Beasthood (The Hidden Blood Series)

by A. Z. Green

  She didn't bother putting on shoes and as stealthily as she could, she climbed out of her window, landing a few feet from the edge of the nearest field, which rose slightly higher than the path. The faint thud as her feet hit the dusty, gravelly path was loud in the night air.

  It was cooler than inside her room but still humid and sticky. Her white vest and bed shorts clung to her uncomfortably.

  She breathed in the air; the smells of the night clogging her sinuses, making her dizzy. She panted, listening to the sounds of crickets and calls of the forest wildlife. The sound of a field mouse scuttling by made her flinch. She sniggered under her breath, shaking her head at her jumpiness. Then she scanned with her tired but sharp eyes across the fields to her right, towards the main building that was as black as ink with only a faint outline against the sky. She then panned back across the fields focusing momentarily on the greenhouses that reflected the light of the moon. She gazed up at it.

  Over half of the luminescent moon was visible in the midnight-blue sky. The stars were out in all their shining glory; the night curtain abundant with them.

  She flashed another look around the fields until she was sure it was safe to move. She wasn't sure what she expected but she knew that any sign of people would mean she might get caught and that meant possible punishment for her. The thought of the totem poles made her walk faster. She was unable to jog or run with stiff limbs.

  It took her just over five minutes before she reached the lake. She could just make out the inky blob from the shimmers of light reflecting the moon. The sound of the small river filled the air with raucous splashing as the water crashed against rocks. Here the current was stronger. It overpowered all sounds making her uneasy, though she wasn't sure why. The idea of being caught didn't exactly sound like a picnic, but there was something else.

  She ignored her paranoia and dipped her toes into the huge stream. It was cool but not freezing. She sighed with delight. She bent down and cupped her hands, pouring the water over her face. She imagined steam hissing off her skin and snickered. The fever made her a little giddy.

  She leant forward and, holding her breath, she dunked her head into the water. She stayed under for no more than half a minute before a loud, sharp vibration reverberated through the water coming from somewhere above.

  She jumped back and gasped, her wet hair flopped back splashing water across her chest and back.

  She darted her eyes at the border of trees. Nothing. She looked nervously across the river, then the lake. Apart from the splashing, trickling, crashing water there was nothing. No sounds. No crickets, no wildlife. She listened hard, forcing her hearing to penetrate through the distracting cacophony of the river.

  She'd heard something. It had been loud and sharp enough to vibrate the water. It had sounded like...

  “A growl,” she whispered. She tensed. Her blood turned to ice water.

  As if the creature had sensed her fear another guttural growl thundered through the air. It was boisterous and clear and it was coming from her side of the river.

  Right behind her.

  She saw movement in the trees to her north-west, distracting her. She could see the shadow wasn't human. She tried not to squeal, clamping her lips tightly.

  She heard something prowling through the grass at her back and swung round. The field behind her was overgrown, the grass reached up to her knees.

  She could see a huge shadow crouched down about fifty feet away. Between the shards of grass there were two dark, piercing eyes, the whites reflected in the moonlight, staring straight at her. She was paralyzed with fear.

  She saw a flash of white, her mind processed it as sharp teeth before she had time to realize it herself and her legs reacted so fast she stumbled forward. She fell onto her knees, her right one landed on a sharp rock, sending a shooting pain through her leg. She gasped.

  She heard a loud bark that she knew was the creature breaking into a run and she jumped up, wheezing in panic. Her knee cried out in anguish but she forced herself to move, feeling the trickle of blood down her leg.

  She sprinted across the shallow area of river and crashed through it to the other side. If the predator couldn't see her, it could definitely hear her.

  She ripped through the trees knowing it was a bad idea but was desperate to get away. The need to get away was fueled by panic, all sense had been stripped off her.

  She dodged the enormous trees and protruding roots, weeds, and bushes, all the time aware of how much closer the creature was gaining. She looked back, defying the screaming voice in her mind ordering her not to and saw the gigantic, muscular Beast of death rampaging towards her.

