Adara drove home in thoughtful silence, opting to take the longer yet safer route. Not only because her child was in the car, but also she needed time to think. There was something nagging at the corner of her mind, something very important, but she just couldn't place it for the life of her. Oh well she thought, it will come to her in time, these things always seem to.

She distractedly pulled up to the corner of the Rite-Aid and instructed her daughter to stay in the car while she ran in for the prescription. With prescription in hand she jumped back in the drivers seat and sped towards home, which was luckily only a few blocks away.

"Mom what is oxycodone?" 

"It's a pain medication honey, why do you ask?" 

"Because that's what my bottle of medication says."

Adara immediately snatched the bottle from her daughters hand for a closer inspection and sure enough there in small black letter read oxycodone 5mg.

Her first instinct was to immediately turn around and go give the pharmacist a piece of her mind. God forbide her daughter would have mistakingly taking a couple of these, but then her she thought back to her knee surgery last summer and how much she enjoyed these litttle white pills. The mind numbing relaxation and most of all the blessed side effect that seemed to inhibit her awfull dreams. So she kept driving toward her house with a small smile tugging at the corner of her lips.

Once they got home and she had giving her daughter some of her own left over medication to ease her cramps and then sent her off to her room to do homework she settled down in her favorite reading chair, fished the bottle out of her purse and swallowed two of the magic white pills. About forty five minutes later she was floating on a cloud, somewhere far far away from all her problems and fears.

For the first couple days Adara saw her world through a rose colored bubble. Floating in and out of rooms and conversations like someone without a care in the world, someone who didn't witness unspeakable acts when she closed her eyes for the night. The night which had once been her mortal enemy was now her secret lover. She would go through the days dreaming about the moment she could lay down her fuzzy head and the dreamless sleep would overtake her and what sweet deep sleep it was. She would wake in the morning refreshed and anew ready to tackle the day. That's not to say she didn't take one or two of her friends after breakfast. After all she was skipping her coffee and really what was the difference. They both helped wake her up and get her day started.

This glorious dream lasted all of four days. Four beautifull sun soaked days then on the night of that last day she dreamt and oh what a dream it was.

She opened her eyes and her surroundings were strange yet vaguely familiar. Not a good grandpa's pipe smoke familiar, but the haunting familiarity of an empty funeral home once visited as a child. Then the smell hit her, clawing its way up her nostrils like some diseased and rotting rat. The smell of decomposing flesh and blood, the smell of blood so strong she could taste the metallic odor on her tongue. She struggled to her feet gagging, the bile rising in her throat, threatening to spill out her mouth. She choked it back down and then everything that was in her stomach came up anyway once she saw the horrific scene being played out in front of her. Her daughter lying naked on the ground pleading with terror filled eyes as the gleaming knife held in the hand of the shrouded figure in black came closer and closer to her bare trembling stomach. Adara could only stare in shocked and horrified silence as the blade slipped through the flesh like it was butter, down and down untill all the gleam had dissapered and the screams had subsided to a gurggling whimper. She wanted to rush up behind the man and rip his evil eyes from their sockets, tear his filthy head fom its resting place on his neck, but she knew this was impossible it was after all only a dream and she was simply an observer. Or was she. She felt her feet moving forward as if on there own accord and then she was standing directly behind this monster. Without another thought she leapt onto him tearing at his face trying to find his eyes. She heard a grunt of suprise then a yelp of pain as her sharp two hundered dollar manicured nails found there target. The eye ball briefly held up to the frenzied ripping of the grieving mother, but only briefly. She felt a small pop and then only the squish of a deflated balloon. The scream that erupted was like music to her ears, but this sense of accomplishment lasted only for a moment. Then she was flying through the air and when she landed the dark reaper was standing abover her knife in hand. She barely had time to cry out as the blade plunged down again and again.

She woke up screaming, drenched in sweat with her sheets wrapped and tangled about her body. Her daughter came bounding into the room looking first alarmed then relieved that her Mom was allright. Adara swept her up into a crushing embrace, sobbing into her hair, thanking God her daughter was allright.

"Of course I'm allright Mom, it was just a bad dream."

"I know baby, I love you so much" Adara wept still holding tightly to her daughter while fumbling with the lid of her bottle.

Over the next week her life was a living hell. She quit sleeping, terrified of the dream that she knew would come, but after her third day without any sleep she began to nod off at random intervals. During these brief sessions of sleep she would dream and it was always the same dream. Her in the cave watching the faceless killer butcher her daughter. She always attacked the man, but in the end it was all to no avail. He would kill her daughter then kill her.

She wondered why she could never stop him no matter how hard she tried. Was she to weak or did it go deeper then that to her total lack of experince in physical violence.

