by Tina Smith
“Come here Lila, please,” she hissed, coolly. “I can give you the venom you desire, everything you want,” she urged. I was frozen in some sort of stupor when glass sprayed across the living area with an almighty crash. Sky in wolf form threw himself full spring through the glass wall of the lounge. I was knocked in a spray of glass to the floor and the sound of vicious growling ensued. I felt helpless, powerless as I was thrown to the carpet like a rag doll. I crawled up onto my elbows and struggled away behind the couch. I squeezed my eyes closed. Glass was stuck in my skin, and someone grabbed my arm. I looked up and the hard face that met mine and dragged me up was Cresida. I could still hear growling and yelping and another smash of glass as she dragged me from the room into a bedroom off the hallway, opening the door with her foot. She dragged me up again, shoved me inside and slammed the door closed behind her.
Outside there was a vicious fight; the only thing stopping Cresida from taking out the entire pack was her truce with Sky and Reid. She was only gone a moment before I grappled with the door and burst back out into the hallway, to witness the unfolding sight. I was scared Cres would shoot. I was evidently attempting to put myself back in danger and tonight I was crazy.
“Sky!” I called.
Another crashing of glass and more growling sounded. I made it out of the hall in time to see them tossing each other by their teeth and tumbling down across the lawn. Cresida still human, ran down after them, rifle in hand but not yet pointed. The other pack members sprang over the fence and bounded towards the fight, coming at them twice to separate them, teeth and claws flared. It seemed like a huddle, and then I heard yelping. Suddenly the continual snarling ceased, replaced by panting. They backed away from where Sam lay thrashing in anger or pain, so badly wounded she could not will her legs to move her. My approach set off the sensor light and they all looked at me and resumed their grim trains of thought, ignoring my presence in that moment.
Cresida pointed her gun at Sam’s head, as she lay badly damaged on the ground yelping and trying to pull herself up by her front legs as her hind paws dragged. Sky’s compassion kept him from finishing her off. He had backed off twice but with every ounce left in her she came back at him until she lay defeated on the grass. Blood-soaked fur was matted to her body. Sky spoke then. Through heaving breath he morphed, coughing and shuddering in pain.
“Sam get out of here, I won’t be able to stop Cresida.” Then almost breathless and writhing in pain, he stopped to spit out blood. “And I might just finish you myself.” He heaved, yelling at the ground. “You’re overthrown, Samantha – leave! Take whoever will go!” He coughed, writhing in discomfort.
Jackson continued breathing heavily from adrenaline as he morphed into human form.“You get out of town, out of the country.” He shook with intensity - even his voice seemed to shudder. “I’m sorry I helped you,” he growled. I had never seen him talk like that.
Sky collapsed then. Sam lay awake but motionless in her canine form. One of her legs was obviously broken. Even from my distant stance she looked shattered. Cresida stayed with the long black hunting rifle pointed at Sam’s head. Blood smeared on her thick white fur shone like wet paint. Cresida mumbled something too low for me to hear. I stepped closer and stopped as Reid looked at Bianca. He nodded towards Sam’s shuddering, convulsing body, which morphed back and forth in disfigurement as he spoke.
“Take…Get her out of here,” he advised, gravely.
Cresida retreated with a stride. Face towards them.
Bianca cowered in to touch the crippled animal that contained her friend, morphing at her side into a crouching human.
“Take care, she can’t move,” he cautioned in a hard tone.
Bianca shot him a look as she leant over her friend’s injured body. Sam’s fur quivered and I didn’t think it was the late afternoon breeze blowing. She convulsed, her body jerked and she whined.
But empathy was dry.
“I’ll get the truck, you can put her on the back and go then,” Reid warned.
Sam’s eyes closed. I couldn’t be sure but I thought she had passed out, in too much horrific pain to even yelp.
“This is it, she’s not in charge here anymore.” Reid raised his voice. “Do you hear me, Sam? Don’t turn up, don’t pull your shit on us, and stay away.” His voice cracked.
I couldn’t be sure if she heard his harsh words.
