The Strength of the Wolf

Anna's eyes locked on the opponents up ahead as they ran into a room the size of a football field. She stumbled but quickly regained her composure, raised her paint gun and fired off a round of paint pellets, hitting one of three faceless attackers in the chest. John and Tyler easily picked off the other two. They laid their paint guns down in defeat and backed away. She could vaguely hear the sounds of paint wars raging in the distance. Explosions of paint pellets striking targets merged with the screams and groans of the victorious and the recently-defeated, playing out against the backdrop of the sounds of the night. Vibrant, multi-coloured paint splatters from their skirmish peppered the otherwise unremarkable, grey warehouse walls, appearing as disjointed and uninspired as some first grader's art project. Wooden crates lined the floor, illuminated by the spattering of moonlight seeping through the broken windows and dilapidated ceiling, giving the room an eerie appearance. The scent of sweat and industrial chemicals wafted through the air, stifling the senses.

"Remind me how you made me agree to this?" Anna complained, wrinkling her nose in disgust and staring pointedly at the boys.

Tyler, who had been examining the weapons left behind by the other team, looked up at her with storm grey eyes that mirrored her own and grinned. They weren't siblings but had such a stark resemblance that it was the prime assumption when they met new people. Identical eyes and curly brown ringlets paired with tan, caramel skin. Hell, they even had twin smiles. It was freaky. "Oh, don't pretend you're not having the time of your life!"

"You won't be griping when we win that $20,000, babe," John boasted, wrapping his muscular arms around Anna's waist, drawing her in for a quick kiss.

His chocolate eyes shone with excitement, evidently still reeling from the endorphins of the earlier altercation. In the semi-darkness, his sandy blond hair appeared luminescent, and he looked like a movie star from those old-timey films Anna watched with her mom when she was younger. Her stomach did flip-flops, and she gave him a sweet, dimpled smile, despite her reservations.

"Get a room!" Tyler complained, pushing them apart good-naturedly, "You two will cost us that $20,000."

Twenty thousand dollars. The ultimate paintball competition. The instructions were straightforward: Create a team of three, search through the abandoned warehouse, find the hidden black notebook, run it back to the starting point on the east side of the compound and win $20,000. That kind of money even split threeways could go a long way in paying off her student loan debt.

"Okay," Anna nodded, "what's the plan?"

"We've already searched every other room in this place," Tyler noted, furrowing his brow, "That only leaves this one. It has to be in here somewhere. I guess the plan is to upturn every nook and cranny until we find it."

"That's it?" John asked skeptically.

"Yes, that's it."

"Yep, that's easy," Anna whined, giving them both a sarcastic thumbs up that she was almost positive they couldn't see under the cover of darkness. "Let's just search this massive room and hope that no one else thinks of that brilliant plan. Genius!"

She surveyed the room. Those wooden pallets covered almost every inch of the floor in varying states of disrepair, strewn haphazardly. There had to be about fifty of them.

"Relax, mom!" Tyler mocked, "Quit your worrying. We can do this. What do we always say?"

"The strength of the wolf is the pack," they all replied automatically with a renewed sense of confidence. They had seen that stupid catchphrase on a middle school painting and had mockingly used it to justify any number of ridiculous situations over the years. Getting fake IDs to buy cheap beer and getting plastered in their dorm rooms at college. Creating an underground business selling the answers to past midterms. Going in together on a vintage low rider that cost more to fix than it was worth. It had been their motto since they were kids, a declarative pact binding them together as friends.

"Split up, check everything," Tyler commanded.

Moving quietly and carefully so as not to alert anyone of their position, they each chose a designated spot, triple-checking each box for the book.

"Found it!" After ten minutes of frantic searching, Anna exclaimed excitedly, peeling back the lid of the wooden box and swatting away the spattering of dust that arose when she touched it. Inside, carefully placed among a mountain of straw, was a tiny notebook, an unremarkable and ordinary thing, bound in rotting black leather. It was unmarked and empty save for a monogrammed 'T' directly on its fading cover. This thing is worth $20,000.

Tyler and John jogged to join her, marvelling at her find. Just then, they heard thundering footsteps heading their way. Nine opponents burst into the far end of the room and immediately began shooting paintballs at them. An alliance, evidently. Anna ducked behind the wooden box where she'd discovered the book, paint narrowly missing her head.

