The Amber Eyes
1206 Words
Leela awoke with a start, her heart pounding. She sat up, the sheet falling to her waist. She looked down.
The wolf was still there, asleep on the floor. He was a dark round ball of fur, lying between the bed and the wall like a big bear rug, that breathed/
"Get it together, Leela." she whispered, dragging her hands across her face. "This isn't real. You are having a mental breakdown in a Motel 6."
She got out of bed and grabbed her last clean t-shirt from her bag. She grabbed her bag with shampoo and brush and her cell phone and made her way to the bathroom.
She locked the bathroom door and turned the shower on as hot as she could stand it. Steam filled the tiny room. She stepped in letting the hot water fall across her shoulders. "Wash it way Leela." she told herself. "Let's just wash the crazy away."
She scrubbed her skin until she thought she had scrubbed it all off, trying to scrub off the remainder of the dream. The smells of the clearing, the warmth of the sun and the voice that she couldn't get out of her head.
"It's just a coping mechanism." she told herself. "You had no one and your mind is playing tricks on you. That's all this is. I'm scared and alone so I made up a protector."
She stepped out of the shower and wrapped a towel around herself. She reached for her phone that was sitting on the sink. She tapped the screen. No messages and no missed calls. She stared at the blank screen, It had been nearly forty eight hours since she had up and vanished and they hadn't even bothered to call or message to see where she was.
"Oh well. They probably already forgotten they had a daughter," she said with a bitter smile. She put the phone down, that hurt but it was a clean hurt and confirmed everything she ever thought about the two she called mother and father.
She dried off quickly putting on the shirt and her underwear. She wrapped a towel around her wet hair and grabbed her hairbrush.
"Okay, let's face the day, face the dog and grab some coffee." She unlocked the door and stepped into the bedroom.
"So, did the hot water help with the skepticism?"
Leela screamed and jumped back against the door frame, holding the hairbrush like a weapon.
The wolf was gone and in his place sitting on the edge of the bed was a man who looked entirely to comfortable for Leela's liking. He looked to be in his early twenties, with messy hair that stuck up in every direction. He was wearing a pair of sweatpants and nothing else.
"Who are you?" she asked holding the hairbrush out like a weapon. "Where's the wolf? What did you do with him?" She looked around and saw nothing of the wolf.
The man raised his hands in mock surrender. "Leela, take it easy. I'm not here to hurt you."
"How do you know my name?" she shrieked, her panic getting the best of her. "Get out. I have a weapon."
He looked at the hairbrush and c****d an eyebrow up. He didn't laugh he just looked at her with a gaze that made her breathing stop.
"Look at me, Leela." he said softly. "Look at my eyes,"
Leela hesitated for a second, wielding the hairbrush like it could save her if she needed it too. She was ready to swing it at him when she stopped.
His eyes, they weren't human eyes. The were a piercing amber that had flecks of gold throughout. They were the exact same eyes that had watched her from the fog. The exact same eyes that watched her with amusement in the clover field.
The panic she had felt at first started to dissolve and it was replaced with a sense of recognition. Her grip on the brush loosened. "Finnegan?" she whispered.
He offered her a lop-sided grin. "In the flesh. Literally."
Leela lowered the hairbrush but she didn't put it down. She accepted the fact that the wolf was actually a man. It was the fact he was wearing pants. "You," she stammered. "You're wearing pants. "
Finnegan looked down at himself, then back up at her. "I am."
"Where did they come from?" Leela asked, her voice rising. "You were a wolf five minutes ago. Wolves don't have pockets. Did you...did you conjure them or something? Is that part of the magic?"
Fennigan laughed. "No, Leela. It's not magic. It's logistics." He plucked at the elastic waistband of the pants. "I keep a stash tucked under all kinds of things, all over the place."
"Um...a stash?"
"We have clothes stashed eveerywhere." he explained, shifting to sit cross legged on the bed. "Woods, highway underpasses, gas station dumpsters, motels. If you see a waterproof bag taped to the bottom of a park bench in this country, there's a ninety percent chance it's got a pair of sweatpants and a shirt in it."
"Shifting is messy," he continued. "Clothes don't shift with us. I shift whileI'm wearing jeans. I shred them. And when I change back..." He shrugged, offering her a crooked grin, "Well, if we didn't stash clothes everywhere, we'd be walking around naked a lot."
Leela blushed a little.
"Which," Fennigan added dryly, "Is generally frowned upon by the local police. And my mother."
Leela stared at him. The absurdity of it washed over her. She was standing with a towel around her hair in nothing but her shirt and her underwear, discussing shredded laundry with a werewolf who hid sweatpants under park benches and air conditioners.
"So," she said, her voice sounding shaky. "You ran down a mountains sat outside my door for two days, and ate my burger...all while knowing you had pants waiting for you under the window?"
"Priorities," Fennigan said simply. "I had to wait until you were ready to see me. If I had shifted yesterday, you would have called animal control, Or worse the police."
"I might still call the police," Leela bluffed, though the heat had gone out of her voice.
Fennigan shook his head slowly. The amusement in his eyes faded, replaced by that intense warmth she had felt in the dream. "No, you won't," he said softly. "Because the fog is lifting, Leela. Look."
He pointed toward the window.
Leela turned. Through the c***k in the curtains, she could see a beam of sunlight slicing through the gray fog. The wall of mist wasn't just fading, it was breaking apart. As if whatever was keeping it there left as soon as she said is name.
"The storm is over," Fennigan whispered. "Because you finally let me in."
"The fog was you, Leela," Finnegan told her, his voice quiet but certain. "It was all the inner turmoil. All that fear and anger you've been bottling up...it had to go somewhere. So it rolled out of you and turned the weather into a wall." He leaned forward, his amber eyes searching hers.
"Haven't you noticed these things before? Have you not felt the shift in energy around you when you're upset?"
- Writer
