The Burning Claw: Book 10, The Grey Wolves Series

Chapter 1-1

“Sometimes I feel as though I am an actress with a bit role in this story called life. I feel like I’m simply going through practiced motions. I’m not really living, mostly just existing. It’s like I’m just stuck. I have no purpose, no plans, no ideas for the future. I’m just stuck.” ~Sally

“I don’t drink,” Sally answered the man, who had introduced himself as Cross. She was sitting across from him in his small, cluttered office. The walls were plastered with old record album covers and lined with numerous boxes boasting of different types of liquor. But the liquor that had once been in those boxes had been replaced by layers and layers of receipts, bills, and various other documents.

“You do realize that you are interviewing for a position as a bartender, right?” Cross asked. He was a burly man—biker-ish—if that’s even a word. What she meant, Sally thought, was that he looked like he belonged in a bar. He wore a scruffy shadow on his face as though he didn’t have time to shave and he wasn’t that concerned about it. His hair was short, cut close to the scalp, and looked to be a deep, chocolate brown. He had stern, serious, hazel eyes and what she thought might be a dimple on his left cheek. He was rugged, handsome, but rough around the edges.

“Is drinking experience a requirement for the job?” Sally asked. She wasn’t being sarcastic. She didn’t have a clue what was expected of a bartender. But she guessed that not drinking up all the bar’s products was probably a good thing.

He leaned back in his chair and rested his elbows on the arms. His hands steepled in front of him as he looked at her. It was like he was seeing her for the first time since she’d walked in.

“How old are you,” —he paused and looked down at her application— “Sally?”

“I’m twenty-one,” she answered as she reached into her purse and pulled out her wallet. She fished through the billfold and pulled out a small plastic card. “At least, that’s what my driver’s license says.”

Cross took the license from her and stared at it, then looked back at her, and then looked back at the card. He sighed and handed it back. “Alright,” he said as he pushed up from the chair, placing his hands squarely on the desk in front of him. “We’ll give this a try. You’re a little wholesome for a bar, but that doesn’t mean you aren’t capable of doing the job. Something tells me that what you lack in experience, you’ll make up for in enthusiasm. And no offense, but just having someone as good looking as you behind the bar will probably increase our male patronage by about 200 percent.”

“Um…” Sally began.

“I’ll start you at twelve fifty an hour,” interrupted Cross. “Plus any tips you make are yours to keep. I’ll need you here at three in the afternoon. You’ll get off at midnight. I’ll have a bouncer walk you to your car in the evenings.”

“I don’t have a car,” she said and when he frowned she wished she’d just kept her mouth shut.

“Public transportation?”

“No, I walked. I live in the apartments a block down.”

“Okay, then, I’ll have a bouncer walk you to your apartment if it’s only a block away. It’s too late at night for you to be leaving by yourself.” His hands had moved from the desk to his hips where they now rested as he looked down at her. “Any questions?”

“What do I wear?”

“Ah,” Cross said as he held up a finger as if the idea had just occurred to him. He turned around and leaned over digging in a box on the floor. “What size are you? A small or medium?”

“A medium should be good,” Sally answered. She could wear a small but she preferred her shirts to leave something to the imagination.

Cross stood back up and turned, tossing her a black t-shirt in the same motion. Sally caught it and stood up. She unfolded the shirt and held it up in front of her face. The front of the shirt contained the bar logo with the name of the bar, The Dog House, written in big white letters. She turned the shirt around and read the back out loud. “Forget the couch?” She frowned and looked questioningly at Cross.

“Didn’t your mom ever tell your dad he was in the doghouse and that he had to sleep on the couch?”

“Oh, okay, sorry. Got it now.” Sally felt her face flush.

“Alright, Sally. I’ll see you here tomorrow at three.”

Sally sat on the bench in the city park that was situated catty-corner from her apartment and across from the bar where she would now be working. The sun was warm on her skin and a slight breeze kissed her face. It was a beautiful spring day. She reached into her purse and pulled out a granola bar, opened it, and took a bite— eating alone… again. Sally really hoped that she would make some friends at her new job. With her parents gone, and having moved on the spur of the moment to a completely new place, she had no one but herself to talk to. Maybe she should get a cat. But that would just put her one step closer to being a crazy old cat lady. And everyone knows that one cat leads to another cat, and then another. Before she knew it she’d be eighty years old living alone with her cats, talking to them like they were people and imagining that they talk back. Then one day she’d drop dead and no one would find her body for weeks until the neighbors eventually started noticing a strange smell coming from the apartment above them. By the time the police kicked down her door to find her body, the cats, having gone unfed for three weeks, would’ve taken matters into their own hands and half of her face would’ve been eaten off. No, no, definitely not getting a cat.

Long after night had fallen, Sally fell exhausted into her bed. She hadn’t brought much stuff with her from Texas, but still, the unpacking had worn her out. She’d gotten every box emptied and broken down so they were now piled neatly in a flat stack next to her door. The entire time she’d been unpacking and placing things in various places in the apartment, she’d kept up a steady monologue to herself.

