Taming the Rogue

Pouring Rain

POV: Demi

I'm waiting patiently for Harlow in my car. It's almost ten, and it's pouring down rain. I can still see them out there practicing which is stupid, because the coach has to yell over the pouring rain. I went ahead and put a layer of towels down in her seat so she wouldn't get my car soaked with sweat water.

Music was playing softly in the background of the rain hitting my car.

A loud ass repetitive knock on the passenger side window scared the shit out of me.

I looked over to see a drenched Harlow, so I quickly unlocked the car and she got in carefully so she wouldn't mess up the towels.

"Hey," I smiled over at her, but she didn't look over at me.

"I'm very cold." Harlow was shivering, so I immediately turned the heat up and drove home.

Her teeth were chattering so much.

"So cold." Harlow whispered.

"I know, I'll get you all warmed up here soon." I rubbed her back with hopes that would help, but she was cold to the touch.

Harlow nodded her head as I put the petal to the metal. My baby was cold.

I helped her out of the car since she was shivering so much that she could barely walk. She refused to go to the hospital, and since I'm not her guardian I can't make her.

Harlow plopped on the couch after taking her shorts and shirt off. I layered blankets on top of her.

"I'll go get a hot bath running for you." I was about to run to the bathroom.

"No, no water. No more water for tonight." Harlow weakly whispered as she looked up through the skylight that was just above the couch.

"Okay, what can I do?" I stopped dead in my tracks.

"Just g-go to bed. I'll fall asleep here soon." Harlow stuttered.

"I'm worried about you though. I can't sleep with you on the couch freezing your ass off. Is this what Tanner warned me about?" I sat on the ground beside the couch and played with her fingers which seemed to soothe her a little.

"Yeah, and it's not because of the water. Don't worry." Harlow let out a pained chuckle.

"Is this what Jackson meant with the whole wolf thing?" I raised a brow.

"Yeah, he wasn't supposed to tell you, but apparently he did." She took a sharp breath in and groaned in pain. "Don't worry, I'm not a werewolf before you panic." She tried to give me a sarcastic laugh, but it got cut short when she winced in pain again. "I'll tell you what he meant afterwards. It'll be a few hours, so just go to bed before I snap into my bad state of mind. Once I snap I get very." Harlow took a second to breathe through the pain. "I get very hostile. Most of the time just verbally, but there have been a few times where I-" Harlow's back arched in pain and her grip on my hand got tighter without her noticing. "I've gotten physical, so please go to your room and lock your door. I will let you know when it's over. If you want to kick me out, go for it, just know that I have no control over it."

"I'm not going to kick you out." I whispered. My heart took over and before I knew what I was doing my lips were pressed to the back of Harlow's hand.

"P-please do that again." Harlow begged at me as I looked at out hands with pure fear that I just stepped over the line. "Please."

I nodded my head before holding a sweet kiss to the back of her hand for a few seconds.

"Thank you," Harlow gave me a quick smile before her back arched up in pain again.

"Do you need me to leave now?" I raised a brow.

Harlow nodded, so I quickly got up and retreated to my room.

For three hours I listened to her yell and groan in pain here and there. They were almost animalistic in a way.

"I got through it." Harlow's voice was soft and fragile as she knocked on my door.

I was quick to get up and unlock it, and before another word was spoken I pulled her into a hug. She just has to be a foot taller than me, doesn't she?

"I'm sorry you had to listen to that. I did my best to keep quiet, but it's hard when I'm in that amount of pain." She whispered as she squeezed me just as tight as I held her.

"Don't apologize Harlow. What happened?" I looked up at her.

"You're going to want to sit down for this one. It's a long ass story." Harlow mumbled.

I nodded before walking to my bed and patting a spot in front of me.

"Okay," Harlow took a deep breath after sitting down and crossing her legs. "Where do I start?" She thought to herself. "When I was less than two months old, my father gave me to a zoo science testing building since they offered one hundred million dollars. I was the unliked child. The accident. They only wanted my brother, so they took that as their opportunity." Harlow shook her head and looked at her hands that were in her lap. "They wanted to see if they could truly make a human a werewolf, so they started off by injecting small amounts of wolf's blood in me every morning and letting a pack of wolves raise me. A mother had pups a few days before I was brought in, so it was kind of perfect in the scientists' circumstances. They just let the mother raise me and even let me nurse from her. After I turned two the amount of blood they pumped into me every morning gradually grew. At one point they started to notice my eye color changing, so they just kept adding more. I already had wolf-like habits, such as scratching like a wolf would, walking on all fours no matter what, not knowing how to talk but how to interact with other wolves with body language, and my stamina grew significantly. Not only from running and playing with the pups, but also from the injections. My strength grew as well from the injections and rough housing with the wolves. Around age fourteen, they gave up and just gave me back to my family who didn't want anything to do with me other than Jackson who was just curious to what in the hell was wrong with me, but we had that natural brother-sister bond, so we immediately became inseparable for a few months. He was fifteen at the time, and his best friend was his wolf-like sister who would howl at the moon and barely spoke a lick of English. Hell, I didn't speak any language, but we bonded through football. With his good arm, and my speed and ability to catch, we are unstoppable in football." Harlow took a break from talking.

I took her hands in mine and played with them so she'd calm down again.

"And wolves tend to find their mates and their packs and stay with them for life, so I get very attached to people very easily. There was the girl who was only friends with my brother who came over to our house everyday with her best friend who was his girlfriend and she'd hang out with me. We grew close. Well, I grew closer to her than she grew to me, and there wasn't shit I could do about it. I let myself believe that when our bond grew and she kissed me that something would happen, but apparently it was just a dare that her best friend gave her. She didn't want to spend any time with me in the beginning, but she made a dare/deal with her best friend, my brother's girlfriend at the time, that if she came over with her so her mother would let Jackson and her be alone she'd give her ten bucks a day. Apparently it was a chore to spend time with me." A tear fell from Harlow's eyes.

I want to hold her, but I don't know what her comfort zone is.

"I still think it's a chore for anyone to be around me. Who would want to be around a girl who can only play football and is stupid as fuck? I barely pass math. The only reason why I am not failing any of my classes is because my father is the principal. I'm not going to college unless it's for football or track and I'll pay people to do my work for me. I literally have no bright future ahead of me. No future. All I've got is sports and luckily I'm damn good at them. I hate not knowing what the fuck is going on. I physically cannot learn and retain much anymore. My brain is so messed up after the testing for years that I can't even learn anything new. Sports are all I have." Harlow's tears started to flow a little more frequently and I couldn't stand to watch her anymore and not do anything.

I opened my arms up for her, and without hesitation she curled up into me.

Her whole body shook as she sobbed. She's so broken. So fragile. But still so strong at the same time.

"Not anymore, because now you have me too." I whispered and kissed the top of her forehead which seemed to soothe her just enough for her to fall asleep in my arms within the next five minutes.