The Mouse and The Wolf - Chapter 50: Chapter 50

-Oliver-
I stood there in the darkness for the longest time. I wanted out of that place, but I didn't know how. I tried pinching myself and thinking about waking up, but I was still in the darkness. Then, I could hear a wolf whining quietly.
"Jaden?" I turned around, trying to locate where his voice was coming from, but I couldn't see him.
But there was a spot of light now in front of me. I didn't want to go there. I didn't know if I was supposed to see these memories, but then a thought occurred to me. Maybe Jaden wanted me to see them? Maybe that was why Wolfie was there with me, guiding me through it all.
"All right then," I nodded, and followed the light.
I saw a glimpse of water when I reached the spot, and when I stepped in, I saw a whole river in front of me. There was a lake on the left, but it was obvious I was still in Jaden's territory. I looked around and saw Wolfie. Now he was looking up at me, so I kneeled down to give him a hug.
"I'm so sorry you had to go through all that," I muttered in his fur, and pulled back to see him.
He barked at me and stepped away to look behind me. I turned around, and saw little Jaden sitting right next to the river, drawing something on the wet sand with a stick. As I got closer, I saw that they were just random lines.
"Watching you makes me so sad," I told Wolfie. "I wish I could hug you."
Wolfie let out a silent whine, so I looked at him. He sat down and barked at me again.
"What?" I asked, but then I saw movement by the trees, and turned to look at a boy who was walking towards Jaden, holding a bag of cookies in his hands. He was munching on one of them.
"Leave me alone!" Jaden yelled when he spotted the boy.
The boy didn't reply. He walked over to Jaden and promptly sat down next to him. "Want a cookie?" he asked.
"I don't want your filthy cookies!" Jaden snapped at him.
"They're not filthy – I promise. I kept them in the bag the whole time," the boy said with such innocence in his voice that my mutilated heart started to warm up again.
"I don't want them!" Jaden yelled and tried to push the boy away, but he was much bigger than him, so he barely swayed on his spot.
"Aye – that's what you said," the bigger boy said without a blink of an eye and grabbed another cookie for himself.
Jaden stared at him, and I could feel his anger rising inside him. "Leave me alone!"
"But if you'd eat the cookie, you would get bigger and then everyone would stop calling you a runt," the kid said. I hardly even realized that I was smiling at him.
"That's stupid! No, you're stupid!" Jaden hissed at him, stood up, and started marching towards the lake.
"Don't go that way," the kid said.
"I do whatever I want!" Jaden yelled without stopping.
"You'll get hurt if you go there," the kid said.
"And how would you know that?" Jaden stopped and turned around to glare at the kid.
"I just know," the boy said, and bit down into his cookie.
Arch. That kid had to be Arch even though he looked a few years older than Jaden. I was pretty sure they were the same age, so was Jaden actually older than he looked? Was that why Paulie kept calling him a runt?
Sadly, Jaden didn't take his advice. He continued walking towards the lake. Arch stood up and followed him, but his attention was still mostly on his cookies. Wolfie and I went after them.
"Why are you following me?!" Jaden turned around to yell at him.
"You're going to get hurt," Arch said without elaborating.
"No, I'm not! There's no one here!" Jaden said.
"You're stubborn," Arch noted.
"And you're stupid," Jaden retorted.
"Aye – you said that already," Arch said, and I had to admire his self-confidence. He didn't seem to care at all.
"Why are you still following me?!" Jaden sprung around to yell at his face.
"Because you're getting hurt," Arch replied.
"And you want to see it?"
"No, of course not. Violence is bad – that's what my dad says," Arch spoke proudly.
"Then your dad is stupid as well," Jaden muttered.
"He's not stupid – he's the smartest guy I know. Even Alpha Rayleigh comes to ask for his advice," Arch spoke matter-of-factly, but Jaden only rolled his eyes.
"Look! It's the runt!"
I felt something ugly twisting inside my stomach when I turned around to look for Paulie. He and a few of his friends stepped out of the forest, and I hated seeing them. Arch said Jaden was going to get hurt... I couldn't stand the idea of having to watch them getting hurt and not being able to do anything about it.
"And you're with the stupid slob," Paulie continued when he stopped close by, eyeing Arch who didn't seem fazed by his words.
"Get lost!" Jaden yelled at him, but it only made them laugh.
