Bite: A Shifters of Theria Novel

by Bera, Ilia

  “You can’t just hold me prisoner,” I say. The sharp edges of the tight cuffs dig into my wrists.

  Mel doesn’t respond. We’re headed towards the flickering orange light, which is obscured by a large black rectangle. The encompassing wooded horizon is obscured by a large black rectangles. Inside some of the rectangles are squares of light; others are all black. We walk up to one of the boxes, which turns out to be a trailer home, temporarily parked, still hitched to the back of a parked truck. Mel steps up a set of small steps and opens a door.

  “We’ll be back in the morning, and we’ll see if you feel like talking,” he says.

  Before I can say anything, I’m pushed into the trailer. The door slams as my knees smack down against the ground. The occasional burst of distant laughter penetrates the thin trailer walls. The inside of my mobile prison is black. Staggering to my feet, I move towards the door. “Hello?” I call out. I receive no response. “Is anyone out there?”

  The air in the trailer is cold. A lap around the dark prison reveals nothing—no windows, no furniture, and no doors, save for the locked front door.

  I’m not tired and I never fall asleep, despite trying for several hours. The only sign of the passage of time is the thin line under the door, which slowly ignites with coming of the morning light. I can’t count the number of times I’ve flip-flopped between my options: do I tell Freddie that I sold his coins, or do I keep lying? If I tell him, will he let me go, or will he kill me? If I lie, what do I say? How long can I hold up the ruse? And when will I get my chance to escape? That’s another option: I could escape. If I could find the highway, I could hitchhike to a new town, make up a new name, start a new life.

  Finally, voices of men casually pass the trailer door. They laugh, but their conversation is unintelligible through the windowless trailer walls. I rush over and kick the door repeatedly with my foot.

  Bang! Bang! Bang! “Hey!” I call out. “Someone help! Let me out of here!”

  The men’s voices continue to pass, fading into nothing as they ignore my calls. It’s another hour before anyone else passes—but everyone ignores me. Even a small group of women, who stop right outside of the door for a lengthy chat, ignore the banging and yelling.

  I can no longer feel any sensation in my fingers, though I can very much feel the sharp pain from the tight handcuffs.

  I do my best not to collapse to the ground and cry. If this is some kind of isolation torture, it’s working.

  As if on cue, the door opens and blinding light floods my mobile prison. As I turn my head away to protect my eyes, a large man steps into the light and waits in silence.

  He’s a big man, taller than Mel and thicker than Hannibal Hugo. He towers over the doorframe, wide enough to block almost all of the light from entering the trailer. His arms are as thick as my whole body.

  It takes my eyes a whole minute to adjust. In that time, the towering man says nothing and remains as still as the door that preceded him.

  “Don’t hurt me,” I finally say, breaking the silence.

  “Freddie says you’re hidin’ somethin’ that b’longs to ‘em,” the man says. His voice is deep enough to pierce my body and rattle my bones.

  “I told him: I don’t have his coins.” My voice is raspy and my throat is dry and broken from yelling all morning. I can’t remember the last time I drank any water.

  “Freddie says y’know where they’re. Says y’ won’t say where.” It takes me a moment to understand his words through his thick, indistinguishable accent—like some bizarre combination of Irish, Yat, Minnesotan, Navaho, South African... Despite the colourful variety, his voice is entirely monotonous, totally void of emotion and his face is obscured in shadow, surrounded by a powerful halo of light.

  “Ya goin’ t’tell me, now? Well then?”

  The opening between the left side of the door and the giant’s legs might be wide enough to slip through, if I’m fast. I know I’m fast—the question is, am I agile enough, without the use of my arms.

  “Miss?” the giant says, leaning over slightly, blocking my potential escape route.

  “I just want to go home,” I say.

  “Y’can’t. Not till y’tell us where the territs‘re.”

  “If I tell you, you’ll kill me.” I take a step back.

  “We won’t be killin’ ya. Just want t’know where the territs’re.”

  “Yeah, right—and risk me going to the police and telling them that Freddie killed those people? Telling them you kidnapped me? You’re not going to let me go.”

  “We won’t be killin’ ya. Just want t’know where the territs’re,” the lumbering giant repeats. “They belong t’ us. T’ Freddie. Those’re our territs. You’ll talk. E’ryone talks.”

  The giant turns around to leave and I take my chances.

  I sprint for the door and throw myself out from the trailer, landing face-first in the dirt.

  “‘Ey!” the giant yells, but he’s too slow to react. Before he takes another step, I’m back on my feet, sprinting towards… I don’t know what I’m sprinting towards. All around me is light—and nothing else. I’m sprinting blind, my eyes taking their sweet time adjusting to the first light they’ve seen in nearly twenty-four hours.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  THE MIDDLE OF SOMEWHERE

  After a few trips, falls, and stumbles, a tree line materializes through the white haze. My body flails from side to side as I run, unable to use my arms to stabilize. Each time I try to look back, I lose balance. He's chasing me, but I have no idea whether I’m making ground or losing it. Judging by the giant’s fading calls, I’m making ground.

