I mainly need suggestions dealing with grammar, missused words and a bit with style, but if you find any major plot issues it'd be great if you could point them out.

Thank's a bunch!
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Part I
“I’m really sorry about this, but you do understand it’s nothing personal. Just certain circumstances came up,” said the middle-age man that sat in front of me. Did he honestly expect me to believe that it were a mere unfortunate tragedy that had caused my fall? That I had just stumbled into the crossfire of a bigger event?
“Oh, I understand. It’s fine. Been great working with you,” I responded with a harsh form of forced optimism. I stood and made my way out. As I passed by people working in their little cells, talking cordially into their phones, I noticed a woman coming my way towards the office of my former boss. She wore a second layer of black skin one could call a skirt, an equally contouring scarlet shirt, and a snug leather jacket. Her golden hair cut off at her chin, and her fingers tensed around a filled out job application she held in her hand. Just coincidently, an application from the job I’d just been fired from.
“Oh great, just great,” I muttered in an appalled disbelief. Not only did I lose my job, but I lost it to a slut. She continued to advance on her destination; she spotted me and smiled, saying hello as if we were old friends. I noted the action, replying with a smirk, and my middle finger pointing towards the heavens. The lady’s joyful face moulded into a scold of aghast as she quickened her pace, or as best she could in stiletto heels.
Just wait until tonight, I attempted self-consolation. You can do something about it tonight. Indeed, I could feel the primal energy already taking hold of me; I guess somewhere else in the world the moon was already full, governing the sky in all its paled glory.
Once in the elevator of this tower of rejection, I reached into my coat pocket for a pair of headphones I knew I had placed in there somewhere. I caught them in my hand, arranging them on my head as I pressed the triangular button on the CD player, which remained hidden in my inside pocket. The song leaked into my ears that welcomed the voice of Joe Strummer.
“Darling you’ve got to let me know. Should I stay or should I go,” I would’ve sang every word of the three minute song, but I noticed that the fellow elevator members didn’t find my lack of vocal talent amusing, so instead I preceded to hum the lines I knew so well. My rage towards my bastard of a boss didn’t falter, but rather grew as I made my way out the doors of the skyscraper, heading toward my apartment, applauding my judgement in choosing a job only a walk away from my dwelling.
I decided to let the thoughts of revenge rest as I bounded down the vigorous streets of the Canadian city. Instead, I guided my mind to Shyla and my son that was soon to be welcomed into this place of chaos. He was supposed to be born three days before then by the name of Cameron, but a week or so delay wasn’t abnormal. Oh, how coveted the event was in my mind! It was already my greatest joy and it had yet to take place. Such happiness is rarely received through your relationship with others, but the one with your children is certainly an exception. I’d spent all of that Monday night that Cameron was suppose to be born by my girlfriend’s side, every bit of me waiting for signs she had gone into labour and that my darling boy was on his way. My waiting was in vain. I could tell Shyla was a bit agitated by my constant doting in hopes that that would be the moment the child decided to come, so that was the only night I had waited in that way. Tonight I have an excuse though, I thought to myself as I stepped inside my cluttered apartment.
I pushed a stack of t-shirts, CD’s and papers off my bed, discovering a bed with navy sheets underneath the rubble. I was exhausted, and tonight would be a long one, so I collapsed on the bed and fell to sleep without hesitation.

Part II
The pack was waiting for me when I arrived. They stood outside as if I was hours late. It was long before sundown in the reality of it all, so I saw no need for their rush in me being there. I knew that they would not be enraged by the sloth, but rather fret over my absence. Question to themselves whether it was just a delay, or something had found me out weeks ago and they just never knew. Their concerns didn’t bother me much, and besides Shyla would be there for comfort, telling them she saw me just the other night.
“Hey, Tony!” Came a voice from the crowd. I recognized it right off, not only from the affection inlaid in the gritty tone, but by the nickname. I ran toward the husky man whose arms awaited me, and gave him a brief hug.
