I am Wolf (The Wolfboy Chronicles) (17 page)

Catalina was thrown on the cold floor, then I heard
the sound of a door closing and being locked.

“Are you okay?” Caspian’s voice penetrated my mind like knives and
pulled me back.

“You were gone for a few minutes,” he continued.

I opened my eyes and stared at Caspian. “I saw her. I
saw her being taken away and I felt her, I felt her pain. She is somewhere
close. I can feel it.”

“Your connection to her is very strong,” Caspian said.
“You even feel her emotions. That’s very rare.”

“I feel what she feels, I hear her thoughts, I see
what she has been going through, I just don’t know what is real and what is
not. I don’t know if it is too late, if she is already dead.”

Caspian sighed. “Well, we better get going, then. You
found her track, so now we follow it. Can you say anything about where they
took her?”

I shook my head. “They blindfolded her so she didn’t
see anything. But I did hear gravel and a big gate. Plus they dragged her up
some stairs before she was inside somewhere. It sounded like it was a big
building. I can still smell her. It is still coming from the south.”

“Well, then let’s follow her scent and walk south.”

A
fter
walking for about
half
an hour I sensed something again. It sort of popped into my head. It felt a
little like a headache, but soon evolved into a stream of pictures in my mind.
Pictures of Catalina in that dark room, shivering with fear. Then I heard her
voice, her thoughts. She was wondering, speculating about where she was and why
she was there. She had no idea how much time had passed, but she guessed it was
more than a day when the door to the room was finally opened and she heard
footsteps come closer. Someone grabbed her and dragged her body down what she
believed was a hallway.

She was put in a chair and someone spoke to her. I
recognized the voice of Officer Alexandru by its cruelty. His hands were on her
face and neck. His fingers wandered across her breasts. I was trembling with
fury.

“Why am I here?” she asked.

“Because I want you to be,” the officer said, his warm
breath on her face.

“I am hungry. I need to go to the bathroom,” Catalina
said.

A pain followed when she was slapped across the cheek.
I felt the burn on my cheek as well. Then I felt her strength rising in her.
She was determined not to let Alexandru break her. She didn’t want to give him
the pleasure.

Alexandru walked up behind her and put his hand on her
shoulder. I felt a shiver across my spine. His lips were close to her ear while
he spoke. “I know who you are,” he whispered.

“What do you mean?” she asked. “I demand to know what
I am doing here.”

A wave of pain rolled over Catalina as she was punched
in the stomach and lost her breath. She gasped for air. So did I. I bent over
and felt like throwing up. I felt Caspian’s arm on my shoulder. I fought hard
not to lose the vision, not to lose Catalina. I wanted to stay with her and
make sure she was alright. The images were flickering but soon returned.

“If you keep refusing to cooperate, Catalina, then you
leave me with no choice,” I heard Alexandru say. He sighed. “I’ll have to leave
you alone with my boys.”

“What do you want from me?” Catalina asked in a strong
voice.

“It’s not so much of a question about what I want as
it is a question about what you want. What do you want Catalina?”

“I want to go to the bathroom,” she answered.

A fist hit her in the face. She gasped in pain.

“Wrong answer,” Alexandru said.

There was a brief silence where Catalina in her mind
traveled back to her childhood memories, but not for long. It was mixed with
the voices from the room and a radio somewhere. Then a brutal slap knocked her
off the chair and onto the floor where she landed on her face. I jumped and
grabbed Caspian’s hand. He pulled me close and held me tight. I felt warm tears
streaming across my face while I heard strange voices pressing in on Catalina,
then someone pulled her up violently. Hands were on her body, touching her,
grabbing her. Then more fists hit her, voices blended with each other and she
could no longer understand what they were saying. Some were yelling, almost
screaming at her. She was paralyzed with fear and confusion while they pushed
and shoved her, beat her, and pulled off her blouse. She screamed for them to
stop and ‘no don’t do that,’ but soon gave it up. She didn’t know how much
longer she could hold her strength, how long she would be able to endure this.

Then as she felt herself drift in and out of
consciousness they suddenly left her alone on the cold floor. She heard steps,
then more voices this time very low, like whispering. Then there was a silence
and Catalina fought to keep awake, to not drift out of consciousness again.

Footsteps approached, then stopped right in front of
her. She heard Alexandru’s voice again and hands on her body helping her get to
her feet. She was put in the chair again and someone helped her get her blouse
back on.

“Now look what they did to you,” Alexandru exclaimed.
“We really don’t want that to happen again, do we?”

Catalina didn’t answer out of fear of his reaction.

“See I am your only friend here. I truly want to help
you. But I can’t stop those guys, if you don’t cooperate I can’t hold them
back. So why don’t we just start over. Let’s try again.”

Catalina felt his hand on her cheek as he wiped away a
tear.

“Let me get you some water,” he said and she heard him
walk across the floor. Then the footsteps returned. A small cup was pressed
against her lips. She drank greedily. It tasted of blood. Alexandru held the
cup while she drank. “Now that’s better, right?” he asked.

She nodded slowly.

