Desired Again: The Alpha's Reject

Chapter 4: Bloominville Weeps Another

Cara had bad nightmares where she was running in the woods with a menacing growl behind her. The clouds are dark and the moon is in a full circle. She tossed and turned in her teenage years. Her dreams came with split-second zaps. The claw mark on the Bloominville sign, graying veterans stared at her with suspicion, Luke laughed in the background at something she had said, and Riley spilled a strong drink in drips into a cup.

In her dream, everything was heightened. The colors were brighter, the audio was louder, and the omen was more ominous. She banged on the motel door. She called her mom. She ran into the woods in fear. She stirred as the dream got more intense. She was bitten and was already bleeding into her sequined dress. Wolves attacked each other, and more howls from the forests replied to the deep-throated roar of the larger wolf. It dawned on her. She wakes up gasping for breath after the wolf's gray eyes locked her in a piercing gaze.

The side of her neck that was now caught in white gauze was painted like hell. Like the dream triggered it. She looked out the window and saw that it was all bright outside. She shuffled to her mirror to inspect the wound.

Ouch!, she groaned.

After she had found her way away from the woods, she tried to walk to the drugstore to get medical supplies in little, unsteady steps. Her eyes were dizzy from the blood loss. She finally collapsed on the sidewalk and woke up much later in her bed. Her wound was already healed, and there was a plastic bag of medical supplies on her vanity. She wasn't about to ask God to send her a good Samaritan. That was a question for an entirely different scenario.

It's been close to two days since the werewolf attack. It has been close to two days since she lied to her mom that she had gotten a neck injury in a car accident. Close to two days since she set foot outside. She had liberated her room with painkillers and junk food, listening to her mom watch stupid, dumb sitcoms with zero care in the world if her daughter was okay. Cara had no idea why she let Alexis get to her sometimes. She cared for no one but herself.

She removes the gauze and other coverings to study the bite wound. It didn't hurt that much. She didn't understand how she was still alive; the neck was a sensitive part of the body and had blood flow. If she allowed herself to be under it, she would say that the wolf didn't intend to kill her. It seemed like it was on a mission. It wouldn't have killed her if the gray-eyed wolf hadn't come to her rescue. Yes, he was a predator, and she was the prey, but why didn't he kill her when he had the chance?

She rubbed a healing ointment with no label from one of the many firsts and boxes Alexis kept around from her time as a nurse. The smell was pretty nostalgic, filling her senses with reminders of bike wounds and horrible boo-boos. She replaced the gauze and got some money from her bag underneath the bed. She had lost her phone, her purse, and her favorite dress, but she still needed a drink. A strong one.

There were not a lot of events to process. The werewolves, the wound, and the save. She couldn't deduce why she had caught the interest of whoever had saved her, and the most important question was, wasn't there a curfew? How did they get her to the trailer park without getting killed? How did they get the supplies? All the shops were closed. How did they find her place? How did they get in? She shoved the question deep into her gut and left her mom's trailer without much of a bye.

The town wasn't dealing with the attack well. Everyone was yapping about who the latest victim was. No reported missing cases have been tendered since two days ago, leading the police to look outside Boonville. Cara wore a hoodie to hide an injury, but now, amidst all this talk about the attack, she wondered if she was doing a good job hiding it. It suddenly felt like an elephant was on her neck.

A small number of cops in brown and black uniforms were around the section of the woods that was caution-taped. She legged it to the bar. The Bloominville Place was the same as last time, except that this time it was brighter, well into the day, and had more cans of beer than vodka bottles.

She sat on the same stool she sat on when she met Luke and threw a casual hello at Riley. She was still waiting at the counter. Cara wondered how long her shift was. If she was present day and night. Well, it's not night since this town has a curfew.

Riley was wearing a tank top with the hashtag #blacklivesmatter tank top. Her hair was secured on top of her head in a careless bun. She tied a faded planner around her waist and paired her bad girl on a budget look with dark ripped jeans. Cara liked that Riley was expressive with her fashion sense. She wasn't a girl who wore statement tanks and knew how to make a "basic" or "casual" look worthy of the runway.

"Hey, I remember you." Riley greeted her as she threw a towel over her left shoulder.

"My face is a hard one to forget." She teased back with a broad, genuine smile.

"I think it was the wine," Riley interjected. "No one orders wine in a bar. Ms. POSH."

