Howl - Brieanna Boyce (free novel 24 TXT) 📗

ran back home and he just stood there. I told Shawna and she made me go back and apologize.

Then finally, after a day of tutoring and training O’Leary would come home and we’d all have supper like a family. O’Leary would tuck me into bed and read me stories or sometimes take me camping in the backyard; he told the best stories some of which he’d just made up. I’d always fall asleep to his voice deep and rich like soil, it had the power to soothe me like nothing else… well at the time. He told his stories with his hands, his eyes, his expressions, and even his voice.

I would always treasure those moments, where the world grew so small and I was protected and loved, but as I grew older I grew exponentially smarter and stronger, so much so that soon Cyrus was incapable of breaking me and this only at the young age of fourteen. Something else happened too though, I started getting more rebellious, giving more attitude, and my body hurt most of the time. I thought it was normal, much like the sensations people describe during adolescence. However one night Cyrus, O’Leary, and Shawna sat with me in the living room. I just stared at the walls my arms crossed and a scowl across my face, I’d figured that I got in trouble yet again.

O’Leary was the first to say something, “Kale, I’ve noticed this change in you, but I know you’re not a bad kid, I know you don’t want to be this way.” I frowned staying quiet not even sure really why I myself felt compelled to do these things, I loved them as a family, I even loved Cyrus. So why than did I feel I had to make life difficult for them? Maybe, O’Leary was wrong maybe I was a bad kid. Cyrus cleared his throat, “I know you think you’re the only one who started out this life with us in a gruesome way but it’s not the case.” He sighed, “I didn’t always look like this you know, I wasn’t always half burned, half formed, but there was a horrible fire and O’Leary saved me…” Shawna looked at Cyrus and took his hand, “Cyrus saved me after I… tried to kill myself.”

I looked at O’Leary confused, “Who saved you?” O’Leary laughed and ruffled my hair smiling warmly at me, “you did Kale, I had everything taken away, I got some back with Shawna and Cyrus but you really saved me.”

Cyrus interrupted with a cough, “at any rate Kale, there’s something different about this family, we… we’re not like other people.” I looked at them all confused, “Wha-What do you mean?”

O’Leary sighed, “The night I found you, you were practically dead, in fact it was a miracle that you survived at all, and you were bleeding so badly. I tried to change you but it didn’t work at least that’s what I’d thought, but I’d never changed a kid that young before.”

“Change?” my voice shook, “What do you mean change?”

They all looked at each other a long time and somehow I got this suspicion that maybe I didn’t need to know, that I wasn’t meant to know. Shawna looked at me her wide eyes hesitant, her hands reached out and cupped mine, “Kale, we are, werewolves, we aren’t human, and you haven’t been human, at least fully since you were twelve.”

I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t utter a word, everything was going too slow, I couldn’t catch any of it, nothing at all made sense. I felt tears roll down my cheeks, in some weird way it didn’t sound particularly wrong, but I was so shocked. I felt as though I was spinning, and everything was blurred.

“Kale when I bit you nothing changed, at first I thought it meant it didn’t take. However I noticed how quickly you were healing and then you awoke.” O’Leary said, “You almost immediately took my hand and I knew you’d be okay. Now though I realize what’s happening.”

“We had hoped,” Shawna interjected, “that perhaps you had gotten lucky and survived without being like us, that we could raise you as normally as possible, but now it’s all clear, the virus has just been dormant, inactive, waiting for the right trigger.”

“Puberty,” O’Leary said conclusively.

Later that night I did change, I nearly died, I almost didn’t make it, I fought the process the entire way and then I heard the voice of my inner wolf soothing me. The whole thing was painful and excruciating the others tried to help as best they knew how but it was no use it was all up to me. Afterward, I laid on the floor, sweating and sore everywhere.

O’Leary pat my back, “way to go kid.”

I nodded still spent, but my inner wolf hissed in the recesses in my mind, “This is far from over boy far from over.” He was right…

I thought perhaps having changed things would’ve changed too. I would have relaxed a little, it took awhile, a few months to come to terms with what I was but the impulses the voice, the wolf’s voice in my head was overwhelming. I had more violent impulses, particularly directed towards O’Leary which made me feel horrible; O’Leary was the father I’d never had. So why did I feel these impulses? Why was this voice telling me to kill him? A stain grew those days, a stain I bore quietly as it grew and tainted my soul. How could I think these things? I must be evil that was my conclusion. Being only fourteen what other conclusion was I to come to? So one night I got up, I looked around and found a knife and brought it to my throat, thinking maybe perhaps if I eliminated myself I couldn’t hurt anybody. Suddenly O’Leary took the knife away, he held the blade, his hand dripping blood and the blade crushed. I stood there staring in awe and surprise. O’Leary’s face was bright red his eyebrows furrowed and a vein in his neck pulsed.

“WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?!”

“I-I” the words would not come; I thought the scene was self explanatory, me holding a knife to my own throat. What really had shocked me was O’Leary’s reaction; I’d never seen him mad before, I used to think that it was ridiculous when strangers would be afraid of him. Suddenly now it made sense, his frame seemed to grow to gargantuan heights, his eyes burning intensely and his once warm, comforting smile was now a grim scowl. I found myself actually afraid.

O’Leary paced restlessly running a hand through his hair, “I knew something was wrong but THIS!” his anger suddenly evaporated his shoulders slackened and his eyes grew darker, “Why would you do this? Have we not provided for you? Given you a good home… I mean I know we aren’t perfect but…” He scratched his mop of orange hair his face scrunching up a bit in frustration as they always did when O’Leary struggled, as he did often when trying to express himself.

“N-No,” I started hesitantly, how do you tell someone who’s your idol that you heard voices tell you to kill them? “You guys provided me with a great home… you’re all my family…”

“Then why are you trying to…” O’Leary dropped the unfinished sentence into the air and let it hang limply like a noose swaying in the air ominously.
“Trying to kill myself?” I finished the thought harshly and quickly O’Leary reacted as though I had cut him, he winced in pain as if hearing the words physically hurt him. I sighed and let the words rush out, “I hear a voice in my head that wants me to hurt you.”

He blinked and dropped the knife from his hand, coated with blood and crumpled beyond recognition. “Well what does this voice say?”

I was surprised he didn’t look disgusted, he didn’t accuse me of being crazy, or worse pat my head and tell me I was just imagining things. “I-It tells me to kill you, that I am the-,” I swallowed hard struggling to say the words, “That I am the alpha male, I’m the leader, it says it’s the wolf part of me…”

O’Leary at first just looked at me processing the information and then he smiled and walked over petting my head, perhaps I had spoken too soon perhaps he’d send me off to bed and tell me that it was all a dream. “Of course the voice told you to kill me; it’s only natural if you’re an alpha male.”

I let the words sink in but somehow was scrambled in my head, “You mean I’m not crazy?”

O’Leary smiled and pet my head, “That is exactly what I’m telling you. I will take you out in the morning.”

I quickly went to bed completely confused. So I was an alpha male, I wasn’t crazy and O’Leary didn’t hate me. What now? What did that mean? Something in the pit of my stomach told me that tomorrow I would find out.

When I woke up in the morning and went into the kitchen Cyrus, Shawna, and O’Leary all stood arms crossed, their faces devoid of emotion. I had never seen all three of them look so… serious. They were fully clothed and looked as though they may have been standing there awhile.

“Get dressed.” Shawna ordered dryly.

I obeyed but couldn’t help wondering what the day would bring me. I walked out into the kitchen fully clothed and all three of them turned and walked the door silently while I trailed behind. I didn’t bother asking where I was going or what we were going to do. I found alarm rising as we walked farther and farther into the nearby town, we didn’t live close by and yet here we all were in the center of it, I looked around at all the people. I felt my heart stutter in excitement and fear; I was not accustomed to being around so many people. Even before O’Leary, Shawna, and Cyrus came into my life I wasn’t accustomed to people in any fashion. We all walked around quietly, and although I wanted to smile, laugh, and visit stores I knew that wasn’t the reason we were here. Than when it got later in the day and the sun began to set and people began returning home O’Leary came to my side and said, “Now it is time.” We all walked behind an abandoned shop, it was clear from everyone crouching and remaining so quiet not a soul could hear them that I was supposed to do the same.

There was very tall grass and from far away I could see a bit of movement. Suddenly Shawna transformed her body shifting into the shape of a wolf; she ran sprinting quicker than anything I’d ever seen. She leapt onto something and than for a moment was lost to the tall grass. It rustled a little and I looked to the others, Cyrus scolded me with his eyes than nodded back towards the direction Shawna had just leapt. Sure enough, a moment later she stood, pulling something behind her, was it a shirt? As she walked closer I saw it was a person who was ferociously thrashing, but Shawna remained quiet and continued dragging him with no visible sign of strain. The person was a girl, she was decently good looking, she had short, brown hair, and wide blue eyes, and very pale skin, her lips were stained with blood.

“This,” Cyrus said, practically hissing when he’d said the word, “is what a vampire