“I really need to get out and meet some people,” she mumbled to the empty room as she clicked off the lamp on her bedside table.

She closed her eyes and sleep came quickly. Despite her exhaustion, however, she didn’t fall into a deep sleep. Instead, she drifted into an amazingly lifelike dream.

Sally was standing in a forest. Tall trees, massively trunked, surrounded her. As she tilted her head back and looked up, she saw the sun filtering down through the branches. The wind blowing through the leaves caused the sunlight to dance as though it was frolicking from one leaf to the next. The sounds of birds and scurrying animals bombarded her senses. She didn’t hear any signs of civilization whatsoever. She heard no cars, no murmuring of voices, or no closing or opening of doors. Aside from the sounds of nature, there was nothing.

Sally began to walk; she noticed immediately that she was barefoot and the ground beneath her feet was cool, dry, and crackly from the leaves that had fallen. The dirt was soft. There were no prickly twigs or rocks to stab her unprotected feet. She had only been walking for a few minutes when she heard a new sound. It was a sound that her rational mind told her should have filled her with fear. A long, deep, mournful howl echoed through the trees. The sound crashed over her, seeming to come from nowhere and everywhere at the same time. There was sadness in the howl. No, sadness wasn’t the right word, Sally thought. This was something deeper, something more profound. There was a pain in that sound that came from somewhere dark. It came from loss. And Sally knew that the creature that made that sound had suffered a wound far deeper than she herself had ever felt, even deeper than the loss of her own parents. That was the sound of suffering; she had no doubt. And instead of feeling fear, the howl caused her heart to fill with longing.

As the echoes from the sad cry began to fade, she knew with certainty that the howl had come from a wolf, not a coyote or a dog. How she knew this, she couldn’t say. But whatever the reason, she now felt a deep desire to run to the wolf, to comfort the animal that had sounded so grief-stricken. And while the howl hadn’t scared her, this feeling did. At the sound of the howl, a wave of longing had passed over her—a feeling inside of her so intense that it seemed as if her heart must be breaking. This feeling petrified her because she had no idea how or why she was feeling it. She only knew that she had to find this poor creature.

But she had no idea how to proceed. She stood frozen and listened. No sooner had the final echo of the first wolf died out when more bone-chilling howls echoed through the forest. More wolves were joining with the first, reverberating its terrible song of sorrow, loss, and despair. Her heart broke. Her spirit felt lost. For a fleeting second, she felt that this world, this dream forest, was the real world. And the real world back in Oceanside, South Carolina, with her new job and new cat-free apartment, was the actual dream. Tears streamed down her face as Sally stood in the forest, unsure of what it meant; she only knew that the wolf that had begun the song was broken, and she was broken along with it.

When the sunlight streaming through her window pulled her from her sleep, Sally blinked several times, trying to push away the grogginess. She was tired and felt as though she’d spent the night crying over the loss of a loved one. At first, she didn’t move, lying perfectly still trying to contemplate the dream that was still vivid in her mind. When no answers came, she got up and shakily went about the task of getting ready for her day. As she went through the motions, she again felt the same funny feeling as she had in the dream—the feeling that this world was the actual dream and that the dream forest was actually real. It had certainly felt real. When she closed her eyes, she could still feel the soft dirt in between her toes and still hear the crunch of the leaves. But most of all, as if she were hearing it blaring from the wireless speaker resting on the nightstand beside her bed, she could still hear the howl. And that memory brought pain. Just thinking about that howl brought unexplained tears to her eyes. The tears were real; that she could see as she stared at herself in the bathroom mirror.

This is silly. Sally sniffed. Why am I so upset? It was only a dream.

She shook herself and hopped in the shower, hoping that the hot water would wash away these weird feelings. But it did nothing more than wash her hair and body. The mournful spirit was still heavy inside of her.

Her breakfast croissant tasted like stale cardboard, and the glass of orange juice that she usually enjoyed was sour on her taste buds. Her legs felt as if she were wearing concrete shoes as she walked and her arms were just as heavy. She plopped down on the couch and groaned. What was wrong with her? She had to do something to get herself out of this funk, and quickly before she had to go to her first day of work.

At two-thirty, Sally trudged down the stairs of her second-story apartment and proceeded to The Dog House for her first day of work. Something about hitting the sidewalk and hearing the rumble of the passing cars seemed to lift a little of the heavy weight out of the pit of her stomach. And as each step brought her closer to the front door of the bar, her sadness was slowly being replaced with an extreme nervousness that she hadn’t really expected. Her palms were already sweaty and butterflies were beginning to dance in her stomach. She kept picturing herself attempting to spin bottles and do fancy tricks with the drinks. But each time she tried, she saw herself clumsily dropping the bottles and drenching herself, and her irritated customers, with alcohol.

Why would she be picturing that? Sally wasn’t going to be trying any fancy tricks. She was going to be too concerned about memorizing the drinks to attempt any tricks. She wasn’t a drinker but she knew just from looking at menus in restaurants that there had to be tons of combinations out there. What had she been thinking? Why had she ever thought she could be a bartender?