Her stained canine form, eyes closed, was unceremoniously tossed like road kill into the back of the blue pickup. Sky mumbled something to Bianca, Jackson pulled a tarpaulin, over her limp body. Bianca jumped in the front driver’s seat and Jackson tossed her something through the window - a purse I think.
The pickup sped away. Cresida’s squinted watching eyes followed it, her gun firmly gripped across her body. They noticed me then, in the wake, standing in the glass and blood which splattered the paving and carpet behind. Sky’s pallor had greyed but he reacted first. Cresida was at my side I looked at my arm which dripped a few small rivers of blood.
“Did I do all this?” I heard myself say, as I looked at the small crimson circles on the grey slate. “I mean, is this because of me?” Cresida grabbed my bloodied wrist. I suddenly felt the burn of the open wounds, the sting of my fingers, nicked in places from pieces of glass.
“It’s okay,” she said coaxing me cautiously. “Come on, let’s go down to the basement and wash this blood off, okay?” I noticed she held me at a firm distance, as she guided me back inside and down the stairs to the basement – but not before I saw through the jagged glass that remained in the window frame Sky collapse into Reid’s arms. I heard him cry out. The inhuman yell carried down the basement stairs. We both jumped when we heard his pain.
Cres adeptly flicked the light switch with her elbow and overhead fluorescents flickered. The basement of the cabin was a makeshift hospital. Cresida lifted me onto the counter like a child with a scrapped knee. She turned the faucet on heavily and let it run then turned her attention to the overhead cupboards, rapidly opening, closing and slamming each door until she pulled out a medical supply box and flung open the lid. She flicked through the contents - bandages and dressings - letting them fall everywhere until she found what she searched for. She dunked my arms under the stream of water and began washing the closest one, pulling tiny shards from my other arm with her stubbed fingers.
“No gloves?” I asked still in shock, as the sensation of the burning icy water ran down my arm.
She looked annoyed.“Do you want me to get it out, or not?” She picked the shards out under the lamplight and tossed them in the sink. She wrinkled her nose.
“Does it smell bad?”
“No – good.That’s the problem with being a wolf. I’m not well fed.” I realized it smelt good enough to eat. She craved the flesh she tended. Jackson and Reid carried Sky carefully down the stairs somehow rushing whilst remaining steady.
Reid dragged Sky across the other side of the room, to an old couch. Cresida grabbed a tube in plastic off the counter. “Reid!” she called. “Here,” she urged, placing it in his palm, and he pulled the plastic off the needle with his teeth and injected Sky with morphine promptly.
“Is it dislocated?” he asked Sky, hastily.
He was taking control but he was panicking and Jackson stood close, looking on with his arms by his sides. Cresida left me then to assist.
I heard a crack. “Is it back in?”
Sky’s muffled, gargled screams rattled the room. “Now it is,” she said.
I wanted to go to him but I didn’t. From my position on the bench by the sink I knew I would have only been in the way. They both fussed over him, arguing about what to do, pushing each other around him.
“I’m fine,” Sky yelled through gritted teeth. “Cresida, get Lila.”
Cres looked over her shoulder at me.
“She’s fine - you can’t wait. If we don’t get them right it’ll be worse later.”
I attempted to move off the bench. Cresida struck a finge
r at me. “Don’t move,” she warned. I stopped and dropped my arms.
He moaned and then scoffed. “That bitch gave me a run for my money.” Cresida and Reid looked at each other.
“The morphine’s set in,” Reid said. “Jackson, go and clean up the mess out there!” he ordered. Jackson leapt to it, obviously glad of something useful to do.
I thought about Giny then. I wondered what would happen to her. Would Sam come back for her or abandon her?
“Where’s Giny?” I shivered and my teeth started to chatter. I told myself Sky would be okay.
A blanket was thrown at me then. Werewolves had the gentle touch.
Reid and Cresida took turns pulling splinters from my arm. He rubbed me gently as I shivered out of control, like it was an obligation. I knew it hurt him to touch me, I had stepped on his heart. Now I’d broken up the pack, all the stress seemed to vibrate out of me. I could make out Sky across the room, trembling behind Cresida. He seemed feverish. He looked ashen and he trembled violently despite the morphine.
