Chapter 4 The Fog Remains---So Does the Wolf

Leela didn’t know how long she’d been asleep, but when she finally woke, the room felt incredibly still. She sat up slowly, rubbed the sleep from her eyes, and walked barefoot to the window to peek through the curtains.

He was still there.

The wolf hadn’t moved a single inch. He stood like a dark sentinel fiercely guarding the door of her motel room. She couldn’t even tell if he’d shifted his weight while she slept. Beyond him the fog remained a solid wall, so white and dense she felt like she could slice through it with a butter knife.

Her stomach growled so loud she thought the wolf must of heard it.

“What is wrong with me?” she whispered, clutching her stomach and bending forward.

She had never, in her life, felt a hunger quite like this. It wasn’t just an empty stomach; it was a hollow ache that felt like it was eating her from the inside out. She grabbed the cold hamburger from the nightstand and took a bite, but the cold grease coated her tongue. She gagged slightly and spat it into the trash can.

She needed real food. And from the looks of the fog still hanging outside she would need to rent the room for at least another night.

She sat down on the edge of the bed and pulled her wallet from her sweatshirt pocket. Five crumpled one‑dollar bills and a handful of change stared back at her.

“Shit,” she muttered to the empty room.

She reached for her duffel bag and dug past her few clothes until her fingers found the sock. She pulled it out and pulled out the roll of bills . Nine hundred dollars was her lifeline. Every single hundred-dollar bill she pulled from that sock felt like she was shortening the time she had left of her freedom.

She let out a groan, removed one of the bills, and shoved the sock back to the bottom of the bag again.

With the fog this thick, she wasn’t going to be driving anywhere. She would have to pay for another night.

She sat there for a second , thinking about the silent house on Henry Avenue. It was strange that her parents, who had terrorized her with their coldness and anger for seventeen years, didn’t feel like a threat anymore. They just felt like a bad dream she had finally managed to wake up from.

“There is no way I have to worry about them looking for me,” she told herself. “They’re probably just glad the spare room is finally empty and they don’t have to look at me anymore. As her mother had put it she could deal with herself.”

Ginny Lynn had been her best friend since kindergarten and the only person in the world who knew about the exploding lightbulbs and didn’t look at Leela like she was a freak. I have to tell her I’m okay, Leela thought. But not yet. As soon as she was completely sure her parents weren’t looking for her, she’d go to a gas station, buy a cheap trac phone, and text Ginny. Ginny wouldn’t breathe a word to anyone, even if anyone had cared to look.

Leela took a deep breath and cracked the door open.

The wolf stood up immediately. It was like he didn't want to crowd her. He stepped respectfully away from the door, moving out into the damp parking lot to give her plenty of space, then sat back on his hind legs and simply watched her.

Leela slipped out into the cold shivering in the damp air, and hurried across the parking lot  toward the diner.

The place was entirely empty. Hank stood behind the counter, a towel thrown over his shoulder, staring blankly out the large front windows at the white wall outside. He looked over as the bell above the door jingled.

“Morning, hun,” Hank said, offering a tired smile. “Or afternoon, I guess. This fog’s got everything all messed up.”

Leela approached the counter, her hands shaking as she clutched the hundred‑dollar bill. “I need to rent the room again. The fog’s just too thick to drive.” She looked over her shoulder at the windows. “I don’t think I could even find my way out of the parking lot.”

Hank looked quietly at her. Then his eyes dropped to the large bill in her hands. Then back up to her exhausted face. He knew. He’d run this highway diner long enough and had seen enough desperate runaways to spot one a mile away and especially one nervously spinning stories about sick grandmas.

He reached out and gently pushed the bill back toward her hand.

“Keep it,” Hank said gruffly.

“What?” Leela stammered, her eyes widening. “No, I have to pay for the room.”

“You paid sixty bucks yesterday,” Hank interrupted, his tone leaving no room for argument. “Look out that window. Nobody’s coming in this weather. The motel’s completely empty. I’ll just mark you down for the weekly rate on yesterday’s tab. You’ll good for several days if you need them.”

Leela’s mouth fell open she couldn’t believe someone could be that nice, especially to her. “I… um… thank you. Seriously.”

“Don’t mention it,” he grunted, wiping down a spotless counter. “And you look hungry.”

“I’m starving,” she admitted, her stomach violently tightening at the thought of food.

