In the Dark

In Dreams

'I've always wanted a dog.'

That's all I could come up with. Great!

I could read the disappointment in his eyes. It wasn't anything new, you'd think that 13 years of this I would have gotten used to it, but no. I still felt like crap, there is always a part of me wanting to make him happy, but It wont be me that will make him proud.

The pride and joy of my father is my older brother, Josh, he's only 2 years older than me but he has the same mean streak as my father. I could only fake my cruelty, theirs was real.

The poor girl in captivity was only a few years younger than me. I still couldn't believe that the people here were o.k. with torturing a kid. They so easily called the Lupus monsters when they themselves were what went bump in the night.

My mother and I hated that the girl was chained up in the shed, but it was us two against 25 hunters and their families, it was dangerous for them to know that we didn't agree with their family values. The most we could do was secretly give the girl extra food and blankets when my father was gone, probably hunting or trying to find new ways to inflict pain on the poor creature.

My father looked away from me and said to just forget it, he wasn't gonna put the girl down, he wanted to see if she would be useful for other things in her wolf form. He said he might be able to learn about their weakness and limitations while transformed.

How I hate him. I hope I never grow up to be like him and my brother. My mom and I plan to escape from this hell hole once I'm old enough and strong enough. I don't know when that will be, I don't know if I can wait that long...

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Their fighting again. He wants to put her down, he said that she was useless in her wolf form, but my mom keeps telling him that it's too soon, they need to see if she can be trained like a dog, maybe serve a different purpose.

Mark wont have it.

Her excuses to extend the girls life are useless and by the look she shoots my way after my father leaves, I know that the time to leave is now. Our plans have just had their due date advanced.

'f**k!'

As the day progressed we acted like nothing was happened, we calmly worked through our day. Mark made the announcement that he would euthanize the girl after he came back from patrol. This gave mom and I 3 days to get as far away from here as possible. Since our little village of hunters was deep within the mountains, it took a lot of man power to have the area secured and therefore groups of patrol where sent out, switching out periodically to give everyone a turn and a break. This helped avoid exhaustion all while keeping the hunters active and on guard.

While my father was busy getting his gear ready for the 3 days he would be away, my mother and I found time to talk and go over our plans.

"Jake. I need you to check on the girl after your father leaves, see if we can take her with us. I know she might recognize you and hopefully that will be enough."

"I'll try" I mumbled.

We went our separate ways and bid our time till Mark left. The good thing was that he wasn't going alone, he was taking Josh with him. This would make everything easier for us.

They left at 4 a.m. and we got out of bed at 4:30 a.m. The other hunters would be making it back by noon the latest. We had to move and move quickly, we had 8 hours before the hunters would be here and we needed to have distance between us.

I went into my moms room, she was putting on her boots, she heard me and looked up. We locked eyes and I could read the fear in them, it was like looking into a mirror because the same fear was reflected in my eyes. We were really going to do this!

"I'm going to get our provisions you go and get the girl."

I nodded and headed out, making sure to stay as close to the shadows as possible, though the sky was already pink with the rising sun, the shadows quickly evaporating and leaving me exposed. I made it to the shed, pulling out the key for the padlock and quietly unlocking it. The creaking the shed door made sounded deafening to my ears.

Once the door was fully opened I saw her, she was still in her wolf skin. She didn't growl at me so I took it as a good sign and inched closer to her. Lifting my right hand and making it into a fist I inched ever so closer to her. Still she didn't growl. Slowly I lifted my right fist closer to her muzzle, finally she moved, she sniffed my hand and licked my knuckles. I started talking to her, telling her I was going to take her with me. I slowly stood and grabbed the harness my father kept on the wall, again, I slowly came back to her and removed the chain around her neck, still she didn't attack me. After I made sure that the harness was secured around her I walked her out of the shed.

She was tame and walked along side me, we made it back to the house, thankfully our house was on the outskirts of our little village and I crossed paths with no one. I found my mom with our bags waiting for me in the backyard.

"Glad to see she followed you." She spoke quietly and looked down at her watch.

"Yeah...she's been pretty tame." I beamed at her, but once I was a few feet away from her the girl started growling.

I stopped in my tracks and crouched down next to the girl. I started to gently pet her while talking to her and she stopped eventually growling.

"She's a good person. She's my mom." I whispered to her.

