Dark Moon

Chapter Five:Patrol (Abe's POV)

    After school me and the boys went to my house. We needed to discuss patrols and training times. Every time something in our schedule changed we had to have a pack meeting, and since it was just them who had schedule changes I decided I would just have them over to have a small meeting; I will tell the others later. We burst into my small cabin and the boys plunked themselves down into their usual seats.

    "So, Connor, how did your schedule  change? Any sports teams?" I asked. I had to wait for him to finish gulping down the last of my rootbeer to recieve an answer. In the meantime, I swatted Ryan in the head for drinking out of the milk carton. Connor belched then glanced at me lazily.

    "I joined the basketball team and quit track. Oh, my mom entered  me in this volunteer thing, and it has a meeting every umm...Saturday at five O'clock. We do the work at that meeting normally, and it doesn't have a set time limit." He said. I could tell that he wasn't to thrilled at being put in a volunteer group, but his mom probably did it so he'd get off his butt once in a while.

    A lot of parents did that because they don't know we aren't human. They just think their sons are extremely lazy. We tend to be exhausted after patrols and trains, because patrols happen at night and early morning and trains happen at midnight. The trains last two hours and the patrols last one hour. It wipes us out. So after being up all night every day of the week, we are zombies by Saturday. We sleep any time we can, which isn't often.

    "Okay, basketball's every Wednesday at five, right?" He nodded. "Okay...you will patrol with me on Tuesdays and Thursdays at ten, and you'll train with Henry, Mike, and Tom every Sunday night at eleven." He groaned but nodded his head. I turned to Ryan. "Any differences?"

    "Nope, same team and all that." He smirked.

    "Right, tell me if anything changes. Oh, and by the way, for that smirk, you get to patrol with me in an hour." His eyes widened. I grinned at him.

    "Okay then, I'll be in the guest room passed out from exhaustion. You know, to catch up on the sleep I've lost now, instead of later. Because you gave me an extra patrol." He whined.

    "Have fun." I jeered. He rolled his eyes and disappeared into the hall. "Connor, man, you look tired, go home and get some rest." He smiled thankfully at me and left the house. I stretched out on the couch and set the alarm on my watch. The moment I was comfortable, I passed out.

    "Beep, beep, beep." I groaned and flipped over. "BEEP, BEEP, BEEP!" The alarn shouted. I hit the off button and stood. I could hear Ryan snoring away in the spare bedroom. I trudged to the door and banged on it. Ryan's breath caught and I could hear him topple off the bed.

    "Abe, dude, did you have to hit the door? You practically broke it down." Ryan complained.

    "Ryan, dude, we have patrol." I said mockingly. He snorted and followed me outside into the thick woods. We went two different directions and stripped. I lowered my body to the ground and stretched out. I could hear the bones breaking and tendons tearing. Pain and heat shot through me and the next thing I know I saw huge brown paws in front of me. I flexed my muscles. Ryan came through the trees and watched me as I stretched. His black face was bored and tired.

    I motioned east with my nose and he nodded his massive head. He raced off in the direction I pointed to. I then ran west, sniffing for anything unusual. Nothing. Just the warm earthy scents of animals and sharper scents of plants. We ran the lines of our territory for an hour then we dressed. "Ryan, you go home. I am going to run a bit." He nodded.

    I phased back. I let the scents of nature calm me. I ran through the woods, my paws digging into soft dirt. I was on the south side when I caught a warm sweet scent floating through the air. I followed it to a large brick, victorian like house. Sitting on a fallen log was none other than new girl. I think her name is Aza. She was humming and reading. Her soft voice calmed me, and her honeysuckle scent enthralled me.

    I sat and watched her until the night drew close. A woman with a high-pitched voice called for Aza and she got up. She walked toward the house. I stepped forward and accidently stepped on a twig. Snap! She glanced back and her eyes collided with mine. I froze as I drowned in their deep blue depths. She smiled and went in the house.

    I sighed and headed home. Later that night I lay in bed thinking about how this was the best patrol I had ever had in my four years as a wolf.