I started to take it off when Cooper grabbed my hands and held them tightly.
“You can’t take it off, Ruby. We can find something else for you upstairs, but this will mask your scent even further. No one here will bat an eyelash at the smell of someone’s blood,” he told me. “Violence is part and parcel to the compound experience. We’re not really a warm fuzzy, feel-good kind of family.”
His words were so thick with grief and sadness that they pulled me from the depths of my self-pity. He too had been lying to himself, and for a lot longer than I cared to imagine.
“OK,” I conceded, grabbing his hand to pull myself up.
“We’re going to have to do this now with a little less stealth and a lot more speed,” he said while snapping me upright. “The guards are less than a mile away now. We’re going to have to kill them. There’s no way around that,” he said solemnly.
“That seems to be my current MO,” I quipped. “I’ll have to be human, though. I can’t lay down to sleep even for a couple of minutes afterward. We don’t have the time.”
“What is your strength like in human form?”
“I’m strong, but nothing special. I’ll be of no use in a fistfight if that’s what you’re hoping for.”
“Hmm. Perhaps you’ll just have to be a distraction then. The two guards that are on duty are strong, but maybe not the sharpest. I can easily dispose of one before the other knows what’s happening.”
“When you say distraction, I’m assuming you don’t want me to do my best rendition of “All That Jazz”, right?”
“No, but I would love to see that sometime,” he said, his eyes bright. “Can you really sing and dance?”
I wasn’t sure which part was more disturbing - that he again was again laughing during a non-humorous event, or that he really seemed intrigued by my potential ability to do both of those activities.
“Hey Chuckles, could we focus here?” I yelled. Maybe he needed a slap across the face to snap him back into the here and now. “The guards? What exactly do you want me to do? And you’d better keep it clean, smart ass.”
Just as he had earlier, he managed to get himself together and refocus on the task at hand. He looked pensive for a moment; even scratched and rubbed at his chin, though I was completely convinced that was solely for effect.
“You’re going to have to go in alone. Your current state, combined with the fact that you’re loose, will be more than enough cause for immediate alarm and action of their part. They’ll assume you’ve killed both Nick and myself, so they won’t be focused on anything but you. If you can draw them back, effectively cornering yourself, I can get them close enough together to make fast work of them. Neither will have a chance to react.”
It sounded like a solid enough plan, but he was leaving one small detail out.
“Didn’t you say they were armed?” I asked with a heavy dose of skepticism.
“What?”
“Armed…you know, guns with real bullets - the kind that can kill. That armed.” He looked confounded for a moment before blowing off my concerns.
“Yeah, there’s that. That won’t be a problem. They won’t shoot you, and won’t see me coming. They’ll be dead before they draw.”
His ambivalence was awe-inspiring and wicked annoying. Yeah, no biggie. Nothing could possibly go wrong with that plan.
We jogged the rest of the way down through the stone tunnel. I was too weak to both run and talk, so Cooper mainly just babbled beside me about everything and nothing. The light started to dim as we neared what I assumed to be the end. Cooper was silent for the last fifty or so yards, but what he failed to mention in his silence was that the door was rapidly approaching and that perhaps it would be a good idea to slow down. No such good luck for me - ran full speed right into it. I staggered back away from it, giving myself a full view of the solid oak door that stood before me, ominous and foreboding.
So much for the element of surprise.
Now instead of getting a chance to quietly rehash the plan with Coop, I was being thrust through that door into a large foyer of sorts by my unhappy companion.
It was much brighter in there and it took me a moment to get my bearings. The room was circular in shape with four egresses, each equally spaced out along the wall. The ceiling was at least four times the height of what I’d just traveled down with an enormous lantern-esque light fixture hanging like a chandelier in the center. The walls were still stone, but much more inviting in that amount of light.
What wasn’t that inviting were the two meat-heads directly across the room from me about twenty-five feet away. They seemed to be as startled by my appearance as I was by my surroundings. I completely panicked and forgot the game plan. Was there a game plan?