It seemed like she understood me, there was enough of the girl still inside the wolf and she quieted down and allowed me to walk the remaining distance to my mom. It was 5:45 a.m. by the time we finally started heading out.

Ever so slowly we made the trek through the trees, keeping as close to the bushes and other shrubbery so as not to attract attention. We kept a steady pace, and by some miracle we had not come across any hunters, my mom knew the hunters usual routes and made sure we steered clear of them, this meant that our journey was harder. By noon we had reached the end of the hunters patrol perimeter. It felt like things were going to be o.k. and we were going to make it, we will be o.k!

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Day had turned to night and I looked over at Jake. The girl eyed me with mistrust, even in wolf form I could read the expression in her eyes. If I were her I wouldn't trust me either, especially with what my husband put her through. It's scary what men will do when they think they are right, all humanity and kindness disappears under the guise of doing cruel deeds for righteous reasons. I don't mean to justify his actions, never, but he is the father my children and the man I once loved.

Seeing him change, day by day, and the influence he has on Josh, it killed me. Thankfully Jake was nothing like the two of them, he's my angel. I know that he will do the things that I can not. He has already done so much, if it weren't for him I don't think I'd have the courage to escape.

"Let's stop here for a while. You can take a break and I'll keep watch."

"O.k. then you'll sleep for a bit afterwords."

"No...I'll be fine. I can keep going."

"Mom! You also need to rest, you can't just keep going without getting any rest."

"You're right, but I would rather that we keep gaining distance. Once we've got enough space between them and us I'll feel comfortable resting."

"O.k."

I could tell Jake wanted to keep arguing with me but he was fighting a losing battle against sleep. We'd already been walking for the past 8 hours and my feet were killing me. I could imagine Jake was ready to drop dead at this point and judging by how quickly he succumbed to sleep I knew it was going to be hard to wake him.

I let him sleep for an hour and then I roused him from his slumber. He struggled to open his eyes but after a few nudges he finally got up. We hid the evidence that we were there and continued on our journey.

We were going to go past the woods and into the mountains, my mother once told me that her father had a hidden cabin 50 miles from our hunters village, no one knew about it. My grandfather was a secretive person and did not agree with our people hunting wolves, then there was my mother who also shared in those beliefs and thus she never felt the need to share the existence of the cabin with anyone besides me. She said I would one day need it and to keep it a secret, she always worried that Mark would do something to me, she always warned me that she didn't get a good feeling from him, but I was young and in love.

How right she was.

The man I loved went from being a caring person into a mad man obsessed with hunting, he used to talk about only killing the wolves in self defense but that quickly changed. Therefore, I never shared the location of the cabin. At one point I thought it's location would die with me, but thankfully Jake also has the same beliefs and ideals as I. Now he'll too know about the cabin.

At this point we had been walking for 3 hours, the sun high in the sky, in a few hours night would be upon us. All of a sudden I heard a rumbling sound, the girl was growling while looking off into the distance.

"Jake....stop and listen."

We stood in silence, the girl turned her head to the left. A great large brown bear ripped through the trees, charging straight at us. I shoved Jake out of the way as its giant paw swiped at him. I was at a loss for what to do! I have never killed anything in my life!

"Run!!"

I pulled my gun and shot off in the bears general direction! But my aim was terrible and I missed, the only thing I was able to do was to piss it off even more! Then I heard it. There was a cooing sound in the background, we had accidentally crossed into the bears territory, she had cubs. The realization of our mistake does nothing, it's too late.

Jake is safe, I saw him run with the wolf girl, but the bear has her jaws around my arm. I won't survive this.

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I don't know how far I ran. I stopped running once my legs gave out. My body shook with exhaustion. I was alone. My mom was gone and I left her to die.

I curled up into myself and cried, I must have cried myself to sleep because when I woke up the moon was high in the sky. The girl was curled up behind me and my mom was dead, I went back to sleep.

I don't know how long I slept but I knew that I couldn't just lie here. Mom wouldn't want me to give up, I had to keep going. This wasn't just about me, if we got caught they would kill the girl. We kept going.

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I opened my eyes, I felt so groggy like I had been asleep for ages. There was a boy lying next to me, he struggled to get up. He was sad, I could smell the sadness on him. He picked up the leash attached to me and we started walking. I don't know where we were going and I felt like there was something I was supposed to remember, but it faded into the back of my mind. So I followed the boy, I know he wouldn't hurt me, I don't know how I knew that but a part of me did.