CHAPTER 5

The present… “Lola?” Russel asked, looking at the girl while at the same time trying to control the emotions that suddenly erupted inside him. This was the girl he was supposed to kill? Really? Why the hell did it have to be her? She’s so beautiful with her silky, golden hair and eyes the color of a bright, summer sky. “What a lovely name.” “Well…uh…thank you, Russel,” she told him, still nervously checking the area where Drake and the other Harvenk werewolves had disappeared into. “I need to go back to my village. I need to…to…,” She took a shuddery breath as more tears welled up in her eyes and then fell again. “See if there are any survivors.” There wouldn’t be, Russel thought to himself. He could already tell but he didn’t want to come right out and say it. That felt unnecessarily cruel to him. “I could come with you,” he said. “I can help you search and maybe provide some kind of aid to anyone who might need medical attention.” “Yeah,” she replied, staring at him with grateful appreciation. “Thank you. I didn’t want to…you know…impose but I really didn’t want to do it alone.” “It’s okay,” he responded, taking a half-step closer to her. “You shouldn’t have to do something like that by yourself anyway. How far away is the village?” She pointed vaguely west, maybe northwest, toward a barely visible path. “It should only be two or three miles down that path,” she explained. “I’ve spent the majority of my childhood in this forest. I know it like the back of my hand. You can trust me about my directions here.” “By all means, lead the way,” Russel said, gesturing with a hand for her to go ahead of him. He wanted to make her feel useful at that moment in order to give her mind something else to focus on other than the tragedy of what Drake did to her village. The truth was, he could have found it on his own very easily. All he had to do was follow the scent of burning wood and scorched humans. It was potent and had carried on the wind from the same direction Lola just pointed to. They made their way through the forest easily. It wasn’t a very thick one and the path made the way forward simple. Lola walked ahead of him, her pace slow at first. It didn’t look deliberate but Russel figured some unconscious part of her mind didn’t want to actually go see the remnants of her village and its people. “Can I ask you something?” Russel said. He found the silence stretching between them to be mildly uncomfortable and edging toward downright awkward. “Sure,” Lola responded, all of her focus on getting through the forest. She had even quickened up her pace. “I don’t want this to come off as insensitive,” Russel told her, trying to be gentle about it. “That probably means what you are about to ask is going to be extremely insensitive,” she told him, brushing a stray tree branch away from her face. After she let it go, the branch swung around and slapped Russel harmlessly in the chest. “I was hoping you would know why Drake did this,” he said. “Why would he risk coming here and destroying Gloucester just to kill you?” Lola felt more tears coming at the realization that everyone’s deaths, including her parents', were her fault somehow. “It doesn’t really make sense,” Russel told her. “I mean, the risk alone…” “Shut up,” Lola shouted. Russel’s mouth snapped shut and he cursed himself for being such an idiot. He realized he made a mistake for three reasons. One, Lola was still in a vulnerable, grief-stricken state and any questions on what happened would push her too far. Two, she clearly didn’t know Drake or why someone she had never seen or met before wanted to kill her. And three, the fact that everything and everyone she loved was gone now because some werewolves had an unknown vendetta against her was driving her mad with guilt. “I’m so sorry,” he told her in as gentle a way as he could. “I didn’t mean to upset you.” She didn’t say anything back and for the rest of the walk down to her village, the one thing he dreaded happening happened. The awkward silence. He tried to put it out of his mind but he couldn’t. Awkward silences were just that…awkward. Whenever he found himself locked inside one, trapped like he was in a prison cell, it drove him crazy. He even started doing weird things with his hands like cracking each knuckle. Or he would slap parts of his body randomly. Or, and this was the worst one yet, he would either hum ridiculously off-key or sing wildly out of tune. He started with the cracking of his knuckles. Each little firework of popping sound went off like a tiny explosion and sounded way louder than he intended. Lola, however, was not in the state of mind to notice though so he counted himself lucky. When they got to the village, the fires consuming all the houses, barns, taverns, and other buildings of Gloucester still burned brightly. Heat blasted them in the face but Lola was determined to keep going. The closer she got, the more her skin started to turn a bright shade of red. “Lola,” Russel shouted. The roar of the fires was a loud, gruesome thing to hear. “It’s too hot. You need to come back here.” But she didn’t seem able to hear him. All she could focus on was her village. Her quaint, perfectly adequate village. Its peacefulness. The way everyone in the village looked out for each other. The sense of family she’d had there. The beautiful nights spent looking up at bright, glowing stars on the roof of her cottage. A childhood where she had been loved and cherished by two amazing parents. She couldn’t take it anymore. Her legs suddenly went weak and she fell to the ground, her eyes watching the dance of the flames as tears spilled down them. Russel stayed by her side, standing watch over her like an avenging angel. Her pain suddenly felt just as real to him and he wondered how that could possibly be. Just two weeks ago, he’d never even heard of the place. It was only after doing some hard thinking that he realized he felt pain because he couldn't stand to see Lola in so much pain. Why should I care about her? I still have to kill her. Don’t forget that part of the mission. Then why didn’t you just let Drake do it for you? That thought hit home in a way the other ones hadn’t. That would have been the best course of action, of course. She would be dead like his father wanted and Drake would have been the one to do it, leaving his hands free and clear of blood. It was true he hadn’t realized it was her at the time but he could have let her die just on the chance she was the right girl. “You don’t have to stay,” Lola told him, still on her knees in the grass. “You can head back off toward wherever it was you were going.” “I think I will stay, just for a little bit. I don’t want Drake getting stupid ideas into his head like waiting me out and then coming back to try his luck again,” he told her. “And you need someone right now. I may be a stranger but I am better than nothing.” “I suppose that’s true,” she told him, a tiny, barely-there smile on her lips as she brushed the tears from her eyes. She got up from the ground, wiped off the dirt from her pants, and looked at Russel. A hardness came over her and he could visibly see her forcing herself not to cry anymore. “You don’t have to do that,” Russel told her. He tilted her head up to look him in the eyes. “You don’t have to shut down the grief. Let it out, Lola. Let it all out.” She jerked her chin away from him, her eyes flashing angrily. “No,” she said, sternly. “Not this time. I know there is a whole lot more grief, shame, and guilt inside me but I am done crying. Right now, there’s only one thing I want. To kill Drake and every last wolf with him today.” “That’s going to be difficult to do,” Russel said. “He’s like me. A royal. His father sits on the throne of Harvenk. Getting to him will be impossible.” Lola didn’t back down. She glared up at him, her mouth set in a firm line. “Then train me to fight. I might not be a werewolf but you are. You know how to fight other werewolves. You can help me.” A wild, almost manic glee lit up her face. Russel didn’t know what to say and quickly became uncomfortable. “Please, Russel,” Lola said, insistent. “Teach me how to kill werewolves.”