by Tisha Wilson
How rotten could her luck get? It wasn’t bad enough that she’d been in a car accident and her sister had disappeared in the woods at the hands of some type of wild animal, but she had been kidnapped to boot. She looked over her shoulder at the chair that bounced so high on the rutted path that it nearly jumped right out of the truck bed.
“My chair is going to jump out of the back,” she shouted before they hit a hard root and her teeth nearly shattered.
“I don’t care,” he replied simply.
Tears stung her eyes as she struggled against the pain in her broken arm. She had never felt more helpless in all her life. “I can’t get around without my chair,” she pleaded yet again.
“You will get around without it soon enough,” he replied in that same dead pan voice.
He didn’t seem to look at her or feel any sympathy for her. He was a psycho taking her somewhere to do unmentionable things to her. Of course she wouldn’t need her chair if she was dead. A hysterical sob escaped her throat before she could stop it.
He finally showed a little emotion as he snapped a sharp look at her. “Stop that,” he growled.
She pulled in on herself and huddled against the door. “My arm hurts,” she said as calmly as she could manage. They hit a rut and she cried out in pain.
For the first time in an hour he slowed the speed of the truck just a bit. She didn’t know if that made her feel better or worse. Slowing down indicated that they had neared their destination, and she was in no hurry to be chopped up into little pieces and fed to wild animals.
“They will tell me if there is anything to report on your sister,” he said as he continued to stare straight ahead. She snorted and shook her head. No one was looking for Katie. She didn’t stop the tears that came to her eyes from overflowing this time. Katie. Katie. Katie.
If there was ever a time in her life that she needed her legs, it was now. In her mind they still worked. In her mind she could feel them under her, ready to push her up so she could leap and jump. There were so many times when she woke up and nearly went crashing to the floor because she felt her feet on the floor. She looked at the useless offending appendages. Sometimes it would have been better if they had actually cut the damn things off, but she had been so stubborn in insisting that she keep them.
They rode another hour in silence and she continued to stay as far away from the massive man that drove the truck as she could. He was so big that the cab of the truck felt small and suffocating. There was nothing she could do against him at all. She felt like a pixie fairy standing next to a giant. He could crush her like a little bug. She wanted to sob and scream but apparently it bothered him when she did that. He didn’t even look at her when she kept quiet, so she would do her best to keep quiet. They finally pulled up to a rough looking cabin.
She looked through the windshield and the breath caught in her throat at what she saw. Even under the luminescence of the moon she could see the mountain range that stretched out beyond the cabin. She had been to some beautiful places but this… She guessed this range stretched right into Canada. Before she could think any more about it, her door was pulled open and she was up over his shoulder again. She rolled her eyes as she let her head flop against his back and held her arm close.
“I can wheel myself if you set me in my chair,” she mumbled. To her surprise he heard her and made a grunting noise. “Well I could,” she said louder.
He reached into his truck and pulled out her chair along with… she and Katie’s bags! “I didn’t see you grab our bags,” she said in shock not knowing if it was a good or a bad sign that he had thought to bring her stuff.
Why would he bring her stuff if he just intended to kill her straight out? Why would he grab Katie’s things unless he was actually looking for her? Was it a trick? It had to be. A trick to take her off her guard.
“One of the others pulled your stuff while I was talking with Saul.”
Miranda let her head fall to his back again at the sight of Katie’s military issue green duffle bag. Katie. This was a nightmare. Katie had to be alive. She had to be. “Please… help me,” she begged again as she cried.
Angrily the man sat her chair down and then dumped her into it. She pulled back sheltering her broken arm as she looked up into his angry face.
“What did I tell you about that?” he snarled.
“I’m sorry,” she squeaked. No matter how hard she tried, however, she couldn’t stop sobbing.
He picked her up in her chair and she lost her breath for a moment. He had picked her up, chair and all, as if it were nothing, and started towards his cabin. She had been picked up many times, but never like this. She clutched at the front of his coat instinctively, trying to get some type of hold on reality. The coat was extremely warm, heated by the warmth of his skin and he smelled like the outdoors. When he kicked the door open and set her to the floor she wheeled herself away from him quickly.
He strode to her again and grabbed the arms of her chair, nearly coming nose to nose with her. “Let’s get some things straight. I am going to help you because I am the only one that can help you. So stop your whimpering and crying. I didn’t ask you to be here, I don’t want you here, and the only thing you are in danger of has already entered your bloodstream.”
He pointed at her injured arm. “You have been bitten by a werewolf but you didn’t turn to a werewolf right away, so you are going to be a hunter like me. You are going to get very sick. You are going to have a fever, and I am going to walk you through it. Your mentor should be here to do this for you but he is off on some damn mission. I don’t want to be here, you don’t want to be here, but you are here. Deal with it.”
He stood back and crossed his arms over his chest. She wanted to ask him if he was insane, but the answer to that question was obvious. “Do we understand each other?” he asked her.
