The Silver Dagger

Aiyana

Dear Reader:

Thank you for choosing my story. This one came about because I started getting a lot of advertisements for werewolf stories and I am easily sucked into a good storyline. However, the apps I had to download to finish the stories were very irritating, so I just decided to write my own and share it here on Wattpad. It's the first story I've written about (a) Earth and (b) the current (or nearly) time and (c) a place I'm familiar with.  

 I have a challenge for you. See if you can figure out (1) what state the story takes place in (2) what city and University and finally (3) what dorm. Good luck with that (he he). [And no telling sister of mine!]

Aiyana squeezed both brakes as hard as she could and braced herself so she wouldn't go flying over the handlebars. Her front tire stopped just shy of the door of the shiny black sports car that had suddenly rolled into her path. 

It wasn't the first time she'd nearly been hit and it probably wouldn't be the last. It was one of the pitfalls of living in a college town with thousands of young drivers and very few bike lanes.

 The driver, a spoiled frat boy no doubt, belatedly turned his head to check for on-coming traffic and looked momentarily surprised to find a girl on a red bike right next to his door. He grinned like she was absurdly lucky to be in his presence. She glared. According to her volleyball friends, her glare alone could block a spike. It could apparently deflate puffed-up males too. The boy quickly turned to look the other way, then drove across traffic right in front of a pick-up. The pick-up driver slammed on his brakes and turned the wheel, and for a moment, all Aiyana could see was a big silver grill coming right at her. To her belated relief, the truck's brakes worked like they were supposed to and the driver managed to stay on his side of the road.

Although she would heal quickly if she did get injured, she was still a little shaken when she reached the animal hospital. It wasn't her day to work - she only worked Friday nights and weekends - but it wasn't often they had a werewolf patient and one as seriously injured as the one in the back. To normal humans she was a pre-vet student, but in the werewolf world she was in training to be a pack doctor. 

Doc Brown, her thirty-something mentor, whose name fit him well with his brown hair, brown eyes, medium-toned skin, and his tendency to wear brown shirts, was standing behind the girl manning the front desk, perusing a file. He glanced at Aiyana over the top of his reading glasses as she came in and shook his head. From his calm look she gathered the wolf was still sleeping, not that he'd died. 

"Can I see him?"

He nodded. "I'm glad you're here. Talk to him. See if you can get a response. I haven't had much time today."

If the girl at the desk thought it was odd that Doc told her to talk to a wild wolf, she didn't show it.  Aiyana and Doc were the only werewolves who currently worked at the hospital, so they had to be careful.  Humans still hadn't figured out how to treat each other and they were all the same species.  How would they treat people who technically weren't?

She pushed through the door that led to the hallway past all the examination rooms and surgery rooms to the wild animal recovery room at the very back of the hospital. To her surprise, Dr. Richardson was standing near the cage where the injured wolf lay. The humans thought Doc Brown took care of wild animals out of charity. Aiyana got the feeling his human partner, Dr. Richardson, went along with it because of the positive publicity it occasionally generated and the grants it meant they could apply for. She rarely saw him actually treating the wild animals.

"Good afternoon Dr. Richardson."

He turned his blond head and gave a brief nod before turning back to the wolf. She quickly moved across the room to stand by his side, wary that he might be applying some treatment that Doc was unaware of. "Is something wrong?"