Howling Shadows

by C. N. Owens

  “And yet you still want to fuck me… I hate men,” I slur, wishing I could act out my anger.

  “Oh, she’s going to be a star,” Andre says, along with the familiar jingle of a belt being undone.

  “I didn’t say anything about the other guys,” I say, my voice fading to a whisper, on the edge of sleep.

  “Well, there ain’t much you can do about it, is there?”

  “The monster will come; you don’t want that.”

  The men laugh again while stripping off the rest of my clothes.

  “I swear, this is the whitest bitch on the planet,” I hear another say, resulting in more echoing laughter.

  I’m unable and unwilling to open my eyes as they begin, wishing only to sleep through this.

  Chapter 18

  Trent

  I make it home from the airport in record time. The 350 V8 in my primer-black El Camino wailed the whole way, trying to maintain triple-digit speeds. That would explain why I burned through half a tank of gas in sixty miles.

  The grass is so high it rubs the front bumper as I idle down my driveway. I’m going to have to mow one last time before winter sets in good. It’s nearing 6:00 p.m. by the time I pull up in front of my old house, relieved to find everything exactly the way I left it.

  I quickly inspect the house and what I can see of the two-hundred acres that makes up my land, and find nothing out of place. The field is deep with grass; not even a hog has come through cutting a path… all good signs.

  The property was an old citrus plantation owned by the late Metts family and before that the Pritchets. It has long since fallen into disrepair. I found the place after my discharge from the Army, and despite its being near collapse, I had to have it. The Metts were good people and gave me an excellent price, but they were in their nineties and had ground all the usefulness out of the house before deciding to move.

  ***

  It must be early evening when I wake up, feeling like I need to puke again. A couple days have passed, and as expected, the others have arrived. I live in the middle of nowhere, so I don’t lock the door. I may have left it open, too, but I don’t remember. I roll off the couch and barely manage to stand. Golden light beams through the windows of the French doors in the dining room, and a glimpse of the clock confirms it—6:30 p.m.

  “Knock, knock!” Andrea’s deep voice echoes in the house.

  “In here,” I say. Before I can take a step, I feel a gust of wind and Cassie appears, seizing me in her arms.

  “Oh my God,” she whispers and steps away when I wince. “You look terrible.”

  “Speak for yourself,” I say to Cassie, who still looks like a saddle-brown stick figure. I collapse back on the couch again, and she comes for me, sitting on my left.

  “She did this?”

  “Yeah, I think it’s infected.”

  “Oh, there’s no doubt, I can smell it,” Gordon says before he even enters the room. “I have my pad with me, so I’ll write a few scripts. Based on the stench alone, you’ll need empirical antibiotics.”

  “Thanks, bud, I need a dressing change, too,” I say, and wince when I try to shift a little on the couch.

  “I can do that as well,” he says with a clear, powerful voice.

  “Poor thing,” Cassie says, and pouts her bottom lip.

  “Yeah, I don’t bounce back as fast as I used to. This infection is kicking my ass.”

  “This isn’t the first time you’ve had to deal with it.”

  “Yeah, I know.”

  Cassie reaches out for Andrea and she joins us on the couch.

  “Do you have any idea where Leila might be?” Cassie asks, and pushes my hair behind my ear.

  I swat her hand away. “Nope. I imagine the worst has happened. Most likely before she did this to my chest.”

  Cassie looks away to Andrea and smiles. She takes her hand, deep in thought. “Such a shame,” Cassie says, and gently touches a bruise just below Andrea’s right eye. “We need you healed.” Her voice is just above a whisper, and although she’s looking at Andrea, I know what she said was meant for me.

  “I knew it the moment I saw her,” I say.

  “Leila must die,” Cassie says, and pulls Andrea in for a quick kiss.

  “Why?” Andrea asks. “I thought you guys were protecting her.”

  “It’s too late. Alpha werewolves become bonded pairs when they spend an extended amount of time together. That bond is unbreakable, and their offspring will be—”

  “Pretty much all the bad things in the book of Revelations… that kind of bullshit,” I say. “Can you heal me?”

