A True Soul

When I opened my eyes, the room was filled with light. The pale yellow walls almost seemed to glow where the sunlight reflected off the tan trim.

I pushed the quilt and blankets off me. There was a stinging pain across my arm where the stitches were, and a slight tingling sensation where the transformation broke the cast on my left wrist. On the back of my left hand was a small gauze bandage. I assumed Freddie had already given me an IV drip, which had clearly been removed.

At this moment I also realized someone had dressed me, and I hoped that it was Faux and not my father or anyone else. I was in gray and pink sweat pants and a baggy gray-blue t-shirt. I turned myself so that my legs were hanging off the bed. I felt a little dizzy when I first stood, but that had quickly went away.

I opened the door that lead to the living room. I saw Dax walk through the house and out the front door carrying broken pieces of my bedroom door. The wood was shattered into multiple different pieces. My father walked in after Dax. “Good morning dear!” My father smiled at me, but he couldn’t completely hide the worry from his face. He would probably never stop worrying about me.

“Hey dad,” I said and sat in one of the recliners. I kicked at the rug, which covered wood floor, with my bare foot. I felt trapped somehow, like I would never feel like myself again. I knew I shouldn’t feel sorry for myself, but I couldn’t shake the feeling away today. Hadn’t I already been through enough in my short life? After what happened last night I didn’t know if I could deal with being a True Soul like I told myself I would. Was there any way to get over almost dying? Why couldn’t this all be just a bad dream?

“How’re you feeling?” My father asked sitting on the couch.

“Physically or Mentally?” I retorted.

“Both.”

“How about frustrated, overwhelmed, and confused, for mentally. Physically? All the bones in my body mutated last night when I turned into a lion; I got bit by the freaky wolf, have about 100 stitches all along my right arm, and had to have a blood transfusion. So all in all? I suppose I’m still breathing.” I looked at my father, he seemed almost amazed by the fact that I was still here, I was too, if I was being honest with myself.

He sighed and looked away from me. “I’m really, really sorry you had to go through all that. I don’t know how to protect you anymore.”

I felt really bad. I didn’t asked to be like this, but it wasn’t his fault either. “It’s not your fault dad, don’t blame yourself.”

His eyes were watery, but he wasn’t crying. “You’re mother explained to me what having you would mean. I knew you were going to have a hard life, however, it wasn’t until Ember passed that I truly realized how much danger you would be in.”

“What do you mean? I thought mom died in an accidental fire at her sister’s house?” I was told that my mother was visiting her twin sister, Eve, for their birthday when Eve’s house accidentally caught on fire, and they both died in their sleep.

A tear trailed down my father’s cheek. “There was a fire, and both your mother and her sister were burned in it. I cremated what was left of her body, I put half her ashes in an urn and buried them here, the other half I kept with her sister.”

“Did you keep the truth from me because she’s gone?” I asked, now crying as well. I was sure that if she was still alive things would make more since. Maybe then I’d have a better idea of who I was.

Julian looked away again. “I believe things would be much easier if she hadn’t died. She could explain all of this to you. People have been looking for you since that moment you were created. What you are is so unique and misunderstood that it scares others, and I am not strong enough to protect anymore. I’m sorry.” He whipped his eyes.

This was all my fault for being this stupid creature. I just want to find any way to fix it. I stared into the light, trying to stop the tears. All of this was because I was a True Soul . I didn’t even know what that meant, and I didn’t know how to figure it out either. “I don’t know what to do anymore.”

“None of this is your fault. You’re tough and resilient. You will find a way to overcome this. I have no doubt about that,” he said and put his arms around me in an embrace. “I loved your mother, I still love her, and I love you, Angie. I don’t want to lose you too.”

I leaned against my father. I’ve only had to deal with this situation for a few weeks now, but he’d worried about me since before I was born. He’d carried this burden for so long now that he was overwhelmed, but I didn’t know how to fix it. I was the burden. A part of me wished that I’d known before, maybe it wouldn’t be so hard on us now. “I love you too, dad. How come you didn’t tell me any of this before?”

“I don’t know Angie. I thought I was protecting you. You’re mother told me that if anything happened to her, it would be better to wait to tell you. She knew something was going to happen to her. So I raised you the only why I knew how, as a human girl.”

After a moment he pulled back, he face was wet where the tears had been, but he eyes were no longer watering. “You know, I never thought I would have kids. I met your mother when I was 33 years old, and she was 31. I had no clue about Natural Born s or any of it, till I asked her to marry me a year later. And she turned into a lion, right in my living room. That’s was the scariest shit I’d ever seen. She changed back, and asked if I still wanted to marry her. Well, a year later we were married. We were so happy, even though we thought we could not create a child together. She explained how Natural Born s were created and that our bodies were not compatible enough to have a child. But obviously we were wrong. I was 37 and your mother 35 when we found out we were having a baby. I asked her what that meant. I didn’t know what you’d be like or if you’d live. But she told me that a baby between a human and a Natural Born only happen once ever hundred years. She explained what you would be and how every moment of your life, you’d be in danger. We tried to do everything we could to protect you, but it wasn’t enough.” He looked defeated, like he’d lost all hope. How can I tell him not to give up on me?

