The Wolf Came on Christmas (Johanna and Alexander) novel Chapter 110

Chapter 110-1

+25 Points

My first priority was to keep André at my side. What else was I going to think about?

Getting out of the sawmill was also a primary necessity, but taking care of the child mattered more to me. As we moved down the corridor, Álvaro’s fierce growls could still be heard in the distance, along with one or two dull blows crashing against the barred door.

I closed my eyes tightly for a moment, took a deep breath, and squeezed the little wolf-boy’s hand harder between mine, forcing him to walk quickly and always to my right. Once again I became aware of the pain in my shoulder and back, the wounds aching in my flesh, but I couldn’t deal with that until I was in a safer position.

A part of me already felt that I would never have peace again in my life.

After all, who would, after everything I had seen in those last days?

Alexander had been right in suggesting that I would need therapy…

At one stretch of the hallway, Rex began to walk more slowly, and I wanted to ask if he felt very bad, but I tried not to interrupt his concentration. He was listening very carefully to the same thing André and I were:

“…there’s no noise.” I said, almost voiceless. “Why is everything silent?”

I think my heart stopped for a moment. An impossible cold invaded me.

Rex glanced at me quickly and started walking again, this time more nervous and hurried. His tail was bristling, and the fur along his back and neck stood up like spikes.

I had no doubt he was feeling the same as I was. André clung to my hand tightly, digging his small nails into my flesh.

We found a door, and I wanted to bolt through it, but the child stopped me with a tug.

“No,” he said in a whisper. “Wait, Han.”

“The boy is right. There’s another door further ahead,” Rex said very quietly. “It must be an emergency exit to the loading area. Look for a staircase that takes you to the roof; the rescue will be by helicopter and it shouldn’t take long. Don’t put yourselves in danger and wait there.”

Disoriented, I looked first at André and then at the red wolf, and asked:

“And what about Alexander? I don’t hear-!”

“I think if Alexander had lost, we would know by now,” Rex interrupted with a growl. He looked

1/2

Chapter 110-1

+25 Points

at me again; his eyes seemed almost golden in the dim light of the corridor. “I heard a shot a while ago. Where is Nika?”

I bit my lip before answering; I didn’t know how to say it.

“That monster shot her.”

André whimpered and the other werewolf frowned, letting his ears droop a little.

“…Is she dead?”

“I don’t know, Rex. I have no idea, I- she fell backward and there was a lot of blood. I don’t know how-”

“Calm down. We couldn’t do anything, Johanna,” Rex cut me off, more patiently, and I felt the weight of his paw on my uninjured shoulder; I had looked away before that. “Nika is strong.”

I wanted to ask him if she was really as strong as he or as Alexander, who had crossed a good part of Alaska, Canada, and the United States at the beginning of winter and injured, with his children. In my mind there was no other point of comparison – that was willpower and endurance at maximum power.

A rush of relief ran through my body, desperately hoping that Haydar’s shot had been so poor that it hadn’t done much damage to Nika.

But the blood – the amount of blood!

Besides, how was I supposed to escape with André if we didn’t know what had become of his father?

“Go on! Don’t waste time, get out of here!” Rex urged us, stepping aside.

“What are you going to do?” I asked, grabbing his wrist tightly. It was very thick and muscular, and the fur covering it was matted with moisture and blood, but I didn’t feel disgust touching him; the penetrating smell no longer bothered me much. “You’re very weak! Don’t do something stupid, please.”

Comments

LUCK DRAW >

Vote

664

272

3 Chapter 110-2

Chapter 110-2

$25 Points

The guilty look in his eyes told me that he had very possibly thought about going to help Alexander, but now he had something better to do:

“Someone has to go for Nika. Where is she?”

“In the office, I think it’s right above where we are,” I answered, not very convinced.

“Good. I’ll take care of her. There’s another staircase at the back of the workshop. If I can get there without being seen, we’ll meet on the roof. You two get out of here. Now!”

Stealthily, Rex slipped through the door he had forbidden us to cross, and disappeared.

The silence was even heavier now that he was gone, and my fearful breathing and André’s sniffing could be heard without effort.

The boy started walking in the same direction as Rex, and this time I was the one who stopped him. I didn’t want him moving away from me.

“Rex told us to go the other way,” I reminded him.

“…but you’re right – what about my dad?” he said, and turned to look at me. In the semi-darkness of the corridor, his pupils were very dilated and his nostrils moved quickly. It was hard to see clearly, but I would swear he was wrinkling his muzzle in spasmodic intervals. “What if he beat the lion, Han? What if he needs help to get out? We can’t leave him there. My dad wouldn’t leave anyone behind… he could be hurt, he could be dying!”

The wolf-boy whimpered in his canine language that was almost crying, and I felt terrible.

–

I struggled for a moment between remorse and relief remorse because coming into the

workshop had been a mistake (given the circumstances), and relief because Alexander

273

Chapter 110 2

wasn’t dead.

But it was painful to understand that we had all been wrong: the silence wasn’t a sign that anything had ended, but the eye of the hurricane.

“Maybe I will. Or I could wait for your friends to show up and have a real feast,” Haydar laughed; he sounded confident.

Too confident.

His voice was terrifyingly smooth.

“They’ll be too many even for you.”

Alexander’s reply sounded even weaker, but his enemy’s sarcastic laugh was darker and more

morbid.

André shifted in my arms; I held him lighter against my body (though he was small for his age, he was quite strong- his father’s inheritance was very powerful in him), and I peeked again over the tarp covering the beams behind which we were hiding.

I wanted to see the damn Haydar, to know where he was,

His footsteps could be heard; the silence of the turned-off machines recognized only Alexander’s snorts and maybe the beating of my own heart, which sounded in my ears like the pounding of a drum.

André stopped struggling against me and hugged me, hiding in my chest.

I know he would have wanted to do something to help, but he was just a child. There wasn’t

much he could do there.

It wasn’t like when he knocked down Álvaro Inside a cage,

The lion entered my field of vision and my breath caught in my throat.

After everything I had seen in the last days after the werewolves, the tiger-man, the panther, and Sheriff McCord that being startled me more than any of them.

Commento

LUCK DRAW >

M