“Byron! How was Europe?” I asked my brother; it was strange how we both ended up with the same destiny in the end, though it had started on different sides of the world.
“It was great. I didn’t realize how much I missed Italy until I went back to Rome. Really wish I could go there to study, again.” He dozed off into a reminiscent state. I remembered visiting him when he was working on his Bachelor’s degree in visual art. I remembered how everything looked like those dream places he painted on his own for so long. How happy I was that he had found this beautiful place that he had always wanted to live in.
“Why don’t you just move back there?” I questioned unconsciously to the memories of the small Italian towns. His eyes glittered with a life that I hadn’t seen in him since he moved back to Canada, after the death of my mother.
A sober look, as if longing for an unreachable joy, impeded the sparkle though his voice attempted to imitate it, “Who would take care of you if I went away,” he asked. “And besides, it is easier not to be found here than in Rome. There are lots more wolves to blame,” his first comment was closer to the truth. He had lived in Italy four years after some unusually present timber wolf bit him. Never in those years had he expressed any concern to me that it may not be safe living there. That he had problem keeping a low profile on his “condition.” What he had shown great concern for was my mother. Not to say that I didn’t love her, and wanted to do all I could to cure her from the cancer that lurked beneath her skin, but my brother became obsessed with it. He was lost inside himself, inside the grief he might have felt when she died. Inside the painful reality that in every moment she suffered, she was moving farther and farther away from us. He tore himself from his prized home, as I had left my place in New York, and flew across seas to Toronto as fast as possible. He spent every day of those six months by her side, talking to her, praying for her, crying over her as she slept. I myself only spent one month, then had to visit only on weekends. We needed someone to work, and since my Mother was physically unable to do so and Byron had stopped painting so there would be no distractions away from her, it had to be me.
In the end, all of Byron’s perseverance and the thousands of dollars in medical treatment couldn’t save her. The last person she had talked to was my brother, and I still have a firm belief that she had given him reason to stay in the city of her grave. It would be the only reason he would tear himself away from the country of his heart. It is true that he visits the place, but he always swears that he will come back. That he’ll never move back there, and he every time he returns.
“Well how bout you? Why don’t you go back to New York?” He noticed I wasn’t convinced and felt a need to defend himself by attacking the removal from my city, but none of this hostility showed through in his voice.
“I never was really fascinated with New York. It was just a place to be. Back then, I just needed to be away from here. But I’ve gotten over it and realized that here is as good as anywhere.” I was calm, but I did feel the need to change the subject. “Where’s Shy?” Oh, yes! The person I was there to see, outside of the ritualistic gathering. I did not see her when I first arrived, and the crowd dissipated afterwards.
“She’s in the cave. It’ll be a bit crowded in there so I’ll just bring her out for you. I’m sure you’d like your privacy.” He was cheerful again as he receded into the small opening, he previously had his back to. I was alone and took the time to gather my thoughts, though I really didn’t have any to be gathered at that moment. I looked about the forest I stood in. Though it surrounded this place that I visited often I never had a good look at it up until this point. The trees were smothered in a vivid shade of emerald that glistened in the fading sunlight. Torches lit the clouds that burned in violent hues of pink and yellow, that somehow didn’t seem to reach the earth to dye it the same magnificent colour. I thought about how, despite the materialist-driven streets of manufactured Toronto, you could still find places like this right on the edge of the city. Places that you have to park your car at the beginning of a mile hike up a dirt path to reach. Places no tower could touch, no matter how brilliant it may be. Places not mottled by man’s creations.
A lady, with red hair tumbling down to her waist and eyes the same hue as the leaves hanging over our heads that I had admired, tentatively emerged from the cavern.
I rushed towards her, giving a tender kiss coupled by a hug and a glance down at her protruding stomach. I smiled and looked back into her eyes, not noticing, or rather overlooking the discomfort that they seemed to portray. It was only one of the many signs that didn’t seem major then, but now seem to be the gods shouting out a warning to me. Trying to caution me to mellow.
