Animal Instinct

by Noelle N

  "It's just glucose," he quickly assured me, the expression on his face calm. He showed me the label on the bag and lifted his lips in a faint smile. "Keeps you hydrated and energised. You seemed very weak when Bianca and Diego brought you here."

  I eased back a choked sob, watching as he firmly gripped my arm and hooked the IV tube back into place. My eyes roved his face searchingly, but he made sure to avoid my gaze. "Who are you?" I asked at last.

  He stilled, before pulling away uneasily and straightening back up. "No one important."

  "Then will you at least tell me why I'm here?"

  "I'll leave the explanations to Bianca when she comes in later."

  "I'm not talking to her," I said quietly, but firmly, meeting his gaze squarely. "She and Diego tried to kill me – "

  "They were protecting you – "

  " – by kidnapping me!" I finished angrily, before pausing and looking up at him with raised eyebrows. "Wait, what do you mean 'protecting'?"

  "Quinn – " The man paused, and he seemed to be having a mental debate with himself before he finally sighed. Reaching for the nearest chair, he pulled it over and sat, shifting it closer to the bed. "Quinn," he repeated, looking me in the eyes, his expression grave all of a sudden. "You are an eyewitness to a very important murder case. And it's our job to look after you, and ensure that no harm comes to you until the Hearing."

  My forehead creased in confusion. "What are you – " A sudden thought came to mind and I paused, looking up at him in disbelief. "You mean the wolves?"

  "Yes."

  "I didn't mean to kill it. I already told Diego, it was an act of self-defence – "

  "No, Quinn." He reached out to stop me, but thought better of it and quickly retracted his hand. "Not what you did. What the wolves did. The black wolf killed the brown one."

  I paused, my eyebrows shooting up high on my forehead. "You need a court hearing for the death of a wolf?"

  To my surprise, he chuckled, shaking his head at me in evident mirth. "Put like that, it does sound plain ridiculous; but I assure you, it's not. That wolf, the brown one, was really important to our community."

  "Your community," I repeated tentatively, still trying to wrap my head around the bizarre turn of events. "I don't understand."

  "You will, Quinn. Soon."

  His words were so ominous that I suddenly felt afraid, and abruptly drew away from him, shifting myself closer to the wall. "Who are you?" I asked again.

  His laughter ceased and, after a moment's hesitation, he inclined his head politely, stretching out a hand for me to shake. "I'm – "

  But the door was flung open that moment, and a familiar woman strode into the room, her eyes narrowing when she saw his outstretched hand. "Clayton, now is not the time to fraternise with our eyewitness," she said coolly, and he quickly stood up, scraping the chair back against the floor. Dipping his head briefly to acknowledge her, he quickly left, but not before smiling at me faintly on the way out.

  The room was silent as I watched him leave; feeling almost distressed because he'd now left me alone with her. I stared suspiciously as she sat in the seat that Clayton had vacated, crossing one tanned leg primly across the other before looking at me.

  "Quinn."

  "Bianca." I matched her icy tone evenly.

  "Luna Bianca, if you please," she corrected swiftly, pinning me with her cold eyes.

  "What?"

  She rolled her eyes in evident impatience. "Nevermind. I believe Clayton's told you why you're here? That we're not here to harm you; but rather, to protect you."

  I shifted away from her uneasily. Even if she was civil now, that didn't mean I could trust her. "I want to go home," I said quietly, fingers grasping tightly on the blanket. "If you let me go, I promise I'll go to your wolf-hearing, or whatever it is that your community carries out."

  "That is out of the question," she replied swiftly. "It's true – I don't want you here. You're human, you're weak, you're a liability; and worst of all, you reek of him – "

  "Him? Who – "

  She ignored me. " – but you're an eyewitness, and your life is in jeopardy. Frankly, you need us more than we need you."

  "I don't even know you," I countered, trying to fight the wave of panic in my chest and forcing my voice to stay calm. "I'm not going to trust you until I know what's going on or where I am. And even then, I think I'd be much safer back home than I am here."

