Wolf Girl
Part One
Genesis
Chapter One
Gaping Hole
"What the fuck?" I screamed, chucking my phone across the room, where it ricocheted off the carpet and smacked the wall, going black as it fell back down onto the floor.
My little brother pounded his fist against the wall, shouting, "Leah! I'm trying to do my homework!"
I spun on my heels and wrenched open my bedroom door, calling, "Tell mom I went to Sam's, and don't burn the house down," as I stalked past Seth's bedroom and stomped my way down the stairs.
Sam was only eleven and I wasn't supposed to leave him home alone, but he was mature and well-behaved and I was so furious that I didn't care at that point. So I thrust my feet into some sneakers and left the house, slamming the door behind me. Mom had the Taurus and my dad had the truck, so I jogged the mile or so to Sam's, feeling my anger flare and pulse with each fall of my feet against the concrete underneath me, replaying our argument in my head.
Did you have a bad day? Is that what this is?
What is that supposed to mean?
I mean, I tell you I'm going to Port Angeles with Danny tomorrow and you jump down my throat?
We had plans for Friday.
No we didn't, Leah.
I made plans and I was going to tell you about them today.
I'm sorry, but I already made plans with Danny.
Oh, so now Danny's more important than your girlfriend?
Seriously. What is this about?
It's about you making plans on Friday.
Leah.
You didn't even think about me-
Leah, stop. Why don't you call me back when you've calmed down?
I don't need to calm down.
Really, because you could have fooled me.
You're an ass hole.
Because I'm not letting you use me as your human scratching post?
Because you're an inconsiderate jackass.
I didn't do anything!
Yes you did, you made plans with Danny!
Don't tell me when I can and cannot make plans with my friends!
Don't fucking make plans when you know I had plans for us tomorrow!
What are you even talking about?
If you don't know then you should spend your Friday night with Danny.
And then he had groaned right into the phone- in loud, angry frustration- and there was some kind of ripping, breaking sound, and my phone flashed, signaling that the call had ended.
Well, if he was going to hang up on me, then I would go to his house, and I would sit in his front doorway all night if I had to. He would come out and talk to me. And maybe I hadn't made plans for us for Friday night, and maybe I didn't really care if he hung out with Danny or not, but I wasn't even going to admit that to myself at that point- I was too stubborn and proud, too set in my actions to back down. Not to mention, I was pissed as all hell.
But when I finally approached the front door, my anger dissipated all together, because I suddenly saw that the screen door was kicked outward, hanging on one hinge, the front entrance of the house bared to the whole street. It stopped me in my tracks, my heart skittering to a gallop in my chest as I took in the damage. From where I stood on the slated stone walkway, I could see that there were tears in the screen- like an animal had dragged its claws across it- and that the door was barely hanging by a bolt, swaying and whining as it was pushed at by a stray breeze. Littered across the front porch were articles of clothing, and I thought I recognized a pair of Sam's boxers- the stupid yellow and black smiley face ones- making my heart nearly careen to a halt against my ribcage.
There was a lump in my throat the size of an orange, and when I managed to tentatively call Sam's name, it came out sounding strangled.
When I received no response goosebumps sprouted up all over my body, and I stared into the house, my eyes trying to see something other than the errant stuffing from a pillow and the pieces of a shattered vase on the inside welcome mat. I didn't see Sam though- or anyone or anything for that matter- and it pushed me forward, made me tiptoe over my boyfriend's ripped boxers and t-shirt, propelled me into the cool, quietness that waited beyond the threshold.
The house was in linear disarray. From the kitchen, where a chair was on its side, a leg snapped off, Sam's jeans ripped to patches on the tiles, his cell phone in pieces, to the unhinged front door. Whatever had happened, I knew it had been violent, and it scared me shitless. Had Sam done this when he had gotten off the phone with me? or had someone done it to him?
There were scratch marks- animalistic- on the wood flooring...
With violently shaking hands, I pulled the cell phone from my pocket, fumbled with the numbers for a minute, and then managed to dial something coherent.
"We have officers patrolling the town right now- asking around and going door-to-door," the Chief of Police and one of my father's best friends, Charlie Swan, told us. "We'll see if anything turns up and then we'll go from there."
I pulled the tip of my thumb out of my mouth- I had been gnawing on my nail- and asked, "Why should you wait to see if anything comes up? Something obviously happened here- all of his clothes are all over the place!"
Beside me, Mrs. Uley- honey-call-me-Donna- squeezed my hand, her lips clamped together.
"He might be somewhere in town," Chief Swan said. "We have to wait and see."
"And then what?" I demanded.
He looked from me, to Mrs. Uley, and then to my dad, who was sitting on my other side on the Uley's couch. "We'll cross that bridge when we get to it, but I can assure you that we'll do everything we can."
"Thank you, Charlie," my dad said.
Officer Swan shook his hand and then stood up across from us, saying, "I have to get going, but don't hesitate to call me- for any reason."
Absently- as if she had just realized that she was still silent- Mrs. Uley said, "Thank you, Officer Swan."
