The Dark Side of the Moon

Chapter 40: Kyle

-Kyle’s P.O.V-

“So how long will you be here for?” the girl asked, leaning against the bar of the bench press and eyeing me up. I remember her introducing herself as Bridget, a local here. She wore the usual fitness attire of a gym, short, tight shorts and top and an iPod strapped to her arm. Her earphones dangled by her hip.

“I’m just passing through,” I replied stiffly. I lay on my back on the metal slab, slowly lifting and resting the heavy weights from my chest. Sweat ran in beads down my forehead and I gritted my teeth, going for another lift. I’d been at it for hours, and it was a regular routine. I had driven down to Canmar, a town to the East of Banff, where a well equipped gym was situated. Of course I always had the option of attending the local one in Banff, but the probability of running into a familiar face was too risky.

Bridget flipped her blonde hair over her shoulder and smiled down at me while I exercised away. She seemed really nice and eager to jump into a relationship, but my lifestyle called for a lone life as far as I knew. Besides, I was a little tied up with a certain newly shifted werewolf...

A brunette girl in a tight pink top jogged over and started speaking quietly to Bridget and I stole the opportunity to surreptitiously slip in my earphones and plug in my trashy old MP3. I pretended not to notice when Bridget turned back to me and frowned at my cutting out chat short, but she huffed and walked away after narrowing her eyes at me angrily. It wasn’t the nicest thing to do, but I wanted to avoid social encounters as much as possible. Not because I was that antisocial, but because of the fact that I had a lot on my mind...

My mind was tossing over ideas rapidly, everything concerning the high school girl living back in Banff coming back to mind. As much as I hated the idea, I had been responsible for her transition from human to supernatural, and it was my full responsibility to teach her everything that she needed to know. Such as how to survive in a world full of innocent humans – who must stay that way mind you – and hunters alike, both trying to hunt you down for various different reasons. For the hunters it would be about insane morals that they felt the need to carry out, and for humans it would be the thirst for tampering with the supernatural. Scientists and lab coats were what we feared if we were exposed, and life became a little hectic trying to escape the government when they had classed you as a fantasy case.

But not just how to hide, how to control oneself was equally important as well. Freshly shifted werewolves had no sense of what was right and wrong in their state of craziness, they were fully controlled by instinct and what was left of their control over human thoughts and emotions. Me, well I’d been living with that for years but I was considered a special case, a control that was impossible to attain and a wolf that was thirsty for power. But Florence, she’d turn out to be completely normal, hopefully. However, first she needed to know the basics.

I couldn’t just pack and leave like my brain was telling me to, I had responsibilities here, ties to break off. But as soon as she was ready to stand on her two feet again, I would leave. That was for sure, among all the unresolved ideas running through my mind. Florence Gray was a responsibility that needed to be dealt with, and nothing more. Sure, I should have told her about Laura earlier, but it didn’t matter anymore. There was nothing between us so I didn’t need to make things right by explaining everything. It was too late now.

I laid down the weights that I had been lifting and sat up, amazed at how empty the gym seemed. It looked as if I was one of the last remaining customers, and the sky outside was getting dark. Unbeknownst to me, I had been thinking for way over than the estimated ten minutes, and the clock shouted at me that I needed to head home now.

I wiped as much of the sweat off with a towel as I could, before straddling my motorcycle and taking the highway back to Banff. The ground slid beneath my tires effortlessly as I drove, and I was close to alone on the thick black road. Mountains inched past, some of them snow capped and gloriously reflecting the setting sun’s light. The Alberta Mountains really were a sight to see in person, and every time I drove down this road the view took my breath away. Tall, dark pine trees each with a thick green plumage of leaves were packed tightly into the area beside the road and crept slowly up the base of the rocky mass until it thrust upwards in a peak that was impossible for vegetation to grow on. The forest had been thin before, but now it grew thicker and evidently richer with life. I could smell the heavy scent of game over the fresh smell of dirt as I whizzed past, and most of all I could smell the closeness of the wilderness that beckoned to me.