Caged

by J. A. Belfield

  He looked to me as she yanked at him again. “D-d-do something.”

  “Shelley …” I veered round Dad, went to climb higher until his fingers grasped hold of my waistband. When he forced me back down three steps, a low growl brewed in my chest, but I kept my focus on Shelley. “I get you’re pissed at me, but what about Gabe? You’re not thinking straight, Shel.”

  She slammed to a halt. “How the hell would you know what I’m thinking or feeling?”

  Gabe’s body jerked forward again when Shelley descended a step. “Mum, please.”

  “Don’t please me, Gabriel.” As Shelley went to round Dad, I pushed up to block her. “Move!” she snapped through gritted teeth.

  I shook my head, beseeched with my stare for her to cease when I caught the despair in Gabe’s eyes behind her.

  She shifted to the right, her shoulder brushing my chest with the twist of her body. “Move, Ethan.”

  “Mum, stop,” Gabe said. “Wh-wh-what the hell’s g-g-got int-to you.”

  “This!” She whirled on him, moisture in her eyes. “This is what the hell’s gotten into me. He’s bloody messed my son up. He messed you up, Gabe.” She spun back round, glowering at me. “And if he doesn’t move out of my way, I swear I’m going to knock his sorry arse down these damn stairs.”

  “Go away, Son.” When my head whipped round to Dad’s almost whispered command, his cool blue eyes met mine in a level stare. “For goodness sake, go away and leave me to handle this.”

  I wanted to tell him I’d handle it—my mess, my problem—but clamped my teeth against retaliation and backed down the stairs, my movements’ jerky, thunder in my chest beneath the sting of the order.

  Shelley squared her shoulders to Dad instead like no height difference or rank existed. “Now, you are in my way.”

  Dad made no move to step aside. “Where will you go, Shelley?”

  “Home.” She said the word as though it should have been obvious.

  “That’s not an option right now.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “Are you threatening me?”

  “Of c-course he isn’t, Mum.” Gabe turned to Dad. “Wh-why can’t we go home?”

  “Because your friend is still missing, Gabe,” Dad said, his voice calm. “And because his parents’ reported your absence to the police.”

  Gabe seemed to process Dad’s words before he groaned and rubbed at his face. “W-with him still missing, I’ll b-be their prime suspect if I show b-back up alone.” He twisted back to Dad. “Right?”

  Dad gave a slow nod.

  Shelley’s brows drew tight, her lips, too, as I watched the realisation of their situation sink in. A few beats passed with the flitter of her eyes. “Then we’ll find somewhere else to stay.” Her tempered stare once more latched onto me. “You’ve all already done more than enough.”

  “Stay … please.” I stepped forward, lowered my arms. “I’ll go instead.” Dad spun round, warning in his glare, but my chances were close to running out. “I’m obviously the reason you’re leaving. If I’m not here, you’ll have no reason to go.”

  The fire in Shelley’s eyes lessened to lambent flames. Gabe’s hopeful glances alternated between the two of us like he could get his mum to concede through the power of wishful thinking alone, but Shelley seemed oblivious to them.

  After agonizing seconds, during which my breaths ceased and my pulse slowed almost to a halt, she murmured, “I can’t.”

  Mum materialised at the top of the stairs and took three steps down, the creaking of wood beneath her feet wrenching Shelley’s attention from me. “Will you allow me to help you?”

  “I don’t …” Shelley raked fingers into her hair.

  “I understand your instinct to protect your son,” Mum said. “Trust me when I say I’ve gone to great lengths to do exactly the same thing. But I can’t see you out there on your own, Shelley—not with nowhere to go. If you’ll let me, I can drive you somewhere you’ll both be safe. Somewhere none of the pack will bother you.” Mum paused, imploration clear in her dark eyes. “Please, let me help you.”

  I suspected Mum’s secret venue would be the flat she lived in when she’d needed someplace incognito to hide out—one only three of the pack knew the whereabouts of. Outsiders had caused more desolation for my family than we’d ever brought on ourselves, and yet again, they held responsibility for someone I cared for deeply being driven away.

