Chapter 28

Mom did say I should not let any man touch my vagina, but did I let Mike? No, I didn't. He forced himself on me but still, I felt like I disobeyed mom. No, it was more like betrayed. I felt like a traitor.

Mom also told me to report to her if any man tries to touch me, but did I? No I didn't. I didn't tell her because I was so scared. Mom would not hit me or anything but she'd be so sad and mad at Mike that Mike and I would have to break apart, and he might even go to jail because I'm sure mom would want justice, she'd not relent until something was done, like she was not relenting until her divorce with Cameron would happen, and besides that, mom might be so worried that she'd cry herself to sleep every night. It'd also mean that I had betrayed Mike. It'd do more harm than good. That's why I didn't tell her. I decided to keep it to myself. I didn't tell Dr Brown too. Only Mike Tony and I knew about it.

And to my dismay and not satisfaction, mom didn't notice a thing. She did ask me why I was looking sad and stuff but it never got past that. She never suspected that anything had happened between Mike and I. Maybe it was all because Mike acted like his usual self.

That night, I got naked and stood in front of my full length mirror after drawing down my curtains. I didn't like what was staring back at me. My stomach was big, it was not so big(now that I'm older) but I had always thought it was very big. Even Cameron once said that it was too big for my age. My arms had big pounds of flesh, and my cheeks were chubby. The only things I liked about my body were my eyes and lips. My sharp green eyes. My pink little lips. They were my strong points. Nothing else on my body appealed to me, not even my hair. I wished beyond thoughts that i be blond like mom. But I had black hair. I touched my wide hips and felt my waist where Mike had gripped me tightly. I lifted one of my legs to check my vagina. It looked normal and it didn't hurt anymore. That was weird.

"It's easy" i told myself and smiled. "I'll be over it as soon as the pain about the while incident is completely gone" I sighed and went to sit at my desk, still naked. There, I brought out my diary, and quickly scribbled: "Not that I let him but he forced me" then, I put the date there: 27-09-2001

I didn't go into details because I felt like one day, mom or someone else might find the diary and read it without my knowledge and permission. After putting the diary back, I brought out Joe's white pouch. I buried my head in it and savoured the smell and feel. It brought back the memory of the dream I had. Oh! That was my answer. Now I knew what the pouch was important for. The Wolf in my dream had shown me the power of the pouch. The pouch looked do ordinary but it was actually a teleporting tool, a time travel. It had taken me into 2009 and in that year, Jamie was abducted and was there for a long time- I don't know how long exactly.

The pouch was useful. So why did Joe warn me to stay away from it? If I did, then I would never have known what would happen to one of my sisters in 2009. I think it was good that I knew so I'd prevent it from happening.

"You do not have the power" I swear I heard those words so vividly that I thought mom was in my room. I looked around but no one else except me was in the room. It was Joe. He was responding to me. And it did not scare me. It gave me so much relief instead

"I do not have the power?" I asked, prompting him to speak again. I didn't hear any response for a while and I was starting to doubt that o heard it the first time. But then, he replied again, "No you do not" I heard him say. My head felt heavy but not painful. I saw that heaviness in the air that made my head heavy. It was him.

I thought deeply about that. I had no power to change what would happen to my sister in eight years.

"But you can try" he added. "While trying, do not consult the Blue Wolf. Do not hurt yourself"

"And return the pouch, as soon as possible"

And then, just like that, the heaviness disappeared. I felt ease in its place. I put on my pyjamas and lay down on my bed, ruminating on Joe's words. He did say I did not have the power to change the future but I could try altering it. One thing I was sure to work on was finding out about the figure always walking in the woods behind my window. I had to catch him and maybe find out what he wanted. But, I had to be careful not to hurt myself. I wondered if I should talk to Mom about this. If it'll make her more serious about finding out about the figure that only appeared to me, the figure that might turn out to be Jamie's abductor in the future."I'll tell Mom" I told myself but it was weird. How would mom believe me? She might think I'm crazy. I meant, who believes in time travel as something that actually happened?