  Bianca listened to my words in silence and stared fixedly at me for so long that I began to feel uneasy all over again. After what seemed like an eternity, she stood up, reaching forward to grasp my chin roughly in the same manner she'd done the night before, tilting my head up so that I was looking directly at her.

  "I'm just going to say this once. I'm not going to say it again but know that I absolutely mean every word I say," she said, her fingernails digging into my jaw painfully. "You're going to stay here, period. If you try to run, we'll hunt you down and bring you back. If you try to contact someone on the outside, we'll find out and you'll suffer the consequences. But if you're good, and willing to cooperate, then I think you'd find your stay very pleasant here."

  I dug my nails into my palms. I knew Bianca expected me to consider her words seriously, and I definitely knew that she meant it, if her tone was any indication at all. But all I noticed at that moment was the telephone sitting on a desk across the room.

  "So – " Bianca's red lips curved into a smile as she released me. " – what's it going to be, Quinn?"

  Without another word, I scrambled out of bed, the IV tube tearing from my veins in a sheer, agonising wrench. Blindly, I shoved Bianca aside, hearing her let out a vicious, angry growl from behind me – it was odd, but I barely registered it. My attention was solely focused on getting to the telephone, calling for help and getting out of whatever hell-hole these people were keeping me in.

  But the brief moment of hope didn't last long. I'd barely gotten my hands on the phone when I felt my hair nearly yanked out from their roots by a forceful backward tug. Then Bianca's fingers were wrapped around my throat as her nails dug crescent-shaped slits into my skin.

  "Pathetic human." Her voice was a deathly chill as she spoke into my ear, and my heart raced as her red lips curved up in a smirk. "When will you ever learn? You can't run from our kind."

  * * *

  The room was claustrophobic.

  I lived in a studio apartment, but this was even smaller than my bedroom. The walls were jagged red bricks not lined with wallpaper and the floor was cemented and rough. My bed was a single, the mattress rough and scratchy, and the bathroom a pathetic stall with only a sink, no mirror. A closet stood along the other end of the room, and that was that.

  I tried to keep my fears at bay as I sat on the bed, hugging my knees to my chest. I'd been thrown into this place after directly disobeying Bianca hours earlier. So far, I'd already established that there was no window to escape from, and the door was bolted shut from the outside. The best plan now was to wait for someone to open the door and rush right out. Or, I could easily fake something in here, have someone look in out of sheer concern and slip past them. Or –

  The sudden click of the latch outside made me look up. The door was unbolted moments later and Diego stepped in, his tall frame filling the doorway. No room to escape. My heart instinctively began to race with fear when his gaze focused on me.

  "You're needed at the Hearing." His voice was polite intonation he'd used on me the night before, but I wasn't buying it. Not when he'd had his fingers wrapped around my throat less than twenty-four hours ago.

  I pressed up against the wall, shying further away from him when he stepped into the room. "I'm not going."

  "Yes, you are," was all he said, before closing the distance and clasping a hand tightly around my arm in a vice-like grip. He reached over to drag me off the bed and I yelped in pain when I lost balance and stumbled onto the floor.

  "Let go of me!" He didn't say a word, but he pulled me out of th
e room after him. I was all but tripping over myself to keep up with his swift pace. "Stop it! You're hurting me!"

  The halls were frighteningly silent as we navigated through what seemed like a never-ending labyrinth, but I never stopped trying to pry his fingers off me. It only made him tighten his grip even further, and I felt the blood short-circuit in my arm, my bone seemed to strain from the pressure he was exerting on me.

  Before I knew it, we were standing in front of large brass doors. Diego didn't hesitate to push the doors open, dragging me in after him. I felt my heart plummet at the number of people in the room. The atmosphere was tense but piqued with curiosity, but before I could scan the room any further, Diego was pushing me down into a chair somewhere near the front.

  "Luna." Diego dipped his head briefly to acknowledge the woman seated in the front. Bianca's gaze locked on mine and the tiny smile playing on her face seemed to widen. "The perimeter's secure."