“You never told me any of this.” I smiled and squeezed his hand, trying to comfort him. “I’m glad I know now.” I still felt sick inside, but I didn’t want my father to feel worse than he already did.

Dax walked inside the house, saw us, and mumbled as he turned around to walk back out.

“No, it’s ok Dax. You can come back in.” My father stood and dried his face.

“I just… I didn’t want to interrupt anything,” he said. Dax crossed his arms and uncrossed them; he didn’t know what to do with himself, in the emotional mess he’d walked in on.

“You’re not. Don’t worry about it.” My father gave Dax a friendly pat on the shoulder.

I ran my fingers threw my tangled hair. “Morning,” I said quietly, a little embarrassed that he’d walked in on me crying, “Where’s Faux?”

“Well, Spencer’s and Sadie’s plane landed an over hour ago, so Faux left early to meet them there and bring them back here.” Dax looked over at the clock on the wall. “They should be back any time…” He paused, looked towards my room, and turned towards us again, “I’m gonna go finish what I was doing.”

I watched him walk away. It was better that what was left of that room was being thrown away; I didn’t want to go back in there anytime soon.

The mirror hanging against the wall showed me how bad my reflection really looked. It was definitely time to clean myself before anyone else had to see me like this.

My shower had been complicated by the stitches in my arm. I patted my skin with a towel as I examined my body in the mirror, trying to find any other physical changes that I was something other than human. The only thing remotely new was my mark, which looked like a tattoo any normal human might get. However, this mark was different because it was mine, and because it signified I was a unique bred of animal. The mark seemed to respond to my touch and grow warmer as I traced over it again and again, but maybe it was just my imagination.

I dressed myself and ran a brush through my damp hair. A tube of Neosporin was sitting on the edge of the sink. Someone must have left that for me. After rubbing some of the ointment on my arm, I looked around for the gauze wrap. My stitches covered a good portion of my arm, so I figured it was probably a good idea if it stayed wrapped another day or so. However, none of the drawers seem to contain any form of useful wrapping material. I sighed in frustration and made my way downstairs.

When I got to the kitchen Dax had his head in the fridge. “Faux called, she’ll be here in about ten minutes.”

The gauze had apparently been left on the kitchen table. “Ok.” I really didn’t care about any ‘Natural Born ’ or ‘True Soul’ stuff at the moment. However, I knew none of this supernatural nonsense would ever go away, no matter how I tried to avoided it.

Wrapping my arm was infuriated me, either it was too loose and fell off, or it was too tight cutting off circulation. After about five times of trying, I tossed the gauze aside and slumped in a kitchen chair, “Ugh! This stupid thing!” I snapped at the gauze wrapping. Dax stared at me. I thought he’d laugh or make me feel more idiotic than I looked, but instead he held out his hand.

“You want help with that?” He asked.

“If you’re offering.” I could feel a stupid looked displayed on my face as the gauze was placed in his hand, but he didn’t seem to care. He face was expressionless, I couldn’t tell at all what he was thinking, but knowing him, he was probably annoyed with me. Too bad this wasn’t a poker game.

He finished wrapping my arm and place tape on the end to hold it together. “There you go girly. Freddie should be by soon to look at it. In the mean time I wouldn’t change forms.”

“Wasn’t planning on it, but thanks for the tip.” He nodded at me and went back outside. Who was Dax really? Which side of him was the real one?

The morning light coming in from the kitchen window made the room feel warm and inviting for some strange reason, even though it was fall.

The noise of tires on gravel reached my ears from the front door, which had been cracked open and letting a little chill in from the outside. I grabbed a brown pull over to cover my arm and protect me against the chill.

My father stuck his head in the front entrance way. “Hey, Angie, Faux is back,” he said, and quickly ducked back outside, closing the door all the way this time.

I sighed. If Faux was back, it meant Sadie and Spencer were here too. And I wasn’t looking forward to lessons on this supernatural world today. But, I walked towards the front door anyways.

“She’s had a rough night. Maybe we shouldn’t start with training right away?” I could hear Faux’s voice.

“You know better than anyone that Cain isn’t going to stop this hunt. She’s needs to be prepared for whatever he throws at her,” Dax stated. If the wolf twins were here, I couldn’t hear them yet. Here goes nothing. I stepped outside and turned towards the driveway on my right.

My father was there with his arms crossed, looking somber. Dax looked more aggravated now than he had all day, and Faux was getting something out of her the trunk of what I presumed was her car. She apparently drove a blue Mitsubishi Eclipse. There was a guy helping her lift the bags, he was probably the person she was talking to. All I could tell from this angle was that he had pitch black hair and was wearing a black and dark blue shirt. He also had thick framed glasses. Another person was getting more luggage from behind the driver’s side door.