I decided to focus more on the camp that was coming up in some days' time. It was going to be a useful distraction. I was going to behave myself at the training and cooperate with Uncle Robinson and the other teachers and follow all the simple rules. I actually found it easy to do because I forced myself to be willing. When you're willing to do something, it becomes easy. Or maybe everything was not borne out of internal willingness. I think it was forced. I mean, I needed something to get my mind off Mike and what he did to me. I needed something to get my mind off 2009, eight years time.

I took the pouch and handed it to Uncle Robinson at school and he was grateful I did. It was crazy. Crazing seeing what would happen in future now. Uncle Robinson had mentioned that Joe told him 'yesterday', that is, the day before that he had his bag with me. That means he visited him. His ghost did. Maybe regularly or not, I didn't know. All I knew was, they still spoke to each other, Did that mean they were on good terms? I wouldn't know. Or did 'Sword' still threaten 'Karl's ghost despite that he was dead already?

I wanted to find out and I thought about how to go about that. I wanted to find out how to change some items in someone's future that you've seen and do not find palatable. I wanted to change the future for my sister, Jamie. Or she'd be kidnapped and might never return home. I wanted, no, needed to find out how to stop this from happening, and of course without asking Uncle Robinson about it. It was not the best choice.

I dared myself to ransack Uncle Robinson's things in the office. So, when I thought he wasn't looking, I opened his drawer and searched through the stuff that was there. Actually, he was not in the office; he was outside talking with some other teacher.

There in his drawer lay the pouch I gave to him. It shone. To be honest, I've never seen it shine as much as it shone that day. "Woah" i marvelled. It was like white dotted light. Very beautiful sight. I tried to touch it but I changed my mind. So, I ransacked other parts of the drawer but all I saw there were books and books and piles of junk. I checked his jottings, they were all about some tiny bits of information about something in the future. I looked around to make sure he was not coming yet. Then I opened the book, hurriedly sinking in what was written in there. He wrote about how he had gone to the future to see how it'd be like for him. He talked about going to the present to adjust things for himself. What did he mean? Did that mean Uncle Robinson was still living in his past? I wondered. It didn't make any sense to me, so I closed the book.

If anything, I wanted badly to go forward in time again. I needed to know the details of Jamie's abductor, how it happened, where it happened, if it was a Monday or a Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday or Sunday. I really needed to know so that I'd think of how I could change it. Joe did say I could try, although he didn't give me the assurance that I'd make a headway with it, but at least, I had to try. Right then, I was tempted to travel with the pouch once again but what if Uncle Robinson destroyed the pouch or locked it and I could not return back in time?

I wouldn't want to experience getting trapped in time. So, I dismissed the thought. I kept looking through his notes instead while turning back and forth to check the door to avoid being caught red handed. I mean, he was closed for the day and had locked his door already, so he might possibly not return in, but I couldn't be too sure. The last thing I wanted was being caught, only God knew how he would punish me. The thing was, I was hiding in his office when he left. He left at first, and I started to search through his things, but then, he came again, looked around, locked the door and left, but I was in his cubicle--a large,old, empty, abandoned cubicle in his office. It stank of what I can't really place my hand on, maybe blood mixed with sawdust and fuel, that's how best i can describe that horrible stench; the stench in there was putrid, but I had to manage until he left.

Training was already over at the time, it ended faster than it used to that day probably because it was the last day of training--The two winners would be announced the following week, and they'd be in competition with each other. I was too sure I'd be one of those two. Mike was delaying in coming to pick me up. It was a Friday afternoon. As soon as everyone was dismissed, Uncle Robinson went out of his office, so i quickly slipped into his office. I had to use the opportunity to search for the answers I so badly wanted. I didn't even think of how I'd get out. All I knew was, I had to get in first. The rest of the solution would figure out itself with time. I thought he had left but then I heard him coming again, so, I hid. I was stubborn--i should have just left.

