Savior of the Wolves

Jess’s POV

I had always believed that my mom was killed in an auto accident. To finally see the truth, I should have had closure of some kind, but I only felt rage. Rage so strong that after seeing what they did to my mom, fear seemed inconsequential.

I needed desperately to talk to Emma. She knew something more. She saw something that made her cry. But then I was rushed downstairs with the others because we couldn’t turn into our wolves.

I understood that made us a liability. We would be the prey to those creatures. We certainly couldn’t stand against them yet. And the other wolves, well, they’d be too busy trying to protect us.

We needed to hide and let them our brothers and sisters fight as they were trained to do.

I hadn’t seen Aiden or Josh. I didn’t understand the link exactly. I mean it was explained to me but how would I truly understand how vulnerable they were without the thing I’d never experienced.

Somehow this evil species has taken a strength of the wolves and annihilated so many of them because it was something that they depended on...for generations. They cut off their crucial communication.

As the door was shut behind me, I could still hear them warning the newcomers that the links were down.

I placed my hand on the door, wanting to be out there, not hiding down here. I knew it was unsafe to want to fight a species I had no strength against. It would be suicide. But I didn’t want everyone up there facing these monsters without me.

If I was a wolf, why wasn’t I changing?

I placed my hand flat on the door, wanting to be on the other side of it...but knowing no matter the pain, I had to go down below.

I turned around, placing my hand on the rail and took a step. I instantly became lightheaded. I clutched the handrail with all my might just before I lost my balance. My elbow slammed into the wall as I choked on a cry. I slid down the wall slowly, still dangling with my hand on the rail above me. I sat there, my head swimming and slowly laid my head back against the wall and closed my eyes. I felt horribly ill. Energy left my body as though it were blood, and I had a fatal wound.

Pain engulfed me and I wanted to cry out for Sophie. For help. But I wouldn’t. I would scare the little ones and I had no idea what my yell could do to expose this hidden room.

So I sat there...and felt every deep breath get more and more difficult to make.

“What is happening?” I winced.

I instantly regretted that mere thought when the bones in my legs began to break. It was slow. The sound rang in my ears like a large tree being bent beyond its breaking point...little by little until “snap.”

“Oh my God,” I sobbed, biting down deeply into my bunched-up shirt. The pain was so intense that I thought I would shatter all of my teeth from the pressure.

My pain grew and my crying was uncontrollable. I was trying to catch my breath between the whimpers, and I knew I had to get out of there. The pain was building by the second. I would give away this location if I didn’t find a way to get out.

I reached up behind me and turned the doorknob with all the strength I had left. I opened it and slid with my hands through the opening, dragging my legs behind me, and lightly pushed the hidden door until it clicked. I was exposed now, in the open office and I knew I had to get far away from this room. I kept sliding with my hands as my ankle on my other leg began separating right in front of me. It looked like a Rubix cube turning under my skin, bones moving, I saw corners protruding and my vision began to go in and out. I became delusional, whimpering as I drug myself into the hall and into a room across the hall. I didn’t know what this room was, and it didn’t matter. It was away from the other room and the secret door.

My heartbeat sounded slow, like the drip of a faucet. I feared that it was on the verge of stopping, unable to withstand the pain.

I refused to scream. So, I just sobbed and begged for it to end. My tears were ever-growing as both arms began to spasm.

I was fading out. I could only hope someone would find me in time. I laid my head on the hard cold floor so that I wouldn’t concuss myself if I fell. I couldn’t hold my head upright any longer.

If hell had levels, I was racing into stage two. The pain intensified and swallowed me as though it took the form of an inescapable void. I oddly felt the tickle of my tears running over the side of my nose. My only comfort was my cheek now on the hard cold floor.

And that’s when I heard the sound.

A horrifying scissoring of teeth.

I held my breath through tormenting breaks occurring all over my body, hoping it wouldn’t find me.

I heard a howl outside. It was deafening and aggressive. And it was too far away to help me or hear my feeble attempts at saving myself. But one of these “things” was already in here, so I would scream with my last breath to try to save myself if this thing found me.

I pushed my palms onto the floor, trying to pull myself, but the spasms had turned into more breaks. My right arm twisted into something unrecognizable, and I crashed back onto the floor.

I knew this was where I would be discovered. I hadn’t made it far enough into the room to hide. So I bit down on my hand, trying to muffle a scream while still trying to not break every single bone in my hand from the sheer pain.

Then I heard it even closer. How did it get here so fast? A thing that killed my mother. I wanted to stand and confront it, not lay here, writhing in pain, unable to do anything. Mom had protected me from these things so many years ago and they found me anyway. I wanted my mom’s death to not be in vain. I wanted to protect me...for her. For what she did for me...because she loved me that completely.

I saw a shadow across the floor, and I knew I was found. I turned my head slightly and was looking straight on at the most hideous thing I had ever set my eyes upon and refused to cry in its presence.

My left arm began to break, and I knew holding my screams would no longer protect me. It found me. So I screamed…

I was shocked as the most powerful howl escaped my lips.

But as the thing came closer, I realized that it was too late. It had its cold black eyes targeted at me, and its speed increased at finding me. Spit was dripping from its teeth as it lunged at me.

My arms couldn’t defend me. If I was shifting, it wasn’t complete, and I laid there helpless as I felt its teeth slice through my neck.

----chapter continued...