Wolf for Hire

Chapter Twenty One

I
ran down the parkway, squeezed between the road guardrails on the right
and traffic flying by on the left. The Glenn McConnell had no sidewalk,
just a wide shoulder—meant for broken-down vehicles and not
pedestrians. But you could use it for jogging, if you were feeling
particularly suicidal.

I
didn't have far to go, and reached the next intersection in just a few
minutes. I cut to the right, onto Baird Cove, diving into the winding
streets of Providence Common residential area.

Maggie followed behind me, the gap between us widening with every second.

I
was running as fast as I could, though that didn't make me particularly
fast. Being a werewolf didn't mean I was blessed with supernatural
cardio. But Maggie—well, she wasn't exactly spry either. She struggled
to keep up, holding her leash in her mouth after I'd instructed her to
follow behind, and I'd mentally relayed a quick set of directions—where
to meet if we got separated.

West
Ashley City Park sat just on the other side of Providence, and it was
my best shot at waiting out the moonrise. The park was surrounded by a
dense stretch of woods that, according to Google Maps' satellite images,
was riddled with old logging trails and footpaths. More importantly, it
connected to a larger expanse of forest—the same one bordering Sandy's
property. If I snuck through the park, I'd have a shot at getting home
unseen.

It
was about a mile and a half, start to finish—and technically a little
further than taking the parkway to the CSX line and following that home.
But it also meant running straight through a heavily populated area.
And at this rate, that was exactly where I'd be when the transformation
hit—so, not ideal timing.

A lady needed her privacy, after all.

At
the second right on Baird Cove, I turned onto Wayah Drive—the final
stretch. After two rights, and the park would be on my left. Just a
hundred yards to go.

I
was huffing and puffing by now, my lungs burning. I was developing a
stitch in my chest and my body felt like it was in an oven. Poor cardio,
plus a lack of perspiration, and I was on the verge of suffering from
heatstroke

I might have been born in the south, but that didn't mean I was built for it.

Soon,
I reached what I thought was a back utility entrance to the park, and
was horrified to find a prominent pedestrian entrance instead.

And there were pedestrians.

Thank you, outdated Google Maps.

Worse yet, the woods I'd counted on for cover had been completely clear-cut. You could see straight through them.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

I
didn't have time for a new plan. I'd over-committed, and the moon was
already beginning to peak over the horizon. The light wasn't visible
yet—not with the sun still up—but I could feel it. A phantom tide rising
in my blood.

I
swerved around a family of four just exiting the park—no time to be
polite, just a breathless "Oops, shit, sorry," as I nearly bowled over
their seven-year-old. In my defense, they were taking up the entire
width of the trail. And I'd even stuck to the right side—as per proper
trail etiquette.

Really, if they were mad at anyone, it should be themselves.

Hopefully,
in the abrupt, momentary chaos, they hadn't notice my tail. Damn thing
had slipped out again. Like it had a mind of its own.

I
made it to the bend in the path, where it turned left toward the park
proper—wide open fields, a playground, all the usual amenities—and
promptly turned right instead.

I
broke into the trees, pushing through the saplings and low hanging
branches, breath ragged. The shift was creeping in. Heat flooded through
me, seeping into every cell, lighting up every nerve. My bones ached,
muscles coiling tight under the pressure of a transformation trying to
take hold. I forced myself forward, deeper into the woods. I needed
distance. Needed cover.

Deeper
into the woods were thickets of scrub palms—a staple of the southern
maritime forest. Low to the ground but densely packed.

They'd have to do.

Each
step became harder. My vision blurred, shifting between human and
something else, my body spasming as it realigned itself to the will of
another. My fingers curled, twitching, nails thickening into claws. I
stumbled, then fell to the ground as the transformation took over.

Though
it wasn't pleasant, it wasn't as painful as on previous nights.
Probably because I'd been half-shifted all day. A silver-lining to an
otherwise botched attempt to shift on my own. Last night had even been
seamless—comparatively—but only because I'd woken the wolf early and let
her take over.