“You are really looking forward to having the first child in the pack aren’t you?” Her voice was flirty and optimistic, which seemed to allow me to push the issue of her eyes away. She sounds fine, it gave me room to tell myself. How naïve of me, I was able to see through the artificial sweetener of my brother, but I couldn’t see through the same trick produced by her. In the end, I didn’t want to see it.
“Yes, I’m glad about that, but I’m just thrilled by having him in general. To be able to hold and raise our son. For us to raise him together.” She looked to the ground thoughtfully when I said “son” but allowed me to finish my words before pushing herself free of the grasp I held around her waist.
“It could be a girl you know.” It was all light hearted everything she said. Nothing but fluff to me and to my mind.
“We have no reason to worry about that, now do we. It will be a boy.”
“I guess your right,” she whispered, giving away to her old Irish accent. She and her mother moved to America when she was seven, but occasionally the accent of her childhood would resurface in her Americanised intonation.
I noticed something she squeezed between her first two fingers. Occasionally I would see it twirl over her index finger, leaving a swirl of colour. It was a card, across the top IVX was imprinted in large letters, and below I could see the top of a tower, noble and glorious, much like I would imagine the Tower of Babble looked. I couldn’t see the other end, and soon my mind went back to what it should’ve been on, instead of this insignificant observation.
I grabbed the back of her head and leaned down to kiss her forehead before asking something that had been bothering me. “Now, what I want to know is if he will be able to handle the…the instinct I guess is what you’d call it. How could he be able to control himself during full moons?”
“As I told you before, I never had a problem with it. I think being born a werewolf you are also born with what most people have to learn. You are born with the control.” She was grinning again, and when she smiled, it was as if her whole body smiled. You could see it in her eyes, in her limbs, across her silken skin.
“You know best I suppose.” It was true that if anyone would know it would be Shyla. Her mother was a werewolf and her father human. It seemed that being a werewolf was a dominant gene for the full moon after she was born, she transformed into the canine shape she’d come to know so well.
“Well of course I do. You didn’t bring an extra set of clothes,” she scolded, looking at my empty hands that were now dangling at my side.
I shrugged off the statement, still having my mind primarily on Cameron and wanting it to stay there. “I must have left them in the car. Oh well, I’m never too hard on them anyways. They’ll be a little ragged afterwards, but wearable.”
“If you say so, but don’t complain to me when you wake up in the morning and have nothing to wear. We better go inside; sun should be down in another hour.” Her long arm waved at the indigo that was beginning to extinguish the stunning flames that had spread through the sky and I nodded in agreement. Our pack liked to congregate and socialize with one another well before we transformed. Just our way of keeping in touch, of being more like family than an organization.
“So how’s your boy,” called a scrawny brown-headed kid to my left as I entered. Shyla had scampered off before my eyes had time to adjust to using campfire as its light source.
“He’s in a bit of delay. We are going to see a doctor if he doesn’t come in a week or so,” I didn’t know the eighteen year old very well, but that was what these gatherings were for, so I answered earnestly, including any extra titbits my mind might come across along the way.
“You’re going to name him Cameron, right? You know that means ‘broken-nose’.” he recited some baby book or another, as he told me my child’s name.
“How do you know his name?” I shouldn’t have been surprised, everyone experienced some outline of the excitement that devoured me, and gossip was as common here as anywhere.
“A friend told me. You’re really a role model for us.”
“And why me?” I asked with a cynical smile on my face.