  "Thank you," she coolly acknowledged, before tilting her head to speak with the man beside her. I hadn't noticed the person she was sitting next to at first, but I felt my throat clam up when he turned to look at me.

  It wasn't that he was familiar at all – he wasn't. But there was such intense coldness in his eyes that I couldn't stop the chill racing down my spine. In the back of my mind, I had the niggling thought that he was like one of the Gorgons, or a Basilisk. Meeting their eyes meant certain death, and it seemed the same for this man in front of me.

  I quickly averted my gaze, staring down at my clasped hands on my lap.

  "Alright." Bianca's voice was loud and confident, slicing through the hushed chatter in the room. "Let this court come to order."

  Instantly, the room fell silent, so silent you could almost hear a pin drop. I chanced a glance around – everyone's attention was fixed on her and not a single person met my eyes. Somewhere at the back, I noticed Clayton, the doctor who'd tried to fix me up earlier. I craned my neck to get a better glimpse of him – he was, after all, the only person who'd been remotely nice to me since my arrival – but a warning growl from Diego kept me in place.

  "Now, as you all know," continued Bianca, her sharp gaze scanning the room. "The defendant will not be here today. But I think we can all agree that Jedediah Trevino has committed too many crimes to be considered a defendant."

  There were murmurs of agreement at this, and one woman suddenly sprung up from her seat, a murderous look in her eyes. "He killed my mate!"

  "And mine," chimed in another man, from the back of the room.

  "He doesn't spare women and children alike – "

  "We need to kill him!"

  "Silence!" Bianca said sharply, the iciness of her voice drowning their shouts out as a hush immediately descended upon the room.

  But my mind was buzzing with fresh information. There was a nagging suspicion that had lingered at the back of the mind for awhile now – it had everything to do with regenerative healing and obsidian eyes and the black wolf I had seen the night before.

  There was a cold clamping in my throat and I fought to stay calm, shutting my eyes and focusing on breathing. It wouldn't do to have a panic attack right now but I felt like I might. Things had just taken a twist for the bizarre and horrifying. Logically speaking, it wasn't possible.

  Only it was.

  My attention was diverted when Bianca began to speak once again. "Well, now that the court's back in order, let's call Quinn Reilly to the stands. As most of you are aware, she's a very – " Bianca paused, a cruel smile tilting her lips as she looked at me. " – valuable asset to the community. Not only is she the sole eye-witness to the murder of Claudius Trevino, previous Alpha of the Titans; but she also happens to have a particular, shall we say – affinity, with the defendant."

  Instantly, everyone's heads turned to me and I suddenly found myself under the scrutiny of about a hundred pairs of eyes. The atmosphere turned hostile and Diego didn't waste a moment yanking me up from my seat, dragging me halfway across the front of the room to the witness stand.

  I wrenched my arm away from him the moment his grip loosened and looked at Bianca bravely, doing all I could to avoid the gaze of the man seated beside her. His gaze was unsettling, but my peripherals didn't miss the flicker of curiosity in them.

  "Now, Quinn," Bianca began, her cold eyes boring into mine. "Could you describe to us what you saw last night between the two wolves?"

  My cheeks heated as every person in their room had their focus on me. But my lips were pressed into a tight line. I didn't speak. I didn't even want to. Bianca and her cronies didn't deserve to know anything, not after what they'd done to me.

  "Quinn?"

  When I continued to keep silent, Diego shifted close to me, leaning down to speak in my ear. "You want to go home, don't you?" He said, his voice loud enough only for me to hear. "Then tell us the truth and you get to leave."

  A sudden surge of hope rushed through me. This was the reason I was here, wasn't it? What had Clayton said earlier? I was an eye-witness to a murder, and I needed to stay until the Hearing. Once that was over, I was free to go.

  Reaching up, I tucked a stray lock of hair behind my ear and took a deep breath. "Okay," I said, keeping my eyes fixed on the tiled floor in front of me. "I was on my way home from work when I saw a black wolf and a brown wolf engaged in a vicious fight. The black wolf killed the brown one – "

  "How?"

  My eyes snapped up to Bianca's. "What?"