"I don't drink strong alcohol."

"Oh man, it feels good to talk about something other than the werewolf attack. That's all the customers ever want to talk about."

Bloominville is a small town. It's no surprise how fast things spread here, even without the local news taking charge.

"Oh, what do you think?" Cara wanted to know. "About the attack."

Riley grunted like she hated the sudden diversion from the topic. "The werewolf attacks aren't a surprise anymore. It's been going on for some two weeks now, I think."

"Why haven't the police caught the animal yet?"

Riley laughed at that. "Maybe because they don't teach Lycan anatomy in police universities. Besides, the wolf leaves no trace. This recent one is weird, though. There was no blood or human residue that could help the police identify the victim, and no missing person has been reported in Bloominville."

"Really?" Cara was surprised. She was sure the wolf had bit her neck, let the blood out, and was in the process of making it look like a murder scene before the gray-eyed wolf saved her.

"Yeah."

"I think it's weird that the police camp themselves away from the community when it's under attack and just sweep by the next day to collect evidence."

"Are you serious right now? No one has ever seen the animal. We don't even know how to kill it."

"Holy water?" Cara proposed.

Riley giggled. "Nope, it only works in movies."

"What happened to all those girls that were attacked in the past?"

Riley shrugged. "I don't know. They never come back. The monster probably buried them in something." She cleaned the whiskey glass rings on the counter and asked Cara. "What do you want? Wine?"

Cara scoffed. She needed something stronger. "Nope, I'll have a beer. Please."

"Coming right up."

Cara caught a whiff of something delicious in the air. "Is Old Freddy gripping his special again?" She asked with excitement. She didn't even know she was hungry until her stomach made a gurgling noise.

"What? No. No one is cooking anything. The raw steaks just came in. You probably smelt the wrong thing." Riley dropped the bottle of cold beer before her. "I mean, I can't smell anything, but if I could smell what's going on in the kitchen right now, it would be disgusting."

Cara was sure she wasn't smelling the wrong thing. The meat she suddenly had a wild craving for was coming from the kitchen, and she desperately wanted a taste. What was wrong with her? Surely, Riley must be lying.

"So, what's your story? Did you grow up here?" The bar was half-empty, so Riley wasn't as busy. Most of the guys in the room were just using the warm ambiance of the bar to finish their work. Clicks from laptop keypads filled the room. It nauseated Cara a bit.

"Kind of. I moved here with my mom after my dad died. I left for Maine when I was sixteen. I did a couple of jobs and came back after I got fired. Just livin' life, you know?"

"Oh, my god. I'm sorry about your dad."

"I'm not." Cara deadpanned while taking a swig of beer.

"What happened to your neck?"

Her heart raced at the croaky voice that intruded on this bonding moment she was having with Riley. What's it with men creeping up behind her whenever she wants to have a good time?

"Car accident." She answered, giving what she hoped was a convincing smile.

The man was old. He looked like he was in his fifties or older. Cara studied his eye bags under his square glasses and his five o'clock shadow. This man hasn't slept in days. What's his deal?

"Professor Stafford!" Riley greeted the intruder warmly. "What can I have for you today? The usual?"

Professor Stafford gave a nod to that, not looking in her direction. "Are you sure? It's a small town. I would have known if an accident had happened. How did it happen?"

"Rookie mistake."

The professor edged closer to her. "Do you believe in coincidences?"

"Yeah?" Cara was still oblivious to what he was hinting at.

"Well, I don't." "Have you heard of werewolves?"

"Yeah?"

"They bite on the neck area, kind of like vampires but with a more evil intention. Isn't it weird that the werewolf attack happened the same night the drugstore was broken into? And the exact things you are wearing were stolen from the drugstore?"

"I don't understand."

He takes his amber-colored drunk from Riley. "I don't believe in coincidences, Ms.." He walks to occupy his booth, and Cara takes her perplexed gaze to Riley.

"Sorry, that's Prof. The police took him in as a special advisor to the case, and now he thinks he has the gun and the badge. He's been studying werewolves for years.''

Cara needed more beer to process all this s**t about this weird-ass town. As she opened the cap, she felt Professor Stafford burn a hole in her back. Did she believe in coincidence? She asked herself as Luke's gray eyes came to mind, along with the gray eyes of the wolf from the other night.