by Rae Foxx
“But you’re okay?” Evan stopped his body-disposal dance to grab my arms and turn me in Owen's arms, dark eyes dragging up and down my body as he scanned me head to toe. He even went so far as to lift my shirt and make me turn my head left and right so he could make sure I was fine.
Thank god I didn't get any blood on me. He looked at the green slime and curled his nose.
“I told you, I’m okay. Goddamnit. It’s not me that’s dead…. hanging by a fucking hook in the freezer.” God, I really needed to stop putting that imagery in my head.
"Damn! He was hooked to death? That’s badass," Evan mused, mimicking a butcher’s hook through the neck with uncanny accuracy, just as the chief of police that I had run away from moments ago barged his way into the Vagile Ajna.
I jumped with a shriek as crystals and bells chimed, clinging to Owen as both he and Evan went into super-ultra-protector mode.
"Figured we'd seen you soon, Fuckin’," Poetry sang from the counter, the pipe having vanished again.
My spine straightened. I would have thought she would be a bit more polite to him, especially when I was almost, possibly, maybe about to be accused of murder.
"You can't call him that?" I tried to stand up for him, but my aunt just chuckled, the poor cop looking very confused.
"Call him what?" She said, wafting her hand in the air as she tried to dispel the smoke.
"Fucking?" I whispered, trying to give him apologetic eyes that I hoped also said, 'please don't accuse me of murder'.
"Ha!" Poetry gave a heartless laugh as she lit sage, beginning to wave a bundle of the stuff around. "Come on chief, didn't you introduce yourself?"
She turned on him and he straightened his back and uniform, looking nervous all of a sudden.
"She left before I had the chance."
"Well by all means, then, continue on." The cop rubbed the back of his neck as Poetry pulled out a big bag of trail mix and was popping fistfuls into her mouth like she was in front of a movie.
No, no, no. My life didn't need any more drama.
“Scarlet,” The officer said stoically, his brown eyes boring into me, making me feel exposed and alight in all the right... wrong... places. “I asked you to stay in the car. And seeing as you were showing signs of shock, I felt it necessary to check in. Can’t have a witness fainting and hitting their head. We’ve had enough tragedy today.”
“I’m sorry, who the fuck are you?” Owen said, stepping forward to stand between me and the cop. His chest puffed out while his sand cat mewed in what I was sure he meant as a warning. The Chief just chuckled. I wanted to warn him to take Owen seriously, but I also kind of wanted to see Owen claw his eyes out...
“I’m sorry. My name is Chief Phoquin. I’m the police chief around here. And you are?” He stuck out his hand in what I was sure he thought was a greeting. I already knew we had bigger problems.
His badge may say Phoquin, but how I was pronouncing that in my head was nowhere near what it was.
The man’s name was Fuckin. This place couldn’t get more innuendo-ish if it wanted to. Owen turned and looked at Evan and I knew they weren’t going to let his name go. Not by a long shot.
“Wait a damned minute.” Evan’s voice cracked with laughter. “You’re Chief Fuckin? You’re the Fuckin Chief?” Evan said, his voice strained as he tried to keep a straight face. He may have been able to pull it off, but Owen was already cracking up. Yep. They were going to drag him through the mud. I kind of wanted to save him from this but then again, I wanted to see if he would hold his own.
“Well, you can just call me Travis.” He said through gritted teeth, the top of his ears growing red as his hands gripped the hem of his pants. “Never been called the Chief of Fuckin’. That’s a good one.”
His voice made it clear that he had, in fact, been called the Chief of Fuckin' and he hated it. If only that was all my twins were going to do.
My cats weren’t done, not by a long shot. “Wait, Evan, he’s the Chief Fuckin of Cummings.”
“The Fuckin’ Chief. Fuckin of Cummings Cove.”
“Cummings’ own Fuckin Chief.”
“Best Fuckin Chief I know.”