  How had she made it this far?

  That didn't matter to her when she saw two more pounding towards her, not far behind this one, and closing in. Then another three. She couldn't look back anymore, nearly getting whipped in the face by a low hanging branch as she turned. She sprung forward so fast as she increased her speed that she was leaning almost parallel to the floor.

  Growls lashed the air, rabbits and other rodents scurried away, hiding in their little hidey-holes in the ground and under tree roots. At that moment she wished to God to be that small and disappear into the ground.

  She shrieked when she sensed the Beast was inches away from her. She could feel its hot, damp breath on her back, hear it panting and snarling, its claws chillingly clicking on the ground as it ran.

  She couldn't help but look again but she misjudged the level of the ground, and fell into a pothole, twisting her ankle. Her body whipped round, just escaping being lashed apart by the Beast's claws and fell flat on her back.

  A screech got lodged in her throat as the ground winded her. She felt a sharp waft of air as the Beast jumped over her rather than risk tripping and landed a few feet past her head.

  She sat up, grasping her twisted, throbbing ankle as she gaped at the Beast.

  This is it? This is how I'm going to die? She thought, horrified and oddly disappointed. I'm gonna be eaten alive...by my own species...? If she hadn't been so frozen with fear she'd have probably laughed at the irony.

  The Beast snarled at her, his small, piercing eyes skewered her in place.

  His brown coat was like the colour of tree bark. He had fine hair all over his body and face. His body was enormous, stocky and a cross between a wolf and a bear. His face however had human features. His eyes were human but glazed over with blood-lust and barbarous superiority. Jaz could see his disdain at her weakness and his eyes laughed evilly at the expense of her terror.

  She felt around the ground with one trembling hand but there were no rocks or branches to use as a weapon.

  The Beast crouched, ready to attack. She gasped half a second before it dived straight for her. Without thinking, she lashed out with her right hand, which was swiftly followed by a sharp yelp hacking through the night air. Then she realized she wasn't being used as a chew toy.

  She opened her eyes, saw the Beast with one paw clutching his bloody face. He snarled when their eyes met and didn't give any warning before pouncing on her. Before his claws slashed her insides, a whip of cold air hit her face and the elephantine weight of the Beast was suddenly lifted from her, followed by a smack of two solid bodies above her and then a thunderous crashing through the trees.

  Jaz laid frozen on the ground, too terrified to move. The sounds of growls and then one Beast's pained whine made her jump up to sit. Her breath was ragged and jittery as she listened, her wild eyes darting from tree to tree. The growls suddenly stopped dead and the forest was ominously silent. Jaz didn't know whether that was her cue to run, scream or just let them eat her and get it over with.

  Instead she waited, and waited, for what seemed like hours before there was movement in the -now cracked and damaged- trees ten feet or so to the left of her. A Beast appeared, moving very slowly with his head down. It wasn't the same one who'd attacked her. She saw no sign of that one.

  Jaz held her breath but as she watched it, s
eeing how it moved cautiously, not making eye contact with her, she knew somehow it wasn't going to attack her. She still couldn't stop shaking with fear.

  This Beast was longer than the other, slimmer but with broad shoulders. It had less hair on its head and had strong features from what she could see. It hid most of its face from her as if anxious, though she was sure she was only imagining that.

  As she watched it, somehow knowing again that the Beast was allowing her to observe it, she saw how the skin was crinkled up on the nose like a gorilla or a canine when it bares its teeth. The nose wasn't quite a snout and still retained most of its human-like form. The jaw was the most canine feature of its face. The chin was long, pointing downwards allowing for the teeth of the Beast to fit in the slightly human face, giving it an under-bite.

  She also saw as it got closer that it wasn't the darkness that made it appear black- the other Beast had been brown in the dull light of the moon-this one however was really black. A deep, jet black. She remembered what Edda had said and immediately knew who it was.

