Lone Girl (The Wolfling Saga) (14 page)

The townhouse was nice, light and airy. My father always did enjoy modern décor and simplicity. My mother, on the other hand, had always filled every surface with doilies, picture frames, ornaments or other useless clutter.

“Don’t be silly. You can sleep in my room. I don’t mind,” said my father, running a hand through his thinning hair.

I rolled my eyes. “You have work in the morning and a bad back.”

He frowned, a crease forming on his brow. “You’ve just left hospital and you need your rest-”

“I’ve rested long enough,” I interrupted.

He rolled his eyes and sighed. “All right. I guess I’ll order you a bed online while I’m at work. Hopefully we can get it delivered by tomorrow.”

Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad living with my father, at least for a couple of weeks until things settled down.

“How long can I stay for?” I asked.

My father gave me a puzzled look. “Are you eager to leave already?”

I shrugged. “I dunno.
I don’t want to cramp your new lifestyle.”

My father approached
cleared his throat and didn’t look at me. “You will always have a home with me.”

“Thanks.” My chest felt tight. My father wasn’t usually one to express emotions – but I supposed these last few weeks had been hard on him.  He’d been awfully clingy and fragile during my time at the hospital. I’d barely had a moment’s privacy.

“Just … don’t go running off again, okay?”

“I won’t,” I said.

“I mean it.”

“I know.”

“I don’t know what I’d do if-” he trailed off.

A prolonged silence stretched between us. I shuffled my feet anxiously. 

“I have to move out some time.”

“There’s no rush.”

I felt differently, of course. There
was
a rush. I needed to go to Alaska.
Soon
.

I yearned for a sense of belonging. I’d felt that when I was with Tom, but he had f
led. Perhaps I’d feel at home there. There was only one way to find out.

Pulling away my father looked into my eyes.
“I know you don’t want to be here, Rose. But just make a go of it, okay? We can enrol you in the local high school, find you a job. You might even make some new friends.”

Fear prickled at
the back of my neck making the tiny hairs stand up. The thought of going back to school terrified me.

“With this stink?” I plucked at my t-shirt. “I don’t think so.”

My father ignored the remark.
“Now, I have to go to work tomorrow, but if you don’t want to be alone I can call in and-”

“Don’t be stupid,” I waved a hand and avoided eye contact with him. “I’ll be fine on my own.”

He checked the calendar on his cell-phone momentarily, frowning. “Hm … have you thought about what you – what we are going to do in six days’ time?”

“Huh?” I looked at the date. “Oh. No … I hadn’t thought-”

“It’s fine. Don’t worry about it. Forget I said it. I’ll work something out.”

I didn’t much like the idea of transforming in my father’s town-house – not with so many tenants close by. There would be no basement or cement walls to block out my screams.

“Perhaps we can rent a – a cell, or a dungeon or-” my father began to suggest before I let out a snort of laughter. “What?”

“I think if you G
oogle ‘dungeon rentals’ you’ll get a little more than you bargained for.”

My father’s ears burned pink. “You know what I mean. Like, an abandoned warehouse, or-”

My stomach did an uncomfortable backflip. Abandoned warehouse, like the place where Tom had left me.

“I’ll … I’ll do some research,” I said, looking at my feet.

Monday
– 5 days to go

  Daytime television was so boring. I sat on my father’s white leather sofa, eating chips, my feet on the coffee table and the remote in my hand. I flicked channels rapidly. A cooking show, a documentary on whales and a soap-opera were not viable options.

“Ugh.” I turned the television off and looked at the clock on the mantelpiece. It was only mid-day and I was bored out of my mind. I’d barely been at my father’s house for twenty-four hours and already I was crawling out of my skin.

I needed a distraction – something -
anything
to take my mind off the prickling pain in my heart.

Stuffing the last of the chips into my mouth I hopped up from the now crumb-infested sofa and marched into my father’s office. I crossed the room and sat at his desk, opening his laptop and booting it up.

Password protected.
Typical
.

I looked around the room for ideas for a moment before typing in my father’s birthday. No luck.

I clicked the ‘hint’ icon.

My favo
rite person.

I rolled my eyes. That was obvious. My father loved John Lennon, so I typed that in.

Password rejected.

“What? No way.” I tried a number of different combinations.

JLennon. JohnL. Lennon. Beatles.
None worked.

I leaned back in the chair and stared at the login screen for a few moments
. My eyes wandered across my father’s desk, falling on a small framed picture of me when I was a little girl. This time I typed in my own name.

The welcome screen evaporated to reveal my father’s desktop; a
nother picture of me as a small child a few months before the attack. My smile was radiant and my eyes still had a glint of hope.

I felt an overwhelming surge of affection for my father at that moment, but it was alm
ost instantly replaced by guilt.

After searching Google for “cell rentals” and finding nothing but cell-phones and pornography
I spent the remainder of the day looking at funny cat videos online – until my father came home announcing that I would have my own bed by tomorrow. I didn’t have the heart to tell him it had probably been a waste of money.

Thursday
– 2 days to go

My father was becoming frantic. It was only two days until my transformation was due and we hadn’t found anywhere suitable for me to go. We’d thought of everything. Abandoned warehouses, jail cells, attics and basements had all been considered. It wasn’t until ten o’clock on Thursday night that my father came skidding into the living room, cell phone clutched in his hand with a grin on his face.

“I’ve figured it out,” he said.

“Yeah?” I continued flicking channels and didn’t look up.

“A friend of mine
from work has an old bomb shelter and he will be away over the weekend to visit his wife’s parents. The place will be deserted.”

“He has a bomb shelter?” I said, raising an eyebrow.
“Who has
a bomb shelter
?”

“He’s one of those survivalists.” My father gave a small shrug. “But it’s perfect.”

I nodded slowly. “Sounds good. So he said we could use it?”

“
I’ll ask him tomorrow at work. I’ll make up some story.”

“You’d better
hope he says yes.” I turned back to the television. I’d become a real couch-potato over the last few days. Heartache – it made you less active.

“He’s been trying to get me into the whole survivalist thing for ages. He’ll be ecstatic that I’ve finally taken an interest.”