The two bantered back and forth, laughing so loud the crystals that hung from the ceiling jangled and chimed. They even had Poetry cracking up so much that she almost choked on her trail mix. Heat built in Travis’ eyes and even as they poked fun at his name, he never stopped looking at me. And oddly, he didn't seem too bugged. He seemed lost. Swallowed.
“Well, around here and around this female, we are the only one Fuckin and Cumming. You feel us?” Owen suddenly snarled, pulling me out of the heat in Travis' eyes. His lips turned up as I shivered, a trail of ice and fire moving up my spine. The twins’ banter stopped as they both stepped forward, Owen putting his hand on my hip as Evan tightened his grip behind me.
Oh no these fuckers didn’t just make a caveman claim on me like I was a steak.
I sidestepped their grips and looked at Travis. “I'm fine, I promise, but I don't think I can answer any more questions tonight. I just... tomorrow maybe?"
He nodded once, stepping closer even as the twins closed ranks. "Of course, as we investigate further, we may need an official interview and statement. No leaving town or anything until then...I’ll...I’m... Thank you so much for your time."
His words fumbled as much as he did before he finally thrust his hand toward me, his spine straight while he stared at me with that same look from before.
He stood there, his fingers firm and waiting as I reached forward and gripped his hand. It was the first time his skin had touched mine, the deep brown a beautiful contrast against my own. His skin was warm and soft, but it was the hyper shot of electricity that wound up my spine that made me gasp. The same feeling as before when he’d touched me in his truck, like a zap of desire. Want.
I wanted him.
No, my fox needed him.
The small hunter inside of me was yipping and jumping as though she had found a new animal to prey on.
To bond with.
What. The. Hell?
He gasped, the same sensation straightening his spine. A hiss poured from one of the twins.
"Take care of her," Travis whispered, still looking at me, his voice still stuttering as he pulled his hand back. "Take care, Scarlet.”
He fled the place faster than I’d sprinted from his cop car—truck, whatever. I couldn't think, I had no idea what had happened, but I wasn't quite ready to share that with the twins. So, instead, I got mad.
I whirled around on my mates, embarrassed and completely mortified at their behavior. I wasn’t surprised, but still. “Chief Fucking? What the hell was that?”
Evan shrugged and Owen just cocked one eyebrow. “What? He was nice. I hope he finds the killer. Looks like he takes his job very seriously. I mean you kind of have to be serious with a name like that.”
Evan swore under his breath. “Fuck, Scarlet. I can smell your arousal. In case you haven’t noticed, this fuck train is already full. No more stops or tickets available.”
“Fuck yeah, it is,” Owen replied, before I could respond the two of them were gyrating their hips and dry-humping the air and the bookshelves and singing about the fuck train. They pumped their fists in the air, making train sounds and doing a weird humping dance all around the store.
“How strange fate works," my aunt bemoaned as she leaned on the counter, sucking on her pipe again. "I had no idea the scavenger would be so close to home. But the goddesses have spoken. And so shall it be.”
Oh, fuck me. My mates were children and my aunt was turning into fucking Gandalf, or even more Gandalf-y.
Gandalf and a fuck train... Cummings Cove was certainly living up to its name.
15
Sleep continued to elude me. If I wasn’t circling through thoughts of the wolf with the eyepatch it was… well… you know.
The second a bit of dawn tried to peek over the horizon I was out of bed, dressed, and on my wa
y to the town’s only grocery store. Which was also one of the few places that didn't have some kind of dirty name. It was brandished with a neon sign that simply said 'Food'. It was also the biggest building in town from what I could tell.
Its large windows illuminated the faded blue light of dawn in squares of yellow, showcasing the aisles and stacks of food inside. It looked like every other grocery store I had been to; I could practically hear the overly sunny elevator music from here.
Walking through the scarlet hum of the massive neon sign, I slid through the automatic door that ground a little too loudly and a little too slowly. Okay, so maybe the place wasn't in as much tip-top shape as I had assumed. Grabbing one of those plastic mini-baskets, I made my way past the cashiers.
Strike that.
