My eyes shoot up to a familiar face, tears suddenly flowing. “Daniel.”
“It’s okay, I am here,” he says, leading me to the bench nearby and forcing me to sit down.
“How,” I pause. “They… Tulip.”
“I know,” Daniel says quietly. “Maddox linked me and told me to come here immediately.” His expression grows darker. “You don’t need to explain yourself.”
I grab him by his coat. “Please,” I beg. “Tulip.”
“I got you. That’s why I am here,” he reassures. He grabs his bag, which I hadn’t noticed before, carefully approaching Tulip. He makes sure not to make any rushed movements and instead talks to him calmly while starting to look him over. The gentleness with which he treats Tulip finally makes my body calm down from its panic, but instead, I am gripped by cold fear.
Tulip has stopped his erratic breathing, but now his breaths are shallow. His eyes don’t look panicked anymore, but just… dull.
“No,” I mutter, finally managing to get up and wobble towards him. I fall down on my knees next to him and rest my hands on his neck. He seems to notice me, snorting shortly, but otherwise, he doesn’t move.
The minutes drip by in which Daniel doesn’t utter a word.
That’s bad.
It’s bad, isn’t it?
Daniel checks Tulip over another time, before pulling back and taking my hand.
“Two of his legs are broken,” Daniel says quietly. “There is extensive damage. With one broken leg, I could maybe… I could try to help him, but with two…” he pauses. “He is old, and the extensive stress from tonight probably wasn’t good for his heart.”
He doesn’t need to say more. One broken leg could easily be a death sentence for a horse, but there is no recovery from two broken legs. I cried before, but now new tears fill my eyes. I putTulip’s head in my lap, gently stroking it. My oldest friend and I have to let him go because I hurt the guy’s ego.
The minutes pass by, with me just holding him while one of Daniel’s assistants arrives. She brings more equipment and talks with Daniel, but I don’t quite hear them. I just notice how she checks Tulip over as well. Then someone else on his team arrives, but stays in the background. They inject Tulip with an anesthetic.
Dad got him for me when I was just a little kid. He was supposed to be a racing horse, but didn’t have the correct anatomy for it. He had a weak heart and, overall, not the right mindset. Dad saved him, and I fell in love with him at first sight. Pets on pack grounds are unusual, but the alpha made an exception for Dad because of the many ways he helped the pack.
I learned so much from Tulip.
I was hoping for some more years with him, in which he could enjoy his last days with me, but now he has to leave like this, after a cruel chase that terrified him to his core.
Daniel takes my hand again. “Gwen,” he says quietly. “We can wait a bit longer, if you need more time.”
By now, the sun has risen and is far up in the sky. What’s the time? I don’t know, but hours must have passed without me noticing.
“No,” I mutter, resting my forehead against Tulip’s neck. “I don’t want him to suffer any longer.”
I keep whispering goodbyes to him while Daniel injects him with a lethal dose of the anesthetic. Tulip’s breathing becomes slower, as if he is just sleeping, then his whole body is completely still all of a sudden.
Deafening silence engulfs me. Tulip is gone, and I can’t grasp why or how it happened. It seems my mind can’t catch up. All because a group of arrogant little shits wanted to teach me a lesson?
Just because they wanted to hurt me? Did they plan on an accident, or did they just want to terrify me to prove to me that I am a wolfless, little lowlife?
Why did my innocent, gentle giant need to get pulled into this? He died because of them!
My body starts shaking again as the realization settles in that my oldest friend just passed away, and that he will never again greet me with his neighing or grunt at me when he wants an apple or a carrot. He will never rub his nose against my shoulder and huff into my hair.
I will never feel the wind in my face again, and that sense of freedom, while riding on his back.
Daniel gently moves me away from Tulip while his assistant pulls a larger blanket over him. “They are going to take him away,” he says quietly. “I am so sorry, Gwen, so sorry. I wish I could have done something to help him.”
My lips tremble, my throat burns.
“Come here, Gwen.” He pulls me into a hug, holding me while I cry into his chest.
