Found

Prologue- II

Wolves.

Fire.

There were wolves and fire tearing my home apart. We lived in a small town. I knew it was small because Will showed me pictures of the big city on his shiny phone. They had tall houses. Made of glass. Will told me that when you're inside them, you feel like a bird. Like you're flying. That was because their houses touched the sky. I had asked Will why he came back. He could've stayed there. In the clouds.

Happy. Forever.

That made me sad. But Will would've been happy. I never saw him happy anymore. But he was happy when he talked about the glass castles in the Big City.

When Will was happy, I was happy too.

So I had asked why he'd leave being a prince in his glass kingdom. He had laughed and said," What is a prince without his princess? You're my princess Celene, and this," he had gestured to the inside of my bedroom, "is our castle, and that," he had pointed out of the window at the twinkling stars and the shadows of our village, "is our kingdom."

Now our kingdom was in flames. I could see Lilly's house next to mine, with smoke coming out of the windows and orange flames devouring whatever was still standing. Mrs. Oakley's house looked the same. So did everyone else's.

But that wasn't the worse part.

The worse part were the wolves.

There was something wrong with these wolves. We learned about wolves in class. We even watched a movie. But they never seemed to be this big. There were as big as the horses at Uncle Billy's farm. No. They were bigger. Their fur wasn't shiny and clean, like in the movie. Their fur was dirty. Muddy. There were patches missing and I could see their pale skin underneath. They all had cuts. But they weren't bleeding. They were the other kinds of cuts.

The ones that don't bleed.

Scars.

Like the scar I had gotten beside my mouth when Raymond pushed me off the jungle gym. But my scar was small. Theirs's were long and deep and looked very painful. I wondered if they had cried. I hadn't cried when I got my scar. I had punched Raymond. Like Will taught me.

Will.

I had to find him.

But before I could my eyes met that of one of the wolves. He had blood on his snout. He had a shadowy lump in front of him. He had been eating Mrs. Oakley. His eyes were blue. Like my blanket used to be, it looked brown now.

But there was something else in his eyes. A glint. He was smart. He wasn't a wild animal like the movie said. He knew what he was doing. He was human. I just knew it. But how? I was human. I didn't look like that.

I couldn't think about it anymore.

He was coming towards me. He was going slowly. He knew. He knew that he had me. That I had nowhere to go. But I wasn't going to run.

He had eaten Mrs. Oakley.

I would eat him.

I thought about Mrs. Oakley. Her shockingly white hair that she always hid behind her massive, purple sun hat. Her tinkling laugh, like bells. Her delicious lemon pies that she brought over every Sunday.

I felt it again. The power.

I crouched. I was ready for him. The wolf looked amused as he stalked towards me.

He would regret what he did.

I would make sure of it.

He broke into a run. He was invisible. Graceful.