That wasn't an option right now. I needed her to stay asleep for as long as possible.

Besides, I didn't need her for this. I'd learned a few tricks of my own.

Just had to visualize. Had to imagine myself as a wolf.

While
lying in Sandy's backyard, struggling to control my body, I'd realized
something: I could shift based on how I pictured myself. If I thought of
myself as a wolf, a wolf I would be. The only reason I failed before
was because I lacked the power, or perhaps focus, to complete the
transformation by myself.

But now, I had the moon.

The
shift came faster this time—quicker, cleaner. Muscles stretched, limbs
contorted, my jaw lengthened, ears pulled upward. I wasn't fighting it. I
wasn't losing to it, either. I just pictured myself as nothing more
than a wolf in human clothes, wearing a human suit, and shaking them
off, leaving them behind.

And just like that, I was a wolf.

The world sharpened. The sounds of the forest deepened into something richer, more layered.

I stood on four legs, and stumbled, still tangled in my own clothes.

I
huffed, shook out my fur, then fumbled with my front paws—claws
catching on fabric, limbs moving awkwardly until I forced myself to
focus. Hands. I needed hands. Or something close enough. Like opposable
paws.

Had to believe myself a wolf, but one with thumbs.

The
results were… functional. My paws flexed, the digits shifting just
enough to let me grip my shirt with my claws, and wriggle free.

I stashed my clothes and shoes beneath the scrub palms, pawing some leaves over them for good measure.

Then I turned to my purse.

I
braced it against the ground and, using my modified paws, finagled the
zipper open before poking my nose inside to check on my troublesome
little occupant.

Elmo scuttled out and onto my head.

I'd
tried not to jostle my bag too much while running, but even then it
couldn't have been pleasant for him—what with the gun, phone, and other
odds and ends bouncing around in there. And this next leg of the journey
wasn't going to be any smoother. So, better to let him ride on the
outside.

And if he couldn't hang on, well... it wasn't like I'd miss the not-so-little bane of my existence.

But, I wasn't worried about losing him. JT had said it himself—Elmo was a clingy little fellow.

A clingy little pain in the ass.

This is your fault, you know, I mentally projected toward him.

Unrepentant,
he tapped one leg against my skull and climbed over my bag's strap as I
slid it over my head. I hung my purse around my neck in the style of a
Saint Bernard's barrel as I lacked the shoulders to carry it normally.

A rustle in the underbrush made me turn.

Maggie emerged at a brisk trot, then hesitated when she caught sight of me. Her ears twitched, tail stiff, eyes wary.

It's me, I projected, trying to reassure her.

She took a cautious step forward.

Last

night my wolf had been… assertive with the other dogs. Not outright
aggressive, but dominant. The younger ones had instinctively deferred to
her, almost eagerly. Even Coy, who considered himself the self-elected
leader of the household, had been enthusiastic about being usurped.

But
Maggie—Maggie was older. She held a senior position in the household
hierarchy, and was one of the dogs Sandy and JT entrusted to keep the
others in line.

Having
the wolf suddenly take charge had been disruptive. When the caretaker
of the house—me—whom Maggie was tasked by JT and Sandy to assist,
suddenly pulled a 180 on everything. Becoming a completely different
person. A completely different creature.

It had been awkward for her. For both of us really.

But I wasn't the wolf. I was still me. AJ. Just in the body of a wolf.

Which meant I didn't know shit about canine etiquette, or procedures, aside from the little I'd picked up watching Animal Planet.
Sure, I'd researched wolves a bit, but I'd focused more on their
dietary needs, which, as Solomon had pointed out, was still lacking.

So, not sure what the right move was, I improvised.

I approached Maggie.

She
shrank away as I drew near—and who could blame her? I was a 130-pound
wolf. She was a seventy-something-pound German Shepherd. I dwarfed her.
And like the night before, she ducked her head and tucked her tail—a
sign of non-aggression.

But unlike the night before, she was dealing with me, not the wolf.

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So I patted Maggie on the head.

With my paw.

It felt like the human thing to do.

