The Shepard's Agony

by Mandy Rosko

  “Wait! Gwen, I’m sorry!”

  She ignored him and Eric pulled Shepard up and threw him back into the little room before slamming the massive door on him. Shepard was so completely distraught with what he’d done that he didn’t fight it. No sooner was the steel door shut and locked on him did he collapse to the floor, clutching his gut with the extreme pain that pulsed through his body.

  ***

  As soon as Gwen was upstairs, she immediately regretted her words. But her regret didn’t completely chase away her anger. She’d known what he was, but to see him fighting John and her own father—

  John!

  She mentally kicked herself for being so stupid. She’d left Eric down there all by himself to deal with Shepard and John. She hoped he wouldn’t be angry at her for it, but since the cleanup had finished everyone else in the pack had either gone home or to the hospital to be treated. He was the only one around who could come to help her.

  Di must have gone out to hunt rabbits if she hadn’t heard Gwen screaming for help like she was, which Gwen was grateful for. She didn’t know what she would have done if she saw her so soon after hearing Jimmy’s accusation. And he was now out there, somewhere, in the daylight. Would he be able to survive with only the clothes he wore to protect him?

  “I’m fine now, Gwen, you can let me go,” Larry said when they made it to his room.

  “Oh,” she said quickly, pulling away and realizing that she’d gone from helping him stand to clinging to him for comfort.

  He chuckled at her, but then his face turned serious. “That hunter might still be in this house, so stay close, alright?”

  The thought hadn’t even occurred to her. Gwen immediately perked her ears to listen for anything that might sound suspicious.

  “I don’t think he’s around, but we’ll tell Evey and her new friend just in case. When Dianna comes back, you can tell her to stay on alert. I want the two of you to stay close to each other in case something happens.

  Gwen bit back a groan. Staying near the girl for a long amount of time was the last thing she wanted to do. In fact, she should tell her father about what Dianna had supposedly done so they could at least straighten out that mess.

  “Daddy, about Di—”

  “In a minute, sweetheart, I need to check on Elaine.” He then growled protectively. “If that hunter got anywhere near her, I’ll tear him limb from limb.

  He meant it, too.

  Gwen sighed, she didn’t really feel like going through that awkward conversation right now anyway.

  Hey, Dad, did you know that hunter we caught just said Dianna, my best friend who used to sleep over when we were kids, was working with them? How about that?

  Yeah right.

  “I’ll go tell Evey then,” she said.

  “Will you be alright by yourself?”

  She nodded her head quickly. Of course she would be, it wasn’t the first time she had to walk around with something possibly out to kill her around the next corner. “Better we split up, get things done faster anyway. You should wake Elaine. It’s not safe for her to be sleeping now.” Gwen wished she could go to sleep, but they still had things to do.

  “Well, alright.” Larry didn’t sound completely convinced, but he kissed her cheek and forced a smile. “Just keep your ears open for trouble.”

  She nodded and walked off in the opposite direction. As expected, Evey’s door was shut. She gave it three hard knocks and waited before calling,

  “Evey? I need to tell you something.”

  There was no answer, so she knocked again, louder. “Evey?”

  Was she sleeping? Gwen hoped not. When a vampire decided to turn in for the day, it was next to impossible to wake them up until dusk.

  She knocked and banged again, not daring to even try and open the door, praying that it wasn’t the case. Again, there was no answer. Just perfect. She was sleeping. That meant she had to find Di and confront her without any help at all.

  Just to be sure that Di really wasn’t in the cabin, hiding somewhere, Gwen checked her room and every other room that had been emptied that night after the attack. She even checked under the beds. Empty. Di really was out in the woods somewhere, and Gwen had to go and find her.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Gwen couldn’t find her. She couldn’t find Di anywhere. Not that she was trying very hard to find her, all things considered, but it was still strange that as far as she walked and in so many different directions, she couldn’t find, hear, or even smell where she went. There was only the crunch of pine cones under her shoes, the sounds of the birds and woodpeckers in the trees, and the smell of sap and bark. Was she hiding downwind or something? Where was she?

  Gwen leaned against a nearby tree and inhaled the scent of the woods around her to calm her nerves. She knew the last thing she should be doing was letting her guard down, but she needed to rest. What she really needed was sleep, but she couldn’t until she found Di and everything came out into the open.

  Resting her eyes wouldn’t hurt and the smell was relaxing. It was fresh and familiar, of pine and rabbits and earth, the wind cooling her face.

  It reminded her of Shepard, no, it reminded her of David, before she knew him as a hunter.

  She opened her eyes and wiped her face to make herself more alert. Why couldn’t she stop thinking about him? He wasn’t right for her in any way, shape, or form. If she decided to forget all about him then she could go on for the rest of her life being perfectly content.

  The rest of her life …

  As if to prove it to herself, she tried to picture her life without him. Maybe five years into the future, she would be married, have children, maybe even two or three, a baby in her arms and a cozy house around her.

  But, who would be there with her? The only other person she could think of was John, so she put him into the mental picture.