  With my gaze on Shelley, as I willed her to agree, all of those to blame spun through my mind in a tornado of wrath. Fists clenched, notions of violence colliding with the identities I conjured, I silently vowed to make sure each and every one of them paid.

  Shelley nodded after a long minute, snapping me back to the moment. “Okay,” she said. “Thank you.”

  I blew out a breath, relief flooding through me, until it sank in that Shelley and Gabe would be gone any moment. They’d also most probably never return, or call—not me, anyway.

  Pain lanced through me like a spear to the heart.

  I barely heard as Mum offered to get her keys. It scarcely registered when Dad padded down the stairs allowing Mum past. My focus refused to shift from the female who’d taught me what I could have. Only the excruciating tightness of my jaw stopped my true emotions from erupting.

  Mum reappeared. “Ready when you are, Shelley.” At Shelley’s nod, Mum reached round me for the door catch. “Please, Ethan,” she whispered when I didn’t move. “Don’t make this more difficult on yourself by creating a scene.”

  Dragging my feet to the left took immense effort, yet the success of the action beat that of removing my focus from Shelley. I hoped beyond hope that she’d read the screaming apology in my expression.

  “Gabe, let’s go,” Shelley said as she began her descent.

  The pup didn’t budge. “I don’t w-want t-to.”

  She gave a tug with little effect. “Now.”

  He turned to me, his frown cutting deep lines across his forehead. “Ethan? T-tell her.”

  The weight of Shelley’s gaze drew me back her way, to the defiant tilt of her chin as she dared me to overrule her. “Do as your mother says,” I mumbled to Gabe.

  Shelley’s feet hit the hallway tiles, followed by Gabe’s and his exasperated sigh. My eyes remained aimed at the floor as Shelley squeezed around the door to exit the house, and would have stayed there if Gabe didn’t halt in front of me.

  Disappointment saddened his features. “Y-you c-c-could have said f-for me to st-stay. She w-would have listened t-to you.”

  I shook my head. “Not this time she wouldn’t, Gabe.” Probably never will again.

  “My p-place.” He peered away, the skin beside his eyes taut with tension, before looking back. “In the p-p-pack.”

  “Now’s not the time, Gabe.” Mum’s hand at the small of his back nudged him forward a step. “Come on now, your mum’s waiting on you.”

  He lifted a hand, fisted it in his filthy hair. “You p-p-promised.”

  I could think of nothing else to say besides, “I’m sorry.”

  Gabe stared at me a moment longer, his right hand intermittently contracting against his temple. With a headshake that yelled volumes of frustration and hurt, Gabe ducked outside and followed Shelley.

  I stared after their retreating backs as the trio crossed the driveway, the muscles in my face drawn so tight they created a tic beneath my left eye.

  Footsteps tapped the tiles behind me, and I turned to Dad in the kitchen doorway. He opened his mouth, but I shook my head before he could say anything, and spun away.

  Up the stairs, past Sean, past the blur I caught in my periphery of all those in with Kyle, I strode into my bedroom. The slam of my door rattled the photograph of the sun shining through the forest trees that hung on my wall. Fists pressed to my forehead, I released a groan t
hat bubbled up from my throat as a deep growl.

  A quiet tap sifted through my door. I crossed to my bed, flopped down on my back, and drew my pillow over my face.

  “Ethan?” Tender concern coated Jem’s tone.

  I lifted the pillow, considered answering, if only to ask her to leave me alone, but on realising whatever left my mouth in that moment would be far from polite, I clamped my lips shut and rammed my concealment back firmly in place.

  Jem’s feet padded away again, but no reprieve arrived. Only aggravation, frustration and confusion coursed through me like the expanding bubble inside my chest, growing with each breath I took, just waiting to burst.

  I managed to remain motionless for about three minutes before slinging the pillow across the room. It collided with a wooden sculpture I didn’t even like, sending it from the dresser to smash against the wall with enough force to chip plaster. I flicked my legs over the side of the bed, rolled up into a stand, and paced to the window.

