by Cecy Robson
I slowly stand, careful not to make a sound. It’s late, almost three in the morning, based on the wind-up clock perched on the battered bedside table. I’m in an old apartment in a bad part of town. Restless yelling from disorderly neighbors ring out from several floors above and below. Cars speed by and teens, out too late and unsupervised, scream obscenities from the streets. It’s chaos outside despite the late hour, a deep contrast to the peace I sense inside this home.
In the bed, four little girls lay sleeping. The smallest one with blonde curls is tucked between two girls with jet-black hair. Celia is fast asleep at the end, closest to the door, her arms stretched out above her head, her thick lashes fanning her cheeks.
I recognize her by the way her wavy brown hair spills over her pillow and by how even in sleep, she seems on guard. She can’t be more than nine, but here she is, already watching out for those she most loves.
The sound of breaking wood has me racing toward the door. My hand ghosts over the knob just as a shotgun blasts on the other side. A woman screams. The next blast silences her forever. I don’t have to scent the bitter aroma of death to know as much.
The four little girls tucked beneath the sheets jolt. Celia jumps from the bed, landing in a crouch. The girl with the black curly hair lifts the baby and helps her down while the one in ponytails hunkers after Celia.
“Mama?” the baby asks.
I hold out a hand and bring a finger to my lips, trying to quiet them and keep them in place. But when the smell of blood seeps through the door and Celia’s little nose twitches, I know there won’t be anything I can do to hold her back.
She bolts to the door. I try to snatch her in my arms, but they go right through her and the next little girl who follows.
I charge, growling, ready to fight and ready to kill.
Four men stand over the bodies of Celia’s parents, muttering in Spanish. They’re not wearing masks. The sawed-off shotgun the man in front used continues to smoke. They don’t care about the damage they caused, or about the four little girls frozen in terror just a few feet away. They’re here to do a job and do it fast.
Celia inches forward, staring at the open chests where her parents’ hearts once beat, her paling face indicative of the horror surrounding her. Blood soaks the mismatched sheets on the pullout coach where her mother and father lay, their bodies so decimated that what remains of their lifelines trickles to the edge to drip on the floor.
I leap in the air, calling forth my wolf, only to crash on the other side in human form. I leap up, swinging my arms, trying to take down the men any way I can. But my arms go through them. I’m not really here and neither is my wolf. It doesn’t stop me from seeing and feeling it all.
“Mira,” the man in a black beanie says, motioning to the girls.
He lifts the shotgun, aiming at Celia’s face.
“No!”
I lurch in front of him, my arms out. He doesn’t pull the trigger. He merely waits as the other men unsheathe the knives at their belts and stalk toward the little girls.
The three smallest ones are crying. Not Celia. Her tigress eyes replace her own, cementing the men in place. Her gaze latches onto each one and she deeply inhales, committing their faces and scents to memory.
Celia takes a step forward and the men take a step back, their expressions riddled with fear and shock. The man with the shotgun cocks it and aims. It’s then that Celia changes, charging the men and sending them screaming from the apartment.
It’s a small victory. The damage is done. Those men didn’t wear masks for a reason. They never planned on leaving witnesses behind.
I kneel to speak to Celia, to hold her, to offer comfort for the unimaginable. But her tigress form sees past me, toward the sobbing little girls and the role of their protector she must now hold.
As the scene dissolves around me, fury and heartache churn my stomach with disgust. This is what Celia saw as a child, and what continues to haunt the beautiful girl in my arms.
I can feel her warmth and smell her delicate and sweet aroma. I hold her tighter, afraid to let go and worried what we’ll see next.
This time, when I blink my eyes open, I’m sitting on an inner-city bus. Celia sits across from me, her arms crossed and her glare training on anyone who dares to look at her. Her hair is a big mane of waves, like it is in the present. She’s a little younger and thinner. Her curves aren’t as developed, but she remains just as fierce.
A dark green camouflage T-shirt stretches tight across her skin. Her feet are shoved into well-worn canvas sneakers and torn denim shorts that expose her lean muscular legs. It’s late afternoon. Summer by the feel of the humidity thickening the air. We’re back in the city her parents died in. I recognize the scent of pollution and the ripe smell of garbage.
The bus rolls to a stop and she gets off. I step off with her, wishing I could snap the necks of the men and boys leering at Celia as she bounces out. She can’t see me. She can’t hear me. I only wish she could.
Spanish, rap, and hip-hop music compete for attention along the stores lining the littered street. This part of the city is disgusting at best. I wrinkle my nose, overwhelmed by the scent of urine and the filth soiling the sidewalks.
“I know where you’re going, and I know why you feel you have to,” I say to her. “I just wish I could hunt by your side. You shouldn’t be alone. Not for something like this, baby.”
She’s tracking the men who killed her parents. It’s not just because of what she told me that I know. It’s the way she carries herself and how she seems to take everything in, not willing to miss a single detail.
Anger sears my veins, melding them to my bones. If anyone ever hurt my parents, I would make them pay. I understand why she’s here. But I can’t stand that she is. As weres, our beasts take the brunt of our pain and torment. It’s how we’re able to defend and guard the earth for centuries against the evil it’s exposed to.