  He would come up from behind her, wrap his arms around her shoulders and kiss—

  Gwen burst into tears. That wasn’t what she wanted! Why did her second choice have to be the man she didn’t want to spend her life with? Was there no one she could have whom she chose?

  Maybe her father was right, maybe she was better off finding someone to love within the pack. But everyone else was either older, taken, or showed no interest; John was the only one who’d have her. Did that mean she had to forget everything else she felt and pick him based on that alone?

  Gwen wiped away her tears and fought to keep from feeling sorry for herself. She needed to relax again, and she needed to decide what it was that she wanted. Di could wait.

  She closed her eyes and took in a deep breath, the vision of the house and children came back to her, only this time there was more laughter, the wallpaper would be old and tacky but colorful. David was in John’s place. He would wrap his arms around her shoulders and kiss her neck, she wouldn’t even care that he was dirty after working so hard outside in the field. Gwen sighed her content.

  It made her feel warm inside. The mental image made her smile and gave her goose bumps. That was what she wanted, the only problem was that it would likely never happen…

  Never happen if she sat back and let everyone make her decisions for her, let her pack judge David without really hearing what she had to say about it.

  Her father was wrong, he didn’t brainwash her and he never would. David took her out of harm’s way and protected her from his brothers. As for fighting with her father, well, she wished that hadn’t happened but she could overlook it. She was going to make sure that Bill saw her side of things when it came time to judge him.

  Gwen took a quick breath to calm her nerves, she was exciting herself and that wasn’t going to help anyone. She needed to see him, he still had more potion to drink.

  If he was awake to take it this time, then all the better.

  The problem was, how was she going to get inside to see him this time? Eric or John were likely to be watching the door. If Eric did leave for a few moments to help get John
back upstairs, he was likely back down in the basement by now.

  Gwen banged the back of her head against the tree and yelped, clutching the pulsing spot. That wasn’t very smart, now she had a headache.

  There was one way she could see him, but it would require more of Evey’s spells that Gwen hadn’t used in months and months. Why would she? She’d wanted to learn some majick when she’d met her, everyone capable of getting their hands on majick wanted to learn it, but usually stopped learning due to a lack of interest. The same happened with her. Learning spells was fun and interesting at the time, but she wasn’t a witch and she didn’t want to be one.

  She had to try, though. It was all she had, and the more time she wasted, the less time David had.

  Gwen breathed in deeply and closed her eyes. It was difficult trying to relax her body and mind when she was so tense. The headache didn’t help either, but after a few moments, a misty cloud wisped above her head, her entire body going slack and pale.

  To an onlooker, it would have appeared as though she had suddenly died, but actually, she was in a place between asleep and awake.

  ***

  Andrew shut the door of the barn to block out as much light as he could. Some still crept in through holes in the rough and rotting wood, but it was an improvement. He sighed, throwing his shovel and gun down on the pile of hay that had served as his bed for the last two days. Keeping the rabbit in one hand, he wiped the dirt and sweat away from his forehead with the other.

  He’d buried his brother in the woods, then he had to hunt. Despite how much he wanted to lay back and do nothing at all, he still had himself and his father to think about.

  His father …

  He turned to find him and nearly fell back when the man he’d just been thinking about appeared mere inches away from his face. Eyes glowing and teeth out, a hungry hiss in the air.

  Andrew didn’t have a chance to say a word before the rabbit he’d planned to cook was snatched out of his hand and thrust into Garrett’s jaws. The sucking sounds and droplets of blood flowing down his chin were sickening. Andrew had to fight to keep from turning away or bringing his fist to his mouth.

  After some seconds, when the rabbit was a skeletal, wretched, stretched thing, Garrett forcefully pulled it out of his mouth and threw it to the ground with an angry roar. Staring at it hatefully, his body shook.

  “I’m a monster!”

  Andrew took a step back into the door and raised his hands. Somehow, having the man angry and yelling was much worse than seeing him in the state he was in now.

  “Everything’s okay, we can fix this—”

  “How?”

  Andrew was off his feet and held in the air by a steel-grip around his neck. His father’s eyes were glaring into his own, glowing a hungry red, teeth bared and snarling.

  Garrett saw the fear in his son’s eyes, could hear his pulse in his neck, and found that he enjoyed it. He wanted nothing more than to sink his fangs into that pulsing neck and feed until the painful hunger and thirst went away. At this realization, he panicked. He forced his hand open to drop him and back away, horrified that he’d just had thoughts of drinking the blood of his own son.

  “I’m-I’m sorry. It must be the change.”

  Gasping on his knees, Andrew nodded his head, accepting without question.

  Garrett reached out to touch his shoulder and, without intending to, Andrew flinched away.

  Garrett was shocked and drew his hand back, looking down at it in wonder. His skin was pale now, pale enough for the blue and purple veins to stand out, and his nails had grown into long points overnight.

  He clenched his hand into a fist, the sharp sting of his nails piercing his flash just an annoyance in the back of his head.

  “Normally,” he started, “normally, I’d have you stake me –don’t shake your head like that, we’ve talked about this before.”

