But then, why don’t they take care of her?
A feeling of dread crawled beneath Liala’s skin.
This is far from over for Brenna, isn’t it?
She swallowed dryly, involuntarily placing her right hand onto Kiana’s fingers.
“Please, whatever you hear, don’t look, I beg you,” she whispered to her and from the movement Kiana’s hand transferred onto her shoulder.
Liala knew what she had to do, even though she didn’t want to. If they had expected from her to watch until now, they would expect her to continue witnessing whatever happened next. It took her all her composure to keep her body still, and to show no emotion.
Maybe that’s why the black one is watching me? He’s getting off seeing my reactions?
Liala didn’t like that thought: She didn’t want him to be such a twisted character, but right now her whole world had been turned upside down and shaken like a snow globe. She had no idea what to think of him. She didn’t have a talent for instantly knowing how people felt. Still, she looked over to the big black one and he had moved a little, so that he could keep an eye on her as well as the others. More importantly he was standing and his fingers were tense…
Yeah, something bad is about to go down.
Liala was shocked to see that it was the werewolf she believed to be female who stepped towards Brenna’s lying form, while the others were retreating and walking behind the fire where she couldn’t see them. She was standing up straight and Liala’s assumption about the gender was confirmed. Her body resembled that of a woman, with two breasts that were covered by dark brown fur. She had something in both her claws, something tiny and dark, holding it with only her thumb and index finger.
Is that a smartphone?
Her fingers moved and then she turned around to hand that tiny something to the one Liala thought would be the alfa, but she wasn’t so sure anymore. As she turned back her and Liala’s glances locked, briefly, and the expression on the female werewolf’s face was dark. It made Liala shudder despite her best efforts. She watched the female crouch down, grab Brenna by her hair at the back of her head and pulled her up to face her.
First, Kiana’s best friend didn’t seem to react, but then something made her eyelids snap open and stare at her in horror. Liala’s stomach started churning.
What is going on? Does he talk to her?
Brenna started heaving and the female werewolf turned her away, so that she wouldn’t throw up on her. Kiana’s friend emptied her stomach on the forest floor. Most of the stuff that spattered from her mouth was clearly white.
Luckily for her, Liala was distracted by the fact that she could now see the female move her mouth as if she was able to actually talk, really talk. She had heard the older one bellow “run,” but it hadn’t sounded like it had been an easy task for him.
Brenna started sobbing and crying, somehow managing to pull her knees under her body and ease the strain on her head. The female’s clawed hand was still digging into and pulling on her thick hair.
There’s clearly more going on than just… kidnapping and raping us. What is all of this about?
“Please,” Brenna suddenly sobbed loudly and Liala felt Kiana flinch at the sound her best friend made. “It’s not my fault. I’m not part of this. I don’t know anything!”
For whatever reason, Liala suddenly felt disgusted and angry. Hearing Brenna’s voice suddenly annoyed her. The other wolves started moving again, returning from behind the fire but not stepping next to the female, who was still talking to Brenna.
“Please!” She wailed. “I didn’t mean to. I don’t know anything. I don’t even like my dad, please.”
What the hell had Brenna’s disgusting father had to do with this. Were they after Brenna all along?
“I don’t have anything with me. I didn’t hide anything,” Kiana’s best friend continued lamenting. “He didn’t want me to go. I went anyway without him knowing because of Jason. He didn’t send me!”
The female suddenly let go of Brenna’s hair and she fell to the floor, she was too weak to catch herself or soften the blow and her face collided with the ground.
Liala watched the female become restless and starting to pace, stopping to glance at the grey werewolf and then turned around to look straight into Liala’s eyes. Suddenly she felt uneasy and the expression she could see in the eyes of the female werewolf was pain.
Does she know me? Did she know my mom? Did my mom learn all the things about the forest from her? What happened?
Her heart began to hurt and she could feel how she slowly became more and more agitated. Liala’s eyes started to ache and her sight started to blur.