She nodded quickly and tried to act as if she believed it. She could see by the look in his eyes that he wasn’t buying it. “No really. You’ve brought me here t-to protect me… So… d-do you have a first aid kit or something?” she asked attempting to control her trembling.
He threw his hands up and stalked back to the door. “You will discover the truth of my words soon enough. I’ll be back when it starts,” he said before he walked out and slammed the door behind him.
* * *
Miranda looked around the room frantically. She needed to find some type of weapon to defend herself. She nearly shouted with glee when she saw a rifle leaning up against a corner. She maneuvered around an enormous black leather couch positioned in the center of the room. She grabbed the rifle and sat it across her lap, being sure not to move her aching arm. She used her one hand to pull back the slide, glad that she had given in when Katie was so insistent that she know something about how guns worked. It was loaded. She sent the bolt home and then looked around for a good defensive point.
She shook her head when she saw there was nowhere to hide in this room. Besides, what was she going to do? Demand that he give her his keys so that she could drive out of here? How? With the rifle pressing the accelerator and her broken mangled arm struggling with the steering wheel? She would be dead before she got off the mountain. What she needed was a phone.
She wheeled over to her and her sisters things. She scooped them up and put them in her lap. She then wheeled herself toward a hall that she assumed contained a bathroom. There was only one door so she went through it. She only briefly looked at the bed that looked like it had its own zip code it was so large. She saw a door on the other side of the bed and she tried to maneuver to it. There wasn’t a lot of room but she eventually made it. The door led to a bathroom and she hurried inside, locking the door behind herself.
After rummaging through her sisters things and finding no phone, she cursed viscously. Her phone had been in the center console of the van before the accident and was probably out there in the woods somewhere. Her sister’s phone had probably been in her pocket. Miranda screamed and allowed th
e sobs to consume her for many crazy minutes. She cried and cried and cried until she was sure she was empty. Finally, when she came back to herself, she forced her breathes to come more even. She had to do something other than sit here feelings sorry for herself.
Sniffing back more tears, she rolled over and opened the cabinet beneath the sink. There was some mouthwash, a few candles, a few jars with some types of odd mixtures in them, and at the very back… She reached out and grabbed the tiny first aid kit, feeling a little tremor of relief run through her body. Finally, something had gone her way. She laughed at that thought before she went over to the tub. She dumped the first aid kit into the huge Jacuzzi tub and set her things aside before pulling herself, rifle and all, into the tub.
She set the gun up on the edge of the tub and watched the door. Finally when she was satisfied that he hadn’t returned, she began to unbutton her suit jacket. She screamed out loud and nearly fainted when she pulled the sleeve off the wounded arm as quickly as she could. Concentrating on her breathing she waited for the wave of pain to pass. Finally when her head wasn’t spinning so badly, she reached down to take the stupid heels off her stupid useless feet.
There was no way she was going to get her pants and stockings off, but that didn’t matter at all. It wasn’t as if she would feel them getting wet or mind if they were soggy. Despite her phantom legs, she didn’t feel the cold, the heat, wetness, or any pressure on her legs. She felt nothing but the insane itching at times. Reaching up she turned on the water and waited for it to heat. She was covered in mud, and she needed to clean her arm before it became infected, if it wasn’t already.
She had never seen anything like what had happened earlier. The animal that had bitten her didn’t appear rabid. In fact it had appeared the complete opposite. It had looked her in the eyes, as if it had wanted her to know that it knew it was biting her. As if it were making a conscious decision and wanted her to know that. And those eyes… She closed her eyes and shuddered. They had almost looked… human and filled with blood. They were blood red and glowing with… anticipation.
“That’s crazy. This whole thing is crazy. There are no such things as werewolves,” she said aloud as she forced herself to concentrate on the task at hand.
She turned her head away before she stuck her injured arm below the stream of warm water. She screamed out loud as it stung something terrible. Gritting her teeth she forced herself not to jerk away. She need the wound clean.
She saw some dial body wash on the side of the tub and reached for it. There were a few clean wash clothes sitting on the back of the toilet so she grabbed one. Using her good hand, she worked lather up and, still refusing to look at the wound, she began to scrub around the open area as close as she dare.
Finally, she prepared herself before she stuck her arm under the water yet again. It was more agonizing than the first time. It felt like the water was running right down to her bone. When she reached up to turn off the water, her breathing was ragged and she was shaking all over. All the towels were up on a high rack above the tub. She used the riffle to reach up and knock some down. She quickly pressed a few of the towels against her arm before she opened the first aid kit.
She laughed at herself more heartily now. What did she think she was going to do against the open gashes in her arm? Open one of these little iodine napkins and press it against the wound? Put a bandage on it? Wrap it in the puny gauze? Tape it up?
She threw the stupid kit away from her and lowered her head to her chest. She had been driving all day, had been in an accident, had been bitten, been kidnapped, and had lost her sister… Tired was not the word to describe what she was.
Using some of the towels she cushioned her back and laid against the side of the tub holding her arm. Satisfied that the gun was pulled against her lap and pointed at the door, she allowed her eyes to close and was swept away into blessed darkness.
