Wolf Creek Snippets

PARTS

Father Figure – 

Something told the twenty eight year old Wolf Creek Police Deputy today was going to make him wish he had stayed in bed.  Maybe it was the steady downpour of rain that woke him hours before his alarm. He had sat up in bed for a while, his amber gold beta wolf eyes watching the rain sourly.  Werewolves have some of the best hearing and so the snare like drumming of it on his window pane had him glaring at the wet glass.

David wanted to punch it but knew a hole in the glass would just make it worse. He knew it wasn't the rain because it always rained in Washington.  Standing at five foot nine in height, dressed in one of his old navy blue Wolf Creek high t-shirts and tan cargo shorts with flip flops. Going up one lean hairy calve, a tattoo of a Wolf silhouette howling. Dressed for a day off, which he rarely gets. So it's no surprise many people were gawking at him as they passed. David almost always wore some variant of his police uniform. He was set to spend his morning alone buying paint for the shed he had just built and of course hadn't painted primer on. He wondered if the wood would be fine.  His eyes moved over the many different can's names as he refused to ask for help. So he read each name again. His brows furrowed as he tried to make sense of the bright labels. His phone buzzed and rang in his cargo shorts pocket. No one ever called him on a off day, not his sister, not his job.  

All knew his one day a week was his personal time.  So standing in the paint section of the general store he pulled his phone out and looked at it. Wolf Creek High, the caller ID on his ancient smartphone read. He felt somewhere between panic and dread as he swiped left and put the phone to his ear with a trembling hand. His sixteen year old sister attended the high school and his cop brain automatically went to the worst possible situation.  David had been this way since their parents had died in an accident a year before leaving him to raise her. 

"Donnelly, " he barked into the phone, his heart hammering in his chest as he waited to hear what happened to his sister.

"This is Principal Meeks, are you aware your sister has missed five days of school in the last month?" An exasperated and annoyed sounding women's nasally voice responded and David let out the breath he was holding. He ran one of his large hairy hands through his dark brown nest hair as relief flooded through him. That relief evaporated as if it were water touching a hot piece of metal at the meaning of her words.
"What? Haley has missed how many days of school?" He stuttered, his anger causing him to close his eyes as he tried to remember her telling him anything. No there wasn't any memory of it.
 
"I wondered maybe you were taking care of her if she were sick but if you weren't aware your ward has been skipping class maybe I should call your Child Protective Services counselor instead." Miss Meeks asked her anger now annoyance and David felt his stomach flip.  The counselor hated him, had hated the idea that he was the guardian for his sister and wanted to get Haley to a better home. 

"No...there's no need for that. Haley's just being a teenager. I can handle it, she will be back at school asap." David answered hoping his voice sounded confident while inside he was panicking. 

"Can you?" Miss Meeks asked

"Can I what?" David responded slowly feeling like he was being talked into a corner. It was his wolf nature to hate corners, so he felt his anger rising at being baited. He took slow even breaths as he got the answer he knew was coming.

"Handle it, raising a teenager is tough for any set of parents and you're not a parent. Maybe you could use some help?" Miss Meeks asked with genuine concern which just made David more annoyed. 

"Miss Meeks, I have it under control. Trust me, my sister will be back in class tomorrow. If you want to call our counselor feel free but I promise you, I can raise a teenager." He said and hung up before he said half of what was banging around in his head. Abandoning the paint he turned and started to stomp out of the aisle and right into an unsuspecting handsome small man who was answering a text and not looking where he was going.