Steel And Poppies

Trails

Jana was on her way home from school. She still had very mixed feelings about what had happened. On one hand, she was really enjoying Rhydian’s attention, on the other, she had become to like Maddy enough, that she didn’t want to hurt her feelings. Plus, although she found it difficult to admit, despite being tame, Maddy was much more of an alpha then herself. She was fascinated by the way Maddy had managed to put everyone in line without using force, or even express authority. Just by plain reasoning. It was one of the mysteries of the human world, and, even though she wasn’t aware of it yet, inside her grew the idea, that this was one of the reasons why humans had been so much more successful then her own kind.

Clearly, in combining the intellect of the human with the strength and agility of the beast made them far superior to normal humans, at least on a physical level. On the other hand, their whole culture revolved around the wolf, which went as far as spending your entire adult life in wolf-form, as some of her kind preferred to.

And then there was Shannon. Jana had no idea what to make of her. Not that she didn’t like the human girl, she was just nothing short of a complete mystery to Jana.

On one hand, she was definitely a friend. From what Maddy had told Rhydian, she had been loyal to her pack to the extend of nearly catching a bullet. On the other, she had spied on Maddy and her family, and had collected all sorts of information, that might expose not only Maddy and her family, but all wolfbloods.

Friendship aside, Jana was sure she had to do something to stop her. Even if that meant acting against Maddy. Or Rhydian.

Her train of thought was interrupted as she was close to her trailer. Someone was there!

“Shannon!”, she thought. But as soon as she climbed uphill towards her improvised home, the scent-trail she picked up proved her wrong. There was a stranger in her trailer!

Breathlessly she drew closer, sneaking in, to catch a glimpse of the intruder. The scent was unusual, but she was sure the intruder wasn’t a wolfblood. So no one sent by her father to get her back.

“Nice place. Yours?” She jumped as the stranger suddenly appeared behind her. How the hell did she do that, Jana asked herself. With her heightened senses, it should be near impossible for a human to sneak up behind her.

She turned around, taking a defensive position. Her heart was racing. The stranger was a girl, hardly older than herself, maybe 16 or 17. She looked strong for a human.

She growled at the stranger. The girl didn’t seem to be impressed. When the girl took a step towards her, Jana’s instincts kicked in. She turned tail and ran into the forest.

She could hear her pursuer behind her. The girl was fast, Jana had to give her that. But Jana knew these woods, she tried to outmanoeuvre her. She ran towards the river, never in a straight line, to confuse her pursuer, and hoping the latter would take a wrong turn.

Near the river bank, she realised that no one was behind her anymore. She stopped and sniffed around. Then she saw the girl, standing in the middle of the shallow river. Jana backed off.

“Don’t run!” The girl called. “I’m not here to hurt you! I just wanna talk to you!”

Jana hesitated. The girl didn’t appear aggressive, and it might get Jana into even more trouble, when she started talking about chasing a girl through the woods.

“Don’t come closer!” She called to the stranger.

“OK. Mind if I step out of the water?” The girl waded to land, and calmly removed her wet shoes and socks, wrenching the water from the latter. She didn’t seem to care about the autumn cold.

“Why did you run from me?” She asked. “I don’t bite. Usually.”

Jana tried to keep calm. She knew if the grown-ups found out, that her address was faked and she lived in a forsaken trailer in the forest on her own, they would come for her. She had no idea where they would take her, if they came, but she was sure it wasn’t good.

Her mind was racing. This was a human problem. She needed to think like a human. What would Maddy do? The answer was clear: Maddy would lie. This was one more thing Jana had learned from her tame friends. In the human world it was sometimes necessary to lie. She just needed a good one.

“It’s my place. But…but I don’t really live there! My…my parents fight a lot, and I like to be not around when that happens.”

Thinking of Alric, that wasn’t even a lie. Alric fought constantly with anyone.

That seems to satisfy the girl. She nodded. “Just be careful out here. The forest is not a playground.”

“I know. But I know my way here.” Jana responded.

“So I noticed.” The girl winked.

“You’re not gonna tell anyone, do you?”

The girl shook her head. “None of my business.”

Jana felt a weight lifted from her shoulders. “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.”

Only a few days after their first encounter, Logan ran into Jana again. The girl was on the school yard with a ginger haired girl, whom Logan had seen in the village before, but hadn’t talked to. The two teenage girls seemed to be having a fight. Now Logan was usually more or less uninterested in other people’s affairs, or at least she pretended to be, but her instincts told her, that something was in the air. If the kids would start a cat-fight, she thought she might need to intervene, so she slowed her pace, and watched the girls from afar.

“I don’t have your bloody laptop!” Jana just screamed.

“Oh, yes?” The ginger girl shot back. “You had the chance, and the motive!”

“I would have taken it, if I’d had a chance” Jana cried. “This wouldn’t have happened, if you didn’t spy on us!”

“I didn’t!” The redhead snapped back. “It’s for research!”

“I don’t want to be researched.” Jana snarled.

“Give it back!”

Jana now growled the way she had done when Logan had first met her, just more aggressively. What happened next was astounding even to Logan, who had seen lots of weird stuff before. Jana’s skin grew black veins, her hands clenched to fists, and then her whole features began to blur. The her face was strangely distorted, her body seemed to stretch, and she fell down on all fours. A second later, she was gone. In her place, a young wolf stood on school grounds, ready to attack.

Logan had heard of shape-shifters before, and she had had more than one with Mystique, who was the proverbial mother of all shape-shifters, but this was still astonishing. And dangerous. Logan sprinted towards the school yard, jumped over the low wall, and threw herself onto the wolf, the moment it jumped at the other girl. They struggled for a moment, until Logan’s eyes met the wolf’s. She could see the yellow eyes fixing her gaze, and the realisation in them, that she had met the girl before. Logan let go of the wolf. The wolf-girl circled her aggressively. Long metal claws sprang from between Logan’s knuckles as she went into defensive position.

“Stop!” The other girl cried. “Don’t hurt her!”

And then, to Logan: “She’s my friend.”

Jana looked from one to another, then turned, and ran, as fast as she could towards the woods.

Logan’s claws retracted. “This turns out to be an interesting day.” She mumbled to herself.

Only know she realised the other girl, who still stood there, with her mouth open, and stared in fear and disbelieve.

“You’re OK?” Logan asked her.

It took a while till the girl noticed that Logan had asked her a question.

“Um, yes. What are those?”

She pointed towards Logan’s hands.

“Hands.” Logan answered.

“And those claws coming out of them?”

“They are metal claws.” Logan confirmed. Which left the girl in even more confusion.

Now it was Logans turn. “You’re friend’s a shape-shifter?”

“A what?” The girl was now.

“Shape-shifter. Turns into anyone, or anything she wants?”

Logan could smell the girls nervousness.

“I don’t know what you mean. There was this, um, dog, and um, you chased it away!” The girl stammered.

Logan looked at her. “So I didn’t just see your friend Jana turn into a wolf, fight with me, and then run off into the woods?”

The girl shook her head.

“Well, I think I’m gonna go and look for her. She lives in a trailer in the forest, doesn’t she?”

The ginger girl turned even paler. “Please don’t tell anyone! We need to protect her! Please!”

Logan nodded. “I’m gonna find out, what’s going on here, and then we’ll see.”

She turned around and continued her way home, leaving a very confused girl behind.

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