by Jude Marquez
I stared at him and snorted. “Yeah, I will, when you move your ass. Come on, on your feet, soldier.”
“Get out. Take Marcus and whoever else is left and go. Get as far away as you can,” Azolata said. He didn’t move.
“Yeah, I will, when you come with us,” I snapped, my irritation returning.
“I can’t. You know that perfectly well. But if you want to see your sister grown someday, you will go now,” Azolata said in that calm, even voice.
I hated that tone. He was talking to me like he didn’t know me, like I was a stranger sent in to save him and I could walk away from him whenever I wanted.
“Well, listen up, buddy. I’m a lot harder to kill then you think. I may not be a god or whatever, but I know how to take care of myself and some asshole who thinks they will sacrifice themselves for me. I don’t want that and you don’t get to put that on me, you hear me?” I said.
I took a step forward.
“This is all your own doing anyway,” I went on. “If you had fought back against that other asshole in the suit, then maybe we wouldn’t be here. Maybe you could have gotten away and me and you could both be on the outside, but instead, you just stood there and made Savannah take me. Why’d you do that, huh?”
“I can’t see you hurt,” Azolata said in that same gentle tone.
“Aren’t you listening? I can handle myself and a bunch of other people besides that. I fought for you and you just stood there and let yourself get taken. You didn’t even raise a hand in your own defense. No, you just stood there!” I shouted.
I took another step forward.
“Now Billie is gone, Celia and the- the- fairy girls are gone and for all I know, Lou and Eli are off on their own banging like a screen door in a hurricane and I get stuck with homicidal Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum out there and I am about five minutes from marching them into the Ascendancy myself.”
I stepped forward.
“Stop-” Azolata said and stood up.
“I mean, come on. You are a god and I know there are rules and I know you are trying to keep us safe but if that were true, you would know we would be safer with you out here with us instead of in a fucking gas station, sitting by the shitty beer. Why are you here? Why aren’t you trying-”
I took one more step forward and Azolata crossed the small space towards me. I saw him reach out, and I thought, Finally. Finally he gets it. He sees me.
But instead of pulling me forward and into him, into a small space of comfort, he pushed me, hard, and I fell back just as flames sparked up between us.
They were as high as the ceiling, easily twenty feet. They weren’t normal flames though. They were white hot and brilliantly bright. I knew that they would have killed me if I had tried to step over that invisible line but Azolata had saved me, stopped me, gotten me to safety the only way he knew how.
And as the flames sputtered and died down, I saw him.
He was on his side, curled around the arm he had used to push me. His face was twisted in pain and I could see that his lashes were wet from unshed tears. He gasped and cradled his arm to his chest and I could tell that it was taking all of his strength to not cry out.
Then I heard a shimmering bell from the front.
Our eyes met, and he hissed, “Go.”
So I went.
Chapter 9
We were passing through Imlay, Nevada when the truck died.
It sputtered and died; the lights flickered out, and I guided into a stop on the side of the road.
“Hazards,” Nichols said helpfully.
I pushed the button and we all sat there and stared at the truck.
Savannah had her face pressed up to the window. “There’s something out there.”
I felt my heart skip a beat. “Like what?”
As though someone heard me ask that question, lightning flashed, and I got a glimpse of a large, misshapen building.
“What the fuck,” Nichols said faintly.
Lightning flashed and we all leaned forward to see if we could catch another glimpse.
I saw tall, spindly bars reaching high into the air, like a skeleton of another building was over what was left of this one. There was a glimpse of Saint Mary and rocks piled high into a structure that I could not figure out.
“We are in a horror movie,” Gerri whispered.
“You guys are the horror movie,” Nichols muttered.
I smirked.
“I’m going to see if I can figure out what’s wrong with this thing,” I said and flipped my hood up.
“I’ll go with you,” Savannah said.
Before we got out, Savannah looked at Gerri and Nichols in the backseat. “She’ll eat you,” she told Nichols.
“I remember. Vividly,” Nichols said dryly.
The rain was cold and it cut through our hoodies quickly. I popped the hood and we had to stand on the front bumper. Savannah held her phone up with the flashlight on and we looked into the engine.
I tried to be prepared in case of most emergencies and that meant learning the basics of engines and their care. It came in handy the most during this trip, I realized.
“Well,” I said and cleared my throat.
“That shouldn’t be like that,” Savannah said as we both stared at the fuse box that should have been stored deeper in the engine with a watertight lid.
Instead, it was sitting at an angle on top of the engine, with the lid torn away. The fuses were getting wet, and that’s what slowed us down and eventually stopped us.
“No, it shouldn’t,” I agreed.
“Do you know how to fix it?” She asked.
“Yeah. Dry it off. Should be good as long as none of the fuses are blown or we’re totally screwed,” I said.
As soon as I mentioned that, we both leaned forward to get a closer look at the fuse box.
“They look fine-” I said.
Savannah looked over at me and there was a look of clear surprise written all over her face; lips parted, eyes wide, eyebrows raised.
“What?” I said.
She looked down, and I followed her gaze.
