Behind Closed Gates [Edited]

Chapter Eight

Marie stood by her claim that they couldn't go and see Willow - she wasn't on a night shift that evening, and even if she was, she couldn't just sneak in a bunch of Royals and their security. So they had to wait until the next morning and head back to the zoo.

The only way to see her, to be close to the cage, was in the tour that Gail ran.

Marie hadn't stayed overnight at the Silverwood's packhouse with the Royal entourage, but instead had headed back to Gail. She wasn't sure how to explain the bruises around her eye or the raw knuckles, knowing that Gail would absolutely freak out, but Marie had to come up with something.

Maybe she could say that she tripped? No...injuries were too targeted. She was mugged? That could work, but Marie would be too guilt-ridden and eventually tell Gail. She could say that someone tried to mug her and she beat them up. Marie sighed through her nose as she stood outside the Silver Creek Motel, hers and Gail's apartment. The safest option, so Marie could avoid the truth and let her body heal quickly, was to not head home just yet.

So the rogue of Silverwood spent the night in the forest, in her dark coloured wolf. Marie didn't know why she shifted at sixteen, only two years ago, but she had. She'd woken up in the night, the full moon bathing the carpet through her window, with an ancient churning in her stomach. She knew what was happening, and left. Fled in the middle of the night and embraced the pain of her shift to welcome her wolf to the world. The wolf takes the colouring of their natural hair colour, and once the shift is complete, leaves the human with a perfectly opposite colouring. For Marie, she had dark brown fur with some golden patches lining her legs and chest. It left her with bright blonde hair, the underside a light brown, and a lot of explaining when she faced Gail several hours after in the morning. She didn't know what to say other than a possible prank from some of the other keepers to slip bleach in her hair, Gail luckily believed the lie - she knew how many hated Marie.

Gail thought that she kept the blonde as a statement to those that bleached her, when the truth was far more terrifying.

Marie stayed in her dark wolf from dusk until dawn, waiting until it was well past the time that Gail would've left the apartment to enter her home for a change of clothes. She changed into something inconspicuous, irrecognisable, so no one at the zoo knew it was her. She threw on a skirt and flat boots, leaving an over-the-shoulder jumper to cover her chest, and a beanie to cover her dirty blonde hair - with all the keepers, including Gail, used to seeing her in long trousers and a zoo jumper, no one would recognise her wearing such feminine stuff. Adding the sunglasses was just a precaution...she told herself the lipstick was too, and not an attempt to be a normal teenager for once.

She arrived at the zoo in time for the second tour, Marie hesitant as she walked up to join the small crowd. She hadn't been noticed yet, but doubted that her acting abilities would allow her to keep this facade up for long. The wolf hovered near the tour group, waiting for the Royals to appear.

When the three men walked through the front gate, it seemed that everyone stopped and stared for a moment too long. Marie understood, she could feel their wolves marching high in their power. The three men, Royal Wolves, headed into the zoo - Prince Elliot standing between the Head of Security and his father, King Claude. Marie took a breath as they waited for someone; for her. Pushing aside her worry on being noticed, she strode up towards the three of them.

The Head of Security, Jackson, noticed her presence first, along with the Royals, and Marie stopped in front of them with a smile. "Hi."

"Where is she?" Elliot demanded, eyes flickering from Marie's, around her, to around the zoo as though he expected Willow to waltz out of the bars.