Let's go home,
I sent the thought her way, along with flashes of memory—our time at
church, the trip to the storage unit, hiking through the woods,
searching the depots. Bits and pieces of our day together to make it
clear that, despite the makeover, she was still dealing with the same
person.

Maggie lifted her head, sniffed me tentatively, then let out a low huff and flicked her tail.

I wasn't sure what that meant, but I could feel the release of pent up tension from her.

So I took it as a good sign.

I relayed our route home to Maggie, and we took off into the woods. Together.

Movement in this form came easily. More easily than seemed… natural.

Despite
having spent little—if any—time as a quadruped, my paws found traction
without thought. My body adjusted instinctively to every shift in
terrain. It was effortless, the way I weaved through underbrush, the way
I ran.

Had
I picked it up from the wolf, through some secondhand experience? Or
was it something else—like her instincts were bleeding over from her
sleeping mind into mine? Now that the moon had risen, had the part of
her that dwelled in my subconscious risen to the forefront, blending
into my own?

Convenient as it was, it was no less unsettling.

Because my paws, my body, felt natural
to me—like this was how I'd always been. As if it weren't just my body
being changed by the moon, but part of my mind as well. And if my
mind—my identity—was fundamental to returning to being human, then this
jaunt through the woods was far more dangerous than it appeared.

Because at any moment, some fundamental switch in my mind could flip.

I'd wake up, and I would be the wolf.

And the AJ that I was would be nothing more than a dream, soon forgotten.

I
had to stay vigilant during this twilight period, this transition from
day to night—a time when the human part of me swapped places with the
wolf. It was a time when our two selves were most likely to get… mixed.
Lingering too long in each other's minds blurred the line between where I
ended and she began.

And to say I was still in control was a misnomer.

I
was a wolf. This was her body. One she could take back from me with
ease. I was the subconscious now, and I was only in control because
she'd elected to sleep in.

But you could say she wasn't so much asleep as sleepwalking.

Part of her probably knew what I was up to. What I was planning. She was probably watching me even now.

Like I was the dream that she was having.

I'd
dreamt of her often—felt her instincts, her memories, her actions, of
the nights she was in control, as if they were my own. So why wouldn't
she dream of me and my actions? Perhaps, in those dreams, she forgot
that she was a wolf, just as I sometimes forgot I was human.

The thought sat uneasily in my chest—that the wall between us could erode from both sides.

I ran faster.

The
path I'd chosen ran along the southwest side of West Ashley Park, then
cut across Trinity Bible Church's parking lot. Their sign out front
announced a Bible study at 6 PM, but it was now past 8. The lot was
empty. No congregants, no stragglers.

No problems.

Maggie
kept pace beside me, her breathing even, but I could tell she was
working harder than I was. She could keep up appearances, but through
our mental link, I could sense her strain. Even at a leisurely trot, I
was still outpacing her.

I needed to cover a lot of ground before sunset, but I didn't want to leave her behind. Not this far from home.

I
led Maggie across the road and into the stretch of woods that split
Cypress Cove in two. From here, we had a straight shot into the deeper
forest bordering Sandy's property.

An
old utility road ran toward a residential storage facility, not unlike
the one I used, and, beyond that, an abandoned logging trail cut through
the woods. That trail would take us almost all the way to the CSX line,
with just a few hundred feet of woods separating the two.

Just had to get across Church Creek first—which posed more of an obstacle than I'd initially thought.

The
creek itself wasn't particularly deep or wide, but the land surrounding
it for dozens of yards in either direction was pure marsh. Which meant
the banks were made of a special material we Charlestonians liked to
call pluff mud.

Pluff
mud was a dark, grayish brown, all natural sludge, that smelled like
rotten eggs—rich in hydrogen sulfide. A scent ingrained in the psyche of
anyone who grew up in and around Charleston. It had a consistency
somewhere between wet clay and quicksand. And, if you stepped onto it,
you'd immediately be pulled in up to your waist. It could be easier
three to four feet deep in places, and would form an airtight seal
around whatever sank into it. Wading through it was an absolute slog,
sure to suck the very shoes off your feet. More than a few people had
died trying to wade through marshes like these, getting trapped in the
mud while the tide rolled in.