Her light blue hoodie was turning a strange, dark color, and I blinked when I saw an arrow sticking out of her belly.
She fell backwards, but had the presence of mind to land on her side.
I turned and stepped off the bumper, let the hood fall closed, landed lightly on my feet, ready to fight the Ascendancy guards that had tracked us there.
When I turned though, it wasn’t Ascendancy guards standing there.
It was three men, dressed in camo, smirking and staring at me.
Over the rain, I could hear Gerri and Nichols speaking quickly, but I could not make out their words.
One of the men stepped forward and aimed the crossbow at me. I stared at him, memorized his face and his scent, and watched as he grabbed Savannah by the hair and made her stand. He pushed her towards one of the other men and he caught her.
He put a shotgun under her chin and Savannah went still.
“What do you want?” I asked, trying to keep my every instinct under control. My wolf was prowling just under my skin, threatening to come forward and shred these men’s flesh from their bones.
I wondered if Gerri could keep them alive while I did.
“Well, we wanted your pretty little friend here, with her wad of cash, then we wanted to make her pay for putting our friend in the hospital, but she ain’t gonna last much longer, is she?” The man asked. He turned his head and spit out a wad of tobacco on the ground.
“So we’ll take you as a nice substitute,” he concluded and looked me up and down. He smirked.
I stared him down and then flicked my eyes towards Savannah. “All right?” I asked.
“It’s not cinder. I’m fine. You’ll be fine,” she said.
The three men looked at her and then back to me.
“Honey unless you are some kind of superhero, you aren’t fine. And you aren’t going to be fine when we are done,” the fir
st man promised.
“Get your hands up!” Nichols shouted.
Everyone, including myself, turned and looked at him.
He was standing there in the rain, his service revolver in his hands, aiming at the man holding Savannah.
“Put it down or I blow a hole in her face,” the guy holding Savannah said and pressed the barrel into her chin, forcing her face up and towards the sky.
“And then I shoot you,” Nichols snapped.
“You think you can hit me and not your friend here? Come on, man,” the second guy said and laughed.
The final man brought up his own gun and aimed it at me. “Put it down and I won’t shoot the other one.”
“Oh. shoot her. Please. It would make my day,” Nichols said.
I turned to him. “I told you, it doesn’t feel great.”
“Yeah, but it’s not like you’ll die, right?” Nichols said and shrugged.
“What is wrong with you people?” The first guy demanded.
“Okay, how about this? I’ll shoot you in the knee and we’ll see how much you like it. You won’t die, right?” I challenged Nichols.
“Well, no, but I won’t get all better right away, either,” he said pointedly.
“Hey!” The first man bellowed.
I shifted just enough for my fangs and claws to descend quickly and ran at him. He barely glimpsed me before I was on him. I picked him up high above my head and threw him into the front bumper of the truck. I heard something crack, and he fell into the mud.
The second man shot at Nichols. I stepped in front of the bullet and I felt it hit me just above my hip. I took a few steps back and looked down. There was some blood and when I looked up at him, I laughed.
He continued shooting until there was nothing but the empty click of his gun.
I roared.
If any of my pack had been close, they would have come running. It was a roar of anger, of rage, a promise of blood and violence and eventually, death.
I ran at the other man, threw him back into one of those misshapen walls.
“Please, please, I’ve got a wife, kids-” he babbled.
I leaned in close and snapped my teeth at his throat and he screamed.
“And you tried to hurt my friend. How many other girls have you hurt? Tell me the truth and I may let you live,” I said, my words slurred because of my fangs.
“I- we- not many. I swear we just- We were drinking,” he babbled.
“Not many? How many?” I said and wrapped a hand around his throat and pushed my claws in deep enough for him to feel.
“Three- no. Four! Four, I swear!” He said.
I snapped at him again, my teeth skating just above his skin. “Four? Is that all? Only four innocent people that you’ve hurt? Traumatized? Put in the hospital?”
He nodded, his movements jerky. “I swear, only four.”
“Then I’ll only break four of your bones. Pick,” I said and pulled my wolf back.
“What?” He gasped.
“Four bones. I will break them. It’s not enough, not by a long shot, but you will remember me, won’t you? One girl you thought you could take and take and take and nothing would happen to you? Will you remember me?” I asked.
He nodded and coughed. “I promise, I won’t do it again.”
“No, you won’t. Because do you know what I am?” I asked and stepped closer. We could have been lovers, caught in a downpour.
“No,” he whispered and it sounded like he was still begging.
“I’m a monster. I’m the worst kind. I’m the most powerful, with the best senses and that means you can hide from me, but I will find you. I’m the big, bad wolf. And you are just a succulent little pig, ready to be eaten. So what will it be? Will I eat you?” I let my fangs grow again, let my eyes turn alpha-black. “Or will you choose four bones for me to break?”
He shook his head. He was out of his mind with terror.
I grinned. “That’s fine.”
I dragged him back to the others and pushed him into the mud. He was laying flat on his back and I pinned him by his neck. The first man still had Savannah by the throat. Nichols still had his gun on him.
