Hope

Everything feels like a whirlwind.

Trucks arrive to take groups back to our territory, some choosing to take the trucks and others shift back into their beast forms and run back into the woods.

The battle blurs into the ride, the ride blurs into the road back to the Lotus pack, and the world outside the truck window becomes nothing more than streaks of green and gray. Time stretches and snaps as a thread pulled too tight. If I try to pinpoint when the fear finally loosens its grip on my chest, I can’t. I only know that somewhere between the last echo of claws on stone and the...