The First Drop Of Rain

Chapter Twenty Three

I lowered my flashlight, no longer needing the orbs to track the beast. Scrambling to get up without letting my eyes leave the monster before me, I scraped my hands on the rough side of the steps. I could feel the blood welling up in my palms, making them slick and hot. My heart was pounding in my ears and my breath was quick, the smell of blood on fresh fallen snow was not one I expected myself to become familiar with, but here I was.

The growling beast moved forward, and my eyes adjusted to what I was looking at. It was a huge pitch black wolf. I managed to force myself up to a standing position, my flashlight lost to the now blood specked snowdrift. What do I do? Run? No. Scream? And what doom my father? Maddie can't face this. Is Edward close enough to help me? I doubt it. Shit! What do I do!? Okay. Calm down Arabella. Don't be a wuss. What would mom say? What... what would she- "look fear in the eye." I whispered to myself.

The collage of memories splayed before me was of every time my mother had said those words. When I was standing at the edge of the pool with water wings bigger than my face. When I was holding my bike free of training wheels. When I stood in front of the pier about to step onto a boat by myself for the first time. When I held my board about to catch my first wave. The only difference between then and now was that if I fell then, someone would save me, kiss my cuts, and make me hot chocolate with extra marshmallows. Now if I fell, I just got to be the fresh hot meal for the mutant wolf that stood in my backyard.

Slowly, I dragged my eyes from the humongous paws that sank deep in the snow below them as it sauntered forward, up the legs that could take my yard in stride, and past the chest that rose up and down with every fog creating breath. The fur of this beast never changed from the deep glistening black of pure night. Finally, I looked at its eyes, though it took me a moment to realize I wasn't looking into animal eyes. These eyes were strangely human. I searched the wolf's eyes to see if there was any sign it would back down. But I saw something else the deeper I searched.

There was something familiar about the eyes of the massive wolf before me. Before I knew what I was doing, my voice spoke. I thought the first thing that would break through my lips was a hideous scream, but that never made it past my teeth. Instead a single word, a question, broke my silence. "Sam?" The creature stopped, huffed, and shuddered. Suddenly I wasn't afraid, I didn't feel a threat of danger, I knew those eyes, those were the eyes that taught me how to swim. Those were the eyes that helped me with my history project. Those were the eyes of a friend's true love. "Sam is that you?" The eyes showed recognition, and the anger in them softened. "Sam. It's Arabella... Leah's younger friend, the one she used to babysit?" I walked forward hesitantly. His form began to shudder more, I was afraid he was going to explode- and then he reared up on his hind legs. This was it, wasn't it? I was going to die. I had put too much thought into how I would die once upon a time, and this was never the way I thought I would go. Mistaking a monstrously large wolf for a friend, who was I? Certainly not this girl. The scream that escaped my mouth was unintentional and guttural. It ripped from my chest as I backed toward the door, slamming my back into the metal and feeling the cold ache and accompanied soreness of a bruise forming. I knew my father would be down here in a flash, he would see me be dismembered right in front of him.

Then, the thing I never expected happened. It didn't slash forward, instead it shrank. The form changed from a wolf to a man, and before I knew it, Sam was laying in the cold snow. Naked.