by Lewis, D. C.
The blow staggered her and stars swam before her eyes. Reaching up to touch her jaw, she was almost surprised to see it still attached to her head. She had not seen Katrina cover the distance to strike her across the face. Regaining her focus and refusing to show any emotion in front of her mother, Kiera felt a hatred like she had never felt before at the towering fury standing in front of her. This evening was going worse than she could have possibly imagined.
Refusing to take any more abuse, physical or emotional, Kiera brushed past her mother, picking up her car keys on the hall table and heading towards the door.
"Where are you going?" Katrina yelled after her. "We are not done yet."
"We are more than done," is all Kiera said as she slammed the front door and got into her car. Her butt had barely made contact with the seat before she was crying for the second time tonight. "Seems like this is all I do," she thought to herself as she cranked up the car and peeled out of the driveway, barely taking the time to let the gate fully open. In her rearview mirror, she could see Katrina standing in the doorway, yelling something. Kiera didn't care.
Seventeen
Her mind in turmoil, Kiera was driving with no particular destination in mind. Driving was another thing that she had learned over the years that relaxed her. Enjoying the smell of the leather and look of the bright instrument panel displaying all the car's information, Kiera slowly began to calm down.
And then the phone calls started.
She didn't even need to look at the caller ID to know who it was. As always, Katrina wouldn't rest until she had the last word and that was a luxury Kiera refused to allow her this evening. While she did respect Katrina, who was she to tell her that she could no longer see Brandon, the one true friend she ever had? The more she thought about it, the more the recently sought calmness escaped her. Fuming she tried to think of something else but the thoughts had dug their talons into her brain and would not easily let go. She felt her body's temperature rise while simultaneously being covered in goosebumps.
She was surprised when she hit town, not expecting it to have happened so quickly. Looking down, she saw that she was doing double the speed limit, her rage and frustration having transformed itself into a lead foot that propelled her towards town at record speed. Reluctantly letting off the gas, she started to coast as the speedometer started to fall. Looking at her phone, she saw twelve missed calls in the past ten minutes and the corresponding twelve voicemails. Kiera planned on ignoring them all.
Cranking up the music and rolling down the windows, she once again attempted to find the calm she was beginning to experience in the earlier part of the car ride. She thought about her friends and her excitement about seeing them, she wondered if any of them had any new love interests and then, out of the blue, her mind wandered back to the kiss. She was still unsure about how she felt about it and was startled that not only did it keep popping up in her mind but that she remembered it with such vivid detail. The feel of his lips on hers, the breaths they shared as their lips were locked together, the way his arms wrapped around her making her feel safe. The way he smelled. It was all such a perfect experience that Kiera began to wonder if it had really happened. Was this another one of the crazy dreams she had been having? The dreams of running through the woods, so real that when she finally awakened, she expected to see her feet stained with dirt? "No," she decided, she would not dishonor that intimate moment by pretending it didn't happen, it happened and it was special. Kiera wondered if it would ever happen again.
A scent on the breeze caught her attention and put it back to the present. It was an odor she feels like she should recognize but couldn't place it. Shrugging it off, she continued to drive through town.
All the shops had closed for the evening. The only thing open were a few bars. Since drinking has never been something Kiera wanted to do, she had never been inside any of her hometown bars, she was familiar with the people who frequented them, people she wanted to have nothing do to with. It wasn't that she felt that she was better than any of them, she just didn't care to associate with drunks and other substance abusers. There was just too much risk involved and she didn't want to accidentally lose control. Passing one of the more popular ones, she recognized a few of the people congregating out front smoking. Ever since the state had instituted an indoor smoking ban, people wanting to pollute their lungs had to go outside, rain or shine, hot or cold, in order to have a smoke. While she never had any desire to smoke, Kiera thought this rule was ridiculous. If a business owner wanted to allow smoking in their establishment, that should be fine. If you were a customer and didn't want to be around smoke, then it was simple, don't go to that bar. "Just another form of control," she thought, mirroring how she was feeling about the lack of control she felt she had over her own life. If it wasn't her mother telling her what to do, it was some politician. She started to wonder if it would ever get to the point where people made absolutely no decisions for themselves, choosing instead to be lead around like lemmings, ready to fall off a cliff to their death simply because they wanted someone else to be in charge.
The further into town she drove, the more deserted it became, with the exception of one couple sitting on their front porch enjoying the warm summer night. Kiera felt as if she were in a ghost town. It seemed as if even the animals had taken the night off. The houses along the road, a straight line, dark on the inside, the windows staring out like pairs of vacant eyes, seeing everything but comprehending nothing.
The old familiar feeling of loneliness began to creep its way back into Kiera's mind. She felt like the houses, felt like she comprehended nothing even as it was unfolding in front of her. She didn't know which way to turn; what decision to make. Everything she tried seemed to end in some unplanned way. The irony was that even if she decided to do nothing, she was still doing something. Would she ever gain control of her life and live it the way she saw fit?
