by Melissa Haag
“Why would I want to reach it?”
“Because it helps you remember.”
I turned to study Carlos. His steady brown gaze held me. He knew the pain that currently devoured me from the inside. How could I have ever teased that he was a robot? No one who felt this much ever could be.
“Will I ever feel happy again?”
“I hope so.”
I looked away and stared at Ethan. Who was Isabelle without Ethan? I had no idea. I’d barely known myself when I’d still had Ethan. A bleak, questionable future lay before me, and I didn’t want to face it without him.
I didn’t stay long. I just needed to say goodbye and try to memorize his face one last time. Then, I turned away.
They all faced me, a loose group of people I’d met only days ago.
“They will do a short service in an hour,” Charlene said.
I didn’t want to stay for that. Ethan wouldn’t want me to, either.
“Did you arrange all of this?” I asked.
She nodded.
“Thank you. Where will he be buried?”
“The local cemetery.”
“A headstone?” When this was over, I wanted to be able to find him again.
“Of course.”
I nodded, then walked to the exit.
Ten
We pulled into the driveway. While the rest got out of their cars and went toward the house, I got out and started walking toward the fields. A void silently followed me.
I walked until I reached the center of the area then stopped.
All I wanted to do was cry. I was the lonely kid back on the playground. I needed to do what Carlos said, and I tried to lock away what I felt. However, indifference was like trying to wear a toddler’s coat. It didn’t fit me, and I doubted it ever would. Yet, I continued to try to push away thoughts of Ethan. Then, I realized I had very little else to think about. I had no job, no friend, and a family barely coherent enough to remember my name.
How did a person pick up the pieces of who they were after being so thoroughly shattered? I decided they didn’t. They sweep the old pieces of who they were away, and they rebuild themselves into who they need to be.
Those creatures killed the nice girl in me when they killed Ethan. These people, Bethi, Charlene, Michelle, Gabby, they needed me to be their fighter because, with the exception of Bethi, they couldn’t fight for themselves. They would end up just like Ethan.
After several moments, Carlos came to stand beside me.
“Do you need to spar?” he asked softly.
“No.”
Whether I needed to or not didn’t matter. I couldn’t spar. Carlos still wore the bruises from facing me. What if more of those other werewolves came right now? Had I damaged Carlos like I had Ethan? I pushed the scary thoughts away and looked out over the field.
“Just avoiding the pity party in the house.”
It was something I would have said before I’d lost everything. But now, the words felt wrong. No, I felt wrong.
Carlos seemed to notice, too, because he moved closer.
“Tell me what you need,” he said.
I closed my eyes against the pain. What I needed was Ethan, but that wasn’t going to happen. I needed to face reality. But telling Carlos about either of those needs wouldn’t help them come true.
“I’m tired.” I wasn’t. I just wanted to go back to the house and shut myself into my room again.
“We can go back. The rest will leave.”
“Where are they staying?” I asked to try to be polite. I didn’t really care.
“A neighbor’s place not far from here. Grey has been sleeping in the car.”
When I started walking, Carlos fell into step beside me. Ahead, the house seemed a welcome sanctuary. I wondered how much time Bethi had won me.
“How long are we staying here?”
“As long as you need.”
Forever. But they wouldn’t allow that. Pain and guilt came back with crushing force.
“I want to go back to bed.”
“Isabelle—”
“Don’t.” I wasn’t sure what he’d been about to say, but I knew from his tone I wouldn’t have liked it.
He studied me while we walked. Before we were halfway to the house, all but one vehicle pulled from the driveway.
“Why doesn’t he just go with them?” I asked as I watched Grey get into the back of the car. I wanted to be isolated again.
“He’s here just in case.”
In case of another attack. The heaviness in my chest wanted to consume me, and I focused on placing one foot before the other until everything else faded away. At last, I reached the door to the house. Mindlessly, I found the room I’d used and shut myself in.
Everything remained quiet and emotionless as I lay on the bed. In time, I closed my eyes and dreamt of Ethan.
A hand on my arm woke me. I opened my eyes and looked at Carlos. He held a plate of food.
“I’m not hungry.”
He glanced at the plate.
“If you’re not hungry for this, I can take you—”
“No. I don’t want to go anywhere. I just want to be alone.”
“You need to eat.”
“Go away.” I rolled away from him.
Several moments of silence had me thinking he’d listened.
“I can’t,” he said softly.
He lightly touched my hair then moved away from the bed. After a moment, the door closed again. I went back to sleep.
At some point during the night, a noise woke me. I immediately breathed in, testing the emotions around me. Nothing. I lifted my head and spotted Carlos’ outline in the shadowed room. He sat in a chair near the bed.
“What are you doing?” I sounded angry and ready to fight, and it surprised me.
“Listening.”
“To what?” It came out less harsh this time.
“To you crying in your sleep. For him. I can’t take your pain away. I can’t make this better. But I can share it.”
I laid my head back down and stared at his outline, not knowing what to think or how to feel about what he’d said. It took a while to fall back to sleep.