“Good, ’cause I got way too much food and absolutely no customers.” He reached under the heat lamps on the counter and pulled out a styrofoam container. “We made a big batch of fried chicken for the lunch rush that never happened.” He looked at the fog. “Funny thing, the weatherman hasn’t said anything about the fog. Its like its sunny everywhere else but this valley.” He handed over the container.  “Here, take it. Got some homemade coleslaw tucked in there too.”

Leela desperately tried to hand him the five ones from her wallet. Hank just shook his head firmly.

“I’d have to throw the food  in the dumpster anyway. Better to feed pretty highway travelers than the family of raccoons we have out back by the garbage bins.” He winked at her. Not a creepy old man wink but more like a teasing grandfather wink. “Go on now. Eat.”

Leela took the warm container, a lump rising in her throat that had absolutely nothing to do with hunger. “Thank you.” and then she stepped back out into the fog.

The dark wolf sat exactly where she had left him, his amber eyes locked intensely on her.

It was strange, yesterday, seeing an predator this size in a parking lot would have sent her screaming in absolute terror. Today, she just felt… watched. Guarded. It defied logic, but she didn’t feel an ounce of fear.

“You coming?” she whispered into the mist.

She turned and walked back to her room. Right behind her, she heard the heavy, click‑clack of claws on the pavement. He was dutifully following.

At her door, she inserted the key card and pushed the door open. The wolf stopped politely right on the rubber welcome mat, immediately resuming his seat. .

Leela hesitated. She looked at the warm chicken in her hand, and then glanced over at the cold burger sitting in the trash can. She quickly reached in and fished the wrapped burger out.

Standing in the open doorway, she said softly, “Hey.”

The wolf looked up, his ears swiveling forward.

She tossed the cold burger to him. He snapped it effortlessly out of the air. He didn’t even bother to chew, he just swallowed it whole in one impressive gulp.

Leela sat down slowly on the edge of the mattress, leaving the door wide open. The wolf sat on the threshold, watching her every move. Never once trying to enter her space.

“You’re a really curious one, you know that?” she said.

He cocked his head to the side, looking almost puzzled.

“If you promise not to bite me,” she said, feeling absolutely insane for negotiating with a wild animal, “I’ll let you in.”

What am I doing? her brain screamed. This is a wild animal.

“Do we have a deal?” she whispered, stepping back.

The wolf stood and let out a little puff of breath. He padded silently into the room, his body filling the small space. He walked past her to the foot of the bed, circled three times and collapsed onto the floor with a heavy sigh.

Leela closed the door and flipped the lock.

She sat on the bed and slid back against the headboard, crossed her legs in front of herself with the warm styrofoam container on her lap.

She opened the container. The smell of fried chicken completely filled the small room. She made no attempt to be polite, grabbing the chicken leg and ripped the meat off with her teeth, besides who did she have to be polite for, she thought. The wolf?

When she finally finished the last bite, that same exhaustion crept right back in. Running away, she realized, was incredibly tiring work.

She grabbed the remote from the nightstand. Clicking through the channels, there was news and infomercials and cartoons.

She settled on the cartoons, the animated coyote falling predictably off painted cliffs.

She slid to the end of the bed and let her hand hang just inches above the wolf's thick fur. When he didn’t growl at her, she slowly lowered her hand further and gently scratched the soft fur right behind his ears.

He leaned his head directly into her palm, letting out a low, rumbling noise that vibrated through the floorboards.

Leela watched his thick fur in the flickering light of the TV. She found it mesmerizing. When she brushed it one way, it was a dark storm‑cloud gray. When she smoothed it the other way, it shimmered like pure, liquid silver. At the very tips, the guard hairs seemed blindingly white.

“Your fur is beautiful,” she murmured, her voice thick with sleep. “I wish I knew what to call you.”

The wolf slowly opened one bright, amber eye to look up at her.

“Smoke?” she guessed.

He closed his eye, utterly unimpressed.

“Shadow?”

The wolf huffed sharply through his nose, physically twitching his ears away from her scratching hand in obvious distaste.

“Okay,” Leela laughed softly into the quiet room. “I get it, Shadow is a hard no. Duely noted.”

She lay her head on one arm while the other still hung off the end of the bed, fingers hovering over the wolf. Her eyelids were drooping, the room was beautifully warm. She just lay there.

For the very first time in her seventeen years of life, she felt safe enough to just… stop.

She closed her eyes, her fingers still buried in his fur, and let sleep take her over.