Miguel gives a heavy sigh and reaches forward to scoop the unconscious Luna off of his car.
“What a strange place to find a box of free puppies. Ugh, twist my arm why don’t you? If you were a cat though, I’d pass you right on by.”
Miguel carries her around to the back of his car and pops the back door, laying the werewolf down within it. He takes a moment to wrap her tightly in a wool blanket for warmth and closes the back of his car up. After a failed attempt at restarting his car, Miguel sighs and digs his feet into the snow, pushing his car down the road.
“...My lucky day.”
Chapter 6
Life Goes On
Luna awakens to the sounds of soft jazz playing nearby, fluttering her eyes to adjust to the dim lights of the room. The queen-sized bed she was resting on is comfortable enough, but when she tried to move, she seemed unable to. Looking down, Luna soon discovered why; a small series of ropes kept her bound to the bed. Pulling at them didn’t entice the bindings to loosen much; the knots were very well made. Her wounds had all been cleaned and bandaged, though she was still wearing the tattered remains of her jeans and jacket from the other night.
Unable to move, Luna looks up towards the room at large. It’s very clearly someone’s bedroom, with a nightstand next to the bed, a closet and a glass panel TV hanging on the white wall. The room also had the feeling of only recently being occupied, as multiple labeled cardboard boxes were strewn around haphazardly. In the corner sits a desk with a cheap laptop computer resting on it, it’s screen showing the main page for a Zillion email account. Next to that appears to be some kind of battery charging station with multiple six inch long, rectangular batteries. The setting sun casts a soft orange glow into the room, it being the only light available. Wherever Luna was, it’s high off of the ground, judging by the multiple rooftops could be seen through the window.
“Look who’s finally awake...Any longer and I was going to call the vet...or the doctor. Both maybe?”
Miguel strides casually into the room, carrying a can of beer in one hand. The man is clearly at home, judging by his clothing. He’s wearing a sleeveless white T-shirt and a pair of army camo slacks. A gun holster hangs off the side of his waist, Luna recognizing the gun as magnum popular culture. Miguel grabs a chair from out of Luna’s line of sight and drags it over to her, flipping it around and sitting in it with the backrest against his chest. He sets the beer on the nearby nightstand and slides his hand over to his holster. Luna’s eyes focus upon him, forcing herself to be as alert as she could manage, her heart ready to leap out of her chest.
He speaks calmly. “First thing’s first wolf girl...Can you talk?”
“Y-yes. I can.” Luna states plainly.
Miguel’s eyebrows raise at the clarity of the voice. “Huh. Interesting. So here’s how this is going to work.” He reaches over towards his beer with a hand, cracking it open.
“We’re going to do a bit of Q&A. I’m asking. If at any point, you start showing off those pearly whites or start trying to break those bonds, my dear ol’ friend here...” Miguel’s free hand pats his gun holster for emphasis. “Is going to have a word with you. If you be good, I send you back to whatever hole you came from, and I never see you again. Is that clear?”
Luna nods rapidly.
“Excellent,” Miguel says, taking a few swallows of his beer before setting it back down on the nightstand and clearing his throat.
“First thing’s first. What are you, some kind of science experiment? Or are we talking about you legit monster movie here?”
Luna shrugs her shoulders, looking worriedly between the casual man and his ‘friend.'
“I-I’m not from a lab or anything like that. It just...it just sort of happened..”
Miguel takes another sip of beer. “Supernatural stuff huh? Are there more like you?”
Luna shrugs again.
“I...don’t know? Maybe?”
Miguel raises an eyebrow towards her. “Gonna change back? Isn’t that how werewolves work?”
Luna gulps quietly. “I...don’t know how. If it’s been a few days...maybe it doesn’t turn off?”
Miguel taps his gun holster contemplatively.
“That sounds fun. You know, you were chewed up pretty bad when I found you. Nasty bumps, some scratches and one hell of a hickey your leg. Who’d you piss off?”
Luna’s lupine ears slowly lower as she huffs out a depressed sigh.
“A...few people. My...family.”
