by Amy Star
The world seemed to grind to a halt, and Elizabeth half expected to be flung out into space like she was on a malfunctioning tilt-a-whirl. That didn’t happen, of course, and after a moment, she managed to get her jaw to work, forcing words out. Well, forcing a word out.
“Why?” Her voice felt and sounded like it was echoing down a distant tunnel, tinny and small. “What did you need from there?”
“You,” he answered simply, as if it was the most obvious answer in the world. “I saw you during the fight. I nearly took a bite out of you actually, which was a horrible lack of foresight on my part, and I’m very glad I didn’t get a chance to.”
“But why me?” she demanded, her voice turning shrill. “What do I have to do with anything? We don’t even know each other!”
“You were rescued by an uninvolved bear in the middle of that mess!” He almost sounded like he was praising her, and for a moment Elizabeth felt ill. “How could I not be fascinated?” he asked, and by then he had his hands wrapped around her shoulders. “I knew I had to know more. I knew I needed you. I hadn’t been a human in years, and I turned back just for you!”
“It’s not like I asked you to,” she snapped, yanking herself out of his grip as she rapidly back-pedaled several paces, stopping only when she got to the stairs that led down from the porch.
“Of course you didn’t,” he agreed easily enough. “You didn’t know me. But now—”
“Now,” Elizabeth cut him off, “you can fuck off before I have you hauled off for harassment!”
Maxwell’s expression blanked for a moment, before it slowly turned stormy. “I wouldn’t recommend that,” he replied, his tone carefully neutral. “It wouldn’t go well for whoever showed up to haul me away, and I know you would feel badly if anyone else were to get hurt on your behalf.”
“Then, just leave before it needs to come to that!” She threw her hands up as she said it, nearly shouting by then.
Maxwell rolled his eyes, and in that moment, Elizabeth knew she wasn’t going to be able to simply walk out of the situation.
Maxwell cleared the space between them in three rapid steps and caught her with an arm around her neck. It tightened as she thrashed, and in moments, the world began to get hazy, spots swarming at the edges of her vision and gradually tunneling inwards. She struggled for as long as she could, until her vision blanked out entirely, and she gradually went lax. After that, she wasn’t aware of anything else around her.
*
She was awake only briefly. Maybe it couldn’t even be considered as being awake, considering how floaty and hazy the world seemed around her. She didn’t know where she was, but it smelled like gasoline and leather, and it was very dark. She could hear a rumbling noise, steady and constant, but she couldn’t piece together the puzzle to make sense of it.
Nothing really made sense then. Everything seemed like it was floating just a bit too far out of reach, like reaching for seashells as they were swept away by the tide.
It didn’t take long before even that vague consciousness fled from her, and she drifted back into unconsciousness once again.
*
When Elizabeth woke up, everything was dark. She didn’t feel anything out of the ordinary, but she reached up to paw at her face just to make sure that she wasn’t wearing a blindfold or something like that. When all she felt was her own skin and hair, and nothing even remotely like cloth, it just confirmed that wherever she was, it was dark beyond compare. She sat up slowly, shuffling on all fours to make sure she wasn’t going to trip or land on something sharp in the pitch-black darkness.
Wherever she was, it wasn’t particularly large. Within a few moments, she had determined that all four walls were well within her arm’s reach from where she sat in the middle of the space. The room hardly seemed bigger than a closet. And while she had found a door, a brief investigation had proven that she wouldn’t be able to open it, as the knob refused to do more than shimmy slightly. She couldn’t say she was surprised. No one was going to throw her into a closet just to leave the door unlocked so she could swan on out of her own accord.
She felt her way around the closet, feeling carefully from one corner to another, until she had checked over every inch of the floor, and once that was handled, she carefully got to her feet and started to check every inch of the walls that she could reach, until she was positive that there was nothing in the closet other than her, and thus nothing she could try to use to heave the door open. She tried shoving her shoulder against it and kicking at it, but it held strong despite her best efforts, and she tested the knob and the hinges for any sort of weakness, succeeding only in almost tearing out one of her nails. The door wasn’t going to open any time soon, she decided, least of all from her influence from inside.
Finally, she heaved a sigh and sank back down to the floor, her back sliding down the wall until her legs were folded beneath her. She could keep trying to shove the door open to no avail just to be rebellious, but it wasn’t going to do anything for her except wear her out. And considering she didn’t know what else was coming, she wasn’t particularly keen on tiring herself out when she may very well need to act in a hurry later.
She supposed she should have been scared. It would have made sense. She had been captured and locked up in a closet, and she had no idea where she was and only a vague idea of what her kidnapper wanted. It would have been perfectly logical for her to be terrified out of her mind. In fact, the fact that she wasn’t was probably cause for at least some concern.
But she couldn’t bring herself to feel afraid. Nervous, yes. Of course she was. But the true fear was minimal. Maxwell had taken her from Ambrose’s house. Ambrose, Mara, and Yusuke would all realize she was gone in an instant, and lacking any foreign smells other than Maxwell’s, they would jump to the only available conclusion: that he was the one who had taken her. They would be hot on his trail in seconds, and they would find her. She knew they would. And when she thought about it like that, being afraid felt a little pointless. She wouldn’t deny that she was in danger, but she knew she would be out of harm’s way long before anything could happen.
