B0079G5GMK EBOK (27 page)

A rage started to grow inside of me. I banged my head lightly on the punching bag and my hands started automatically hitting the sides of the bag. I screamed from pain and hit the bag with all the strength I had. The chain that connected the bag to the ceiling clinked. I backed up, swung quickly and kicked the bag. I hit and kicked the bag like a maniac and imagined the bag was a prig social worker who put her nose in affairs that she didn't understand. She hadn't been here when Marie cried. She hadn't held my child when she c
ouldn't understand anything about
the surrounding world. She knew nothing.

Sweat was falling down my face, blurring my eyes. My shirt was soaking wet and the light cotton trousers I had were glued onto my legs. I punched and hit. Sped up and did it again and again. My legs were hurting and my knuckles were bloody, but I couldn't stop. Finally, I fell down on my knees, feeling empty. I put my arms around the abused bag and cried.

A sore sobbing convulsed my body and I whined quietly from the pain inside of me. Someone's gentle hands uncurled my fingers from the bag and surrounded me. I pressed my head against Adam's strong chest and buried myself deeper into his arms. He said nothing. He just held me close and lightly fondled my back. Not until my sobbing was over and I
was
sprawled numb and empty in his arms, did he start to whispe
r to me. His face was pressed against
my sweaty hair
, which he kissed
gently.

“Clarissa called David and he's on his way. It's alright now.”

I lifted my eyes and stared at Adam's black eyes. The tears started to fall again.

“Shh, beag eun, we'll find a way to stop them. Shh, easy now.”

I pressed my head back
in
to his arms and stayed there until David rushed to the room and convinced me to come back to the others.

Tiamhaidh was furious, like the rest of our pack. But his anger was so black that it floated above him like a dark cloud and radiated a killing rage. He hadn't said a word after he heard about the call. The others talked quietly, and it felt like a silent hum in my ears. I concentrated on Ti
amhaidh's mind. I had to back away
, fast, as his rage was so black it had polluted his mind completely. It reminded me of the madness I had seen once before. That madness had driven Gunward to kill and destroy people. It was a darkness without limits and I knew I had to flush it away from Tiamhaidh's mind. I squeezed David's hand quickly and got up. I kneeled in front of Tiamhaidh and tried to
make eye contact with him. H
owever,
he
stared at me with eyes that saw nothing but
only
burned with rage. I took his face between my hands and forced him to look at me. Very slowly, the understanding came back to his eyes and hate gave way to the pain. I waved at Adam, and he came closer to us. I grabbed Tiamhaidh's hands tightly. I forced him to get up and looked deep into his eyes.

“Run with me,” I whispered and he looked at me, confused.

I nodded at him gently, and started to pull him towards the door. With Adam's help, I managed to drag him to the door and push him out.

“Run with me,” I repeated
,
and with my eyes
,
begged my brothers to join us.

Gavin and Daniel took the hint and followed us out. We started to walk. Slowly, hand in hand, I walked with Tiamhaidh in our yard, as my brothers and Adam followed us. As my steps became one with his, I sped up. Tiamhaidh glanced at me, surprised, but sped up as well. Little by little I started to hasten my speed to a light jogging and then faster and faster to running, until I gave in and turned my
shape into a wolf's. I felt the men unconsciously follow
my example and we headed to the small path that took us to the fields between the woods.

Running together comforted us. It was as natural to us as breathing and I felt an enormous togetherness with the men. I knew they felt it, too. Our paws hit the mushy ground, leaving deep footprints behind us. My eyes registered the movement around us as the animals of the forest disappeared in front of us. This was not a hunting trip, but each one of the forest animals knew it could turn into one any minute. At this moment I just wanted to run our pain away. To clean and exhaust our bodies.

The woods turned into a field and the field turned into another forest. My paws were hurting and I had to force my muscles to move, but I knew it was not the time to stop. Not yet. But when a painful growl erupted from Tiamhaidh's mouth, I slowed down and stopped to join his howl. The birds from the thicket near us flew away and a lonely fox slipped into its groove, looking at us suspiciously. Five wolves lifted their snouts into the air and howled. The males' low howls accompanied mine, which were a bit softer, until our howls quie
ted down and were only an echo o
n the surfaces of the rocks before disappearing. 

I rubbed my snout on Tiamhaidh's fur and he licked my face gratefully. “Better?” I asked in my mind. He growled and revealed his teeth, grinning. I swished my tail and started to jog back home. I knew the others would follow, so I concentrated my mind on the smells of the forest and the hiding animals that pressed themselves tightly to their grooves as we went by. I might have felt like hunting, but I knew we had a lot to solve at home and now that Tiamhaidh was back to normal, I truly believed we could find a way to save Marie. It would not be easy, but together we were stronger and could do it.

Fear. What is it? I looked at David, who was preparing himself for the morning meeting. He
was trying
to decide whether to put his shirt inside his dark jeans or to let it be loose and hang informally. A sma
ll wrinkle between his eyes showed
how nervous he was. Adam had pra
ctically had to tie Tiamhaidh to
the chair, as he had stood outside our bedroom door
at
half past six in the morning, telling us he would come with us. I had said no and he had gone mad. Tiamhaidh, who usually never lost his temper, was terrified for Marie. Our pack had been up since eight and even Clarissa had crawled from her warm bed to join us. I was terrified, too. I couldn't believe that Marie's future lay in the hands of some strange social worker. There had to be a way we could keep her home. At least one last straw we could hang on to. The pressure inside our house seemed agonizing. Mathanan chopped the vegetables as if his life depended on how small he could make the pieces. And Ciall bustled around the soup stock, adding spices and herbs at random. Only Marie
was calmly sitting on the sofa
listening to her I-pod and smiling. She had no idea what was going to happen today.