Faux’s gazed in my direction, “Oh! Hey Angie, how’re you feeling?” She offered me a kind smile, which I tried to return, but it came out more like a scowl. Dax looked at me, but quickly diverted towards the car. My father walked towards me. I met him halfway in the middle of the small distance between us.

“Angie, this is Sadie and Spencer,” my father said as the girl, Sadie, finished pulling the bags out and slammed the trunk. With the three inch heals she was wearing, she was as tall as Faux. Faux was already tall, and she was wearing flats that day. Sadie had her hair pulled to one side, and it wrapped around her shoulder. Her hair was a golden blonde color, with just a small hint of waves. The bright golden color of her eyes was the same shade as her hair. They seemed to glow. The wolf girl walked around the car and held out her hand.

“So you’re the famous True Soul.” She smiled at me. “Like your father said, I’m Sadie, and this is my twin brother, Spencer.”

I lightly shook her hand. Spencer had stepped away from the car and was standing next to his sister. His light blue eyes reminded me of ice, the glasses did nothing to dull their clarity; his express was soft and kind.

“We were told you are in need of our services. How exactly can we help you?” Spencer looked me directly in the eyes.

“We would have appreciated it if you were here, oh I don’t know, a couple days ago! Maybe then some of this mess could’ve been avoided,” Dax spat at Spencer.

“We did apologized about missing your calls. We got back with you as soon as we returned from our trip,” Spencer said coolly towards Dax.

Faux glared at the Dax and Spencer. “Really guys? Just because you didn’t get along in the academy doesn’t mean you can’t act civil now.”

“Who did Dax get along with in the academy? I mean if we’re being honest,” Sadie retorted. This seem to only add to Dax’s annoyance and really wasn’t what Faux wanted to hear, but she quickly tried to turn things around.

“Well, you’re here now, and that’s what matters. Thanks again for coming,” Faux said and put her arm around me. “I’m sure you’ll do whatever you can to help Angie.”

I nodded. All in all, I did appreciate what they were doing for me, even if it didn’t change my current mood.

“Why don’t we go inside and get out of this cold?” My father led me towards the house.

Just as we got to the house the phone started ringing. My father went to answer it. I sat in the closest arm chair to the door. As much as I wanted a distraction from this new world I’ve found myself in, it wasn’t going to happen at the moment. “So you’re here to help me… help myself?” I asked the twins, who were now sitting on the couch to my left.

“Yes, in whatever why we can. Faux mention defensive training,” Spencer said to me. I could hear some short of accent that I hadn’t noticed before.

“I could use help with that…” I sat forward in the chair. I wasn’t for sure what to say to them… sweat ran down my palms and I wiped them on my jeans. “Um, no offence, but you don’t look like twins…”

They just seem to laugh at this. “When animals have their young, how often do they have the same markings?” Sadie was obviously amused by this.

“I hadn’t thought about it like that…” I leaned back in the chair again. “Thank you for your assistance. I feel completely lost in your world. I’m still getting used to being a True soul.”

“You’re welcomed. But, that’s completely understandable. Faux and Dax are here, and now we’ve come to assist you as well,” Spencer said with that accent of theirs.

“I didn’t ask for this. I was fine being a normal teenage, who wasn’t in danger all the time, and who didn’t change into animals.” My head hit the back of the chair.

“I hate to break this to you, girly, but you were never a ‘normal teenager’. You’ve been on hit lists since the day you were born. You can either keep complaining, and do nothing or you can grow a pair and deal with this,” Dax said still standing. I thought he was going to throw something at me. “This is not a pity party for you because you’ve had a hard life. Faux and I’ve had it rough too, but you don’t see us feeling sorry because we weren’t born with golden sticks up our asses like some people,” Dax glared at the twins at the last part. My mouth gapped fallen open as Dax word vomited on us.

“Dax! That’s enough. This is a lot to take in. She could’ve died last night.” Faux stood with her fists balled at her sides.

“Look,” Dax turned to me, completely ignoring Faux. “I know it probably sucks to be you right now, but Cain won’t go easy on you. He’s not done. If you want to surrender to Cain, fine, it’ll be your funeral, literally, girly. Faux can go back to the city; the twins can go back to their freezing vacation. But maybe, if you can see beyond yourself for a moment, you might see that your existence makes a huge difference for our kind.”

“How does my existence make a difference to your kind?”

“If it didn’t, girly, why would so many people want you head on a platter, and why would the rest of us risk our lives to protect yours?” His voice was lower now, calmer. Desperation seemed to replace anger that had once been tightly woven through him.

I felt a single hot tear race down my face. “But why? Why am I so important?”

“Sweetie, you have a soul is omnipotent. It’s something that not a lot of people comprehend. And I can’t explain it all to you because I am only a Natural Born . But trust me when I tell you, out of all others, you have the power to change our world. But only once you embrace who you are.” Faux knelt beside me.