And
even if you did manage to fight your way through, you'd emerge covered
head to toe in a thick coating of it. When it dried, it flaked off in
chunks, like you were a molting insect. It would ruin any clothing that
wasn't made of pure rubber, and it would take weeks to wash all the fine
sediment out of your hair.

But, hey, at least it kept the insects away—the stench was as repugnant to them as it was to most humans.

That
said, I had no intention of taking a third shower tonight, and I
doubted the wolf would appreciate spending the night caked in drying
pluff mud either. I didn't feel beholden to her in any way, but I could
do her this one favor and stay out of the muck.

But, wait. There's more.

As
if the marsh wasn't precarious enough, it was also full of razor-sharp
oyster beds. No coastal Carolinian worth their salt was without a scar
from them—whether from shucking oysters, stumbling through the mud, or,
like my brother, having one slice clean through the sole of his boot and
into the bottom of his foot.

Oysters didn't fuck around.

So wading through the creek meant getting caked in mud and cut to shit. Not a desirable option.

Luckily, I already knew of a solution: a bridge.

I'd
spotted it on Google Maps—which at this point I was learning to
question. But, it was clear that a bridge had, at some point, been built
at a narrow point in the creek, right where the old path I was on
crossed the creek.

But, as I'd suspected, when I arrived, the old bridge was gone.

All
that remained were the skeletal remains of its supports and their
crumbling foundations. Still, the creek was much narrower here, and what
was left of the bridge spanned the marsh. I could swim across—or, hell,
I could probably even jump it.

But that still left Maggie.

The
creek might have been narrow, but it flowed swiftly, the waters
channeled through a smaller opening. While I could swim across just
fine, I worried Maggie would be swept away. She was already tired as it
was.

But, maybe I could carry her.

Though, to do that, I'd need to make some changes—to myself.

I
exhaled, focusing inward, testing the limits of my control. I pictured
the form I'd taken while fighting Monty—the raw strength, the way my
body had moved.

And I began to shift.

Something
about the moon's presence seemed to make my body more... malleable. The
change wasn't painful like before. It wasn't even difficult. I even
pushed myself upright onto two legs as it happened, still able to move
while the transformation ran its course.

One
second, I was a wolf. The next, I was standing—taller, though still a
bit hunched, my back claws curling against the old wooden planks of the
ruined bridge.

Last
night, the wolf had taken over effortlessly. And while it still took
some effort for me, I could do it too—just needed to focus.

Maggie hesitated, stepping back as I approached. She eyed me warily, like she knew I was up to something.

And it seemed she wanted no part in it.

"Now, now. Calm down. This won't take but a second," I assured her.

Maggie wasn't convinced. She continued to retreat.

"A-a-a! Sit." I commanded, and she reluctantly plopped her butt down, and I felt the trepidation rising within her.

I
scooped her into my arms, bridal style. For seventy-something pounds of
dog, she felt surprisingly light. She made a whimpering sound, clearly
not used to being carried so gingerly.

"Oh, don't be a big baby. This'll be over soon."

I
stepped back from the bridge, judging my distance, before rushing the
gap. Then, with a hop, skip, and a bounding leap, I launched us across
the creek.

Maggie let out a startled little harumph as I landed on the other side. My footing was solid, but not exactly smooth.

I set her down and ruffled her ears. She swayed on her feet, a little dizzy but otherwise fine. Not thrilled, but fine.

"You good?" I asked.

Maggie let out an irritated huff.

I
relayed to her that she'd have to make her way back home on her own at
this point. As much as I hated the idea, time was short, and I couldn't
wait for her anymore.

"When you get home, wait on the porch for Coy to let you in. Can you do that?"

Maggie confirmed she would.

I
ruffled her mane and pulled her into a brief hug. I conveyed my
thoughts to her, letting her know how thankful I was that she'd been by
my side the entire day.

