Worse, she felt the hunger gnawing away at her again, and felt herself growing more irritable.
Rose, as if reading her mind, whined. The poor thing was hungry, too. Caitlin was determined to find a way to get them both food.
She suddenly heard a wooden shutter opening up above, followed by a loud splashing. She jumped back, as a bucket of water hit the ground, close to her, startling her. She looked up and saw an old woman, missing teeth, looking down as she finished emptying a bucket, and then slammed closed the shutters.
Caitlin smelled a horrible stench, and didn’t need anyone to explain to her what the woman had just done: thrown a bucket of urine out the window. She was revolted. She heard another shutter opening, in the distance, and looked over and watched someone else do the same. She looked down and realized that the streets were lined with urine and feces. She also noticed several rats scurrying to and fro. She nearly wretched. It made her, for the first time, really appreciate the inventions and comforts of her time that she had always taken for granted. Plumbing. Sewage systems. She longed for cleanliness, and felt more homesick than ever. If this was a sneak preview of urban life in 1790, she wasn’t sure she could handle it.
Caitlin hurried along, before any more shutters opened, and finally saw what looked like an opening up ahead. She reached the end of the alleyway, and it indeed opened up onto another square, this one less crowded. She was relieved to be out of the side streets and back out into the open light and air again.
She crossed the square, and sat on the edge of the large, circular fountain, in one of the few empty seats amidst the crowd. Rose jumped up beside her, and sat looking up at her, whining.
As Caitlin sat there, trying to collect her thoughts, a person approached, holding out a canvas and pointing at it with a paintbrush. She looked up at him, puzzled, and he kept pointing. “I draw your picture,” he said. “Very pretty. Very nice. You pay me.”
Caitlin shook her head. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I don’t have any money.”
The man quickly hurried off. Caitlin looked around the square, and noticed street artists everywhere, all trying to get people to pay them. And then she noticed something which alarmed her: packs of wild dogs. They combed along the sides of the square, rifling through trash, and she saw one dog stop and look her way. It seemed to focus on Rose—and soon, it was trotting in their direction.
Rose must have sensed it, too, because she turned slowly and faced the oncoming animal. Caitlin could feel Rose tense up, and she tensed, too. The large, mangy dog looked somewhat like a German Shepherd, and it came up to Rose, and sniffed her. Rose sniffed back, her hair standing up on her back; as the dog tried to walk behind Rose, Rose suddenly snapped, snarling with an unearthly noise, baring her teeth, and biting the dog’s neck—hard.
The dog yelped. Although it was bigger, Rose was clearly more powerful and she did not let go.
Finally, the dog took off.
Rose, worked up, sat there, snarling, a vicious, unearthly sound, and several people backed away, giving them space.
Caitlin was shocked. She had never seen Rose like that before. It made her realize Rose was not the small, innocent pup she remembered; she was growing up, and would soon be a full-bred wolf, and a force to be reckoned with.
Caitlin felt the unwelcome stares in their direction, and decided to move on, before someone realized that Rose was not just another dog. The last thing she wanted was to call more attention to them.
Caitlin got up and led Rose to the opposite side of the square. She looked at all the side streets and alleyways leading into and out of the square, and felt overwhelmed. Had she been foolish to come here? How could she ever possibly find Caleb amidst these masses, in this maze of a city?
Maybe she should have followed the Priest’s advice, and gone to Florence instead. Had she been foolish to follow her heart?
Before she could finish the thought, something caught her attention. On the far side of the square, she noticed a girl get dragged down an alleyway, and heard her muffled cry, before a hand was clasped over her mouth. Clearly, she was in trouble.
Without thinking, Caitlin sprang into action, chasing towards her.
She ran into the alleyway, Rose by her side, and soon found herself running down a set of twisting and turning alleys. She heard the muffled cries in the distance, and turned down another alleyway, then another, getting lost in the maze of narrow side streets.
Finally, she spotted the girl up ahead. She was being dragged by three men towards the end of an alley, one of them with a hand over her mouth, and the others each grabbing an arm. They were huge men, all bald, covered in scars, and evil-looking.
The girl fought back valiantly, biting one of their hands, eyes open wide in fear as she jerked her arms and elbows and legs—but it was of little use. These men were clearly stronger than her.
“Let her go!” Caitlin screamed, as she ran towards them and stopped.
The three men stopped, turned, and looked at Caitlin. They must have been shocked to see a single girl confronting them. At first, they didn’t know what to make of it.
“I said, let her go,” Caitlin said, in a low, steely voice. “I’m not going to tell you again.”
Caitlin thought back to the all the times in her life when she’d been bullied, overpowered, especially when she’d been human. She hated bullies, more than anything. And if there was anything she hated worse than that, it was seeing a guy trying to hurt a girl. She felt the rage overwhelm her, felt the heat rise up from her toes, up through her legs and shoulders and hands; she felt it transform her, give her power she never knew she had. It was blinding, all-encompassing. She had no choice. It drove her.
The three cretins dropped the girl, roughly, on the stone, smiled at each other, and turned and walked towards Caitlin. The girl could have ran, but instead she stayed where she was, watching.
Caitlin heard Rose growl beside her.
Caitlin didn’t wait. She took three steps forward, leapt into the air, and planted two feet hard on the lead man’s chest, kicking him so hard that he flew back several feet.
Before the others could react, she wheeled and elbowed one hard across the face, cracking his cheek with a loud noise, and sending him to the ground.
The third man grabbed her from behind with all he had. Caitlin struggled, surprised for a moment. This one was much stronger than she’d expected.
Just as she prepared to flip him over her shoulder, she heard the sound of breaking glass, and felt him drop his grip.