- Repair, - still chuckling, the werewolf spread his hands, - yes, this is the case. Noisy!

“Very,” I nodded seriously, expecting that Oleg would just stop laughing and say that he had exposed me.

Just a little more, and he will grab me, saying some nasty things, and drag me back to the community, where they will erase my memory again. Or even worse. But Oleg, with his further actions, brought me into a real stupor.

“Since everything is in order, I don’t dare to detain you anymore,” continuing to smile, the man walked towards his apartment, turning to me over his shoulder in front of the door. – Be careful with repairs, Maria .

The intonation with which he pronounced my false name left no doubt - he understood everything. And about the return of memory, and about the awakened wolf. And why didn't you get it? Why did he leave?!

The wolf inside stirred anxiously, bringing me to my senses. Quickly slamming the door and closing it with all the locks with trembling hands, I slowly slid down to the floor, leaning back against the wall.

Maybe Oleg just followed Igor? To capture me along with my brother? Silly, of course, he can easily cope with me alone, but what if? I have no idea about the rules for looking after the banished. I only know that they keep an eye on all those exiled, without exception, in order to avoid their relapses. But what kind of relapse can be expected from me? That I will rush to look for Arthur and demand to declare me his couple? Brad some in the head climbs! However, this is exactly what I want to do...

No, most likely, Oleg is now contacting the leader in order to receive instructions on further actions regarding me. So, they say, and so, I remembered everything and spread ...

The she-wolf pretended to faint, diligently shaking her hind legs, pretending that these were convulsions. A thought flashed through me and now I’ll fall apart on the floor, but I’m afraid that this won’t help me in any way.

Run? The she-wolf opened one eye, but again returned to the imitation of unconsciousness. She is right! Nowhere. You can, of course, try, but it is doomed to failure in advance. Firstly, all my money, inheritance, and so on - all this is a cartoon. A legend, just for everything! After all, there were no dead parents, to whom I went to the cemetery in the hope of feeling at least some semblance of kindred feelings and trying to regain my memory. It was all made up specifically for my oblivious personality. The money is actually transferred from the community budget, and as soon as I leave, I will be left without a livelihood. I have almost no cash, and what I have is enough for a maximum of a month, and even then, with a very economical approach. But all the same, I won’t be able to run, because, secondly, they won’t let me go far. Igor and Oleg in the pack were in good standing, so no chance here. They'll catch up. And what is left for me? To sit here and wait for the arrival of these punishers? Obscurantism!

And suddenly, it worked out? I understand that there is almost no hope, but suddenly Oleg believed in my nonsense about repairs? And before that, did not feel the change of hypostasis? And no one will come to me, and in vain I'm panicking now. Therefore, Oleg did not touch me. Yeah. And he laughed, probably because he remembered a funny anecdote! And he called me Maria with indescribable intonations just like that!

Having risen from the floor, and walking along the hallway, I almost stumbled when I saw my reflection in the miraculously survived mirror. My heart skipped a few beats, my breath hitched as if from a blow, and a cold sweat broke through my body. This is the end. Then only a blind man would not understand that I was throwing myself at night. My eyes were now wolf! In the literal sense of the word! With an elongated pupil. Hoping that they have just changed when I was left alone would be the height of stupidity. The thing is really bad. Apparently, my attempts to spread still yielded results. But neither I nor the she-wolf had any joy about this at all.

Chapter 3

One wolf, and even the one in the bush howls hungry,

or problems with solving problems.

For almost a week now I have not left the apartment in anticipation of reprisals. But she was not and was not! I shuddered at every rustle in the stairwell. She froze if she heard the elevator open on the floor, or the doors of neighboring apartments slammed. Every time, accidentally looking out the window and noticing a car approaching my front door, I was horrified to expect a knock at the door. Or that this very door will simply be demolished from its hinges. But, contrary to all my fears, nothing like that happened. Every day the waiting became more and more unbearable. Our nerves with the she-wolf frankly could not stand the strain. It is rightly said that the expectation of punishment is sometimes worse than the punishment itself!

Trying to reason logically, I found only two reasons for the inaction of the leader. Either he was not informed about the metamorphoses that were happening to me, which is unlikely, of course, but possible. Or the leader simply does not see me as such a threat that needs to be eliminated immediately. There was also a third option, that Arseniy could leave the pack on some business of his own, and he would take care of me a little later, when he returned to the community. This answer made me very nervous, but it was quite similar to the truth. A crazy assumption that Oleg really didn’t notice anything, and that I’m winding myself up in vain - once again swept aside. He is far from stupid, and he has a lot of experience. And the vision is excellent. And he could not fail to notice my vertical pupils, which distinguish wolves from ordinary wolves.