“Oh no,” she mumbled, closing her eyelids and rubbed them.
“What happened?” Kiana asked worriedly, seemingly having not heard Brenna at all. “Are you okay? Is it…?”
“Yes, it is. I don’t have my meds,” Liala answered.
A blood curdling scream ripped through the night and both Liala and Kiana froze. Instantly Liala forced her eyes open, getting ready to protect what family she had left in this forsaken place. But they weren’t in danger, for now.
Liala couldn’t instantly believe what she saw, but her cousin’s reaction left no room for doubt that this was really happening.
The female werewolf had stepped back and the others had returned, but not to repeat what they just had finished. The twins weren’t among them but that wasn’t important, because it didn’t change anything. Brenna screamed at the top of her lungs as a set of claws tore through her skin and flesh: Blood flying in arcs of droplets all around her. But it wasn’t the blood flying through the air as if the artist Jackson Pollock had returned from the dead to create a masterpiece on the forest floor, it was the sounds: The sudden void of Brenna’s voice that was replaced with a thick gurgling sound, the ripping of skin, the mauling of flesh and the unforgiving silence that followed.
It all happened in a few seconds, but the world slowed down, so that Liala felt as if she just had caught a glimpse of hell. It was all red and liquid, all cuts and blood, brutal and without mercy.
As much as she had despised this woman, she didn’t deserve a death like this. Liala couldn’t tear away her blank stare from the form that used to be Kiana’s best friend and her foe. There was nothing that resembled her anymore. She couldn’t even find her hair in that pile of bloody meat.
“Lia,” Kiana started to stammer. “Lia. Lia. I don’t want to die. Lia, I don’t want to die.” Her cousin’s fingernails dug into her shoulders as she started to shake her. “Please, I don’t want to die like this. Oh my god, Brenna. Oh my god!” She was becoming hysterical and all that Liala felt was numbness, emptiness.
Liala wasn’t afraid, she wasn’t feeling sick, and she wasn’t getting an anxiety attack. She felt nothing. Maybe, if she dug deep enough, she felt disappointment.
Brenna was dead, gone. Just like that. For reasons, she didn’t know. As senseless as her death appeared to be, it wasn’t, was it? Or were Brenna’s words just a figment of her imagination that her mind came up with to make sense of it?
Liala couldn’t move. All she saw in front of her eyes was red. Blood. She glanced down at her hands and they were stained with blood. But her hands were too small; it couldn’t be hers, could it?
Lia, oh my god, Lia! It was her mother’s voice. Close your eyes! Liala shook her head. I’m here. I’ve got you. I’m here. Close your eyes. It’s going to be fine. She could almost feel the embrace.
“Mom, why are you bleeding?”
She spoke out those words, but her voice was too old, and whatever she just had seen was gone. And all her eyes took in were the bloody remains of Brenna.
“Lia, are you okay?” Kiana shook her violently again and she quickly placed one of her hands-on top of Kiana’s to make her stop.
Liala lifted her glare and looked at the female werewolf, who was approaching them, stopping dead in her tracks as she saw anger meeting her concern.
&nbs
p; The confusion about the strange vision of her mother made Liala blink several times and feel dizzy. Nonetheless, she slowly rose to her feet, reaching behind her to find support in the tree trunk she had been leaning against with one shoulder the entire time Kiana had hidden behind her. The pressure of her cousin’s cold hands on her back told her that she was getting onto her feet as well, alongside with her.
As Liala stood, the ground felt as if it was shaking, but that was a feeling she was used to. It always felt like that when she was having a panic attack, the one she assumedly had right now was an unusual one, as it came and went, never fully striking her. Her head began to hurt as well, giving her the sensation of having an invisible vice placed at her temples that was slowly increasing the pressure in her head.
“Stay behind me,” Liala murmured towards Kiana, not sure if she was speaking loud enough, but her cousin did what she asked for.