  The light from my ceiling bounced my reflection back at me. Filthy. Sweaty. Hair all over the damn place. For the first time in my life, I’d experienced an epic failure, and it showed—in my hollow eyes, in the sag of my shoulders, my inability to remain stationery, and in the heave of my chest as each additional breath I took required more effort than the last.

  The outline of the treetops in their midnight dance drew my focus beyond what I didn’t want to see, calling to me to go out there and burn everything off.

  My yank of the door almost dragged it off its hinges. I ducked right onto the landing, halting as Sean stepped out from the guestroom.

  A low growl arrived before I could stop it. “Now is a really bad time to be blocking my path, Sean.”

  He shifted aside, and I resumed my journey in the same erratic manner with which it began.

  My feet thudded the stairs.

  My fist tapped against the newel post in the hallway.

  My shoulder rammed the kitchen door wider.

  When Dad pushed to his feet from his chair, I blanked him and headed for the conservatory.

  “Where are you going?” he asked.

  I paused in the doorway but didn’t look back. “Out.”

  “It can wait. I want you to round everyone up so we can start strategising.”

  “You don’t need me to formulate a plan.” My teeth ground as I marched into the conservatory. “You can just tell me what to do when I get back, I’m sure.”

  I snapped down the door handle and stepped outside into drizzle.

  “God knows, you’ve had enough practice, tonight,” I muttered as my feet hit the sodden lawn.

  With each step, spray soaked the hems of my jeans, just as with each step, my muscles coiled tighter in anticipation of my run. By the time I’d ducked beneath the arches, the forest swallowing me whole, the rumble had become a constant within my chest.

  Fingers fumbling, I unfastened my jeans and shoved them over my hips without breaking stride. The denim bunched around my knees, and I lifted one leg, and the other, stumbling as I kicked the jeans aside.

  Naked, and eager to encourage pain as a blockage for pain, I broke into a jog.

  Through foliage covering the overhead branches, the partial moon allowed brief offerings of light along my path.

  In less than a minute, I crouched beneath its illumination in my spot. We all had them, each of us in the pack—tiny circles of the forest we favoured for our changes, small patches of land we held territory over, the border marked with our scent.

  Shoulders hunched high, head hung low, my breaths arrived deep as the initial ripple washed through me from crown to toe tips, and the skin prickled across my scalp.

  I closed my eyes, concentrated.

  The first tug of flesh stretched the wounds wider across my pelvis, shoulder, and thigh. At the biting sting that accompanied the splitting skin, I grunted and pushed myself into the change harder.

  Sweat popped out across the surface of my body, began a steady trickle along my spine. When my outer layer twisted, and the inevitable ripping arrived from each wound, I emitted a quiet groan, and forced into the change faster.

  Only once the first contortion began the snapping of bones, with an agony powerful enough to temporarily smother that within my heart, did my mind switch off.

  Growls rolling from me, and with no attempt made to curb them, I handed myself over to the change.

  • • •

  Blood fogged my left eye, where it had trailed from a gash caused by a low hung branch, yet it left me no more blind than I’d been on first takeoff. The canine-induced muteness of colours had long vanished beneath the haze of red in my mind as frustration and anger became fuel to surge my legs faster.

  The pummel of my front paws against dirt sent jolts to my aching shoulders. Each land of my hind-quarters and upward thrust of muscles sparked a blazing infliction, which reverberated through my flank and travelled the length of my spine.

  I welcomed them all: every wave of pain, each course of agony—using them to distract from that which hurt the most.

  A chill breeze swirled through the trees like a heat-seeking missile—my already weary body its only goal. On it carried the aroma of rodent.

  I altered course, my body leaning into the wind as I rounded a trunk broader than even myself.

  Ahead, the small creature scurried, its tail taunting as it darted left and right. The stench of fear pumped from the critter. Small crumbs of dirt clouded the air behind the bobs of its body.