Celia isn’t a were. Every brush with agony she endures is hers alone to bear.
I should be with her, to protect and save her from herself. Most of all, to spare her from feeling so alone. I can taste her misery, just as I taste the salt on her skin. She’s sweating and tired and too many things someone so young and kind shouldn’t feel.
“Hola, niña,” a man too old to be looking at a teenage girl calls out.
Celia whips around, the fury she pegs him with making him stumble. He crashes into another man, starting a fight. Their friends join in, turning the fight into an all-out brawl.
Celia ignores them, cutting right and down a street filled with apartments that should be condemned. This city block reminds me of purgatory. Empty souls, their life and hope long ago stolen from them, shuffle blindly along the streets, waiting for death to finish them off.
A homeless man stretches out his free hand as Celia passes. His other clutches a bottle wrapped in a paper bag. I keep pace with Celia, my keen senses taking everything in, although I’m helpless to intervene.
The next group we pass is a pimp, giving girls as young as Celia their instructions for the night. I almost lose it when he tries to snag Celia’s attention, but the pimp senses she’s different, respecting the predator lying beneath the surface. He’s not stupid enough to follow, and just smart enough to stay alive.
With every step she takes further down the street, I struggle to stay in control. I barely manage as more of the city’s damaged residents approach. Drug addicts stagger past her, scratching at their skin and begging her for money. A woman in trashy black underwear sneers at Celia, calling her names the woman likely often hears herself. Her face is swollen with bruises and track marks run up her arms. I pity her in a way. Yet, I want to pull Celia far away from her reach.
We’re almost halfway down the block when Celia’s determined steps slow. She stops in front of a small stoop, lifting her chin as her gaze shifts right. As I watch, her nails protrude about an inch and her nose twitches.
&
nbsp; She found him. Her tigress showed her the way.
With a deep breath, Celia opens the door and bolts toward the stairs. I follow her up three flights. Celia’s out of breath by the time she reaches the top. She’s not tired. She’s scared. Still, her beast drives her forward, unwilling to allow her to leave.
There are six doors on the floor. All brown and in need of sanding and a fresh coat of paint. Celia stops in front of each one, breathing deeply, taking her time. She reaches the end and starts her return, only to stop at the next door she reaches.
She presses her ear against the door and closes her eyes, listening. I close my eyes, too, breathing slowly as I extend my senses past the door and beyond.
A TV is blaring one of those old sitcoms they only show on cable. It almost muffles the soft cries of a woman. But I still hear it and so does Celia.
She pushes away from the door, glancing around.
“Don’t go in there. Please,” I beg. “Not by yourself.”
In theory, she’s supposed to live and find her way to me. Right now, that theory does nothing to ease my worry. She squeezes the doorknob and gives a hard push, breaking through the deadbolt. I respect her need for revenge. But the price she pays destroys me.
Celia walks in, trembling violently as she passes the small kitchen. The sink is overrun with dirty dishes and the floor is covered with spilled flour. Bugs skitter through the mess, greedily getting their fill. On the stove, a pot of soup with carrots and cabbage floating on top reaches a boil. Freshly made tortillas line the counter and a block of white cheese with a knife sticking from it rests on a brown plastic plate.
Someone was busy cooking. Someone else interrupted the process. Both are still here.
Celia barely glances at the kitchen or the tiny living space that follows. She stalks forward, shaking out her hands even as her claws extend.
A deep satisfied growl builds as she approaches the room where the TV’s volume is set on high and the woman continues to cry. I expect her to kick open the door. I would. Instead, she slowly pokes it open with one of her nails, giving her time to take everything in, but not enough time for the man who shot her parents to act.
He watches TV with his hands folded behind his head, ignoring the young woman crying in bed beside him. She could be one of the prostitutes we saw on the way in. She could be his daughter. It doesn’t matter. He doesn’t care either way.
His eyes widen when he sees Celia’s tigress eyes set on his throat. “No. Por favor. No!”
He reaches for the shotgun next to his bed. The young woman screams. But Celia is too fast for either of them. She leaps on top of him, yanking the barrel of the shotgun out of his hands and bringing the butt crashing down on his skull.
One strike. That’s all it takes to splatter the contents all over the walls.
“Dios mio!” the woman shrieks, her Spanish accent thick. “You killed him. You killed him!”
The woman falls off the bed, trying to cover herself with the sheet, as if the flimsy fabric can somehow protect her. But this young woman isn’t Celia’s prey and Celia has no use for her.
Celia smashes the rifle against the wall, bending the injection port and breaking the stock. She tosses the useless thing on the floor and walks away, stopping in the kitchen long enough to swipe the tortillas in cheese.
“Diabla,” the woman screams. “Diabla!”
Celia doesn’t take the stairs out. She tucks the food into her shirt and charges toward the fire escape. With barely a sound, she races down the next two levels, leaping over the final railing and landing in a crouch along the narrow alleyway.
I follow, worried she’s seconds from falling apart.
