“Thanks for that, Dr. Drew. Your insight is both useless and unappreciated as usual,” he retorted, with what I perceived was real anger. Anger with the bite of unresolved daddy issues. Those could really leave a mark.
“You don’t have to be totally douchetastic about it. I was just making a point.”
“As am I. Drop it,” he stated with true finality in his voice. The man who had saved our asses back in the den of the compound was back, and I got the feeling I didn’t really want to poke that bear with a short stick.
“It’s dropped, but do me a favor? If you have nasty scars, don’t flash them around and then get pissed off when people stare at them.”
“Duly noted. A mistake I won’t repeat again,” he snarled.
Note to self: daddy is off limits.
34
To distract myself from my traveling companion’s mood, I shifted my attention to the woods surrounding me. I hadn’t noticed much about my “haunted” surroundings while running for my life, but there was a beauty there that couldn’t be denied once I bothered to notice it. It was a forest, so all of the usual suspects were there: trees, underbrush, scrubby looking bushes, fallen branches and leaves, but there was something glorious about the way the stars and moon cast light onto the trees. They appeared to be covered in the thinnest layer of melting ice, a sheen of silver just grazing the surface. I was fascinated by it, having never seen anything like it before. I tried to look up at the canopy above to take in as much as I could, while staying upright and keeping pace. I was rewarded with stars that were bigger and brighter than anything I had seen in New Hampshire. They had far more celestial magic in Utah.
While appreciating said celestial magic, I inelegantly caught my foot on a downed tree and took a digger into a random collection of rocks. Cooper, being the saint he was, came over to help me up and force me along. When I looked at his face, it reminded me of one of the first paintings I’d ever seen. It was by an unknown artist from a century ago, and the image he painted was the face of God. What had always struck me about it was the play of light - half of his face was highlighted incandescently while the other lay hidden in darkness and shadow. It must have been a metaphor for something, but art had never been my thing. They didn’t make a Braille version of it.
I stared open-mouthed at him for a moment, his beauty remarkable. The light danced across his exposed features flaunting perfect curves and angles. The painting’s metaphor may not have been clear, but this one was. The surface was angelic and pure, but there was a darker, hidden side. One that, if I were smart, I would not go exploring. Not without suffering the consequences.
“Are dancers always this clumsy, or are you just gifted?”
I scowled quickly.
“We’re all grace on a stage or in a studio, but follow us through the day-to-day and we’re hot messes,” I responded truthfully.
“I’m not sure what that is exactly, but I’ll assume I don’t want to be one,” he said, grunting for effect while he heaved me up onto my feet.
“That’s safe to say.”
“If you’re quite done living up to your reputation, I’d like to get this last mile over with. I haven’t heard the approach of anyone yet. I’d like to try to keep it that way.”
I smiled at him because I couldn’t help it. We had but one mile before freedom was ours. I suppressed the laughter that was rolling inside only because once unleashed I wasn’t sure I could regain control. I took off in a total sprint, juiced up on adrenaline and anticipation of our completed escape. Cooper was quickly at my side, and together we tore through the remainder of woods like our pants were on fire, hurdling fallen branches and dodging trees, all while maintaining a cat burglar’s stealth.
We encountered a small brook as our final destination approached and he suggested taking a second to clean up so we wouldn’t look quite as ghastly driving cross country covered in filth and blood. He stripped off his shirt and dunked his entire upper body in the water, wiping off what he could by hand. I wasn’t excited by the thought of getting naked in front of him, but I really needed to wash a little more thoroughly than he did, so off my shirt came. I sat down, chest deep in the cool running water, scrubbing my skin violently with leaves. I dunked my head a few times, thinking my hair would likely not improve much with the effort. When I couldn’t take the temperature any longer I got out and tried to whisk the droplets from my skin with my hands.
Cooper was dressed and ready to go, his back to me, scanning the forest for dangers. Once my shirt was on, I made my way over to him and we resumed our journey. I knew we had only minutes to go before freedom was ours.
