Angelina

I had just returned from work when I heard a knock on the door. It was the day after the fire incident. Collins and I had plans to return to search for the alpha again. We were talking about that when someone knocked and interrupted us. I got up from the couch and walked to the door, thinking it was my boss. I had been avoiding any conversations and ignoring his text that wasn’t business or work-related. Had he come to visit me again? Uninvited?

“Who is it?” I asked, standing by the door.

“It’s me, Jenniffer Griffin,” a female voice said.

“Oh,” I said. I turned to Collins and nodded at him. “That’s our friend,” I said with my mind. He nodded.

“I am on my way,” I said to the person at the door.

I opened the door to let her inside the house. How happy it was to see her again. Fate had been playing tricks on us, and twice we had met under unexpected circumstances.

“I am… was here… Yesterday,” she said. “when the fire was...”

“Please, come inside,” I said. She didn’t have to explain herself. I was scared to my bones last night, and it was because of good people like her that one had more faith in humanity. She had hugged and walked inside the house, trying to help. We held hands, too, without realizing it until later.

She stepped into the house, and I locked the door behind me.

“Should I offer you coffee?” I asked.

“Yes, please,” she said. Then she took her seat on the couch when I pointed at it, looking at Collins one more time.

I walked into the bedroom to make her coffee and made one for myself.

“Thank you for stopping by,” she said.

“Yeah, my pleasure,” she said. “I just moved here to California this month, so I have few places to hang around. So I decided to check on you guys. I am glad you are okay.”

“We are glad you are here, Jenniffer.”

We drank more coffee. At one point, I went back into the house and microwaved some pancakes so we could eat them. She told me about herself, and I shared my stories about getting a job in a small startup with two other employees and our boss. She moved here because of school and would be here for the next year studying medicine. She lived not too far from our place —just a thirty-minute drive —- and I promised to visit her sometimes. She made me promise to come with Collins because she loved him. I nodded. She wouldn’t understand that Collins wasn’t a dog as she seemed. We would visit her one day, but we would be careful.

She left some hours later. Collins and I walked to the porch to watch her drive out of the parking and hit the road again. There was something about her, a kind of warmth, that made you want to sit with her and feel relaxed. She was younger, too, but a lot more intelligent. She was studying to become a doctor, so her level of intelligence wasn’t too shocking.

Collins and I walked back inside to prepare to get on the road again. We came out again a few minutes later. I was wearing my coat, running shoes, and a muffler scarf. We would find the alpha again. One of our questions had been answered — Is there really an Alpha around here? But there was another question that needed answers. Could the alpha help us find a solution?

I drove to a part of Hollywood Neighborhood like we did last night. We came down and began to walk down the road, and we came to the same old man, who was sitting by the road, smoking a cigarette; the same gun was beside him at the same position we saw it yesterday. Once we moved past him, Collins and I began to run as wolves. My eyes turned, more energy, and I ran and kept up with him. We ran and arrived at the woods some minutes later.

As expected, the area under the woods was dark and quiet. We had to make our way around by bringing on our animal abilities. We hid under one of the trees and tried to perceive the scent. We walked around slowly but in a specific direction. Last night, the alpha came to us suddenly, but when he left, he followed a certain path, so we headed in that direction, running as fast as we could.

I was the first to perceive some scents of a wolf, not the strong scent of an Alpha, but it was still a wolf. Then we heard footsteps some miles away. The wolf had probably turned into a werewolf, running fast on all fours and in our direction. We waited, and I tightened my fist. We didn’t know who was coming at us or if we should be ready to fight. The person was coming too fast as if they could tell we were there. I stayed behind the tree and stood feet apart, ready to fight. Closer and closer, the werewolf got closer. Feet touched the dry leaves and made rustling sounds. The energy and pace of the run were strong. My heart had begun to beat harder and harder, and so was Collins.

I had never fought another werewolf in my life. Except you counted my grandmother and mother when they were training me, or we were having wild, animal fun. I looked back and then forward again. The wolf was closer now, just a mile and a half away. We could hear the movements louder and louder, their feet stomping. Maybe we should run. He wouldn’t be running like that if it were the same alpha. He wouldn’t make much noise when he knew he could be caught or hunted by wolf hunters. I tried to focus, to decide. Should we run away or hold our ground and fight if we had to? We were just here for help, not to fight. So, I took a deep breath.

“It’s a young girl,” Collins said.

I tried to look forward, eyes turning yellowish. I squinted harder, but although I could hear the sound of running on dry leaves, I couldn’t see clearly. I had forgotten that Collins used to see farther than I could.

“Are you sure?” I asked.

“It’s a young girl,” he said again.

“Maybe she is running from something,” I said.

Then I looked forward to the direction of the running, and she was close now. I could see her smiling and coming at us. She came close and stopped some feet away from us. She was a young girl, a teenager, standing in her werewolf form. She stared at me, her canine visible. She looked at Collins, then at me. Then came a sudden realization. We were not the ones she had been looking for. “Who are you people?” she asked.

I raised a hand forward and nodded twice. Quickly, I understood a couple of things. We werewolves, after all, and had habits. She felt we had taken over her territory. She was expecting to meet some people, not us. She had been tracing us down with our scents. Now it was obvious she would fight.

“We are harmless,” Collins said with his mind.

She looked at him and back at me. She could hear him, too.

“Yes, we are here to see the alpha. We want to ask for his help.” I said. “I...”

“You do not belong here. You are not part of us,” she yelled. She raised her head into the trees and howled. I rushed towards her and covered her mouth with my palm, but she bit me and got free. Then she took some steps back and howled again.

“See, we are not here looking for trouble. We can explain what we came here for. You need to calm down. Or we can leave. We will never come back.”

“No, you can’t leave. You are not part of our park, So you can’t come here as a spy….”

“You are getting it wrong. We are not spies. We were here yesterday. The Alpha. We met him.”

“He would have killed you.”

I glanced at Collins. Yes, he wanted to kill Collins and me. He tried, but he changed his mind when the wolf hunters arrived. Maybe this girl was right. We may not be as lucky as we were last night. I eyed Collins and nodded. We needed to run.

I took some steps back.

The girl lifted her mouth and howled again.

I started running. Collins followed, but we hardly took three steps when we ran into three people — werewolves standing in our way. When we looked around, there were more of them.

We had been surrounded.