With the assailant down, I’m able to get to Rita. She can’t stand in her present form, despite several efforts at getting to her feet.
“I don’t know what. To do,” I admit to her. “I—I can’t. Help you. Too big!”
With great effort and a lot of pain, Rita shifts back to human. It’s a slow process, and hard to watch. I have to turn my head because of the nature of the process and how coarse it really is. They’ve always changed so quickly that I never noticed the details.
The details. Are. Gross. So is the wolf who is barely alive. He isn’t shifting, and his large body twitches sporadically. I wonder if he’s going to die here.
After Rita has finally taken human form, I hear her ragged breathing. She sits up, gasping and trying to calm herself.
Then she turns to me, and for the first tim
