The Wolf Came on Christmas (Johanna and Alexander) novel Chapter 112

Chapter 112-1

The first thing that was heard was the lion’s growl, more guttural and broken, very different from the werewolf’s, which crawled across the floor. The swift shadow of the beast leapt over the inactive machines and threw itself at Alexander with a cry half roar, half human voice. The wolf received him against his chest, just as Rex had once stopped Álvaro, and they fell together, fighting savagely. They moved out of my field of vision, although it was very clear they were rolling on the cement floor brutally, throwing punches, bites, and claw strikes. The air soon filled with flying fur, the most visible trace of their fight. Standing up to keep watching would have been a major mistake; the sounds of their confrontation reached me, and that was enough to feel fear.

“YOU’RE ALREADY DEAD, DOG!” Haydar’s harsh voice thundered in the whirlwind of roars.

I shuddered and wondered what had happened to the weapon. Why wasn’t Alexander going

for it?

Or the lion, for that matter, who was clearly already at some kind of disadvantage. If either of them had had the chance to reach the gun first, they could have ended everything in an instant… I assumed they weren’t doing it because both were too alienated within their own battle to remember there was another way out.

I tried to close my eyes while a part of me prayed like never before in the last two years, begging Heaven for everything to end soon and that we wouldn’t have to mourn a tragedy. I stroked the child’s back, his fur cold and matted with sweat and dampness, feeling strange. I searched for his eyes, fearful. Andre was still looking toward his father’s fight as if absent, too focused on what he was doing for me to realize that he wasn’t paying attention to the battle, but to something else:

“…Han, there’s someone else there,” he whispered to me, his tone barely audible. “I just saw yellow eyes shining in the dark!”

He pointed with his extended finger toward an undefined spot among the machinery several meters away. I knelt to see better. Yellow eyes. Álvaro? No, please, it couldn’t be-again, him, NO! I don’t know exactly at what moment I started trembling again.

“Where? Andre, are you sure?” I asked just as quietly.

“Yes! There he is again! You have to leave, Han! It’s another cat! His eyes! His eyes shine!”

He pulled away from me and pushed me hard, trying to make me stand up.

“Andre, stop! You have to come with me! What are you doing?” I scolded him, grabbing him by the arms to make him react. “Calm down, Andre, please! I’m not going to leave you here!”

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“JOHANNA!”

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That was Alexander’s roar. Without realizing what I was doing while speaking to the boy, in the frenzy and desperation of the moment, it seemed I stood up and maybe spoke too loudly. When I turned toward the werewolf’s voice, I discovered that Haydar was coming straight toward me.

“I’M GOING TO TEAR YOUR LITTLE WOMAN TO PIECES!” the lion threatened in a roar.

He was deranged with hatred, his jaws open as if he planned to swallow me whole in one

bite.

That brutal image was enough to leave me without will. Those silver eyes fixed on me and those enormous, shining claws, bare at the tips of his fingers. Something crossed my mind, a very foolish and fleeting thought: my mother telling me I had to be an obedient girl, and my father explaining how to load a rifle. My life, in an instant? I don’t know. I’m only sure that I reacted when Andre pushed me; I let out a choked scream and the first thing I did was grab the boy by the wrist to run away with him-but then…

Another very

fast shadow appeared from the right. Swift as lightning.

It had to be the other feline Andre had detected, and it was clear it wasn’t Álvaro. The being fell upon the lion milliseconds before he closed the distance that separated him from me with a powerful leap. The being who intercepted him was somewhat smaller, but visibly more agile than a lion, and the roar from his throat sounded very similar to Álvaro’s hisses. That sound sent a chill down my spine, and I think for half a second I feared that the panther had escaped from the cage instead of dying.

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Desperate, I looked both ways along the road, and to my right I saw the staircase Rex had mentioned, the one that led to the roof. Andre hid his face in my shoulder; I clearly felt the cold of his wet canine nose against my neck while the boy cried silently. I assumed it was best to let him cry and release all the nervousness and frustration. I couldn’t control my own tears either, the cold cut at my cheeks and I was very poorly dressed to spend a night outdoors. I clenched my teeth, furious with myself. I was an idiot, and I couldn’t stop telling myself so.

What if, because of me, because of my own recklessness, Alexander had been injured-or killed?

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5 Chapter 112-2

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I would never forgive myself for something like that. I ran toward the staircase, unable to see another way out, and climbed step after step as fast as I could, even though I carried the weight of the wolf-child, my own weight, and all the fatigue and muscle pain that threatened not to let me take another step. I reached the terrace almost without strength and found the snowy roof and the helipad perfectly marked with red emergency lights. All the large factories and important buildings in Fremont County had helipads on their roofs, for emergencies such as road collapses or monstrous snowfalls like the ones from the first year I spent in those silent mountains.

I ran to the edge of the building to see the front parking lot of the sawmill and noticed the lights of a vehicle near the entrance gate. It was far away and the light didn’t reveal much about the shape of the car, but it seemed to me it was a truck. A flash of hope shook my body. I wished with all my strength that the shadow that mysteriously leapt onto Haydar had been Luke.

Because it could be him, right? If Rex had managed to speak with the rest of the team, and they were with Sheriff McCord and his wife, wasn’t it likely that he had arrived at the scene earlier, much earlier than the rescue team?

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