Wolf Girl Ch. 02

The ride home was sullen and silent. Johnny tried to elicited conversation from his younger brother but to no avail. All Kyle managed to utter were little grunts in answers to questions.

"So you lost your wallet in the woods. It's okay. You get back call your credit card company, the state license bureau, it's all good. What you have in there, like twenty bucks? You can afford to lose that much, big time attorney like you."

"Guh..."

"You okay, kid?"

"Ugh."

"I mean, you look kinda pale."

Kyle just stared out the window at the passing woods, apparently oblivious to everything but the greenery.

"Bet you can't wait to get beck to that nice apartment of yours. You know Sue would kill to have a maid service. How much you pay for that kinda shit? I might have to get her an early birthday present."

Kyle could hear his brother but the words didn't seem to have any meaning. All he could think about was the girl. Her warmth, her beauty, and the sounds she made, the way she felt around him. It had to have been real. It had been too vivid to have been a dream.

"John," he said, tearing his eyes from the window. "Slow down a bit, will you?"

"Why, you sick?"

"No... I just..." He looked out the window, not knowing why he'd asked for the deceleration. "You don't want to get a ticket."

"Shit, I'm only going 55..." Johnny looked at his little brother, studying the odd perplexed look, the forlorn eyes. "You thinking about Holly?"

"Who?"

"That lawyer chick. The one you were hot for."

"Hanna."

"Right," he nodded. "What I said. You still hung up on her?"

The little brother laughed out loud, shaking his head.

"But it's a dame, though, right? What, you meet someone new at work?"

Kyle's expression was odd as he ran a hand over the knee of his jeans, licking his teeth in a way Johnny had never seen him do before. "Something's different, John. I can't explain it, but..." He shrugged and looked out the window again. "How long 'til we hit the city?"

"About an hour or so."

"Odd, I always hated camping with you."

Johnny looked over at his little brother and then back at the road. Of course he'd always known Kyle hated these trips but he'd never heard him voice the hatred before. "Well, you don't have to come anymore." Johnny looked over to find Kyle had fallen asleep. He looked back toward the road and then down at the speedometer. He pressed the gas pedal until he was hitting close to 70 mph. He didn't know why but he suddenly felt an urgent need to get the hell out of the woods.

***

She'd never been in the city. Of course, she knew about clothes and humans and how they behaved, she'd watched them from the shadows all her life, fascinated by them. As she ran, trying to follow the scent of her man, she tried to think in the back of her mind about how to go about getting clothes.

She bounded through a gully at the side of the highway, leaping up to pause on an outcropping of rock and sniff the air. He was farther away, moving too fast to track, she felt a sudden horror at the idea of loosing the scent. She leapt down from the rocks and jaunted to the side of the road, shifting up on her hind legs and letting the wolf fall away. She stumbled into the road just as a minivan rounded the corner. She waved her arms, doing her best to force tears to her eyes the van braked to a halt less than a foot from her.

"Help," she said, running around to the driver's side of the little green van. "Help," she said again.

"What's wrong," the man climbed out of the car. He was older, with graying hair. A young female was with him, climbing out of the other side of the van.

"Lord, dad, what's happened?"

"Help," she said again, not knowing anything more to say.

Suddenly she was warm, the female had covered her with something. She shied a bit but realized that was not proper.

"What happened, dear?"

"Help," she said, gripping the female and holding on to her tightly.

The female's hand moved up to stroke her back. She made odd sounds... "Shhh, Shhh." And then she was lead to the back of the van where a door was opened and she was put inside. She curled up on the floor of the van, panting as the two humans climbed inside and the engine roared to life.

The female made attempts to talk to her but she didn't respond, merely held out the dark folded thing that smelled of her mate and pointed down the road. She then said the only other word she knew in their tongue, "Kyle," and fell asleep from exhaustion.

***

Dreaming was intense. He could hear the voice crying out from far away, and almost, he thought, he could understand it.

He imagined running very fast and low through dark brush towards the noise, calling out to it in an odd voice that was at once not his and yet his alone. He came upon her there, in the woods, her long hair billowing in the breeze and the light from the stars making her skin look like alabaster.

Nothing was said, only looks exchanged, and he went to her and she received him, running her cheek over his, and burying her nose in the hollow above his collar bone. He felt himself harden as he held her close in the embrace.

"Who are you?" he asked the apparition.

He felt the sharp pain at his ear, throbbing, burning as she seemed to whisper and then she was on top of him again, thrusting herself down on him with such ferocity. He could feel his chest heaving and his blood boiling... and then he was jarred awake, his head hitting the glass of the passenger window as they bounded over the bridge on the John F. Fitzgerald Expressway.