I waited ten minutes and then he returned. He didn't return the same way he left. He looked so angry. No, the thing was, when he entered, he was normal not until he started sniffing around. You know when you look around and sniff every corner because you suspect that someone or something was hiding in your room, yeah, that.

He sniffed and buffed for split seconds and it was at that moment i realized that hiding in his office was a huge mistake. I never took into consideration the fact that wolves might be able to smell humans, or smell suspicion.

The werewolf has superhumanly the acute senses of sight, smell, and hearing similar to those of an actual wolf. Eventually olfaction becomes 100 times keener than that of a human, while hearing ends up quadrupled.

Werewolves see in color, not black and white. Werewolves can see with perfect detail in low-light conditions. They can see part of the infrared spectrum and thus detect the heat signatures of objects or people in total darkness. They have binocular vision as well and good peripheral depth. They have excellent eyesight in the day and even better at night but as they age, their eyesight may get weaker as well as their other senses.

They can smell other living creatures within 100 feet (when upwind) and follow a scent over nearly any terrain. If the werewolf has no Scent Familiarity to the prey, then he must get some. This involves acquiring possessions of the target that bears their distinctive scent. . A werewolf's sense of smell can be so refined they are able to detect emotions – anger or fear. They do this by picking up chemo-signals – chemical signals that communicate emotion, which an individual can give off via their scent, allowing them to identify the hormonal changes that person exhibits, or has exhibited at specific locations in the past. They can also smell illness. Werewolves can smell blood, prey and other scents up to 2 miles away and can smell blood and other human smells to identify hormones, gender and even moods.

I knew all these but for some reason, i wasn't thinking straight and I knew I had entered the lion's den--the wolf's den in this case.

I started to sweat. My heart palpitated so much I had to hold my chest to massage it. I watched him from the hole in the cubicle.

He panted and placed his hands on the floor, panting really hard. Then, all of a sudden, he howled and howled and twirled and in place of a human head, his wolf's head appeared. Uncle Robinson's voice whispered underneath: "Ignore the smell, wolf. Not now" It seemed to me that he didn't know how to control his wolf from letting itself out. His Wolf would not listen. He howled and twirled round the room. His teeth were like shark teeth. They grew and grew until they became really long. I was so scared but I could not hold myself back from looking. I wanted to turn myself in, but it was risky. I thought in my mind, "which was riskier? He finding me out or me turning myself in before he did? I didn't know. . It was stupid, really stupid of me to have hidden in his office. Now I was his prey. And there was no one to save me.

His werewolf's claws were extremely sharp and tough, and it enabled him to rend through a variety of substances in the office including the fabric, his wooden table, a cinder block, and even the metal decorations. He also rent his claws through the wooden cubicle in which I was hiding, and at that moment, I screamed. I screamed because his claws bore through the hole and almost punctured my face. I covered my face and screamed so much my head hurt. During those moments, I started to imagine how my funeral would be like. If mom would wear black like we did during Joe's, if Cameron would be there, how mom and Cameron and Mike and the kids in our neighborhood would react to my death, if my body would ever be found, if I would even have a body left after his claws dealt with me. I was already dead inside of me, as I waited for the real death. I shut my eyes and awaited the blow that'd finally knock me out but then when I opened my eyes, i realized that everything had died down. I looked through the hole he had enlarged now and saw that he was there staring directly at me. He didn't look like he wanted to harm me, and I wondered what would happen. He looked at me like I was the most familiar person ever. It made me feel more afraid and I started to shiver. Honestly, I was this close to passing out.

