Chapter 7 - Some Like It Pointing

Rayna

Werewolves.

In this day and age?

In this reality?

It just sounds about absurd as a taxicab hovering like a drone over the Golden Gate Bridge, but look at what we have now. Only eight years ago, flying cars were just a dream. Now, it is a reality.

And so were werewolves, damn it.

Big bad wolves with claws, muscled arms and thighs, super hearing, super strength, and fangs.

Most especially fangs.

My fangtophobia was throbbing inside me, trying to come forward while I continued listening to their conversation and watched the plethora of surveillance pictures about the werewolves' activities.

Or what were assumed to be them.

I held on to the fact that these photos were blurry. That maybe my superiors were wrong. They hadn't caught one after all, so there was no telling if they were real.

But even so, my fear still racked me. Made me tremble for a moment until I used all my training to control this involuntary reaction.

It was already evening when Mr. Windstorm and I returned to our designated room. He was contemplatively silent the whole time we passed by the monotonous gray hallways, and I figured it was because of the revelations earlier. It might be his first time hearing about werewolves, too.

And this might explain why he was so open to helping our military about this issue.

I couldn't judge him. The man was extremely rich, after all. He had the right to do anything he wanted with his money, whether it be killing supernatural creatures or feeding the world.

"Good night, Ms. Chase," he surprisingly greeted when we were inside the living room.

"Yes, good night, Sir—uh...Mr. Windstorm."

Damn it. I still couldn't get a hang of this naming system.

He didn't seem to mind my near-mistake and just proceeded to his bedroom with a fleeting grin.

Like Officer Hicks said, our dinner would be served in our bedrooms so yeah, when I opened the door of my room, a tray of food was already on my study table.

Relieved and famished, I dig in, stuffing as much of the steak as I could in my mouth before my appetite left me.

After eating, taking a shower and changing my clothes, I hit the mattress with a heavy plop. I was truly feeling spent after all the activities I had today; yet, they weren't enough to put me in sleep immediately.

My mind still wandered about three specific things:

One, I was possibly just hallucinating earlier. Hearing a growl and hearing it speak my name and saying it owned me. Sure. Just a hallucination. Right?

Two, the presence of werewolves and the probability of them existing in Bolivia too, in this very location where they could attack anytime if they caught wind of my superior's vendetta towards them.

And three, that this growl I had been hearing twice could be one of these werewolves trying to bait me. Would I be wrong to say they possessed magic? That they could communicate with me through telepathy and probably beguile me?

Yet, I couldn't put a finger as to why it had happened twice while I was with Mr. Windstorm. First, when our hands touched and second, when I saw his eyes in raw color.

I may be new to these supernatural things, but I wasn't naïve. Common sense told me that maybe, just maybe, Mr. Windstorm was one of them. He was a werewolf which would explain the way he exercises anonymity.

But then again, it wouldn't make sense since he was willing to finance the military just to bring these creatures down.

In the end, all these thoughts, all these rationalizations placed me in a dead end and it challenged me to really find the truth. Soon...

I tossed and turned that night, my head swimming too much of the many possibilities. At one point, I stood up, fixed my red tank top and spandex short to position, and took a glass of water to refresh my dry mouth.

I drank half of its contents while standing in front of the half-lit living room, near the window where blinds covered the glass. Reaching for the pulley mechanism, I opened it and watched the outside scenery of trees and trees and nothing but trees and oh, the full moon high above the mountains.

Then, I saw something in my periphery. A movement. A shadow behind the trees twenty meters away from the building. That would have been nonthreatening considering there were many animals in these parts of the Gundonovian forest. But, as I continued to stare down, I found that there were more of them hiding. Bigger animals. Bigger than bears, and they were definitely on all fours.

My heart skipped a wild beat.  Werewolves!

And they were probably the ones I saw earlier.

Instinctively, I grabbed my Sig underneath the pillow, cocked it to ready, and pointed the muzzle down to the nearest dark shadow my eyes could find. This one was merely staying still, but it sported yellowish-red eyes glowing and speaking all sorts of ugly things to me. Ugly things like how it could easily jump from the ground to the second floor of the building, how it could invade this VIP room in less than a second, and how it could easily snap my bones—with a gun in hand or not.

Because of this, I cursed at my misfortune. Whatever those so-called weapons and heavy equipment Mr. Windstorm brought with him as donation would have come in handy in this moment of my life.

Mentally, I prayed it wouldn't do those things I just entertained in my head and somehow, Lady Fortune smiled down at me because the wolf continued to be motionless.

As a result, my gaze never lowered and my gun—although useless—still remained pointed towards it. Sweat collected on my forehead and temple. My breathing double worked. Undergoing a game of 'who blinks first' sure was hard on my side. I wasn't even sure how much longer I could maintain it, but it seemed the wolf decided to end this ridiculous contest first.

In the blink of an eye, it disappeared. I gasped, not expecting such action at all. This would have relieved me, but then I heard a low guttural sound inside the living room.

At first, I thought it was that creature again in my visions. However, once I pivoted, pointed my gun, and faced the source of the growl, my lungs froze.

Damn, it was the gigantic black wolf from earlier. Possibly the alpha king.

Up close, I realized how majestic it was. It had the silkiest fur I had seen in an animal. The tautest, meatiest muscles in its limbs. The finest shape of a torso I probably could liken to the best six-pack in a man if it were one. And the most handsome of face for an animal—for now, at least—while it wasn't still baring its teeth at me.

But even with all these nonthreatening details, this wolf's presence in the room still spelled danger to the nth degree.

My hand gripped the handle tighter. Tighter. And I prohibited my skin from shuddering or showing even a sliver of fear. My finger was close to pulling the trigger, close to making an explosive sound that would likely wake all personnel in the facility, including my charge, Mr. Windstorm.

And this would be better. So much better because then, they would be alerted. They would be on guard and they would likely spot all those shadows lurking behind the trees. They would come flock to this room, the source of the gunshot, and would consequently save me—if by then I am still alive—or they would come face to face with their so-called werewolf assassin.

They would have a concrete evidence that werewolves truly exist.

What I didn't understand was why did this creature divulge their long-held secrecy? Why did their alpha king—if my assumption was right—show itself to me?

"Good wolfy... go—od wolfy." I was out of my mind to actually say that to a werewolf, but it was worth a shot. It might realize I was a dog lover and would spare me.

"Are you their leader, boy? Are you the werewolves' alpha king?" I asked without thought, as if I would receive a proper answer from it.

As if this wolf could even speak.

Colonel Garrison's reports said nothing about them turning into humans, but they were operating in an advance level of decision-making, higher than a mere wild wolf in the forest. Was I wrong to assume that they could understand human language? English to be exact?

It growled some more as expected, probably its way of a reply. No intelligible words. No, nothing. Just an animalistic growl as it stepped closer to me.

"Stay back, boy. Stay back!" I shouted, feeling all my adrenaline shooting up to my brain. The Marine Corps also trained us in self-defense against animal attacks, but I didn't think it would come in handy now. They meant bears, lions, and other apex predators known to zoology books, not this!

The wolf advanced a few steps more, disregarding my weak warning.

I gnashed my teeth and finally resigned to my faith. Yes, this alpha wolf would mull me to death, target Mr. Windstorm next, and attack the others living in this facility. Yes, it would exactly do that, but oh no. Not before I fire a shot and effectively alarm everyone of this intrusion.

With my mind set to that decision, I pointed the gun to the wolf's forehead and pulled the trigger, but just as I did, something from Mr. Windstorm’s room exploded.