Chapter 5 Mona
FEbrUARY
"Listen, Beep, if you don't shut the fuck up, I'm going to—" I growl, then look up at the wide-open sky and let out a scream.
Be quiet. Too loud.
"Yes, yes, I fucking get it. I'm too loud. And you're super stealthy." The number of times I've been caught arguing with the voice in my head over the last few weeks is embarrassing. At least out here, in the middle of nowhere, where she dragged us, no one can watch me break down.
The last town we passed was two days ago. We're somewhere in the Appalachian Mountains in West Virginia, where we've been for two days. Lost. Cold. Alone.
Not lost.
Aaand there it is again, that old oak tree with a notch that looks like an owl's head where—yep, if I listen carefully, I can hear the creek, further east, where we slept last night. We are definitely lost. Going in circles, at least.
Not lost, she argues.
I grit my teeth, but refrain from snapping back at Beep and tug on my pants that are entirely too long for my frame.
After about a week together, I determined her constant judgement and complaints were nothing more than an incessant beep beep beeping in my head, thus the nickname, Beep. I don't know if she has a name of her own, she's never said.
We've come a long way since that morning we woke, changed.
After the police showed up before we could leave, but had, luckily, cleaned up the blood in my apartment, they told me my father had been murdered.
Likely by the same monster who tried to kill me, and I knew I needed to get out of town immediately.
I didn't want to chance him finding out I was still alive and coming back to finish the job.
Besides, it took less than a day for it to become clear why wolves avoid the city. While I was always sensitive, I could barely breathe walking down the street from my apartment after the change.
Beep assured me it would get better with time, I just had to get used to it. I would learn to block out certain smells and sounds, choosing what to hone in on.
She was right. It got easier. But it didn't matter. I could get used to the loud sounds, the potent smells, all the people, the pollution… but it no longer felt like home. The familiarity of the city was gone, because I was no longer something I recognized.
Initially, when I packed a bag, I decided I needed to find others like me. Other humans who are no longer… human. Not werewolves. Beep gets fussy every time I call them that.
Most days we get along great. We have our moments; it's a learning curve.
Nicknaming her Beep because she sounded like an incessant beeping noise in my head wasn't my finest hour.
But then again, after I packed a backpack with all my earthly belongings and hitched a bus outside the city, walked into the woods, got undressed, insisted she carry my bag in her teeth, and let her take control in her wolfy form, she promptly left my bag behind, took off into the forest in the opposite direction we discussed, and got us lost, leaving me stark naked and penniless, so I don't feel that bad.
Not lost.
Like I said, it's been a learning curve.
"We are lost, Beep. I haven't seen a single human, hiking trail or outpost for two days."
Not lost. Go north.
She's been insisting we head north pretty much since the beginning, but won't say why. And although there's a tug in my gut, one I'm now becoming familiar with, also pulling me north, I refuse to follow it.
Because the last time I felt it was when I was heading home to my apartment on New Year's Eve, only to find that psychopath hiding out, ready to kill me.
I see his face in my nightmares every single night. Beautiful. Violent. Sharp teeth. Pain.
My hand reaches out, fingertips ghosting over the scar on my neck, the reminder of that night, and I release a shudder. Beep nuzzles inside me, reminding me she's here for me and that I'm okay.
To try to get away from it all, maybe find others like me, I've been insisting we head west or south, but when I give Beep the reins, she drags us north.
Fortunately, she gets tired easily and can't last more than a few hours in wolf form, so even when she resists the pull and my demands to give me my body back, she has no choice but to relent. And then I drag us south.
Which is why it's taken us five whole weeks to make it less than two states away. We've been zigzagging aimlessly across the country for weeks. It's cold, snowy, and miserable out here in the woods. I grew up in the city. I'm not meant for this off-grid life.
"I just want a fucking burger, dude. Is that too much to ask?" I whine.
Rabbit close. Hunt.
"I'm not killing a fucking rabbit."
Then starve.
Growling, I hike up my pants—three sizes too big, since I had to swipe them from some poor soul in a camping trailer in upstate New York, once Beep lost control of her form and we shifted back, stark naked.
I only stole a pair of pants and a t-shirt, then found a shopping bag in the trash that I fashioned into a long collar that Beep could wear around her neck so she'd stop losing all my shit.
Nevermind that she lost my ID, all my money, all my clothes and snacks.
Human things. No need.
"I am human, Beep," I sigh, then take another step along the makeshift trail. No matter how much I try to explain to her that even if this is my life now—it is, I've accepted that (sort of)—I'm still half human and need human things. A job. Money. A place to live.
A pair of fucking shoes.
Even though I'm a lot less sensitive to the cold, walking around barefoot is brutal.
Some days I feel like I'm drowning, and it really messes with my head when it's Beep who comforts me. Not my dad, not that he ever would, even when he was alive. But there's been no one in my life that I could really, truly rely on. No one I've ever loved, no one who's ever loved me.
Beep's got my back, and it feels… nice.
Even if I want to strangle her sometimes.
I close my eyes and tilt my chin up toward the sky, breathing in the mountain air. It rained last night. I ignore the faint smell of petrichor—the scent of earth after rain, reminding me of the man who stole my life.
A part of me did die that night. And while I guess Beep is kinda growing on me, I know I wouldn't have chosen this life if he had asked before turning me into this.
And I hate that his scent still stirs something within me. A sense of calm. A strange twist inside me, that makes my insides clench.
I shake off the calm and try to concentrate on the other smells around me. The crunchy, icy grass. The moldy leaves, buried beneath old fallen tree limbs. The crisp, clean scent of snow that blankets most of the ground. Even the faint traces of blood from the scratches on my bare feet.
I used to be sick every day of my life. Now, I scratch my foot on a rock, and within an hour, it's gone. I've never felt this good, this strong and healthy. It's amazing what werewolf healing will do to a human body.
Not werew—
I cut Beep off when I hear it. My head snaps to the left. My eyes narrow, vision sharpening, and I take a deep inhale.
Oh, poor bunny.
I'm just so hungry.
I hate this.
I debate letting Beep take over, but I need to face this sometime. I'm a carnivore. I always have been, but I happily bought meat in a grocery store, where I didn't have to look at their cute faces.
This is my life now.
Besides, even if I let Beep take control, she takes for-ev-er to shift. The rabbit would be long gone.
Closing my eyes, I let my new, stronger senses kick in.
And then I hunt.