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I woke because a beeping would not stop.
It was a small, neat sound. A patient monitor trying too hard to be useful. My throat tasted like metal and sleep. For a second I couldn't move at all; the world was a soft blur, edges rounded by pain and sleep. The ceiling tiles above were the wrong kind of white, the fluorescent lights too bright, making everything look like a photograph left in the sun. A woman in blue scrubbed hands moved at the edge of my vision. Her face had the practiced calm of people who talk to pain every day. She said my "name" to check my bracelet, then looked at her notes and said bluntly "John Doe, found unconscious off County Road 7. EMTs said a passerby called it in, left before we arrived."
A passerby. The word lodged in my chest like a stone.
"Any ID?" she asked, gentle but efficient. I didn't answer. My bandaged arm felt heavy. The dressing under my shirt hid wetness that didn't want to dry. When she lifted the sheet to check, the smell hit me; iron, river, something older than the night. "Trauma, but stable," she told the clipboard and not me. "Multiple lacerations, contusions. Looks like animal attack, maybe. Sheriff wants to talk when they get here." Animals. The word crawled across the skin of my arms. I remembered the trees, the cold, the line of moon through the leaves. I remembered teeth and weight and then the flash of someone small and frantic tearing at a throat. I remembered the last sound, a mouth on a neck that was definitely not human. I didn't remember being carried out, or who had carried me.
When the door hissed and the sheriff stepped into the corridor, his voice carried like a radio under static. Two uniforms, tired eyes. He asked the nurse questions nobody should have to answer twice. "Found where, again? Near the river? Any witnesses? Anyone seen anything odd?" She answered in short, practiced sentences. "Passerby says they found him near the treeline and called it in. No one stayed." The sheriff's footfalls stopped just outside my door. The rhythm in my chest changed. I listened to the paper rustle as he read a report, the clack of his pen. He was talking about bodies in the trees, about "animal patterns" and "strange wounds." He used words like 'pack' and 'escalation' that slid into my memory like knives.
I tried to move and gravity laughed. My left shoulder felt like someone had driven a stake through it. I swallowed and tasted blood and cheap antiseptic. The nurse spoke again, softly: "You don't have any ID on you. Any family we should call? A name?". I couldn't tell her anything. Names made sound waves that turned into records. Records became files. Files were things you couldn't run from. I felt the old fear creep up the back of my neck the memory of headlines I hadn't wanted and the way the world slotted me into a frame and left me there. "Don't talk," I croaked, but it was useless. A hollow sound. The nurse set the clipboard down and touched my forearm. Her hand was warm. "We're required to take a name for the chart, hun. It makes it easier when the sheriff asks."
I closed my eyes. The hospital smelled like lemon cleaner and bleach, and the smell stuck to everything like a promise of bureaucracy. The beeping of the monitor kept time with my pulse. I thought of the girl, the scratch of fur, the quickness, the smallness of her hands. She couldn't have left me out there to die and then just vanish like that. Could she? Maybe she left because she didn't want to be found. Maybe she left because she didn't trust the bright, clinical light. The fluorescent comforted the nurse; it didn't comfort me. Records, forms, signatures everything had a way of making you visible. I had been careful not to be visible for a long time. I knew the small things that made you stick: a hospital bracelet, a social security number, a plate not registered to a nameless car. I knew how quickly an officer walked past, eyes flicking to a name and that slow tilt that turned curiosity into accusation.
As the hallway voices rose and fell. Sheriff, dispatcher, half a sentence through the door. The decision was sudden and stupid and precise. I moved like someone learning how to tie their hands again. First, the IV. The tape at my wrist came away with a small sting. I didn't bother asking how to do it. Blood welled but the nurse was busy with paperwork and didn't look down. I flexed the hand, felt the numbness fade like a curtain lifting. I swung my legs over the side of the bed. The world tilted. My boots were gone. My jacket wasn't there. They'd been taken, or they'd been left with the passerby, or they'd been bagged into evidence. It didn't matter. I could feel the cold hollow where they should have been. A moment later I remembered where the stolen sedan slept under the motel sign, like a patient waiting for me. The thought made things feel urgent and manageable and, perversely, normal.