“You are so ruthless, and controlled and strong. Strength has a lot to do with it. You aren’t scared of yourself. Of what you could do. Actually, you fully accept it. I’m glad the first kid of this place will be brought up by your values.” I should have been honoured by the remark, I should have appeased his admiration with a few words of wisdom, but I didn’t. Vanity is a cruel thing that destroys judgement more than any drug and gives you that same high. So I dismissed the child with some downgrading compliment, that he seemed to interpret in a positive light, so not to let his admiration falter. I was quick to end this conversation to start another discussion with my redhead beauty. She was with her long-time friend, Mara, a dark-haired dark-eyed fast talking person I never could quite keep up with. Shyla’s eyes were shining in the dull light, glistening from the salt water that attempted to make it’s way to the surface, but I again ignored this sign of some inner demon of hers. Assumed it to be a trick of the light, in the end the only thing a person sees is what they want and what they believe is there. I curved around a small crowd of people so that the pair wouldn’t see me until I had arrived. I came up behind Shyla, putting my elbow on her shoulder, praising her for her speed and giving my salutations to her friend.
“Well hi, how’se you been? Think I’ve gotten the idea of how Shy’s doin’,” Mara was quick to speak, and as she did Shyla gave her a “What the hell do you think you’re doin’” glance that I never noticed until my future reminiscing, and could be future knowledge fabricating the detail.
“I was fired. I’m pretty sure that my boss did it so he could get laid by the bitch that replaced me. Doesn’t matter though. I have the upper hand in this.”
Shyla craned her neck in an odd angle, in an attempt to look at me. “You didn’t tell me any of this earlier.” She seemed disappointed, but she always did when she thought I was keeping things from her.
“I’m sorry, it didn’t come up before. We were too busy talking about the boy.”
Mara rolled her eyes, but was smart enough to make it less noticeable by facing the ground. “So you are going to kill him? You are going to kill him and the girl hired after you simply because you were fired?” Shyla went on with her interrogation, seeming flustered. I hated to see her so worried and disgusted, but my ego was in control.
“Why are you so upset? This wouldn’t be the first time I’ve done something like this. And even if it was, it’s not fair that I should be sacked simply because he can’t…” I stumbled to find a less vulgar way to state my thoughts. “control himself. He deserves it.”
“Then what do you deserve?” Mara butted in so Shyla wouldn’t have to say it. “It’s just as unethical for you to kill him for such a stupid reason, as it was for him to fire you for a stupid reason. Maybe even more so.”
“I don’t think so. It’s all in retaliation. It’s like you learn in math, a negative times a negative is a positive.” I knew that Algebra shit would be useful one day.
“Unbelievable.” Mara heaved a sigh, as she walked off.
“I’m sorry, Shy. It’s just something I have to do.” God should damn people with egotism such as mine. I couldn’t give up my skewed values and beliefs, even for my girlfriend whom I would die for with no hesitation.
“I’ll try to understand.” She whispered a sorrowful understanding of just how arrogant I was. How she couldn’t change my mind for the life of her. I should’ve hated myself for the ways I tortured her, leaving her confused in an abyss of soured love, but it was love nonetheless.
“Look…” she commenced, but her words soon began to fade from hearing, drowned out by the symphony pain that settled in my stomach. It’s wicked crescendo flowed throughout my veins, replacing the tranquillity of my blood stream with the violent turning of hurricanes. Through the wailing of my cells to be free of this, of this feeling of being swirled into clay, came the voice. The wordless voice of the second mind, a purely animalistic quality that we have lost with our pointless reasoning. An instinct that was horrifyingly addictive to obtain and feel. A primitive power that overruled all other feelings and thoughts that you might have, one that turned the cacophony of a throbbing ache into a gentle hum, making it all bearable. Then the tune subsided, leaving nothing but the voice, and I knew then that I was in my wolf form. I also realized that I had fallen to the ground, and now had my legs caught in my clothes. Logic was lost to me now; I clawed at my clothes, turning them to rags in seconds, allowing them to fall to my side as I continued to flail at them. It is hard to explain this; I had the ignorance of a wild animal, but at the same time, I somehow knew what I was doing, the pointlessness and even the stupidity of it. Nonetheless, I couldn’t prevent myself from destroying the clothes that would be necessary later; I just couldn’t gain control as hard as I tried. These first hours, though being the most important, are the toughest. The hardest to gain your concentration, to override your second mind, but I’d obtained it. My human consciousness now filled and controlled every appendage, every organ, everything that was this beastly creature. I again thought of my son, how could he break through the wall and get to this state? How could his simplistic mentality write over the wolf‘s? Or maybe the simplicity is how I do it; maybe by sinking down to a similar simplicity of an animal, we control the animal. It doesn’t matter; Shy told you he’d be okay.