I could see the brightness slowly widening, growing larger before us as we ran. The clearing. Seconds later we broke through the last of prickly underbrush to land soundly on the edge of a vast open field. It was different than I had pictured it. I had thought it would be some overgrown field with waist-high grass that spanned a square mile or so. I wasn’t expecting a space that was approximately the size of two football fields. I also didn’t expect it to be about as manicured as one either. It looked man-made and well maintained, though for what purpose I couldn’t imagine. Cooper said we were miles from town, and that nobody lived out here.
Does the compound use this for something?
Cooper rattled me out of my postulation by grabbing my hand and nearly dragging me across the field. We were half way across when I regained my appendage. I shot him a look of complete and utter belligerence. When I opened my mouth to ask what this “clearing” really was, no sound came out. That was because I had been abruptly stopped by an outstretched arm to my abdomen. While doubled over in pain, I tried to see why he Cooper had stopped and furthermore, why he’d stopped me. Stopping wasn’t part of the plan.
All I could see were his bare feet covered in healing cuts and dried blood, and his torn pant legs. He was facing in the direction we were headed, and he was utterly still. My stomach hurt too much to stand up straight but I had just enough wind in me to interrogate.
“What are you…”
“Shhhh,” he whispered.
“Doing?” I asked.
“Don’t. Move,” he ordered, telling me to follow his example.
My heart instantly relocated to my stomach. We had made it too far to be brought down in our final stretch. I slowly raised my head with a sick need to see what fate had in store for us.
Throughout my lifetime, I had often pondered my death as I assumed many people did. I would think of all the equally pleasant and horrible ways to go: dying quietly in my sleep, surrounded by those that loved me, or conversely burning in a house fire, or drowning in a car I couldn’t escape that had plunged off of a bridge. After staring my fate in the eyes, I moved the latter two options to the “pleasant” list in comparison. I didn’t know what I’d done to piss fate off, but I made a mental note to send flowers. We had to get on better terms.
Cooper and I remained frozen. Neither of us moved, nor spoke, nor had a fucking clue how to get out of our predicament, probably because there wasn’t going to be a way out. Not unless death was considered an option, in which case we were definitely getting out. I felt like a deer in headlights, frozen, frightened and without viable options. I looked up at Cooper and then back into those eyes that seemed to be moving closer to us. I was mesmerized by death. I nearly jumped out of my skin when he spoke.
“Ruby.”
It’s never a good thing when death knows you by name.
35
Cooper grabbed my wrist and squeezed to get my attention.
“He knows who you are, Ruby,” he whispered without moving his mouth.
No shit.
I hadn’t a clue what to do or say. I was mute. I desperately scrounged for a way to negotiate a way out of this one, but deep down I knew I was done for. My mouth continually opened and closed unproductively, like a fish out of water gasping for air, trying to physically project words out. I stared into his deep, green eyes and was paralyzed, interna
lly begging for someone to save me from my verbal breakdown.
He gave me a good look over from head to toe, then obliged.
“Are you hurt?” Sean asked, feigning concern.
Why? Will it ruin the pleasure for you if I’m already wounded?
“I’m fine,” I whispered. “It’s only surface scratches. They bleed more than you’d expect.”
He looked completely unsatisfied by my answer and I had no idea why. I wondered if not being at the top of my game was taking the sport out of it for him, leaving him greatly displeased. I was pretty certain that angering him further was a bad idea.
“I came back for you,” he said.
Funny, I’ve been running from you.
His words chilled me to the bone. Any remote possibility of this being a social call or rescue attempt was thrown out the window in an instant. He really had betrayed me. The only person who seemed to understand me. The only person besides my parents who I’d really cared for, even if he didn’t know it.
Despair took over, quickly sucking away the last bit of will to live that I had. My body slumped, shoulders rounding as my head rejected his gaze for one of the ground at his feet.
“Where are you going?” he asked, patiently.
I didn’t answer. Cooper tried.
