Chapter Text
Reina called the police while me and Debra struggled to move a bookcase to block the window. The motion sensor lights flickered back on from the outside. How me and Debra missed them when the car pulled up was beyond me.
Debra gave a started yep falling back at the light. I held tight to the bookcase as it tilted forward everything falling out of it. Luckily it was practically empty. Debra got back up and we got the window blocked. The rain was beating hard outside, I couldn't distinguish any sounds.
Debra had fallen back to the floor silently crying and Reina was on the phone giving our address her voice shaking. I headed to the back. One of the Kitchen drawers had a child lock on it. Undoing it I moved a bottle of bleach and grabbed the key hidden under it. Heading to the mud room I unlocked my grandpa's gun cabinet pulling out his rife. It was old, big and loaded.
I was just barely nine when he taught me to shoot it. Back then the kick was so bad that I got knocked off my feet every time. Flipping on the lights I grabbed the back-door handle, my hands were shaking. Sucking in a breath I opened the door.
The rain hit my skin like stones and the wind flung my hair around into my eyes. I paid no mind to it heading to the side railing. It was so black and the storm so loud. I steadied myself, gun poised on my shoulders. I surveyed the area around me my eyes getting use to the darkness recognizing the outlines of trees and the shrubbery at the edge. I saw no movement in the space between me and the woods. There was a slight paranoia that the wolf had went around the other side of the house and was behind me. If I was an animal I would dash to the opposite side of the woods. Through those hunting me off.
I ran to the other side of the deck.
My eyes had now completely adjusted to the darkness it was earlier to see and distinguishes what I was looking at. My heart stopped when I saw the glisten of eyes reflecting the light of the kitchen and formal dining room. It sat at the edge of the woods looking into the formal dining room, completely oblivious of me on the porch.
I pulled up my gun. I could feel my grandpa placing my hands correctly, securely over the weapon. His voice in my ear. Two eyes open, keep your target in focus, and always remember the weight of the bullet, it was about to end a life.
The gunshot blend into the storm. The wolf moved fast, into the woods and out of sight. I wasn't even sure if I had gotten him. Relaxing the gun, I waited, my whole front was completely soaked when I headed back in. I put the gun back locking the case when I did and headed to the front desk. Reina and Debra sat at one of the tables of the formal dining room, Debra tense with a cigarette in her mouth and Reina wide eyes and still on the phone.
I took the phone and explained the situation to the women on the other end. After a few more minutes an officer arrived, and I explained the situation to him too. He wasn't happy when I told him I had shot at the animal. After about ten minutes Mr. Walker had shown up after his boys told him they had seen the cruiser pull into our driveway. He gave me a pat on the back and an 'at-a girl' when I told him I had shot at the animal. Both my cell phone and home phone rang one being Lizbeth who heard from Mr. Walker's boys about the police cruiser and the other being from Mrs. Yang who head from Carson who had gotten the text from Lizbeth. After I had explained to Mrs. Yang what had happened and that we were fine I got a text from Brett asking what had happened and if I was all right. After about twenty minutes Mrs. Sims was at our door after getting a call from Mrs. Walker, informing her that the police had been called and her husband was here. I again explained what had happened, she neither approved or condemned my actions on shooting at the animal. After about an hour and a half we had made a police report the woods had been checked with no results and Mr. Walker had boarded up the window with some old plie wood. When everyone had left I was irritated, tired and chaffing from sitting in wet clothes. I turned off my phone not wanting to talk to anyone else that night when I finally went to my room.
I woke up more tired then the night before and when I turned on my phone I had 28 unread text and 15 missed calls. Several of them from people who I know I hadn't given my number to. With a sigh I tossed my phone on the bed and headed to the kitchen, with everything that happened last night I hadn't eaten since the pudding cup at the hospital.
Poring a bowl of cereal, I sat at the table, loss in thought. Who was the guy in the car? Where had the wolf run off too? Why had Debra come back to Valley View? What was going on in my life and when will I get it back to normal.
Adding more cereal to my milk I propped up my leg examining my cast. I'm sure Mr. Roff will be calling asking about what happened last night. He'd probably be upset that I had been out in the rain. For the most part the cast didn't seem to damage, just dirty.
"Your awake." Reina said taking the seat next to me. She looked just as tired as I did, and she had a bad case of bed head. "What are they going to do about the wolf?"
I chugged my milk from the bowl before answering her. Mrs. Sims had sent her to bed when she arrived, so she missed out on most of the talk. "They are going to send some police along with a few skilled hunters into the woods in a couple days when they got some people. Until then we shouldn't go outside unless we have too."
"That's what we've been doing. I really wish this wolf would go away, you saw how close he was to the house. What did the police say about the guys who broke our window?"
"Probably just a couple of kids wanting a good laugh. We probably won't find out who."
"Do you think it was your boyfriends' friends all upset your hanging out with him all the time."
"What are you taking about?"
"The boy your tutoring." She smirked poring herself a bowl of cereal.
Bret flashed into my mind then Kyle and the other football players who hung around her lunch table. "I'm just tutoring him besides he has a crush on Nessie."
"Your red hair friend? The one that was here with those two guys?"
"Yea."
"Hmm, your probably right." I made a face at her at the slight jab.
"Hurry up and finish getting ready, Carson's going to be here soon."
"I still have to go to school after last night!"
"Of course, its not like the rock hit you." I got up and put my bowl in the sink and went to go get dressed.
With the new cast it was a breeze putting on some shorts and much easier to walk too, no need for the crutches. I had my stuff gathered and headed to the front living room where Debra was. She was still in her night clothes a cigarette in hand looking out the nonbroken window.