“I have to figure out who I am before I can change the world.” The worlds slowly came out of my mouth in a barely audible mutter.

“And we’ll do whatever we can to help you. We’ll teach you how to help yourself along the way,” Sadie said in a sweet voice. She didn’t have a high pitch voice; it wasn’t harsh on the ears in any way. There was something harmonic about it that made you want to trust her.

Footsteps headed in our directions. My father put his hand on my shoulder. “Freddie will be here in an hour or so, with Victor. Is everything ok in here?”

A smile spread across my face and for the first time that day things didn’t feel so dreadful. Dax’s words were harsh, but there was truth to them. Maybe I was strong enough to find stable ground in this chaos, but I couldn’t do it alone. “Everything’s great, Dad. When do we start?” I was answered by smiles from everyone; even Dax had a pleased but not highly optimistic smirk on his face.

We decided that ‘training’ could wait until the next day. My father said that my arm needed more time than that, but time wasn’t on our side.

Sadie and Spencer at first opted to get a hotel, but those were limited in New Haven. Freddie was more than accommodating, and insisted they stay with him. My father requested both Faux and Dax stay at the house, for my protection, and bought an air mattress for Faux. Dax stated that the floor worked just fine for him, but Julian persuaded him to use the couch.

After everyone settled in that evening, Freddie and Victor finally made me sit to have a look at my arm.

“You’ll have a large scar for a while, but there are creams you can put on it, if you want. When you’re in animal form no one will be able to see it. You’ll have to wait maybe a week till it’s healed before I can take the stiches out and you can change again,” Freddie informed me as he gently twisted my arm to get a better look at all my stiches.

I thought about all the scars Dax had. “As long as it heals ok, I’ll be able to deal with it,” I turned to Victor, “I thought you were coming over last night, after Freddie was done stitching me?”

“I stayed here until sunrise; you were pretty well passed out when I arrived. I had to take care of my son, so Dax took over my shift for me,” Victor said.

“You have a son?”

He smiled, “Yeah, he’s eleven and getting to be a handful. And my god, can that boy eat.” Victor brown eyes brightened when he talked about him.

“What’s his name?”

“Jorge. He’s all I have left now.” Victor looked away, trying not to let his emotions get to him.

Freddie patted his back, “We all have loved ones that we lost. It’s really hard to look back at the past sometimes, but the only thing we can do now is move forward.”

Victor looked back at me. “I lost my wife, Yvonne, when she was pregnant with our daughter, six years ago. She was killed because we were part of a team trying to protect the national born society from people like Cain and make sure no harm came to True Souls.”

“Your wife died because you valued a True Soul’s life? Because she valued my life? I’m so sorry.” I was no longer able to look him in the eye, I couldn’t bear the thought that other people had died for me.

Victor shook his head, but said in a gentle voice, “Yvonne’s life didn’t end for nothing. There was a time, hundreds of years ago, when True Souls were somewhat common. There were two different types of supernatural animal species, the Natural Born s, and the True Souls. The Natural Born s killed all the True Souls that they could find because they were afraid of the powers they held. By the time the last pure True Soul was slain, there was a new type of True Soul, causing the DNA line to continue. So even if you are the new breed of the True Souls, you are still one of them. You have the power to change this world and bring back the magic it once held before it’s lost forever.”

So many people were depending on me to do something great. But what if I was nothing but a disappointment? What if I wasn’t this great person they thought I was? I didn’t even know what to do or where to begin. I am not who they think I am. “I will do my best to make sure you wife and daughter didn’t die in vain.”

It was dark out by the time I decided to take a look at my room. The door had been completely removed from the frame, leaving the hinges hanging from the trim. Dax and my father had removed the mattress, the end table and the book self, which had all been destroyed. My dresser was shoved in the corner, the wood on top looked like it had been chipped. Maybe my father thought it was repairable? My bed frame was leaning against the wall a few feet from the bare windows.

The mint green walls seemed foreign and unfamiliar. The posters that still managed to cling to the walls were torn and shredded. All of my belongings were scattered along the carpet. The books were somewhat stacked where the book shelf used to be; the items that were once in the end table were place in a pile in the corner; odds and ins seem to be spread a crossed the rest of the floor.

There was a picture on top of the pile of stuff that was once on my end table. I was eleven at the time the photo was taken, the same age as Victor’s son was now. It was the school picture that they put in the yearbook. I was smiling, even though I hadn’t wanted to because I had braces. They were pink and purple and very visible. My hair had been overly frizzy that day, and I still had a small patch of freckles a crossed the bridge of my nose, which were only faintly visible now.

It’s was hard to imagine that that girl who was looking back at me was a super natural creature. It was hard to imagine the girl who was staring back at me with the same sliver eyes and dark red hair was me at all.