  “I have no blood. I could cut my hand off and squeeze out maybe a few drops. I’m so dry right now, I could be used for kindling.” She laughs, but her expression turns serious. “You and I both need to recover, fast. They must be dealt with.”

  “Why does it always wind up being us?”

  Cassie shrugs, and her lips crack when she smirks at me. “I don’t know. But we did it last time.”

  I grab her hand. “We’ll do it again, too.”

  “Yes, we will. Is there anything we can do for you right now?”

  “Cut my hair? Help me get in the shower?”

  “Of course.”

  ***

  A while later, after working up the energy, I make my way into the bathroom, so Cassie can help me get cleaned up. Cassie gracefully enters, and I hand her my clippers and sit in a chair. She looks at me in the mirror, and after buzzing the hair off the left side of my head, she smirks and descends on my neck, biting gently.

  She releases moments later. “Yes… bad infection.” Cassie says from behind me, wiping her bottom lip. “It’ll hold me over for now.”

  “There’s a nice spot downtown,” I say, holding a towel around my neck. “If you get out there soon, you’ll have plenty of people to feed on. Just don’t kill anyone. We don’t need that kind of attention.”

  “No problem,” she says, continuing to cut my hair, grabbing the longer clumps and tossing them into the garbage by the sink.

  A few minutes later, I’m nice and clean-cut, and Cassie is warming up the water in the shower. She pushes the doors to the bathroom shut and begins stripping off her clothes.

  “You’re joining me?”

  “Surely, you can’t bathe yourself right now. Those stitches won’t allow you to move around much.”

  “I’m not complaining,” I say and get into the shower with her. Thankfully, the shower is suited for an elderly user. It has two seats and rails for support. It was irritating before, but now I’m happy to have it… maybe I’ll keep it after all.

  “This house is in desperate need of work,” Cassie says, and pulls the shower head off the hook and begins rinsing the loose clippings out of my hair. “I shall begin work on it right away.”

  On second thought, maybe I won’t keep it. “Not up to your standards, I see.”

  “Trent, you can’t ask me to live in these conditions.”

  My laugh echoes in the hollow plastic shower. “Again, not complaining.” I stand and face her.

  She looks emaciated, her breasts are still flat, and her ribs are all clearly visible, but she’s gorgeous nonetheless. She looks back at me and smiles, no doubt picking up on my troubled thoughts.

  “Was there ever a chance for us?” I ask.

  She shakes her head. “I love you, Trent, but we’re light-years apart. You can’t love a vampire any more than I can love you.”

  I reach out my hand to shake hers. “Friends?”

  She takes my hand. “The best kind, always.” She pulls me toward her and gives me a quick kiss. “I’m sorry for my issues. I don’t mean to confuse you.”

  “Not at all. I’m learning my boundaries.” I smooth down her dampening hair. “Thank you for taking care of me.”

  “Thank you, for rescuing me. If you hadn’t, I’d still be on that rack bleeding out.”

  “I’
d never leave my partner behind, and I took care of Raoul for you. I brought you a gift.”

  Chapter 19

  Leila

  A headache throbs behind my eyes. I climb out of bed, vaguely remembering the night before and where I am. Andre is sound asleep beside me on his stomach, his tattooed back exposed, left uncovered in the drafty room.

  I make my way to the bathroom. I’m naked and sticky, smelling of cheap cigars, and I have to pee. The bathroom is closet sized, with a narrow tub and a toilet sitting next to a postage stamp–sized opaque window. My insides sting as I sit down. Dried blood stains my inner thighs, and there is more dripping bright red into the toilet, sliding through the water like oil. Using toilet paper is also painful.

  After cleaning up, I move to the edge of the tub and quietly weep, trying to control my panic, unsure of what happened last night and realizing what a big mistake it was for me to search these people out.

  “Leila,” a deep, growling voice calls from outside the bathroom door.

  “I’m peeing.”

  “You all right?”