That night she was watching a movie and something the main character said resonated so deeply in her she felt a faint glimmer of hope.

The man in the movie was explaining to his friend why he couldn't catch the killer he was after, he said "in order to catch a wolf, you have to first become a wolf."

That night when she dreamed she dreamt of wovles. She was tearing through the night with her pack. Leading them closer and closer to there prey who was vainly attempting to out run them. As she neared him she could smell his fear through the sweat that sprayed from his fleeing body. She savored the sweet stench in her nostrils momentarily. It seemed only just that this man who had inspired so much terror was on was now receiving a dose of his own twisted medcine. She could have pounced then and ended it, but she wanted to savor this moment, enjoy it. The thrill of the hunt had heightened her senses, she could taste the electricity in the cold air, fell the blood pumping through her body, see the moon washed landscape hurtling by, then she pounced. One instant the man was running for his life the next he was sprawled face down in the dirt with hungry teeth ripping the life from him.

She awoke sweating and shaking, not in fear, but in a new sort of pleasure she could only compare to her first orgasm. She pushed the tangled sheets to the floor and walked toward her kitchen knowing now what she had to do in order to save her and her daughters life. She must become a wolf, a predator of the night for it was her only chance at survival. She picked two of the largest butcher knives she owned from the set she had received from her father last chrismas and slid them into the waistband of her faded jeans. Next she donned a dark sweatshit, a black knit cap, and a pair of gray leather gloves. Last but not least she quietly entered her daughters bedroom and kissed her tenderly on the forehead, brushing away a few stray hairs that had fallen across her face.

The chilling night air shrouded her in an invisible cloak as she prowled the dak alleys and streets watching and waiting. For what she was not sure, but knew when the moment came she would. As she neared the area she had so fearfully driven through only hours before it seemed a lifetime ago. Certainly that weak and scared women was of no relation to the one that now stealthily proweled the darkness like a sleek and deadly panther searching for prey.

Up ahead A brightly lit tavern sign cut through the darkness and as she got closer she could hear the rowdy banter and faint strains of country that accompany many of the waterfront dives in this city. She had just passed the door when it burst open behind her causing her to whirl around, her hands reaching for the blades hidden in her pants, but she stopped short when she saw the cause for this commotion. Two drunking overweight men were grappeling with each other on the sidewalk like a couple of retarded monkeys, then one tripped over his own feet and fell face first to the cracked cement. The still standing man saw his opportunity and dropped knee first onto the prone mans back then he reached down grabbing two handfulls of the mans greasy long hair and began to repeatedly smash his face into sidewalks curb. A dark red fluid began to seep onto the dirty concrete, more and more leaking from the mans ruined face with each repeated smash. Adara stood there watching the scene play out in front of her amused at the fact that only hours before she would have gone running in the opposite direction, now she stoicly watched with little indifference. She raised her eyes to scan the small crowd that had formed to watch the bloody scuffle and was taking back when she noticed one of the onlookers was studying her intently. She stared back expecting him to bashfully drop his gaze once he realized he had been caught, but he held her gaze and then smiled. This smile was not a nice smile, but a wolfish smile that never reached his cold black eyes. The smile you would imagine a cat would make once he has tired of playing with the mouse and decided to eat it. Adara suddenly felt sick to her stomach and began to wonder just what the hell she was doing roaming the night streets looking for trouble. This was not who she was. She was a doctor and a mother not some cloaked avenger trying to scourge the streets of criminals. She broke away from the crowd and that terrifying smile and started briskly walking back towards the safety of her house. Only when she was a few blocks from her house did she notice the sound of footsteps behind her. She didn't turn around because that would confirm what she already knew and that was just unthinkable. This couldn't be happening she thought, but deep down she knew it was and she also knew she could not lead this man back to her house where her daughter peacfully slept. As the footsteps got louder and closer a sudden calm overtoook Adara and she knew exactly what she had to do. She broke into a sprint, headed for the nearest corner. As soon as she rounded the corner she stopped and withdrew the two blades from her jeans. She could hear the man running now, coming closer and closer to where she lay in wait. The figure rounded the corner at such a rate of speed she had no time to think, only react. She stuck out the blade in her left hand with an upward angle. The figure was moving so fast he could't have stopped in time even if he did seee the knife. He ran right onto the blade impaling it deep in his stomach. As he bent over with a loud ugh. Adara stuck the remaining blade into the back of his neck and saw it come out the other side of his throat coated in bubbly red liquid. As the figure slumped to the cold cement below, his life spilling out of him, Adara turned and walked quickly the rest of the way to her house.

As she walked away from her first murder everything seemed sharper. The night was bright as morning and the smell of cold excitment was in the air. She felt invincible like the time she had tried cocaine in college, but this was no drug this was her and for now she was queen of the jungle.