I heard footsteps behind me. My hearing was definitely advancing because I could tell by just listening that the footsteps were heavy and long, much too heavy for Faux’s, but they clearly weren’t my father’s either.

Through my peripheral vision I saw Dax standing in the door way a few seconds later.

His eye darted towards the ground as he rubbed the back of his head, “Hey, girly, I’m sorry about earlier. I shouldn’t have been… I don’t know… I guess it wasn’t my place to say anything.”

A small smile spread on my face. “No, it’s fine. It’s what snapped me out of that phase.”

He grunted a response and turned to look at the picture I held in my hand. “You had braces uh?”

I pulled the picture away, but handed it back to him. There wasn’t anything to be embarrassed about anymore. “Yeah… that was a while ago.”

“You really look like your mom in this picture. You know you kinda look like Eve’s daughter,” Dax said as he cocked his hair to his side, examining the picture thoroughly.

“Eve had a daughter?” I was in complete shocked. There was family I never knew about? Immediately, I wanted to know everything about her. “I never knew my aunt had a daughter. What’s her name? Do you know her? … Did she die too?”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa. Just slow down girly.” Dax said as the sound of another pair of footsteps traveled to our ears.

“How come I didn’t know I had a cousin?”

“Sweetie, after your mother and Eve passed away, she was adopted by another Natural Born family. I believe it was a family that was close to the Queen. Didn’t the stag talked to you about the Queen? You cousin was to stay were she’s at so that she could be protected. She was also a target, I’m sure that she is no longer in danger,” Faux explained as she looked around my room.

“Can I meet her, when it’s safe? If she knows that Queen, maybe she can help?” Dax and Faux stared at each other, then at me.

“I don’t know if that’s possible yet. You see about a year or so ago there was a change in the royal family’s position, so I’m not sure where your cousin is at the moment,” Faux said looking from Dax to me.

I felt extremely worried for the cousin I had never met. “Can you at least tell me her name?”

“Her name is Blair Knox. And I’m sure if it’s at all possible Julian would be more than willing to have you meet her when it is safe. Wherever she may be,” Faux said, now almost glaring at Dax.

“What did I do now?” He glared at her back.

“Maybe Julian wanted to tell her about Blair.”

“How the hell was I supposed to know that she didn’t know about her?” Dax threw his hands in the air.

“Hey! It’s ok, really. I’ve learned so much over the past month, more than I ever thought existed. I’m just thrilled to know someone from my mom’s family is still alive. It’s given me the possibility of looking forward to meeting her.” I beamed at them. Dax simple nodded in acknowledgment, and Faux wrapped me in a tight hug.

Training started bright and early the next morning on Sunday. When I made my way into the side yard, I noticed two large blue mats sitting parallel to each other. “Um, you didn’t say anything about yoga…” I made my way towards Spencer, who was twisted around in an awkward and painful looking position. “Where’s Sadie?”

“Yoga is not required, but you can join me if you’d like. It’s a relaxing technique to help me work on my flexibility. I brought an extra mat to work on basic stretches; to help you get warmed up for today’s training.” Spencer untwisted himself and sat cross legged on his mat and pushed his glasses upwards on his face. “Sadie and Faux went on an early morning run. Running is Sadie’s way of getting ready for training. She goes out every day, no matter where we’re at, rain or shine. Faux decided to go along with her.”

I sat on the extra yoga mat. Soft music hummed through an old stereo next to us; sitting on top was a large CD holder. Some classical song was playing softly.

“I know it’s an ancient device, but I’ve taken that stereo with me everywhere. We can listen to whatever you like. I just find Beethoven relaxing to listen to during my yoga sessions. What would you like to when you exercise?”

“Honestly I have no clue. I’ve never done training before.”

Spencer just smiled. “Well, what kind of music do you like?” He turned the radio and opened the CD case and flipped through it.

“Second Hand Serenade is pretty decent. I really like them, actually,” I said as Spencer flipped passed it and back again.

“Second Hand Serenade it is, not a bad choice my friend.” He smiled again. He almost always held a smile on his face.

I plopped myself back on the mat.

Spencer sat facing me, “Now, we’re just going to do simple stretching, nothing too difficult. Place one of your legs straight out in front of you, while pulling the other one in, and bend towards the stretched out leg.” He moved with me, like it was a work out video. “There you go. Hold for ten seconds and switch to the other leg. Just basic stretches like that, I’m sure you’ve done them a hundred times in school.”

I laughed a little. “Yeah. Some gym teachers yell commands and make us run, but then they’d just sit or stand there doing nothing. Totally unfair.”

“Not all teachers are like that, but there are a few that can act that way I suppose.”

“It doesn’t sound like you’ve had too many experiences with lazy gym teachers.”

“I had some teachers that I haven’t been particularly fond of, but there have been several that I’ve gotten along with well,” he said this with a coy smile on his face.