  The shade of the forest is a welcomed relief for my eyes, even though the trees are thin and bare. It isn't long before the trucks and trailers are out of sight and the blinding light dims into a glimmer of hope.

  The sun’s rays warm my skin, evaporating the cold sweat from my short meeting with the giant.

  Around Ilium, the trees are ancient and dark, with thick, dense trunks. The trees here are thin, fragile, and straight—all equal, planted in a grid, like some vast tree farm.

  I’m tired but I don’t slow down. I’ll continue running until my body won’t allow me to run anymore. I don’t care if I’m lost, if I have to sleep in the woods for a few days before finding the highway. Between my footsteps and the whistle of the breeze between the trees, the woods are silent.

  A blunt intensity strikes my back, sending me face-first into the forest floor. The soft fallen foliage stops the force of the fall from smashing my face. The same blunt force that took me down now presses on my shoulder blades, holding me against the ground. Did a tree branch just fall on me? Is this what being shot feels like?

  A plume of warm, humid breath washes over the back of my neck, sending a sharp chill down my spine. I would look back, but I’m paralyzed with fear. A long snout, complete with a black nose and long, sharp fangs, teases my peripheral vision. Its fur is a peppered grey, except around its mouth, which is jet black. It’s a wolf, and it’s sniffing me. I’ve been pounced by a wolf, and now I’m about to be mauled. I need to keep running.

  “Y’ shouldn’t run,” the beast on my back growls.

  So much for running. The paralysis spreads through my whole body—including my heart and lungs. If this is a nightmare, I’m ready for it to end. If it’s a nightmare, it’s the most vivid nightmare I’ve ever experienced. Another hot plume of breath tickles my neck. Did the wolf speak? The wolf couldn’t have spoken—that’s impossible. Wolves don’t speak. Animals don’t speak.

  The giant is the wolf’s owner—that’s it.

  The big man must be standing over me, holding his pet wolf back from ripping me to shreds. Animals don’t speak English. That’s absurd. What’s truly worrisome is that I even considered such a silly notion.

  The pressure on my back vanishes as the beast steps off of me, allowing me to roll over. But the giant is not standing over me, nor is he standing anywhere near me. There
is just me and the wolf—the biggest creature I’ve ever seen outside of a zoo. The ash and charcoal-coloured wolf must be five and a half feet tall, and three hundred pounds.

  Standing on all fours, its white eyes stare into mine. Its paws are bigger than my hands. I’m willing to bet that my whole head could fit inside of its mouth—though, that’s not a bet I’m willing to settle.

  “Easy, boy.” Making no sudden movements, I rise to my feet.

  “Don’t call me boy,” the wolf snarls.

  The paralysis returns. They drugged me.

  It’s the only explanation; they’ve given me some sort of hallucinogen. They’re trying to scare me into speaking. I’m not saying anything.

  The wolf pushes itself onto its hind legs. The charcoal hair recedes into its body and suddenly, it’s no longer a wolf. Now, the giant who confronted me in the trailer stands ahead of me. For the first time, I can see his face—the face that matches his voice. His lips rest flat, his eyes coated with an emotionless glaze. Sparse, wire-like hairs cover his cheeks, neck, and chin, but his upper lip is clear.

  Once the paralysis leaves my neck, I look around. Every direction is identical. Which direction did I come from? I could run again, but I may just end up back at my trailer prison. I’m a lab mouse, trapped in a maze of mirrors.

  “You’d be a fool t’ try n’ run ‘gain,” the towering man says. “Don’t make me pull y’all the way back.” He bends down and grabs my arm. The sharp handcuffs dig into my wrists.

  The same wire-like hairs that cover his face cover the back of his hand, and his palm is rough like sandpaper. “Hold still,” he says, stepping behind me.

  Click! The sharp tension vanishes around my wrists and sensation finally flutters back into fingers.

  “Y’ run, they’re back on.”

  “Thank you.” I look at my hands for the first time in too long. My fingers are blue and ivory.

  “Follow me, now,” he says. I do, keeping a full arm’s reach distance.

  On the giant’s arm is a familiar tattoo—a wolf’s paw. It’s just a coincidence, Olivia.

  “What’s your name?” I ask.

  “Mert,” he says.

  Mert? Did I hear that right? I’ve never heard of any Mert before. I ask him to repeat himself, in case I heard wrong, but again, he says “Mert” as if the name is totally normal. When I ask, he tells me it isn’t short for anything, and that he doesn’t know his last name. He is just Mert, and Mert is all he’s ever been.

  “Where are we, Mert?” I ask.

  “Ain’t s’posed t’ tell ya that.”

  “Why not?”

  Mert keeps his gaze forward, never bothering to look over at me. He seems to trust that I won’t run off again—or maybe he trusts in his ability to catch me if I do. “Ain’t s’posed t’ tell y’ anythin’.”

