Authors Note: Thanks everyone for sticking with the story! I know it's depressing right now,it gets better I promise, but in order for a person to fully live without fear, they have to be free of everything they leave behind. So, without further ado, here is chapter 7.
By the time I got into the city, it was well past dark. I had changed in the forest, and ran as far as a Syracuse truck stop. With the shady light, and lack of proper fencing, I was able to jump on the tailgate of a truck heading towards New York.
Hours of driving later, and a run on my own, I was scampering into Manhattan. I knew Logan was staying with Uncle Nick in his apartment in the Upper West Side, so all I had to do was make it there. Right.
Luckily for me, I had managed to wander into Central Park, so I had a bit of forest to hide myself. But a wolf in New York? Wandering the streets? Not likely.
But I also had no clothes.
Or money.
So I had a choice, either stay a wolf and hope no one called the cops, or Change into a naked teenage girl, and hope no one called the cops. Before I could really ponder the answer, I picked up the scent of human. I took one deep breath in, my nose tingling from the City stink. Mixed in with the exhaust, rotting leaves left over from winter, and garbage, I could smell a human. Female, from what I could tell. I followed that scent down a small slope, careful as to not alert any of the gangbangers that roam the park at night to my presence. And there, on the bench below me, was a sleeping female.
So now I was up against an interesting predicament.
I needed clothes. This woman-who with a closer sniff was obviously a strung out junkie too wasted to go home- was wearing some.
Now, ask yourself, would you let those clothes go to waste?
And that is how, half an hour later, I was wearing ill-fitting track pants, a heavy cotton sweater that fell off my frame, and shoes a few sizes too small for my size nine feet. But hey, when life gives you lemons… you make a lemon suit.
So with this hobo-chic outfit I headed in the direction of Logan, and Uncle Nick.
I knew how to get there by heart, even though he had only leased this place a few years ago. It was one of the only places Jeremy let me visit, nowadays.
New York at night had always been amazing to me. And I'm not talking the tourist traps, like Times Square. No, just the city itself.
It was so segregated from the forests I loved, and yet it was so… so… alive. Everywhere I looked there was someone different, just hoping to belong. Yeah, I know, cheesy as hell. But true, just the same. On the street I was walking down, for example, there were pictures of uber-skinny models plastered onto bus stops, chunky older businessmen stepping outside from a restaurant for a smoke, a pair of lovers leaning against a brick wall leading to an alley. Now that I think of it, though, PDA so isn't cute.
It figures, too, that the alley they were against was a shortcut Uncle Nick's building.
I kept walking, ignoring them as they got closer and closer on my left. Typically couple, I thought as a disgusting burst of bus smoke blew by my face, tossing my hair-and the surrounding scents- straight at me.
It hit me, pardon the cliché, like a ton of bricks. ( Not that I'd ever been hit with a ton of bricks, but one doesn't need to feel that to imagine fairly accurately that it would hurt like hell. ) Not my hair, that isn't what hit me, but the scents.
Werewolf.
That was no regular couple leaning against the alley-excuse me, falling into the alley now- that was a werewolf and his dinner. I couldn't see them now, as they were covered by the brick bend in the street, but I could smell him, if I concentrated on it.
I wasn't in shape for a fight. I was dehydrated, tired from all the running, and hadn't fought a mutt since the day of my parents' death. But I had killed those mutts, and I wasn't afraid. I had nothing left really, except Logan. And if this mutt was in the city, where he was staying, then Logan was in danger.
Besides, although I wasn't ready for a fight, I wanted one.
From the scent of him he was mature, clearly a born-wolf. As in, not bitten. Cocky bastard, too, if he showed up in Pack territory.
I guess the mutts just weren't as afraid of the Pack anymore. Or, at least, not all of the mutts were. I hoped to rectify that.
So, with the bravery and swagger only a ten werewolf fresh out of the cage can possess, I wandered into that alley.
"Hey," the girl mumbled, pressed up against the wall, the man's face at her collarbone, " Hey, stop, stop, Hey!" Then he bit down, and just before she screamed he pressed his hand against her mouth.
Why wasn't I stopping them? Wasn't really my job. Besides, it gave me a chance to size up my opponent. He was smallish, about 5 foot 6, with a stocky build. Not fat, but kind of square. And, obviously, he was none too bright if he let his food distract him from the scents around him. That was one of the first things I was taught by my . . .
So, when the blood started to drip down her collarbone and onto her-tacky-red motorcycle jacket, I figured I would take the opportunity to introduce myself.
"Careful," I said, "one day you might meet a girl that would bite you back." My mouth was half upturned, in as sinister looking smile as I could manage. He dropped the girl, and she crawled towards me.
Instead of speaking, he just looked at me, really confused. His dark designer suit- versace?- couldn't distract from the shock on his face when he finally breathed my scent in. We both ignored the girl, as he started speaking furiously in another language. German? Well, it sounded vaguely eastern European, but I had never taken language courses, so hell if I knew.
His fists balled, drawing my eyes lower. That's when the girl made a move to grab my hand and I, instead, grabbed her jaw and snapped her neck.
Now, before you go on about how sadistic I am, I had to do it. Being a werewolf is transferred through saliva, and she had just had a nice lick down by Mr. Not-So-Bright. I was being as kind as I could.
He took a step closer, narrowing his eyes, forgetting the girl whose body lay at my feet. Obviously, we weren't fast friends. This mutt didn't take it too well that I had just killed his evening plans. But, before we could start the dance that was hard-wired into my brain, something interrupted.
The door on the left side of the alley opened, sending pulsing music out towards me. A club, a door to a club or bar that was in the building. Probably some super exclusive place where rich men and women could slum it with younger, if not so rich, men and women.
Just what I needed, a man walked outside. Did he hear her scream? I glanced down for a second at her body, wondering what the hell this might look like. Me, dressed in homeless people clothes, with a body at my feet, and a man about to pounce.
I expected him to yell, shout, call 9-11. He did none of that. Why? Another breath told me. He was a werewolf. Two fully-grown mutts. Fuck my life.
