Chapter 14 Lina
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Lina
The massive shape that burst from the underbrush wasn’t a bear. Wasn’t a normal wolf. It was the thing from my nightmares, the monster that had destroyed my shop five years ago, except somehow worse.
Gray fur hung in patches from its massive frame, revealing raw, infected skin beneath. Foam dripped from jaws that could swallow Thea whole. Its eyes rolled wild with madness, focused entirely on my daughter with the single-minded intensity of a rabid animal that had found prey.
I didn’t think, didn’t calculate odds or consider options. I put Thea on the ground and shoved her behind me, spreading my arms wide to make myself as large a target as possible.
“NO! STAY BACK!” The scream tore from my throat, raw with desperation.
The wolf didn’t hesitate. It lunged with speed that shouldn’t have been possible for its size, crossing the space between us in a heartbeat.
I spun around, covering Thea completely with my body. If this thing wanted my baby, it would have to go through me first. Literally.
The impact knocked me forward, but I locked my arms around Thea, becoming a human shield. Then the teeth came.
Pain exploded through my shoulder as fangs punched through skin into muscle. The wolf’s jaws clamped down, grinding against bone with a sound I felt more than heard. Hot breath on my neck. The stench of rot flooding my nostrils. Blood running warm down my back.
The wolf shook its head violently, trying to dislodge me, to get to the prize beneath. Each movement sent fresh agony through my shoulder, tore muscle, scraped against nerves. I bit through my own lip to keep from screaming, tasting copper.
But I held on. Thea’s terrified shrieks pierced through the pain, anchoring me. My baby needed me. That was all that mattered.
“Mama! Mama!” Thea sobbed against my chest, little hands clutching my shirt.
The wolf released my shoulder only to bite down again, finding a fresh spot. This time I couldn’t hold back the scream. It echoed through the trees, the sound of an animal protecting its young.
My vision started to gray at the edges. Blood loss or shock, probably both. The wolf’s weight pressed down, crushing us into the forest floor. Pine needles stuck to my face, mixed with tears I hadn’t realized I was crying.
Not this way. Not with Thea watching. Not with my baby trapped beneath me, feeling her mother die on top of her.
Blood soaked through my shirt, warm against Thea’s hands where she tried to hold onto me. The wolf reared back for another strike, jaws wide, and I knew with horrible clarity that I couldn’t take much more. My strength was failing, arms shaking with the effort of staying upright over my daughter.
“Not my baby,” I whispered, the words bubbling through blood. “Please, not my baby.”
A howl cut through the clearing with the force of a physical blow. Deep, commanding, furious beyond description. The kind of sound that reached into your hindbrain and whispered ‘apex predator.’
The wolf froze mid-lunge. Its head snapped toward the sound, and I saw fear bloom in those mad eyes.
More howls erupted around us. Not random, but coordinated, a pack closing in with precision. The rabid wolf backed away from us, foam flying as it snarled at the unseen threat.
The howls grew louder, angrier, promising violence.
The wolf made a decision. It spun and crashed back into the underbrush, fleeing whatever was coming. I didn’t waste time wondering why or sending thank you cards to our mysterious saviors.
“Up,” I gasped to Thea, grabbing her with my good arm. “Run.”
We ran, or I ran carrying her, which was more of a stumbling lurch toward safety.
Blood streamed down my back, each step sending lightning through the bite wounds.
Behind us, the forest exploded with violence.
Snarling that made my bones ache. The sound of bodies colliding.
A fight that sounded less like animals, more like monsters from mythology deciding who got to be the bigger nightmare.
I forced myself to keep moving. My vision was tunneling, legs powered by pure adrenaline and maternal instinct. Thea clung to me, her tears soaking into my ruined shirt.
The trees thinned. I could see the shop’s back door, still hanging open from Thea’s escape. Just a little farther. Just a few more steps.
Something screamed in the forest behind us. Not human, not animal, just wrong. The wet sound of flesh tearing followed with finality.
I stumbled through the shop, past Rowan’s shocked face, out the front door. Our house was right there. One block. I could make one block.
“I’m scared, Mama,” Thea sobbed as we ran.
“Almost home,” I managed through gritted teeth. “Almost there.”
The front door appeared before us. I fumbled with keys, hands shaking so badly it took three tries. Behind us, Pine Valley looked normal. Peaceful. No sign of the war raging in the woods just yards away.
We tumbled inside, and I slammed the door shut, turning every lock, shoving the kitchen chairs under the doorknobs. Windows next. Check every window. Lock everything that could lock. Barricade what couldn’t.
