I’d only ever used our special 911 emergency code twice, once when Zander dumped me in seventh grade, and now. Leah would know this was not a drill and to drop everything and get over here.
I paced my bathroom for five minutes wondering if my bike was still out front and if I should go to the ER and get a rabies shot. I was three seconds from calling the sheriff to report a rabid pack of wolves when Leah banged on the bathroom door.
“It’s me!” she whisper-screamed.
My mom must have let her in. That, or she used the code, which she’d known since we were eight years old.
I opened the bathroom door and my bestie grabbed her mouth to stifle a scream as her gaze raked over my appearance.
“I know,” I whimpered.
Her eyes flicked to the crusting bite mark on my arm, and then my hair, and then all over. “Were you attacked by a bear?” She stepped into the bathroom and closed the door behind her.
I shook my head. “Close. A wolf.”
Her green eyes widened. “Like for real? Because I was kidding.”
I gave her a closer look at my arm, which held a u-shaped bite mark with crusted red scabs.
She sucked in a breath. “Coming back from work last night?”
I nodded. “Did you see my bike outside when you came in?”
She shook her head. “But I wasn’t really paying attention. You should tell your mom, get stitches and a rabies shot or something.”
I winced. For some reason I didn’t want to tell anyone else. It was such a weird incident I wasn’t even sure I believed it.
“Let me take a quick shower and then we can see if my bike is still there,” I told her.
Leah chewed on her lip. “What if it gets infected?”
I remembered the grey wolf licking my wound and nodded. “I’ll get antibiotic ointment.”
It was already healing, which was weird. I’d have sworn by the amount of pain I was in last night that he’d bitten down to my bone. But I was a wuss when it came to pain, so maybe it wasn’t as bad as I’d thought.
Ten minutes later I was clean, had rubbed an entire tube of Neosporin on my wound, and wrapped it in gauze.
A few minutes passed and I’d inhaled some scrambled eggs, grabbed my backpack for class, and Leah and I were headed out the door.
“What are you doing?” I peered over Leah’s shoulder because she was glued to her phone, which was very unlike her.
Leah, my beloved brown-haired five-foot-one bestest of best friends, was a conspiracy theorist. She preferred the nametruther, but I was saving that title for when she actually proved to me that sasquatch were real. Leah hated technology and swore the government was spying on her. Her Twitter account had over 100K followers. That’s right, over 100,000 people believed that sasquatch were real.
I read her phone over her shoulder:What are the symptoms of rabies?
“Hey!” I smacked her arm.
She shrugged. “Just looking out for you.”
My bike wasn’t out front. I frowned, hoping it hadn’t been stolen. Maybe I was too dazed to lock it up last night. We walked the few blocks to the hospital and my heart sank when I didn’t see my bike on the path either. There was dried blood however, which reminded me of my stupid idea to run into the woods and investigate. I also noticed the black tire mark where I had skidded to a stop.
Leah gasped. “What if a sasquatch bit you?”
I frowned. “Leah, I was conscious the entire time. It was a wolf. An entire pack actually.”
She raised one eyebrow and then pointed to the woods. “Your bike.”
I followed her gaze and saw the glimmer of red metal. Racing forward, I trudged through the brambles to get to it. It was in perfect condition, just knocked over. To hide it? So it wouldn’t get stolen? Then how did I get home? Maybe I was in such a daze I ditched my bike and walked…
