Animals ✔

Chapter 7

The wolf is big. Not quite as massive as Tiberius, but he towers over all the other wolves I've seen. His lips are pulled up in a nasty snarl, showing off a set of pearly white fangs. His chocolate brown fur is standing on end, and there's a dark crimson colour staining his fore paws and crusted onto his claws. It's no stretch to guess that it's blood, and, morbidly, I wonder if it's Laurel's.

His eyes are black and wild, viciously angry. He looks so crazed he'd fit into a horror movie better than reality, and yet here he is, practically foaming at the mouth.

He stalks toward me slowly, taking his time. Enjoying the kill like a cat with a mouse. A mouse he can't wait to rip to pieces.

I can't move, sick to my stomach with fear. I'm unable to even look away from the beast in front of me. I feel foolish. Rationally, I know I wouldn't have been able to run away from him even if I had tried, but I should have run anyway. I should have tried.

And now I'm going to die.

The thought of death shouldn't be so terrible-it isn't as though I haven't known that it was coming-and yet I'm frozen in fear at the thought.

A savage snarl rips from his throat just before he leaps at me and I shriek, finally able to move and ducking toward the ground. Curling in on myself, I think of Tiberius, of Jon, and of how idiotic it was to leave and believe that they wouldn't be waiting, to think they wouldn't kill me.

So foolish to think that if I ran long enough, one day I could go home.

My heart is racing and tears stream hopelessly down my cheeks. Here I am, about to die, and all I feel is a surging, all-consuming panic. Fear that I'll end up like Charlie, fear that she'd hate me for not fighting.

He leaps again, but this time I don't move fast enough.

Claws rip deeply into my back, causing searing pain to radiate throughout my torso as the wolf pushes down on the wound, snarling into my ear, playing with me. I cry out when he slashes a second time, digging his claws into my side as he tries to flip me on to my back.

The pain is gone almost as swiftly as it came. My body has turned numb, painless, but suffocated by fear. I can't move or breathe, laying motionless on my side as the wolf buries his teeth in my thigh and drags me through the dirt.

I think of Charlie. Of mom and Callum. Even, for a brief moment, of Tiberius. I think of the life that was stolen from me.

Then the wolf's hot breath tickles my neck, the teeth suddenly gone from my leg, as he prepares for the deathblow. His paw presses down on my chest and keeps my lungs from filling with air. I can't help but think of Laurel, her throat ripped out and her chest mauled. Of the grief her family must suffer.

Of the grief I've suffered.

And a strange sensation spreads over me, turning my fear into something deeper, more primal. With the wolf's hot breath on my neck, I bubble over with rage. My body flares with uncontrollable heat, but this time it is thoughtless, pure anger.

It takes me a moment to notice when the pressure eases from my chest and the hot breath is gone from my neck. It isn't until a sharp yelp pierces the air that I seem to snap back into myself, suddenly feeling the intense pain all over my body. I gingerly shift myself to look for the wolf, wary of his sudden absence.

He isn't hard to find. The wolf is rolling furiously on the ground, black eyes panicked, not angry, as he tries to put out the fire on his chocolate brown fur.

But the fire doesn't go out. The more he moves the stronger it seems to grow, burning hotter and faster. Sharp, high pitched whines and yelps ring into the air as the stench of burning flesh meets my nose.