Bared

II

I ran for about five minutes, my wolf straining after the fight. My ribs and ear hurt. I came to a huge clearing in the oak and spruce trees. The clearing was taken up by a large house.

Its wood paneling reflected the sunlight. The real forty foot oak trees that defined the corners of the house were the only shaded places. The front of the house was extended a bit, leading into a large porch five feet off the ground. Steps like little hills led up onto it. The house was mainly hidden by the leaves and branches of the oaks, and the door blended into the wall so well that you would miss it if you weren’t looking for it.

I circled the house towards its back. The back was a huge garden, with a fountain and every kind of flowering plant imaginable. It was ringed by a low wood fence. The barb wire between the posts was no match for my wolf. I easily leapt the fence, then stuck to the cobblestone path. Or else Witney would get angry if I trampled her sweet petunias.

My nose told me that she was home. I growled low. That stupid moron. I enter the house through the back door’s doggie door. I know, it sounds stupid and cliche, but that’s what my family’s like. They thought that I was getting too “carried away” with my powers when I was doing my homework when I was six. So their remedy was a huge doggie door leading to the back yard and woods, so that I could run around and cool off. A scream told me a second time that the bimbo was home.

A high, strangled voice said,”W-w-wolf! A w-w-wolf’s i-in the kit-kitchen! He-help!” I looked up at the woman perched on the counter, swinging a spatula at me. She had a short pink skirt, long, machine-tanned legs, a white blouse, and long blond hair in a braid. Her wide blue eyes were full of fear. The rotten-egg smell overflowed my nostrils. I snorted to get the smell out of my nasal cavities.

Whitney Whitescream (yeah, I laughed too), being the stupid moron she is, didn’t realize that I was the wolf standing before her, looking at her like she was the dumbest person on the planet (which she is. Trust me). I had entered the house as a wolf many times before, which just adds to the point that I’m an easily angered person. But Whitney, though being near me for over seventeen years, never got used to it. I gave her a second you’re-the-stupidest-person-in-the-world look, and headed into the living room.

Even at the end of winter, the fireplace was blazing. I settled down in front of it, too tired to head up three levels to my room. The comfy couch beckoned me, but my dad had made the rule that I wasn’t allowed on the couch in my wolf form. Which is kinda funny, because I do most of my homework lying down on the couch.

The spacious living room was decorated with two coffee tables, one in front of the couch, the other beside a brown leather recliner in the corner. I was laying on the end of a brown rug designed with wolves. Ironic. A lamp, also designed with dancing wolves, sat on the mantle. Only one picture of me was presented on the mantle: two torn pictures put together to form one. On the left was a white growling wolf face with a large emerald eye, and on the right was a girl’s face rimmed by long red hair that had another large green eye. The girl’s tan face was formed into a scowl that rivaled the wolf’s.

No one knew that I was part of this normal, perfect family. Nobody except for my family. If I could even call them that.

A slamming door interrupted my train of thought. I heard loud footsteps. I smelled a smell like burnt flesh. I had encountered this smell many times in my life. Someone was angry. And I was about to get the full force of it.

Even before he walked in the room, he was shouting. His usually tan face was flame red, his eyes wild, his black hair messy, and his athletic-built chest heaving. He yelled,”I cannot believe why you did that! To your own brother! Now, I have to pay the medical bills for him! You’re lucky that it was just a broken arm! Or else you would be dead right at this moment! Yeah, you would. You wouldn’t even have a head after I was done with you!” He kept on ranting, but I stopped listening.