One of us is next. It’s not going to be her.
There was more going on than it appeared to be, it had to be, because otherwise all of this absolutely made no sense, otherwise what just had happened to Brenna, was just cruel, vicious, and barbaric. However, if she had really heard her cousin’s best friend’s words and had not made them up, it meant that these werewolves were not just monsters, they were protecting themselves.
But from what? Or from whom?
Liala’s theory also explained why the werewolves had attacked them in the first place instead of just leaving them alone or just watching them from a safe distance. Because attacking them did mean exposure, because there was a risk that someone would escape and tell the world about their existence. And that did happen. Liala herself took care of that. Watching the other werewolves gather behind the one, Liala now believed was the real alfa, told her that time was running out, because, what else could happen?
“We won’t tell anyone about you,” she spoke carefully. “If you let us leave, I will make sure that the others won’t either. I will convince them that we were attacked by a bear and that I shot it. You will be left alone, I promise.”
There was no reaction to her words. The whole pack was just staring at her, waiting for their alfa to decide. And yet, Liala had the feeling she was missing something important.
“They can’t understand you,” Kiana whispered, her voice shaking.
“Oh, they can,” Liala disagreed.
“How do you know?” Barely an audible sound came from her cousin’s mouth, since fear stole her breath.
“Because the alfa spoke to Brenna, before she had her killed,” Liala explained loud and clear, watching the single, smaller wolf standing closest to them.
For Liala, the change of expression on the female’s face was confirmation enough, telling her that the werewolf right in front of her, just three yards away, was both female and the leader of the pack.
Kiana obviously needed some time to answer, but who wouldn’t in this situation? Liala had no clue how she came to the assumption of an alfa in the first place, let alone the idea that this werewolf pack had a female one. Again, it seemed that she was simply remembering things her mom told her all these years ago. It almost felt as her mom was with her, whispering all these important things to her to help her get through this situation.
Tears gathered in her eyes, making them burn. After all, she got the birthday present, she had hoped for, when coming to Crescent Valley: Reconnecting with her mother. Liala just didn’t think the price she had to pay for it was worth it.
The alfa moves her head just a bit and the silver-grey wolf, who now seemed to be the second in command, got into motion. But before he could pass by his alfa , Liala stepped forward.
“I am next, not her,” she addressed the female. “You will not hurt her.”
Liala knew what she did was senseless. Kiana would be meeting just the same fate as Brenna did as soon as these werewolves were finished with her. Because Liala didn’t have any answers to the questions they had asked Brenna.
“We didn’t come here to threaten you,” she followed a glint of intuition. “We came here to celebrate my birthday. I’m turning twenty-one, tomorrow. We didn’t know that this was your territory. All I wanted was to reconnect with my mother. She died about ten years ago.”
Every word as true as it was, seemed senseless, since they didn’t seem to evoke a reaction in any of the wolves. So, with every word, Liala’s heart sank deeper, and her hope that she would be able to save Kiana from a horrible end, vanished.
“I’m next,” she repeated and suddenly felt her cousin’s hand grabbing hers, squeezing it tight. “They won’t hurt you,” she told her, swallowing down the lump that was stuck in her throat, as she turned towards her halfway, looking at the terrified expression on her pale face.
Instinctively, Liala pulled her cousin into her arms, hugging her tightly, and stroking her hair. Kiana instantly started sobbing. Never before had Liala felt that helpless.
No matter what I do, I can’t protect her from this.
6 – Howl
Liala had no idea for how long she had been running. She knew that her sense of time was off with adrenaline rushing through her veins like an overdose. It was cold; she was on her bare feet, only wearing thin pajamas. Her panting breaths were drowning her own ears. But the noise of her naked feet running, were muffled by leaves and moss. She could smell the moisture beneath her, around her, which was the only reason she knew what exactly she was running on. But what muffled the sound of her steps; also was slippery and unreliable, and that meant that although running she had to take her steps with care, and that was slowing her down.
