Page 110 of A Wolf's Heart

Unable to take it anymore, I slammed on the brakes and dropped my head to the steering wheel, screaming as loud as I could for as long as my lungs would allow. I screamed their pain and my frustration.

“Please,” I begged. “Show me the way home. Give me a sign.”

I sat back in the seat, looking out the driver’s window into the mirror. All three men stood in front of their SUV, behind me. As my eyes met Kage’s in the mirror, he pointed up ahead of me.

My eyes flickered over.

I bit my lip to stop it from trembling as I got out of the SUV and began walking down the road. I stopped in front of an old white house. It wasn’t the overgrowth of landscaping and brush that caught my attention; that was everywhere. Not the boarded-up windows or the broken-in door; nearly all the homes had those. It wasn’t even the fallen, decomposing tree that protruded from the garage.

It wasthistree.

In a town abandoned. Desolate. Cold and grey. Void of anything. It was the large, mature lilac tree that somehow, in the middle of autumn, still held purple flowers.

I just stared at it, unable to remove my eyes from it, noticing a rusted-out wagon underneath, the wheels of which were covered in grass, as if the land was trying to claim them as its own.

Two gammas were kneeling at the end of the property, their heads bowed, five boxes resting next to them. They didn’t move as I walked past and up into the house.

Walking up to the house was like walking up to a familiar stranger. I knew nothing of what it felt like to sit on these steps on a hot day and eat a popsicle as a child or draw chalk figures down the sidewalk. I knew nothing about walking through these doors on a regular Sunday afternoon.

Did my mom always keep the house immaculate? Would I be greeted by the smell of chocolate chip cookies? Would my father joke with me as I walked through, telling me to shut the door before the cat got out?

No.

Because those were all memories I had of Hannah and Jack…

It was the familiar feeling of being in a home, but this exact home had never been mine. It had been stolen from me.

I walked into the house, my eyes taking in the leaves and dirt blown in from decades of wind and weather. Especially around the front entrance, wooden floorboards were broken and popping up.

To my left was a stairway leading up, and to my right was a hallway. I went down the hallway, and for once in my life, I wished I wasn’t a detective, that I knew nothing of crime scenes or forensics. My stomach clenched at the pool of dried brown powder, spread across the kitchen floor. I held in my breath as I took in the sheer number of claw marks all over the walls,what was left of broken furniture, the floors. I continued walking through the kitchen, turning into a dining room, and then the living room, before I was back in the hallway. Decades of time hadn’t been enough to erase the struggle that had occurred in this house.

I carefully made my way up the stairs, taking my time as the first step gave out under my weight. At the top of the stairs, I turned to the right and entered the master bedroom. Eerily, it was completely intact. The dirty, dusty covers were made on the bed, a pair of pants laid out at the bottom, as if they had just been set there, waiting for the owner's return. The room was completely untouched by the destruction that had taken place downstairs.

I turned around, heading back down the hall and turning into the next room. Two twin beds, one on either side, filled this room. The once-blue walls, now marked with age stains, were peeling, and the dirty blue blankets on the beds told me this room belonged to a set of boys. Brothers.

I glanced up at the wood names above each bed.

Noah.

Caleb.

How old had they been? Judging by the toys strewn across the floor, only young. Less than five. Looking at the toys brought my attention to the small claw marks embedded into the floor from beneath the bed. As if someone had been pulled out from under there.

I tried not to think of that as I moved to the next door.

This door hung off its hinges.

Pink. At one point in time, it had been a pink, perhaps a baby pink. But on one side of the room, the walls were filled with curling posters of boys and boy bands. The tearful chuckle that left my throat wasn’t happy; it was broken.

Below the boy band posters was a twin bed, the blankets askew, and on the other side was a white crib. I walked up to the crib, surrounded by a white curtain hanging from the ceiling, draped in white bedding, a white crib bumper… the only thing that was missing was a white plush blanket.

I turned to look at the preteen side of the room. I’d had an older sister. The bed was all ripped up, signs of more struggle. I didn’t know why I did it, but I reached out and moved the blanket, wanting to fix it into place like the others. That’s when I saw the dried brown blood caked into the fabric. I dropped the blanket, startled by the sheer amount of blood there had been at one point. Someone had been murdered here. Mysisterhad been murdered… right here.

I walked out of the room and back into the boys’ room, grabbing one blanket. I pulled it back and cried. Moving to the next, I did the same and was met with the same gruesome image.

They’d been murdered in their beds. These children were hiding, pulled from beneath their beds as they clawed at the floor in fear before being tossed onto their own bed and murdered.

My mind flashed back to the gammas out front, the boxes next to them.

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