His claws bit into the table and built holes in it, and his eyes were bloodshot but he looked like he was calm now. But I wasn't. I felt like he was preparing himself to attack me more fiercely and that was a very scary thought. The claws that could destroy the table, metals, the cubicle and another stronger stuff in his office, how easy would it be to tear my flesh apart in split seconds? You can imagine. It'd be so easy. So I started to mutter some words with so much fear in my voice.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I don't mean any harm. Please don't hurt me. I just want to help my sister. I'm sorry" i whispered. It was not louder than a whisper but I think he heard me because at that moment, I immediately felt a very strange calm in me.. my heart was no longer beating fast, and I was no longer sweating. I no longer felt like passing out. I had so much strength all of a sudden. I was so calm that it shocked me. I don't know what he did, but it looked like he transfered my emotion to himself.

I raised my head which had been bent on my thighs ever since his first attempt at attack. I raised my head because I felt a rough hand smoothen my hair from the top to the bottom, down to my back where the length of my hair stopped. It was so soothing. I stood up and behold, he was standing before me in all his giganticness, looking so sullen but peaceful. He placed his claws on the handle of the cubicle and it immediately dropped down to the floor and shattered into pieces. He was so much bigger and different from me but I was not afraid of him. He held my hands with his claws and pulled me out of the cubicle carefully.

I breathed fresh air in the room, and looked at his face. The face of a werewolf. His eyes glared directly into mine. His blue-red bloodshot eyes. That was not my first time seeing how they looked like, but that was my first time coming so close to one, looking closely at one. It seemed that he was attracted to me, because he took my hair in his hands and fumbled it. This must have been the way he lured Anita too. It was so attractive and hypnotizing. He sniffed my flesh and caressed my shoulder. I couldn't take my face off his face.

"What do you want?" He asked. His voice was raspy but reassuring.

"I want to help my sister" i suddenly found my voice. "She's going to be abducted in 2009, by a man I don't know. I want to find him and prevent him from doing that to her"

He looked at me and nodded. "That's true. You also wanted to use the pouch again"

He obviously had read my mind. "You also wonder if I killed your supposed mate"

I stared at him in utter disbelief. What did he mean by my "supposed mate" . Before I could ruminate on that, he said:

"You wonder why I killed my supposed mate and tore her in pieces"

I was dumbfounded

"Anita. Anita is her name. My supposed mate's name"

I nodded, unable to believe my ears. So, he actually knew that I caught him on the day he killed Anita, whom I now knew to be his mate. He knew all these all along and pretended not to. He pretended to not know that I saw them. He could have punished me long ago but he didn't. Why was that? I thought. And what did he mean by 'my supposed mate', I was not even a werewolf.

"He died. Because he transgressed, but even that could have let him live a while longer, but he still died. He was exposed to a large fire, and as he's an Omega, he couldn't heal" he stopped to stare at me, then continued.

"That happened right after you kicked him severally in your class room. Remember that afternoon?" I nodded. He had known. He was not there when it happened but he knew.

" He sustained internal injuries from the kicks, coupled with the burns he suffered from the fire, they were first degree burns but he was too old and weak to withstand them all, and he was too overwhelmed with guilt to accept you as a mate. So he died" he muttered.

The floor shook as he spoke.

"Many things killed him. You couldn't have stopped him from dying"

He was so calm, he looked nothing like the furious animal that was ready to attack its prey, some minutes ago. But wait, what did he mean by 'he was too old'? Joe was only nine. Maybe ten but not more.

"What do you mean?"

"He hurt you, and he ended up becoming insane with guilt. You were supposed to be mated to him but he couldn't have you. Even then, he was too old. So he died" He was referring to Joe.

"He was a Omega, didn't have much strength. He was 100 years old at the time of his death. Don't feel too bad. I miss him sometimes too"

I was totally confused but I listened to him. Joe was 100 years old? What more did I not know?

"Anita deserved her punishment. Don't feel bad for her. Besides, she died in a ripe age even though she could have lived a thousand years more" he said. " I do not like it when you feel bad. Don't feel bad" he said it and it sounded interesting yet strange.

"She didn't want me." He grumbled. I nodded, Then he looked into my face, and then, slowly inserted his claws into the nape of my neck, it went so deeply into my neck, and that was all I remembered about my familiar surroundings.