Finding You

chapter 54

"And then I woke up this morning in bed," I finish saying to Savannah at our lockers after school.

"Wow, so you saw him in his beast form?"

I scrunch my eyebrows. "As a werewolf, yes."

"Was it scary? Being that close to a mythical creature?"

"No not at all," I respond.

"Where was he today?"

"He went home early. Said he had stuff to talk to his dad about," I say. He showed up after my first class and said he wasn't going to be at school today, and then left. It was a rushed encounter, last night wasn't even brought up.

Me and Savannah grab our bags and start walking outside. "Can you drive me to the Center? I want to visit the pups," I ask her.

"Do I look like I'm made of gas to you?" she jokes.

I roll my eyes. "Yes, that's exactly what you look like."

"Well you're wrong cuz I'm not."

"I'll give you a dollar for your troubles."

"I'll take it, let's go," she says.

We drive to the Center and she drops me off, after reminding me to give her a dollar. I walk inside and see some peopling walking and looking at the dogs. My mom is walking around with a customer, so it takes her a while to see me.

"Hey honey, how are you?" she asks giving me a quick hug.

"I'm good. Did these guys get a lot of visitors today?"

"Yeah, it was surprisingly really busy."

"That's good. More people mean more homes," I say happily.

She shifts some paperwork around on her desk. "Hey, do you mind stopping by the house before you go to Sav's today? I have something I wanna show you when I get off of work."

"Yeah, I'll go home and tell her to pick me up later," I say. "I'm gonna go say hi, I'll be back."

She waves me off and approaches another customer. I head to the back and grab a couple of treats, giving them to randomly selected dogs. The others stare at me with puppy eyes, so I have no choice but to go back and get some more treats for every one of them.

I save Scarlet and Snoopy for last. I open their kennel and Snoopy comes to the gate wagging his tail and makes to jump up on me but goes back down.

"Hey buddy, how's my good boy?" I say and scratch behind his ears. He barks and goes to get a toy for me. On his way back I notice he's walking a little funny. I wonder if my mom had noticed that too.

Speaking of the devil, I hear the door open. The dogs have started to bark loudly so I have to raise my voice so she can hear me. "Hey mom," I call out, "Is anything wrong with Snoopy? It looks like he's limping."

I pet him and he tries to jump up on me again. After that second attempt fails he shrinks down and starts to growl and bark. Oddly, Scarlet starts to do the same.

In fact, all of the dogs are barking, and some of them growling too. "Mom did you let a stray cat loose on your way in?" I call out. Snoopy walks close to my legs as I turn around. "All the dogs are..."

I freeze and stop mid sentence, because it wasn't my mom who opened the door.

"Hello, my darling."

Ryder stands calmly in front of me, a contrast to the wild dogs in the cages around him. My voice is lost once again in lieu of his presence, so I try hard to muster up some courage. "How did you get in here?"