I ran at them with as much wildness and craziness as my energy stores could provide. They took the bait and lunged towards me, coming slightly at me from each side. I ducked to the right, hoping the door there might be unlocked, but no such good luck. Seeing that I had nowhere to go they slowed their pace to an intimidating walk now, each with their own pleased look on their face.
Where the hell is Cooper?
The taller one on my right got to me first. He said nothing but slid the back of his hand down the side of my face, and then slowly brushed it back up again. His buddy stayed a couple of feet back from him, just out of his periphery. He appeared to be watching the taller one’s behavior, studying it as if he were his mentor. Up and down, up and down, the hand caressed the side of my face. He didn’t say a word.
WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOU, COOPER?
There are many different types of scary. This guy was serial-killer-scary. The kind of psychopath who would take his time gutting you, then sit across from you at the dining room table and tell you about his day while you slowly bled to death. He would enjoy his meal, too.
Has Cooper chickened out? How could he leave me here with this sociopath?
Tears were starting to sting the back of my eyes. Cooper said these guys wouldn’t kill me, but I was getting concerned by how closely they might like to push the envelope. I wasn’t really in the mood for permanent damage. As those thoughts went through my mind, I felt the darkness coming. Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit…
As my vision tunneled I saw a flash of movement cross the room, but I was unable to focus. My Change was coming and there was nothing I could do. Though I knew it wasn’t the worst thing that could happen, I was afraid my lanky caresser would be forced to shoot me, and that would be the worst thing.
Again I saw a something blur through my periphery, but much closer this time. I heard a loud crunch, a faint grunt from one of the men, and then something loud fall on the floor. The hand immediately left my face.
I could more clearly see the fight now, but it was gray and fuzzy and pixelated-looking. Cooper was in a knock-down drag-out fight with Lanky. It was hard to watch with this unfamiliar vision. Everything appeared less defined, with a lack of clarity to their movement. It almost made me nauseous to watch. I started to wonder if stress affected my eyesight as well; it would have been par for the course.
Suddenly, I saw a flash of metal. I knew they were fighting over the gun, the gun-that-wouldn’t-have-time-to-be-drawn in Cooper’s plan. I had no idea what to do. They seemed evenly matched, but that gun was trump, and I had no clue as to who had the better handle on it. I knew I couldn’t just mold myself to the wall and hope for the best, maybe cheer Cooper on. No, I had to help somehow.
I watched for a bit longer, waiting for Lanky to turn his back to me. Cooper may not have known my plan but right on cue, he twirled his attacker a few steps sideways, giving me exactly what I wanted. I surged towards him, mouth open, hands ready. I sprang up and latched on with my nails dug into his shoulders and feet pressed into the small of his back. Before I knew what I was doing, I had my mouth buried in his carotid region and was tearing at his throat with all my resolve. He screamed like a rabbit caught in a trap. It was a bloodcurdling sound that made my insides sq
uirm with delight. I released him, expecting to come crashing to the ground, but instead landed elegantly. On four feet.
I had Changed and not even known. I felt nothing but the raw emotions that fueled it in the first place. There was no pain, nothing like I had seen Eric experience with his.
When I looked back up at Lanky, I saw that the fight hadn’t fully left him while he struggled with Cooper for control of the gun. The floor was rapidly puddling with blood due to the arterial spray that rained around us, making it a balance hazard for the two fighting in it. Cooper went down hard and fast, bringing his opponent down on top of him. He was securely pinned under the other werewolf with the gun still up for grabs.
I locked my mouth back around Lanky’s neck to rip him off. That’s when I heard the shot. By heard I mean my eardrums virtually exploded from the volume and vibration of it. It rang through the foyer for an eternity, making the nightmare that was unfolding in front of me seem never ending.
It was the only sound.
Both men lay still. Nobody moved, nobody spoke, nobody breathed. Not even me.
And the blood was everywhere.
31
I stood frozen, staring at the pile of bodies. In that moment I was convinced that not seeing Cooper dead would make him less so. He died trying to get me out, someone he didn’t even know.