“Don’t let him fool you, he’s just all into teachers now because some girl he had the hots for became a teacher at one of the special Natural Born boarding schools,” Dax said as he carried a lawn chair and a can of soda a crossed the yard. He was in sweat pants and a wrinkled, baggy shirt. His hair had not been brushed and was sticking out at odd angles. He should be cold without a jacket. “Which is weird because he never showed any interest in any of the girls at the academy. So I naturally thought he was in to guys; until one day this spikey haired chick walked over and slobbered all over him.”

“Glad to see you’ve finally dragged yourself out of bed.” Spencer didn’t seemed to care about Dax’s bantering. “It wouldn’t have matter anyways. People are who they are. One cannot control who they fall in love with.”

“Sounds like something Sadie would say,” Dax grunted towards Spencer.

He just shook his head. I felt a little like I’d missed an important part of their conversation. Something had completely by passed me.

“Keep stretching for a few minutes; don’t forget to move your arms too.” Spencer turned back to me.

I went back to my stretches. Dax sat in the chair and looked out into space as he drank his soda. Your Call played out through the speakers.

Only a few minutes had passed of me stretching my legs and arms, doing my best not to look completely incompetent, when I heard an odd short of laughing, which apparently Dax and Spencer noticed as well. We looked towards the forest, where the laughter was coming from, but dismissed it.

“Girls…” Dax muttered annoyingly as he walked over to the stereo and put in a new CD. A few moments later Papa Roach blared through the speakers.

I could make out the sound of paws hitting the ground at a rapid pace. I turned towards the sound of the noise. The trees rustled a bit, and the thudding of paws grew louder. A white streak flew towards a tree branch, which sagged and bounced back as the creature jumped to the next one. A flash of gold was heading straight at us. Faux landed gracefully on the ground from the last branch she had jumped from, as a golden haired wolf skidded a few feet in front Spencer.

They were panting and laughing at the same time, which was a very weird thing to try and wrap my head around. “You two ok?” I asked. This was one of the strangest encounters I’d ever witnessed.

“Never… better…” Faux panted and flopped on the ground.

“You’re the fasted cat I have ever seen… Normally I completely smoke them, but you, you’re something else.” Sadie rolled back and forth on the grass, coating her thick golden fur with dead leaves and grass.

Spencer half push half patted his sister’s side, “It’s time to get ready for Angela’s training. You two should get ready, unless you’re planning on staying like that.”

“I thought it’d be more of a challenge to put her up against us like this,” Faux said as she shook herself off. “There will be a few Natural Born s who will not fight in any other form.” She turned her attention to me. “So, Angie, I believe that it is essential for you to learn to defend yourself against animals. Mind you, these are not normal animals, they can think, and in many ways, act like humans. The better you hone in on your reflexes, the easier it will be if you have to face a Natural Born when they’re in animal form. Are you with me so far?”

“Yes, but I’ll have to start this whole training thing before I can really get how it works.” I pushed myself upwards with my hands.

“Just a thought, but wouldn’t it be a good idea to learn basic blocking techniques and positions first?” Dax said snidely.

“Did you call us for help or not?” Sadie growled at Dax.

“No need to get vicious with each other now, but yes Dax, we are going to begin with the basics,” Spencer said in his normal almost chirpy tone.

I had no idea what the ‘basics’ even were. “So… blocking?” I placed my hands against my hips.

Spencer laughed a little as he stood, “How about a quick demonstration, Sadie?”

The wolf charged at him. She leaped through the air, aiming right for his face. I felt myself let out a small yelp from the shock of the sudden attack. Spencer crossed his arms over his face, in a smooth, fast gesture. Sadie moved her body upwards so her face wouldn’t collide directly with his arms, which caused her chest and part of her upper body to take the hit. Sadie rebounded off Spencer’s block, flipped her body backwards and landed upright, with all four paws hitting the ground roughly at the same time.

In less than three seconds she was closing the distance between her and Spencer again. She aimed for his arm this time. Spencer pivoted backwards on his right foot, and aimed his left forearm directly at Sadie’s exposed diaphragm. For her, this seemed to be a rehearsed sparing season, allowing her to easily avoid the hit. She simply turned and landed back on the ground. I was completely stunned. There’s no way this could be real.

“Those are just two of the blocks, out of the many we’ll be teaching you. You can also use your opponent’s weight against them in some cases. This would be easier for you because you will be able to turn into whatever animal will give you the winning advantage,” Spencer said. He did not look as if he just spared with a fully grown wolf. “Let’s continue with the demonstration.”

This time Sadie went for the leg. It took only a second, maybe less, for Spencer to move his knee into Sadie chest and kick upwards, and again, Sadie knew the exact counter move to his block attack.

“Ok, but what if the crazy people I may have to fight know how to avoid the blocks, like Sadie, and I get my ass kicked even worse?” I couldn’t help but picture me getting my ass handed to me in an actual battle.