“You can put that away,” I said conversationally. Nichols shrugged and tucked it into the back of his jeans. “So I made this guy- what’s your name?”
“Chris,” he whispered.
“Chris. I made Chris here a deal. I told him that if he told me the truth about what he and his friends have been up to, then he might live. So he told me he and his friends have done this to four other people. I believe we can all guess what they did,” I said and looked at Savannah and Nichols. He nodded. “I suppose Savannah would have been five and I would have been six. So we made a deal. I said that he could pick four bones for me to break and I wouldn’t eat him. Does that sound fair?”
I looked around. Gerri had joined us and she stared at the men with disdain on her face.
“I would prefer to torture them for an eternity,” she said.
“We don’t have access to your courts,” I said.
She sighed. “Unfortunate.”
“I want names,” Nichols said through clenched teeth.
“Why?” Gerri asked.
“Because. I can- When I go home- I can- I can make it right, somehow. I can try,” he said through clenched teeth.
I nodded. I pressed down harder on the man’s neck. “Give me names.”
He choked.
“Let him go or I will blow this bitch’s head off!” The last man screamed.
I had almost forgotten about him. I looked up at him and through the downpour; I memorized his features and the shape of his body. He wasn’t fit, he wouldn’t be able to run far.
“Savannah, please. Let him go. I haven’t had a good chase in a while,” I said and licked my lips.
She sighed and grabbed the barrel of the gun. She jerked it forward as he pulled the trigger, missing her face. She took the gun from him and slammed the barrel into his stomach. He doubled over. She tossed the gun away and stared down at the bolt that pierced her mid-section. She grimaced as she broke the end off and pulled it out.
“Gross,” Nichols muttered.
“You should have seen Celia dig the bullet out of her leg,” Savannah said and tossed the bolt aside. Then she grabbed the last man by the chin, forced him to stand upright. “My alpha wants to chase a scared little bunny in the dark. Run, bunny. Run from the sharp teeth that will tear you apart.”
The man stared at her and stumbled back. He was no longer in the cross light of the headlights and he ran for one building.
“Hold this one until I return,” I said to Savannah.
She nodded and came forward. She put her heel on his neck and glanced up at me. “We should probably get going soon.”
“I know,” I said.
“What about this one?” Gerri asked and nudged the first man’s body. He was laying with his legs awkwardly twisted though they weren’t broken.
“Is he alive?” I asked, somewhat surprised.
“He won’t walk again, but yes. He’s alive,” Gerri said and knelt by the first man.
“Hm. I’ll leave you to it,” I said.
I took off my hoodie and tossed it on the hood of the truck. I stripped quickly out of the rest of my clothes and when I turned, Nichols had his eyes politely averted.
“Hey Nichols, wanna see something cool?” I asked.
Then I shifted.
It used to hurt when I was a kid, but not anymore. It was more like a pleasant ache now, like sore muscles after a good workout.
Being a wolf was simpler. There was a goal and there was a way to attain that goal.
I circled Nichols once, mostly to frighten him, before I turned and picked up the fear-scent of the last man and gave chase.
I found him, cornered in a building. He begged, he cried, and eventually he screamed.
When I came back, the first man was awake and begging. Gerri was standing over him, watching him
with disinterest. Nichols knelt close by the man still under Savannah’s heel. He was writing something down on an increasingly soggy piece of paper.
I padded over to them and Nichols looked up at me and jerked back. I didn’t take offense. If he wasn’t scared at the sight of a wolf that came up to his chest that weighed close to three hundred pounds, then he was too stupid to know what was good for him.
I latched onto his arm gently and pulled him upright.
“You have a lot of teeth,” he whispered.
I sneezed.
“Good doggy,” the man beneath Savannah’s heel whispered.
I bowed my head and growled. My muzzle was still pink with the other man’s blood. The man cried and tried to shrink away from me.
“Hey, come on. We don’t have a lot of time. We should finish this and go,” Savannah said and touched my shoulder.
I took a few steps back and shifted into my human form.
“Fine. Did you get the information that you needed?” I asked and went to where my clothes were tucked away.
Nichols turned his eyes away again.
I laughed. Humans and their modesty. It never failed amuse me when they became uncomfortable with the bodies we were born in.
“They didn’t have names, but that’s not a big surprise. I got enough to figure out dates and locations, though, and that should be enough. Especially if there were reports made,” Nichols said.
“And if there weren’t?” I asked.
Nichols sighed and stared down at the sputtering man. I joined him, dressed once again. “I’m not sure. I can try to figure it out, but... If there was no report made, then there is technically no victim.”
“And what happens to them? Say we take them into a police station and they confess. What happens to them?” I asked.
“Without a report, if the victims haven’t said anything...” Nichols said.
“Right. Well-” I said and glanced at Savannah. She moved her foot, and I jerked the guy to his feet. “So I ate your friend. The one that ran off. Your other buddy is paralyzed. But there were four of you, right? Savannah put one of you in the hospital.”
The guy nodded.
“And you. I haven’t done anything to you.”
