by Roh Morgon
Yeah, and it’ll be our last. I can’t fake this every night. The smell of the soup under my nose has me ready to hurl and I haven’t even taken a bite.
Might as well get it over with. I pick up my spoon and take in a mouthful. Between the chunks of food and the taste, I nearly gag as I chew. I force myself to swallow and quickly get another spoonful. The beast growls at the insult to my system.
Looking up, I notice that Sandy is watching me curiously. I glare at her and she drops her gaze to her bowl.
Finishing my token amount of soup, I sit back and fight to keep it from coming up. My stomach roiling, I swallow several times. This isn’t working.
“Wow, for someone who’s not hungry you sure finished that in a hurry. Want more?” She reaches for the saucepan.
“No.” I swallow again. “Uh, excuse me for a moment.” I get up and head out the door.
Running far enough away that she won’t hear me, I lose the soup. The greasy acid flavor lingers while the beast throws a temper tantrum, insistent on washing away the filthy feel and taste with proper food.
I finish retching, sprint back to the well and, pumping the handle, wash out my mouth the best I can while trying to keep from getting soaked. I swallow some of the water, then instantly throw it back up in an effort to rinse my insides. It helps some, but the beast’s outrage is going to be difficult to resist for long.
Wiping my face off with my sleeves, I walk back into the cabin.
Sandy gives me a hard look.
“So that’s how you stay so slender? Purging? That’s really unhealthy. Girls die from that.”
“Must be allergic to something in the soup,” I mutter as I grab my bowl and take it over to the wood-burning stove. The flames flare green as they feed on the coated paper.
“Whatever. I get it. It makes sense now. You have an eating disorder, though you don’t really show it. Most girls are either really fat cuz they eat all the time or really thin and pale cuz they never do and they… Oh. Never mind.” She shuts up, embarrassed.
But she’s seen me naked, at least from the back. Pale and slender yes, but muscular and fit, not skinny and wasted. Distraction should keep her from thinking too hard about it.
“Yeah, well. There it is. So please don’t get your feelings hurt if I choose not to eat. It would be best if you just make food for yourself. I’ll eat when I’m ready.”
“Okay.” She seems to accept this and I breathe a small sigh of relief.
I’ve had all the socializing for one day that I can handle, and the beast is becoming difficult to manage. But it’s not lusting after Sandy’s blood, which I still find interesting. In fact, it seems to almost have an aversion to it.
Well, at least I don’t have to worry about the beast taking over and killing her. I, on the other hand, may run out of patience with her.
“Sandy, we’ll have to talk tomorrow. I really need to go. Do you need to use the outhouse before I leave?”
“No,” she says, disappointed. “You go ahead.”
“Remember to bolt the door.” I slip outside and close it firmly behind me. When I hear the bolt slam home, I slam into a dead run.
FRIDAY
CHAPTER 25
My eyes pop open to the late morning sun and I instantly scent the air in the direction of the cabin. All I smell is smoke from the chimney. No bears, no Sandy.
Good. I was worried when I fell asleep that she would go wandering in the woods looking for me. At least I know she didn’t come this way and see me sleeping up here.
Scrambling down the trunk of the tree that was my not-too-comfortable bed, I circle the area around the cabin before returning to it. It seems she stayed inside. There’s not even fresh scent on the path leading from the cabin to the outhouse. Guess she took my warning to heart.
Frowning, I realize that she probably needs to pee pretty badly. After trying the latch, I knock on the door and step back to wait for her to open it.
The bolt thumps, door swings outward, and Sandy bursts past me in a fast walk to the outhouse. My frown shifts to a smile as I step into the cabin. The smile fades as I see what she’s done.
She found the spare blanket in my closet and, using cord and safety pins from I don’t know where, has rigged up a drapery to separate my bed from the rest of the room.
Sweet, lonely girl. She’s finally starting to grasp what an intrusion her visit is.