  "How did he kill the brown wolf?" There was a sharp glint in her eye that made me realise that even if I lied, she knew the truth. Perhaps she'd even been present in the aftermath of the murder, checking up on any clue she could find.

  "The black wolf – " I swallowed, shutting my eyes briefly to force the mental image out of my head. " – it tore out the throat of the other."

  There were quiet gasps at this, a ripple of shock that spread across the room. But one warning glance from Bianca sent a hush falling upon the room and she turned back to me. "Continue."

  For some reason, I didn't want to. The words remained stuck in my throat as I briefly recalled how to black wolf had looked at me with bright green eyes afterwards. How I'd threatened to hurt it with a knife. How I'd actually killed it with a knife.

  Hadn't I?

  "Quinn." Bianca's voice was firm, a calculative expression on her face that made me wonder if she could sense my thoughts. "Continue."

  I took a deep breath. "Then I turned and ran," I concluded simply. "That's all."

  Her gaze sharpened, and she glanced down at her notes briefly. "That's not what it says here, Quinn. Our analysts have found blood samples belonging to you in the snow. How would you explain that?"

  Shrugging, I met her gaze calmly. "I tripped. Scraped my hands on the ground."

  "And how would you explain the pool of blood next to where you fell?"

  My breath caught and I felt my chest twist painfully at the mere recollection of what I had done. "I stabbed the wolf." My voice was barely audible, ignoring the wave of surprise that swept through the room. "I didn't mean to, I'm so sorry I did – it was just an act of self-defence."

  "Would you consider the stab-wound you inflicted on the black wolf to be a severe one?"

  "Well – yes."

  "Enough to incapacitate him?"

  "It seemed dead to me." My forehead creased as I tried to remember. "Wasn't it?"

  But Bianca had heard enough. She looked away from me and turned to the man beside her. After conversing in hushed tones for a minute or two, she looked back up. "Diego," she directed her command to the man standing stoically beside me. "Escort Quinn back to her quarters."

  "What?" I shifted away when Diego tried to clamp a hand down on my shoulder. "You said you just needed me for the hearing! I told you everything I know, why can't I leave?"

  The look she gave me was levelled and calm. "I'm not the one who makes the decisions," she said blandly, with a quick glance at the man by her side. She didn't have to elaborate furthe
r for me to know who ran things around here.

  And I swore I could feel his chilling eyes watching my every move as Diego dragged me out of the room.

  * * *

  It was sometime in the middle of the night when I heard a howl.

  I had been tinkering with the lock using the blunt fork that I'd been given during dinner. The wood of the door was jaded but somehow held, and I knew I needed a lever to pry it open. Unfortunately, there was nothing else I could use, save from a ragged cloth that I used to keep the wood splinters from lodging in my fingers.

  But the howl made me drop the fork in fright, and I winced as it clattered to the ground. I held my breath, hoping that no one else would hear. When no one came in, I sucked in a deep breath and continued chipping away at the wood.

  Then – another howl.

  I faltered. Was I somewhere in the middle of a forest? Somehow, escaping seemed like a daunting task all of a sudden. I could run if there were roads. But forests were like labyrinths. Take one wrong path and you were lost forever.

  The sudden patter of feet had me shrinking away from the door, and I heard several other thuds as people raced across the corridor outside. Then there were yells and screams, incoherent ones, but they sounded desperate and frightened and urgent.

  My heart raced in fear. It was herd mentality – when one panicked, everyone else did. And perhaps it was a good time to panic. Perhaps there was an emergency, like a fire, and if there were one, I needed to get out of here. Effective immediately.

  Dropping the fork and cloth, I latched my fingers tightly around the doorknob. Climbing to my feet, I began to tug violently on it, again and again and again. "Hello?" I called, hammering on the door frantically. "Is anyone out there? Let me out!"

  More howls. More screams.

  And I couldn't for the life of me decide whether I wanted to get out or stay in. As the shouts and howls grew louder, closer, I found myself backing away from the door, grabbing the fork on the way, my eyes wide and a scream lodged in my throat.