A coughing fit from down the hall. The sheriff's voice then, louder: "-no ID, no witnesses staying, dogs found nearby. We got tracks leading back to County Road 5." I swallowed. County Road 5. That was five towns over. Names would start floating in the air soon. A name. My name. Someone would check the license plates on the car and someone would think to look up who'd reported it missing. They always did. I eased from the bed like a man learning to be a ghost. The nurse didn't look up when I slid the sheet down and sat on the edge. Her pen scratched. People move in such comfortable loops that they don't notice a hole until you step through it. I unbuttoned the gown with hands that didn't trust themselves. The dressing on my shoulder clung. I tore it off and managed to stash it under the mattress. The wound burned and smelled like iron and the river. The pain kept me awake and sharp.
At the door I paused. The sheriff's shadow fell across the frosted glass, a dark bar, the kind of thing that made you small. The monitor beeped, then paused as if confused. Everything wanted me to stay. Everything wanted a name. I didn't argue. I moved quickly, quietly, with the practiced patience of someone who'd been taught to take only what he needed and never look back. I tied the hospital gown into something resembling a cloak around me, and shuffled down the corridor. The fluorescent lights hummed. The nurse, finally noticing her missing patient, called out. "Sir? You need to-" but the words drifted like ash. The exit door hissed as I pushed it, and for a long second cold air hit my face like a slap. Outside, the world smelled like wet asphalt and the river and something that wasn't the hospital's orderly bleach. The fog lay thick, a damp sheet over the town. I knew I had to be quick, I neglected to look back at the glass windows where the hospital glowed like a pale moon. I didn't want to see my face in the panes, to watch the hospital turn me into a story. I moved off the concrete in long, unsteady strides toward the road, each step a small theft of freedom. The first light of morning had no business being my witness.
The walk back to the motel felt longer than it should have. Maybe it was the fog, or the cold, or the way every wound ached like it wanted to speak. Dawn had barely formed. The sky was a smear of bruised blue over the treeline, not enough light to see by, just enough to make you wish it would finish the job. By the time I reached the parking lot, the stolen sedan sat exactly where I’d left it, sagging on one side like an old dog. A crust of pine needles clung to the rear windshield, making it look even sadder. I slipped inside, wincing as the seat pressed into the back of my ribs. The key turned reluctantly. The engine sputtered like it had been asleep and resented being woken, then finally coughed to life. I pulled around to the far end of the motel lot, the side no one checked unless they wanted to throw something away.
My room looked exactly as bleak as when I’d left it. The curtains still drawn shut. The comforter rumpled. The smell faintly of mildew and old cigarettes. A cheap Bible lay crooked on the nightstand like it had been thrown there in some emergency. I shut the door and locked it, then slid the chain across. The click sounded louder than it should have. I didn’t realize how badly I was shaking until I tried to take off the makeshift hospital cloak. My fingers fumbled every knot. The wound across my shoulder tore a little and wet warmth trickled down my side. I hissed through my teeth. The bathroom mirror was merciless. Yellowed bulbs hummed overhead, showing every smear of blood still crusted along my collarbone, every bruise purpled deep into the skin. My eyes looked glassy, unfocused. I’d thought maybe the hospital lights had been the problem. They weren’t.
I cleaned myself slowly, carefully. Warm water stung. Antiseptic burned. The cuts across my chest throbbed like they had their own heartbeat. The claw marks along my ribs looked worse in the light; deeper, jagged, unmistakably purposeful. A werewolf had meant to kill me. It should have killed me. I remembered the moment right before darkness: weight crushing down, a hot breath against my neck, the pressure of claws. Then small hands. too small for a wolf. pulling, ripping, tearing. The sound of a throat being opened with surgical precision. And a girl, panting, trembling, looking back at me with wide dark eyes before the darkness swallowed everything.