I swerved my head over to look at her, my darling grey wolf, russet eyes gleaming despite the dim lights. How I loved her, even in this alternative form of hers, that would’ve cowered in shame if it had ever discovered the beauty of her human self.
I left her and ran into the icy darkness of the night. My black fur coat ripple as I ran past the pack, who would venture in the woods until the sun’s time to rise above the land and spread it’s tapestry of crimson came near, when they would come back to the cavern to await their transformation back to their normal life. I would’ve stayed behind with them, stayed in the forest, the innocent I had just discovered that day. I wished to explore it’s purity more, it’s lack of humanity. Now I regret not going with that want, but I felt like I had a duty to myself, a wicked obligation to my pride. I looked up to catch a glance at the stars before I reached the blaring lights that shield them, and the impish way they flicker in the blackness.
The stars are the greatest thing you’ve ever seen and they’re there for you. For you alone, you are the everything. The song came to my mind, though I couldn’t remember who sang the poetic work. I wanted to sing the words as I ran, but I knew my wolfen mouth couldn’t mould into the needed shapes. So instead I howled. No wonder, with such a haunting howl that wolves were hunted into near extinction.
I had reached the city lights, in all it’s hyped-up and flashy glory. Toronto was even more exaggerated at night than in the day, as if it knows that the stars threaten to be more grand than it’s towering buildings. So there they were making an attempt to drown the stars out by being more showy. I quicken my pace as I run on the sidewalks, adrenaline flowing through my body as my mind anticipates the confrontation coming near. I would like to say that I ran faster for fear of being shot, but the cause was a mischievous sort of excitement that night seemed to produce. I still think myself to be immortal when I am a wolf. Though I haven’t witnessed this, most of us believe that you can be tortured in a million different ways, and as long as you haven’t turned back into a human by the end of it all you will still be alive and heal from it with a supernatural speed. I don’t know what they based this on, but I do believe it to be true.
I could see it in the distance now, the rectangular structure of mirrored windows I had left in shame earlier that day. I should have gone to his house, that’s where he should’ve been at this time of day, but I knew that if my suspicions of him were correct he would be here. As I approached the building of unreasonable dismissal, I saw a silhouette of two figures, human I believed. These shadows inflated my large confidence, I knew for certain now that I was right in coming here. I sped up towards the man and his mistress that giggled at nothing and stumbled around as they preceded to leave. Drunk I suspected.
The next event happened so fast in my memory, but seemed so dragging to me while it was occurring. I grabbed his leg first, bit into it with my powerful jaws and let them rest there, allowed the blood to leak onto my tongue. The sweet metallic nectar that was so enticing to me in that moment, for it was the blood of my enemy, of my demon. I didn’t need to do much more to damage his leg than hold on tight, he struggled enough to cause the tear himself. Once I felt like I was going to gag on the flesh that was in my mouth, I decided it was enough to enable his leg from any gestures that would get in my way, so I pounced on the fallen man. I stood on the betrayer, allowing the weight of this powerful creature to come down in full force upon him as I stared into his eyes. I saw the fear through those eyes, consolidating my belief that eyes are windows to the soul. I never flinched at the horror I saw in those baby blues, I kept my eyes locked with his, trying to speak through them, trying to say, “Yes, this is Anthony Sanders that now stands above you. You shouldn’t have treated me so unfairly, and here I am to punish you.” Giving up my hope that he could somehow know that it was me that did this ruthless deed, I began to claw erratically at his body, not caring where the next fragile sheet of skin was that I would tear. Just wanting him to bleed, to feel pain. I clawed at him, like I did my clothes, in hopes of getting him off my back. Of having the way, he discarded me, erased from my mind, to have my resentment of it put to rest. Then I felt it. I can’t explain what it was that happened, but I knew he was dead, like his spirit tapped me on the shoulder and said, “Hey, that’s enough. I’m gone now.” So I stopped and backed away from the empty shell that laid before me, glad that the life it contained was away from me.
