Chapter 6

Reliving One's Past

The headlights barely lit the road she was driving on, the pale fluorescence doing very little against the oppressive darkness. Hands held the steering-wheel in a white knuckled grip, unnerved by the winding and twisting road. She shouldn't have been driving out so late, but she had to get home. Her mother was expecting her for dinner, but it was well beyond that and there was no cell phone service while in the valley. At the next opportunity she would try and call. But for now, she threw the phone back in the passenger seat. When she heard it clatter to the floor, only then did she look up.

Right into the yellow eyes of a wolf.

She was driving again. Same dark road, same dim lights, same lack of cell phone service. Her mother would be worried for the lack of a phone call, but it was impossible to find reception this far down in the valley. If only the road went more up than it did parallel to the mountains. Then she could get some service. She threw the cell phone to the seat beside her, fed up with watching the blinking "no service" button on the screen. Hell, the screen would probably make a better light than her headlights would. Growling low in her throat, she turned the next corner, making sure to brake appropriately so she didn't go flying off the edge. The trees broke for a few hundred feet ahead of her, revealing a full, clear moon and a cloudless sky. But she kept her eyes on the road, giving its dim presence her full attention, especially for the cliff to her left.

A yawn escaped her as she took another corner that these mountains were famous for. When she opened her eyes again, it was to stare straight into the gaze of a deer planted squarely in the middle of the road, unmoving as her headlights made it brighter and brighter. Slamming on the breaks, she knew it wouldn't be enough to avoid the deer. So she did the only thing her panicked mind and arms would let her do. She turned left.

What seemed like days later she awoke, groggy and with something dripping on her face. The second thing she noticed was that there was something definitely wrong with her situation. Shaking her head to rid it of the water, she slowly opened her eyes, getting stock of her situation. At first, it didn't register within her mind what was wrong. Only after a few moments of staring did she realize that she was upside down when she should have been right side up. Rolling her head to the side, she looked out of her windows, noticing that the glass was gone and that plants were the scenery. Groaning, she raised her arms from where they had fallen, noting that one wouldn't move quite right, and touched her forehead. Her hand came away bloody. Slowly, she began to remember what happened.

A deer in her headlights. She had slammed on her brakes to avoid it. And had gone over the side of the cliff. She must have rolled or something, since she was upside down. Knowing it was a stupid thing to do but not really caring at that moment, she reached up and unbuckled her seatbelt, promptly falling on her head to the ground below her. It was then she noticed her major problem. A tree limb had broken off during her crash and had lodged itself in her chest. When it moved, she felt pain and couldn't breathe correctly, and the wound bled. It was fine if she didn't move. But she would die unless she got out of her car. So very carefully and with much pain in her chest, arm, leg, and head, she managed to somehow pull herself from the crumpled car.

She lay outside of the metal cage, panting for breath through blood clogged lungs, unable to draw a full breath or even move without pain shooting through her body. Her one respite was that it had begun raining while she had remained unconscious, the gentle drops cooling her fevered head. Her hands began shaking with shock, and she slowly slipped into unconsciousness once more.

How long she remained unconscious she didn't know, but when she next awoke, something was definitely very different. There was something nearby, an animal by the sounds of it. She tried to keep still, but the groan of awakening left her throat before she could suppress it. She shouldn't be alive. She should be dead. The branch must be keeping the punctured veins from bleeding. And she probably hadn't been out for that long. The moon was still full, so it was still the same night, except there were now clouds creating black holes where there were once stars. The creature moving nearby sniffed the air deeply, its feet crunching as it moved through the underbrush.

Another joined the first and she resisted the urge to open her eyes and look. They couldn't know she was alive. What if they were predators? Not that she could do anything either way, not with a tree limb piercing one lung, the organ completely collapsed and the other threatening to do so. It was her breathing that gave her away, the gargled gasps for air distinctive to a dying being. The two creatures made their ways over, always sniffing curiously. They sounded big. Some sort of conversation went on between the two, consisting of growls and low barks. Since when were there wolves in the Smokies? Something seemed to be decided for one left, leaping through the underbrush and howling, an answer coming from not too far away.

When the other wolf had left, the first padded closer, sniffing the tree limb and my blood. It lapped up a bit with its tongue, as if checking its taste and temperature. She could feel his paws near her head and this time she could not resist the urge to open her eyes. They fluttered dully open, not really seeing the wolf looking at her with a cocked head. But she saw his eyes, his golden, oddly human eyes. After that moment, she knew pain like she had never known before. But always on the brink of unconsciousness, the wolf would stop, almost as if it could smell when she was about to lose it and stop just before.

First he had removed the limb, uncaring to the extra damage it caused in the way out, the broken twigs tearing more tissue and re-opening the clots that had formed. She nearly lost it then, the sudden loss of blood too much to handle. But somehow it was stopped and she remained conscious, trying to breath with a collapsed lung. Near death, she watched the wolf with black-rimmed vision, wondering why it was doing what it was. It should be eating her, or killing. Well, in a way it was, just indirectly. It sat to watch her for a moment, as if debating what to do next, if she was sufficiently injured to finally kill. She wished it had been that easy.

The wolf lunged at her, teeth barred and mouth wide in a snarl of pure hatred. He landed on top of her battered body and bit into the flesh at her neck. Too tired to even gasp a scream, she passed out mercifully as the wolf tore what remained of her body.