I pressed a towel to my shoulder, breathing through the pain. “The dog girl,” I muttered without thinking. “The little… thing.” The words felt stupid out loud. I didn’t know what else to call her. She wasn’t wolf, not fully. She wasn’t vampire, not in the way I understood them. She wasn’t human either. Something in-between, stitched together by something unnatural. If she had a name, she hadn’t offered it. After patching myself up with the motel’s sad excuse for a first-aid kit, I sat on the bed and opened my notebook. Pages of cramped handwriting, sketches, symbols circled and crossed out. I flipped back through old entries: half-research, half-confession. until I found the section on hybrids. There wasn’t much. Just myths, fragments, things other hunters whispered like ghost stories:
None of it made sense, and it all seemed like nothing but fiction. Monsters made sense, logically, but she didn't. I tried sketching her from memory. The ears came first: soft, triangular, too expressive to be wolfish. Then messy hair, long enough to hide behind. Her posture: half-slouched, half-ready to bolt. I paused at the mouth. The fangs had slid out so smoothly, like they belonged to something older than her body. Too fine to be wolf. Too sharp to be human. I dropped the pencil.
“Why did you help me?” I whispered into the stale motel air. The room didn’t answer, but the silence felt heavier than before. My vision blurred for a moment, exhaustion slipping into the cracks. I lay back on the bed, careful not to pull the bandage. The mattress springs complained under my weight. My throat tightened unexpectedly, and I bit down on the feeling before it could turn into something pathetic. I didn’t cry. I just let the heaviness settle. Outside, a single car passed on the highway. A dog barked far off. The world continued moving without knowing or caring I was still in it. The motel hummed, the air conditioner rattled, and my eyelids dragged shut.
I didn’t mean to sleep.
I didn’t even feel it coming.
I just drifted down into the dark as smoothly as a stripper slides out her underwear. The last thing I saw or imagined before sleep took me, was a small silhouette with doglike ears, waiting just beyond the trees.
I woke sometime in the late afternoon, though “woke” felt like too active a word. It was more like the world slowly seeped back into me, filling my lungs with stale motel air and reminding my body of every wound I thought I’d ignored. Light leaked around the edges of the curtains thin, dim lines that made the room look like it had been taped shut. For a while I didn’t move. My muscles felt like they’d been poured into a mold and left to harden. My shoulder throbbed in a way that told me I’d rolled onto it in my sleep. The sheets were slightly stuck to the bandages, and I peeled them off with a wince.
My mind drifted back to the woods again. The fight, the blood, the sudden salvation I couldn’t explain. Memory played back in disjointed frames: teeth, claws, shadows, her. Especially her.
I pushed myself upright, rubbing at my face. My throat was dry. Painkillers rattled softly inside the half-empty hospital bottle on the nightstand. I didn’t take any. I needed to be clear-headed, and I’d already spent too much of the last twenty-four hours concussed, drugged, or unconscious. The room felt colder than before. Not icy, just… expectant. Like it was holding its breath. I didn’t realize the curtains had been disturbed until I noticed the faint gap near the bottom. A sliver of late-sun orange spilling through. It hadn’t been like that when I collapsed into bed.
A prickle crawled up my spine. I sat completely still. Not breathing. Listening.
A soft rustle outside. Not the wind, more deliberate. Like someone shifting their weight. I reached to the side out of instinct, searching for the weight of my crossbow, only to touch empty air. Of course it wasn’t there. It was still somewhere in the forest where I’d fallen, abandoned in the mud when the last werewolf had thrown me. I wasn’t sure if it was broken… or gone… or waiting. Either way, I was unarmed. Useless.
Another sound. Closer this time. A faint, uncertain whine. I swallowed.
“…hello?”
My voice came out rougher than intended.
Silence. Then, very gently, the curtains moved. Not pushed aside, just pressed inward by something small. A face appeared at the edge of the window. Her face. The dog girl. She peeked in like a nervous animal testing a trap, her wide eyes reflecting the dim light. Her hair hung in uneven strands, tangled like she’d run through the forest without stopping. The tips of her ears twitched, almost shyly, and her nose wrinkled as if scenting something familiar.