I looked up at the wailing women that I had left to deal with; her wretched face blotched in red spots where she’d cried over her fallen lover. What an ogre she was. Yes, I guess it isn’t just for me to say that, she was beautiful in a way. The way cheaply made fake fruit is beautiful, a false, leading sort of beauty that would never compare to the real thing.
I watched his torn partner lay over him in tears, considering what I should do with her. In the end I left her there, I needed someone to be witness that the killer was a rabid wolf, and wounding her was out of the question. If I wounded her, she could become one of us, and that was something I was not willing to risk. So I fled the site of the man’s murder, retracing the path that took me to this place. I felt a sense of completion and settlement as I ran through the blaring streetlights in this Canadian city, yearning to be running through the trees with Shyla by my side.
I did get one wish without wait; the trees did not remain long for my presence. I was in the forest, rushing down harsh paths, not cleared out by human machines. I felt the leaves and twigs crush beneath my padded feet as I dashed past the identical trees looking for my love. It was magnificent. I had taken walks through virgin forests as a human, but it was much more of a spiritual experience as a wolf. Though the woods and I were separate entities, we were also the same thing. I felt deep in my soul that we were working as one. A feeling that everything I was usually separate from, I was now a part of, it was in me and I was in it. I only truly know and feel this when I am a wolf, every time I’m a wolf.
I howled into the moonlit woods, not only for the enthusiasm I felt in rediscovering this relationship, but as an announcement to my pack that I had completed my self appointed mission.
They heard the zeal-filled howl, and found me deep in the tree-infested haven, but I didn’t see her. I didn’t see Shyla in the crowd of wolves. I wondered what horrible tragedy could’ve occurred while I was gone for her to be missing. Had she been shot by rogue hunters and bled to death, but I didn’t believe we could be killed that easily did I? Was it environmentalist who had hopes that by relocating her to the western states so they could revitalize the wolf population? My mind thought through thousands of pessimistic scenarios before I realised why she was absent. My boy was coming. She was in labour.
I dashed though the plant life that surrounded me, and seemed to prevent me from making it to where I needed to be, beside my beloved. So I ran with more exertion than any previous time that night. It seemed to me that a wolf’s life was nothing but a series of runs from place to place, because that was all I ever seemed to do. The dull repetitiveness of a wolf did matter now, though. My child was going to be born.
I did eventually reach the opening of that cave, the fire nearly burned out. I slowed down as I entered, squinting through the darkness, but I kept the pace at a steady trot. Shyla was at the far back wall, completely covered in darkness. She was asleep, and he was curled up beside her, his white fur so bright it glowed in this engulfing blackness. I wanted to smile the sweetest, most affectionate smile possible to humanity, and in my mind, I did. In my mind, I still see myself smiling at the two splendours that lay before me. And they are mine, I thought with my vanity again, before I set myself down beside them to drift into sleep, and dream dreams of my future with them.

Part III
I awoke to a brightly lit room. I grinned without control, and turned over to see my girlfriend with hopes that she would be my fiancée, but all I found were the clothes I had left in the car. What a sweetheart, I thought. She went and brought my clothes up while she was up and walking. I didn’t think about how weak the birth could’ve made her, or about what she would’ve done with the kid while she had gone to get them.
I walked to the pile that was topped with a card; it was the card I had seen in her hand the night before. I could see it clearly now, people who appeared to be jesters in a kings court were falling out, distressed by the flames that leaped from the sun to strike the tower of might. “The Tower” was it’s name I discovered as I stared at this paradox. A card I had seen as such an optimistic and positive thing, a beautiful tower, strong and indestructible, now seemed so ominous, power falling into conflict, chaos, destruction.
