CHAPTER 7
728 Words
Thomas’s words were haunting him. He didn’t know how to prove his renewed devotion to her in the form of a dog. He couldn’t do anything else than be by her side whenever possible. One day when she was at work he made the trip to the suburbs to find Thomas, but his friend was nowhere to be found. His frustration grew as time passed and he started to realize that he might never change into a man again, and might never be able to show Pamela exactly what she meant to him now, and that he was wrong in turning her down the way he did.
On one of her off days Pamela was sitting on the plastic chair she had in her sparsely furnished duplex, reading the newspaper. The inside was neat and smelled of disinfectant, and it didn’t look worn down and neglected like the outside and the rest of the lot. A knock on the door got Logan up, growling at whatever stranger was interrupting their time together.
Pamela opened it, and it was her father. And old man with white hair stood there in the pale yellow light, looking at her with an expressionless face. The old man stood back a bit at first, but after a few moments Pamela slowly gestured for him to step inside. Logan felt the tension ripple through her, almost as if it rippled through him, and for the first time since she started telling him about her dad, he understood what fear she’d known.
This man had something about him that he hated immediately, something that smelled dangerous. He barked and barked but Pamela scolded him, and invited her father inside. He couldn’t believe that she was doing that. He barked more, his aggression growing, but she told him firmly to keep quiet, and he knew if he didn’t she would lock him outside. He lay down next to her, his body taught, every muscle trembling.
Her father was clearly drunk, sobbing in her little kitchen, begging her to come back, telling her how much she hurt him by running off. Her father screamed in agony, begging Pam to come back home with him. What a ridiculous drama queen, Logan thought to himself.
How could Pamela not see through this man? She listened silently, offering him a tissue when he became a real mess. She kept saying no to him, to Logan’s relief, but every time she did, the man sitting across from her got more and more angry, and Logan could smell his aggression, like something acrid in his nose.
“Spit it out girl, I don’t have all night. Are you coming with me or not?” her father yelled at her.
She stood there in front of him, motionless, like a deer in the headlights. The next thing Logan knew he saw her dad curl his hands around a butter knife that lay on the table. Logan, understanding the man’s intention, jumped up with a growl, leaped into the air, and let out a piercing howl from his throat just as the butter knife sank in between his ribs, instead of Pamela’s neck as her father had meant to do. Logan had jumped in front of her to save her from that fate.
Everything went black. This is the end, he thought, at least the last thing I saw was her face.
——–
Suddenly he felt better, he could breathe again but the scents… well, they just weren’t as powerful as before. His head didn’t feel light, and his vision had cleared up. Logan blinked his eyes twice, trying to adjust to the bright light, wondering where he was. How did he get here?
A sharp pain to his ribs brought him back to reality but made him dizzy too, but when he lifted his arm to reach for the wound, he realized he was human again. He was human again! And in the hospital. Thomas sat next to his bed, grinning over at him.
“What happened?” Logan asked his friend weakly.
“You saved her,” Thomas told his friend. “You’re okay now and you are in the hospital.”
“But what about her dad?”
“All locked up.” Thomas confessed. “And you proved yourself. Well done, young man.”
Thomas sauntered out of the hospital room, smiling, just as the nurse came in to check on Logan’s current condition.
- Writer
