The Fangs He Gave Me

Chapter 4: Awake

I woke up to the sound of Birds singing above me.

The gentle rustle of leaves in a morning breeze that carried scents I'd never noticed before, earth and flowers and life itself.

I opened my eyes slowly, squinting against light that filtered through a canopy of leaves that shielded me from the sun.

And for some weird reason, I could count the leaves individually even from this distance.

I looked down at myself and saw I was completely naked. Covered in dried blood.

I sat up fast, my head spinning with confusion as some fragments of last night’s memory crashed into my mind without warning.

"No," I whispered, my whole body trembling. "That wasn't real."

I tried to stand but my legs nearly gave out, trembling with exhaustion. But I also felt... different. Stronger somehow.

I looked down at my arm, searching for the cuts that had been bleeding so badly just hours ago. They were gone

I pressed my fingers to the skin, unable to make sense of what I was seeing. How was that possible?

But Dante's bite on my shoulder was still there. Two puncture marks that throbbed when I touched them.

"Must be a nightmare" My voice came out strange, rougher than I remembered. That's when I realized everything was wrong.

My senses had gone completely wrong.

I could smell everything with an impossible clarity. The rot of dead leaves decomposing in the ditch, the sweetness of honeysuckle nearby, scent of water, a stream I couldn't see but could smell as clearly as if it were running over my feet.

And something else. An animal. A rabbit, hiding in the bushes somewhere to my right. I had no idea how I knew that.

I just knew.

I could hear things that shouldn't be possible for human ears. Cars on a highway miles away. Heart beats of Birds in the trees above me, a squirrel scratching at bark somewhere to my left. The rustle of that rabbit I'd smelled moving through the bush.

I pressed my hand to my chest, feeling my own heart beating against my ribs.

I could hear everything.

And my eyes, it was sharper than it had ever been. I could see individual leaves on trees thirty feets away. Could see a spider web strung between its branches.

The sensation was so overwhelming that it almost made my head pound.

"What the f**k is happening to me?" I said, louder this time, my voice cracking with fear and confusion as the weight of everything came crashing down on me.

"Well," a voice said, "it's a lot to take in, isn't it?"

"Who's there?" I turned so fast I nearly fell. "Show yourself!"

But it was just me, naked and alone.

"I can't exactly show myself," the voice continued, "because I am you."

"I must have hit my head—"

"You're not crazy, Ella. I'm the wolf part of you."

"Wolf part?" I whispered, shaking my head in denial.

“You're a werewolf now. And I'm your other half. Your stronger half, if we're being honest.” The voice sounded almost amused.

"That is impossible!"I shot back.

“Look at your hands,” The voice gentler now.

I looked. Five fingers. Human nails.

“Remember what they looked like last night?” She asked.

“I thought that was a nightmare.” I whispered.

“It was real. Your first shift.”

I pressed my hands to my face, feeling tears burn behind my eyes. "This can't be happening…"

“It is happening. And we have to survive what's coming.” She paused. “Trust me, a lot’s coming.”

Something in the way she said "we" like we were a team made me listen.

I took a breath, trying to slow down my racing heart.

“Okay, if you're really a part of me…,” I swallowed. "Tell me what the h*ll is happening to me. How all of this is possible."

“Right!” She paused, like she was gathering her thoughts. “Dante was a werewolf and from what those men said last night... he stole something an Alpha wanted badly enough to kill for.”

“Could it be what he pressed into my palm before they attacked us?”

“That's probably what he stole” Kira said, somehow reading my thoughts.

Then it hit me all at once, the remaining memory from last night flooding into my brain without warning.

The chase.

The Men, no werewolves

Caleb's face.

The taste of his blood on my tongue.

The way his body had gone still beneath me under my fangs.

"Oh God…" I gasped, my whole body shaking from the shock of the realization of what I did. "I'm a murderer ..."

"Don't." her voice cut me off. "Don't you dare feel guilty about that man, He was going to r**e and kill us. We fought back. That's survival, not murder."

"But,"

"And honestly?" Her voice went fierce. "I'm so glad he's dead. He deserved worse."

"How can you say that?" I stared up at the sky through my tears pouring down my eyes. "How can you be so..."

"Because I'm the part of you that won't apologize for surviving." Her voice softened. "You've been a victim your whole life, Ella. Never again."

I wanted to argue that killing was wrong, that violence was never the answer, and that there was always another way.

But I couldn't make myself feel sorry that Caleb is dead, and that terrified me almost as much as everything else.

I lay there staring up at the sky until my breathing slowed and the tears stopped coming. “Do you have a name?"

The voice went quiet for a moment and when she spoke again, she sounded like she was shy.

“A name?”

"Yeah. Like I'm Ella. Are you just the wolf, or.."

“I... I don't know. I just woke up when you shifted,” She sounded almost embarrassed. “I didn't come with a name or anything”

In spite of everything, I felt a smile at the corner of my mouth. "You should have a name."

"Give me one."

I thought about it for a moment, looking up at the sky through the canopy of leaves above me.

"Kira," I said quietly. "Because you came out of the darkness of the worst night of my life and kept me alive."

"Kira." She tried it out, rolling it slowly. "Yeah. I like it. I'm Kira."

There was something like happiness in her voice, like I'd given a gift.

"Okay, Kira." I straightened up.

"But why did they come after me?" My voice came out cracked and raw. "I didn't do anything. I didn't know anything..."

"You belonged to him." Her voice was heavy when she said it. "That's all the reason they need."

The words landed like a blow. A death sentence.

“How do we survive” My voice barely sounded like mine

“Where is it?” Kira asked. “The thing Dante gave you”

“My dress.” I pushed myself up in a panic “Where’s my dress? I kept it in the pocket.”

“Damn it Ella!” Kira swore under her breath. “We need to go back to the old factory, before someone else finds it."