And I would have continued to sit in the apartment, going crazy with horror, if the food had not run out. All. I even ate semolina porridge (which I boiled with difficulty, managing to burn most of it), although I never ate it. Since childhood, I can not stand it! And it's a miracle that I even had a bag with this cereal at home. But everything comes to an end, and when this morning met me with an absolute absence of any edible products, I faced a difficult choice.

In fact, everything was quite simple - I had to go to the store. But the thought that I would not have time to leave the apartment, as they would grab me and drag me to the leader, did not give me rest. And like the mind I understand that this is very stupid! Well, if nothing has been done to me so far, then it is unlikely that something will happen or go wrong with a simple trip to the store! But my heart clenched anxiously at the thought of going out into the street.

When my stomach once again rumbled throughout the apartment, and the she-wolf defiantly began to probe her ribs for excessive thinness, I realized that it was pointless to pull any further. Pulling on denim shorts and a T-shirt, she slipped a bank card into her pocket, took one last look at herself in the mirror to make sure her pupils were normal and found nothing unusual in her appearance, sighed and headed for the exit.

The clicks of the lock on the door were unbearably loud, echoing down the landing. The keys that fell out of trembling hands several times while I was trying to close the door of my apartment did not give optimism either. It seemed that at any moment Oleg would jump out of the apartment opposite and grab me, laughing at the remnants of my hope that there would be no punishment.

Contrary to all my reasoning, I went out into the street without incident. Except for the yard cat that slipped through the entrance door I opened, which scared me out of my wits and made me squeal. Nerves to hell! Since I still got out of the apartment, I need to go to the pharmacy, buy myself something sedative. Otherwise, it’s not the leader who will kill me, but I myself will bring myself to a heart attack, being afraid of everything around. I wonder if nineteen-year-olds have heart attacks at all? However, I'm a werewolf! Initiated, moreover. My regeneration should be at the level, so you don’t have to worry. Yeah, I can shy away from everything until the end of my life and not worry about the state of the cardiovascular system. What a charm!

It didn't take long for me to shop, so about an hour later I was back at my house, loaded down with two heavy packages. Usually I buy products at a minimum, but now the situation is a little different. I wanted to treat myself to delicious treats, otherwise all of a sudden wolf-dogs led by the leader will come after me. I will arrange a feast during the plague, in case there is no other opportunity. Well, on the other hand, if they don’t come to my soul, I won’t have to go to the store in the near future. Leaving home is really scary. And with my mind I understand that the apartment belongs to the community, and that this is not a shelter, but rather a cage, but I can’t help myself.

This trip to the store ended well. I calmly reached the apartment, just as, almost without flinching, I ate normally. My next grocery shopping trip, a week later, also went smoothly. And after another month of a kind of silence, as I mentally christened the inaction of the leader in relation to me, I was able to almost completely regain my peace of mind.

I was even able to put things in relative order at home. To be more precise, I simply dragged everything that had fallen into disrepair from the paws, teeth and claws of the she-wolf into a separate room, leaving it to lie on the floor in a burning pile. The thought of throwing it all in the street trash - brushed aside almost immediately, as she visited my head. Firstly, I barely dragged all this rubbish into one room, spending almost two days on it. If now I have to rake and drag it to the street again, I definitely won’t be able to do it alone. And secondly, as I can modestly assume, Oleg and Igor really did not understand what happened to me. How else can you explain their inaction? They still follow me, I'm sure, because I periodically see them on the street when I go out, or I accidentally notice them in stores. But the guards do not know about the restoration of my memory and initiation. As for my pupils, they probably really changed after Oleg left that day. And the torn walls and floor - who knows, maybe it actually looks like the beginning of repairs. Or I was lucky, and Oleg did not look much at the situation in my apartment. But, if I start to pull out the remnants of furniture with clear claw marks in the trash, then I will definitely set myself up. And I don't need it at all.

This continued until the very beginning of August. I finally stopped being afraid and calmly left the house not only for shopping, but also just for a walk in the park. The guards were almost always discreetly, as they thought, watching me. But there were times when they were definitely not around. With what it was connected - I will not put my mind to it! But, most likely, they simply sometimes neglected their duties of monitoring my modest person. I understood them a little - the point is to follow an exile twenty-four hours a day, who not only, in their opinion, will never become a she-wolf, but also remembers absolutely nothing about werewolves. And so I reconciled with their presence, and even when I came across one of the brothers face to face, I no longer shuddered, as before. Why give them another reason to think about the reasons for my nervousness?