Cashier. Singular. There was only one cashier, one line, and one register in this place. Hell, they didn’t even have belts to move your groceries toward the person checking you out, just a weird ramp that had been used so often the paint and wood was ground down. The cashier looked up as I entered, nodded, popped her gum and went back to the "dog fancy" magazine she was reading.
Well, I guess I found one person who didn't shriek and run away just from looking at me. I would even take the fake smile she had given me as a win.
Creepy almost-carousel elevator music played through speakers along with static like they were using music from a record player. The place smelled musty and dank, like someone had scrubbed the floor with a moldy mop or hadn’t used enough cleaner in the bucket to actually take away the germs. Not that anyone had mopped recently. Sticky floors followed me every time I took a step, my shoes crackling against the separation of floor and rubber sole. Gross, but I would deal with it if it meant food in my tiny kitchen. Especially coffee.
With all this lack of sleep I was desperate for some coffee, which was going to be my first stop.
Stopping at the first aisle, I looked up, hoping the signs would help me learn the layout so I could get what I needed.
It was official, this place was nothing like a regular grocery store. There were no pretty signs that labeled the aisles as 'bread', 'condiments', 'baking' and the like. Instead, there were only three signs that hung over the myriad of aisles. Omnivore. Carnivore. Herbivore.
“The fuck?” I said too loud, earning myself another look from the cashier who perked an eyebrow and popped her gum at me. I gave her a wave, and almost stepped over to ask for help, but she dove back down to her magazine, burying her face in it a bit more than last time.
So much for customer service.
Fine, I already knew where to go.
Omnivore, that’s me and it certainly was the twins. They’d eat anything that didn’t move and given the chance, hell, they’d make things not move so they could grill them up into a hamburger or two. Or three.
God, just thinking about that was giving me heart palpitations.
The elevator music chimed lazily over me, tinging in time with the squeaky wheels of a grey-haired lady's cart, and my tennis shoes as they popped against the sticky floor.
Thankfully, the Omnivore section was laid out pretty much how I'd expect. I found bread, milk, eggs, and coffee pretty easily, although my heart dropped a little bit at their lack of cheese options. I grabbed the generic coffee and the cheap oatmeal counting my pennies as I went down the aisles, only picking up the necessities. I hadn’t really asked Poetry about my pay or when I would get paid.
Lately the twins had been playing with the idea of opening a sex-themed game shop 'The Fox’s Bush', which I had vetoed pretty quickly and replaced it with 'Pussy Games.' They didn't like that too much either.
Mind full of sex themed names for a theoretical joke shop, I turned the corner toward the refrigerated area and came face to face with a fucking nightmare. Cold air brushed over my face as I crossed into the Carnivore section, and a refrigerated aisle that seemed to stretch on forever.
Meat.
Stacks, piles, and displays of frozen meat.
Bologna, roast beef, frozen chubs of ground beef. You name it, it was down that aisle. All of it packaged in those black styrofoam containers with plastic wrap on top so you could see the blood and the veins and the freshness. But, in the midst of all that, carcasses hung from hooks in large ice-lined boxes. They were wrapped in plastic, bound in cloth, as they swung in all shapes and sizes. Rabbits, quails and even, oh god, squirrels.
Fucking squirrels hung with their arms still frozen in the air.
But in my mind, they all became massive bodies of cows, of pigs... Of men with dead eyes and screaming mouths dripping with blood.
Pain throbbed between my temples as a surge of pain bored into my skull like a screwdriver.
I gagged and dry-heaved as the visions came back.
Dead eyes.
Hooks.
The dripping sound of blood.
The basket I had been carrying fell to the ground with a clatter. The metal tins of coffee rolled away as eggs cracked and splattered over the toes of my shoes. As the weight left my fingers, a blood curdling scream resounded in my ears, the sound echoing far away as though someone was screaming inside my skull. It was as if the memory of my own scream was pounding through my bones.
The feral, guttural sound rattled in my head alongside the melodic music of the grocery store, the sounds mixing as I stood frozen, eggs seeping into my socks.
“Dear, are you okay?” A female voice broke through the pulses of terror floating through my brain and I looked up, but everything was moving too slowly like the world was stuttering in my mind.
