Hey everyone! I got board of exam prep shit so i started writing this. It starts at the middle of Chapter 32 of 'The Awakening' in Derek's Point of View.

Hope you like it J

We continued down the back roads running somewhat parallel each other. I had told Chloe that by judging on how long we had been in the van that we should be relatively close to the next town with a bus stop.

The problem with being out here in the country was that most of the dogs weren't chained up. The ones that were jumped, growled, and barked as we passed but seeing as there were bound to be other people down these roads the owners didn't take notice. But it was the ones that were un-chained that we had to worry about. When they would catch my scent they would come charging at us full force but when they got a good view of me would spin and run like a bat outa hell the other way, tail between its legs. Our reaction had became instant. Automatic. When we heard the barking. Chloe would move behind me and I would stand our ground and wait for it.

"Do they always back down like that?" Chloe asked me as she watched a yellow lab ran back up its owners drive.

"Depends on the dog. These big country dogs? Yeah. It's the fancy city ones that give me trouble. Overbred, Dad says. Makes them skittish and mess's with their wiring. I had a Chihuahua attack me last year." I held my hand out in front of us to show her the faint scar where it had taken a good chomp. "Took a good chunk out."

She tried to hold in her laughter but to no avail. "A Chihuahua?"

I looked at her, her face showed that she was tired but her eyes were sparkling with laughter. "Hey, that thing was more vicious than a Pit-bull. I was at the park with Simon, kicking around the ball. All of a sudden this little rat dog comes tearing out of nowhere, jumps up, and clamps down on my hand. Wouldn't let go. I'm shaking it, and the owners yelling at me not to hurt little Tito. I finally got the dog off. I'm bleeding all over the place and the guy doesn't even apologizes."

"He didn't think it was strange? His dog attacking you like that?" Chloe looked puzzled over that.

"Nah. He said the soccer ball must had provoked it, and we needed to be more careful. When strange stuff happens people come up with their own explanations." I explained to her.

She told me about the ally, and that Tori had used a knock back spell, and the leader thought that she used a taser. "Yeah. We have to be careful, but they will normally explain it away themselves."

We moved aside as a pickup drove past, and Chloe waved at the driver who waved back. She was stiff until she saw that the truck was keeping the same pace and not slowing to talk to us.

"So do all animals react that way to you?" She asked after the truck was out of her eye sight. "I know you said rats steer clear."

I didn't even have to think of my response for this one. "Most do. They see a human, but smell something else. It confuses them. Canines are the worst, though." I thought and decided I would try for a laugh. " No, cats are the worst. I really don't like cats." It worked. As she giggled, which was the most amazing thing because it made her look even cuter, I moved us to the other side of the road and into the sun.

"I went to the zoo once. Fifth grade fieldtrip. Dad said I couldn't go because of the werewolf thing. I was pissed. Really pissed. Back then, I didn't freak animals out. Just made them nervous. So I decided that dad was being unfair and went anyways."

"How?"

"Forged his name and saved my allowance."

"So what happened?"

"Pretty much what dad figured. I made the predators nervous and totally freaked out the prey animals. My classmates thought it was cool, though. They got to see an elephant charge." I could still hear them laughing at cheering when that happened. There were a few of the girls that got really freaked out by it, but all and all they enjoyed.

"Seriously?" Chloe sounded either in awe or in shock. I was to tired to tell.

"Yeah. I felt bad. So I stayed back from the pens after that. They weren't what I wanted to see anyway."

"Which was it? Wait. The wolves, right?"

I only nodded.

"You wanted to see if they would recognize you as one of them." She stated as if she already knew it was true.

"Nah. Nothing silly like that." We kept walking as I thought. What was the point in lying about that? "Okay. Exactly like that. I had this…" I was looking for the right word.

"Fantasy?" Chloe volunteered.

I glowered at her. "This idea that they'd smell me and…" I just shrugged it off. "I don't know what . Just that they'd do something. That something cool would happen." Still wasn't telling the whole truth there but I couldn't let her know what I had really been thinking.

"Did it?" she was completely into my story. I wasn't sure if it was because she wanted to see how weird it got or if it was because she truly cared about what I had gone through.

"Sure, if you consider it cool to watch a wolf batter itself bloody against the fence."

"Oh."

"It was…" instead of seeing the road in front of me now I was looking at the wolf in the fencing, covered in blood, teeth barred, growling at me. " Bad. I got out of there as fast as I could, but he didn't stop. The next day a kid at school said that they put the wolf to sleep."

From the corner of my eye I saw Chloe turn to face me, but I didn't turn to her, just kept with my story. "I went home and grabbed the paper. The city section was missing. Dad had gotten to it first. He'd figured out what had happened but he wasn't going to say anything. He knew I'd been upset about something that night, and I guess he thought that was punishment enough. So I went to the store and bought a paper myself. It was true." She just nodded.

"'Sudden, unprovoked aggression toward humans': I had never forgotten that headline, and I never would. I was the reason that a wolf had gotten killed. "Wolves don't normally act like that. All those stories about the big, bad wolf are crap. Yeah, they're predators, and they're dangerous. But they don't want anything to ddo with humans if they can avoid it. The only time they do is if they're sick, starving, or defending their territory. I was a lone wolf invading a packs turf. He was the alpha. It was his duty to protect his pack. And he got killed for it."

"You didn't mean for that to happen." Chloe said trying to comfort me.

"That's no excuse. Dad taught me about wolves. I knew how they behaved. I'd seen it with the other boys, the other subjects…" Thinking of them made me feel sick. They were my brothers but that didn't mean anything to me. They had treated me as if I was nothing.

"Do you remember them? Simon wasn't sure you did."

"Yeah. I do." I rubbed the back of my neck, this was getting into dangerous territory. I looked at her. She looked like death. Purple bags under her eyes, black hair draining any color from her face. "You getting tired?"

"A little." She tried to stifle a yawn.

"It shouldn't be long now. So, uh…" I had been talking about me almost the whole time and I didn't know anything about her. I wanted to learn stuff. I wanted to know her. "That special school you go to. You take theater?" it was a start.

"I'm in the theater arts stream. We still take all the regular classes, like math, English, science…" And with this I got to learn a bit more about the small, very cute, Necromancer that had decided to tag along with me.