Me.
For a heartbeat neither of us moved. Then she shifted, inching closer to the window until her whole form came into view: small frame, dirt-streaked skin, those same strange retractable fangs barely visible between her parted lips. Her gaze flicked over my bandaged shoulder, then to my face. Something softened in her expression, though I couldn’t name it. “…you followed me,” I murmured. Her ears perked, then flattened, unsure if it was a statement or an accusation.
I raised my hands a little, palms open. Not inviting, but not threatening either. She watched every motion like she was memorizing it. Slowly, painfully slowly, she crept closer to the window until her fingers pressed lightly against the glass. Small hands. Clawed tips. Trembling. Sunlight hit her eyes and they glimmered a soft amber-brown. Too human. She made a sound. A tiny, hesitant chirp. Not a word. Not a growl. Something in-between.
I found myself leaning forward without meaning to. “You saved my life,” I said quietly. Her ears twitched again, and for a second I thought she might respond. Not with speech, I wasn’t sure she had words, but something about her posture changed. Relaxed. Just barely.
Then-
A car door slammed somewhere in the parking lot. The sound cracked the moment wide open.
She snapped upright, ears shooting back as her body stiffened. Her eyes widened, pupils shrinking to sharp points. She backed away from the window, fingers slipping off the glass. “Wait,” I whispered, reaching instinctively. Too late. She was already gone, a blur of dark hair and soft ears vanishing around the corner of the motel building. By the time I reached the door and pulled it open, the parking lot was empty. No footprints. No sound. Just the long shadows of dusk stretching across the asphalt.
I stood there for a long time, breathing the cold air.
She had been right there.
Close enough to touch.
I shut the door slowly.
Something in the room felt lonelier than before.
The forest felt different when I returned. Colder, as if the night itself was holding something back. My flashlight cut a narrow path through the trees, the beam trembling slightly in my hand. I reached the clearing where I’d nearly died. The churned-up soil. The dark, dried blood. The still bodies of the two werewolves. My crossbow was gone, dragged off or lost somewhere in the brush. I crouched, studying the dirt, trying to steady my breathing. A second set of footprints caught my eye. Small, bare, light. Hers. They trailed away from the clearing in nervous, scattered steps. I followed them with my light, until a twig snapped behind me.
I spun around, hand instinctively reaching for a weapon I didn’t have. A man stepped out from behind a cluster of pines. Tall, a lot older than me, wearing a dark jacket with reinforced padding and a rifle slung over one shoulder. His expression was calm, almost casual. “Easy,” he said, lifting a hand. “Didn’t mean to spook you. These woods aren’t the safest place for a teenager to go wandering around.” I straightened slightly. “I’m not lost.” He looked me over again, this time more carefully. His eyes paused on the dried blood on my clothes, the way I stood, the way I watched the shadows.
“…Right,” he said quietly. “Guess you’re not.” He stepped closer, resting the rifle at his side. “Name’s Tanner. Been tracking something through here. I figure, you being a hunter and all, you might’ve seen signs.”
“What kind of something?” I asked. He knelt near the prints I’d been studying moments before. Ran a thumb along the edge of one. “Small one. Moves light. Real light.” He glanced back at me. “Skittish, but curious. Circles people instead of attacking them. Watched me once for a good five minutes before bolting.”
My chest tightened.
Tanner continued, unaware of the way my stomach was sinking. “Got this sort of… half-wild look. Like she’s not sure whether to stand up straight or crawl. Never seen anything quite like her.”
My breath caught.
He tapped the ground. “Blood drops here too. She’s hurt. Not bad enough to slow her much, but enough to make a trail.” A quiet moment passed between us, then Tanner stood, brushing dirt off his palms. “If you spot her, don’t engage. She’s unpredictable. Could be dangerous without meaning to be. I’m planning to get to her first, before she grows into something worse.” He gave me a nod. Polite, professional, before turning back toward the trees.
Only when he started walking did the words fully settle.
Tanner wasn’t just hunting a werewolf.
He was hunting her.
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