Chapter Two-

"Tap Your Paws Three Times If You Believe."

This chapters kind of slow…Chapter 3 will be more interesting I promise! Be patient.

I know what you're thinking. This is where the story gets juicy. I'll be all "OMG what's going on? What's happened to me! Why do I have the sudden urge to pee all over my living room carpet?" Pretty much. Yeah. Only the part about me peeing on the carpet part was sarcastic, so don't hold that against me. But I was freaking out. Big time. One minute I'm having some kind of temper tantrum and the next my heads pressed up against the ceiling and the floor is trembling, trying to contain my newly gained weight. My claws are scratching against the floor, and all that comes out of my mouth is this combination of a howl and a whimper. Good thing my neighbors are used to weird. We've got a tarot card reader upstairs and a fifty year old man with twenty tattoos and leather pants downstairs. They'll probably came up with some kind of explanation of their own. Possibly more bizarre than the truth.

Jumping back to the point, this wasn't a very good time for me, and I don't prefer to go into all those details of fear, confusion, and frustration. Once all that passed to the point that I was thinking coherently, I decide this "illness" was causing me to hallucinate. So, I try getting down on all…fours, and closed my eyes. I'd fall asleep and when I would wake up everything would go back to normal….you know, probably.

After an hour or so of deep breathing and happy thoughts, I drifted into a dreamless haze. Then, the next thing I knew, I was naked in my living room, the morning sun peeking through the curtains. Some glass litters the floor, some furniture is knocked over and so are some framed photos the landlord doesn't know we nailed to the wall. At first, it's easier to believe I had one bad fever and totally lost it, but there's one giant spot of evidence that, for a second, sets me on the fritz. The carpet is pushed aside to reveal one giant claw mark, much too big for a normal animal, especially an animal in Westridge….in a two bedroom apartment….on the seventh floor.

First, I grab some clothes and find a phone. My first instinct is to call the police, but then I remember something my very best friend, Toby, had done a report on for his seventh grade cultural studies project. Piecing it all together, it made sense, but it's something I was far from accepting as the truth. Still, with that thought in my mind, I can't bring myself to call the cops. I make some coffee with shaking hands, ignoring the fact that school had started two hours ago, and start up my computer. Toby wouldn't be online, but he had typed it up at my house. I skimmed through the files until I found the right dates I was looking for. Double clicking the document, it opens up and I read the assignment at least four times. At the top it reads:

Cultural Studies Research Paper

Directions: Find another student in the class to pair up with. You will be doing a research paper on that student's nationality and family background. Be as specific as you can. The sources of this assignment will come from your partner and his/her family as well as other books and websites you find…

I jump down to the rough draft Toby had typed beneath the directions. My mother didn't like talking about the reservation, but she was willing to help Toby after all he and his mother had done for us. One paragraph particular caught my eye and made my heart pound against my chest.

There are many legends among these people, but the most famous one of all is the story of the spirit warriors, which lead to the birth of men who could shape shift from man to wolf. The Spirit Warriors….

They say the wolf "gene" is passed on through each generation and takes effect when the cold-ones are near the land. They form when they are teenagers and turn into wolves when they lose their temper. They do not need a full moon to change like in common European folklore…

No freakin' way. This was all make-believe, legends, stories. This couldn't be real. Stuff like this just didn't happen to people, especially to people like me. I don't even like dogs! They keep you up a night with their barking and slobber all of you with the same tongues they use to lick their no-no parts.

Then why can't I shake off the premonition that this all made sense. I click out of the document and try to keep my thoughts from getting caught up in all this impossible yet totally sensible reasoning.

I take my mug and stare at the giant claw mark scraped against the wood floor. I replay what I could remember from yesterday over and over again in my head, trying to find something there I didn't see before. Something that would prove this whole "wolf theory" was a load of crap, but the more I try to over analyze all the facts, the less and less probable that seemed.

I give a weary sigh and washed my coffee mug in the sink. There was only one thing to do. The only thing I could do to settle this nonsense once and for all. To prove legends didn't really come true, and, though I hate myself for admitting it, keep the ones I love safe.

I mapquest the directions to La Push, Seattle, and called a taxi. I need the whole story, the one my mother would never tell me unless my best friend's history grade depended on it. Besides, apparently there's more to this than just some local legend. I had to attack the myth at it's source. If anyone was going to believe me, it'd be them.

I pull all the books out of my backpack and dump in my emergency fund, a few days worth of clothes, toiletries, some printed out brochures and maps of the area, the fake IDs Marco made me, and my cell phone. I effortlessly drag the rug back over the claw mark, and clean up the broken glass. The apartment looks relatively normal. I hear my cab roll up to the curb and honk for me from downstairs and scribble down a short, "Bus broke. Never made it to school. (if they call later) Sleeping Babybel's for the weekend. BIG project due. Low on milk. Call me. XOXO-the kid" on a post it note on the fridge. It sounds boring enough to keep me safe for awhile.

I throw a twenty at the cab driver so he doesn't stare too hard at my fake ID. The smell of his half-eaten Philly cheese steak and fake leather interior remind me how heightened my senses have been today. No normal person could hear a cab five blocks before it came to pick you up. I shiver in the realization that my palms, pricked and poked by the broken glass, were soft and smooth as they moisten against my jeans.

To keep myself productive, I start practicing logarithm problems on my laptop, email my boss that I'm calling in sick, which is technically true. After I've skimmed through a 250-page novel for English, I look out the window and realize there are more trees then people in Washington. Real trees. Real giant trees! (Please excuse my fascination with the foliage…I'm a city girl.)

The cab rolls down a worn down path up to Reservation and I see the sun is setting. I haven't eaten anything all day. I pay the cab driver half of my savings, hope the other half will manage to get me home.

I take in a deep breath and take in the startlingly fresh air. There are lots of trees. No apartments. No city lights. No traffic lights. Nobody trying to sell me something illegal. No women in skimpy clothes. No loitering gangs. No weirdoes stumbling around. No…anything.

Okay, if I don't hear someone screaming at me to get out of the street, I'm about to have a cultural shock. Do I have to kill somebody for a little common discourtesy?

I start walking over to what appears to be the only store in town. I'm not joking, there's only ONE store in the whole place. I half expect to see a sign on the door that reads, "Sorry. The La Push has been abandoned due to boredom and the lack of a decent McDonalds." I stare nervously up at the fading light and dig into my backpack to see if there are any motels I could crash at.

That's when some jerk hits me with their truck.