The Chase Has Begun

"Well, well," the fatso grinned. "Why is a girl like you wandering around this early in a remote place?"

"Where are your friends?" asked the thinner trucker. "Are you alone?"

"If you get lost, we can help you," said the fatso again.

"We have a map in our truck. Want me to show you? Where are you going? Sometimes the direction you think is right turns out to be the wrong place."

"I don't need your help," Willow said. "I'm not lost."

"I don't believe you." The fatso moved closer. "You doubt us, eh? We mean no harm, just want to help."

"Don't come any closer!" Willow backed up until her hip hit the car door. "I told you I don't need help."

Just as she was starting to get scared, someone came from behind the two truckers. "What's going on here?" he demanded in a flat voice.

With relief, Willow saw Luke walking towards her.

"Who are you?" the fatso and his friend turned to face Luke. "Stay out of this."

Willow moved and half ran over to Luke. Before Luke could open his mouth, she answered for him. "He's my boyfriend." Willow moved closer to Luke's body. Her hand moved to hold Luke's arm as if it were true.

"Boyfriend?" The fatso grinned again. "Really?"

"You'd better go," Luke said in a commanding tone. Something in his piercing yellow eyes seemed to weaken the trucker's spirit and made him back away a little involuntarily. The thinner driver seemed to want to argue before his partner hit him on the shoulder.

"Sure," the fat trucker said. "We were just about to leave anyway."

Once the two men were out of sight, Willow turned to Luke. "Thank you."

"You should have called me sooner."

"You weren't there when I got back from the convenience store."

"At least go straight to the car and wait inside so as not to attract attention."

"All right. I apologize."

Luke lowered his head to stare at their interlocked hands. "You can let go of my hand now."

"Oh? Sure." Willow let go, then crossed her arms and looked away from Luke.

"We should go now." Luke walked to the driver's side of the car.

Willow opened the passenger side and got in. She was a little annoyed by Luke's flat, unfeeling demeanor. He could have at least asked if she was okay, instead of acting like she was at fault. It wasn't her who had provoked those two asshole truckers. Those guys had been following her since the convenience store.

Luke started the car engine. The Audi left the gas station and returned to the rural two-lane highway. Demi leaned back in her seat and closed her eyes. She was getting tired and confused, and Luke's attitude didn't help at all.

It seemed like he didn't really care about Willow. He was just doing an assignment from her father. For Willow it was too late to go back now. She'd better see her father, who might care about her after her world came crashing down.

"You bought food?" A moment later Luke asked.

"Yes. I also bought some water for you."

"I told you not to think about me."

Willow shrugged. "Even if you're a werewolf, you should still drink."

"You look uneasy. Are you okay?"

"Yeah."

"You really can't go home, Willow. At least not anytime soon."

He can read my mind, Willow thought in surprise. "How long before we reach our destination?"

"It's hard to estimate."

"Why?"

"Because we can't keep driving all the way to our destination."

Willow frowned. "Why not?"

"There are no roads that vehicles can drive on. At some point, we'll have to climb a mountain."

"You're not kidding, are you? Why doesn't my dad just meet us somewhere? Why

do we have to go to the mountains to find him?"

"Because that's what we have to do."

Willow sighed. She wasn't excited about climbing the mountain, nor was she excited about continuing the journey.

***

Heavy rain during the hours of travel made Willow homesick. In her house, which was always warmed by the heater, the cold was no big deal. But here, in her own car, she was freezing even though Luke had turned on the heater. Thick, dark clouds covered the night sky, so she could barely see anything outside the window, other than the straight road in front of them illuminated by the car's headlights. He could only see the shadows of the pine trees that lined the road as if it were endless.

Her cell phone was in her bag. She wanted to talk to her friend, but wasn't sure who. The cell service was bad anyway. However, just as she was thinking about it, her cell phone rang. A message had come in. She took out her phone and saw that Kelly had messaged her again. She sighed and put her phone back in her bag.

"Who is it?"

Willow turned her head in surprise as Luke suddenly spoke. "Why do you want to know?"

"Just having a conversation."

Willow shook her head. "You should have been talking earlier. We've been driving in complete silence for several hours."

"I didn't know you wanted to talk. I thought you just wanted to be quiet."

"My grandparents were murdered, I'm here with a man I don't even know, on my way to meet a father I don't know either, and you think I want to be quiet?"

"So, do you want to talk about it?"

Willow rolled her eyes and looked out the window again. "No, thanks."

"Hey, I can listen if you want to talk."

"I'm fine."

"I'm sorry if I didn't consider how hard all this is for you."

Demi turned to look at him with one eyebrow raised. "You're so talkative after being almost silent all day."

"Is that bad?"

"No. I was just wondering. Anyway, if we're going to talk, then we should talk about something important."

"Like what for example?"

"How about about my father? Please tell me about him. If you were asked to pick me up at least you should know him well enough."

