by Martha Woods
"Yeah, we don't want that do we?" Skylar looked around the room, keeping her head low in case he recognized her. "What would you suggest then?"
Leila picked up her cocktail, languidly swirling the drink around before taking a sip. "I would suggest that we take our time here, enjoy our drinks and wait for him to leave. If I'm right, and I have a feeling I am, he is alone in this town. It should be child's play to follow him home and take our time with him there." She placed her glass down with a click, turning and looking pointedly at Skylar. "It's very important that you don't lose control here, we need him alive to be able to talk. I know you may have a grudge, but this is very important."
"I'm not... That was a loss of control." Skylar looked down at her hands, both of them looking purely like flesh and bone, not even a hint of smoke or anything other than humanity. "I know that they were bad men but... It still bothers me that I could do that so easily to them, that I could just toss them around like they were nothing at all. So no, I'm not going to be doing that tonight, he doesn't even have anyone else with him, what would the use in it be?"
"So you're planning on sparing this man?" At Skylar's answering nod Leila whistled, "Very noble. Foolish, but very noble. We'll see if it lasts I suppose."
"You don't think their lives are worth something as well?"
"I think that if you have a cancer, you cut the whole thing out. You don't pick and choose which parts might be harmful or not, you destroy the entire thing." Leila shrugged, gesturing for another drink. "Besides, they had no concern for your life, or the life of your infant child. Why should you have any for them?"
"It's a thin line that separates us from them."
"I agree. But rather than 'right' and 'wrong', I would prefer the line to be centered on 'alive' and 'dead'."
They made it through another two drinks before George started to sway in his seat. Skylar was surprised that she was keeping it together, but she decided to just chalk it up to the fact that she wasn't human. Half of her was barely hidden smoke and heat, it wasn't outside the realm of possibility that she was just burning up the alcohol as soon as it entered her system. Leila was watching the bar keenly, tapping Skylar's shoulder and leading her outside as soon as the bartender told George that it was time for him to go home. Once they were outside and away from prying eyes, they shifted into the darkness, mother and daughter reappearing up in the branches of a nearby tree, waiting for their prey to make his appearance in the streets.
George stumbled out into the night, the ten drinks burning deep in his stomach and his feet unsteady as they carried him along the concrete that stretched and bent in his vision. He was in no condition to recognize if there was a car in front of him, much less the silent, hidden figures of the two women following him, feet not making a sound as they passed through rather than touched the ground.
He would much rather be with the clan, fighting alongside his brothers and sisters in arms, protecting Christian and Claire who would need him now more than ever. But he knew that wasn't possible, he had known that ever since Christian awoke in the van when they had left town and immediately started furiously berating him, telling him he was a coward for running from the fight, that he should have left him there to die with his wife. He had come just short of drawing his gun on George before another punch to the jaw had sent him back into unconsciousness, the bodyguard had known right away that there would no longer be any place for him there with the clan. Christian hadn't hidden his disdain for him after that, even after his blood had cooled and grief had taken angers place, eventually the decision for him to leave was very mutual.
That had been almost two weeks ago, and ever since he had been rotting in this town until more members of their group decided to come through, however long that would take, if ever. Ten years of his life, ten years dedicated to defending humanity and serving his leader faithfully, dipping his hands in blood and soiling his soul for the greater good, and all he had to show for it in the end was a shitty hotel room and a rapidly mounting bar tab. If he could stand properly he'd put his fist through the window next to him, but as it was he could barely put one foot in front of the other, let alone attempt to fight a building.
Of course, Hunters always were good at holding their liquor, it became something of a necessity when you didn't have anything else to do when you weren't actually on a job, he would likely be completely sobered up in the next hour or two, but for once he wasn't exactly thankful for that. George would much rather stay drunk until he passed out, deal with the inevitable headache when he woke up in the morning on the floor, but even in his inebriated and exiled state work came first. It would be at least four hours until he got to bed, the need to analyze where they went wrong and what they had fought against coming first in his mind, there was no sense in the next group of Hunters going in blind against that thing.
His shoulder thumped against the door frame as he fumbled for his keys, taking far more tries than he was willing to admit unlocking the door. The dark room was flooded with light, keys being tossed across the room onto the couch and his feet carrying him towards the seat at the desk, kicking the door closed with his foot when he passed by. George collapsed against the desk, the room still pitch black while he thumped his hand along the desk, searching blindly for the desk lamp while not wanting to hold his head up. He was groaning with the effort, eyes scrunched closed to stop the swimming in his vision when he heard something that made his blood turn to ice in his veins.
"Hello there, let me get that for you."
If the voice wasn't what alarmed him, the desk lamp suddenly turning on to reveal the swimming forms of two women, one of whom was very familiar certainly was. He fell backwards out of his chair, eyes never leaving Skylar while he tried to crawl backwards, mind focused only on the gun that he kept taped to the bottom of the coffee table.