“What’s happening? Did something happen to her?” A triple-chinned man in a white coat stepped beside the woman, the two staring at me as though I was one second away from exploding. Maybe I was, maybe the egg seeping into my socks was a fuse that was far too short.
"Hey, you okay?" he continued, wiping his hands on a blood-streaked apron, plastic oversized gloves draping over the waist.
Another butcher. How many fucking meat-cleaver-branding fuckers did this place have?
Oatmeal and coffee be damned, I needed to leave.
“I’m okay. I’m fine. I’m fine.” I said, everything sounding dead as I walked back toward the entrance, slipping on egg a bit. “I forgot something. My list. I forgot my list. I’ll be fine.”
The entire world shook as I walked, the aisle of meat stretching on forever as I walked far too slowly away from the gawking pair. Everything was too slow, even the music that sang overhead was moving at half time, the horror-filled notes humming in my ears.
The cashier didn't even look up that time, I just moved through the heavy, slow world and back into the dark dawn, ducking into the dark alley beside the grocery store before anyone could follow me.
It was there in the silence that I imploded.
Somehow, I had developed a fear of meat. Somehow, I had become afraid of something that I had loved the most.
"What is wrong with me?" I snapped at myself, listening to my heartbeat in my ears as everything began to return to normal.
I leaned against a wall next to a dumpster, determined to talk some sense into myself, get my ass back in there to finish my shopping, and face the meat aisle like a big girl. Instead, I stood there, shaking. Sinking to a crouch, I wrapped my arms around my legs and squeezed hoping I didn’t come unglued. I imagined all my pieces and parts jostling to the ground around me.
“Okay, Scarlet. It was just meat. Goddamnit, woman. You have been in battles and killed before. This is nothing compared to that. You’ve got this. You’re okay. I’m okay.”
It was the pep talk of the gods, and it almost worked, my heart rate started to normalize. The shaking slowed... and then a clang and a whimper echoed from the dumpster right beside me. The rubber top flinging open as if it had been lifted from the inside.
At least, it had to be lifted from the inside.
Because I was the only person on the outside.
“What the fuck?” I murmured and stood
, backing away from the dumpster that was now shaking, snarling, and clanging from inside. The sounds multiplied, echoing over the stone of the alley.
“Who’s there?” I called out, and a rat scampered from under the dumpster. For a split second, I let myself believe that was my only company in that alley. A rat.
A rat and the giant silver beast that jumped out of the dumpster like a ghost, lithe legs and tail sweeping through the dark as the beast that was nearly as tall as me turned.
The wolf.
The wolf from the crate. The wolf from the field. The one that was hunting me.
The massive beast growled, chipped teeth gleaming underneath a curled lip as he approached, coming closer and glaring at me with one eye. There was no question now, the bastard was wearing an eyepatch, and not just an eye patch. One of its legs was wrapped in a leather sleeve of some sort and it had straps holding it together like some kind of leg corset.
What kind of wolf wears an eyepatch and a leather cuff-thing? A bad ass wolf, that's who.
Well, that or a wolf that you are hallucinating because you are clearly losing it.
As if his outfit wasn’t enough, I caught sight of something even more frightening.
Bright green slime coated the feet of the monster wolf, the strings of it sticking everywhere it stepped like chewed gum stuck to the bottom of a shoe. The same green slime from the butcher shop.
The same green slime that led me to Kent’s body.
The same green goo that was stepping closer, the broken teeth of the wolf glittering as he growled.
As he licked his lips.
"You killed Kent," I declared, the wolf growling louder as he pulled to a stop and snapped at the air. As he snapped at me.
He jumped into the air, maw open to bite and strike me down the same as he had Kent.
I shifted before he could reach me, my fox appearing as I released her, in a tiny puff of red fur. I may be small, but I was much faster than the giant wolf who couldn't change directions to save his life. My tiny red-furred hunter darted away from the strike with ease, taking off down the alley and back into the quickly-brightening street. Racing away from broken teeth, and hanging bodies.