Page 3 of The Alpha Dire Wolf
Once I got to the platform, I had a few minutes to wait, so I cracked the letter open. My grandmother was my only known living relative. I may have a pair of uncles still, but nobody had heard from them in decades. As her only grandchild, she wrote me several times a year at least, but this was an express-paid delivery.
A sliver of worry entered my mind as my stomach began to tighten. That wasn’t a good sign. If my gut was telling me something was going on, I would listen to it.
Opening the letter, I was again greeted with the same flowing script. As always, she addressed it to “Vi-vi.” She was the onlyperson who called me that. There was no better authentication in my mind.
My Dear Vi-vi,
There’s something I never told you. Something important that you should have known about, but time and circumstance were never right for me to tell you. Now it may be too late because my time is running out.
I stopped reading, immediately pulling out my cell phone and calling my grandmother’s number. This wasn’t like her at all. She always wrote about events that happened back in my hometown, where she still lived. She told me about her most recent bridge games, bingo nights, if she won or lost, and how so-and-so would celebrate “too arrogantly” if they won.
This was alarming.
As was the endless ringing in my ear, until her answering machine picked up.
“Grandma, it’s me. It’s Vi-vi,” I said, glancing up as light appeared in my periphery. The subway was almost here, its lights now visible in the tunnel. “I just got your letter. Call me back, okay? Please?”
My eyes ran back to the letter.
The forest, Vi-vi, it’s the key. At the heart is a darkness. You must not forget that. They did, and now it’s too late. I can’t do anything about it. I should have told you, and I’m sorry.
Frigid icicles stabbed their way down my spine as I read that paragraph, my instinct kicking in. Hard.
I didn’t wait. I turned and made a beeline for the subway exit. I would probably be fired for not coming into work, but I could find another job.
I couldn’t find another grandmother. She was all I had left.
If my instinct told me to go to her, I was going to her.
Now.
Chapter Two
Sylvie
Welcome to New Lockwood
Population 3,750
Seeing that sign as I came around the curve on the bendy road, with the familiar logo of three oak trees rising up together under the sun, brought back many memories, many of them good. Unfortunately, they were just memories, of a childhood that suggested a much better life ahead. That was before the move.
Back when life consisted of summers spent on the tire swing hanging from the big oak tree in my grandma’s backyard or exploring the forest that started at her property’s edge, soaking myself in the warm, welcoming embrace it seemed to exude every time I stepped inside it.
I never felt any danger at that house, just down the street from the one I grew up in. My grandmother would always be watching from her second-floor sitting room, her favorite place in the house. And if she wasn’t there, she was chasing me through the forest, playing a million and one versions of tag.
Smiling, I passed the sign on the outskirts of town, all wrapped up in times that were as comforting and delicious as thechocolate chip cookies Grandma would bake. She would always open the window and set them on a tray there to cool. The woman had invented chemical warfare of an entirely different sort, weaponizing the scent of fresh cookies to get my butt back into the house to wash up for dinner.
She always knew when I tried to steal one early by sneaking up on the window from the outside. I would reach up, thinking forsureI had pulled one over on her this time. And thenwhap, a gentle smack on the back of my hand just before I got my prize followed by a victorious laugh from inside as I shrieked in surprise and ran away.
Then it would be a home-cooked meal and bath time. After that I was usually allowed to watch a movie. Then Grandma would tuck me into bed and read me bedtime stories about all sorts of fantastical creatures, magical quests, and dragons—both friendly and fierce.
It was perfect. But that was before we moved. Before … everything.
So caught up was I in the nostalgia of Grandma’s house, I missed the first signs.
Only when icepicks ripped through my stomach did I react, whipping the wheel to the side as I came around a particularly sharp turn to find a truck in my lane.
Screams filled my car as I swerved into oncoming traffic to avoid the monster-sized red pickup and then wrenched the wheel as far back as I could, careening across the yellow lines back onto my side of the road to prevent a head-on collision with oncoming traffic.
