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 against my paws.

Every joint throbbed and my muscles burned from exhaustion, but the terror of being caught 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 completely defenseless, 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 weight 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 sharp scent of werewolves gave way to the busy smell of a human town, the one place he wouldn't look for me.

With the last of my strength, I shifted back into my human form, collapsed into the tall 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 crisp 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 soft voice whispered.

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

I squeezed my eyes shut.

I wondered if they were humans or hunters.

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

‘Val! We’re in a stranger’s house!’

‘And they have great pillows,’ she countered.

"Look, she’s smiling!" the soft 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 hazel eyes leaning close to my face.

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

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

The girl gave me a wide, genuine smile.

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

I stared at her, my breath hitched.

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