A few miles away, a police car blasts its sirens. Celia retraces her steps, stopping only long enough to hand the homeless man the food she stole. She hurries along, catching the next bus before it finishes closing its doors. This doesn’t seem to be the right bus. It’s just the one she needs to take her far away from the scene.
She drops a few bills into the slot and stretches out in the back seat. It’s only when the bus moves away from the curb and onto the main road that she finally breaks down.
I can’t touch her, and she can’t feel me. That doesn’t stop me from curling around her and wishing I could take all her pain away.
Chapter Twelve
The next few memories I experience with Celia are of her hunting the other men who killed her parents. I wake up to find her a little bit older and more troubled by her burdens.
The weather has turned cold enough to see her breath as she prowls down the street. The man she’s stalking was the one who pulled his knife out first, ready to kill her and her little sisters without a second though. She follows him to a triple X movie theatre. The man sitting at the box office allows Celia through without question. I wanted to throw him through the service counter. It’s clear she’s underage and walking into an establishment where she doesn’t belong.
Celia’s only saving grace was that this mission was faster. One slash of her claws across his throat was all it took. His gurgled scream was ignored by the men sitting a few rows ahead. She shook out her hands, trying to rid herself of the blood that stained her claws.
Disgusted with the environment and by her actions, she left quickly, shoving her hands into the jacket of her coat to hide the evidence of the kill.
The next man Celia found wasn’t easy prey. Not like the other two. It was very late at night. Spring had arrived, but the remaining cold was more akin to winter.
The man waited on the corner of a residential neighborhood, huddling into his coat as he spoke to someone on the phone. He pocketed his phone several minutes later, spitting at the ground and growing more impatient as time sluggishly passed by.
Celia and I watched him from the side of a boarded-up house just across the street. The grass was overgrown in most of the yards, and moonlight cast a glow along broken beer bottles carelessly tossed on the sidewalk. Despite the lack of care for the environment and that every home was in rough shape, this place was worlds better than the inner city. It still didn’t make it easier to witness Celia there on her own.
A metal gate squeaked opened a few houses down and three teens swaggered out. There were three boys in gang colors and a girl on her phone trailing them. They tried to act tough, but their toughness diminished when they neared the man we’d followed.
The oldest boy nodded and passed the man a roll of wadded bills. The man exchanged the bills for what resembled a white brick secured in plastic. The boy tucked it into his pants and bunched his jacket over it. It seemed like this was his first time doing something like this. Based on his stance, it wouldn’t be the last.
There were no words spoken. The deal was made and now it was done. The teens quickly dispersed, the girl continuing to talk on her phone and pretending she hadn’t seen what she had, even though her strut suggested she was proud to be a part of it.
These weren’t good men that Celia hunted. That didn’t make the kills any easier on her.
Celia waited until the teens disappeared back into the house and the man crossed the street. She crouched low, biding her time until the man drew closer.
His close proximity should have made things easier for Celia from a hunter’s perspective, except this man was used to fighting those bigger and stronger than him.
Celia pounced, snagging him in a headlock and covering his mouth so he couldn’t scream. Rage blazed across his eyes as Celia dragged him behind the house. He kicked her in the knee, hard enough to cause her to lose her hold. She limped after him, tackling his waist and bringing him down on the sidewalk.
They rolled around, each fighting for control. The thin jacket Celia wore offered little protection against the broken glass. It cut into the fabric, puncturing her skin and allowing blood to seep through.
The man kicked at her, striking her hard in the nose and momentarily stunning her. He staggered into the next yard, sec
uring a large stick and breaking it across Celia’s jaw when she charged. Her mouth pooled with blood, but this time, she wasn’t letting go.
Celia clung to him, grabbing tight to his head as he begged for mercy. If he could have heard me, I would have told him Celia had no mercy left to give. She snapped his neck, the blood spilling from her mouth soaking his coat when she finally let him go.
Celia hobbled onto the bus several blocks later. She dropped her money, keeping her scarf pressed tightly against her face. Most of the passengers ignored her. Some stared. But not one person asked if she was okay.
“She’s a kid!” I yelled to them. “She’s hurt and alone. What’s wrong with you people?”
My shouts meant nothing to them or to her. Again, I fell to her side, offering her gentle words she couldn’t hear and an embrace I never wanted to break.
“One more, baby,” I said to her. “Just one more.”
The best way I could describe the moments that followed were that I fell into a state of mourning. Celia hadn’t died, but her innocence and spirit had taken a harsh beating.
I cursed several times. The beast controlled Celia and incited her need to hunt. She didn’t understand that this desire for vengeance scared Celia, and failed to offer the retribution her tigress felt she deserved. The way Celia trembled and how she curled into herself afterward was hard to watch. Yet, I couldn’t help thinking the actions of her beast were righteous.
As terrified and hurt as Celia was, she needed to do this for her and her sisters.
And she couldn’t do it without the help of her tigress.
My reasoning did little to comfort me. Like I said, my beast could protect my conscience and ease the strain my actions caused. Celia’s tigress didn’t have that same power.
“I want to keep you with me,” I whispered, my lips grazing over her cheek. “I can’t let you go back to that life.”