; in fact, five feet of its brown coat lay low, all ready to pounce at me any second.
I took a step back, but the wolf wasn’t going to let go of me easy.
As soon as I moved my right leg to the back, its full body sprang to life and tore down the distance between us at massive speeds.
I knew there wasn’t a point to try running, and I hadn’t but one alternative.
I felt my right pocket begin to heat up pretty fast as I raised both my hands and jerked them to the left sending the vicious beast crashing into a tree trunk, whimpering.
If only I had the time to admire my skills.
Before I was even able to blink, an immense weight jerked itself onto me, pushing me back a few steps and leaving me lying by an old log.
I looked around for the attacker.
Nothing.
I tried getting up but as I did two pairs of paws forced me back down, one of which was lightly wounded.
I dared look up, and stared into the faces of two wolves. Their fangs were a dirty yellow and their breaths secreted a tormenting stench of their previous victims. Their tongues sticking out, slowly oozing and dripping drool onto my shirt.
This was not the way I pictured myself die, definitely not.
It was then when her voice softly rang in my head, "Where are you? Please be safe!"
I closed my eyes hard and began to channel my energy in order to knock them away, when i heard an odd human voice literally almost animalistic, shout something that made absolutely no sense to me.
I forcefully peeked around me, and to my surprise, there were the two wolves resting by my legs like adorable innocent rabbits.
“What the…” I sat up, and anxiously tried dragging myself away from them; however, they didn’t budge.
I lifted my head and just a few inches away from my nose was a tough built manly hand outstretched towards me.
I could still feel the now burning gem in my pocket and that was when all the puzzle pieces began to fall into place.
I took his hand, and got up noticing the shaggy long sandy hair lining his cheerful face.
“So I’m guessing yours has got to do with animals?” I told him, my eyes fixed on the glowing sandy stone hanging around his neck.
“And yours has got to do with makin’em fly?” He said, a heavy smile outstretched across his muscular features.
“Taym Liptom.”” I said, nodding.
“Scott Swallow.”