He would convince her to let him out and then he would take her home. She was so young, but she was his. As soon as he got out of this zoo, he would guard her until he had no breath left in him. His body shook at the thought. If he lived another hundred years, no one would ever cage him again or keep him from Ashlee.
Ashlee struggled to wake. She opened her eyes and tried to calm her breathing. Her heart pounded hard in her chest and tears fell down her cheeks. Tristan, her wolf. She’d dreamt of him. Not dreamt, she corrected herself, she’d had another episode and this time it hadn’t been about her sister Summer, it was Tristan who had featured in it. But he hadn’t looked like a wolf—no he’d been a man, but she had known it was him. Tall, with brown hair that held specks of red in it. His nose long and regal, bordered by cheekbones a GQ model would envy. He had a five o’clock shadow across his chin. His brown eyes were hooded and sad. Men were on their way for him, the men who had trapped him in his wolf form, and they would kill him if they found him. They would finish the job they’d started months ago.
How did she know this? The dream or hallucination or whatever it was had seemed so real. No, she corrected herself, it didn’t just seem real, it was real. Tristan had insisted she wasn’t crazy. But wasn’t that just what a senseless illusion would say? Ashlee closed her eyes against the conflict that raged in her head. There were two options. Either she needed to be institutionalized and watched by professional doctors who could help her sort out real from imaginary or she was sane and all of this was really happening. Did mentally ill patients know they were not well? Didn’t the very fact that she questioned what was happening to her mean she was still able to tell what was true and what was not?
She opened her eyes. She needed to make a decision about this immediately. If there were men after Tristan then she was running out of time.
Ashlee didn’t hear any noises in the house; her parents weren’t back from their evening out yet. They were out at a gala where her father was receiving yet another award. He was the head of plastic surgery at their local hospital. She wasn’t sure where he got the time to do all the things that he did. He devoted hours to pro bono surgeries that helped restore the facial features of burn victims. It was nice that he was getting recognized, but she really could have used her mother’s advice and she couldn’t help but wish they had gotten home already. Her mother would know what to do and, ironically, Ashlee wasn’t sure that Victoria Morrison would doubt her sanity.
An image from her childhood swirled into her mind, taking over and for a moment Ashlee felt like she was there again. She’d sat on the bed, eight years old, while Victoria brushed her long strawberry-blonde hair. Summer lay next to her, blonde and blue eyed like Victoria, almost their mother’s perfect copy. Ashlee had felt disturbed by the horror movie they’d watched—or at least she felt like she should have been bothered by the graphic images, since all of the other girls at the sleepover had been scared. She asked her mother if there were such things as monsters.
Victoria had paused the brush mid-stroke and looked down at her with a startled expression marring her otherwise perfect Nordic features. She’d regained her composure quickly.
“Do you think there are monsters, Ash?”
Ashlee hadn’t known what to say. Something about her mother’s tone had made her more nervous than the monster movie with the chainsaw-wielding psycho killer. What was it? Thinking with her adult mind and not that of her younger self, Ashlee realized her mother had sounded anxious. Fourteen years later, Ashlee couldn’t remember ever hearing Victoria sound quite like that again.
Summer had interrupted then; she was never satisfied until she had every answer she needed. “Do you, Mom? Do you believe?”
Ashlee thought she knew what her mom would say. It was the job of grownups to reassure you, to tell you that nothing scary was real.
“I do believe, girls. Some of the things that go bump in the night are real and we must always be on guard for them. But don’t worry, nothing will ever harm you here while I am with you.”
The memory, like dust in the sky, floated out of her mind and Ashlee was back in the present with her decision already made for her. Why wasn’t it possible that Tristan could speak to her, even if he was a wolf? It wasn’t any more unreasonable than anything else.
People believed in ghosts and no one called them crazy. Hell, she’d had a friend whose mother attended conferences about aliens. Declaring herself a lunatic hadn’t worked out so well, maybe it was time to try a different approach. Just for tonight, she would believe.
Tristan was a talking wolf and she was going to save him from the men who were out to get him.
She looked at her small black alarm clock on her nightstand. 10:30 PM. She’d only been asleep for an hour. Wearing her flannel red and black pajamas, Ashlee jumped from her bed and ran out of her bedroom. She didn’t have time to change her clothes, the urgency to reach Tristan at the zoo too great. She rushed through the house pausing only to write her parents a note.
Mom and Dad, I may have gone off the deep end but there is a wolf that talks at the zoo. I know, I know. I’m nuts. But he needs me to break him out and I’m going to do it. If you need to call the doctors and send me away, I understand. I love you and I wish I didn’t have to do this. But, I do, even though it makes no logical sense.
I love you.—Ash
She rushed into the garage. She grabbed the key off the wall where it hung and climbed into her SUV.
She pulled out of her driveway fast and rounded the corner down the suburban street.
Her tires squealed and she forced herself to slow down. Jail…she might do hard time for this. She was going to break a wolf out of a government-owned zoo. That meant it was a felony. She swallowed the saliva that pooled in her mouth and clenched her teeth together until they hurt. Too late to back out now. At least her parents could afford a good attorney when the police arrested her, and they had her note to prove how out of her mind she really was.
She pulled into a parking space close to the employee gate—the zoo was empty of people, she had her pick—and rushed out of the car. Her key fit perfectly in the door and she stepped inside. Quickly, she plugged her code into the silent alarm. Its unique numbers would identify her to zoo security. They would know exactly who had broken out the wolf based on that alone. She sighed.
Quietly, she followed the path towards the wolves. The monkeys screeched when she passed them, but otherwise only the hiss of the dully-lit gas path lights acknowledged her arrival. She reached the pen and looked down. Tristan’s ears shot upwards as he became alert and he stood to run towards the wall.
What are you doing here, my Ashlee?
She swallowed. She could still hear him. He was still a talking wolf. That hadn’t changed. “I’ve had a dream.”
A bad dream? He paced around in a circle in front of her.
“It felt very real to me. I’m getting you out before the men who did this to you arrive.” She paused. “Some men did this to you, didn’t they? Trapped you like this?”
That’s correct. Do you have these psychic dreams often, little Ashlee?
She shook her head and walked towards the gate. “No. This was my first and hopefully my last.”
It would be easy. She would let Tristan out, he would go wherever it was that he went, and then things could go back to normal. Assuming, that is, she didn’t get caught in this jailbreak (which of course she would), and also assuming her parents didn’t lock her up and throw away the key.