by Jeff Hale
It took a good two hours for Matt to remove all the pieces of shot. He gently rolled Darien on his side toward us to make sure he had found all the wounds, and once assured that he had gotten them all, he took the bowl of little silver pellets and the tweezers into the kitchen.
I noticed that by the time he got done, Darien’s breathing was better and he wasn’t sweating as badly. His skin was losing the angry tone, almost as though an allergen had been removed. When Matt returned, he had a small jar of a pinkish looking substance in his hand. He sat back down and put a small bit of the ointment on each wound.
“Did you get them all, will he be okay?” Alex asked.
Matt nodded. “This stuff will counteract the poison. He’ll be fine… now. You’ll need to take him out tomorrow though. He’ll have to hunt to get his full strength back. For now, sleep is what he needs.” He glanced up at the clock, which was reading three a.m. “What you all need. Kris?” He finished putting the ointment on Darien and stood up, heading toward what I could only assume was a living room type area. “I don’t sleep much at night, bit of a night owl, so you can use my bed if you want.” His tone was uncertain. “I’ll just kick back on the couch and watch some television. Or if sleeping in my bed,” this produced a giggle from Kris and a sigh from Matt, “makes you uncomfortable, I can get some blankets and you can crash on the couch. Much better than that small sliver the three of them have left on my hide-a-bed.”
“Sure, I’ll take you up on the offer of the bed. You don’t look like you have cooties, anyway.” She moved from behind me. “Night, Kat, see you in the, well, later this morning.”
“Night, Kris, don’t let the bedbugs bite.” There was an undertone of anxiety to my voice. I had a feeling that I was staying right where I was for the rest of the night, and while for some reason it didn’t bother me, I was still wound up from the events from earlier, as well as what I suspected about Darien, Alex, and Matt.
I burrowed in closer to Alex’s back, absorbing the warmth from him, and tried to not think about it, to let my mind calm down. I felt acutely embarrassed that I was curled up next to some guy I barely knew, who was sandwiched in between me and someone who I guessed was my new boyfriend, but the thought of being by myself right now sent a little tremble of fear down my spine. I could have gone and crawled in with Kris, but I wasn’t sure I was getting my hand back any time soon to leave the bed anyway.
“It’s okay if you touch me, Kat,” Alex whispered, almost echoing Darien’s words from earlier. “It’s just companionship, a warm body. Kinda like a stuffed animal, only real.”
I swallowed a laugh, but I could feel something inside me that needed release if I was going to stay sane. I buried my face in the back of Alex’s neck, and just like my favorite stuffed animal at home, let him soak up my tears as they fell before sleep took me over.
____________________
I woke in a strange bed. I lay there for a few moments, trying to remember where I was, what had happened. I blinked at the dim light from the clock on the nearby counter. The red digital numbers flashed 7:37 at me. It was very dark for this early in the morning, or possibly this early in the evening, either way, and it took a second for me to realize that there were very heavy blinds or curtains or both on all the windows, keeping the sunlight at bay. I closed my eyes again, feeling myself drifting back into sleep, the body pressed against my back keeping me cozily warm.
Body pressed against my back?
My eyes snapped back open and it took a great deal of control to keep from pulling away from that body as memories came rushing in. It dawned on me though, as I lay there, that despite everything, I felt very comfortable where I was. That seemed odd to me for someone who was so very… inexperienced… in matters of boys and men.
I could feel warm breath caress my ear and realized that Alex was snuggled up against my back, his face in my hair. He had his left arm thrown over my waist, pulling me in tight against him, but there was another arm draped over both of us, the hand reaching just far enough to be trapped under my armpit. Darien. My right arm was underneath me asleep.
I rolled onto my back, freeing my poor dead arm, wincing as needles of pain shot through it, before turning my gaze to the two men in the bed with me. I could see Darien on the other side of Alex, turned on his side, and realized that he was the reason Alex was so cozy with me—Darien had squashed him into me while trying to get closer to me himself. As I stared at him, there was a slight movement and Alex’s grey-green, brown flecked eyes fluttered open. He smiled at me.