Looking through the windshield, she hadn't realized where she had driven and yet there it stood, Brandon's house. The ugly door, an eyesore for all who saw it, seemed to beckon to her. She knew that if she would only knock on that door, she could feel Brandon's arms around her once more. He would console and comfort her, he would make her temporarily forget the issues that were plaguing her life. Oh how she wanted to take the first step towards that sanctuary, towards that reassurance but she knew it was unfair to Brandon. While he had never formally professed any feelings other than friendship for her, Kiera had spent enough time around boys who were interested in her to see that deep down inside Brandon would like to have more. His shyness and awkwardness, personality traits he exhibited with almost everyone, were subtly different with her. Slight nuances that a person would miss if they weren't specifically looking for them, screamed louder than words to her that Brandon had romantic feelings for her.
Kiera had known for quite some time. She had seen these feelings unfold over the past few years but knew there could be no future with them. Katrina having banned their friendship, Kiera could only wonder what Katrina would do if they were romantically involved. While she had never known Katrina to hurt a human, she wouldn't put it past her if she thought it was in her daughter's best interest.
Too many reasons to enjoy anything more than friendship with him. They both stood to lose too much.
Putting the car in drive, she slowly pulled away and failed to notice the curtain in Brandon's house return to its prior resting position, and the tall figure move back towards the darkened depths of the house.
Having no desire to return home and no real place to hang out, she drove back to the park, the place that had provided her so much pleasure and pain at the same time, the place where she had first met Brandon.
Scanning the area, she didn't see, smell, or hear anything other than insects in the immediate area. "Guess Josh will no longer be a concern," she whispered, surprised by the pang of sorrow she felt when she finished the sentence. Yes, he had been an insufferable bully but she had never expected
him to end up the way he did.
Cutting the car off, she stepped out and headed towards her favorite piece of equipment, the swings. Suddenly her nostrils were overcome with a scent that had been tickling her memory for some time, hauntingly familiar but tainted with a difference she couldn't figure out. The odor caused her to feel unwelcome. With each intake of air, visions danced in her mind, almost as if a story was trying to be told but she just couldn't quite understand what it was. Scanning the area again, she noticed something she missed the first time. A large dark figure was hunched over near the tree line about two hundred feet from her. Even with her superior eyesight, she couldn't make out just what it was. And then it opened its eyes.
Turquoise eyes stared at Kiera, emanating a hatred that chilled her to her bones. She knew who those eyes belong to. She stood there transfixed on the Lycoan form of the woman who had come looking for her mother and whose name had escaped Kiera's mind. She must have been watching her this whole time, keeping tabs on Kiera’s whereabouts, waiting for the perfect time to strike. Standing to her full height the Lycoan was easily a foot taller than Kiera and almost as imposing as Katrina. Her lips were pulled back into a snarl, revealing deadly white canines which were designed to do nothing other than tear flesh. The odor came again, stronger this time. Kiera realized that was actually coming from the beast standing in front of her and she could faintly hear the woman's voice in her mind. While she couldn't completely understand what the voice was saying, she got the hint that she was receiving a warning, being told to leave town and never come back. How Kiera knew this, she was at a loss to explain, but there was something about the scent from the Lycoan that carried with it a message.
Kiera knew she was in danger. The primal side of her was screaming to leave, to get back into her car and go back home to the safety of her mother's house. But another side of her was curious, wanting to understand the message that was conveyed by the smell coming from the woman. The harder she tried to figure it out, the farther away it seemed to go. Standing there concentrating, she was jerked out of her reverie by a low rumble. Focusing back to the nightmare in flesh, she saw that the rumble was not a rumble at all but a growl coming from deep within the Lycoan standing at the fringes of the forest staring at her. Those turquoise eyes stared with a deadly resolve, cold and calculating. Kiera decides it was time to leave. And then she made a deadly mistake.
Turning her back to the creature beaming hatred at her, she started to walk back to her car. It was a short walk, no more than a dozen feet, but she had barely gone two steps when she felt a crushing weight hit her in the back and she was pinned to the ground. The impact of her body with the ground was so violent that all the air rushed from her lungs and she was unable to even scream as the full weight of the Lycoan's body pressed itself upon her. Kiera could feel her knees lose their skin as the momentum of the tackle caused her body to skid along the grass, leaving more flesh and clothes in its wake. Kiera felt like she was in a straitjacket, her arms and legs pinned to her side and all she could move was her head from side to side. Finally getting a deep breath, Kiera notices the odor had gotten much stronger, almost gaggingly so and for a second, she wished she couldn't breathe again.
Struggling was doing her no good, the Lycoan was much more powerful and Kiera at her mercy. Looking over her right shoulder, she came eye to eye with the creature of nightmares. A large Lycoan, covered in the woman's raven black hair, stared intently at the diminutive form of Kiera. The Lycoan's claws slowly started to dig into the flesh of Kiera's back with a practiced determination, not with the intent to kill but to cause incredible pain. A scream escaped Kiera's lips. Blood started to pool around the puncture wounds as the creature continued her torturous intrusion into Kiera's body. Kiera started to panic. She knew that she was at the mercy of the woman, that there was nothing she could do to protect herself. She feared she was going to die.