I shook the hideous cartoon card off my clothes, getting dressed and walking outside stretching my back, expecting to be greeted by a redhead. I had it set in my mind that I would propose to her that day. Instead I was met by Mara, who had worry imprinted across her brow.
“Where’s Shyla?” I asked without concern.
“She…she left.” She was uneasy, like she was keeping something from me.
“Well, where did she go then. Maybe I could meet up with her.” I thought she’d gone to a grocery store or the hospital to make sure all was good. Maybe even home to get a good rest.
“No, no, no I don’t think you understand. Her brother met up with her early this morning, and she left. As in she left you. She left Toronto.”
“Wh-what? Why?”
“Because you’re an asshole. Look it was a girl. The kid was a girl and she didn’t know what your reaction would be. Oh, don’t give me that ’I’m an innocent victim’ look. You basically told her that it would be a disgrace to you if it wasn’t a boy…and that’s what your boss did to you wasn’t it? He disgraced you by sacking ya, and now he’s being buried six feet under ground right? She was scared about what you would do if ya found out that it wasn’t a boy, so she ran away. You are a bastard. You know how hard it is for our kind to have a successful nine month pregnancy, you have to know how many miscarriages I’ve had alone! Hell, I would happy to have a sexless child. And your cocky ass gets a great, loving girlfriend who does beat the odds, and who’s first pregnancy goes without any problems, and your not happy. And why is that? Because it’s not a boy!” I couldn’t comprehend this impassioned speech of derision. Was I really such a horrible, beastly person that my girlfriend didn’t feel safe around me? Had I really been so forceful on having a boy? These questions were in my mind, and seeking there answers, but mostly I felt pain. A cruel swirl of emotion, sadness, rage, loathing. All those emotions formed in Lucifer’s flames, and scorched my insides. She was gone. They were gone, all over a misunderstanding. A false hostility that was never meant to be expressed. A belief that should’ve never existed. And now I stood helpless where we had talked of our child the night before.
“I could’ve…I could’ve loved a girl,” I softly cried in my defence. I punch the wall and fell to my knees in an incurable desperation that spread through me as I thought more on the situation. She was right, everything Mara said to me was honest and truthful. Tears came upon me, as if my body was using them as a substitute for holy water. A way to let my self-hatred go away by forgiving me of my sins. It wasn’t holy water though, and I didn’t stop feeling disgusted by everything about myself, even disgusted that I believed I could be forgiven.
Mara bent down beside me and whispered, “I feel no pity for you,” before leaving me there to my inner turmoil.

Part IV
I sold my apartment and moved in with Byron. He allowed me to stay with him without pay so that everything I earned by working went into savings. All I had to do is give him the money I got off the apartment. It took me three years to save what I thought would be enough. Enough to travel around Ireland looking for Shyla. I had to find her, to try and explain myself. I knew I would never come close to getting over the ordeal if I didn’t even try to achieve pardon from her.
Ireland was a beautiful country, with lush hills that shimmered in the sunlight, but I took no notice. I was on another one of my missions, and I was just as focused on it as I had been on any other. I spent a year travelling from motel to motel in the foreign country, spending about a week in each place, looking desperately for my lost love. I started in the big cities, Cork, Limerick, Dublin, then moving into smaller, obscure towns. That was where I found her.
It was a full moon that night, so I was in my wolf form. In a cliché sort of way, I wasn’t looking for her that night. I had given up in finding her in that tiny town, figuring if I hadn’t seen her there by then, than she probably wasn’t there. I did decide to stay for that last full moon of the month there, though why I did I still couldn’t tell you.
That was my state of mind as I travelled through the December cold. The green hills were frost bitten and stiff under my feet as a dawdled about the country side.