“We were trying to es…”
“Ruby,” he snarled, snapping my attention back to his face in a hurry. I assumed that was the response he was looking for. “Where. Are. You. Going?” he asked, pointedly over-enunciating each word as though English was a foreign language to me.
I looked up at Cooper who stood fidgeting slightly beside me, then sighed.
“We were escaping the compound. Cooper has a car waiting for us up ahead.”
“Ah, yes. The Jeep Wrangler I assume. Excellent choice for the off-roading portion of your journey,” he said, still staring us down from a few feet away. “I’m still left wondering exactly where that journey would be to. You wouldn’t be evading my question would you?”
“We don’t know,” I answered, softly. “Somewhere far away from here though.”
“No plans to return home?” he asked with an upward inflection in his voice. “I wondered where you had gone to. I stopped by to pay you a visit when I got back. I was worried when I found your business abandoned and your residence trashed. You really should have somebody attend to your mail if you’re going out of town, you know?” he said, carefully masking his expression as one of casual indifference. I knew better than to buy that. I was getting frustrated with our petty banter and wanted to get the whole thing over with.
But I wanted answers first.
“How did you find me?” I asked while I puffed myself up with some bravado, not all of which was false.
“I have something for you,” he said in his annoyingly complacent voice.
“ANSWER ME!” I shouted, lunging towards him while Cooper not-so-delicately restrained me. I was enraged by the entire situation. The fact that he was shamelessly toying with me was more shit than I would suffer.
He slowly reached into the front pocket of his pants and produced a closed fist to me. He uncurled his fingers to show me my ring, just as he’d done before in my store months ago. How quickly things changed.
His expression softened as he extended his hand and the ring towards me further, silently coaxing me to take it. I couldn’t do it. Eric had taken my ring from me when he sold me to the Alpha. He’d told me that I’d no longer be needing it. Sean had clearly been to pay him a visit, but why? Did he know why I was here? Did he kill Eric to get the info he wanted?
The implications were not good. He obviously went to great lengths to track me down and wasn’t afraid to take a few bodies down in the process. I had to admit that part of me was glad to know that Eric was dead. That fucker deserved it in an epic way. However, knowing that information only further cemented my not-so-distant future. Sean would kill me.
Cooper moved quickly beside me, turning towards the haunted woods. I searched his face for a sign of what was going on, but I didn’t dare take my eyes off of Sean for more than a moment. I could sense Coop’s increasing anxiety. It was different than it had been originally when he saw Sean. It was less alarm, but equal concern. I could only assume one thing - the pack had found us.
“It’s over, Ruby. There’s no way out of this now,” Cooper reported to me with dejection and resignation in his tone. I wondered what had taken him so long to get there.
Sean was getting impatient with me. He inched forward with his arm outstretched, still offering my ring. It was in that moment that I realized Cooper was wrong. He was so wrong. There was a way out. Its outcome may have ultimately been the same, but I wouldn’t be a victim, nor would I wait for death on someone else’s terms.
With my new-found realization releasing the tension from my body, creating an eerie calm, I turned and winked at Cooper. He looked distraught as though he had an inkling of what I was about to do. I then shifted my full gaze to Sean and smiled. He gave me a confused smile in return.
I didn’t know for certain, but I was pretty sure that smile faded quickly when I turned and ran full speed towards the pack who was spilling out into the clearing. Their “weapon” was about to take as many of them down as she could, and it was the most comforting thought I’d had in years. With that, the calm enveloped me, and I Changed.
36
I heard the shouting as I ran, but it came across like voices do when you’re underwater - you know what they are but have no idea what they’re saying. That’s when I realized that I was fully aware and cognizant of what was going on around me while in wolf form. Pleased with my apparent gain in control, I smiled a very strange and unfamiliar smile as I bulldozed into the pack.
It was an odd feeling to be inside a body you weren’t at all familiar with, like trying someone else on for size. Literally. Though I felt perfectly coordinated, something about my movement was awkward. My senses were heightened, yet foreign. It reminded me of when I first gained my vision. I decided to not think, but just act, and take a back seat to my instincts.