  It was true, they had talked about it, but whenever the subject came up, Andrew suddenly found himself ashamed to admit that he’d only been listening with half an ear. The idea that anyone in his family could be turned was laughable, the memory of little David who’d died on the farm was all but forgotten at the time. Yet, there he was, one brother dead, two missing, one of them a traitor, and his father was a vampire. The Shepards really weren’t invincible.

  Still, Andrew heard a “but” somewhere in his father’s words, and this time he listened intently.

  “Now, though, I can’t rest until we find your brothers. Those Weres, I don’t know how they did it but they brainwashed him, and we’re going to get him back.” He reached out to put a hand on his shoulder, pleased when Andrew didn’t flinch away this time. “And, I don’t want to leave you alone when I’m gone. I don’t want to leave any of you alone.”

  Andrew nodded and understood. A fresh energy to fight returning to him. “What’s the plan?”

  Garrett’s eyes flashed again, his grip on Andrew’s shoulder becoming hard. “Get me the book.”

  ***

  An out of body experience. That was the spell Gwen invoked while sitting against her pine tree out in the woods.

  It wasn’t considered dangerous or very difficult to perform compared to some of the other spells Evey had told her about. It was the type of majick that anyone could learn, even people who weren’t born with special abilities. But, because Gwen was so untrained in the art, it was a huge mental strain.

  The last time she’d done this also happened to be the first time and she’d only managed to stay outside of her body for a mere ten minutes before she was forcefully pulled back. The little amount of time she had was precious.

  She located the cabin by the lake and concentrated on lowering herself. While Gwen didn’t have her body, her mind was still working and she could feel the wind caress her face as she came closer and closer to the earth. Out of sheer habit alone, she entered by floating right through the front door, her body tingling with the act. Her ears immediately perked and picked up conversations from around the cabin, slight sounds, footsteps, and light breathing; things she wouldn’t be able to hear even on a normal day as a Were.

  She bounced toward the center of the kitchen, like she imagined an astronaut would do with no gravity, idly listening to the buzz of talk and noise around her. She checked the stove, horrified to see that she’d left her potion sitting on it with the burner turned off, no doubt it had cooled by now and was losing its potency.

  She forced herself to perk up. That was alright, no problem. She could make another batch, she had plenty of hair. Right now, she had to concentrate on why she was there.

  Just as she went to sink through the floor and into the basement, she heard John, angry and arguing with her father. What he was saying stopped her from going anywhere. “I can’t believe I let him sneak up on me! Let me down there, please!”

  “I’m not letting you start another fight for no good reason! For God’s sake, I know getting thunked in the head was—”

  “Humiliating? Degrading? Completely out of character?”

  Out of character was right. Gwen had never heard him as full of spite and anger as she had in the last twenty-four hours, but now he seemed to have reached his boiling point.

  “Regardless, leave him alone. Elaine just went down there, she said he’s going through the stages of his change now, more aggressively than before. Getting back at someone for a lousy punch is one thing, on any other day I’d escort you down there to watch, him being a hunter and all.”

  Gwen gasped, completely surprised at hearing her own father saying such things.

  “But?” John sounded impatient.

  Larry sighed. “But, there are other people to consider. Elaine, for instance, and Bill’s going to be here in a few hours.”

  “This isn’t about Elaine or even what Bill wants, don’t say it is,” John ground out. Before Gwen could hear anything else, another conversation floated in and took over.

  “Please, Angela, forgive me!”

  It was J
acob, his voice was high and strained. While Gwen was dying to know about the mystery of Angela, she didn’t have time for it now. What was her father about to say to John’s accusation? And what was this about Bill coming back from the hospital? He couldn’t be healing that quickly.

  “I don’t know if I can,” Evey replied quietly. Suddenly, Gwen’s curiosity was back on the Angela mystery. She was Angela? Was it a nickname that Jacob was calling her? And what did he do to her to make him beg like he was?

  Another voice floated in and took over. “What’s happening to me?”

  It was David’s voice. Its pained sound made her breath hitch. He was gasping for air.

  Gwen hadn’t moved from the kitchen since she entered the cabin, but all it took was a little concentration and she was floating down through the floorboards and into the basement. Like she should have been doing the moment she got there.

  She could hardly wait to see him. She felt that, somehow, if she was there, then he couldn’t become anymore hurt than he already was. But, if she wasn’t there to watch over him … she didn’t want to think about that.

  She expected to come in and find him curled up on the cot he’d been sleeping on when she gave him his potion. Instead, he was standing by the window above the cot that used to be Jimmy’s, with the blinds thrown open and one hand clutching one of the bars while the other was fisted against his stomach, his eyes screwed shut in pain. Oh, how she ached for him.

  Elaine was there, trying to coax him down with a glass of some strange concoction and a gentle voice. “Please, you need your rest and you need to take this. It’s the only thing that will help.”

  “What I need is to get out of here,” he muttered through clenched teeth, his grip on the bar tightening.

  Gwen’s heart ached for them both. She hated seeing David in such pain. The memory of her own first transformation was but a distant memory for her, she had no idea what he was going through. And Elaine, this was her son talking to her like that! How was she handling all this?

  She floated over to inspect the steaming cup in her hands and was delighted with what she found.