Going deeper into the forest, heading north, was a desperate attempt to make it more difficult for the wolves to track her by sound, and with a little luck, her smell, because the air was thick with moisture. It probably was useless, but every action that added to her focusing on not being caught, at least not that quickly, helped keep her panic at bay and her thoughts away from Kiana, who hopefully was staying untouched and unharmed, while she herself was running.
Liala ripped away her thoughts about her cousin. Worry about her would distract her and slow her down.
The forest appeared to be pitch-black, huge, vast, dark, and cold, despite the red moon standing highly above her, like a silent watcher. The old and large trees were towering tall over her, keeping most of the moonlight away, with most of them covered with moss.
That’s where north is. Liala heard her mother say. On the side facing north moss always grows. Remember that and you will always know where you are going, when you are lost in the forest.
Liala knew she had outstanding eyesight during the night, which was usual for her, but with the forest this dark, she still had problems identifying the ground. Yet, with every passing moment her eyes had forgot about the bright campfire and adjusted more and more to her dark surroundings. And with every passing moment, her steps became more secure, and her pace faster. This felt just like her dream from earlier today, a dream she had regularly, and often enough, it didn’t end up with her having sex. It resulted with her being fearless, free, and full of joy: Reunited with her mother.
Her breathing left little clouds in the air, her heart beat in her ears, and her lungs started to ache from the cold and the strain. And then, she could hear growls behind her, barks, and crunching branches. They had started following her, after giving her a head start, as well.
How nice.
Hearing them closing in already, Liala felt more energy to run faster, as more adrenaline shot through her body. She knew they would catch her eventually, especially if she burned herself up too quickly. If she ran long enough, maybe she would find civilization.
The werewolves were larger and because of that their step length had to be enormous. On top of that, they had claws they could dig into the earth. Thinking of that, she tried to do the same by using her toes, ignoring the pinches and pains on the soles of her feet. Liala was doing her best to focus on where she was going and not to look back to see if s
he could already see them, behind her. Panic was reaching out for her, like a child for his favorite candy, taking her in an icy grip, but it only made her go faster.
She needed the adrenaline and she welcomed it.
A howl tore through the forest, striking her right to her to the core. Instantly Liala started slipping on the clammy ground, almost tumbled, but somehow managed to catch herself. Snatching, breaking twigs resounded behind her.
They are coming closer.
Again, Liala stopped herself from looking back, not wanting to run into something, to stumble and fall, and make her an easy catch. She had to make catching her as difficult as possible for them.
I have to fight. Show them, I’m not weak like Brenna.
The sounds of barking and growling seemed to move into a different direction, but closer to the left.
Are they trying to surround me?
She couldn’t go any faster, because she already had to stop herself from stumbling with almost every other step. There were fallen leaves on top of the moss and the roots, which made the ground as slippery as ice, she had to change direction, find a better surface to run on.
Because, if I fall; they will get to me faster.
Another snarl reached her ears and it was far too close for her liking. Her hackles stood up straight and tears started to gather in her eyes. She wasn’t sure where they came from.
Fear? Despair? Anger? Fuck that. I need to go faster! Why can’t I go faster? Why can’t I be one of them?
That thought struck a bare nerve of hers.
More and more twigs were starting to tear at her, scratching her skin. She had to change the direction or she would get stuck in the underbrush. Suddenly, Liala realized that her pajamas could get her caught, as she almost fell because the fabric got stuck in a thorn bush. Without further ado, she pulled the top over her head, tossed it away, and changed direction as planned, incredulous about how much cold that thin fabric had held at bay. But there was no time for regret. Her body was covered with goosebumps, and her lungs were aching. Her throat was becoming dry and some disgusting spit gathered in her mouth. Liala swallowed it down and it hurt. She ignored it.
HOWL and HUNT the HEIR: HOWL 1-3 (Dark World) Page 8
