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Chapter Eight

School was becoming increasingly hard to focus on, and I found myself looking forward to going to work more than usual. I started a new game while I was there: Mystery doors. I was allowed to open two new doors while Lu was sleeping. It was a nice little way to get my adrenaline pumping the first couple of days, but quickly became pretty uninteresting. Mostly there was lots of utilities and bedrooms that were like guest rooms. Each was decorated in a beautiful, impersonal way. I stayed out of Lizzie and Roland's room, obviously. I hadn't stooped to that level of creepy. Plus, I had been in there a couple times with Lizzie and nothing highly interesting/mysterious was in there. I had finishing looking in every door that wasn't on Wulfric's side of that house.

It had been a week since Knox had showed up, and I got used to seeing him in passing. Each time he caught my eye, he would smile and wink, sometimes including a patronizing little wave. I wasn't aware that waves could be patronizing until Knox. It was just something about the way he fluttered his fingers that made it obvious that it wasn't a friendly hello. Every time I saw Knox, Wulfric was quick to follow, but he would spare me a fleeting look before rushing Knox away. It was like I had become a piece of furniture. A piece of furniture that he didn't particularly like. This should have made me happy, giddy even, considering I had been so weirded out by his attention. But instead it made me almost sad. I couldn't sleep at night and I'd be drawn to my window seat, sitting there for hours and usually falling asleep in the early morning with my head resting at an uncomfortable position. Which was maybe the reason Wulfric stopped paying any attention to me. I mean, dark undereye bags and wincing from the pain in my neck wasn't an overall good look.

Layla was also a strange character that had entered my life. A lot of the time I felt like I was being interrogated while I was with her. She seemed very interested in my personal life, and most of the time I felt a little exhausted after spending a long time with her. But I did appreciate her company so I tried to be understanding because she was one of my only two friends I had made in class.

My only other friend was Elliot, and he was the teaching assistant for my chem class. He did tutoring part time, and he was nice enough to help me every once in a while for free. After a while we found ourselves going to lunch and the library together. Elliot was very much the type I would have gone for back in California. He had a well structured face and a slightly muscular body, but he wasn't over the top good looking. Our conversations were fun and intelligent. But there was not a single spark between us. In fact, I couldn't bring myself to be attracted to my usual type at all anymore. I had tried to set him and Layla up though. Which, in hindsight, I should have known wouldn't go very well. I invited them both to lunch with me, and Layla leaned back in her seat the entire time with her arms crossed, watching me and Elliot try to make some kind of conversation. I was also confronted with how different the two were. Layla was dressed in black jeans, a gray hoodie, and vans, while Elliot had on a nice hunter green sweater that matched his eyes and contrasted well with his blonde hair, with khakis. I decided then that Layla needed someone as badass as her, and while I'm sure Elliot was badass in his own nerdy-cute way, he wasn't the biker-all-black-wearing badass that Layla was. Almost as soon as I decided that they weren't meant to be, Layla warmed up a bit. It soon became our routine to all go to lunch together, and I was pretty pleased with the little friend group I had secured.

"Hey Emma!" I called to my landlord, who was chilling on her porch in a cozy sweater and well worn jeans with a cup of something hot in her hands, as I headed inside the front door.

"Hello Wynter," She replied in her calming voice.

I quickly headed up the many stairs to my little apartment. My online classes had given a lot of homework that I had been putting off, so I quickly changed into something comfortable before settling in to work on an essay. Before I knew it, the sun had set and my eyes felt like they were ready to start bleeding from staring at the computer screen for hours. I should have felt tired; I always feel tired after writing so much, but I felt jittery. So jittery that sitting in front of my window wouldn't do it tonight. I closed my laptop and tapped on the top for a second. A drive will make me sleepy. I swiped my keys from the kitchen counter, shoved my feet into some rain boots by the door and tried to walk as quietly as I could down the stairs; just because I couldn't sleep, doesn't mean I should wake Emma.

The crisp, fall night air greeted the skin on my face as I stepped out onto the porch and walked toward my Jeep. It was so silent that every step felt startling and when I finally jumped up and put my key in the ignition, it felt like I would wake the whole forest. I turned my radio completely off and rolled down all my windows. I didn't think about where I was going, but soon I was driving on the dirt road toward Wulfric's house. I let my hand glide through the wind out my window as I listened to the harmony of my tires crunching the dirt under me. I was absolutely freezing and yet it was the most peaceful I had been in such a long time. It was just me and the forest. The bright white moon peaked between the trees and I briefly remembered my mom warning me that a halo around it was a sign of danger to come.

As my eyes flicked back to the road, I caught sight of a gray brown streak heading for the road right in front of me. I stomped on the brakes but I had gotten carried away speeding down the empty road and I wasn't going to stop in time. On reflex my hands jerked the wheel to the left and that's all it took.

I'm floating. My dad had lectured me before getting the Jeep that it was easy to roll. Funny how this was the second time tonight thinking of my parents. The impact was the most intense feeling my body had ever felt. It was like I was being thrown so hard that my bones were all going to burst through my skin. And everything happened so fast, yet so slow. I couldn't even tell you what happened first. Did the wind sheet break first? Or was the deafening sound of metal crushing from the roof collapsing first? I can't remember. The car stopping moving, and therefore I stopped moving. Hanging upside down by my seatbelt.

Turn off the ignition. My hand found the keys and twisted to the left. That's what I was supposed to do, right? Turn off the car so it didn't explode like in one of those bad action movies. My hand then searched around in the dark for the latch on my seatbelt. It took several tries before I got it undone, and I fell to the roof with a hard thunk. As I crawled out of the still open, albeit smaller now after being crushed, driver window, I felt okay. I didn't feel hurt at all. In fact, I felt good. I was warm and I felt a little giddy. Is this how it feels to escape a near death situation? I looked at my crushed jeep. I wanted to laugh. Man, I felt so warm.

I heard something move behind me and I twirled. "Hello, puppy! You ruined my jeep!" I smiled at the large dog standing in front of me. He looks like he's smiling at me. A deep rumble came from his chest, and he crouched down. So warm. I put a hand to my forehead to wipe away the sweat that had formed there. Except when I pulled away my hand, it wasn't wet with sweat, it was red with blood. And when I looked down at my body it looked like I had drenched my gray shirt in blood. I wasn't warm because I was okay. I was warm from my warm blood slowly drenching me. And that's when the pain hit me like a Mac Truck. Everything hurts. A whimper passed between my dry lips. And there's a wolf. A mangy, thin, potentially rabid wolf was approaching me in a menacing crouch with spit dripping from it's sharp, bared teeth.

I'm going to die was my last thought before my legs gave out and the darkness took over.