  “Did Freddie tell you that?”

  “Ain’t s’posed t’ say.”

  As we emerge from the woods, back into the grassy clearing, I see the trailer caravan for the first time. A long line of trailers hitched to trucks extends far into the distance.

  The trailers are vibrant, colourful; each painted a different colour. Even their long canopies are multi-coloured, with no clear colour scheme.

  Every twenty-five feet is a tower of smoke. As we pass the final tree, the smell of barbeque hits me with force. When was the last time I ate? My stomach lets me know that it’s thinking the same thing, gurgling and moaning. My mouth waters.

  Mert leads me to the back of the line, away from the delicious aromas, to an old, wooden trailer. Not only is my mouth watering, now my eyes are watering, too.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  PRACTICE

  The inside of the long wooden trailer is dark, despite its two little barred windows, which allow two long beams of light to show the dust that seems to float motionlessly in the air. A layer of hay crunches at our feet, and nearby— Thud! Thud! Thud! Each dull thump is accompanied by a grunt.

  I stop, but Mert continues into the dark lair. “Come on, now,” he says to me, without looking back.

  Thud! Thud! Thud!

  The air in the trailer is cold and foul. There are four wooden stalls, littered with horse shit but no horses. Further down the long camper, a familiar, tattooed man works away at a patchy, old punching bag. Focussed on the bag in front of him, he doesn’t bother looking back at us.

  “Ah got th’ girl ‘ere.”

  “Thanks, Mert,” Freddie replies between punches. He still doesn’t bother to acknowledge us. The edge of one of the dusty light beams teases his body, illuminating his slick muscles.

  “Ah’ll be outside,” says Mert, turning to leave.

  Freddie continues to work up a sweat, punching his well-used punching bag. He strikes the bag repeatedly in short bursts, catching his breath before striking the bag again, and so on.

  After a few minutes of silence, save for the thuds and grunts, I turn to leave. I’m not going to stand around and watch him workout. I’d sooner take my chances with the wolf hallucinations.

  “Don’t go anywhere,” Freddie demands, without looking back. He continues his exercise. I think he does just want me to watch him workout.

  “If you’re trying to impress me, it’s not working,” I say finally.

  “I’m not trying to impress ya,” says Freddie. He still doesn’t turn back.

  “You aren’t intimidating me either.” I cross my arms and lean up against a wooden post.

  “Ain’t tryin’ to intimidate ya.”

  “Then what are you doing?” I say monotonously. I could honestly care less why he was making me watch him workout.

  “I’m waitin’ for ya to tell me where my territs are.” In other words, he was just trying to intimidate me.

  I say nothing, unless you count my sigh.

  “Sooner ya tell me, sooner ya go home.”

  I say nothing again. This time I scoff. This game is getting old, and it’s getting old fast.

  “Did I say somethin’ funny?” Freddie still doesn’t turn back to look at me. “Ya think I’ll just kill you if ya tell me, right?”

  “Something like that, yeah.”

  “You don’t trust me when I say I won’t?”

  “I think you’re finally catching on,” I say, without moving from my stationary stance. I’m not sure what he thinks he’ll accomplish with his persistence.

  He turns around to face me, grabbing a rag from a nearby table to wipe the sweat from his forehead. The humid shine on his body accentuates every muscle of his body, making him look like a Greek god—the Greek god of shit-tattoos. No surprise, as he turns to face me, he has a long grin on his face, as if he expects me to drop to my knees in a puddle of my own drool at the sight of him. I don’t, but still, his smirk persists. He follows up his workout with a series of stretches, staring at me the whole time.

  “Ya think you’re pretty clever,” he says after a long silence.

  “I think I just want to go home.”

  “Then you know what ya have to do.”

  I sigh, exaggerating my eye roll so he’ll drop it, and move onto another plan.

  “Maybe this will get ya speakin’: tell me by tonight or I’ll kill ya.” As much as I believe he is bullshitting me, I can still feel a shiver run up my neck. He ripped those thugs up pretty well in my apartment. He steps up to me and places his hand on my side. His body-odour is made tolerable only by the days-old cologne that lingers on his body. “How does that sound for a deal?” He runs his free hand down the center of my chest, between my breasts and towards my crotch.

  “You wouldn’t kill a lady,” I say, smiling.

  Shing!

  I didn’t notice the pocketknife in his hand, which is now extended between my legs. My instinct is to stand up onto my toes, not that it will do much.

  “If that’s where ya want to put your money, be my guest, by all means.” His smirk grows again, this time in response to the dilating of my pupils, which give me away completely.
“Let’s say midnight, tonight. If ya feel like speakin’ now, I’ll take ya back to Ilium myself. I’m headin’ back there today—assumin’ the territs are in Ilium, that is.”

  I remain silent and carefully hide my trembling hands behind my back.

  “You’re not so sexy when you’re not bein’ such a bitch.” The cool blade touches my inner-thigh.