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I don't know how long it took me to come down off my... shall we say, "brutality high". It may have been a few seconds, several minutes, even an hour or two. Not only was I still at such an elevated level of rage from what had led up to my transformation, but I admit, I was revelling in the fact that I had terminated the life of the one person who was more responsible than anyone else for why my life had been so fucked up to begin with. The statements of fact kept dancing in my head. Robbie Brooks was dead. I killed him. He would never cause me any trouble ever again.

Slowly, though, I came back to my senses, and the words "I killed Robbie Brooks" stopped being a declaration of victory. The dire repercussions of what had just transpired were revealing themselves to me, and that just brought on an entirely new level of panic and fear. Even while I was still in my wolf form, I could feel the tears of desperation welling up in my eyes. What did I just do? What did I just do??

I walked back to the gruesome scene where those four teenagers lay dead by my hands, and it took everything not to fall to my knees in shock. All the fear, the worry, the anxiety I'd ever felt in the past about whatever amateurish pranks they pulled on me paled in comparison to the levels I felt now. I knew that I had just done something very wrong - and no matter how justified I may have been in doing it, it wouldn't change the fact that I'd just ended the lives of four people. I could practically hear the sirens blaring in my head already.

I had to get away.

But I'd forgotten one thing: how I was going to get back? I was miles away from home. Even if I knew how to drive, the truck was in such bad shape - not to mention the driver's side door being missing - that I'd quickly get pulled over and questioned. On top of that, what about my clothes? They'd been shredded into pieces when I transformed, and everyone else's clothes were so saturated with blood that I'd immediately be suspected of something.

I looked around frantically, hoping for something to drop out of the sky and get me out of the predicament I'd gotten myself into. When no miracle appeared, I decided to just make a run for it. I had the cover of night to protect me from being seen, and if I avoided taking any main roads I should be able to avoid detection until I got to where I was going.

Like a reflex, I bolted from the crime scene. There was only one person now who'd understand what had just happened. I could only hope that he could help me out of this mess.

It couldn't have taken more than half an hour to reach Gregory's house. Being a wolf meant I could run faster, but I had to take extra measures to avoid being seen - like waiting until there wasn't so much as headlights in either direction to run down a street, taking the long way around if I could hear someone on the sidewalk, and using the curvy residential streets that ran alongside the busy thoroughfares rather than sprint down the main roads themselves. I finally made it, without being spotted, and pounded on the door.

"Gregory!" I barked. "Gregory, let me in! Please!"

I banged on the door a few more times.

"Please, I'm begging you! Open the door!"

It was a few seconds later that the door opened, and Gregory was standing there, wearing nothing but a pair of boxer shorts. The look on his face was one of bleary-eyed concern.

"Nick... Good lord! What happened to you?" He said, ushering me inside. He must've seen the blood on my claws and in my fur, because he immediately directed me to the shower. "Quick! Wash everything off! Be as thorough as you can, and change back to a human while you're at it!"

The shower was short, but productive. Using copious amounts of soap, I made it a point to scrub every pore of my body clean. I stepped out of the shower, realizing that I had no clothes to wear. I shouldn't have felt embarrassed being naked around Gregory, but these were much different circumstances than when I normally undressed in his presence.

When I returned to the living room, Gregory was sitting in the recliner facing the fireplace, a cup of coffee in his hand, and one on the table presumably for me. I took a seat on the sofa, and took a sip.

"Now..." Gregory said softly, and sternly. "Tell me what happened."

"Robbie and his friends..." I replied, almost on the verge of tears again. "They grabbed me when I was walking home. They tied me up and took me to the riverbed, and then they started attacking me. They kicked me, they hit me with chains, they threatened to kill me and then go after you."

"Nick... please tell me you didn't. Please..."

"I'm sorry, Gregory..." I said back, voice quivering. "I was so scared, and so angry, that I couldn't control it. It all happened so fast... by the time I realized what happened, they were all... dead."

"And you know for sure that they're dead?"

I nodded silently in response.

Gregory sighed. He prided himself on the fact that he'd never used his wolf form to kill anyone, and now he had to confront a disciple of his who couldn't show the same restraint. "Wait here," he said, and went to his room.

Twenty minutes later, he emerged with a change of clothes, an envelope, and a key. "These clothes should fit you all right for the time being. There's two thousand dollars in this envelope. And this key opens box #233A at the First Worldwide Bank near Hill St. I want you to go there on Monday and take what's inside."

He handed the items to me, and gave me a plaintive look.

My mind was swimming. "I... I don't understand..."

"You need to leave, Nick."