Only when every possible entrance was secured did I allow myself to collapse against the bathroom door.
“Safe,” I panted, pulling both twins against me with my good arm. “We’re safe. We’re safe.”
But even as I said it, howls echoed from the forest, too close for comfort.
The bathroom felt too bright after the darkness of the forest. I peeled off my ruined shirt with shaking hands, trying not to traumatize the twins more than they already were.
The bite was worse than I’d thought. Deep puncture wounds leaked steady streams of blood.
Torn muscle visible through the gaps. The kind of wound that screamed for a hospital, for stitches, for more than my pathetic first aid kit could provide.
I’d go to the hospital when I could. Right now I had to stop bleeding and calm my babies.
“The big dog hurt you, Mama,” Thea hiccupped, hovering nearby with toilet paper clutched in her little fists.
“Just a scratch,” I lied through clenched teeth, pouring hydrogen peroxide over the wounds. The bathroom tilted sideways for a second. “Mama’s tough, remember?”
Rowan appeared in the doorway, took one look at the blood, and immediately crawled into my lap despite my injuries. His nose wrinkled as he pressed his face against my neck.
“It smells sick,” he whispered.
My four-year-old could smell infection setting in.
Great. I managed to bandage the worst of it one-handed, biting back screams that wanted to escape.
The twins watched with solemn eyes, occasionally patting my face with gentle hands.
When I finished, we sat there on the bathroom floor, a pathetic pile of blood and terror and unanswered questions.
“Why did the dog bite you?” Thea asked in a small voice.
Because it was rabid. Because I was between it and you. Because the world was full of monsters and I’d been pretending otherwise.
“Sometimes animals get sick,” I said carefully. “It makes them act mean.”
“The other dogs scared it away,” Thea said with certainty. “The pack protected us.”
Pack. There was that word again. But she was right, those coordinated howls, the way the rabid wolf had fled, it all pointed to one conclusion: we’d been saved by something that hunted in a pack and could terrify a creature that size.
I thought about the wolf that had attacked my shop five years ago. Mangy gray fur. Foam at the mouth. Too large to be natural. Exactly matching today’s attacker.
Coincidence, had to be coincidence. Rabies lasted in wild populations, made animals grow weird. It definitely didn’t mean anything supernatural was happening in Pine Valley, definitely didn’t mean the town’s paranoia about beasts was justified.
My shoulder throbbed with each heartbeat. Heat radiated from the wounds despite the bandages. Fever was setting in already, which wasn’t good.
“Movie time?” I suggested, needing distraction for them while I figured out what the hell to do.
They helped me to the couch, my little caretakers fetching blankets and stuffed animals. The TV was already on from earlier, paused on some nature documentary. I hit play without looking, just needing background noise.
Of course it was about wolves. Not regular wolves either, but werewolf mythology, complete with dramatic reenactments and ominous music.
“The were-wolf in there protects people,” Thea said with drowsy certainty as she curled against my good side. “Just like the ones in the woods.”
“No, baby. This is just a movie, it’s not real. And the ones in the woods aren’t werewolves,” I said automatically. “Just... big dogs. Wild dogs.”
But even as I said it, I knew I was lying to them and to myself, because those coordinated howls and the way they’d hunted showed intelligence and strategy, not random animal behavior. Maybe truly a pack of clever wolves?
The fever was getting worse. I could feel it burning through me, spreading too fast to be normal. The bite throbbed with each heartbeat, sending waves of wrong through my system.
“Just a wild animal,” I whispered, more to myself than the twins. “Just a big animal. Maybe mutated from pollution. Not supernatural. Not werewolves. No such thing.”
Because if werewolves were real, if the beasts Pine Valley feared weren’t those beasts that had attacked me twice but something worse, then what did that make my children?
What did that make the man who’d fathered them and vanished, the one that had healed way too fast?
What did that make me now, with wolf saliva mixing with my blood?
“Mama?” Rowan’s worried voice cut through my spiral. “You feel hot.”
“Just tired, baby.” I pulled both twins against me, ignoring the screaming protest from my shoulder. “Everything’s going to be okay.”
Another lie. Nothing was okay, nothing had been okay for a long time. I’d just been too desperate for normal to see it.
Outside, a long, mournful howl carried a message I couldn’t understand but felt in my bones. And I was burning up from the inside out, my body fighting a war I didn’t understand against an infection that shouldn’t be spreading this fast.