Chapter 2: Homecoming

Ripley's POV

The door creaked as she opened it. She'd need to oil the hinges at some point. Ripley made a mental note to head to the hardware store while she was here. She was positive there would be plenty of things in need of mending.

Four years.

Four years since she had been home for more than a few nights.

Four years since she had come home to that gruesome scene.

Four years since she had combed through library books and websites for answers.

For a while, Ripley had convinced herself she had to just believe what the coroner had told her. She had buried herself in finishing her senior year of high school and deciding where to even go from there. But the questions nagged at her, night and day, she couldn't get a break from them. Things weren't adding up.

So, she started researching. As she finished high school, she devoted herself to tracking down the truth, whatever that was.

The first confirmation she had been right had been a confrontation with a siren. The creature had warned her she was venturing into dangerous territory, telling her she needed to just move on and forget about what happened. There had been a scuffle, but the creature had been gracious enough to let her go. The lovely female had even slipped a note, the contact information of a priest, into Ripley's pocket.

From there, Ripley had apprenticed under several different mentors. The dark world of hunting was murky. There was no black and white, only a thousand different shades of gray. Ripley had been forced to develop a new moral code, a system of ethics that were dictated by instinct and intuition.

She had been driven for the past four years by an insatiable desire for revenge, for truth. She had sworn not to rest until she had answers.

And yet here she was, resting on the bare queen mattress in her childhood bedroom.

The ceiling fan spun circles, her mind chasing after it.

She had sold off a lot of her parents' belongings. Since she was eighteen when the murders happened and her parents had left everything they owned to her in the will, she'd been left to figure out what to do with everything they ever owned.

Her father's two tone 1996 Ford F350 pickup had been the only vehicle she'd kept. She had padded her bank account with the proceeds of the sale of the other two cars her parents had owned, along with some of the furniture, and an assortment of home decor. She had stripped the house down to nearly bare bones. She couldn't stand to look at so much of what they left behind.

Ripley had always known the money would run out at some point. She had originally intended to get some kind of job, but she was so thoroughly consumed by the hunt for her family's murderer that she couldn't hold a steady one.

A man she had mentored under for a few short months about two years ago had showed her how to use all those credit card offers that came in the mail to her advantage.

Credit card fraud wasn't something she was proud of. At some point, she was sure her crimes would catch up to her, but her only prayer was that she would have her revenge before she was locked away.

Sometimes she didn't feel so bad about it.

If nothing else, diesel wasn't cheap. Ripley stood, pumping fuel into her beloved truck. She had decided not to stay in bed all day, though she wanted to.

Ripley headed to Broadway to walk around all the bars. It was crowded, the sidewalks full of jostling tourists.

She swiped her credit card, this one with the name Pamela Weston on it, to pay for her supper. The man behind the little cart tipped his head to her and handed her two hot dogs.

Ripley's mouth watered.

They smelled so good; it had been what had attracted her to the little cart to begin with.

She assumed that if she was being hunted by whatever killed her parents, she might as well make it known she was home.

The benefit and the detriment of Nashville was the anonymity. The concentration of people here, though, made it the wisest place to start. The network of inhuman beings was tight knit and fast moving. Surely, at least one of the thousands of people on this street wasn't actually human.

If this beast was actually telling other creatures to keep on the lookout for her, they would recognize her instantly.

Her feet were starting to hurt, though, and she was tired.

Ripley dipped into an alley and rested her back against the wall. She took two massive bites of her first hot dog.

The alley was dark, so she didn't notice it at first.

A massive, hulking form took shape at the other end of the alley.

Ripley snapped her head to study it closer.

She sighed with relief. Just a dog.

The biggest dog she had ever seen in her life, but just a dog.

She took a few more bites of her hot dog.

Ripley took a couple of tentative steps towards the animal. When it didn't take off, she squatted down a few feet away from it.

With the dim light of the moon filtering between the buildings, and the yellow glow of the streetlights, Ripley got a better view.

Not a dog.

Wolf?

Solid black in color, the animal was magnificently muscled. A slash across one eye had left behind a scar.

Ripley was overwhelmed by the animal, captivated by the sight of it. A wolf in downtown Nashville? Surely, there was no way.

There was only one bite left of her first hot dog. She set it on the ground, as far from herself as she could reach.

The wolf took a tentative step forward and sniffed at it.

The wolf made a disgruntled whimpering sound and shoved the piece aside.

Ripley furrowed her brow.

The animal looked at the other hot dog in her hand and licked its chops.

"Oh, I see," Ripley murmured.

She sat down the untouched hot dog, still on the paper plate that the man had given it to her on.

The creature scarfed it down greedily.

Ripley chuckled.

"Is that better?" she asked.

The animal sat on its haunches.

Ripley reached a hand out towards it. The beast sniffed at her hand, then lowered its head.

Ripley smiled and rubbed the animal behind the ears.

"You're not a wild animal. You're just a sweet little pet."

The animal huffed in indignation but didn't move away. Ripley continued to stroke the soft, shiny fur.

"Did you get lost from your family? I bet there's somebody out there looking for you," she assured the animal. "I wish I still had a family looking for me."

The animal made a pitiful whine.

"I could help you find your family!" Ripley bent to look at the animal's massive throat. "Hmm, no collar. Are you chipped, buddy?"

Ripley pulled out her cell phone. It was late. She could probably take the animal to the emergency vet to get it scanned, but she'd have to get the creature back to her truck first. She liked the idea of people watching her walk the massive canine back to her truck and loading it in the bed, but she had no way to get it back to the truck, and it certainly wouldn't fit inside.

The creature whined again.

"I miss my family, too. You've got to be careful out here. There's all sorts of beasts like you wouldn't believe. My parents were shredded to bits." Ripley shrugged.

The animal flicked its eyes to her but didn't make a sound.

"You can come with me if you want," she offered. "We can figure how to get you back where you belong."

She stood and stepped towards the entrance to the alley, back where she had come from.

The animal laid down.

Ripley rolled her eyes dramatically.

"Suit yourself... Good luck, bud," she called over her shoulder as she stepped back out into the street.