“Remember that we have done these moves over and over again. But, by the time we’re done with training, you’ll have an arsenal of attacks to choose from,” Sadie said patiently. “We’ll get to those later. What we want you to take from today is how blocking works, and possibly be able to defend yourself from an attack placed by one of us.”

“Gotcha.” I wanted to seem confident, but I was cringing inside because I was so afraid I would utterly fail.

Spencer walked over to me and gently lifted my left arm and taped the underside, “Hold your arms up about six to eight inches away from your face, but don’t cross them. I won’t be trying to rip your nose off. Now, as I move my fist toward you, I want you to block them with my arm.”

“But I thought Faux wanted me to learn to fight against another animal?” I asked Spencer.

His face showed nothing but patience. His cool nonchalant personality amazed me. How was it possible for him to be so easy going all the time? “We’ll get there. I just want you to get used to the basic motions so you know how to move your arms correctly.” His balled his fists, which had looked really bizarre with the content expression he held.

Because I had been paying more attention to how he looked than how he was moving, I completely missed the very slowly moving punch he was sending in my direction. I barely grazed his hand with my arm. In trying to avoid his fist, I moved forward and tripped. My face flushed with embarrassment.

Spencer caught me before I landed face first in the dirt. He stood back to let me regain my balance. “I didn’t think I was that clumsy…”

“Don’t feel bad, you’ve never done anything like this.” Spencer didn’t seem to have any problem at all with my lack of skill.

Dax, however, was another story. “Come on, if you keep babying her, she’ll never get it.”

“Cool yourself Dax! If we push her to much she could even more hurt.” Faux yelled.

“Whatever,” Dax grunted.

“Look.” I sighed, “If you want to show me how it’s done, be my guest. Get over here and show me what you’re talking about.”

“Dax, be careful,” Sadie barked. “Angela, do not let him push you if you aren’t ready!”

“Ok, one, no one is allowed to call me Angela anymore. It’s Angie. Two, no one is allowed to make decision for me. I realize that you’re all here to help me and are putting your own life at risks. I am forever in your debt, and I have immense gratitude towards you all. But the sooner I can make my own decisions, the better off I’ll be. So, let’s do this.” I rotated my body directly in front of Dax, who was smiling, actually smiling. “Dax, your turn.”

“Whatever you say, girly.” He was quicker than I thought he would be though. Dax came at me with fists in the air. But as soon as my arm blocked the first punch, I knew he was holding back. I could tell that he was going easy on me, even if he wasn’t showing it. And he only allowed himself to graze my right arm. As soon as he felt my arm block his move, he’d pull his hand away. On the other hand, he was moving at a much faster pace than Spencer had been. I had to move from one directions to another to avoid a front on collisions with his first to my face. But I never felt like he would intentionally hurt me.

He kept this steady speed for a few minutes. We were in a short of synchronized motion. When I moved, he moved. Our feet were darting at an almost even pace around a randomly woven path in our small sparing area.

In actuality, I was doing better than any expectation I’d had. But once someone realizes that they’re doing well, something normally goes wrong. That time wasn’t an exception. No one was paying attention to where we were in the yard, especially the two of us. Out of nowhere I fell backwards. Dax jumped to grab me, but instead of gracefully stopping my fall like Spencer had, I somehow twisted my body, causing us both to go sailing hard to the ground. Dax realized this and tried to force his body in between me and the ground to block the force of our bodies hitting the ground. But I still landed on my right arm, causing it to bare a heavy blow when we landed.

My arm went numb and tingled . A warm sickly feeling gushed through my nerves, causing a ripping pain to flow through the recently sewed up wound. I instinctively grabbed it, and looked up at Dax to make sure he was ok. He had a horror struck look plastered on his face.

Sadie changed forms and ran into the house, Spencer when inside after her.

I refused to look at my arm. This initially shock of pain subsided, now it’d just throbbed. “My dad’s gonna have a heart attack.” I was still sitting where I’d fallen, Dax was on his knees in front of me, a shocked expression on his face.

“Uh?” Dax shook his head as he pulled his eye reluctantly from my arm to my face.

I cringed a little and tried not to look like I was in pain. “Sadie just ran inside the house… Naked.”

“Oh, I guess I didn’t notice.” He pulled off his shirt and wrapped it around my arm. I gasped. He’d so many scars… Dax pretended not to notice.

Instead I asked, “How the hell do you not notice a naked girl?” I couldn’t believe he hadn’t seen her. I gripped my arm harder as the blood kept coming.

“When you grow up like I did, nudity doesn’t faze you,” Dax mumbled. His eyebrows moved closer together in frustration. Faux was trying to look at the damage, but Dax wasn’t loosening his grip. I gasped as the morning light reflected off the scars on his olive skin.

“Good news,” Faux said from beside me. “It doesn’t look like all your stiches tore. Only about half from what I can see, but it’d be easier to tell if you’d move your hand, please,” she said to Dax who wasn’t look directly at me anymore.

