I'll Keep You Safe - Wenclair

Chapter 7: The Wolf

To say Enid was in a state of grief would be an understatement. Perhaps she was traumatised. She would go as far as to say she feared her life.

By now, everyone had seen the blood-covered wolf, hanging by a piece of string tied around its leg off of the arm of Allan Poe. Everyone had whispered about what happened, many officially frightened by the recent sequence of events.

Enid couldn't help but stand there, jaw slacked. Her face wouldn't morph into any other expression. She didn't have the power in her.

She could see similar expressions on other werewolf's faces. It was all a bit threatening, to go from something as small as a bat to a close relative of her own species. She felt as though a message was being sent to her personally, however irrational that thought was. She was sure the other werewolves probably felt the same way.

As she returned to her dorm, she found herself crying, haunted by the sight of the animal. She couldn't get the image of the wolf out of her head.

Wednesday heard the door creak open, followed by her roommate's sniffling. She yearned for a time where that would have happened and she would have been unaffected. But now, she imagined the twist in Enid's gut like it was her own. Now, she anticipated what the crying was about rather than being careless to the cause.

Some would call it character development. She thought of it more as regression. She was getting weak.

"You saw the wolf." It wasn't a question, nor a guess. It was the truth pulled directly from Enid's mind, softening the pain in her chest just a bit.

She couldn't speak, her voice too shaky to form a word. She nodded, lip trembling and eyes watering.

If she was honest, Wednesday didn't understand her roommate's pain. Living beings are born, and then they die. That's the one natural constant. Had the wolf not been murdered, it would have died further down the line anyway.

She didn't understand the emotion. She wanted to, a painful admittance.

"Why does it affect you so much?" She asked, careful to undermine the bluntness of her words with a softer tone. She had a feeling Enid would understand her intention. Curiosity, not condescension.

"I'm a werewolf. I know that we're not supposed to be killed. We're supposed to be at the top of the food chain. Well, normal wolves are. If whoever is doing this is able to kill a normal wolf, why would I stand a chance? I can't even shift for fuck's sake!" She let out an exasperated laugh. "Like, they could kill a predator with heightened senses and a strong jaw. I barely even have the claws. It just feels so much more real now."

Wednesday nodded, unsure of what to say. She slightly regretted putting herself in this position, despite the relief she felt that Enid was able to share.

"I just- that poor wolf must have been so scared. It must have been terrified. I keep imagining it howling from the pain. It makes me so sad." Enid sat down on Wednesday's bed, angled towards the psychic at her desk.

Wednesday was silent for a while, so long that Enid assumed she'd died on the spot or something. And then; "May I borrow your personal computer, Enid?"

She'd sworn against technology, deeming it the root of all societal evil. She'd discouraged her brother from playing Subway Surfers and hidden her mother's iPad when she received one for Christmas.

But she wasn't sure a book would have the answers she was searching for. The answers she was ashamed to desire.

When Enid handed her the laptop, she realised she wasn't sure how to use one. Normally her common sense would be able to kick in and she would figure it out on her own. But this manmade villain was not something that required common sense. It required a lack thereof.