Scratched: The White Wolf

Chapter 2

Logan is not sure how long the wolf has pinned him to the road, but it feels like an eternity. Each time the black wolf comes forward, the reddish wolf storms towards him and each time its paw presses harder and harder on his chest. His white shirt underneath the black tuxedo jacket had turned to a brown and red mess as the wolf's claws cut into his flesh. Then some hope as the shadows of the trees started to dance on the cliff side above him as the lights of a truck cut through the trees branches. Its air horn rumbles through the mountain side as it starts to get near them. The black wolf gives the reddish wolf one final look, as if to say 'we are not done', before it turns around and heads in between the trees. The reddish wolf lifts its paw from Logan’s chest and looks at him with its deep orange eyes before slowly turning its head and fleeing in between the trees in the same direction as the black wolf. “What the hell was that all about?” Logan asks as he slowly lifts himself up. It feels like with the injuries of the accident he can add broken rips as the wolf forced him against the cold tar road.

“Are you okay, son?” the driver of the truck asks when he gets out of his semi.

“Be careful there are wolves in the area”, Logan tries to warn him.

A grin appears behind the thick busy beard of the truck driver as he walks over to Logan and pulls away his brown leader jacket, revealing a pistol on his side.

“They can come, it will be the last thing that they do, I promise you!”

“Have you called for help?”

“No, I was looking for my phone when I got ambushed by two wolves, I surly thought that I was going to be a goner…” Logan says while wiping his hand over his face.

A couple of minutes later, red lights plays and bounces from of the trees and the cliff as the sheriff’s SUV followed by an ambulance arrives at the scene of the accident.

“And what happened here, Mr Buchner” the sheriff asks while her eyes scans him from top to bottom? It’s not the first time he had a run in with the law. Sherif Brown is well aware of him and his troublesome past.

“I was on my way home from Mary and Tom’s wedding when something ran in, in front of my truck” he replied.

“Oh, yes, the mayor’s son’s wedding” she nods her head up and down. “And, did you have anything to drink at the wedding?”

But before Logan could answer…

“Sheriff, you are well aware that medical care comes first, you can interrogate him when we are done or at the hospital depending on his injuries.” One of the medics interrupted her.

It was the first time that Logan had seen her face. She is slender but athletic, built of an average height, and about twenty-three or maybe twenty-four, but round her age, with long dark brown hair pulled together into a pony, when the lights reflected on it, it has a reddish glow to it. It looks like she laughs a lot as fine laugh lines formed around her eyes and the narrow corners of her lips.

The sheriff turns around and starts walking slowly and yells over her shoulder, “Sure, I’ll wait, just make sure to draw some blood for an alcohol test!”

She starts to examine Logan’s injuries and first tends to his leg, which seems to be the worse of them all. “So what was it?” she asks Logan.

“Sorry, what?” he responds, half in a daze.

“The something that ran over the road?”

“I think it was a wolf, a big black wolf.”

The paramedic's eyes wandered up and met his. It’s almost as if she is searching for something in his eyes. “Only one wolf?”

“No, there was a second one, a reddish copper collared wolf, and I actually think it tried to protect me from the black wolf. It pounced and pressed me to the ground with its huge paw”, Logan said, putting his hand palm where the wolf’s paw rested on him.

“Please remove your shirt.”

Logan removes his jacket and his shirt, and sits still while she investigates the four lines carved out on his chest.”

Logan could see her emotions change after she saw his wound, but her eyes did not only wander over his wound, she looked at the tattoo that sat on the left side of his chest. Before, her eyes started to wander down to his blue ribs on his side.

“Looks like you might have some broken ribs. We will need to take you in for x-rays and for a doctor to examine you.”

The gurney he lies on feels like it could fly out the doors of the ambulance as it travels down the road. It sways from side to side and front to back, which makes it feel like a ship.

When the paramedic bends over him, he can for the first time see her name, plague, which reads ‘Jennifer Davis’.

“So Jennifer, you from around here?”

“No, we moved here a couple of months ago.” She leans in real close and whispers in his ears. “Can I ask you a big favour?”

Logan nods his head.

“Can we keep what happened between you and the wolves just between us, just for now?”

Logan puts a frown on his face and looks at her with squinted eyes. Why would she want me to keep something like that to myself? He wonders, but he decides to play along.

At the hospital, they start to do tests and after a couple of hours they move Login into a room. Just before he starts to doze off, he feels a cold hand on his wrist.

“Logan, Logan, are you awake?”

He opens his eyes and looks right into a most familiar face. “Hi Diane!”

“What happened?”

Logan sits up straight, “Wow that must be some powerful pain pills.” He rubs over his shoulder and his ribs. “Something happened at the wedding and I left early. A couple of miles before town, a stupid animal ran across the road and I tried to swerve out. Sorry, I did not mean for this to happen, and I didn’t want you to worry about me.”

“I heard about what happened at the wedding. Noah phoned me. Are you sure you are okay?” She rubs her fingers over his forehead.

Logan pulls his face away from her. “Please leave them out of this. I don’t want anything to do with him, his family or Liz. He was like a brother to me and he betrayed me!” Diane had learned that it’s best to leave him be. If he is stubborn like that, there is no way she will be able to get through to him.

The next morning, Logan wakes up. He feels like himself again, in fact, he feels better than himself. In front of his bed, but with her back turned to him, stands a woman with long brown hair. When she turns around and hangs his chart in front of his bed again, she smiles at him and he was right, it's laugh lines that formed around her mouth and eyes.

“Ah, and the patient is awake! How are you feeling?”

“Well! I feel defiantly better than I felt last night” Logan smiles back at her.

She quickly walked to the side of his bed. “Can I have a look at your wounds?”

Logan did not expect this, but he allows it. The blue marks on his rib cage are almost gone and the big cut on his leg also looks almost completely healed.

She presses her lips tight together on top of each other and squints, so hard that small ripples appear on her forehead and nose. “Okay, I need to ask another favour from you?”

“Okay?”

“We need to discharge you before the doctor makes his rounds. Please don’t ask why right now, but I promise I will explain everything to you.”

Logan is completely confused, he was in a serious car accident and a wolf attack and this paramedic wants him to leave the hospital. She had been acting all weird since she saw the scratch marks on his chest.

“Okay, but I will need to hear why you want me to do this.”

“I promise you, I will!”

Logan did not intend to stay in hospital for too long, afraid he might run into one of Noah’s parents.