  Other Beasts appeared in the clearing to her right. She whimpered, staring at them in horror, her muscles strained and ready to bolt, but she couldn't move. The oak trees surrounding them allowed enough access for light to cast eerie shadows across their faces and bodies, exaggerating the contours of their features. She swallowed loudly.

  They held back as if waiting for something.

  The black Beast stood a few feet from Jaz, stopping to look their way. He barked a command and they slowly edged back dissolving into the darkness.

  Jaz flickered a look at him. He didn't speak, but she wasn't sure if it was because he couldn't or just that he didn't want to.

  Neither of them moved for a moment.

  When he stepped forward Jaz reacted, springing back until she was against a tree. She gasped at the shooting pain in her ankle. The Beast moved forward and though she knew he only wanted to help, she shrunk further back into the tree.

  She was so startled and frightened beyond words and rationality she couldn't let him near her, even though he meant her no harm.

  “I'm fine,” she said shakily, not meeting his eyes. She'd held up her right hand in signal as she'd said this. It remained stuck in midair when she laid eyes on it and saw something that made her eyeballs nearly pop out of their sockets.

  Her fingernails had grown into claws. The hand had started shaping into an animal-like appendage, like his, and had gotten stuck between human and Beast. Not fully Changed. And staring her in the face.

  She nearly threw up in her mouth. Her gut froze like a block of ice inside her.

  Despite her agony, she jumped up faster than she thought herself able, and broke into a frantic, limping run through the trees in front of her, away from the pack of scary Beasts that had just been there. And away, as far as she could get, from Nik.

  He howled after her just once, which sounded strangely to her like he was calling her back. He then suddenly broke off and in the silence she could hear her own voice whimpering incomprehensibly all the way back to her cabin.

  *

  She burst through the front door waking up Edda. Almost stumbling, she hustled towards the bathroom at the end of the hall and before she had time to turn on the light but just enough time to lift up the seat, she vomited into the toilet bowl until nothing came up. After that she just shook uncontrollably, hugging the toilet as she rested her chin on the cool porcelain.

  Edda watched her silently from the door. After twenty minutes she put a glass of water on Jaz's bedside table and went to bed, not speaking a word of it.

  After an hour, Jaz climbed into bed and slept restlessly, terrorized by terrible nightmares.

  ~Chapter 29- Brew~

  Tuesday, June 14th

  For almost two weeks since that night she hadn't seen Nik once.

  Her ankle had swelled to three times its original size by the next day and her throat was so sore, as if it had been sandblasted. She woke up groggy and weak and refused to look at her hands though she knew since she'd been stuck in the toilet the night before that the clawed hand had gone back to normal.

  Edda didn't reprimand her like Jaz had expected. She didn't even ask what had happened. It was then that Jaz knew Nik had said something. Of course he had. And anyway, how else could Edda have seen her injuries, seen her puke her guts up as if she'd drank a whole liquor store and not ask any questions, if she didn't know how it had happened in the first place?

  To keep Jaz's mind busy and far away from that night, she helped de-weed the vegetable patches, plant new seeds in pots and when her ankle was good enough to walk on, she cleaned out the greenhouses spending a lot of time with the gang.

  Most of the time, after chores or on weekends they chilled out by the lake whilst the weather was still rain-free and hot. Many people swam in it after they'd finished work. They had picnics and everyone shared their food and passed it around as though they were all one close-knit family. It helped Jaz forget what they became at nighttime.

  She wondered if they could change during the day too. It gave her chills thinking about it so she locked the idea away. The problem with locking things away was, it made her very distant and closed off.

  If Skye noticed that she was often distant she didn't make a point of it. Instead she carried on being the much needed distraction to a point that Jaz couldn't -and certainly didn't want to- imagine Skye roaming around at night as one of those blood-thirsty Beasts. She shared her books and music with Jaz, always trying to make her laugh, and more times than not, succeeding.