Grabbing her by the arm and pushing her down, Tyler whispered, "Stay low, hide in the shadows and get out of this room. We'll keep them distracted. Then, run like hell. Don't turn back."

"What about you guys?" Anna hissed back.

"Don't worry about us. The strength of the wolf is the pack, remember?" John winked cheekily and placed a quick kiss on her lips.

With one last passing glance, he and Tyler stood from their hiding spot, guns blazing. Anna ducked and crawled behind an intersection of wooden pallets in the corner of the room, tucked away and almost entirely blanketed by darkness. She heard the rapid flurry of bullets and subsequent grunts as people went down. She had no idea who. The boys' distraction might have bought her just enough time to clinch the win. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, she managed to make it to the exit, turning into a vast, empty hallway.

The paint gun explosions as her soundtrack, her eyes and heart focused singularly on making it to the drop-off spot. She could hear her heartbeat ringing in her ears, and her legs felt as if she were moving through water, fighting against an overwhelming current threatening to pull her under. She ran and ran, her breath catching in her throat. Her eyes barely registered her surroundings, everything passing in a dizzying blur. Paint splattered walls, empty paint guns scattered carelessly, dust and cobwebs lining every inch of the abandoned warehouse's walls. Bang! A paintball exploded at her feet. Too close. She continued running, not sparing a glance back. The rough sound of clamouring footfalls alerted her of her pursuers' presence. She was too close now - 20 more yards. Then 10. Then 5.

Anna ran and ran.

------

"What do you think she's dreaming about?"

John looked up from his newspaper, his focused expression softening as he glanced at his seven-year-old son, Tyler. Compared to the harsh, unfeeling whiteness of the hospital room decor, his son's multi-coloured Avengers t-shirt seemed out of place. His small frame peered over the foot of the mechanical hospital bed, his fingers protectively clutching the little black notebook which housed the handwritten bedtime stories Anna frequently read him at night. Piercing grey eyes, the exact colour of the turbulent, mid-winter sky so similar to his mom's, stared back at him expectantly.

Nothing, he thought. She's not dreaming about anything. At least, that's what the doctors told him. The drugs they'd given her four days ago put her into a deep state of regenerative unconsciousness where she could heal from her injuries. These included three broken ribs, a shattered femur, a dislocated shoulder, a deep wound in her stomach that required 30 stitches and the most harrowing of all, major head trauma. Buried under a monstrosity of breathing tubes and wires, face swollen and almost unrecognizable, her skin pallid and sickly, John had a hard time looking at his wife. A wave of intense anger and sadness washed over him as he wondered at the unfairness of this world. The drunken idiot that rammed into his wife's car, of course, he's unscathed. A loving wife and mother, comatose and fighting to stay alive.

"Dad?" Tyler repeated.

Forcing a smile, John turned toward his son and replied softly, "She's probably thinking about that donut place we went to down in San Bernadino, do you remember?"

"Yes!" his son laughed, a rich and joyful sound that broke through the humdrum of hospital monitors beeping in the background, accentuating his dimpled cheeks. "They were so good! We should go there again when mom gets better!"

Silence. A long pause as the gravity of his son's words sank in. When Anna gets better.

"Dad...mom's going to be okay, right?" Nervousness laced his son's normally cheery voice, and his round face contracted in worry.

"Come here," John said, arms outstretched.

His son closed the distance between them and fell into his lap, resting his head against John's chest. His thick tangle of curls tickled John's neck as he ran his fingers through the tresses that were the mirror image of Anna's. They'd always joke that she'd burped herself out with little genetic input from John. He had transferred none of his blond-haired, brown-eyed, freckled physique to his son. Inhaling, he breathed in the pleasant scent of his son like wildflowers in bloom on a warm summer day - a welcome reprieve from the hospital's signature fragrance of Pinesol and Paracetamol.

Sighing wistfully, he said, "Of course she's going to be okay."

"How you do you know?" his son asked meekly, face buried in his father's chest so that his voice escaped muffled.

John tightened his hold on his son and planted a soft kiss on his forehead. "You have to believe. If you believe it, then she will be. What do we always say?"

Pulling away momentarily, Tyler looked up intently at John, his storm grey eyes hopeful and said, "The strength of the wolf is the pack."

"The strength of the world is the pack." John echoed. He hugged his son deeply once more, sparing a glance at his wife, a singular tear rolling down his cheek.

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