With that in mind, she settled in to wait, making herself as comfortable as she could in the meantime.
*
There was a crack of light under the closet door at last, dim though it was, and Elizabeth sat up at attention as soon as it appeared. Whatever was going on, something was going to happen soon. She shuffled forward, pressing her ear to the door once she was close enough.
She could hear something walking around, though not with any sort of human gait. Instead, it walked with four legs, each footfall heavy. And they weren’t coming straight for the closet despite the fact that it had to smell like her, so that meant it was Maxwell. Elizabeth couldn’t really bring herself to feel surprised that he had given up his human form again the instant he got what he was after.
Soon enough, the paws passed again, and the dim light vanished. With a sigh, Elizabeth settled in to wait once again. She closed her eyes and tried to sleep.
*
With a jolt, Elizabeth woke up, looking around rapidly before her current situation came rushing back to her. Right, she was in a closet and couldn’t see anything. She could hear all sorts of things, though. At that moment, she could hear the sounds of scuffling from outside the tiny room, as if someone was trying to break the house down with determination and spite alone.
She shuffled forward and pressed an ear to the door again, but while she could hear all sorts of crashing sounds, she couldn’t actually make out what was going on. She had only a moment to listen before she heard the sound of cracking wood and something snarling, just before the closet door was wrenched open with a sound like snapping timbers. Elizabeth squealed and tipped forward, falling face first into someone’s knee, someone’s very bare knee.
“Graceful,” Yusuke drawled, before he turned away and shifted back to his cat form. He gave himself a shake and sprang away, towards where the front door had
been until a moment ago, assuming its abrupt loss was the cause of the sound of cracking wood.
Elizabeth blinked after him, before she hurriedly got back to her feet and darted over to the doorless doorway. She peered outside carefully, watching Yusuke bound away from the house. Slowly, she looked around, finding the door and enormous splinters on the porch, and she stepped over the mess carefully as she made her way out of the house.
She still wasn’t actually sure where she was. She wasn’t sure how long she had been unconscious, so she had no way of knowing how long Maxwell had traveled once he had her. It looked like, wherever the house was, it was still somewhere rural, but she didn’t know if that meant they were still reasonably close to home, or if she had been dragged so far from home that they had passed through the closest city and out the other side. She supposed it didn’t really matter, though. Either way, the cavalry had arrived, and they would see her safely home once Maxwell was handled.
Speaking of the cavalry…
Elizabeth followed the sounds of snarling around the side of the house, until she could see Ambrose’s hulking form, along with Yusuke and Mara. The three of them were circled loosely around an enormous wolf. Despite the fact that he was out numbered and outmatched, he didn’t seemed to have any plans of giving in, as he kept turning from one to the other to the other, teeth bared.
Ambrose, Mara, and Yusuke seemed unintimidated, to say the least.
For a long moment, no one moved, save for a few shuffling paces to one side or the other, but the growling was like a constant rumble, as if someone had found a way to miniaturize a thunderstorm.
And then, all at once, the stare off seemed to shatter, and almost as one, Ambrose, Yusuke, and Mara lunged.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Elizabeth didn’t have a lot of experience with violence. She had seen a few scuffles in school, had seen a few of the horses get into it with each other at work, and had seen her boss threaten a few trespassers who had been too stupid to realize all he was holding was a pellet gun. But actual violence was a new thing to her.
She cringed and covered her face with her hands as Maxwell shrieked out a yelp, though she lowered her hands after only a second; she wanted to be able to see what was going on.
Mara was the first to collide with him, her teeth sinking into his neck. It seemed all she managed to grab was a mouthful of fur, for the most part, as Maxwell shook her off and bounded backwards a few loping steps, before he turned and leapt, lunging right over Yusuke’s head and landing several yards away. He was already outnumbered, so getting some space between them all was about the only advantage he was going to be able to get.
Or at least that was what Elizabeth assumed, until he abruptly looked straight at her and then bolted right towards her. She began backpedaling as soon as she realized he was coming towards her, as if she might be able to outrun him for even a second.
Whether he wanted to use her as a shield, use her as a bargaining chip, or simply make it so none of them could have her at all, she wasn’t sure, but thankfully she didn’t actually need to find out. With a yowl, Yusuke slammed into Maxwell’s shoulder and hung on, claws sinking in, and he held on tight until Maxwell craned his head back and caught Yusuke by the scruff of his neck to throw him aside.
Yusuke hit the ground and tumbled but bounced back to his feet an instant later to position himself squarely in front of Elizabeth like some sort of wall. He bared his teeth as Maxwell tried to take a step closer, a feline growl rumbling past his throat. It made Maxwell pause for a moment, which was all that was necessary, as that was when Ambrose crashed into the enormous wolf like some sort of speeding freight train. Maxwell hit the ground like a pallet of bricks and rolled, though he scrambled back to his feet before he even fully came to a stop. He wheeled around, teeth flashing, and Ambrose reared back and out of the way.