Reid and Cresida looked in his direction as they faced me and then looked at each other concerned, wide eyed.
“He’s bad,” Reid said aloud. Cresida’s face showed concern as she frowned. This was the first time I had seen through the mask she donned. Reid picked out another plastic tube from the first aid box. Cresida took it from him. She went over to Sky then, armed with the needle and stabbed it forcefully into his leg.
Cres came back over to me tossing the used needle in the sink and continued bandaging my right arm, not looking towards Reid. She ordered him to attend to Sky.
“Check if he’s healing.” She put the bandage clip in her mouth and used both hands to wrap my arm tightly. She clipped it on the end to secure it and turned her attention to the other arm which was less cut up, drying it with a towel, slathering on antiseptic and wrapping it also.
“Is Sky alright?” I asked, my teeth still chattering. I motioned towards him. Cresida over-compensated, pushing me backward against the wall. “He’ll heal,” she said sternly, unwrapping a band aid for my fingers.
After painkillers and a shot of vodka, a little later, poured by Cresida, I was unceremoniously scooped up by Reid and lugged up the stairs and thrown on the bed in the same room as the last night I stayed in the cabin.
“Reid!” I called out but the door slammed shut behind him. “I’m sorry,” I said, I hoped loud enough for him to hear with his sensitive werewolf ears, yet it felt feeble. Sorry seemed a petty thing to utter for what I’d done to him, and now for what I’d done to the pack - to Sam and Sky.
I didn’t have to wait long for Cresida to come in and throw a shirt at me.
“Get dressed we’re taking you to the hospital. You need stitches,” she urged. When I didn’t instantly obey, she offered, “Unless you want me to do it?” I hurriedly threw on the shirt. “I’ll drive you, come on,” she said.
“Will he be okay?” I asked, unwilling to leave unless she said yes, whether it was true or not.
“Yes, eventually, we heal fast very fast. He won’t die - you know how to break up a pack.” Her mood had lightened slightly; I hoped it meant he was better.
We jumped in Reid’s car. Sky’s pickup was gone. Bianca had taken it with Sam in the back.
“Does it hurt?” she asked, glancing at me as the jeep rattled down the road, through the agapanthus. I noticed she was almost pasty herself.
“It stings a bit, yeah it hurts. So what’s our story? Did I fall through a window or was it a car accident?”
“How ’bout you didn’t see the glass door closed and walked full pelt into it.”
“And fell down and crawled in it,”I added, sounding unconvinced.
“Exactly.”
Cresida arranged for my mother to come and get me. She arrived slightly panicked, comforted me and drove me home sending concerned glances at me the whole way. It was pitch dark out now and she was dressed in her grey Penny Market uniform.
“Did the stitches hurt?” she enquired.
“Mmm,no,not so much.The needle did,though.” I was now in a drugged lull.
“You’re a tough cookie aren’t you?” As usual she wasn’t melodramatic even when called from work to get me covered in blood from the hospital. We told her it happened at Sam’s house, neglected to mention Reid was there or anyone else, and my mother didn’t ask a lot of questions. She did however ask me if I was embarrassed to have walked into a plate glass window. I feigned nervous embarrassment and she patted my shoulder blade over my sling.
“Teenagers,”she sighed. And perhaps she smelled the alcohol on my breath, but she didn’t mention it. Cresida left with the excuse that her aunt wanted her home. I knew that wasn’t where she went. Mum thanked her for bringing me in, and I could tell she meant it. I was surprised Cresida could turn on the charm so easily if she needed to.
I called the cabin with my free arm as soon as I got in; I imagined Sky would still be in pain but recovering, however rapidly. Jackson answered, he sounded wired. “Yeah,” he said.
“How’s Sky doing?” I didn’t bother with polite conversation.
“Wouldn’t you like to know?”
“I would actually; he was hurt because of me.”
“Don’t flatter yourself, kid.”
“I’m hardly any younger than you Jackson,” I retorted.