"What do you want to know?"

"What was his name? I never knew his name." It was indeed a sad fact, that a child did not know his father's name. His mother died when he was only a year old, and his grandparents never said a word about his father. They would always change the subject whenever she asked about him, so she stopped asking.

"His name is Elliot," Tobias said.

"Is that a first name or a family name?"

"It's a first name. Pack members forget their human surnames. Names have no significance to werewolves. We learn to identify each other by scent and sound as much as by name."

"You really believe that you are a werewolf. Don't you?"

"Yes. And you'll believe it soon enough when you see it for yourself."

Willow rolled her eyes again. "Okay. Let's say there really are werewolves. How did you become a werewolf? Were you bitten by another werewolf?

"No. That's only in the movies. Real werewolves can't turn people into werewolves."

"Okay, so what then? Where do werewolves come from?"

"Well, they're like humans."

"What do you mean?"

Luke glanced at her and smiled. "I thought you were old enough to know where babies come from."

"That's not what I'm talking about." Willow frowned.

Luke laughed and Willow gasped. It was good to see him smile for the first time. Maybe he actually had a personality, not some flat, uncaring guy. "I mean the beginning. Where did they come from?" chided Willow.

"To understand that, you first need to know some werewolf history."

"We have time." Willow shrugged. "Not that we have anything else to do."

He cast a quick glance in his direction. "Have you heard the story of Romulus and Remus?"

"Yeah. A little. It's taught in school. The history of the founding of Rome, right?"

"That's right. They were twin boys, one of whom was to found Rome. When they were newborns, they were abandoned to die. But they were saved by a she-wolf, who nursed them as if they were her cubs. Part of the wolf's own essence was passed down as she nursed her babies. Intentionally or not, she created the first werewolf. We refer to her as Lupa, the mother of all werewolves."

"Wow. That sounds so ridiculous," Willow said. "You really believe that? Is my dad, like, some kind of cult leader or something? Did he brainwash you?"

Luke actually chuckled at that.

"No, it's not like that," she said. "I'm telling the truth. I understand why you find it hard to believe, but you'll see in time."

"I look forward to it," Willow replied casually. She still didn't believe anything about werewolves. But their conversation was enough to cheer her up after hours of silence.

***

When Luke parked his car in a small, run-down parking lot to spend the night waiting for morning, Willow was dumbfounded.

"We're going to spend the night here?" Willow asked as soon as the Audi was parked. "Are you serious?"

It was just a small parking lot for regular cars and big rigs. On the far side was a shabby shack that served as a restroom. A few vending machines and a shelf with some maps were located on the side of the building.

"Why?" asked Luke.

"Seriously. You didn't see this place? Why aren't we staying at a hotel?"

"We can't afford a hotel."

"What about a motel?" In her entire life, Willow had never slept in a motel. If she was traveling out of town, she always stayed at a five-star hotel. However, nowadays even the smallest motels she didn't mind as long as it wasn't a parking lot.

"There are no motels around here," Luke replied. "Besides, it's better not to leave any traces. So we're not easy to find."

"You think Lowell is still following us?"

"I don't think. I know."

Willow's heart sank. Her stomach was suddenly in knots and she wanted to run away, to hide somewhere. However, she knew that would be even more dangerous. She didn't want to see those two brutes again. Lowell and Boris were a nightmare come true, where she saw his grandparents Gertrude and Harriet bleeding to death.

"Get some sleep," Luke said. "You need to rest because we have a long way to go. You can lie down in the back seat. It's quite comfortable there."

There was nothing more comfortable than her room at home and her fluffy bed. However, Willow knew there was no point in arguing. She unbuckled her seat belt and crawled into the back of the car.

"What about you?" Willow asked from the back seat.

"I'm sleeping here. No problem."

As expected, Willow couldn't sleep. For almost two hours she twitched restlessly in the back seat with her eyes wide. Meanwhile, Luke slept soundly in the front seat. He slept without a sound. An exhausted Willow was desperate to keep trying to sleep. Meanwhile, the air in the car was very cold and she didn't have enough warm clothes or blankets. Willow picked up her cell phone to see if she had any messages. But all she saw was that her cell phone battery was at five percent, which made her almost curse.

Because there was nothing else she could do. She turned off her phone and reached for the snack she had bought earlier. He chose a bag of chips and unwrapped it, but just as he was about to put the first chip into his mouth, he saw a light behind him and turned around. It appeared to him that a car had stopped at a rest stop.

His eyes followed the car until it was parked. The rain continued to fall in a tight patter, making it difficult to tell what kind of car it was. But when she moved closer to the window and the car turned, she was surprised to find that she recognized the vehicle - it was her grandfather's Land Rover.

Had he somehow miraculously survived and come to pick her up?

The possibility tempted her to jump out of the Audi and run to the car. Until she saw the driver get out of that car. It wasn't her grandfather. It was Boris.

***