I ran like a bull charging the red cape, the cape being the Alpha that I had a bone to pick with. That arrogant son of a bitch is gonna bleed. I took out anything that moved around me. Pack members were desperate to get in between us, to save their master. Cannon fodder. I don’t even remember breaking stride while tearing them limb from limb. It was like chewing gum and walking; it couldn’t have been simpler. I saw no faces, knew no names, and had no remorse. I was nothing like the human me; somebody else was at the helm.
My fur felt matted and heavy, congealing with blood and other unmentionables, and still I broke through the pack like a shark through a school of fish, only they weren’t scattering intentionally. I took the liberty of doing that for them.
I could discern screaming, even as a wolf. It was crystal clear and drove my blood-lust further. It thrilled me when it should have horrified. There were cries of sheer terror, then pain. Most were very short-lived.
There was also distinct howling. I was aware that some of my victims were fighting as wolves, the ones who lived long enough to Change. It seemed to have little effect, though. Nothing could stop me or my reign of terror, and I was starting to think that my plan wasn’t such a kamikaze move after all. I enjoyed every moment.
My vision was tunneled in an inhuman way. All I could see was the target ahead of me, and I was homing in on it. I heard the shouting again getting nearer. The clarity improved with its closing distance, but was still unintelligible. The voice, however, was familiar. It got louder and louder as I neared the Alpha. His followers seemed to have abandoned him to his fate. Smart little doggies.
I pinned him back against a rocky outcropping at the edge of the forest. His face burned with rage and his body coiled with the will to fight, but he knew there was no point and I could smell it. Defeat stung my nostrils, a glorious odor when it came from someone else. I growled and stalked towards him, drawing it out as long as
I could will myself to, wanting him to suffer as I had suffered.
The voice was upon me again. He said something into my ear. I turned to see a man reaching a hand toward me. With cat-like reflexes, he lunged and I saw the flash of light reflect off of the object in his hand. I didn’t have time to react.
Everything went dark.
37
I slowly awoke to a light and low thrumming sound. My eyelids felt impossibly heavy and my throat was perilously dry, with a strange metallic taste in my mouth. My body was slightly reclined with something restraining me, holding me to the seat I was in. A strong pine scent permeated the air with a hint of something I recognized. Cooper. I tried to call his name but instead an incoherent grumble came out. I tried to sit up but I felt so heavy, weighed down by something I could neither see nor feel.
I struggled again with my eyelids, trying to will them open to take in my surroundings. Just as they started to make some progress, a cool hand rested across them accompanied by a light hushing sound.
“Rest, Ruby. I need you to rest,” he whispered so faintly, like he was speaking to an infant. His sensitivity at first was reassuring, but quickly became disconcerting. I didn’t know why he sounded so concerned. Why did I need rest so badly? I fought against my restraint with eyes closed, furiously tugging and thrashing around.
It took about a minute before I realized that this was familiar; I knew the shape and texture of the strap holding me down. I fumbled with my left hand by my waist until I found what I was looking for: the release mechanism. I was in a car. It clicked open and I inelegantly sat up.
“Water” I rasped. “I need some water.” A plastic bottle was placed firmly in my hands and I drank the entire thing. “More.”
I heard the crackle of plastic then the snapping sound of a twist off cap. Again a bottle was placed in my hands, though I drank only part of it. I had plans for the rest. In my more alert state, I realized that my eyes were actually caked shut with something, making it difficult for them to open. I poured water into my left hand and cupped it to my lids in an attempt to flush it out. I repeated it over and over again on both sides. Finally, the crust let go and I was able to carefully but painfully open my eyes. The dash lights flooded in and my retinas burned. I snapped them shut immediately. It was as if they’d never been exposed to light before, as though my rods and cones had no idea how to process such a stress. It took a few minutes of gradually peeking them open and closed to make it tolerable to expose them to the dim lighting of the car.
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