I came across a silver washed lake that laid in the middle of a valley. I recognized her when I saw her, lapping water in an ineloquent canine way. She was there too, my daughter who was nameless in my eyes, her fur as creamy and brilliant as the moon.
I barked at them to get their attention as I ran up to them in glee. They turned from their drink and look at me, unmoving, though I could see recognition in Shyla’s eyes. I was so happy to see them, for my long search to be over, I was as senseless as I was when I didn’t have control of my wolf body. I walked towards them, wanting to apologize for all my wrongs. Wanting to plead forgiveness to them, but they just stood like statues there at the edge of the lake.
It was my little girl who first moved. She walked up beside me, sniffing me. Her golden eyes met mine, never had I seen such stunning eyes. How darling she was. She was everything I had expected in a son, everything I had wanted as I said the word son. How foolish I had been, this daughter was perfect. More perfect than any son. She backed away, still looking into my eyes and observed me some more before I heard it. The growl that came from my little girl’s mouth. The growl that was directed at me and followed by her claws coming across my nose. She did this before going back to her mother and the rest of the pack that had formed around her.
She had known who I was, how I was. Why she was in Ireland instead of Toronto. She had seen that unforgivable part of me and recognized it for what it was.
I watched them run off over the hill, as I sat there alone. I wasn’t sad, disappointed is a better word. More like having years worth of your artwork catch flame. It was upsetting, but my art had been caught on fire when Shyla first left me there in that cave, and I was already beginning to heal.

An Epilogue of Sorts
I left that island the next morning. I was still in despair, but it wasn’t as strong a feeling as even it was when I first came to Ireland. Byron allowed me to move back in with him, but I had to pay for my own groceries and half the rent this time, like a normal roommate. What a great and loving brother he was, always had my back.
I again found myself parking my car at the bottom of a mile long dirt road, and hiking up it to reach the cavern surrounded by a mystical forest. When I got there I was met by the pack, welcoming me back, asking about my trip. I glossed a nice picture of Ireland over the subtle sorrow the trip had actually contained. I lingered behind as they filed into the cave, but I was not alone out here. There was a baby, crawling around with nothing but his diaper on. I smiled at the child, couldn’t have been more than a couple of months old.
“Hey little dude, what’s your name?” I asked as I crouched down beside him playing with his hands.
“So you’ve met my son,” a familiar voice came from behind me. I turned around to see the brown haired kid from that tragic night. “He’s a cute little fellow, isn’t he?”
“Ugh…yeah. Wow, you’ve grown up a lot since the last time we talked. I don’t think I ever got your name…”
“It’s Cameron,” he stated with an air of confidence. A lot less spastic than the guy I’d talked to four years ago.
“Oh, so that’s how you knew what the kid’s name meant.”
“Yeah, I’m not just a psycho who memorizes baby books. That little kid over there,” he said waving toward the baby crouched on the ground, “is Tony. I thought it was the least I could do-name my kid after you-since you were gonna give your kid my name. Plus, your still my role model. Despite all the crap that went down, there is still a lot to be admired about you,” he was a little more timid than he’d been before, but it made me feel better to know that someone didn’t think I was a worthless piece of shit.
“Well, thanks. I really needed to hear that.”
“No problem,” he smiled nervously. He lifted Tony off the ground, and we went into the fire lit meeting place we knew so well.
Cameron is one of my closest friends now. I have learned a lot from that boy, most of all humility and accepting that there are things to learn from others. I’m still trying to convince Byron to go back to Italy, that I may never succeed at.
I am still healing from my loss, the memories are the hardest part of it. Remembering how happy I was, seeing how it could’ve been prevented, but I can’t change it. Sometimes I still wake up in the mornings, feeling like my old self, and I think I’m going to stop by Shy’s place today and then I remember in one flashback all that had happened. I have stopped wishing to get them back, all I wish for now is a scar. A scar where my daughter had scratched my face. A reminder of why I’ve changed, of why I can’t go back and why they’re gone. A reminder that I am the reason for my woes and that they are the reason for my present self.