Fighter

Chapter 11

I stretched out my paws.

The forest felt great. The surroundings were like night and day when compared to school or work. The fresh air, the wild noises, the freedom... It was surreal.

In a matter of a few minutes I was pretty deep in the woods, embedding myself in the wilderness. For the moment, I had ditched Colton and Jordan, and I simply was happy to be alone.

But my loneliness, along with my happiness, was short lived.

A howl rippled through the wind, carrying along the message. "Toby?"

Ugh, there went my mood. I knew the voice, and I quickly located where I had heard the howl.

I allowed my four legs to take control and lead me towards the sound. I trotted to make short time of the trip.

I knew my surroundings well, and I was already irritated before I emerged from the trees. But once I did, I was even more bitter. I was at the river. And so was Mason.

"Skylar!" he barked happily, jumping up from a boulder that I usually liked to lay on.

I watched as his giant brown wolf, jumped gracefully from the rock. Without even flinching, he landed smoothly and began hopping like a bunny rabbit towards me.

Standing there, a little closer to the water than I would have liked, I watched him, making the comparisons in my head. Mason's wolf was very similar to Daniel's, probably because they both had brown hair. But Mason's wolf was a lot shaggier and was even slightly bigger despite the age difference. But Mason lacked Daniel's blue eyes, which was a huge difference that stood out to me.

Another difference was the way they moved as a wolf. Mason seemed very jumpy, almost puppy-like, where Daniel did not. Mason also seemed more intimidating, which was ironic and contradicted his actual attitude, but it was probably just his size.

I didn't want to think about Daniel then. He could go play with his new nerd, girl, whatever she was- I was going to let Mason distract me.

"Hey," I greeted with a huff of air. I still wasn't used to sharing my forest. It was where I liked to escape from my problems, not be reunited with them.

Mason didn't notice my irritation. "How are you?"

"Peachy." He joined me near the water's edge, sitting next to me. He curled his tail up beside his giant body. The movement instantly had me thinking back to one of the few times I had actually seen Toby's wolf. He too had done the exact same thing with his tail.

It must run in the family.

Even as I stood, he sat up taller than me. "How are you here? School just got out." I questioned him. I knew that I hadn't been talking to Colton that long, and I hadn't seen him in the parking lot at all.

The brown wolf gave me a lopsided smile, his giant tongue slipping between his lips. "I ditched."

"What?" I glanced nervously at the river's water. It splashed up against a nearby rock, spraying us.

Mason wasn't annoyed with the water like I had been. "I just- I hate my last period. I can't stand it, and I've only been in the class for a few days."

I mentally debated sitting next to him, but I decided against it. The water was making me more freaked out the longer I stood there.

Ignoring my anxiety that was shooting through the tops of the trees at that moment, I decided to be kind towards Mason. "What do you have last period?"

"Art."

I let out a bark of laughter. "And you were giving me a hard time about taking Russian."