The door opens and she stomps her feet on the mat before coming in.
“Hi. I’m glad you finally came back. I’ve been thinking about making a run for the head for the last hour.” She grins as she closes the door.
“Sorry,” I manage to remember to say.
Following my glance toward the drapery, Sandy blushes.
“I hope you don’t mind. I feel bad that you’re too uncomfortable to sleep in your own bed with me here. I promise I won’t peek through the curtain. Please don’t feel like you have to sleep somewhere else, wherever that is out here. For what it’s worth, I sleep really heavy and don’t wake up much before ten. Kinda like you.”
No, sweet girl. You’re nothing like me.
Glancing at her, I grab the bucket and go outside. I’m pumping the handle, watching the water gush out of the pipe in waves, and hear her come back outside. She says nothing, and my skin ripples in irritation beneath the weight of her gaze upon me.
“Sunny, can I ask you some questions?”
“Depends on what they are.”
“What really happened when you left the apartment?”
Before I learned what The Chosen council had done to him, or after?
“Next.”
“Uhh… okay. What about what’s his name, Nicolas? I thought you were going back to him. You’ve avoided talking about him every time I bring it up.”
Don’t say his name. The name of the one I loved, the one I… destroyed, and lost forever.
“Stop. No more.” I yank the bucket from the ground, water sloshing out, and go back inside. I suddenly don’t feel like having that cup of tea. I set the bucket on the table and turn to leave. Sandy has followed me back in. Her green, tear-laden eyes reflect my pain and guilt.
“Sorry… I mean it. I’m really sorry. It’s my fault you didn’t go back sooner,” she says quietly.
Yeah, kinda. But it was my Choice. One I’ll regret for the rest of my existence.
Beast, where are you? I need you, your mindlessness, your savagery. We need to run.
Unable to respond, I open the door and flee for the mountaintops, far from the reminders of my past.
It’s after dark when I get back to the cabin. I try the latch, then knock.
At least Sandy understands the need to keep the door bolted. I step back as she unbolts and opens it, then slip in past her. Instantly I regret coming inside where the overpowering smell of her dinner permeates every molecule of air. My stomach heaves and I clench my jaw.
I look over to see regret flickering in those green eyes. Our visit has not been what she expected, what she hoped for. I regret her disappointment, but that’s all I’m capable of. Changing the reasons for it is beyond me now.
“Even the smell of the food bothers you, huh?”
Nodding, I tell her, “I think it’s best if I wait outside until you’re done. I won’t go anywhere.”
“Okay,” she says quietly as I go back out the door.
Stretching out on the large flat boulder that sits off to the side of the cabin, I trace the outlines of the constellations with my eyes. I’ve been studying astronomy lately and find the familiarity of the star formations somehow reassuring.
As I pick out the stars belonging to Cygnus, a stray breeze brushes past my face. On it is the scent of bear, and it’s strong.
I launch for the cabin and rip the door open.
“Bolt this. NOW.” I slam it shut as I glimpse her shocked face.
“What about you?” she yells from inside.
“I’ll be fine. You stay inside until I come back. Underst
and?”
Without waiting for her answer, I move in the direction of the bear, intending to draw it away from the cabin.
I spot a large bulk through the underbrush and listen as he sniffs and paws at a log. His full size is obscured, but I can see enough to know he’s huge and probably the same one that’s been cruising through here for the past few weeks.
The breeze shifts in the opposite direction. Sudden movement and a deep growl tell me he’s caught my scent. As he bursts through the brush, my fears are confirmed.
Grizzly. A big son of a bitch, too. Shit.
Turning, I break into a dead run. Grizzlies are quite fast, as fast as an average-sized horse, capable of thirty-five to forty miles per hour in short bursts. I manage to put some distance between us, though, enough to keep him from catching me, yet still keep him interested.
