Bitten (Once Bitten, Twice Shy #1)(2)
Despite the forced casualness of the question, Katherine could still detect the slight anxiety in her best friend’s voice. The other girls were not hiding their nerves very well either. While their expressions remained nonchalant, Katherine could easily see the hidden tension in the rigid way they held themselves. Heather seemed to be the worst off, fidgeting restlessly with her long hair.
Although Abby had aimed the question at all of them, it was Mallory who eventually answered. After glancing once more at the faint light and smirking spitefully in Katherine’s direction, the blonde responded. “Why doesn’t Katherine go? She says she isn’t scared after all.”
She stiffened slightly at the taunt. It was true. She had said she wasn’t scared. And, honestly, she still wasn’t. The anxious feeling was still there in her gut, but she wouldn’t describe it as fear. Trepidation, she supposed, was a more fitting word for it.
“Fine,” she retorted curtly, before she had the chance to change her mind, “I’ll go.” If that’s what it would take to convince them to leave, she would sneak a quick look in the light-filled window.
“I’ll go with you,” Abby assured quickly, finally letting go of Katherine’s wrist so they could comfortably walk together.
The girls had spotted the light a good twenty yards from the house so it took a moment for them to reach the property and even longer to quietly navigate through the overgrown greenery that thickly surrounded the place. Eventually, Katherine found herself crouched securely below the intended window, Abby right beside her.
After sharing a quick glance with her friend, during which the redhead nodded encouragingly, Katherine carefully straightened up, trying desperately to ignore the tension in her stomach. Her eyes peeked over the sill and… nothing.
Katherine saw nothing more interesting than a dirty floor made of rotting wood and cement walls coated with grime and dust. There were two lumps – undoubtedly pieces of furniture – covered by sheets that may have been white at some point, but that was it.
The light was coming from further within the house, shining through an open entryway leading into some other room. “Abby, I don’t see anything.” Katherine whispered.
There was no response.
“Abby?” she tried again.
Silence greeted her.
Frantically trying to calm the awful feeling now crescendoing within her, Katherine cautiously glanced down at her friend, who was staring, wide-eyed, at a patch of bushes directly behind them. Goosebumps forming on her taunt arms, Katherine forced herself to look too. She felt her breath catch.
There, not five feet away, two intense blue eyes peered out at her from within the undergrowth. When their gazes met, Katherine froze. She didn’t dare move. Her stiff friend beside her seemed to be suffering the same problem.
Neither moved a muscle when the large figure emerged, but Katherine certainly felt her heart rate pick up when it stepped into the faint light still exuding from the window and she caught her first real look at it.
The creature was massive – all dark fur and sharp teeth. Its strong jaw was easily capable of tearing her small body into pieces. Still, she couldn’t bring herself to move. It wasn’t until Abby jerkily grabbed her hand and the wolf – for that’s what the large animal in front of her was – gave a dangerous growl, that she felt her senses return to her.
“What do we do?” Abby whispered fervently into her ear.
Katherine, her eyes still locked with the blue ones in front of her, breathed back softly, “Run.”
Not giving her friend a chance to react to the command, Katherine took off, dragging Abby roughly by the hand as she desperately searched for a way out of the overgrown greenery that suddenly seemed more like a vicious trap than innocent shrubbery. In her zealous bid for escape, she violently swatted away branches, not caring as the course bark dug into her hands. Abby joined her, both girls frantically trying to make their way through the thick underbrush.
She had heard the beast’s enraged howl when they’d run and knew it had to be following them. Somehow – and Katherine had no idea how, for an animal like that had to be dreadfully fast – the two girls made it out of the cruel foliage without it catching them and raced madly towards the three girls still waiting for them a short distance up the dirt road.
“Run!” Katherine yelled to them, repeating what she had earlier whispered to Abby. Her friend screamed warnings along with her.
At first, the three girls ignored their frantic calls. Quite suddenly, however, they were screaming and running too. Mallory managed an impressively high shriek before turning tail and Katherine just knew that the monstrous wolf had burst out of the trees behind them. Knowing that looking behind her would cost her precious speed, however, she resisted the temptation and instead, concentrated solely on the sound of her feet rapidly hitting the ground as she ran, urging her aching legs to somehow carry her faster.
The only warning she got before hitting the ground hard was an infuriated snarl.
The pain hit her immediately.
It wasn’t the fall that had hurt her, though she knew she had banged her elbow rather badly. No, the sharp sting was coming from her right ankle and rapidly spreading up her leg. Ignoring the pain, she whipped her head around only to once again come face to face with dark blue eyes. They were frightening in their intensity, but what truly alarmed Katherine was the wolf’s jaw clamped tightly around her ankle.