The color was returning to my vision, and I looked away. Not seeing the red of blood somehow made it less real, however, the ever-increasing mass of liquid surrounding them could only be denied for so long. I looked down to see my naked body, human and fully intact. I had shifted back without passing out, and again, without any pain. I wondered if being RB made many things different for me.
Though I wanted to contemplate the wonders of my Change, my attention quickly returned to the issue at hand. I looked down at the two men lying motionless, both coated in blood. The thought of Cooper lying dead under that animal sickened me into action. I prowled over to him and pulled the guard off of Cooper and onto his back. He looked up into the ceiling, his face contorted with pain and fear. I couldn’t bear the sight of him and turned to see Cooper, lying still, with eyes closed, curled on his right side into a semi-fetal position. My stomach jumped into my throat. Just below his sternum was a circular, thick, black smudge with a stream flowing down his trunk to the floor.
Instinctively I reached for him, slipping in the blood, landing sprawled out on top of him. Finding my voice, I hysterically called his name while trying violently to shake the life back into him.
“COOPER! Don’t you fucking die on me,” I screamed over and over again until my throat burned of rawness and my eyes stung with tears flowing so uncontrollably they streamed off of my chin, pooling on his face. I carried this on until my voice threatened to give out. Tiring from my efforts and emotionally exhausted, I fell back onto his chest and laid my head gently on his shoulder.
“Please…Cooper. Please don’t leave me,” I whispered to no one but myself. I closed my eyes and gave into my emotions further, allowing myself this one and only good cry.
After a few minutes my shaking lessened, though it was still intense enough to almost miss the fraction of movement under my chest that was out of sync of my own breathing. I stopped immediately. Again, a faint rise and fall occurred below me. I pressed into a plank position above him to take my weight off and see his face. His eyelids fluttered rapidly, and slowly, his respiration increased in speed. I could actually hear the rushing of air in and out of his nose.
“Cooper? Can you hear me?” I asked softly, afraid to disturb his recovery. I looked down at his chest to see where to apply pressure and stop the bleeding, now that he was alive, only to find a perfect torso with not so much as a scar or scratch on it, only a lot of blood. Not possible…so not possible.
I stared open-mouthed in utter disbelief. The wound I thought I had seen earlier was gone. No bleeding. No gaping hole. No nothing.
I slowly scanned his body for an injury I’d missed earlier in my distress. Still nothing. I thought I was going crazy, that this was the result of little food, lots of stress and entirely too much trauma. I squeezed my eyes shut, counted to ten, and snapped them open to Cooper’s face, staring up at mine.
My rational mind was not able to easily accept what I was seeing. Dead people didn’t breathe. Dead people didn’t blink. Dead people didn’t smile at you like nothing in the world was wrong.
Screw my rational mind.
I dropped myself back down on to him and threw my arms violently around his neck. I hugged him so hard that he was in jeopardy of losing his new-found ability to breathe. He coughed a bit in my ear, and then I felt his arms slowly slide around the small of my back, then he hugged me back.
“Any chance of you letting me up? This floor isn’t exactly downy soft on my back, you know?” he said with a smile in his voice. “How long was I out for?”
“Out for? Cooper, you were dead!” True to form, he found me amusing when I so wasn’t trying to be.
“I wasn’t dead, crazy girl. I was healing. Gunshot wounds aren’t exactly a walk in the park you know. Thank God it wasn’t silver or we wouldn’t be having this conversation at all right now,” he said soberly. “Glad to see that the Alpha hasn’t taken things to that level yet.”
So many questions ran through my mind that it was like an Amtrak on a runaway course. How is this possible? Why can’t I do that? Is he completely back to normal? Why couldn’t he hear me? Can silver really kill you? Can it kill me too? What do you mean the Alpha hasn’t taken it to that level? Is this guy completely…
“Earth to Ruby…,” he said, waving a hand in my face and smiling. His smile faded a bit, unearthing a much more serious expression. “I’m fine, I promise. I’ll explain it later and answer the questions I can see running through your mind, but we have to go now. This is getting more complicated by the moment.”