"Leave?" I repeated, almost not believing that he'd said it. "But... where am I supposed to go? I can't just run away without-"

"Listen to me, Nick!" Gregory shouted. It was the first time I'd ever seen him so angry, and my heart dropped at the fact that he was directing that anger towards me. "Don't you think that I would have liked to tear those young men's throats out myself for everything they've done to you in the past? Do you know how hard it was for me to resist snapping Robbie's spinal cord that day you were injured in gym class? There's a reason I never killed anyone with my power, Nick, and it's something that you're about to witness firsthand. As soon as those bodies are discovered, all of the signs are going to point directly at the person who'd been abused by them for years."

"But... I was just trying to defend myself!"

"They won't see that," Gregory replied. "Any injuries you sustained tonight were healed during your transformation. You will have no scars, no bruises, no broken bones to show to the police when they question you about what happened - only their blood on your hands. Did you not stop and think how you could have possibly made your way from the riverbed to my house if you had sustained the types of injuries that their attacks would have caused?"

"I... I..." My throat locked up.

"And worst of all, I will be implicated in this, especially since you fled to my house after the attack. Now I'm likely to be investigated by the police in connection with those dead boys, and I don't think I need to explain to you just how problematic it will be for someone who's 392 years old, who hasn't aged a day past 16, and has no legal records of any sort to confirm his existence, to be interrogated about his involvement in this matter. If I'm fortunate, maybe they'll throw me in prison. But once they start to notice that I'm not getting older, or maybe after I've survived a few generations of prison guards, they'll start to wonder why I'm not dead yet. At that point, I'll be looked at as some sort of biological anomaly, and I'll be subjected to the type of study one sees in a science-fiction movie."

I was literally shaking in the sofa out of fear and guilt.

"The game is up, Nick. Better you leave now while you have a head start."

It felt as if the entire universe was collapsing all around me, crushing me with its infinite mass.

In the months that I'd been around Gregory, he had always been so forgiving of my mistakes. The fact that even he couldn't forgive me for what I'd done only served to increase the magnitude of my mistake that much more. "Gregory, I... I'm sorry... I never meant to drag you into this."

Gregory sighed. "I know, Nick. But sadly, this is one thing that the wolf is powerless to fix."

We remained silent for a minute, as I climbed into the clothes that he had supplied for me. They were a little roomy, but they would at least keep me warm for the night.

"How long should I wait before I come back?" I asked.

Gregory winced in frustration. "Nick, do not make this any more difficult on me than it already is."

If my heart could manage to sink any further when I heard those words, it would be dragging against the floor.

"So then... this is goodbye?"

Gregory nodded slowly, the hint of a tear in his eye. "It is."

We looked each other in the eye for a long moment, then fell into one another's arms for one last embrace. It took all the willpower in the world not to cry, especially since Gregory was in such pain of his own. But somehow, I knew that I had to put on a brave face, just to keep him from breaking as well. As we separated, Gregory gently pushed me away. "Go. Now."

I took the envelope and the key, and slowly made my way to the front door.

Just before I put my hand on the knob, I heard Gregory's voice. "Nick..."

I turned around to face him one last time.

"Never forget... I love you."

I took a few breaths, then took the knob into my hand and turned. "I love you too, Gregory."

With that, I slipped out the door and into the waning night.

As soon as I was outside, I ran as fast as I could. I had no clue as to how far along the cops were in looking for me. Had they even discovered the dead bodies yet? Were they already heading towards my house? My ears were on high alert, listening for the faintest trace of a siren. Until the time came for me to hide, though, the priority was to run.

I was near the city limits on the eastern side of town when I heard it - a police siren. Whether it was for me or some random person who had called for a completely unrelated reason, I didn't know. But it did force me to look for cover, which I found in a nearby park. I scaled the chain-link fence dividing the park grounds from the main road, and hurried to find whatever hiding place I could find. There was a small patch of woods towards the far end of the park, and I sprinted for them, hoping that I'd be able to stay there for a while until I knew I could continue safely. Halfway to the trees, though, I began to feel light-headed, as if the blood was draining out of my brain. It intensified with every step, until I could barely maintain enough balance to lean against one of the large walnut trees. I stumbled further into the forest, the dizziness getting worse and worse, until my legs no longer knew which way was up, and I fell onto the ground. For the second time that night, I was in a total panic. What was happening to me?

I laid there, my brain spinning out of control, no longer hoping to escape the detection of local law enforcement, but just to survive the night. My consciousness was rapidly fading, and as hard as I fought to maintain my bearings, the torpor was just too overwhelming, and I soon passed out in the middle of the forest.