Chapter 2 Three O'Clock

Aurora's POV

“Ivy, get down!”

The wolf jumped. 

I was too far away. But Caden was not. He stepped between them and raised one hand.

“Enough.”

He did not shout. The wolf hit the road, slid, and stopped at his boots with its ears flat. Then it backed away, whining like a scolded dog.

I grabbed Ivy and held her so hard she gasped. She smelled like smoke and the strawberry shampoo I had bought last week.

“Mom, you’re crying.”

“I know, baby.”

“That won’t hold it long,” Caden said. “Come on.”

“What did you just do?”

“Walk first. Ask later.”

We got to the shelter, it was an old school gym on the east side, with boards over the windows and chains on the doors. Caden knocked three times before someone pulled the chain and let us in.

Inside, two hundred and ten people lay on cots under a few weak lights. A generator hummed behind the stage. Children cried softly, and the adults pretended not to hear.

“I went to look for you,” Ivy whispered. “Everyone ran and I couldn’t find you.”

“You did the right thing sweetie. You’re safe now.”

I wrapped a blanket around her. When my hands stopped shaking, my mind started working the way it always did. I went back over what had happened in the street.

The wolves had not chased us. They had followed us across the whole district, always one block behind. They had stopped at the end of the block.

I found the man in the reflective vest. His badge said Tobias.

“We need to leave, or block the doors,” I said. “They will attack this building before morning.”

“Who will?”

“The wolves.”

Somebody laughed. Then more people joined him, tired and bitter, until my face burned.

“I saw a man change,” I said, louder. “Bones, fur, all of it. I’m a scientist, and a virus has never done that. I know what I saw.”

“Lady, you need rest,” Tobias said, the way you talk to a child.

“Hunters don’t wait. These did. They followed us here, then stopped and watched. Something is holding them back from attacking, and it won’t hold them forever.”

“Sit down,” a man snapped. “You’re scaring the kids.”

I sat down slowly. My hands curled into fists in my lap. I had spent years watching people ignore my warnings, and it never got easier.

“I believe you.”

Caden stood against the wall by the door with his arms crossed. He was not looking at the crowd.

Nobody had believed me in a long time. It was strange to feel let alone because of a stranger.

“Why?” I asked.

“Because I have seen them wait before.”

“Where?”

He did not answer.

“You knew my name in the street,” I said. “We have never met.”

“I know.”

“That is not an answer.”

“No.” He nodded at Ivy. “Keep your daughter in the middle of the room. Away from the walls.”

I moved our cot to the center of the gym. Caden sat near the east door with his pipe across his knees. Ivy fell asleep with her head in my lap. I did not dare close my eyes.

A little after 2 a.m, the room went quiet. The wall clock above the stage clicked towards three. Caden stood up. Far outside, a wolf howled, and others answered.

At three o’clock the lights went out, and the doors began to shake.

The left door broke first. The chains on it snapped, and everyone screamed together.

“Back from the walls!” Caden shouted.

Everyone started moving. ‘Oh, so now they listen’.

I dragged Ivy back toward the middle of the room, past cots and people who were moving with fear. The moonlight came through the gaps in the boards, and in it I saw the wolves come in through three doors at once, each one in a place, as if someone had drawn them a map.

Someone was giving orders.

Caden fought alone at the left door. He moved fast, and he never missed, but for every wolf he dropped, another one stepped over it.

“The stage exit!” he shouted. “Take her and go!”

We almost made it. But something heavy dropped from the roof and landed between us and the exit. It was a huge black wolf with scars across its nose. It jumped, and I threw up my arm to protect Ivy.

Its teeth went through my forearm, straight to the bone.

I screamed. Blood ran down to my fingertips and dripped on the floor. Caden hit the wolf in the head with his pipe, and it fell. He looked at my arm, and his face went hard.

“It’s only a bite,” I said. Not that I believed it. I knew what a bite meant.

The wound burned from the inside. The heat crawled up past my elbow and into my shoulder. Ivy held on to me, crying. “Don’t leave me.”

Then a voice spoke inside my head. It was not the wolves and it was not Ivy.

'Alpha.'

Every wolf in the room stopped. They turned their golden eyes toward me.

“Aurora,” Caden said quietly. “Don’t fight it.”

A long, cold howl came from outside. The wolves flinched. They looked at me, and they looked at the door, torn between two voices.

The black wolf was not dead. It stood up, shook its head, and turned toward Ivy.

The heat in my arm burst through my whole body. My bones cracked, and my hands curled into claws. I did not decide to move. I was across the room before it could jump, and my teeth were in its neck.

The wolf dropped, and the others backed away from me.

I was standing on legs that bent the wrong way, breathing hard. I should have felt fear. I felt strong, and that scared me more.

But the change did not stop there. It kept going, harder, and my mind started to slip. Rage came up through me, and I turned toward the closest movement without knowing who it was.

It was Caden. He stood with his hands raised. “It’s me, Aurora. Come back.”

I could hear his heartbeat. I wanted to stop. His voice was the only solid thing left. I forced myself to hold still, and it felt like holding back a flood with my hands.

Then I saw Ivy. She was crouched next to a cot, staring at me. She was not looking at her mother, she was looking at a monster. Her eyes were wide, and she was afraid.

“Mom?” she whispered.

Her fear hurt more than the bite. Then my heart gave out. 

I fell, and Caden caught me. His arms were warm, and I held on to that.The wolf melted off my body, and I lay there with a ripped arm and no strength. Ivy grabbed my face with both hands, crying.

I tried to say I was sorry. But no sound came out.

Past Caden, the black wolf lay dead. A metal band was on its back leg. It had a number and three rings on it. Caden saw it too. He went pale, but he said nothing.

The room faded to gray.

‘I had known the numbers and the dates. I had held my daughter through the worst night anyone had ever lived, and I had still failed her.’

‘If I ever had one more chance, I would burn that future to the ground.’