They got farther away after that, Mara bounding after them, though Yusuke stayed right where he was, planting himself between Elizabeth and the battle. She wasn’t sure whether to start worrying even more or to feel strangely touched by the protection, so she settled for feeling both for the time being.
As it turned out, she didn’t need to worry about Yusuke for protecting her. Ambrose and Mara did a very good job of keeping Maxwell well away from the both of them the entire time. True enough, Mara wasn’t particularly big compared to Maxwell, but she held her own well enough, and she sprang around like lightning compared to the others. On the other hand, Ambrose seemed like a brick wall in comparison to the wolf.
Outmatched and outnumbered on Maxwell’s end, it wasn’t a particularly long fight; it was more a scuffle than anything.
With Mara on one side of Maxwell and Ambrose on his other, they shepherded him across the grass until he was well out of reach of Elizabeth or Yusuke. He looked between them for a moment, ears folded back and teeth bared, before he lunged for Mara first, aiming for the target that seemed to be easier. She dropped to the grass and tumbled aside, only to bounce back to her feet again. He followed after her.
Mara snarled and lunged, only to bound backward a few paces before Maxwell could even snap at her, and she circled halfway around him before lunging again, forcing him to yank his tail out of the way and spin to face her. In a similar way, she herded him across the grass until he bumped into Ambrose and whipped around to face him, staring up in wide-eyed alarm for a split second.
Ambrose snapped, teeth clenching together what seemed mere millimeters from Maxwell’s face, even if they didn’t quite manage to connect. The size discrepancy was causing a few complications.
While, in general, Ambrose’s vastly larger size was a benefit, there were a few setbacks to it. For one thing, Maxwell was fully capable of simply ducking beneath a strike, and when he did, it left him right under Ambrose’s neck, a rather vulnerable part of the body, to be sure. From there, it was simple to simply lunge upwards, mouth open.
Ambrose reared onto two legs to avoid the snap, but Maxwell simply redirected to slam into one of Ambrose’s back legs with his full weight, forcing it out from under him. Ambrose landed with an impact that seemed to rattle the ground. Before Maxwell could make another move towards him, though, Mara bounced off of his side like a kid on a diving board, and she bounded away, barking tauntingly as she did. Maxwell rolled his eyes and lunged for her, only for her to duck under the strike and then surge upwards.
Mara caught Maxwell’s ear between her teeth, and though at first it seemed like a reasonably impractical manner of attack, it made sense soon enough. It kept him distracted until Ambrose was back on his feet, and by the time Maxwell tore himself free, one ear in tatters, Ambrose was charging at him. He snagged one of Maxwell’s legs in his jaws, hauled him off of his feet, and tossed him.
Maxwell landed on the ground with a high-pitched, canine shriek, one leg at an odd angle. He struggled fitfully to get back to his feet at first, only to still with a low whine when Ambrose’s shadow fell over him. His ears laid back in distress, but no amount of groveling was going to help him at that point.
When it ended, it ended very quickly. Ambrose’s front feet landed on Maxwell’s ribs with a sickening crack, and just listening to the way the wolf wheezed after that, Elizabeth was pretty sure that his ribs had punched into his lung. He wasn’t left to suffer for long, though, and Elizabeth was strangely glad of that. She wasn’t going to protest the situation, but she felt no need to be vindictive. She didn’t want it to turn into torture.
(More genuinely, she didn’t want any of them to be the sort of people who would resort to torture.)
Ambrose leaned his head down, his teeth closed around Maxwell’s throat, and then he clamped his jaw shut and ripped backwards. There was a spray of blood, though it dwindled quickly.
Afterwards, everything was still, so much so that it almost felt eerie, considering everything that had been going on just a moment ago. Ambrose simply stepped away from the body and began looking around in bemusement.
It took a moment fo
r Elizabeth to realize he was trying to puzzle out what to do with the body.
Considering Elizabeth had rather limited experience with violence, it would likely surprise absolutely no one to learn that she had no experience with cleaning up after violence. When it came to wounds, there wasn’t much to worry about, as Ambrose was largely fine, and Mara and Yusuke seemed perfectly fine and were content to flop down and rest while Ambrose pondered over the body on the ground.
They couldn’t just leave it there. It was far too enormous to be any sort of natural wolf, and even if it had been the right size, that didn’t get rid of the fact that wolves weren’t native to the area, and so finding a dead one on the ground would likely still attract some sort of authority to investigate the matter, if only to make sure there wasn’t anyone in the area illegally breeding them as exotic pets.
“Is there a pond or a lake, or maybe a river around here?” Elizabeth asked eventually, trying her best not to look straight at the body. That body had been a person once. Not a very good person, but a person nonetheless, and Elizabeth wasn’t quite willing to start judging anyone’s worth or right to live. Not that she regretted his death. She didn’t feel bad. He had kidnapped her, and he had been perfectly willing to kill her boyfriend and her friends. In the end, she was pretty sure he had been willing to kill her too, just to make it so that no one else would be able to have her, like she was some sort of toy to be hoarded like treasure.