“About ten minutes maybe…I’m not sure exactly. It all happened so fast,” I replied.
“What? Oh! Ten minutes? Are you sure?” he asked, seriously. “That can’t be right.”
“Listen, I didn’t bust out a stopwatch and time your death for you. That’s my best guess, ten minutes.”
He looked at me disbelievingly for a minute, then appeared to blow it off entirely like it was never of consequence.
“Doesn’t matter. It’s time to go.”
Captain Serious was back again. I wanted to know what he was hiding from me so badly that I could barely put one foot in front of the other. I was so frustrated by my lack of info, as well as those who insisted upon withholding said useful information from me. My inner five-year-old wanted to fight fire with fire. The unfortunate part was that I didn’t have any information of my own to withhold. I felt like I was always showing up to a gunfight without any ammo. It was beginning to be the story of my life.
We cleaned up as much blood as we could off of ourselves, using the other dead guard’s shirts and socks. Cooper took the man’s pants, trading them for his blood-soaked ones and I was left with the same tattered shreds of a shirt that I had before. We looked disastrous but I didn’t think a shower was factored into our escape plan. I hoped for a stream or something to dunk myself in if we ever made it to the woods.
I begrudgingly followed him through the formerly guarded door. As soon as we stepped through we nearly tripped on the stairway that went straight up for God only knew how long. Funny how I didn’t remember any mention of an Alpine climb on our trip. He was a good twelve steps ahead of me when I let go of a huge, melodramatic sigh and started to make my way up the stairway-not-to-heaven.
“Your huffing and puffing won’t make this go any more smoothly, dear,” he said.
“No, I don’t suppose it will, but it gives me such satisfaction, especially if it’s annoying you,” I retorted. If he wanted to be an information-hoarding pain in my ass, I’d do everything I could to return the favor. Bitterness and grudge-holding were two of my finer qualities.
“So tell me some
thing, Ruby. Why were you so upset by my death?” He was totally baiting me with that question and I knew it, but embarrassment and anger got the better of me and I walked right into his little interrogation. By the tone of his voice he was already enjoying it.
“I wasn’t upset that you died, you arrogant ass. I was freaking out because my ticket out of here checked out, leaving me totally bent over, so to speak,” I responded as calmly as I was capable of, which sadly wasn’t nearly as impressive as I’d have like it to be. He laughed. I was really starting to hate that response to my bullshit.
“Ruby, honey, you can go sell that shit somewhere else because I’m not buying it. What was the real reason you were so upset?”
I was getting horribly embarrassed at that point. At an early age I learned that excessive emotions were totally inappropriate, and that crying was simply unproductive and a complete waste of time. The fact that I had allowed myself the indulgence of a breakdown was gnawing at my pride, but to have someone witness it was far more unforgivable.
My parents never liked me having Nibbles in the first place, but it was one of the few concessions they made in my life. Just before my eighth birthday I begged, pleaded, threatened and blackmailed my parents into buying me an albino rabbit. My parents thought it was a hideous rodent, but I loved her dearly. She was my best friend. She was so soft, and loved to be cuddled; I slept with her in my bed every night unbeknownst to my parents. She’d sit in my lap while I did my schoolwork. I always felt like she knew I was different, that I needed more attention. We were completely inseparable, much to my parents chagrin.
Three years later, I woke up one morning to find that Nibbles was not in bed with me. I searched the house on hands and knees, frantically patting everything in my path to find her. When I started hysterically calling for her, my father came to me from the living room. He informed me that they had given her away because my mother was developing an allergy to her. I sat where I was and started to cry so hard I was certain I’d pass out from lack of oxygen. My father yelled at me, trying to get me to stop, but it was impossible. My mother stepped in by giving me a firm, open-handed smack to the face. When she seemed satisfied that she had my hysterics under control she proceeded to tell me that crying over anything, especially a pet, was stupid and embarrassing. My father chimed in to inform me that he was disappointed in my weakness and never wanted to see it again, that the Dee’s were not emotionally unstable pansies and I needed to learn to deal with the harshness of life and move on.
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