"Or what?" Paulie chuckled. "What are you and your new boyfriend going to do if we don't?"
"Well, I know you're going to attack us," Arch spoke slowly, "so I think we'll have to fight back."
That made the rest of them laugh even harder.
"Do you even know how to fight?" Paulie asked, stepping right in front of Arch who didn't budge.
"Not really," Arch said, shoving the bag of cookies in his pocket. "But I can try."
"What a loser!" Paulie said and started laughing. I really wanted to slap that kid even though I was strongly against violence, especially towards kids. "I'll kick your ass!" he suddenly yelled and jumped at Arch.
Arch moved his hand so fast I could hardly even see it. In a blink of an eye, he hit Paulie in the stomach, knocking all the air out of the boy's lungs. Paulie fell down on his knees, gasping for air, while the other kids stopped laughing and stared at Arch in fear.
"Oh, that was easy," Arch said with a happy little smile on his face, but then it faded away. "My dad's going to get mad though..."
I was surprised that the other kids didn't do anything, but then I remembered that they were just kids. It was all fun and games until someone bigger came along.
"Do you still want to fight?" Arch asked quite politely, but the other kids started screaming and running away. Even Paulie left in a hurry once he got back up on his feet, muttering something about "telling his mom".
Arch turned to look at Jaden who was staring at him. He quickly gathered his composure and gave Arch a dirty look. "I didn't need your help!"
"But I didn't help you?" Arch spoke with a confused tone while pulling the bag of cookies from his pocket. "He tried to hit me, not you."
Jaden seemed a bit mad at his words, but he didn't say anything. He dramatically turned around and started marching away, but Arch followed.
"Leave me alone already!"
"Are you sure you don't want a cookie?"
"I don't want your cookies!!"
"But you'd grow bigger."
"I SAID NO!!"
"Alrighty then!" Arch chirped, but he didn't stop following Jaden.
I had the feeling he never stopped following Jaden. I turned to look at Wolfie. He was watching the two kids marching forward on the riverbed, wagging his tail slowly.
"I'm guessing there's still at least one more memory for me to see," I said, and Wolfie looked up at me. He barked, and at that same moment, the world went dark. "Jaden?"
I turned around, looking for the glow of light, and spotted it a little further away on my right. I went to it and stepped right in, hoping that this memory was a good one as well.
Jaden's house was once again right in front of me, so I stopped to wait for Wolfie who appeared next to me in a few seconds. At that moment, Jaden stepped out of the house, but he wasn't alone. I smiled when I saw Arch following him. I was too far away to hear what they were talking about, so I was about to step closer, but Wolfie let out a quiet whine.
"What is it?" I turned to ask him. He was looking at somewhere behind us. It took me a moment to spot a little girl hiding in the bushes, wearing a cute, yellow jacket and a pink skirt. "I'm guessing that's Tilly," I smiled, and Wolfie barked.
Jaden and Arch were walking towards her, but I assumed they hadn't spotted her yet. I watched Tilly making herself as tiny and invisible as possible, but when the boys walked past her, she jumped out of the bush.
"Stop!" she yelled, holding a stick in her hands like a sword. The boys turned around and tilted their heads simultaneously.
"What do you want this time?" Jaden then asked with a bored voice.
"I'm here to kill you and become the Alpha!" Tilly said. She seemed awfully confident.
"That's not how it works," Arch said slowly. "And you can't kill us with a stick. We're not vampires."
"I put wolfsbane on it!" Tilly said angrily.
Arch leaned closer to take a look at the stick. The tip of it was wet. "You're doing it all wrong. Wolfsbane is supposed to be blue. That's green."
"Well I didn't have real wolfsbane!" Tilly hissed at him. "It doesn't matter!"
"It kind of does. We won't die if it's not real wolfsbane," Arch explained.
"Shut up!" Tilly screeched and tried to hit him with the stick, but Arch grabbed it in midair and yanked it out of Tilly's hands.
"Why do you want to kill us anyway?" Jaden asked, stepping closer to the girl. "It won't make you the Alpha. You'll just get in trouble with the adults."
"I don't care!" Tilly yelled, running off all of a sudden.
Jaden and Arch looked at each other and shrugged.
"We should follow her," Arch said.
"Why?" Jaden asked in annoyance.