Careful not to taunt him too much, I lead him several miles away from the cabin. I don’t really want to antagonize him, because then he might make a point of hunting me. Black bears are one thing, but a grizzly’s a lot bigger and far more dangerous. They’re extremely territorial, too, which is why I’ve been a little concerned about his visits. And now that I know he is a grizzly, I’ll need to be doubly careful.
Circling down the backside of the ridgetop to which I’ve led him, I sprint for the creek in the bottom of the valley, hoping to lose most of my scent in the water. After several miles, I cut across another ridge and make my way back to the cabin.
Sandy shoves open the door in response to my knock, her eyes wide with fear. I slip inside and step to the closet behind the blanket curtain to change out of my wet clothes.
“Are you okay? I’ve been so worried! Was that a bear chasing you? I could hear growling and something big run past the cabin when you left.”
Listening to her pacing around the room as she talks, I strip and get into dry clothes, then grab a couple hangers and hang up my wet stuff. I come out from behind the curtain and slide the hangers onto nails high on the wall behind the stove.
“Sunny? Will you please talk to me?”
“Yes, I’m okay. Yes, that was a bear, the same one that’s been hanging around here for the last several weeks.”
“But why didn’t you come inside where it was safe? I don’t understand.”
“Because I needed to lead him away from the cabin. I didn’t want him to try to break in here.”
“So you put yourself in danger and let a bear chase you? What if he’d caught you? Didn’t you learn anything when you got those scars?”
That strikes a nerve. I turn away and clamp my jaw to keep from responding as the crimson veil drops over my vision.
Hell yeah, I learned something. I learned what human blood tastes like, learned how fulfilling it is to drink from human veins, learned what a monster truly is. Don’t you dare lecture me.
Turning back to her, I glare at her through the red haze. Her eyes widen in alarm.
“Yes, I did. I learned how to handle damn bears. All you need to worry about is doing what I tell you and keeping the door bolted when I’m not here. Got it?”
She stands there, staring open-mouthed at me, bewilderment creating lines on her face.
“Sunny, what’s happened to you? You’re not the same person who picked me up and took care of me when I was sick, who laughed at my stupid jokes. You can’t hardly even look at me, or talk to me.” Tears spill down her cheeks. “I know it’s my fault for keeping you from going back. You have every right to be angry with me.”
“No, it’s not your fault,” I whisper. “And I’m not angry with you.” I pause, struggling with what to say next.
“I’m angry with me. I’m angry because the Choice I made turned out to be the wrong one. The cost of that decision was far greater than the sacrifice I thought I was avoiding.” Pausing, I take a deep breath as echoes of pain begin to resonate through me.
“The reason I can’t talk is because it hurts too much to think, to let myself feel anything. And in many ways, you remind me of what I lost. I’m… finding that difficult to handle.”
Sandy starts in my direction, her arms rising to hug me.
“I’m sorry. I… can’t.” I slip out the door into the darkness.
A darkness that doesn’t come close to the one within me.
SATURDAY
CHAPTER 26
THUNK!
Peeling my eyes open, I taste the air in the direction of the cabin.
THUNK!
Sandy’s scent floats in it, and I listen to her chopping wood from my perch in the tree a few hundred feet from the cabin. I’d spent the rest of the night patrolling a mile-wide radius around the cabin, not daring to go any farther.
Stretching the kinks out of my back, I crack my neck and climb down the tree.
A scream of pain shatters the quiet forest morning.
Already halfway down the trunk, I launch off in the direction of the cabin, casting for the bear’s scent as I hit the ground in a dead run.
As I enter the small clearing in front of the cabin, the first thing that registers is the blood. It’s running, no, pumping, from the slice in Sandy’s calf that I can see through the ragged tear in her sweats. She’s sitting on the ground, her hands tightly gripped around her leg, tears coursing through the alarm in her face.
Noting the blood-smeared axe lying on the ground next to her, I realize what happened.
Goddamn it. We’re too far from any kind of medical facility.
