Sheridan Wolfe

Chapter 12 : RUN!

LOCATION: @FORREST

TIME: FIRST QUARTER MOON

STERLING -

She walks, we follow. Ten minutes down the side of the highway past the golf course and country club. She passes the residential homes until the highway changes into a regular road, which curves up. Halfway up the turn, the trees begin to line the asphalt and then they become forest.

I'd never gone this way to the Allen home. In fact, I'm not sure this road connects with the Allen's main road at all. Levi too hadn't been aware of this route, he'd never followed her beyond the school parking lot. I can tell this new level of stalking wasn't sitting well with him. His steps were slower, and I often have to urge him forward so that we don't put too much distance between us.

Being a wolf I'm able to keep track of her from a much farther distance than a normal human. Levi being ... whatever he is ... can probably track Ity merely by her scent. It makes me uncomfortable not knowing what he's becoming.

Ity seems peaceful on this walk. So much, that even I can't help but notice the allure to her beauty. She's that kind of girl that didn't know she was beautiful, or at the very least it wasn't important to her. And she always seems to know exactly what's going on. Never surprised by scenes around her or the stupidity of people.

One time I'd watched as Levi stalked her at the County Tractor Pull. It's an event that my entire family enjoys attending. The noise, the action, the demolition derby and motorbike races, all appeal to the cubs. They are often set loose during this event, running this way and that, while my parents sit back and enjoy catching up with town officials.

On that day, Ity had been lead to stand close to the sidelines, by her usual group of girls. She followed them through the crowds with her normal passive energy. I had watched her view the motorcycles zip passed and around the arena when one of the triplets, Sebastian, pushed through their legs for a closer look.

He got to close.

Suddenly he was in the path of the motorbikes. I'd taken two steps to rescue him, when Ity's hand reached out, and as easily as breathing, she grabbed the nine year old by the back of the pants. One pull and he was back at her side seconds before a blue dirt bike zipped passed. Close enough it kicked dirt into the crowd.

No one else saw, nor did Trinity bring attention to it. Sebastian and I looked at her, but her face was already submerged in a book. It never occurred to me how close that had been. Had she not moved at that moment, Sebastian would have been hit and everyone would have seen it.

That was the first time I realized she has always been aware of her surroundings.

We stop as Ity pauses at the place the asphalt ends and it dissolves into a long the dirt road. Her hands trace to her shoulders where her red hood rests. Glancing off to the side she carefully pulls the cotton hood over her hair before proceeding.

"Did she spot us?" Levi asks. He'd caught it too, but she kept walking.

We slink along a good distance away, when she stops again.

We stop too.

Levi's body goes rigid seconds before the hair on the back of my neck ripple to attention.

Something's not right, I think. My eyes narrow in on Ity's hands. They twitch suspiciously at her side, then she quickly steps backward.

The sudden movement brings her back only an inch, but it's enough. A light brown blur sails passed her shoulders. Its yellowed teeth bare and snapping short of her neck before falling into the snow on the other side.