I heard the possums hidden in the brush.
The voles underground.
The squirrels up the sides of the tree.
There was a town in the mountains.
There were people who lived in this town.
I couldn’t feel them, not like I could feel the pack.
But I was aware of them.
Like I was on the outside, barely looking in.
There was a sense of them.
My pack were bright beacons in the dark.
The people of Green Creek were fuzzy stars at the edges of space.
; But they were there.
I pushed.
It pulled.
The pack shifted around me, heartbeats syncing up one by one, both human and wolves.
Elizabeth sighed.
There was a clearing in the middle of the woods.
It tasted of lightning and magic.
Of claw and fang.
And in the middle of this clearing sat a man who had once been a boy.
A boy who I had loved.
Then a monster had come to town with murder on his mind and tore a hole in our heads and hearts.
The boy chased after the monster with revenge in his bloodred eyes.
The monster was gone now.
And so was the boy. Because a man had taken his place.
And this is where it pulled me, this is where I pushed it, because there was a thrum under my skin, the movement of an animal wanting to burst out of me.
The people of Green Creek were fuzzy stars.
The pack around me were lights in the dark.
This boy, this man was the sun, bright and all-consuming.