Leila rolled her eyes, black tendrils shooting out of the floor and wrapping around his arms and legs, easily lifting him into the air and tossing him across the room, back slamming into the wall and leaving him wheezing on the floor.
"I thought we weren't going to kill him?"
"I'm not." Another tendril grabbed George's ankle, dragging him into the kitchen and throwing him face first into a glass cabinet. "Just having a little fun with him."
If anything was going to sober him up, it was apparent mortal danger, something that always sent adrenaline pumping through his veins and his heart into overdrive. George shot to his feet, spitting blood and shards of glass to the ground below and lunging for the closest knife he could find. Leila wasn't impressed, laughing to herself when the knife slid out of the block and swiped through the air at her.
"Oh that's how you want to go then?" She ducked underneath a swipe, fist driving into his kidney with enough force to leave him breathless but not nearly what she was truly capable of. "Come on then, no powers, just fists."
Skylar looked on in mild concern, saying, "Leila, we really should..."
"Please Sky, not now." Leila feinted in again, fingers digging into his sides and slicing at his neck, thin beads of blood already starting to fall down his skin. "It's been a while since I got to indulge myself like this, please just let me have this."
Her daughter sighed to herself, retreating to sit down on the nearby couch. "Please don't take all night, I'm having a hard-enough time of this as it is."
"Don't worry." Leila smiled in a way that George could only describe as feral, teeth shining in the light and her eyes narrowing in delight. "This won't take any time at all."
George roared in anger, swipes and stabs hitting nothing but empty air, his arms rapidly starting to weaken with each impact from her knuckles or strike from her fingers, his neck a patchwork of bruises and blood. His eyes were starting to fall shut, fatigue and pain clouding his mind and making him clumsy, a few swipes of her fingers against his forehead mixing blood with sweat and stopping him from seeing at all.
"Well this was fun little man, but just like with every time with a man
..." Leila caught his wrist, wrenching the knife around in his grip. "It was sorely disappointing."
She slammed her hands forward with so much force his wrists snapped under the pressure, the shout of pain dying in his throat as five inches of steel found themselves buried in his stomach, veins bulging in his neck while he tried to figure out if he wanted to scream, or sob, or both. He wouldn't get to make the decision, the shadow creatures hand shooting out and the heel of her palm crunching into his chin saw to that.
She scoffed when he collapsed limply to the ground, blood seeping gently into his clothes and staining the floor below. Skylar came and stood next to her, eyes wide in alarm when she saw just what had been done to him. "We weren't supposed to kill him!"
"He's not dead. Not yet. Something like that he'll have a few hours without help anyway, so we can take our time with him." Leila knelt down, threading her arms underneath his shoulders and hauling him up. "Bring a chair over would you dear? I'd rather not have to lean down to ask him questions."
* * *
George woke up twenty minutes later, his arms and legs very securely tied down and his stomach feeling like it was made of pure fire. When he looked down and saw the knife still sticking out of him it was all he could do to not vomit from sheer horror, but a pair of fingers snapped in front of his face before he could do much more than heave.
“I would prefer that you didn’t do that. I don’t want to have to spend the next ten minutes standing around in puke stink.” Leila pulled up her own chair in front of him, leaning back casually and nudging the knife with her foot. “That really isn’t looking too good you know. Do you know how long you can last with a wound like that?”
He growled, “I have some idea...”
“No, you don’t.” She inspected her fingernails, buffing them against her coat. “I know your type, you hit hard and fast, you don’t have any sort of respect for what you’re truly doing to a person. But I do, so let me tell you.” Leila shot forward suddenly, taking hold of the knife and twisting it ever so slightly. George went red, the pain so great he couldn’t even force air out of his lungs. “If you get left like this you will have around... I wanna say four hours before you bleed out. You’ll be in horrendous pain the whole time, and towards the end you’ll be begging me to put you out of your misery. Without emergency help you’re a dead man, and at this rate I will not give you any.”
“Yeah? How do you know that?” He tried to spit at her, but all it accomplished was another stain on his shirt. “You don’t look like the type to get her hands dirty like that.”
“And yet, there you sit. So, stop stalling, or I’ll make sure that you know what it’s like to eat yourself.”
George wished that he could say that it took longer to break him, that his loyalty to the clan won out in the end and he went out with honor. The truth is that when someone threatens to make you eat yourself, and has a look in their eye that tells you that they would happily follow through on such a threat, your will isn’t exactly going to last through something like that. He hung his head in shame, bitter tears of pain and sorrow leaking through. “What is it you want to know then? Just... Just ask your questions so we can get this over with.”
“Where is Christian going? Why aren’t you with him?” To his surprise it was Skylar who asked the questions, her mother seemingly content to sit back and occasionally press her foot against his wound. While before she had seemed hesitant, almost skittish at the prospect of interrogating him, the look that she had in her eyes right now was very much the same she had before she had massacred half of his friends. She leaned in close, it was all he could do not to shrink back in his seat. “What is he planning to do?”