"I have a bad feeling," Arch explained quietly.
Jaden rolled his eyes and sighed. "Fine..."
We all followed Tilly. It took a while for us to catch up with her. Jaden and Arch didn't let her know they were following her through the forest. Even I tried to be quiet even though it didn't matter – I had forgotten all about it.
I saw some kind of wooden fort behind the trees where Tilly was heading. Jaden and Arch stopped close by, and so did Wolfie and I.
"Of course it's Paulie," Jaden sighed.
I saw Paulie coming out of the fort with a few of his friends, and Tilly stopped in front of him.
"Well?" Paulie's voice was obnoxiously annoying.
"It didn't work," Tilly said, pouting.
"Then you can't play with us," Paulie said and pushed her away. She tripped and fell on her butt, but she got up again.
"That's not fair! There were two of them, and they're bigger than me!" she exclaimed.
"So?" Paulie asked. "If you can't beat them, you can't play with us!"
"She's a girl – she can't beat them all by herself," another kid laughed.
"I know," Paulie smirked at him, before he turned to look at Tilly again. "We don't play with weak girls, so you'll have to prove that you're –"
Tilly kicked the boy between his legs so fast that I almost missed it. I had to bite my lower lip in order not to laugh at the sight of Paulie sinking down on his knees, letting out miserable whines on his way down.
"You're weak! You can't kick their ass either! I don't even want to play with you anymore, jerk!" Tilly hissed and started running towards us.
"Whoa," little Jaden chuckled at the sight, and watched her run past us.
When I blinked, the lights went off again. I was in the dark, holding back my laugh. "Jaden?"
The next spot of light was right next to me so I walked into it. Soon, I saw Jaden and Arch by the river, playing with wooden boats. I felt Wolfie's nose against my hand, so I patted his head while keeping an eye on the two boys. Who were just about to get company.
"Oi, it's Tilly," Arch told Jade when he spotted her.
"Are you here to kill us again?" Jaden asked her when she kept marching in their way.
"No," she said like it was the stupidest question ever. "I'm here to kick your ass!"
"What did I do?" Jaden asked.
"I'm going to be the strongest girl ever!" she declared, stopping right in front of them. "Once I'll kick your ass, I can be the Alpha!"
"Why would you want to be the Alpha?" Jaden asked. "It's not fun."
"Because the Alpha is the strongest person in the world!" Tilly said.
"That's not true. You don't have to be the Alpha to be the strongest person in the world," Arch said. "All you have to do is practice."
She squinted her eyes at him and crossed her arms over her chest. "How?"
"Well, it's going to take some time," Arch said. "You need to grow bigger, you see."
"Well, what am I supposed to do while I wait for that?" Tilly asked.
"You could play with us," Arch said. "Do you like boats? We have five of them right here," he pointed at the toys.
She looked at the toys, and it took her only two or three seconds before she dropped down on her knees and grabbed one of them.
"Just don't break it," Jaden said, looking happy.
"I won't," Tilly promised. "Paulie didn't let me play with them because I'm a girl..."
"Well, Paulie is a jerk," Jaden said.
"Yes," Tilly said, and smiled at him.
I was smiling as well when I turned to look at Wolfie, but he wasn't there anymore. Instead, I saw Jaden. The seventeen-year-old Jaden. And we weren't in the forest anymore. We were back in the safe house, lying in the bed, side by side.
"Thanks for the trip down memory lane," he said quietly.
"I'm so sorry – I didn't know how to get out," I hurried to say and sat up.
"It's fine," he said, and let out a short chuckle. "It was... fun."
I was pretty sure it wasn't fun for him – for the most parts anyways.
"I'm sorry..." I muttered. "I had no idea what I was doing..."
"Don't worry about it," he said, and sat up as well, crossing his legs in front of him.
I stared at him for a moment, and I felt his sadness. I almost stopped breathing when I realized it. "I can feel your feelings again," I said with wide eyes.
"You got my Echo back," he said, and looked at me carefully.
I couldn't stand his sadness any longer. I just jumped at his neck and hugged him tightly. "I'm so sorry about what happened... I wished I could do something."
"It's all in the past," he muttered. "But thanks," he added, hugging me back.
I couldn't let go of him. His mood was getting back up again, but I couldn't let go of him.
I wanted to hold him until the end of time.