Luna’s heart skips a beat as Miguel’s gun-hand starts to move, but relaxes only slightly when it comes to join his other at the top of the chair rest. He leans forward in his chair, raising a brow towards her. “Come again?”
Luna’s voice remains downcast. “My step-brother...he... he shot me. He was trying to kill me. We’ve never really gotten along but for him to do this...”
Miguel’s leg twitches. “Oh. Ah...so then where do you live?”
“...Nowhere.”
“Any chance you could go back and patch it up? Maybe get mom or dad to help you out?”
Luna looks up towards Miguel, frowning a little bit. “No. They’re all stupid, terrible, awful people. They tried to kill me not once, but twice. The second time was his dad. Would YOU try to go back and ‘talk it out’?”
Miguel chuckles breathlessly. “I suppose you’ve got a point there.”
Luna sighs at him, shaking her head. “Not that I could anyway. I think..they died. There...was a fire and I know one of them didn’t get out for sure.”
Miguel raises a slow brow towards her. “...Did you set the fi-”
“Of course not!” Luna snaps, showing a few her teeth. “I don’t like them, but I wouldn’t try to kill them, what kind of crazy person do you take me for!?”
Miguel nods slowly and lets the girl calm down for a moment, taking another sip of his beer and resuming his calm tone.
“So this whole wolf suit thing...it’s new?”
Luna nods quickly, still feeling quite tense. “Y-yeah. I think it saved my life when I got shot the first time.”
“Yeah...I was kind of curious as to why you weren’t a corpse on that one. But hey, I’ve seen people survive shit they had no business to, including yours truly. By any chance, have you heard the name Benny Scardino before, have you?”
Luna shakes her head. “Never heard that name before in my life.”
Miguel sighs, reaching for his beer and downing the rest of it in a few gulps. “Figures.”
Luna lets him finish his drink before speaking again.“Hey, can I ask you a few questions now?”
Miguel scratches at the side of his newly growing beard. “Fair’s fair. If I don’t like a question though, I’m not answering it.”
“Where am I and what day is it?”
“It’s December 26th, 2059. You were pretty much half dead when I found you. So I decided I’d do you a favor and patch you up. Merry Christmas. As far as where you are, you are in mi casa at Cypress Hill Apartments. More specifically, my bedroom. I had to find a place to keep you in case it turned out that you weren’t a very hospitable guest.”
Luna looks down at the belts and ropes keeping her still and sighs, looking away from Miguel.
“Yeah...I can’t say I blame you for that one. If I met someone who looked like me, I can’t say I’d trust them straight off either. I’m...a monster now.”
Miguel reaches forward and gently pats her on the shoulder. “Look on the bright side wolf girl. You tanked some pretty nasty stuff. And you are still in one piece. That’s gotta count for something.”
Luna sighs and turns away from Miguel for a quiet moment of contemplation. Tears begin to form in the corners of her eyes as her ears flatten against her head. Miguel, noticing this, rubs a hand over the back of his neck sheepishly, turning away. After an awkward silence, he coughs to clear his throat and leans a little further forward on his chair’s rest.
“Hey uh...listen kid...how...how about we start over? Look.�
�
He undoes the holster around his midsection and holds it out to his side, letting it dangle just long enough for Luna to turn back around towards him and see that he was setting it on the floor next to him.
“See? No more gun. Now you have nothing to worry about. You are safe here. You...you can talk to me okay? Let’s start with something simple. My name is Miguel Morales. What’s yours?”
Luna looks up towards his eyes, blinking away the welling tears. “Luna Oswald.”
“And how old are you?”
“I’m...I’m eighteen. M-m-my birthday’s on Halloween.”
Miguel pauses for a moment of reflection before continuing, taking a deep breath before he speaks again. His tone is conversationally soft and warm.
“Luna...I don’t need all of the details right now. We can talk about that stuff when you are ready. But for right now...how about I untie you, get some new clothes on you and talk over dinner? Would that be good?”