“You’ve certainly got or caused more trouble than most seventeen-year-olds.”
I didn’t want to get into it with him. “Is Cres there?” I asked, ignoring his insults.
“Yeah.”
The receiver changed hands.“He’s okay, Reid had to take him to another wolf pack, one that has experience with this sort of bad injury, to check he’s okay.”
“Oh.” It was worse than I had let myself believe.
“Look, if we disappear don’t freak out, okay. He’ll be back, I know that much.”
I wanted to ask if I could come. I knew I would just complicate things further and that she would have one answer: “No.” I knew I had school but how would I explain the missing clique.
As though hearing me she blurted, “I’ll stay, so I’ll be here to protect you.”
“Will you be at school?” - As I thought:protect me from what? “Is Sam gone now?” I thought out loud.
“Yes, we have to keep up appearances, things are starting to look mighty suspicious, and she should stay away. Sky has overthrown her; everyone except Bianca is with him. This is his pack now,” she confirmed. “It’s going to be hard to explain all the absences, you’ll be safer here, with me.” They obviously hadn’t had time to discuss the details. She continued, “Giny’s being filled in, so it looks like you and I, Jackson and she will be keeping up the school façade side of things. We are thinking up a plausible back story. We want to know something, how did you get here in the first place?”
“I ran.” There was an audible silence.
“Did your mum drop you off somewhere?”
“No?”
“You ran here from your house?”
“Yes, after I got home,” I explained.
“After school? Are you sure?” she asked.
I thought for a moment. Of course I was sure. “Yes.”
“Are you sure?” Cres insisted.
“Yes, I can’t feel much now, the drugs, vodka…” I offered as an excuse for my lack of human weakness. This got me thinking but I quickly shut off the thought. I was just fit.
“I’m not a wolf, Cres, I haven’t been bitten…that I know of?”
“Oh, well take the day off tomorrow, rest, we’ll pick you up on Thursday.” The phone hung up with a clank.
That night I checked my body for possible bite marks, wondering if Sam had bitten me and I just couldn’t remember. I went over the events, but there were no teeth marks, I was just fit. I was human. Maybe I was a little sad about that. I thought about Sky and how good it would be when he returned without Sam.
27. Huntress
The story went that
Sky was injured motorbike riding, so that was the final blow to the team. As a result Bianca and Sam decided to take some time off and transferred to sunny Baronia Beach interstate, where Bianca’s parents were holidaying as far as anyone knew. Reid was working as a labourer fulltime and Sky was in hospital in the city, recovering from his injuries. I managed to cover-up my injuries as it was still early spring and I was used to keeping my sleeves down in the act of concealing another scar (my tattoo), so we didn’t have to make yet another plausible excuse.
We became the new popular clique at school. I had inadvertently become queen B, in Samantha’s wake. No other group challenged us, even in Sam’s absence. Tealy and Monica kept to themselves, now that I hung with Cres, though we were a considerably rougher bunch without Sam and Bianca. Because of this we fitted in better, which was only a good thing.
Cresida began to open up to me for the first time, about her parents, though she didn’t say how bruised she was from the loss.
Cresida had decided to take me for a walk after school. I thought it was sweet she wanted to keep my mind off Sky. When we reached a bunch of boulders amongst the bracken, I stopped and sat.
“Cres.”
She looked at me.
“How did you know when I would go to Sam’s?” She pressed her lips together. “I saw it,” she said
simply, sitting beside me.
“How?”
“She took a deep breath and wriggled a bit, before answering. “It happened to me, so I guess I was tuned to it.”
“When did you tell Sky?”
“I saw it, I found him, and we went to the cabin and …there you were.” She shrugged. She was oversimplifying it. “Come on,” she called, getting up and walking back towards my house.
She showed me pictures of her parents. A tanned tall thin man and woman stared at me. Her mother had long blonde hair and blue eyes, and they were dressed in shorts. They looked like good people. I felt privileged to be witness to her more vulnerable side, and though I couldn’t relate to the loss, I felt the extent of her pain or thought I did. But my empathy was dry, and inside I knew it.