Panicked, she remembered the events of earlier and lets down the guard she had maintained on her Lycoan side, hoping that she could call forth the powers she used to smash the barstool to pieces, hoping they would be enough to give her a chance of escaping death. Relaxing her restraint, she felt herself becoming stronger and her senses becoming more aware. Placing her hands palms down on the ground like she was doing a pushup, she pressed with all her might, her muscles straining as they attempted to reverse the effects of gravity. Kiera was rewarded with a foot of space being opened between her chest and the ground, and the feeling of being able to fully breathe once more. A faint hope crept into her body as she hovered above the ground, her arms shaking with the weight of the large beast on her back. But that hope was soon crushed as the Lycoan, temporarily taken aback by the sudden repositioning, turned its full attention back to Kiera and slammed her to the ground once more, this time sinking its deadly teeth into Kiera's shoulder.
The pain ran through Kiera's body like a fire that no amount of water could quench. The pain was so intense that Kiera was unable to cry out, or even produce any tears. Lying there with her mouth gaping and a soundless scream formed on her lips, Kiera was at the mercy of the woman who so desperately wanted to take over Kiera's mother's pack. Kiera heard the ripping of muscle and tendon as the creature brought its jaws together, locking them in place to ensure that her prey would not be able to get away. Each beat of Kiera's heart forced crimson liquid through the massive holes in her shoulder. The Lycoan's mouth was so full of Kiera's life-force that it seeped through its teeth and dripped from its jowls, collecting on the ground, where it was viciously attacked by bloodsucking insects intent on taking full advantage of this free buffet.
Overcome with lightheadedness, Kiera knew that the wound was too grievous and there was no way she would be able to get any help before she bled out. The proverbial "life flashing before your eyes" effect began its morbid course and Kiera thought back over the things she wished she could have experienced before she died. Her struggling became weaker and weaker as the blood continued to flow from her wound and with it, her future. She wondered how this would be reported in the newspaper. How would her mother react? More importantly, how would Brandon? She never thought it would end like this, lying face down in a pool of her own blood under a large Lycoan with its teeth in her shoulder. As the light started to fade from her eyes, she remembered the feel of Brandon's lips on hers and a smile formed on her ashen face. She admitted to herself that she truly did love him, that he was more than just a friend, a confidant. She had always loved him but the fear of him discovering what she truly was kept her from expressing those feelings. It was a sacrifice that she willing albeit reluctantly but it would not have been fair to Brandon to bring him into the full chaos of her life. So she had kept her walls up and attempted to hide her feelings through teasing and sarcasm. How silly that all seemed now.
Death would be a release from it all. A release from her mother’s control, from her Lycoan side, from fear of Brandon rejecting her for being monster.
“But I’m not done yet,” Kiera said in the dark recesses of her mind while a vision of the children she volunteered with flashed through her head, knowing the existence in which they lived and had one come to her ready to give up she never would have condoned giving up. She would have told them to fight. To push through the hard times. What a disappointment she would be do just die and a bloody mess like this. Without trying.
“I want to live!”
"Surrender!" came a voice, "Surrender!"
Disoriented, Kiera had no clue where it was coming from.
"Surrender!" it came again.
The Lycoan was still on her back with its teeth still in her shoulder, not willing to give up until Kiera's heart beat no more. The pain was now a distant memory and didn't even register in Kiera's mind, so focused she was on the voice that spoke to her.
"Surrender!" is all it said, with such urgency and strength that Kiera was surprised that the creature on her back couldn't hear it as well. It was then that she realized that the voice wasn't being sp
oken aloud but came from the recesses of her own mind.
"I don't understand what you mean," she spoke in her mind, wanting nothing more than to figure out what she was being instructed to do..
"Surrender!"
And finally it came to her. Surrender. Surrender to what she truly is. Accept the fact that she is not really human but a Lycoan. Surrender to the Lycoan side of her that is speaking to her right now, the side of her that has not given up, that will not lie here in the mud that has been produced by her own blood and the playground dirt to die. The primal side of her that refused to give up without a fight, the side of her that found a way to speak to her in her time of dire need.
With the blood constantly pumping from her shoulder and her senses dulled, a calmness that couldn't have normally been achieved under such conditions came easily. Her ragged breathing started to come at a more measured pace as she started to navigate her inner self, completely ignoring the outside world and its goings-on. Instantly she encountered it, the other awareness that had been with her for as long as she could remember. There it was, pulsating in a powerful radiance, full of strength and a resolve that only a creature of a primal nature could manifest. This side of her was not ready to give up, this side of her would never give up until its physical body no longer produced breath.
The awareness beckoned to Kiera and she could see it actually pulsate like the beating of a heart whenever it spoke the word "surrender." Even in her weakened state, Kiera couldn't help but be fascinated by the awareness. For the first time ever, she took the time to fully see it and to appreciate its beauty.
And then she did what it asked, she surrendered to her Lycoan side, allowing herself to be absorbed in its warmth and power, hoping that this would be the right choice, the way to ensure her survival.. Frightened as she may be of what she was going to become, her will to live gave her the courage to accept the part of her she had tried to deny for so long.