  “Yeah,” I say, wincing when the sting evolves into a dull ache. I know this pain. It’s the result of what happened last night; my insides are damaged, torn.

  I rinse off in the shower and spend a little time developing a plan. The thought of those men and what they did disgusts me, especially when I touch my wounded self, created because I’m weak and addicted.

  There’s a damp, musty towel on the floor; it’s all I can find, so I wrap up in it and walk out of the bathroom and stop in the living room. Andre sits on the couch, wiping the sleep out of his eyes.

  “What did you do to me last night?” I ask.

  “Yeah, about that. Damon shouldn’t have gone in dry.” His stubbly shaved head wrinkles as he looks up at me from his phone. I stand for a moment, beaten down and defeated, unable to speak. Not knowing what else to say, I nod and tiptoe back into the bedroom to get dressed.

  Andre is talking on his phone when I emerge from the bedroom; the others have already left. I sit in the chair on the far side of the room, repulsed by this filthy drug house and the ogre sitting on his peeling black couch. He passes me an occasional smug glance, while continuing his conversation, this knuckle-dragging oaf who fucked me last night and shared me with his friends. He has a tree trunk for a neck, covered in tattoos, and the graying stubble there matches what’s sprouting on his head. It appears to be shaven only because if he didn’t, he would have a giant bald spot. I can’t blame him; growing out his hair would give him a menacing child molester look. Now, he just looks like a white gorilla.

  He sets his phone down on the coffee table and pulls out a thin cigar with a mouthpiece, lighting it and taking a drag. “You going to be able to work tonight?”

  I see a black tongue piercing as he exhales a cloud of smoke that fills the room with a cherry tobacco scent.

  “I’m bleeding.”

  “But it’s not that time of the month, right?”

  “No, it’s not even from that… opening. You and your friends hurt me; I might need to go to a hospital.”

  “Naw, girl”—he waves dismissively—“I checked it last night, and it’s not that bad. I’ll give your client some rules when the deal is made. He won’t go near you… there.” He picks his vibrating phone back up with a paw-like tattooed hand, reads for a moment, and then sets it back down with a nod. “I know some rich white dudes that just love ’em tiny and young, and they’ll pay a premium for a taste of you.”

  Checked it, he said. The thought of him doing just that makes me want to puke, let alone the rest of what they did last night. “But I’m hurt,” I say, my expression curling into a scowl, still unsure why I’m begging this man, damning a latent sense of humanity and addiction tying me down, keeping me from tearing this house apart and everyone in it.

  “Come on, baby,” he says, scooting closer on the couch. “You do this for me and I’ll give you a break for two weeks and enough brown to keep you high the whole time. I need this, and I don’t have a lot of time to close the deal.”

  “Can I please just go? I paid you for what you gave me last night—we’re even.”

  “And where are you going to go? You don’t know anyone; you have no money. What will you do when you get that itch again?”

  “I don’t care. I don’t want to do this.” Tears stream down my cheeks as I realize that, once again, I’m with another man who wants to keep me captive.

  “Let me take care of you, baby. You won’t have to worry about anything if you’re with Daddy.” He reaches for a cigar box under the side table nearest to him and produces what I crave so much. “Daddy’s here for you,” he says, trying to mutate his voice into something soothing, sounding like a grizzly bear with his nuts in a vise.

  ***

  I wake from blackness. Andre gave me a huge dose, I realize when the fog recedes from my mind. The front door sits open, the sun is going down, and I discover I haven’t moved from this chair in hours. My empty stomach growls, and my lips are dry, just like my throat.

  Two black men lounge on the couch, passing a thick blunt between themselves and Andre, who is sitting in a chair to their right.

  They all look to me as I stir and sit up a little, wiping my messy hair out of my eyes. There is a line of dried blood reaching to my hand from where Andre stuck me.

  “Damon, apologize to the girl,” Andre says, exhaling a cloud of skunky-smelling smoke.

  “Fuck you, I ain’t apologizing to no trick,” the man immediately to the right of Andre says, shooting me a dismissive glance and passing the cigar back to Andre.