Luna considers and agrees, nodding her head slowly, her lips trembling like she wanted to say something more. Miguel leans over her and stands, pulling apart the various belts and ropes that kept her restrained. Once they were out of the way, he reaches down with a helping hand. She accepts, pulling herself upright and into a slightly unbalanced standing position. She wheels her arms around until she manages to get her balance, smiling weakly up towards Miguel, who rests a hand underneath her elbow, ready to brace her in case she fell.
Now steady, she leans forward and wraps her hands around Miguel, who takes a deep breath of suspense in retaliation, only to find that he’d been drawn into a deep hug. He slowly collapses his hands over her back, patting it a few times and holding her close. Luna sniffles deeply, reverberating against Miguel’s chest, trying to hold the tears in.
“Sh-sh-sh-sh. It’s okay. You can let it out. I’ll be here.”
∆∆∆
The sounds of a hurried dinner didn’t escape Luna’s ears; Miguel’s apartment was small enough that she could hear everything he did...as well as several neighbors. The abode is separated into 4 rooms; a bathroom, bedroom, living room and a kitchen, all linked by a hallway that runs through or adjacent to each one. The moving boxes that were present in the bedroom were also in the other rooms, stacked up in various corners. The soft carpet present in all of the rooms minus the bathroom and kitchen were quite pleasant, a far cry from the cement floors in the basement of the Oswald home.
Luna’s rests in the bathroom, getting a good look at herself for the first time since Christmas eve, and while her appearance certainly is monstrous, she didn’t look as bad as others made her out to be. Her curly hair is still intact for the most part, and her face is still expressive, but her upper canines are long enough to stick out of her mouth at all times, like a saber-toothed cat. With the short amount of time she’s had them, they didn’t even seem to bother her in the slightest. Even odder, her eye color seems to have changed, from their normal brown to a lavender-like purple. She runs a finger over the edge of her canines, finding them to be sharp to the touch.
She steps out of the bathroom, freshly clad in a loose white t-shirt and grey sweatpants that had a hole cut out of them specifically for her tail. The sun slips behind the horizon, blanketing the city in a familiar darkness. She makes her way to the kitchen, passing a polite wave towards Miguel. He gives her a friendly nod in response, grabbing a spatula to flip over his grilled cheese sandwiches. The process smelled heavenly to Luna, who wanders closer to him, nose sniffing up a storm towards the sizzling goodness.
“Smells good huh?” Miguel opens a nearby tub of butter, scraping off a bit of it with a spoon and throwing it in the heated pan. “ It’s my mother’s recipe. Go ahead and take a seat, I’ll plate em for you in a sec.”
Following directions, Luna turns to look towards the table in question to find two bowls of tomato soup. She slides into a drawn out chair, pulling herself up to the table. A quick look towards the corner trash can confirmed the canned origin of the stew. Still, it smelled quite good and Luna brings her hand down towards a provided spoon, staring at it for a moment before dipping it into her bowl.
“Thank you Mr. Morales.” Said Luna in a somber tone. “Thank you...for everything.” Her spoon swirls the soup in a slow rotation.
Miguel turns his head just far enough to see Luna’s saddened facial expression and brings down two plates from the cabinets. He shrugs as he pulls off the sandwiches and grabs a well-placed kitchen knife. “Don't mention it kiddo.”
He slices the four sandwiches into eight and splits them onto both of the plates evenly. He sets down the food in front of the werewolf and takes his share onto the opposite side of the table, getting seated himself. Luna barely reacted to the presence of her food, looking up at it for a second and then going back to staring at the spoon swirling in her soup.
“I meant to ask before but didn’t get around to it…” Miguel says, dipping a corner of his grilled cheese into his soup. “How are you feeling? I mean...physically? Tired? Sore?”
Luna snaps from her sorrows and looks up at him, placing an elbow on the table to prop up the side of her face. “Oh...kind of...both. I mean...It’s the first time I’ve not been in danger since I turned into this so...I’m kind of still feeling it out. You know?”
