The Escape

~Elvira~

~Flashback: Two Weeks Ago~

I ran.

I had been moving for over an hour, the damp earth of the forest floor cold on my paws.

Every joint in my body burned...my muscles too burned from exhaustion, but the terror of being caught and tortured kept me moving.

I had to escape that house and the man who had treated me like property for fourteen years.

My first shift came late~three days ago, on my twentieth birthday.

Most werewolves shift at eighteen or nineteen.

Because I hadn't, my stepfather assumed I was still defenceless...unaware I had finally found my wolf.

Val was a secret worth the wait, she helped me mask my scent and planned our escape the moment he and his son left the house.

As I ran, the bruises hidden beneath my fur ached with the memories, I remembered the pain of his fist when I was thirteen, breaking my arm because I talked to a boy in the backyard of our house.

I remembered him calling me a whore, just like he had called my mother before he killed her, yes...I had watched through the slats of her closet door as he choked the life out of her.

‘Farther, Val,’ I urged even as my vision blurred.

‘We have to get farther’

We finally reached a paved road where the scent of werewolves gave way to the busy smell of a human town, the one place he wouldn't look for me i was certain.

With the last of my strength, I shifted back into my human form, collapsed into the grass of an open field and passed out immediately.

I woke up to bright sunlight.

Expecting a blow, I flinched...but then realized I was lying on a soft mattress.

I blinked...looking around a room with white walls and girlish artwork.

The air smelled of lavender and girlish creams, I was tucked under a pink blanket...wearing red-striped pajamas that belonged to someone else.

The bedroom door opened.

"I thought I heard her move," a female voice whispered.

"Shh, let's leave her be," a male voice replied.

I squeezed my eyes shut.

I wondered if they were just humans or hunters.

‘Why don’t you open your eyes and find out?’ Val my wolf teased in my mind unbothered.

‘Val! We’re in a stranger’s house!’

‘And they have great pillows,’ she countered.

"Look, she’s smiling!" the female voice said.

My lips had twitched at Val’s comment.

I snapped my eyes open to see a girl with wavy blonde hair and bright eyes drawing close to my face.

She smelled so much of lavender that my wolf instantly relaxed, a rare sense of safety washed over me.

"Who are you?!" I blurted out, moving back to the headboard while eyeing the door.

The girl gave me a genuine smile.

"Thank goodness you’re awake! We found you out in the field. You looked like you’d been through something awful...what happened to you?”

I stared at her inhaling rougly.

The energy around them felt kind and safe, they were my introduction to a new world i was looking for…