He nodded sympathetically, gave me a reassuring smile, and then followed my dad to the door, where they both went outside. From where I sat on the couch, I could see them talking on the front walkway, my dad looking concerned and Charlie looking a little stressed. Instantly, I began chewing on my thumbnail again, watching them without sound, my stomach twisting nervously. I wanted to trust Charlie- God knows my dad did- but it was so hard for me to put Sam's life, essentially, into someone else's hands.
"Why don't I make some coffee?" my mom suggested to the whole room- Mrs. Uley, the remaining officers who were still going over the damages, and myself included- and then disappeared into the kitchen without an answer.
That's my mom. When in danger, cook.
Mrs. Uley and I sat on the couch in silence, our hands still tightly twisted together, both of us shaking- even just slightly. Neither of us said anything, but the world was far from silent. The police were doing a sweep of the whole house- most of them congrugated in the living room, kitchen, and front porch, where most of the damage had been done- talking, yelling to one another, the crackle of walkie-talkies, all of it meshing into one line of sound. And it wasn't like an episode of CSI or anything- they weren't taping off rooms and keeping us from touching anything- but they were going over everything they could, as best they could, though not thoroughly enough, in my opinion. The Forks Police Department wasn't horrible, but they were no NYPD either.
"It's getting late," Mrs. Uley said, and her voice sounded strange, thick and strained- and I hadn't really heard her speak since she had come home from work, demanding to know what had happened.
Outside, the sun was going down, casting shadows over the front lawn, bathing the whole street in a fading, sorbet light. It was nearly eight o'clock- four hours or so after I had found the Uleys' house in disarray- and every fifteen minutes that passed made my stomach clench more tightly.
Dad came back into the house, and after a beat he asked me, "Where's your mother?"
As if on cue, she came into the living room with a pot of coffee and about a dozen mugs. "Coffee, Donna?"
Mrs. Uley shook her head.
"Harry?"
My dad shook his head too. "No thanks."
"Boys?" she called to the officers still working in the front of the house. Gesturing to the coffee, she said, "It's hot."
As they surrounded the coffee table and took the offered coffee, my father turned to Mrs. Uley and me and said, "Leah, we should get going soon- and Donna, you're more than welcome to stay at our place for as long as you need to if you'd like."
She smiled gratefully at Dad, but said, "Thank you, Harry, but I'd rather be here tonight- in case he comes home."
He nodded understandingly, then met my eyes.
"I'm not leaving," I said, as if this much should be obvious.
"Leah-"
I cut him off, "I won't be able to sleep anyway." Then I glanced at Sam's mother and said, "I want to stay and keep Mrs. Uley company- I want to be here if he comes home too."
"Lee, I don't think that's the best-"
"Actually, Harry, I wouldn't mind," Mrs. Uley said, taking her hand from mine and putting her arm around my shoulder. "I don't want to be alone and I know Leah's just as worried as I am."
My eyes pricked at her words and I sank into her motherly warmth.
"Are you sure, Donna?" my mother interjected. "It's been a very difficult day."
"For all of us," she finished. "I'd love for Leah to spend the night."
My mom and dad exchanged a look and then he said, "If you're sure."
And it was settled.
The cops left around eleven, and my parents left a half hour later- after my mom had gone home to pick up some stuff for me and brought it back to Sam's. After that, Mrs. Uley and I had some of the spaghetti my mom made for dinner. (Read: we ate two forkfuls and then moved the rest around for almost twenty minutes.) And we didn't really speak- neither of us feeling very up to it- and it was okay that way. It wasn't awkward- Mrs. Uley was like family to me- but it was heavy. After all, both of us wanted to talk about how scared we were, about how horrible this could all turn out, about how much we loved Sam and couldn't bear to lose him, but neither of us wanted to actually speak pessimistically. So there were few words.
"I'll make up the pull-out bed for you," Mrs. Uley announced after we had cleared away our dishes and were reentering the living room.
The house had been cleaned up since I had found it that afternoon, but it left an aura of unsettlement behind. There were still claw marks on the floor, the screen door was leaning against the side of the house in the back, the broken chair in the kitchen waiting to be repaired in the basement, and all of Sam's clothes had been taken down to the station to be analyzed. The house felt different without Sam there- with the extreme, obvious absence of Sam- and it made me feel cold, but I knew I would have rather been in that house, feeling strange, than home, feeling far away.
Mrs. Uley pushed the coffee table out of the way and began piling up the couch's throw pillows on the La-Z-Boy that faced the TV.
"Do you want to go grab some sheets and blankets from the linen closet?" she asked, prompting me to attention.
I cleared my throat and said, "Yeah- Of course," and turned, crossing the room and ascending the stairs.
Outside of the bathroom, I grabbed two sheets, a blanket, and a spare pillow from the closet, before turning and facing Sam's bedroom door. My breath caught in my throat- as if I was surprised to find Sam's bedroom there- and I stared at it numbly. Finally, after a long moment, I quietly stepped forward and eased the door open, peeking my head inside slowly.