“Good morning,” he whispered, his mouth curling into a tired smile. “At least I think it’s morning, I’m not sure.”
“Me either,” I whispered back. I gestured toward Darien with my chin. “Has he woken yet?”
“Nah, at least not any more than to move a bit. He was wounded pretty badly, I reckon it will take awhile for him to be up and about.”
“Awhile?”
“Yeah, a day or so to be back to his old self, but he should be waking up sometime today. Matt got all the silver out, so it’s just a matter of healing now.”
“Silver…” Yeah, I had almost forgotten the whole silver matter, and what Alex had implied it meant. I guess I hadn’t imagined it. “Silver is a bad thing.”
“Yes, silver is a bad thing. What it was coated in made it an even worse thing. I would elaborate more, but, well, I think you already know, and I just don’t know how much detail to get into with Darien not really conscious yet.”
I nodded. I didn’t voice what I thought I had figured out. They would tell me, if and when they were ready, although curiosity did get the better of me. “So are you… all? I mean, you and Darien and Matt?”
Alex shook his head. “No, Matt is… Matt is different than us.”
I nodded again. “Different from you… you and Darien. Different from me, too, though, I feel.”
Alex laughed lightly. “You could say. It’s complicated, way complicated.” He wriggled a little, trying to work his way out from under Darien’s arm. “I need… uh, dammit, well, nature calls. Don’t go anywhere.”
He did his best to try to make sure his hands didn’t end up anywhere they shouldn’t as he wiggled his way down to the end of the hide-a-bed, smiling apologetically as he headed toward what I could only assume was a bathroom.
This left me alone on the bed with Darien. With Alex out of the way, I could see Darien’s chest and arm and I shuddered. The shot holes had closed up but they were still an angry red and looked as though they would scar. Nestled in amongst the ones on his chest I could see a much older scar that looked like it might have been made by a bullet. As though of its own will, my right hand, no longer tingling from blood return, reached out to touch one of the wounds. As my fingers met his bare skin, they began to tingle again, only this time it wasn’t from lack of circulation.
Heart thumping and pulse speeding up, I allowed my fingers to trace their way to the next area of abused flesh, then the next, playing a sad game of connect the dots. I was paying too much attention to my own feelings and what my hand was doing so I didn’t notice his arm that was toward me move until his hand curled around my waist and yanked me towards him.
Startled, I found my face buried against his neck, my palms flat against his chest as his arm held me to him tight enough that I knew I wasn’t getting loose. His breath stirred my hair.
“Sasha…” The word was whispered, faintly.
“Bloody hell.” Alex’s voice, back in the room. He moved around the couch until I saw him over Darien’s shoulder, looking slightly amused. “And here I was hoping to get back in the middle. You’re a hell of a lot softer than he is.” He crawled back onto the mattress on the other side of Darien, chuckling. “Then again, he probably thinks you’re softer than I am too.” He stretched out with his back to Darien’s, so that their backs touched. “Get a little bit more sleep, Kat, you’re going to need it.”
I didn’t argue with him. I closed my eyes and went back
to sleep.
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I woke I don’t know how long later, the first thought popping into my head being that my mother was going to be furious and worried, followed by the thought that I would deal with it when it came time to.
I wasn’t sure what had woken me, but as I lay there adjusting to my surroundings again, I heard voices in the next room, low enough that they shouldn’t have woken me, but they did. I was surprised that I could hear them at all. Since I hadn’t moved yet, and to be honest, was quite comfortable snuggled up against Darien’s back, I just lay there and listened.
I caught the conversation halfway through a sentence, and though I knew it wasn’t polite to eavesdrop, since my life seemed to have made a huge change due to whatever was going on, I wanted to know what it was.
“…Darien thinking? They’re just teenagers! She’s so young!” Matt whispered, his voice full of concern. “She… they… shouldn’t have been brought into this!”