“Christian’s moving out west, he’s planning to stack up at a stronghold in the middle of the country, I don’t know the exact place he never told me.” He gasped when a tendril worked its way into his stomach, the foreign feeling making his very skin crawl. “I don’t know I swear! It was one of those need to know things!”
“What about you? Why aren’t you with him now? Why are you getting drunk in some dead-end town like this?”
“He didn’t appreciate me dragging his ass out of that building and away from... From whatever the fuck it is you are!” He shut his eyes again, groaning in pain, “We decided it was best to go our separate ways.”
“You should have left him there, this whole thing would have ended that night.” Leila spoke up, shaking her head at him. “We sure as hell wouldn’t be here with you if that was the case.”
“Who else should we be on the lookout for? If you can’t tell us where his stronghold is you can at least tell us that, and don’t even think about lying.”
“Fuck...” George silently begged for forgiveness, hoping that whatever was out there would give him a chance. “The only one left is Claire, she was Laura’s sister.” At the blank look, he elaborated, “Laura was the one who had your kid.”
The look of pure rage that passed over her face was enough to give even Leila pause, Skylar needing to focus hard just to maintain a stable form and not lose herself to the memories of that night. “Then she’ll go right along with him, that’s settled.”
“Great, wonderful...” George sighed shakily, knowing already that he had made the wrong decision telling them about Claire. “Are we done now? Is that all you needed to know? Because if that’s the case then I’d really like to get this fucking knife out of me.”
Leila looked between the two of them. “What do you think Skylar? Are you satisfied with all this? You don’t have anything else you’d like to ask him before we leave?”
She thought for a second, finally shaking her head. “No, I don’t. You can let him go now.”
“Sure thing.” George watched her stand up, and when she placed her hands on the side of his head he knew instantly that she had no intention of freeing him.
“Claire...” He whispered, “I’m sor-“
His neck snapped like a twig underneath her strength, the sound echoing in the empty room as Skylar looked on, utterly shocked at what she had just seen. “There.” Leila said, “Now we can leave.”
“I... Why would you do that?” Skylar marched up to her mother, shoving her backwards into the chair. “You didn’t have to do that! We could have just left him be!”
“And why would we do that? If we left he would have been in contact with Christian within the hour, and that would be just another thing that he had against us.” Leila stood back up, wiping her hands off on George’s jacket. “He was a loose end Skylar, and in my experience, they are not something you should be leaving.”
She walked past his body, opening the door and letting the night air in. “One day you’ll understand that, but right now I’m fine with you hating me. If that’s what it takes to keep you alive, then so be it.”
Skylar stared after her, briefly alone in that cold room with a rapidly cooling body, the words of her mother echoing in her head. She sighed as she walked out to join her mother, having come to this room for answers but leaving with one more question.
What kind of person is my mother?
* * *
Many miles away, in a town not unlike the one that Skylar and Leila were spending their night, Liam and Cayden were preparing for the next step of their plan. Farah tightened the straps around Cayden's vest, minutes before having drawn a protection rune onto the chest. It wasn't going to stop everything, but it would at least give him a second to get away if things went drastically south.
Liam sat off to the side, Michael and Hayley watching keenly for any sign that he might not be ready for what they were there for that night. His breathing was calm, his eyes closed in concentration, for the first time in a month he was close to the man that they had grown to know and love, it was looking like revenge was exactly the thing that he needed to get back to his old self.
"Tonight it's just going to be me and Liam." Cayden shrugged, making sure the vest was full secure on his torso, not wanting to chance any slips
or vulnerabilities. "This isn't a very large safe house, any more than two of us and we'd only risk crowding ourselves. So sorry, it's only us that get to have fun tonight."
Cassandra rolled her eyes, Leah chuckling beside her. "I'm sure that some of us can go without for tonight. Just be careful you two, I know that you're both very capable but that won't stop us from worrying."
"Don't worry Leah." Cayden smirked over at Liam, who looked distinctly unimpressed. "I'll look after your son, I'm sure he's pretty rusty by now."
"Careful." Liam scoffed, standing up and walking over to the door. "I might be the only one to come back from this."
"Oh please, what would you do without me?" The hunter picked up his shotgun from behind the door, slinging it over his shoulders lazily. "You ready to go do this thing? They should be well asleep by now."
The shifter nodded, squeezing Michael and Hayley's hands before pressing a kiss to Leah's forehead. "Don't worry, we'll both be back before you know it." He looked over at Cassandra and Farah, saying, "Take care of everyone else wile we're gone, we shouldn't take any more chances this time."
"Wouldn't dream of doing otherwise." Cassandra nodded. "Just be quick, it would be best if we were out of this town as soon as possible once you're finished."
"Don't have to worry about that." Cayden laughed, "There's nothing in this town except a bar and a gas station, not much reason to stick around honestly." He cracked the door open, checking to see if anyone was out and walking around. Satisfied that there were no prying eyes at this time of night, he pushed it open all the way, nodding his head to his partner. "We're in the clear Liam, if we're doing this then we're doing it now."