“Good. Now let’s talk. See there are some things I
don’t quite understand, that I need you to explain to me. Your little boyfriend
who was with you in the barn. We thought he was just a nobody, so I told my
boys to just kill him right there on the spot. I asked them to shoot him.”

Catalina gasped and I felt the anxiety grow in her.
She feared for my life, just like I had feared for hers.

Alexandru laughed. “You want to hear something really
amusing?” he asked. “After you and I left the place they were all dead!”

Alexandru paused like he was waiting to see Catalina’s
reaction. I searched her thoughts and realized she thought I was dead. Her
heart was racing and she was fighting her tears.

“Well, all except your little boyfriend that is,”
Alexandru continued. “We found the bodies of everyone else but your little
boyfriend. Now isn’t that something?”

Catalina breathed in relief.

Alexandru laughed again. “The amazing part is they all
seemed to have been killed by some sort of animal. The locals think it was a
bear, but I’m not sure about that. What do you think it was, Catalina?”

She didn’t answer.

“Well it doesn’t matter what it is really,” Alexandru
continued. “But I am curious, though as to know how your little boyfriend,
what’s his name, Sami, how he managed to escape the animal when none of my boys
did. Now that’s the interesting part. I would really like to talk to him about
that.”

Catalina still didn’t say anything. I sensed how she
was wondering as well. She was thrilled I had escaped and it gave her some
hope.

Alexandru punched his fist in something, maybe a desk.
Catalina jumped.

“Where is he?!” he yelled.

“I ... I don’t know,” she stuttered. “I hardly know him.”

Another slap across her face followed. She was crying
now.

“Why are you keeping me here? I don’t know anything
about him. He was just helping me. I had never met him before in my life.
Please let me go.”

Alexandru laughed even louder this time. “Oh I’m not
going to let you go. I’m going to have some fun with you,” he said. Then he
leaned over. She could feel his breath on her face. “Lots of fun,” he
whispered.

Then she felt another pain as she was punched again
and she finally lost consciousness completely.

I opened my eyes and stared at Caspian who was holding me. I gasped for
air, my heart was pounding in my chest. Then I leaned on him and started
crying.

“We’ll find her,” Caspian whispered while holding me
tight. His voice was thick and I sensed he was fighting his tears as well.

“We have to find her,” he repeated. “We have to.”

"T
ry and see if
there is anything in what you have seen that
can bring us closer to where they are keeping her,” Caspian said as we later
stopped for a break.

I was completely worn out from the visions, mentally
drained and exhausted.

I shook my head. “I can’t see anything. I only see and
hear what she does and she is blindfolded.”

“Her scent is getting stronger the further south we
walk,” Caspian said. “But it would help if we knew what we were looking for. If
the tracks go into Bucharest it could be days before we find her. Big cities
can be confusing for your senses. There will be so many other scents that blur
it. It can be hard to discern Catalina’s scent from all the others. It clouds
your senses, so to speak.”

I nodded heavily. Caspian looked at me, then put his
arm around my shoulder.

“Do you think these visions are recent?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” I answered. “They are not from today,
they are from back when we were first separated from each other. A lot can have
happened to her since then.”

“But you said this Officer Alexandru said he wanted to
keep her there?”

“In the last vision he told her he wanted to keep her,
yes. But I don’t know if he has.”

“Of course not. But right now all we can do is follow
the tracks. We need to find this place where they took her. She might still be
there. Weren’t you also interrogated by this Alexandru?”

“I was. At the police-station in Cluj-Napoca. They
caught me up there and apparently he came there to interrogate me. He must have
been looking for me. He also asked Catalina about me in the vision. He wanted
to know where I was. I never knew what he wanted from me except he wanted to
know how I survived that day outside the barn when everyone else was killed.
The day you saved me and turned me into ... this.”

Caspian nodded. “I am wondering why he is so keen on
interrogating you and Catalina. What does he want with you?”

“I don’t know. But it worries me that he did tell Catalina
that he knew who she was,” I said and drank some water from a bottle Caspian
handed me.

“He did?” Caspian asked with surprise. “How could he
know? No humans know about the Wind-People. How could he possibly have known?”

I shrugged. “I have no idea.”

“Something is wrong, something is very wrong,” Caspian
said and got on his feet. “Come on, it’s sunset in just a few hours. We need to
get a little further before we find a forest to hunt. Afterwards, when full,
I’m certain we can run the last few miles as wolves and be in Bucharest in the
morning.”

Catalina’s scent brought us close to Bucharest, but we were happy to
realize it didn’t enter beyond the city walls. It stopped just outside and then
took a turn towards a small village just south of the capital. We hid in a
small bundle of trees while we watched the sunrise and we changed back to our
human form. We got dressed in a hurry and with full stomachs from a great night
hunting we began walking following the scent that to our luck became stronger and
stronger. We followed it into a small village with just maybe hundred houses
close to the Dâmbovița River that flowed through the city of Bucharest. We
drank from the sweet water, then filled our bottles before walking into the
village. We stopped the first woman we met on the road. She didn’t want to talk
to us, but Caspian managed to make her do it anyway using his charm and skills
of persuasion.