Alex sighed. “He didn’t tell you, did he? And, of course you wouldn’t be able to tell anymore…”
“No, no he didn’t say anything to me. He’s been moodier than usual, if that could happen, since we first ran into them. And I haven’t seen him this… attached… since Sasha. What is it about this girl? He hardly knows…”
“Matt, she’s a wilder.”
The room was silent suddenly, with nothing but Darien’s even breathing in my ear, but I was on edge. They were talking about me, and Darien’s sudden interest, and what the hell was a wilder and what did it have to do with me?
“Well, shit. That throws a kink in the works, but explains a lot. Damn, I should have guessed considering the way you were all over her too.”
I wasn’t liking the way ‘wilder’ sounded if it meant that it was understandable that strange men should be crawling all over me. Alex’s next words made me rethink.
“Well, you know how the pack is, nothing but a bunch of cuddly puppies.” Alex laughed.
“And is she? Pack?”
“Don’t know yet. I’m not sure how it works with the blood that way. It’s usually done the old fashioned way, with a bite, or claw, hell, sometimes even sex. Some packs are pretty violent and mess them up really bad to ensure the change, but for a wilder especially, it doesn’t take much. But you know that. She had his blood all over her face, on her lips. I’d be very surprised if she didn’t change.”
“But this sudden possessiveness of his? I can understand the interest you both have in her, but him? I don’t know, maybe it’s her hair, but this isn’t like him. There have been others, I know there have, but none that have made him bond to them, not since Sasha.”
Sasha. That name had been brought up too many times now, and in such a context that it was obvious that she was some former significant other of Darien’s. A small spike of jealousy ran through me, but I quickly stomped it down. I would be stupid to think that he had never had another girlfriend.
“He does have a thing for redheads, but I’m pretty sure it’s more than that,” Alex remarked. “You haven’t gotten a good whiff of her yet, have you? Or you have but you don’t remember.”
“What?” Matt sounded confused.
“Bah. Go smell her, really smell her. I know that vamp nose of yours still works.”
Vamp? Oh, great, what had Kris and I gotten ourselves into. It was hard enough to consider what the mounting evidence was pointing to in regards to Darien and Alex, but I hadn’t expected vampires. I was starting to wonder if maybe I had watched too much “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” and that bonk on my head from the bike accident had knocked one too many screws loose. I mean, I knew the world had been experiencing some strange shit recently, but these things just didn’t really exist outside of movies and books… did they?
“Go on. She’s still asleep… although she did quit snoring. She snores so adorably.” Alex chuckled again.
I sighed inwardly, trying not to move too much, to keep my breathing slow and regular as I felt the bed wiggle from Matt leaning as close as possible to me. I heard the long inhalation near my face. Then light steps as he snuck back to wherever Alex was.
“What in hell?” Matt’s voice in a whisper, followed by an “mm hmm” from Alex. “She smells like Sasha, or at least I think she does.”
“Bingo. So, take a female wilder, a pretty one at that, then make her smell just like Sasha and drop her under Darien’s nose, literally. What did you expect would happen?”
“He knows she’s not her, right?”
“Are you sure she’s not?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well,” and Alex’s voice dragged the word out, “how old is Kat? Seventeen? Eighteen? And Sasha died, what, twenty one years ago?”
“You think…” Matt trailed off.
“We know it happens, it’s part of the life cycle, and not necessarily immediate after death…”
“Alex?” Matt cut him off.
“Hmm?”
“I was wondering just now, how long do you think she’s been laying there listening to us?”
“Huh?”
I heard footsteps come into the room and decided that since I was busted anyways, I might as well fess up. As Alex’s face peered over Darien at me I opened my eyes and smiled up at him.
“Good morning, Alex.” I tried to make my voice sound cheerful, but it quavered at the thought that I might be losing my mind. “So, soon as I call my mom to let her know I’m not dead in a ditch somewhere, would you two mind elaborating a bit?”