Sure,
it wasn't that big of a deal—I was just trying to save time by running
ahead. But I could sense Maggie's frustration with herself.

She
was a dog, not a sage, and I could tell she couldn't quite wrap her
head around the fact that she was getting old. Today had been the first
time she had tested her limits in a while, and she hadn't liked the
results.

Call
me sentimental, but I couldn't let her leave thinking she'd somehow
failed. Not when she was also worrying about Coy and Boden too.

If
there was one upside to lycanthropy, it was this—this ability to
communicate with animals. This strange, instinctual telepathy that let
me send and receive thoughts with other dogs, and other creatures as
well.

Shame I couldn't do the same with people.

That
kind of ability, to communicate directly with others, without words
twisting or warping intent, would be a game changer in my life. Too
often, what I said—or what I heard—didn't quite match what was meant.
Too often, meaning got tangled in the words themselves, twisted by
misinterpretation or omission. And too often, I felt I was the one
blamed for not reading between the lines, for not picking up on what was
left unsaid.

Hell,
even when I tried to be as literal as possible, people still managed to
assign all kinds of implicit meaning to my words. A perpetual Catch-22.

But
here, right now, with Maggie, I could actually convey something real. A
genuine sense of gratitude. That she was appreciated, not being
abandoned. That I wasn't leaving her behind because she'd failed me.
That she had nothing to be ashamed of.

She was a good girl who'd done a good job.

And I'd see her in the morning.

"Sounds good?" I said, letting Maggie go.

Maggie licked my ear.

We
parted ways. I dashed on ahead while Maggie followed behind at a more
manageable pace. She'd be fine on her own. There was nothing in these
woods that could harm her. Both the wolf and I had confirmed that last
night. The route home was simple enough: follow the path, cross the
tracks, and she'd be home sweet home.

Soon, I was too far away to sense her thoughts. When the path curved, she slipped out of sight.

I
turned my focus back to myself—my body, specifically. The moon's
presence made shifting feel easier, more natural. Earlier, when I'd
taken this in-between form fighting Monty, my movements had felt awkward
and clumsy, like I didn't quite fit inside my own skin.

But now?

Now, it felt... right.

Like
my body was tailoring itself to me as I ran, making constant, subtle
refinements, guided by the energy flowing from the moon, shaping itself
to what I thought of as myself.

And yet, no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't shift back into my human form.

I
could shape myself into something close—something that moved and felt
almost like I did as a human—but that was the limit. I still resembled
the wolf.

My
earlier observations suggested that the mind in control dictated the
form. That was why I'd been able to shift back after the moon set, even
when I hadn't been fully conscious. So it stood to reason that it worked
both ways—now that the moon was up, the wolf's mind dominated, even if she wasn't fully awake.

So while I was in control, she was still subconsciously reshaping my body into hers.

And
my ability to shapeshift? That also came from the wolf—or whatever it
is she truly was. Her instincts. Her power. Her curse. Even if I was the
one at the wheel, I was still working within that framework. I could
twist and stretch this form into something more human-shaped, but I
couldn't undo the fundamental nature of what I was.

But if that was true… then what did that mean for me?

Even
without the moon, the wolf had been able to transform me—effortlessly,
in broad daylight. No moon required. And yet, even now, I had to strain
just to regain a semblance of my human self.

It was as if her will superseded my own.

And every month, it was getting worse.

With
each full moon, her influence grew stronger. The first time I'd
changed, it had been just for the full moon. A single night. But now?
The shift started earlier and lingered longer. At this rate, in a month
or two, I'd be forced to transform up to a week before and after the
full moon.

Being unable to work normal hours for up to half a month off work was something I simply couldn't afford.

And it wasn't just my body. She was getting smarter too.

Last night, she'd understood me well enough that I could teach her how to open a door. And we'd even negotiated.

And today she had even haggled. Over food.

Before, she'd just been an animal. A big, dumb dog running on pure instinct. The auto-dog bouncing around in my brain.

But now? In just a short time, she'd wised up. Becoming not only smarter, but self-aware.

This curse wasn't static.

It was evolving.