"How long have you been up?" I asked.
"An hour or so, the officer told me last night that they would have someone come today with a tracker from animal control. They're going to see if they can find where it likes to rest, who knows we might find out that you got it."
"If anything, maybe last night will scare it back to where it came from." I got up walking to the boarded-up window. The bookshelf we had moved in front of it last night was water damaged and the junk it held had been tousled back into it.
The rock that had been thrown through the window sat under a couple books and picture frame. Wait, why was it under everything hadn't the cop looked at it. Pulling it out I looked it over and written over the jagged edge was a threat.
'Keep quite or else bitch!'
"What the hell! Did you see this?" I gave the rock to Debra, she held it tight with both hands three deep lines forming on her forehead. "Did we not show the cop this last night."
"Well Rhonda I think we were all more concerned about the wolf. There was a lot of people in here last night too. Besides I still think this was just an elaborate prank." She sat the rock down, looking back out the window.
"Well I did too but that's a threat…did the cop say he was going to be here at the crack of dawn or are you expecting someone else?" I was getting irritated at how passive she was being about the message.
"No, I'm just keeping my eye on the lookout and I think your looking to much into the message. It was probably some teenage boys wanting a good laugh and one of them thought 'hey, let's make them really shake in their boots.' Unless you got some big secret your about to spill." She turned her head back to the window. "Your friends here."
I rolled my eyes grabbing my bag and yelling for Reina. "No, I don't have any secrets I'm about to spill but when the cop and track comes today give it to them, we'll have it on file at the very least if these teenage boys everyone keeps blaming do it again."
Lizbeth and Carson had a million questions for me when I got into the car. I went over the story again but this time I took more pride in telling it and the two of them were engrossed with my words. Lizbeth gasped when I came to the part where I shot at the wolf.
When we got to school, I heard the murmuring of my classmates, some looked at me while others talked amongst themselves. The whole wolves in the woods had taken the school by storm, there where notices on the wall, school bus pick ups had changed and now with my incident last night a new mix of fear.
Sure, everyone had seen the deer cam footage and sure the cops had sent out warning to the parents and the school had discouraged kids using the walking trails or bike paths but now there was proof. This animal didn't seem to be bothered about getting close to people's homes. I wondered if Kyles was rethinking his dare.
"New cast, how's it feel?" Brett was at my locker a showy grin on his face. I stuck my leg out showing it off.
"You never know how amazing it is to be able to bend your leg at the knee till you can't."
"I wouldn't know despite my many years of football I've never had a broken bone. Can I be the first to sign."
"You'll be the second, my sister signed it yesterday under the foot."
"Normally I don't settle for second, but I'll make an exception." He bent down to his knees a marker already in his hand and signed the top. "Now that's a scare." She looked at him, he was at height with the long white scare that started above her knee and disappeared under her shorts.
"Should have seen it days after it happened, hard to believe that's all that's left." He brought his finger to it. I tensed, half of me wondering what he was doing the other half thinking I hadn't had a chance to shave.
I pulled my leg away and he looked up at me his face redden. "Sorry, I got a pretty intense scare." He lifted his arm up to show the underside of his bicep a jagged red line going up. "Camping accident with my grandparents back when I was ten."
I gave him a smile picturing Bret just seven years younger messing around while his grandpa's back was turned. "Come on I'll walk you to class." He held out his hand for my bag, but I kept it on my shoulder.
"You don't have to anymore; with the new cast I don't need my crutches."
He dropped his hand down awkwardly. "Huh, I guess your right."
There was a pause then I spoke, "We can still walk together thought, no rule against that." The two headed to first period Brett had finally brought up last night and I went into the story again. I remembered what Reina has said this morning about Brett being my boyfriend.
I flushed at the thought. Brett was a popular senior and my closeness to him was simply him feeling sorry for me at the start of the school year morphing into him piggybacking off my friendship with Nessie on top of his need for a tutor.
Our interaction had been nothing deeper than that and to fantasies about anything other than that was building hope on a seesaw foundation.
It wasn't till lunch that I realized that Nessie and her family weren't there. Lizbeth was wondering if maybe they had all gotten the first wave of cold season and speculated the likelihood of Nessie's birthday party still taking place this Saturday.
I had nearly forgotten. With the cast, the wolf and Debra the invite had been placed on the back burner. I wanted to go, and there was no real reason why I couldn't aside form my inability to get a gift. But with Debra she might not want me to go she did have a fit about me going to Cleveland with Nessie and Bella, though she did meet the two of them for a second the other day.
"I think the party is still on," I say. "I saw Nessie and Edward at the hospital the other day when I was getting my cast off the seemed fine then."
"Why were they in the hospital?" Asked Reanne.
"The same reason she was in there the last time, Nessie likes playing music for the patients." Reanne made a snooty scuff and I rolled my eyes at her, Brett nudged me sharing a knowing look.
I thought back to Nessie and the party, I really wanted to go. I liked being around Nessie for one she did good work in getting the attention off me with her party this Saturday the news about the wolf will eventually die down and with any luck the tracker will find it and it wouldn't be a problem for her.
The second I just liked being around Nessie, her personally meshed well with mine. Thinking about it it was mixture of Lizbeth a bit of Reina and a dash of Carson all in one. Enthusiasm and childness with an underlining maturity that peeked through every now and then.
I would go to this party, I had been cooped up in my house for to long, limited by my injury and my own necessary isolation. I should be allowed to have some fun.