Page 10 of Fated to the Wolf Cowboy
One day when I was taking a short cut from my house to school through one of the back alleys, a man tried to attack me. I’d felt all alone and so scared. “Please, help me!” I’d cried outand suddenly there was like an army of rats, stray cats, and a few dogs that surrounded us. They didn’t touch me, but they took care of the man. I had run away and never asked them to show me what happened. I didn’t want to know. That was the day I realized I could control animals in all ways.
After that I’d experimented in various ways to test my powers. I’d had the animals steal for me, pickpocket, and even stop drug dealers after a friend of mine OD’d in high school. No one ever knew, or at least that’s what I thought.
The Pack gave each of us a small stipend each month, but it wasn’t enough to live on, especially in the Big Apple. My father had a gambling problem, and squandered all the money away the second it hit his pocket. My mother had died when I was young, so it was just me and him, which meant mostly just me, myself, and I. And we were always broke—like ketchup packs watered down and called tomato soup broke.
I supposed I shouldn’t have been surprised when people took notice that I suddenly had more food and no longer looked as thin. At first people seemed to think Dad had finally hit a small windfall, but as time went on, questions arose. I’d had to stop using my little animal friends to help me like that.
As I thought about it, I realized I’d never commanded anything larger than a mid-sized dog before. Maybe that was why the cow had so easily ignored me. Could I not manipulate big animals, just the smaller ones?
“What are you doing?”
I looked up to see an opossum hanging from the tree limb above me.
I sighed. “Hurt myself, or so it would seem. Could you help me?”
“I could, but you’d likely be dead before I returned.”
“Civilization is that far away?
“Yup.”
“Could you get me some food at least?”
My stomach was growling, and I was exhausted now that some of the adrenaline had worn off. It also meant my pain was worsening.
“Sure.”
The opossum climbed down, and I noticed she was carrying four babies on her back.
“Awe, they’re so cute.”
“Thanks.”
I watched as she walked away.
It felt like hours before she returned with a twig of berries in her mouth.
I sighed. “That’s it?”
I hadn’t meant to snap at her, and I really did appreciate her help, but I was so hungry I could have eaten that entire damn cow.
She shrunk away from me, just out of reach and dropped the twig.
“I’m sorry,” I apologized. “I’m just so hungry and scared.”
“That’s all I could carry,” she admitted, sadly.
“It’s okay. It looks wonderful.”
She picked the twig up and brought it closer to me. I grabbed it from her with my teeth and quickly devoured the berries. They were sour and not very good. They could havebeen poisonous for all I knew, but I had always believed animals couldn’t hurt me. Not that they wouldn’t, but they couldn’t, at least not when I was commanding them to do my bidding.
The mama opossum didn’t wait around for another order. She simply walked away with her babies, and I was left all alone once more.
Time passed and the sun set high in the sky.
I’d gone hungry before, but not like this. I suspected being in my fur was burning more calories and I was in a major caloric deficit.
I tried to stand again, but it was no use. Seering pain shot up my leg and resonated through my body.