Everything was as it usually was- not one thing messed up or broken. It reassured me, but it also made all of my insides ache inexplicably.
"Find everything okay, Leah?" Mrs. Uley called from downstairs, and I jumped out of Sam's room- as if I had been caught committing a crime.
With a shaking voice, I called back, saying, "Yeah!" before closing the door and hurrying back downstairs.
It was long past midnight and I still wasn't asleep. Not that I really expected I would sleep that night, but it would have been a nice distraction to be unconscious. But it was hard to even close my eyes for very long- not without thinking of Sam going missing, the damage I had found in the house, the lack of information that the Forks police had found since they had been called. Wild scenarios ran through my head as I stared into the near darkness of the very rooms he had been in, the claw marks in the wood floor just in sight if I shifted a certain way. Had a bear gotten inside and dragged him into the woods? Had he tried to fight it off and was killed in the process, then taken away to be devoured? It made me cringe and screw my face up in horror. I didn't want to think about why Sam's clothes had been ripped off or why the house had looked the way it did- I just wanted Sam home with me.
I was staring at the lime green light of the digital clock on the cable box when I heard the floor shift upstairs. For some stupid reason, I thought it was Sam- as if he had ripped his own clothes off and had been hiding in his closet this whole time- and listened, holding my breath, as a door opened and then closed quietly.
After a moment, Mrs. Uley crept slowly down the stairs in the pitch darkness, slipping into her shoes by the front door and reaching out for her purse carefully- as if she was afraid she was going to wake me up.
Just as she was reaching for the doorknob, I said, "Mrs. Uley."
She jumped a little, spun around and peered at me in the dark, a hand to her chest. "Leah," she said. "I thought you were asleep."
I sat up and looked at her as best I could. "No. I couldn't sleep."
Relaxing a little, her hand falling to her side, she sighed, saying, "Me either."
"Where were you going?" I asked.
She was silent for a beat, as if she was considering whether or not she should tell me. Then, she finally confessed, "I was going to drive around a little. You know- see if I could spot him... Or something."
I knew what she was thinking. I must sound like an imbecile right now- go out looking for Sam when we have the whole Forks police department looking for him and going over the evidence. She probably thinks I'm crazy. But I didn't think that. I understood her desire to look herself- felt the same desire myself. It was horrible sitting in the house, waiting, wanting to do something to help without being able to. And maybe it was fruitless to go out and scour the reservation and Forks myself, but Goddamnit that's what I wanted to do.
"Can I come with you?" I asked. "I can't sleep anyway and I'd be an extra set of eyes."
She paused again, clearly against the idea. Late night joy rides in which we looked for Sam were probably not what my parents had in mind when they said I could stay at Mrs. Uley's for the night. But I didn't care, and I didn't want Sam's mom to care. After all, doing what my parents would or would not like was not our top priority at that moment.
Finally, she gave in and said, "If you're sure you want to."
I sprang up and grabbed my hoodie from the arm of the couch, slipped it on over my t-shirt and sweats, shoved my feet into my sneakers, and met her at the door.
First, we worked our way over the reservation, going whereever we could go in a car, both of us peering out of the windows with determined, searching eyes. From the passenger's seat, I looked between houses, into parked cars, down every street, behind trees, everywhere. I didn't want to leave any stone unturned that I was capable of turning. Mrs. Uley did her own searching, driving slowly enough that she didn't have to pay attention to the road as she craned her neck to check every angle possible. And as we did our looking, neither of us spoke. Instead, we ignored the hum of the radio between us- the talking and the music- and concentrated on what we were doing, both of us too preoccupied and anxious to think of awkward silences or the strangeness of what we were doing.
In Forks proper, we passed a trolling cop car with a search light pointed out of the window.
"Well, at least it's not just us," Mrs. Uley said, sounding less than defeated.
"Hm," was all I said in return.
After a long beat, she spoke again, saying, "Leah, did Sam know you were coming over when you found the house the way you did?"
This caught me off guard, and I clenched my teeth together briefly, before replying. "No. We had gotten into an argument and he hung up on me, so I decided I'd come over and talk to him in person."
She was silent for a minute. "What was the argument over?" she asked. "If you don't mind my asking."
I considered this. It was about... School? Work? Oh God, I couldn't even remember. I knew it had been trivial- I knew I had instigated it because I was stressed, because he had annoyed me in the smallest way- but I couldn't remember what it was exactly. There were just too many things cluttering my brain and taking up space for me to conjure that up too.
"Honestly, I-I don't remember," I told her, hearing the shock in my own voice.
We were silent for a long stretch of minutes, both of us going back to our looking. But after that pause, Mrs. Uley's quiet, soft voice inched its way across the car.
"God, Leah, I'm scared."
It made the goosebumps cover my skin again- made me hug myself in my sweatshirt, suddenly chilled.
"I know," I said, thinking of the damaged rooms, of the foreboding feelings that had filled me up when I found the house gaping open- like a wound had been stabbed into it- and I shivered. "I'm scared too."
And I hated to admit it, but I was- I was scared out of my mind.