The Things We Hunger For

Chapter Four - The Wolf in Cabin Three *Ryan* Part I

A/N: So I decided to split this chapter up too. They're all longer than I planned. I really need to work on my outlining and making the chapters the same length...

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Four

-The Wolf in Cabin Three-

Part I

*Ryan*

In the year I had been a werewolf I’d gotten used to waking up in places I didn’t recognize with the smell of blood clinging to me. Usually the place was the woods or some other deserted area and the blood belonged to an animal I had killed the night before.

That was however not the case today.

Today I was in a shack, rolled in a thin sleeping bag with some odd sort of blanket that was all silvery on one side covering me. And the blood I could faintly smell wasn’t from any animal. No, it was my own blood. Sitting up I felt groggy and somewhat bewildered.

How had I gotten here and why was I here? Where was here? And why did I smell of my own blood?

I suddenly had a vague memory of stumbling through the woods using a girl as a crutch. The girl I remembered had gotten me out of the trap. Pain in my lower leg suddenly made me remember both why I was here and why I smelled of blood; the bear trap. With a sort of sickening lurch everything came back to me with remarkable clarity. The last night of the full moon, just before dawn, the trap, the long cold day of alternating between attempting to get free and passing out from the pain and then the wolf. Or the girl. It got a little fuzzy right about then.

Assuming if whoever I had been in contact with had been a wolf I would have either been dead or still stuck in a trap I decided there probably hadn’t been any wolf just a girl. Had I told her not to take me to a hospital? Because remembering my foot I was fairly certain the hospital was where most sane humans would have sent me. Whatever the reason I wasn’t at a hospital I was grateful. I had no idea just what any blood tests or scans of me would show and had no desire to find out. If anyone learned what I was I didn’t doubt for a second they would lock me in a cage and throw away the key.

Still a little groggy I pushed the sleeping bag and blanket off me. I was wearing sweat pants, but one of the legs had been thorn off at the knee. I guessed to accommodate my foot. Which looked worse than it had when I last saw it. Not a good sign.

Normally I healed very fast and my scars faded quick. Only wounds inflicted with silver, like the one above my eyebrow which had been caused by a large silver ring, healed at human rate and scarred. So the leg should have been fine by now. Or at least better. Not worse. Instead it was still tender, and hurt like the devil when I tried to move it. At least the previously ragged wounds had almost closed up, making me glad the girl that had saved me hadn’t bandaged them. The bandaged might have stuck to the wounds as they healed which would have been nasty since that would have meant I’d have to tear them out of my healed skin. I frowned as I tried to shift a little weight onto my damaged leg. It wasn’t supporting any of my weight.

I thought it might be the food or more like lack of it. That would slow my healing. Thinking back I tried to remember when I had last had a good meal. The diner on Saturday afternoon I’d had the steak and potatoes. Then I’d bought myself a big slam of ham to bring to the forest for Sunday. I could barely remember eating it but was sure I had. I wondered what day it was now. Tuesday? Wednesday?