  Thunder rolled through my chest and arrived as a roar as I threw my jaws down and snatched the squirrel up.

  A clicking cry squeaked from it until a sharp snap of my head to the left broke its neck. Legs still pumping me onward, only a tiny trail of blood hit my tongue before I tossed the creature aside.

  I didn’t want food, just as I hadn’t wanted the last six morsels I’d thrown down like a disgruntled werewolf’s interpretation of a bread trail.

  Only my soul lacked nourishment—my heart, too.

  “Ethan!”

  Rain drummed against the sparsely-coated treetops, almost masking the shout. I told myself I hadn’t heard and raced off to the north.

  “Ethan! I know you can hear me!” The second shout arrived louder, more desperate.

  Without intending to, I slowed and swerved toward the location of Jem’s voice.

  “Ethan, please! Come back!”

  Breaths ragged, ears pinned back, I picked up speed, forcing my limbs into a frantic sprint.

  I pivoted left around a silver birch. In my leap over a bare brush, branches scraped at my underbelly, irritating my wound there. I growled against the smarting, pounded my paws into the earth, and lunged back into my run.

  Jem’s scent reached me before the view of her did. Following it, I burst into a clearing, mud spattering my forelegs as I stopped dead.

  Jem knelt within the small circle of barrenness. Desolation dominated her expression beneath hair plastered over her forehead by the fine rain. She’d have heard my approach—I’d made no attempt to disguise it—yet the second her gaze latched onto me, she let out a gasp of obvious relief.

  “Thank goodness.” Her breath hitched as her hand swept over her swollen mound in a manic spiral. “I didn’t think you’d come.”

  I breathed out a whine as I padded closer and nudged her extended hand with my nose. What’s wrong?

  She combed her fingers through the fur at my throat until I pressed into the embrace. “I need you to change back.” She scratched behind my ear, pushed her face against my ruff. “I know you won’t feel like it, but I need you to.”

  The quiet plea in her voice set my nerves on edge, and I whined again.

  “They’re leaving already.”

  I lifted my face, my brows knotting
as I studied her.

  “Sean’s going with them. He has to. I knew he would. It’s who he is.” Her hands cupped my face as she rubbed her nose across mine. “But I need you to be there, Ethan. I trust you to make sure he comes back home in one piece. And I really need that reassurance right now.” Her gaze connected with mine. “Can you do that for me?”

  32

  No way did I want to face the rest of the pack right then. That didn’t mean I’d in anyway allow that to tarnish my decisions. My brother intended to head out and clean up a mess I’d been part of. I’d never let that happen without being there to watch his back.

  Besides, I owed the vampires an arse-kicking. Someone had to pay for the shit hand I’d been dealt.

  Dressed in fresh attire Jem had brought out for me, and with my mobile tucked into the jeans pocket, I strode back toward home.

  The rumble of engines reached me before I emerged from the forest. I shoved aside my pissy mood, which had worsened on realisation that Dad would order the others to leave without me, and picked up speed through the arches.

  Jem stood in the kitchen window, the worry lining her face smoothing out as she gave me a small wave upon my jog across the lawn.

  I nodded, kept going until my trainers hit the block paving in a rhythmic beat and rounded the house. Two trucks idled on the driveway—Dad’s with its nose peeking out the gates, and mine in line behind.

  I headed for my own black Ford and yanked open the door to Sean behind the wheel.

  He blew out a breath as he turned to me. “Had me worried for a minute, there.”

  “Yeah, well,”—I grabbed the handle, hauling myself into the passenger seat—“you worry too much. You want me to drive?”

  “No. Only things you need to do on the journey are eat and rest.”

  I grunted, looking away. “I’ve eaten.”

  “Not enough, according to Mum.” At rustling, I twisted back as he plonked a plastic bag down on the centre console. “She said I had to make sure you eat the lot.”

  “She’s back?” How long did I run for?

  Sean nodded. “And she said to tell you she did what was best for everyone.” He patted the bag before his honk of the horn set Dad’s truck into motion in front of us. “Now eat.”