He released his grip. But in removing the pressure, it caused more blood to seep through the partially open stitches.

“You tore open a good part of it. But Freddie should be able to repair it, unless you want to be taken to the hospital?”

“Or you could do it? Couldn’t you? We’ve bothered Freddie and Victor so much these last few days. I’d rather just get it over with,” I told her.

“I could, but Freddie is better at it.”

“Either way there’s gonna be a scare. I’m sure I’ll live. I’d just rather it not be in multiple pieces.”

“Alright. Dax help her inside.”

Dax grabbed my good arm to help pull me into standing position, but not before repositioning his grip around my other one. I tore my eyes away from Dax’s chest. I wanted to know his story, but now wasn’t the time.

By the time we got inside the clock said it was only 9 A.M. So that meant that my father was probably still sleeping, since he hadn’t been able to sleep till well past midnight. Considering Sadie had just ran through the house completely nude, I was glad he was asleep. He had conservative views on clothing attire.

When I’d gotten in the house Sadie had put a long shelved dress over her. I was once again forced to sit in the kitchen to get sutured. At least this time I could move almost by myself, Dax kept a gentle, but sturdy grip on my upper left arm to make sure I wouldn’t fall over.

“Well, I can’t really do anything without thumbs,” Faux said taking a look at me sitting in the chair, her tail twitched back and forth.

“I know we’re both girls, but please, please, please cover yourself before you jab and poke at me.” I tightly closed my eyes in case she did change back right then and there. She mumbled something inaudible before she left the room.

Sadie had gotten rubbing alcohol and other miscellaneous first aid items spread around the table by time we had gotten settled.

“You have enough supplies to fill a hospital,” I commented.

Sadie let out a small laugh. “It’s not that much, but in these types of situations, you have to be prepared.”

“Where’s Spencer?” I asked, still trying not to let the pain get to me. Faux was scrubbing her hands with disinfectant soup and putting on gloves, fully dressed in an old shirt and sweat pants, she had tied her hair quickly back in a messy pony tail. Dax was sitting behind me being really quiet. He hadn’t said anything since we’d gotten in the house.

“He went to go wake Julian,” Sadie said now looking lost because her task was done.

I heard grumbling noises coming from my father’s direction. “That may take a while…”

“Is he not a morning person?”

Neither of us could be qualified as morning people. “No, definitely not. He really doesn’t like to get up any more than I do.”

All of us jump we heard Julian scream, “WHAT! WHY DIDN’T YOU JUST TELL ME THAT TO BEGIN WITH?”

“I tried Julian.” Both Spencer and my father were rushing down the stairs, even though my father was clearly irate, probably caused from just waking up, while simultaneously finding out I ripped out my stitches.

“Damn it! Angie, are you ok honey?” My father was at my side in less than a second after his feet hit the kitchen floor.

“I’m fine dad,” I said as calmly as I could.

“We’ll get her fixed up, again.” Faux had pulled a chair beside me, as she placed rubbing alcohol on to cotton ball to clean the dirt off my arm. “This may sting a little.”

I tried not to move when the alcohol touched my open wound, but my body automatically tensed against the pain. ‘Sting’ was an understatement.

Dax bolted from his chair. The chair fell backward and landed with a crash. He placed it upright and walked towards my dad without looking at me. “I’m sorry, Julian. It’s my fault. I shouldn’t have…. I should have known better.”

“Well what the hell happen?” My father snorted.

“I was teaching her how to block attacks, and we tripped over the radio. I tried to catch her, but it didn’t work out that way”

“So, it’s my fault, not Dax’s.” Spencer stepped next to my father. “The radio and CD case are mine, I left them there. I should have just played the music from my phone…”

I winced as Faux put the first stitch into my arm, even though she numbed it; I still felt a little sting.

“Wait, the two of you tripped over a radio?” My father’s anger had quickly disappeared.

And he started laughing.

“I’m glad you find this amusing, why don’t you get a few stitches in your arm, I’m sure you’d find it hilarious,” I spat sarcastically, not actually upset with him. One the pain subsided, it was actually humorous.

Dax mutter something that sound like an apology, grabbed a jacket, and hustled outside.

My father stopped laughing, and stared confusingly after him. “What’s with him? I’m not mad anymore. Accidents happen.”

“Where’d he run off to?” I asked as I leaned out of the chair.

Faux shoved me back.

“Ow! That hurt.” I rubbed my shoulder with my free hand.

“Sit still, or these stitches are gonna get really screwed up.” Her expression was that of annoyance, but it quickly softened. “You know Dax well enough by now; he’s blaming himself because we told him this would happen if we pushed you too soon. He just feels bad right now. You can go talk to him after I finish with you, ok?”

I only nodded. I felt bad because I didn’t want him to blame himself. I was the one at fault. I was the one who pushed the training season. If I had been paying attention the accident would have been avoided. I slumped back in the chair and tried not to move. This all seemed a little ridiculous.