Dashing inside the cabin, I grab the long tail of cord hanging down from the curtain where she’d tied it to a nail. I yank it down, slash off several feet, and head back outside.
Panic starts running through me as I watch her blood running onto the ground.
“I screwed up, Sunny,” she sobs as I tie the cord tightly below her knee over her sweatpants, then slice off the blood-soaked fabric below the tourniquet so I can see what I’m dealing with.
This is bad. Very bad.
She’s going to bleed to death. There’s no way I can get her anywhere in time to get help.
Sandy looks up at me, gasping in pain, those green eyes wide in fear, then stares back down at her leg. A six-inch piece of skin and flesh gapes open, held on only at the bottom, blood pulsing and pooling on the raw surfaces.
Pulling my arm out of its sleeve, I slice the fabric at the top seam and pull the sleeve free.
“This’ll probably hurt,” I warn her.
She nods, bracing.
Pushing the flap of muscle and skin back up against her calf, I wrap her leg with the piece from her sweats, then tie the sleeve around it. The knit fabrics are instantly saturated in crimson.
She sharply inhales and cries out as I finish tying the knot.
I look at Sandy’s paling face, the blood soaking the bandage, the blood-soaked ground.
She sees the doom in my eyes and bravely smiles.
“It’s okay. I always knew this was how it was going to end. Can’t help but think that when you’re a bleeder.”
I won’t let this happen. I won’t let her die without doing everything possible to stop it.
I can’t lose someone else I love.
“Sandy. I, uh, I don’t know if this will work. I don’t know what will happen, or what the… risks are. There is one thing I can try, and it will require you to be very open-minded.” The blood tears begin running down my cheeks as I finish speaking. I can’t believe I’m doing this.
She nods, her wide-eyed gaze innocent, trusting.
Standing, I turn and look up at the surrounding peaks.
Nicolas. I had so much to learn from you. You had so much to teach me. We had all the time in the world to explore knowledge and work through our differences and love one another.
And I threw it all away. All because I refused to accept what I am, to become what I am.
I don’t know what I’m doing. Please help me.
Lifting my right wrist, I pierce it along the vein with my nails. The four arcs of blood quickly join
one another. I turn, step to Sandy’s side, and crouch down.
“You need to drink this.” My voice cracks as I cradle her shoulders and hold my bloody wrist out.
“I knew it,” she says as she takes my arm and raises it to her mouth.
“You know nothing,” I whisper.
The sensation of her drawing my blood is surreal. It feels so different than when Nicolas took it with love, or Éva took it with hatred. It’s more like giving. There’s no arousal, no fear. Just a warm feeling of benevolence, as though my system knows this is a gift of life. Her pull is so weak compared to a Chosen pull that it seems like my veins open up to help her.
Then abruptly, I somehow know she’s had enough. Before I can even move my arm, my veins weirdly clamp down and the flow shuts off. As I gently pull my wrist away from her mouth, she looks up at me with wonder in her eyes. A wonder that mirrors my own. I reach out and hug her to me. She’s now part of me. I can feel it, and I know she can as well.
My arms wrapped around her, I drink in her warm, human scent. Is this how a Maker feels when they make a Chosen? This… connectedness? It’s different from the sharing with a mate. The link is familial rather than passionate, more like with a sibling, though not as strong as with a child.
Yet there’s another sensation woven in. It’s a sense of… ownership. She is not only part of me, she now belongs to me.
Nicolas’s response to my question about the humans in his life suddenly makes sense.
“How do you feel?” I quietly ask, wondering if she can perceive whatever effects my blood might be having on her. I ease her to the ground, then loosen the makeshift bandage to peer at her wound. The bleeding has stopped.
“Like… like we’re joined or something,” she says sleepily. “I can feel you more than ever, and I get it now. I get your secrecy and why you keep everything to yourself. You’re scared people will find out what you are.” She pauses, then looks up at me. “And all I want to do now is protect you and keep you safe.”