Miguel takes a hearty bite of his sandwich, clearing his throat before speaking again. “I fixed you up pretty good then. Even stranger is that, after I scraped you off of my car and saw how much you were bleeding, I thought for sure you’d be dead but-”
Luna’s eyes widen in surprise, nearly dropping her spoon. “Scraped… off your car? What? How? What’d I do?”
“You landed on it from the overpass not too far from here. Practically knocked out the engine block. I had to grab some towels from in the back, wrap you up and push it and the car all the way back here. I got a hell of a workout in, to say the least.”
“Oh my god.” Luna rests her head in her hand again, running it over her forehead, massaging it. “I had...wow. That’s gonna be a really expensive repair. I’m sorry about that. Holy cow.”
Miguel snickers at her, letting another corner of the grilled cheese soak up the soup. “Oh don’t you worry about that. You’ll be paying me back for it soon enough. But for now, eat. You’ve been healing way faster than anybody I’ve ever seen, but I’m pretty sure you still need food like everyone else.”
Luna smiles weakly towards him and begins to eat, raising the grilled cheese to her mouth and nibbling at it ineffectively. She then attempts to push more of the sandwich into her mouth, but the large canines block her path. Finally, she opens her mouth as wide as possible and crams it in messily, sending out a cascade of crumbs dancing across the plate and the table both. She chases it down with several spoonfuls of soup. As to be expected, the food is quite good, tantalizingly so. She starts stuffing more and more of the grilled cheese into her maw, it disappearing as fast as she could get it in there. The spoon is abandoned for a more direct muzzle-to-bowl action, upturning it so that the contents of said bowl could pour directly into her throat.
In a matter of a dozen or so seconds, the last of her food had been messily devoured, her tongue cleaning off the last remnants in a wide sweep around her muzzle. Miguel, who’d witnessed this from start to finish, sits wide-eyed, simultaneously impressed and intimidated by the whole event. He slowly reaches down to his plate and slides it over towards her slowly. He jerks his hand back as she starts wolfing down his share.
Miguel smiles towards her and dips his spoon down in his soup. “So I take it you are a fan of my madre’s recipe?”
Luna looks up towards him, her cheeks bulging with food and nods rapidly.
“Excellent. I’d offer to make you a little bit more but I’m afraid you caught my pantry at a bad time.”
Luna swallows her food in one large gulp, setting her empty bowl on top of her plate. “Did I eat too much or something?”
Miguel stands up, collecting her dishware and his own a
nd moves them to the sink, drinking his soup before setting them down.
“No...I get the feeling you probably eat like a horse anyway, but I haven’t been grocery shopping in about...five years.” Miguel shakes his head dismissively. “I bet milk is like, double the damn price now. Anyway, I should probably get that stuff done. If I get lucky, I’ll pick up some decent stuff on sale.”
Luna folds her clawed hands over each other, her ears standing at attention on her head. “Oh...can I come?”
“What..?” Miguel turns to look at her, grabbing his car keys off of a nearby key rack. “Absolutely not.
Luna’s ears sink to the sides of her head. “Aww come on, why not?”
Miguel raises a brow towards her and gestures towards her with an open palm. “Come on...do I really need to spell this out? Really kid?”
“Well I didn’t say I’d walk out in the streets or anything like that. I’ll just stay in the car.” Luna points towards the twilight skies of a nearby window. “Besides, it’s getting dark now. Nobody will see anything. Besides, what’s the worst that could happen?”
“As a former police officer and army vet, I think I’m qualified to say; everything. Everything can happen.” Miguel says in a frustrated tone, pinching his eyes shut.
“Pleeeeeeease?” Luna presses her hands together in a praying motion, leaning a little closer to him with a begging smile.
Miguel sighs as he rolls his eyes, his hand coming up to his face to smear his facial features for a moment. He taps his foot for a few seconds before shrugging. “Madre-mia. Fine. You can go.”
Luna’s ears perk up energetically, her tail waving of it’s own accord. “Really? That sounds awe-”
Miguel leans down and quickly and presses two of his middle fingers directly into Luna’s nostrils, plugging them up and instantly getting her attention.
Ravenport: Luna's Awakening Page 8