When I woke, it was light out. My head hurt from sleeping too much. With a groan, I shuffled to the bathroom. My eyes looked a little better. Less red, more yellow. I turned on the shower, and this time, I let it warm. While I waited, I slowly peeled away the bandages from my side and the few that were on my thighs and arms. The claw marks on my side were no worse than the rest. Long, yet shallow and scabbed over. Physically, my wounds would heal. Eventually. Unlike the rest of me.
I tossed the bandages in the garbage and stepped into the shower. The hot spray felt good on the numerous bruises. Standing there, feeling any form of relief from my physical pain added to my guilt. The same thoughts kept repeating themselves. Had I not sparred so intensely with Ethan, his shoulder wouldn’t have been bruised. Without the injury, maybe he would have been fast enough to avoid dying.
The water washed away my tears as I scrubbed and rinsed. It didn’t ease the pain I carried inside. I was fairly certain I’d died with Ethan and my body just didn’t know it yet.
Once I dressed, I left my room; the bed no longer looked like the haven it had been.
Carlos was near the stove in the kitchen. When I entered, he turned off the burner. I moved to the table and stood just behind one of the chairs. I didn’t know what to do. I was so lost.
“Sit.”
“No, thanks.”
He glanced at me. His face looked better today. Barely bruised at all.
“Bethi’s coming. She knows you’re not eating.”
I felt her before I saw her. Anxiety clouded my senses, and I automatically blocked myself as best I could. She stepped through the door and studied me.
“Good morning,” she said.
“Morning.”
“Carlos says you’re not eating.”
“Carlos has a big mouth.” I said it without
rancor as I sat.
He turned away from us and made two plates, which he set before us. Then, he started to clean up the kitchen. Bethi dug right in. I slowly did the same, not really tasting what I ate.
“Why are you here?” I asked as soon as she’d eaten everything. I pushed my plate aside and Carlos gave me a look before he took it away to wash it.
“We need to leave today. Two Urbat came last night. Grey took care of them. But we think it was just a test to see if you were still out of action. More are gathering to the east.”
Images flashed in my mind. Shapes pouring over a dark horizon. Teeth and blood. Ethan on the ground.
If they came again, it would end the same way, with one or more of us dead. I glanced at Bethi, and my imagination painted her eyes with Ethan’s vacant stare. What little I’d eaten twisted in my stomach.
“I agree. We can’t face them like that a second time.”
We’d been unorganized and ripe for the death they’d handed us. I pushed my chair away from the table and stood, knowing what needed to happen. Yes, we needed to leave. But more than that, we needed to organize ourselves. To fight, we needed to be fighters.
Before I could move to the bedroom to get my things, Carlos spoke up.
“I’ll clean up everything in here. Go outside and get some fresh air.”
Bethi and I walked out the door. Grey stood by the car, casually leaning against it.
“The rest of the group will be here in a few minutes,” Bethi said.
“Good. We need to talk about what happened.”
She gave me a surprised look.
“Really?”
I didn’t answer. Instead, I watched the road for the caravan of vehicles. As Bethi had said, it only took a few minutes. By the time they were pulling in, Carlos was walking out the door with our bags.
I didn’t miss how Winifred and Charlene glanced my way as soon as I stepped away from the car. They were worried about me. Why though? They barely knew me. I hated the pity I felt.
“We can run some more, but it won’t stop the bad guys from trying again,” I said. “Not if what Bethi says is true. They need us. But we can’t fight like that again.” I looked at Charlene, Michelle, and Gabby. “You three need to be more than helpless.”
Clay and Emmitt growled at me.
“Shut it,” I snapped. “You want them to die?”
I refocused on the three women.
“What do you have in mind?” Charlene asked.
“When we were fighting, we couldn’t see overall movement.” I walked up to the three of them. “Stand back to back.” Michelle glanced at Charlene but all three moved to do as I asked.
“Back to back, you can have a 360 range of vision if you work together. Gabby has the ability to see long range, but when we’re fighting, it’s the short range that will keep us alive. The three of you have to be our center and our eyes. You watch and shout out what you see.”
“Like what?” Charlene asked. “There was so much motion, nothing made sense.”
“We’ll work on that,” I said.
I glanced at Winifred.
“And we can’t have two layers of protection. Not against the numbers we faced. The rest of us need to form a single ring around them.”
No one looked convinced.
“Trust me. Fan out around them. Grey, Jim, Carlos, Thomas, Winifred, Clay, Sam, and Emmitt.”
Everyone moved around the women so that I stood between Jim and Carlos. I turned to face outward. The rest did the same.
“This is how we’ll practice,” I said. “This is how we’ll learn to fight together. And this is how we’ll keep anyone else from dying.” I swallowed hard. “Gabby, your job is to find us two quiet places each day where we can stop for thirty minutes to practice.”
I stepped away from the circle.
“Let’s go.”
* * * *
Numbly, I stared at the passing landscape.
“Are we there yet?” Ethan’s words echoed in my mind, as did Winifred’s response. My stomach churned sickeningly.
The car started to slow, and I lifted my head from the seat.
“Why are we slowing?”
“Gabby found the first quiet place.”
So soon? Trying to pull myself out of the dazed state I was in, I looked at the clock and saw we’d actually been on the road for two hours. It hadn’t felt that long.