He looked around in time to see the USS Constitution in the distance. He then let his eyes focus on Johnny, who was humming along with the radio as he merged across two lanes for no apparent reason. Kyle looked down at the bulge in his jeans and did his best to conceal it. He wondered if he'd made any noises in his sleep. He in haled and then made a face of disgust, turning back to his older brother. "I thought you stopped smoking."

Johnny turned his head to look at his little brother. "Yeah, six years ago. Why?"

"You wreak of it, man." Kyle sat up, popping ever vertebrae in his back as he did so. "You sneak one when we stopped for gas or something?"

"I thought you were asleep. You saw me? Shit. Look, okay. I have one now and again, alright."

"Roll down a window at least, will you?"

John rolled the window down. Kyle grimaced at the sudden influx of odors. "God," he buried his face in the crook of his elbow. "Roll it up! Roll it up!"

John quickly rolled up the window, looking at his crazy younger brother out of the corner of his eye as he did so. "What is wrong with you?"

"It fucking stinks, man. Can't you smell that?"

Johnny sniffed and shrugged. "Smells like it always smells. Little brine from the harbor, some exhaust..."

Kyle's stomach was churning. "It's more... It's just so pungent, though."

"You okay?"

"Yeah, just. I want to go home. I need a shower and some sleep."

"Better make it just that. You could use a shave too."

Kyle ran a hand up to his chin, he felt the rugged stubble there. "I just shaved yesterday," he said, puzzled by the three days worth of beard he was feeling. He flipped down the sun visor and checked his reflection in the mirror. "Jesus."

"Eh, it happens. Probably getting lost got your adrenaline up and that did something to your testosterone and voila... Sue read something like that in a magazine once. Guys beards grow faster and thicker when they're testosterone it up. Happens in war and when they're in love. In fact that was the article I think, in Cosmo or some shit like that. "How to tell if he truly loves you in five easy signs. She was mad cause I only displayed three out of the five..."

Kyle was glad that Johnny talked all the way across town. It made things easier. Though the windows were up, he could still smell the town creeping through the vents into the pick-up's cab. And the noise, ooh, the noise was so loud, defining even. His head ached from the noise. He tried to focus on Johnny's voice until finally the truck braked to a stop and he climbed out, grabbing his gear from the truck bead and dashing over to the door to his apartment house. Johnny called a goodbye from the street and Kyle waved doing his best to appear fine when he really wasn't and then he was inside and up the stairs, safe in his little well kept apartment.

***

She'd been asleep in the back of the van for twenty minutes and Julie was a bit worried as her father closed the little fuel over on the van and ambled around to join her by the pump. "We should take her to a hospital."

"Do you think she needs one?"

"She was wondering around naked in the woods for who knows how long. There's something obviously wrong with her."

Walter nodded, his daughter had a point. He took out the wallet the girl had had with her and opened it for the third time. The driver's license was current and held the picture of a young man, about middle to late twenties. "She seems to really want to go after this Kyle Murphy, fellow. Seems pretty adamant about it, too. So far as I can tell."

"She must be foreign, She doesn't seem to understand English."

"Well, Well get her to this guy's address in the city and then she'll be his problem."

"What if he's the one left her out here, dad?"

Walter looked again at the picture in the driver's license. "Has a nice looking face. Doesn't seem like the type to strip a young girl naked and toss her out in the middle of the woods."

There was movement beside them and they both jumped to find the girl was there. She'd been listening to them. She held out a hand for the wallet and without knowing why, Walter gave it to her. She took it and held it close to her chest. Though the car-coat was long she had neglected to button it properly.

"Maybe you should take her into the ladies room and clean her up a bit," he said to his daughter.

Julie moved towards the girl and was surprised when the girl backed away towards the van. She seemed to be looking down the road with a sense of urgency. "Kyle," she said again, her voice carrying no sign of foreign accent.

"We'll get you too him, dear." Walter said, pointing to the wallet she held. "You've got his address there with you.

The girl looked down at the wallet quizzically. The female, "Julie" took the wallet slowly and opened it up, showing the girl the picture. The girl grabbed the wallet and stared at the ID picture, almost gleefully. She pointed at it and smiled. "Kyle," she said again.

Julie nodded and then let a slight glance of worry pass between her and her father.

She turned back to find the girl running her index finger lovingly over the ID picture. Julie smiled and nodded. "He is handsome, huh?"

The girl looked up, and repeated the sentence. "He is handsome, huh?"

Julie smiled. "Yes. I just said that."

"Yes. I just said that. Julie."

Julie nodded. "And that's my dad. Walter. What is your name?"

The girl looked from the one of them to the other and then she put a hand to her chest. "Wahya."

"What a pretty name." Walter smiled opening the door to the van so the girl could climb in again. "We'll be in the city before dark. I'm sure you're boyfriend will be happy to know you're safe and sound."

"Boyfriend," the girl repeated. "Kyle boyfriend."