  A truck that came from outside regularly brought back things like books, DVD's, CD's, iPods, iPads. One time they brought two TV's and another time some speakers, all brand new. Also clothes and food that they didn't grow themselves.

  The two men who drove the truck were friendly but kept their distance from Jaz. One of them was in his fifties, and reminded her a lot of her uncle. He looked like a retired boxer, with hazel eyes, a grey moustache and a constant frown. She'd never heard his name but the other was called David. A pretty ordinary name in comparison to all the strange names she'd heard since she'd been here. He was in his late thirties, early forties and looked a lot like Viggo Mortensen with dark blonde hair, long on top and swept to one side to reveal a golden complexion, bronzed by the sun.

  He would flash her a polite smile but it was clear that he also regarded her as not one of the Pack, though he and his companion were rarely in the community, always travelling.

  The 63 members accounted for those presently living in the community. Adding all the others who went to school, lived or worked outside made it close to the hundred mark if not more.

  Jaz hadn't been brought up in any Pack, let alone this one and a lot of people tended to remind her of that fact. They were all polite and generous but she could see the cautiousness in their eyes. She understood it -expected it- but it didn't make her feel any better.

  When a random woman called Signy (Skye had muttered it before the pretty middle-aged blonde's approach) handed her a plump pillow to prop her sprained ankle on, that was when Jaz realized how much she wanted to be accepted in this Pack. She hadn't realized it until that moment because although Signy had been so kind to her, she had the same look all of them -apart from her friends- gave her every time they had to make eye contact. Guarded, cautious, unsure, searching.

  She'd spent most of her time there with her little group of friends who she'd become very close with, especially Skye and Alf. They always had time for her and made her feel involved. And they strangely reminded her of Lisa and Ellie. Skye had similar traits to Ellie, and Alf to Lisa -though Jaz would never tell Lisa to her face how she'd compared her with a guy.

  Nik stayed out of her mind whenever she was with her friends. It was at nighttime she thought of him. She'd sworn off reading Lora's diary anymore because she saw how wrong it was to invade someone's most personal, intimate thoughts even if they were gone- but most of all because it made her think
of Nik. In intimate and needy ways. Constantly reminding her of how envious she felt of her dead sister, which made her feel like the most disgusting person on the planet.

  And she still wasn't sure whether those feelings were even real or not. She didn't know what she felt about him anymore.

  On that Tuesday, four days after her narrow escape from death, Skye had told her she needed to get some supplies from the pharmacy. Jaz had never seen it before and although she still had to limp everywhere, she'd asked to come. Skye was so happy that Jaz seemed to take an interest in her job, she didn't mind supporting her as Jaz hobbled all the way there, or that it took twice as long.

  Jaz had never been to the pharmacy, and hadn't passed that particular part of the grounds the whole time she'd been there. It was west of the main building, further away from the barbecue area that from a distance, Jaz could see was complete. There were still a small handful of workers there, no doubt adding the finishing touches. She could smell the paint fumes.

  She hadn't bumped into Fraya since their run in, purposely avoiding the stables though she'd been looking forward to horse-riding. That was going to have to wait until Fraya was off duty and until Jaz's ankle had fully healed.

  She remembered how Fraya had always been glued to Sunhild, when she saw the redhead passing through the trees alone with a paint pot. Something about that idea was confusing. She was sure she remembered Lora writing about how they were friends too. Maybe Sunhild wasn't the kind of girl to take sides between friends.

  Whenever Jaz had needed to pass by the stables, Alf had become overprotective, keeping a look out as he stood discreetly in front of Jaz like a human shield. After her outburst that day at the site, he seemed to understand more than anyone how much his protectiveness meant to Jaz.

  It wasn't necessary anyway. Fraya wasn't stupid enough to make that mistake again. She'd been punished in an unpleasant way and even though it was Fraya, Jaz didn't take pleasure in imagining her punishment.