I unfolded my legs and opened the door as soon as Carlos parked on the shoulder. Gabby’s quiet place was on another rural road with long stretches of fields and trees. I waited impatiently as the rest of the group climbed from their vehicles.
“In the same position,” I said as I walked a few yards into the field.
Everyone remembered their spots and faced outward.
“Grey and Sam, you’ll attack us. Your goal is to try to pull any of us from the circle.”
Grey and Sam stepped out and moved around us. Bethi squatted down into her ready stance but didn’t pull her knife out.
“Call out where they are, girls,” I said when Grey moved out of my line of sight.
“Grey and Sam are both by Emmitt,” Michelle said a moment before snarls broke out.
I spun around to see both Emmitt and Jim had broken the circle in their effort to fight off Grey, leaving an opening for Sam, who was batting Clay aside to grab for Gabby.
“Stop,” I called. Everyone immediately stopped.
“Two opponents,” I said, looking at the three in the middle. “That’s all it took to get to you. You need to call out what’s happening.” I pointed to Emmitt and Jim. “Michelle, they were in your direct line of sight. This is what you should have said, ‘Two coming at Emmitt.’ Then, when Grey drew Emmitt out, you should have yelled that the circle had been broken. We should have then tightened up and closed the gap. Together. Jim, rushing to help your brother will get us all killed. If he’s dumb enough to break the circle, don’t be dumb enough to follow.”
Anger swamped me. I turned on Emmitt.
“I hope that’s self-directed. Don’t break the circle. Ever. I don’t want to watch anyone else fall.”
A hand settled onto my shoulder, and I shrugged it off.
“This isn’t a game, so I won’t be nice. You want to live? We need to work together. Now, back in place and do it again.”
We practiced for another fifteen minutes. Sam and Grey always managed to break the circle, and I tended to piss off the defending men with my criticism. None of the women harbored any hint of anger toward me. They listened. However, Bethi radiated frustration. I wondered if it was because of the group’s lack of skills or because Sam and Grey were mostly attacking the side away from her. I didn’t care. I did care that with each attempt, the two always managed to get to one of us.
“Time’s up,” Gabby said.
“Good.” Jim scratched his stomach. “I’m getting hungry.”
I marched back to the car. Idiots. They weren’t taking this seriously. If Blake’s men found us again...I slammed the door shut and curled up in a ball on the front seat. Carlos didn’t say anything when he got in and started the car. As soon as we were moving, I closed my eyes. I didn’t sleep, though. I couldn’t. Images of the fight and of Ethan’s bloody stomach haunted me.
When we next stopped, it was for fast food and a bathroom break.
Without much of a choice, I went inside the diner with the rest. Before I could step away to use the restroom, Carlos caught my hand.
“What can I order for you?”
“I’m not hungry,” I said, tugging my hand from his. Even when I turned my back on him, I could feel the weight of his disappointed gaze.
The bathroom didn’t provide any escape from censure because Bethi was waiting for me.
“You have to eat.”
“No kidding. Good thing you’re here to tell me that.”
I stepped into a stall and closed the door on her.
“I get that you’re broken. I know broken.”
; “I’m peeing. Stop talking. It’s weird.”
She sighed then left me alone. I took my time to leave the bathroom. When I stepped out, only Carlos waited inside. He had a bag of food in one hand and a drink carrier in the other.
“Thirsty?” I said, eyeing the four drinks.
He shrugged and moved to the exit, standing in the doorway to hold the door open for me. It was a tight squeeze past him.
He beat me to the car and set the drinks on the roof to open the door for me, again. The guy had a thing for doors. Once I was inside, he passed me the drinks and the food. I glanced at the chocolate shake as he walked around to the driver’s seat.
“I got it for you,” he said as he slid behind the wheel.
“Thanks.” I set the food on the floor and put the chocolate shake in my cup holder.
“Which one do you want first? Soda, water, or vanilla shake?”
“The shake.” He started the car and pulled out to follow Winifred.
I put his drink in his cup holder then leaned over to put the drink carrier on the floor behind the driver’s seat.
“Want your food?” I asked as I straightened.
“Not yet. Help yourself.”
I hadn’t been lying. I wasn’t hungry. Even a few sips of the chocolate milkshake turned my stomach. Setting the cup aside, I curled up and watched out the window. My mind remained blank as the towns slipped by.
Hours later, Carlos once again pulled off to the side of the road. I opened my eyes, not remembering closing them. By my feet, the bag of food remained untouched.
Behind us, I heard a door slam and turned to see everyone exiting their vehicles. I knew we needed to practice, but I didn’t want to do it. Still, I opened my door and joined them. I didn’t need to tell them to form up or to give direction to Sam and Grey.
Like earlier in the day, they broke through each time, teaming up to find or make a weak link.
“Stop,” I called after the third attempt. “If the ring collapses, Clay, Emmitt, and Thomas should fall back to protect the center three. Jim should pair with Grey, Winifred with Sam, and Carlos with me, and Bethi with Luke. Pair off and spend some time fighting back to back.”
When everyone grouped into fours, attackers versus defenders, I rolled my shoulders and turned to go back to the car.