War of the Wolves

Chapter 17

                           Izzy, and Christine slept while Aiden and I went to school, but Katie cleaned, cooked, and did other chores. When we got home, Katie and Aiden always talked or played video games together for hours. I couldn’t help but feel more and more jealous every time I saw her walk down into the basement.

                           I tried to busy myself with reading more in the library, and I spent a lot of my free time hanging out with Christine and practicing fighting techniques with her. She was surprisingly really good at fighting. She was a wolf, and she told me that Katie’s power, as a Keeper, was telekinesis.

                           We practiced after school every day that we could. She taught me ways to kill wolves when I was human, and she warned me only to shift if I absolutely had to. She said that if someone kicked me while I was shifting that I was done for. She said that their foot would move through my body as if I weren't there and break any bone that they came near. I shuddered at the thought of how much pain my mother went through when the Black jumped through her while she was shifting. I couldn’t die the same way. I needed to learn from her mistakes, and I knew that I could manage taking on a wolf without shifting with Christine’s help.

                           School began to get a little bit tougher as November break approached. The anticipation was closer and closer to being palpable every time I walked through the front doors to the school. Everybody in every single one of my classes talked about the week long break the entire hour and a half that the class lasted. I knew that my break would just consist of me practicing to fight hand to hand, hand to wolf, wolf to hand, and wolf-to-wolf combat. That was how every weekend went, and I knew that Aiden and my father would take advantage of the break.

                           I didn't dread it, but I wasn't necessarily excited to spend a week of non-stop training. I knew that I needed it though, so I wouldn’t complain. I was just ready to be able to sleep in every day of the week.

                           November break came faster than anybody expected, and it was the most relieving feeling I had had all semester. I came home excited, until my dad told me my schedule for the week. 

“Alex,” he said, “I expect you to be out by the lake every morning no later than 8:00. Understood?”

“What?” I yelled, “Will everybody else be there?”

“No. You will work with me from 8 until noon,” He answered.

                           I stared up at him with an angry expression.

“How do you expect me to do that every day?” I yelled.

“How do you expect to beat the Black if you don’t?” he countered.

                           I rolled my eyes and stomped all the way up the stairs. Nine days full of practicing.  I went straight to bed, with my alarm set for 7:30.