Surprisingly, she awoke. Rolling her head to the side, she groaned with the pain of awakening. She was someplace warm, she noticed, and her head was cradled by something soft. She tried to open her eyes, but the whiteness around her forced them closed again. She was dead then, lying in that place of judgment no doubt. She felt no pain, so that was a logical conclusion. But when she opened her eyes next, it was not white she saw, but brown, the deep brown of stained wood. Closing her eyes again, she almost wished she were dead. For the pain had returned.

It felt like fire through her veins, coursing through every muscle and every inch of broken tissue and bone. She could feel her lungs rattle with every breath, the air wheezing past her throat in a sickening sound. She could feel her heat flutter in her chest, trying in vane to supply oxygen to every part of her body. But each beat only brought more pain. She felt something in her veins, something growing inside that she couldn't control. She groaned again, her back arching in protest to the never-ending pain in her body.

Somehow, she knew someone, something was watching her. She could feel their eyes on her, watching, analyzing, judging. She rolled her head in that direction, panting for air that refused to fill her lungs. She opened her eyes.

And met those of a wolf.

But the thing watching her was human, he had to be. But the yellow eyes…they were familiar somehow…

"Do you remember?" The voice grated against her ears, sounding like gravel to her. She groaned and turned away, finally noticing the restraints holding her body to the bed she laid in. Just straps across her chest and legs. She wondered why.

"Do you remember?" the voice said again.

"Remember what?" she asked back, her voice breathy and weak, sounding like death warmed over.

"Obviously not." And the human with wolf eyes left the room, leaving through a door that he shut before she could get a look outside. Closing her eyes again, she fell back into an exhausted sleep, not even the fire in her veins enough to keep her from blessed oblivion.

When she next awoke, someone was sitting on the bed with her, near her legs and holding something near her face. It smelled terrible. With a groan, she moved her head away from whatever medicine it was, trying to bat it away, but her arms were pinned to her sides by the straps. The smell was persistent, and so was the person holding the spoon.

"You have to drink," the voice above her said, different from the one before. This one was softer, gentler. He pushed the spoon into her relenting mouth and she tasted chicken. Terrible chicken, but still chicken. Her veins still throbbed horribly, but she noticed she could breathe a little easier. She tried to open her eyes and managed to squint up at the person sitting on the bed.

"So you are awake," he said with a soft smile, a light dancing in his blue eyes. "You had us worried for a few days there."

"Days?" she heard herself ask in a tired and weak voice. Days? "We?"

"Of course we," he said as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. "Who else would help you heal?"

It was then she remembered the accident. Her eyes got wider as she looked up at him and she began to struggle against her bonds. He tried to calm her with his touch, laying gentle a hand on her shoulder while setting down the bowl of soup.

"What did you do to me?" she asked with a ferocity unknown to her. For some reason, the man sitting on the bed with her smiled in…relief? She calmed in that one moment, watching him warily.

"We saved you."

Saved her. Right. Each day she remained alive, struggling with the thing growing in her veins, unable to stop the change within her very body, the pain grew. And each day came the same question. Did she remember? No, she would say in reply, not knowing what she was supposed to remember. All she remembered was pain. No details, not what caused it, nothing. All she knew in those days of entrapment was pain. She could feel her pulse in every part of her body, feel it throb against something on her neck. Whatever it was—and is felt like a bandage—it kept her blood within her veins. And gave them access to her very soul.

Every day one of the humans with wolves' eyes would come in, thinking she was not yet awake, and bite the same place, forcing the wound open with their teeth and then sharing their blood with her, as if giving her it would make up for that which was lost when she was brought to this place. But with each bite the pain in her veins became worse, increasing in intensity with every drop of their blood, as if something were eating her from the inside out. If only she knew then how close she came to the truth. But the month had to end and the full moon come again. It was then she found out what horror had happened to her.

She was taken from her cage—since that was the only appropriate word for it—and led into the wilderness, the wolf-humans around her looking feral and furtive in every action and movement. She could feel something within her wanting freedom, to answer some call she could not hear. It felt as if her heart were being ripped from her chest. The moon's light shone on her as she fell to her knees, hands holding her head together, for it would surely explode if she didn't. The pain was excruciating. She didn't know how many times she screamed, begged for death. She had been content to die back in the woods, content to leave this world. But instead she had been saved. For what? This? A never-ending pain she could not explain? But as she began to Change, feel her body tear itself apart from the inside, she watched those around her, the humans with wolves' eyes. They Changed as well, becoming what their eyes heralded.

Wolves.

She hadn't wanted this. She was saved from death only to be given a life of damnation. Death would have been better than this life. But she could do nothing except scream in agony as her skull elongated into a feral snout, her legs twist and change, growing claws and her foot lengthening and thinning while all over her skin sprouted a russet colored fur. For the longest time, she laid there in the soft bed of pine needles, surrounded by wolves and the tatters of clothing that had been a gift. Or a prison uniform. For the longest time she panted, gasping for air that would not come into her lungs. For the longest time she fought the creature trying to take control.

Her wolf within.

But she was driven back, no longer in complete control of her changed body. The body of a wolf, she was given, and it was the wolf who had control. On shaking legs, the wolf stood and shook her fur, ridding it of pine needles. And before her stood two wolves, one with dark grey fur and a whitened muzzle with white socks on his feet, and the other with slate blue fur, his muzzle and tail-tip dipped in black. Pairs of golden and blue eyes watched her as she stood, and she came to understand three things. The first, she was a werewolf, a vicious creature of legend. The second that the grey wolf was her Changer and the blue her Alpha. And third.

She would never wish this life upon anyone.