  Andre goes silent. He carefully places the cigar in the ashtray and then lunges to his right, grabs Damon by the neck, and pushes him over, pressing his face into the arm of the couch. He produces a pistol and puts the muzzle on Damon’s temple. “You damaged my property. Apologize to me.” He draws the hammer on his shiny chrome pistol.

  Damon struggles for a second but stops. The other man, whose name I don’t know, doesn’t move. He watches blankly as if he’s seen this a hundred times before.

  “I’m sorry—I’m sorry, damn!”

  Andre presses him into the couch again but doesn’t respond, still considering the sincerity of his apology. Finally satisfied, he eases the hammer back on his pistol and sits again. “He didn’t mean it, Leila.”

  I roll my eyes and nod in response. I don’t remember what time I passed out earlier, but it had to have been hours ago, and I don’t care enough to ask. All of them seem empty—money and sex are the only things on their minds. Even though they sit quietly working on their buzz, I can feel it; that impression comes to me without being told.

  You will emerge victoriously from your troubles if you let the Lord into your life. The sister’s words repeat in my still-clouded mind. The warmth, the euphoric rush is almost gone, being replaced by an all-too-familiar headache as I come down from my high.

  I wish I could have screamed for help, I wish I could have controlled myself for Detective Jordan and my hero back in Virginia. If I had Trent’s number, I could call and beg with all my heart for him to rescue me again. I debate for a moment returning to the women’s shelter and trying to clean up, cringing at the thought of the agonizing withdrawals.

  Trent LaPore, 4133 Old Eagle Lake—my dark hero with the gorgeous eyes. He’ll know what to do. I stand and stagger to the door, telling the men I’m going to be sick. The cold brick porch chills my feet, but when I sit on the steps, it’s somewhat soothing on my sore backside. Cars trawl up and down Pine Street in the early sunset, and a steady flow of people stroll the sidewalk, some with children, others prostitutes with their pimps following paces behind.

  “You see those girls?”

  I don’t respond. Andre walks out and sits on the steps next to me, still smelling of last night’s cologne. “Those women are nothing compared to you. You are too good for the corner,” he says, another cherry-sc
ented cigar pinched between his lips.

  I remain silent, pondering how that’s supposed to be a compliment.

  “They will come to you and spend thousands to treat you like a queen for a night.”

  “You are a few years too late for that.” I sigh. “That worked when I was fourteen. I’ve been doing this for a while… I’m seventeen now. Do you really want to bring pedophiles into your house? Are you okay with men fucking underage girls?” I ask, knowing that even among criminals, they have a code, and hurting women and children is a high crime with them.

  Andre looks away for a moment, and for a second, I think he might actually believe that I’m seventeen.

  “Listen, you are valuable to me and my business right now, so don’t cheapen yourself. I throw away my trash, and I could get rid of you, no problem.”

  “Then get rid of me.”

  Before I can react, his giant hand grabs me by the chin and smashes my mouth into an unnatural pucker.

  “Little girl, I have something for you to wear in my room. Now you go get dressed for your customer, or you will see my ugly side.” He shoves me away so hard that I hit my head on the railing.

  I stand and walk through the living room, ignoring the comments about my pale skin from Damon and his friend, bound for Andre’s bedroom. I find a skimpy red dress lying on the bed. The stretchy, strapless garment wraps around me like a red, sparkly condom, accentuating everything I hate so much about my body: the press of my bony hips and my lack of breasts.

  I pass through the living room, ignoring the catcalls from the men on the couch, feeling the anxiety build the way it always does before meeting a new customer. In the bathroom, I take a moment to clean the blood off my arm and collect myself. Outside, the talking increases in volume and the sound of a hyena-like laugh fills the room. Definitely not Andre or any of the other men I’ve met before—my customer must be here. I use my fingers to comb out the knots in my hair, and after several deep breaths, I walk out, trying not to hyperventilate.

  My john is a lanky pale-skinned man in a polo shirt and jeans. His messy brown hair is styled to make it appear as though it took no effort.