* * *
Braden sat up in one of his favorite watching trees and he listened. He listened to the sounds of the night, of the earth settling in on its self and recuperating from the day. There were things sleeping, and things slinking and stalking, but he breathed in the cooler night time scents with relish. He was glad, not for the first time, that since he’d had to be reassigned he had been reassigned to this portion of the US and Canada as opposed to some place like the South or, God forbid, California.
He looked towards the cabin where the woman was. The questions flew through his mind yet again, but there was no one to answer them. She should not be here, in his domain. She should either have been turned to a wolf or, and by far the more rare case, turned into a hunter. If she had turned into a wolf immediately then he would have killed her on the spot. If she had turned into a hunter on the spot, he may have torn her limb from limb and she would have fought for her life until the mentor came to rescue her. That hadn’t happened either.
He closed his eyes and tried desperately to recall what had happened when he had turned. It was impossible. Most people thought that when you were immortal you had all these centuries of unlimited knowledge at your disposal. Unfortunately it just wasn’t true. The mind could only store so much memory, only so much information before it just disappeared. It was like asking a thirty year old to recall his birth, or asking a fifty year old to recall his first day of elementary school.
The only reason Braden knew his birthday at all was because he had kept a journal as a human. It was so old now that it was a relic. He’d had it laminated to try and preserve it. Seasons came, and seasons went. Once every ten years or so he made a journal, a short cataloguing of events, but truly he couldn’t recall the change that had occurred nearly a thousand years ago. He could hardly recall what he’d been up to thirty years ago. He knew something of how the change went though. He’d read about some of the experiences the newer hunters had had with it.
By all accountings she should be howling in unspeakable pain, tearing down the walls of his little cabin. He should have already had to have drug her out into the wilderness to fight her until she came to understand her gifts. She should be trying to rip his head off and he was supposed to be teaching her how to hunt. Well not him. The mentor was supposed to be here doing this, not off catering to some mission in another country. Let the mentor in that country handle their own affairs.
His mood did not improve as the temperature began to drop. It wasn’t that he didn’t enjoy the cold, but he should be in his house in his bed right now. He had been on the hunt for two months and he wanted to be in his own space for a while. He lifted his nose to the air and sniffed. There were creatures, but they were running from him. They would hit Alaric’s territory in the higher areas of Canada soon enough and he would bounce them back down again. Until then it was his turn to rest, not deal with this shit.
He perked up a bit when he heard cries of pain coming from inside. Finally. It was starting. He jumped down from his perch and strode purposefully towards the cabin. He entered and stopped. The cries had stopped which puzzled him again. He heard something crash from his bedroom so he headed that way. He stopped near the bathroom door and waited. There was no sound coming from inside the room. There was no breaking glass. There was no smashing porcelain. There wasn’t even the sound of useless thrashing about on the tiled floor.
He tried the door to find it locked. He rolled his eyes and suppressed a curse. He hated doing damage to his house, but he had known the entire way up here that it was going to happen. He twisted the lock until it crushed beneath his hand and he pulled the door knob from the wood it was set in. The door came open easily for him and he peered inside. He froze instantly at the sight that met his eyes.
She was sound asleep in his bathtub with one of his rifles pulled across her lap and pointed at the door. The front of her white shirt was soaked and clinging to her perky breasts. Her hair was escaping its confines in wild blond curls from her recent struggles and she still clutched her arm to her chest wrapped in his brown towels. He was glad they weren’t w
hite towels or he would have seen…
He felt his eyes change and the hunger slam into him. Damn. She was still bleeding. But that couldn’t be. Her heart should have already stopped beating by now. She should have been changing right now. But she wasn’t. Her heart was still beating, her blood was still flowing. He could hear her heart beat in her chest like a wonderful symphony bass drum, loud and full. And she smelled…
He stepped out of the room and closed the door for a moment. His fangs had descended without his consent. He closed his eyes and willed them away. He took a deep breath and stilled himself. He wasn’t some young hunter that couldn’t control his urges. He’d been around hurt innocents before. He’d smelled blood plenty. He’d also seen a woman’s breasts before. None of it was new to him… but when had he last seen a set of perfect perky breasts like that?
Damn. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been with a woman in any way besides to take what he needed from her. Sex had lost its appeal for him long ago. He’d been married three times only to watch those human women die. He had lost heart after the last one. What was that, a hundred years ago?
He shook his head. None of that mattered now. What mattered was that the woman in the bathroom was still human… what did that mean? Was she just experiencing the change differently than most or was there something else at work?
Stealing himself mentally and physically he opened the door and entered again. This time her eyes flew open and she sat up. Before he could say anything at all she shot him. He felt an explosion of heat in his face and was temporarily blinded.
*
Miranda startled awake and before she could stop herself the gun went off. The tall man fell backwards and sprawled on the ground, blood seeping from an open wound on his face. She threw the gun away as a scream of terror escaped from her lips. She had shot him! She had actually shot him. She had only really intended the thing for bluff. She allowed herself a few more minutes of screams and panicked sobs before she had to stop.