I hugged Ciall lightly and he offered me his spoon. I lifted my brows when the taste of the savory stock filled my senses.

“Heavenly,” I smiled and covertly moved the salt further away from Ciall.

Tiamhaidh sulked on the lounger and Adam stared strictly at the sulking Tiamhaidh. We all knew Tiamhaidh might come after us, but I had prepared for that and asked my brothers and Adam to keep an eye on him. He had no chance of slipping through their hands. Well, not without hurting them seriously and I didn't think he was ready to do that.

I sat on the armrest of Tiamhaidh's lounger and put my arms around his stiff body. Adam glanced at me, as Tiamhaidh's hands formed fists. I refused to move. I pressed my head against his head and gently sniffed his cheek.

“The best you can do is to stay here, mo cáraid,” I whispered softly.

Tiamhaidh didn't give in
an inch, so I pressed my nose on
his warm cheek and closed my eyes.

“You're not helping her by doing this. Not now. You have to let us fight this fight for you.”

“And
if you lose,” Tiamhaidh grunted
hoarsely.

I trembled and opened my eyes. I stared at his cold blue eyes, but didn't look away. Not even when I felt the lust for murder that vibrated from him.

“Then we'll figure something else out,” I said and got up.

Tiamhaidh nodded slowly and I turned to leave. I glanc
ed at the watch. Almost an hour
before the meeting would start. I climbed the steps upstairs and shut the door to our bedroom. I leaned my head against the wall and let my shoulders crash down. I needed this. A small, stolen moment for myself. I closed my mind, closing myself off from the surrounding world, ignoring the grumbles of my pack that threatened to fill my mind. Easy, I ordered myself and emptied my head. This was the most important day of my life. I needed to get those social workers to believe that I, too, was a human. A mother who could take care of her child.

I looked at my image in the mirror. Washed-out jeans that stuck
to my thighs. A deep red tunic
that revealed a bit of my body, and its neck that showed a bit of my soft breasts. Maybe too much. My golden brown hair flowed long down my back, hiding my big earrings. My lips were maybe too red and the jewel on my neck screamed for someone to touch it. Not good, I noticed, and backed a little.

“Not good at all,” I said out loud.

I opened my wardrobe and started to throw the clothes on my bed like a maniac. If the dress looked too conventional, I threw it to the chair next to the bed. If not, it ended up on the already too high mountain of clothes on the floor. Eventually, I decided to wear a chocolate brown dress. It fit my body as well, but not too much. It left my arms bare and I put on a couple of thin bracelets on my left wrist. I changed my necklace, too, and put a simple silver chain
with a beautiful glass heart on
my neck. The hem of the dress went barely below my knees so I decided to put on some dark brown, practical mocha boots. Finally, I draped a thin dark brown silk chain on my waist and tied it into a beautiful bow. I looked at the mirror again, and tried to be objective.

I sighed deeply and sank to the bed. What was I doing? I couldn't fool them. They would see right through me and take Marie away from us. I was a good mother. I just didn't know how to convince those small minded office ladies. David was a perfect dad; no one could deny that. But he was away a lot, so they probably wouldn't believe he was capable of taking care of a child this ill. I laughed nervously. What would those matrons say if we tried to convince them how well a wolf pack could take care of Marie? Oh, God! What a mess. I pressed my head to my hands and didn't want to move when I heard David calling me. I had to, though, so I scuffled downstairs.

When I came down, everyone went silent. Gavin whistled quietly, and Clarissa stared at me, stunned.

“I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen this happen,” Adam joked and smiled boldly.

I scowled at him and put my boots on. Tiamhaidh stared out of the window, and didn't even glance at me. I wanted to hug and assure him that everything would go well, but I couldn't. What if it didn't turn out to be good? I couldn't even think about that. I just tried to survive minute by minute. Adam stood up and stretched lazily. His dark eyes stared at me, and I was sure he knew exactly what was on my mind.

“Don't worry. You'll look
like a perfect mom,” Adam said
gently.

“She is a perfect mom,” David said absentmindedly, before he disappeared through the door.

Adam held me in his arms and held me tight. He pressed his lips on my forehead and whispered. “A word and we'll come with you.”

“Thank you,” I whispered, moved. “But this one I'll have to do alone with David.”

I glanced at my pack and smiled encouragingly. Then I stepped outside, sighed, and shuffled into the car that David had driven out front.

We walked into
the
lobby of the city hall
and I felt a pressing horror inside of me. The lobby felt revolting and the people
seemed cold and
mock
ing
. David pressed my hand encouragingly. A familiar social worker came to us and shook our hands. Her hand was baggy and felt like a wet rag. I had to restrain myself not to pull my hand away. She avoided our eyes and led us to the conference room. There sat two soci
al workers and two other people
I had never seen before. No one said a word. We sat on the chairs that were pointed out to
us and waited. A social worker
who
was sitting
far from us, started to speak in a mild voice. She explained our situation to us and every cell in me screamed. She was a liar. David interrupted her a lot, but he was quickly silenced. The meeting was over before we knew it. They would transfer Marie into the retarded institution within a week. They said that there were a lot of teenagers in that institution who had a similar situation as Marie. We could see her on
the
weekends, if her condition would allow that, but otherwise the institution was closed to outsiders.

“This is for Marie's best,” a mouse-grey, young social worker said and looked at us sympathetically.

“And what if we don't agree?” I asked and challenged each of the social workers with my eyes.