FIVE
Katelyn
The call to Mom went somewhat better than I had hoped. As Kris had guessed, Mom figured that we had indulged in a little teenage drinking and had crashed on the so called ‘friends’’ floor.
I let her continue to believe that and apologized for waiting so long to call. I told her that we and the ‘friends’ had planned an outing for the day down to the beach, if that was okay with her, and to call me if anything changed in her plans. She grumbled a bit, but the fact that I was only a month away from nineteen had her telling me that I was an adult now and she could only make me do so much.
Mom taken care of, and Darien still sleeping soundly beside me, I made the attempt to wriggle the rest of the way off the bed, being careful of my knee, although it felt incredibly better.
I had been successful at rolling over so that my back was to him to make the phone call, and now, with minor protest, I managed to inch my way away from him until I was sitting on the opposite side of the bed. My head swam a bit and as soon as I was upright and I looked desperately to Alex, who must have been a mind reader as he pointed in the direction of the bathroom. Once done, I peeked in the mirror and just about collapsed from shock.
I looked bedraggled. My hair was sticking up in various places, there was still dried blood in it, my face was streaked with makeup, dirt, and dried blood, as well as a couple small cuts and scratches, and my mouth suddenly felt as though I had been eating dirt cookies all night. I managed to find a singular toothbrush that looked like it had seen little use and a small tube of toothpaste; I didn’t know whose it was, and after a brief hesitation over whose germs I’d be sharing, I decided I didn’t care.
Mouth feeling less yucky, I decided my curiosity could wait a while longer. There was a shower in front of me and I needed one desperately. I stayed in the shower only as long as was necessary to get clean. My mind was racing and I wanted answers to my questions, so my usual lengthy bit under the water was forgone. Aside from that, the spray hurt the lump on my head. It wasn’t near as big as it had been last night, but it still hurt a lot.
Once out and dried, I realized that I had nothing clean to change into. I looked down at the small pile that my undies and bra made. There were spots of blood on the bra so I decided against putting it back on. My undies were fine on that matter, but I wasn’t about to wear them two days in a row.
I rinsed both items out in the sink, then hung them over the edge of the shower curtai
n to dry. The swelling had gone most of the way down on my knee, and while it was still tender, I figured I could get away without the ace bandage. Wrapping up in a towel, I opened the bathroom door, looking out to find both Alex and Matt in whispered conversation.
“Uh, hey, guys? Do you have anything clean I could borrow? Please?”
Both heads turned towards me, then Matt disappeared into another room for a few minutes, coming back with another t-shirt.
“Sorry, Kat, I don’t have any pants or anything that will fit you that won’t fall off. And by the way, your friend Kris, I swear she could sleep through a nuclear bomb.”
“She still out? Yeah, when she’s tired, she’s hard to wake up.”
“It didn’t help that she was up most of the night keeping an eye on you. I finally convinced her to go get some sleep when she fell off the chair.”
I nodded. Kris would have been worried; so would I had the situations been reversed. I took the proffered shirt, shut the door and put it on, happy that at least it wasn’t a thin material, and it was dark. I decided the shirt was a little too short for commando, so I wrapped the towel around my hips like a sarong.
Once out of the bathroom, I did a quick check on Darien. He was still sleeping, the wounds on his chest, arm, and neck looking almost fully healed, with small red scars. His face looked much softer in sleep, less intimidating, but just as beautiful.
I sighed. I wasn’t sure how I felt about him, I barely knew him, but I was drawn to him very strongly. Part of me wanted to curl up next to him and hold him in my arms, while the other, more sane part, told me things were moving way too fast.
I forced myself to move away from him, heading through the kitchen and into the living room. I settled onto one end of a small couch, noting that they had followed me into the room.
“Okay, guys, what the hell is going on? And I don’t just mean me and Darien, although that is strange enough, but I mean with you guys and what you are? Have I gone completely bonkers? And why would anyone want to try to kill us? Or was that just some randomness we just happened to get caught in? I’m all ears. Oh, and is there anything to drink in this place? That isn’t water? I can’t stand water.”