Chapter 2: Back to slaughterhouse

Two Years Later

Elara

“What are you doing in there, Elara? Andy's all over the place looking for you!”

I didn't need to look out the window to know it was Kofi. The boy had a voice like a cracked bell, definitely impossible to ignore.

“Give me a sec!” I called back, twisting the stove knob down to its lowest flame. The soup had another five minutes in it at least, but five minutes was five minutes I didn't have.

I was already moving before my feet decided to. I shoved open the van door and dropped to the ground, spinning toward my mom's silhouette in the small window. “Keep an eye on the soup, I'll be back in an hour!”

“At least eat something first, you this girl!”

“Andy will kill me if I'm late!” I was already running.

Her voice chased me down the path. “Then let her kill you on a full stomach!”

I laughed despite myself and kept moving.

A few kids near the water barrels spotted me and broke into shouting my name, arms shooting up in waves.

On any other day I would've stopped. Tickled the little ones, but I couldn't afford even a second, so I waved wide, mouthed “later,” and pushed past the treeline.

Though the whole place felt even emptier today.

People are leaving. Every day, someone else packed up what little they had and disappeared toward bigger packs. It sat heavy in my chest whenever I thought about it, so I didn't. We were almost past this. We had to be.

I broke through the trees and Andy's small cottage came into view. But Andy was nowhere outside.

I slowed to a jog and knocked on the door. “Andy. It's me , open up.”

Silence.

I frowned. Andy didn't wander. She never went further than her garden, and even that was rare on training days. A half-eaten concern settled at the back of my throat as I tried the handle and found it unlocked.

So I opened the door and entered. “Andy.” I called slowly.

On the table, a cup of coffee sat steaming.

She hasn't gone far. So where is she?

I was about to head back outside when the floorboard behind me gave the softest creak.

Every hair on the back of my neck stood.

I turned and dropped instantly, barely missing the attack.

A wolf hit the air where my head had been, massive and dark, claws raking nothing. It landed in a crouch and rounded on me, then it came again.

I sidestepped the first lunge and drove my knee up into its ribs, using its own momentum to roll it wide. It recovered quickly, snapping at my arm, and I let it close just enough before twisting, catching the thick neck in the crook of my elbow and wrenching hard. We went down together. I locked my weight over it, pinning the animal flat against the floor, chest heaving, one knee pressed between its shoulder blades.

The growling stopped.

Slowly, the fur receded. The bones cracked and shifted beneath my touch until the wolf was gone. In its place lay a fit woman with a sharp, low-cut hairstyle. Her eyes held what I would call pride, or amusement. Maybe somewhere in between..

I stared down at her.

“Andy?” I gasped, the adrenaline finally ebbing away. I rolled off her, collapsing onto my back on the wooden floor. I stared up at the ceiling, while my lungs remembered what they were for. “Jeez. I thought you were an intruder.”

“I can see you're getting better every day,” she said, pulling herself to sit up, and looked down at me.

“You're ten minutes late..”

“I was helping my mom with the soup,” I said, still on the floor. “I had to start from scratch myself, because if I leave her to cook it unsupervised I'll be picking worms out of my intestines all night.” The woman cannot cook. It's a genuine danger to public health.

Andy made a sound that was almost a laugh and gestured for me to get up.

We went again after that. Harder. She came at me, and I met every one of them. By the time she called it, we were both breathing heavily.

“You're soft on that flank,” She said, as she tilted her head. “Still. You brought me down today. So I guess it's not much of an issue.”

“Learned that from the very best,” I panted.

“So you admit I'm the best.”

“Did I say that?”

“You said the best.”

“I said the very best,” I corrected. “Completely different sentence.”

Andy laughed, then walked back to the table, picking up her mug. She frowned. “It’s gone cold now.”

“That's what happens when you spend twenty minutes as a wolf trying to knock my head off.”

She sat. I sat across from her, and for a moment neither of us said anything.

“I should head back,” I said finally. “Mom's watching the soup. Sort of.” I pushed my chair back. “I'll be here early tomorrow, and I actually mean early this time.”

“You can't come tomorrow.” Her voice was careful in the way it only got when she was holding something back.

“Why not?”

She was quiet for a long moment, her eyes locked on the portrait of her and a younger girl on the far end table. When she spoke, it came out slower, like she'd been carrying it for a while and was only now setting it down.

“Because I'm going to look for her.”

My chest tightened. “Your daughter.”

“Yes.” She folded her hands on the table. “Things are moving too fast now. The news coming in, the attacks. The outcasts are leaving.” Her eyes finally left the portrait and found mine. “If I wait any longer, Elara... I think the window closes. And it never opens again.”

I opened my mouth.

Then I closed it.

I'd known about her daughter for almost as long as I'd known Andy.

She had been more than a mentor; she was the first person who saw me as something other than a mistake.

When I'd run over two years ago, I'd searched around for mom fruitlessly until I found her in one place I never could imagine she'll be. I recognized her immediately because there was one thing Beatrice never failed to remind me of, that was the fact that I'm a younger version of my mother.

And even though I've only ever heard stories about her, and most of them were bad. But in contrast to the horrible stories I've heard about her, she's nothing like it. Neither are the outcast wolves horrible as the stories said about them.

At least with them, I have a home.

But Andy's girl has been missing for over fifteen years. And for the past fifteen years, Andy never left. Every morning, she had woken up and waited, because the alternative was accepting something she refused to accept.

There were no good words for this. Still I want to try,

However, she stood before I found any,

“You’re already strong, Elara,” Andy whispered, stepping forward to pull me into a tight embrace. She patted my back as I fought the hot sting of tears. “The strongest young woman I’ve ever known. I’m so proud of you. I'm proud of how much you've grown. But I can't wait any longer. I have to go find her.”

****

The walk back felt like a funeral procession.

But as I neared our home, the smell hit me before I opened the van door.

I stepped inside. She was at the sink with her back to me, scrubbing at the obviously burnt soup pot.

“I tried to—” Mom started with an awkward guilty smile.

“It's okay,” I said. Interrupting her before she could finish.

She turned. Took one look at my face and softened. “So she's told you too.”

“Yeah.” I moved past her toward the back of the van, needing the bed, “She's leaving tonight.”

But the bed wasn't there. The sheets, the folded blankets, all of it was gone. I turned to the counter where I kept my things.

Empty.

“Mom, where are my things? Why is it empty here?”

The scrubbing slowed, “I forgot to mention it.”

The cold started somewhere at the base of my spine.

“We're leaving.”

I stared at the back of her head. “Leaving where?”

She set down the pot. Dried her hands on the cloth without turning around, and I could see her choosing her words the same way someone picks a careful path through a dark room.

“You know how it's been. The pack is nearly empty now. Another minor pack was hit last night…” her voice dipped “not a single soul spared. I can't sit here and wait for that to be us.”

“So where are we going?”

She sighed, “I’m sorry, Elara. I know what this means. But we have no choice. We have to go back to the only place where we still have a claim to protection.”

My blood ran cold. I knew the answer before she said it.

“We’re returning to Redridge,” she said. “We leave in the morning.”