Releasing their wills, I nudged my way through my stunned classmates. As I moved, I heard things like, “I can’t believe she was so mean,” and, “I would have slapped her face instead of walking out.”
Penny’s smug expression faltered as she noticed the change in everyone. Her mouth popped open as she stared at me. I walked up to Penny while holding the faculty back with simple wait and see thoughts. I stopped just in front of her.
“Whoever you had filming did a wonderful job,” I said. “If you’re this good over a no name nothing like me, I can only imagine how good you’ll be when you’re reporting on something real. Good luck.”
The sudden silence penetrated my dream. I emerged with my heart racing wondering why we’d stopped. I lifted my cheek from the warm spot on Luke’s back and, in the gloom around us, took in the shape of an old barn on a slight hill in the distance.
“Why did we stop?” I asked when he loosened the strap.
“I’d rather approach the Compound in daylight,” he said quietly.
My determination to push through bowed to his practical reasoning. I didn’t really want to face a horde in the dark either. I didn’t have their enhanced eyesight.
“How is the cut?”
I pulled the strap from over his head and climbed off the back. My legs ached from sitting so long, but I didn’t try stretching them out. The back of his shirt was stained with my blood, but it looked dark and dry. I shrugged in response to his question and asked, “Why here?”
He walked over to me, unzipped the jacket, and once again gently tugged at the hem of my shirt. Only this time, it didn’t lift. The blood had dried to the skin. He frowned as he answered, “They are too used to looking at hotels. I thought this would be safer.”
”This” meant sleeping in the barn. He continued to look worriedly at my stomach as if he could see through the fabric. “Some real sleep sounds good,” I murmured, trying to reassure him.
He sighed and gently touched my cheek. “You’ll tell me if it starts hurting,” he ordered softly.
I snorted. “It hasn’t stopped hurting.”
He smiled at me and dropped his hand. “I imagine not,” he commented as he shifted the bike into neutral and began pushing it toward the building. I zipped back up and slowly followed. Patches of snow coated the ground between tufts of long grass. Shivers trembled through me.
The barn leaned heavily to one side. Many of its old boards had rotted at the base. Still, Luke pushed the bike into the gapping door. Any hint of the dusk’s fading light disappeared after two steps. Disturbing the layer of dust covering the floor with my steps caused the smell of old, musty hay to fill my nose, and I sneezed once. It killed my stomach.
“I’ll look around,” he said a moment before he disappeared into the dark. I looked back at the door, just barely outlined now, and stayed where I stood.
“It’s empty and untouched. We’ll stay here for a few hours.”
He took me by the hand and led me further into the black. He flicked on a tiny LED flashlight attached to the bike keys and pointed to an empty stall partitioned by a half wall. I blushed as I understood and quickly grabbed the flashlight and shooed him away. I’d lived many lifetimes without the convenience of a toilet, but that was in the past. I liked flushing and washing.
After I finished, I moved into the hay-filled isle, clicked off the flashlight, and shuffled toward the front of the building.
“Here,” Luke murmured after I’d walked half the length. I paused and felt a tug on the bag. He led me off to the side and gently nudged me down onto some old hay.
“If I wake up to bugs crawling on me, I will not be happy,” I whispered waiting for him to settle next to me.
When he lay still, I used my hands to find him. He lay on his back and I pressed close to his side. His warmth became a halo around me.
“I promise, I will keep them off of you,” his low voice rumbled under my ear as I settled my cheek on his chest. Too bad he kept his shirt on. Skin to skin, I tended not to dream at all. I flattened my hand on his shirt and let my fingers thaw.
“I’m glad you’re warm,” I mumbled, my eyes already closing. At least I wasn’t freezing. My stomach hurt, my legs ached from all the kicking and moving I’d done during the fight, and my arms just felt like they would fall off. Dreaming might not be the worst.
“Though she’s a pleasure to be around, we’ve noticed she’s very aggressive with others. I wanted to suggest an outlet for her energy.” The daycare administrator handed my father a slip of paper. We sat in her office, just the three of us. My legs dangled from the chair, and I idly swung them back and forth. Moving helped. I didn’t feel so mad then. I arched my neck to look at the paper. It had a picture of a man kicking and some words. I didn’t care about the words, though. I liked the picture. I liked kicking.
The dream shifted.
The other kids congregated around the playground equipment, laughing and chasing each other. I stood back, watching them play with a smile, but not joining. Whenever I tried, they stopped playing to lie around. Sometimes a few of them even took naps. Meanwhile, something inside me grew, tightening my skin to the point of discomfort, to the point I grew angry. So I stood on the outskirts, never really joining, and they let me be though they threw an occasional friendly wave my way. Everybody liked me. They couldn’t help it. I made them feel good.
A new boy walked over to one of my classmates and took the ball from her hands. Her lips quivered, but she didn’t cry. Instead she walked away. I felt indignant for her and watched the boy stalk away from the group to play sullenly with the ball. I frowned at him.
With most of my classmates further away, I approached him knowing my skin wouldn’t tighten too much.
“Why did you do that?” I demanded.
He looked up at me with narrowed eyes. Anger, hurt, and uncertainty flooded me.
“Why are you so mad?” I asked. Usually the people around me were happy. But even happiness, when I soaked up too much, made me feel tight inside.
His eyes opened a little wider before they narrowed again. He balled his fist and swung at me.
I blocked just as my instructor had taught me. The boy dropped the ball to try another swing. I blocked again. He gave a growl of frustration and started swinging wildly. I continued to block the blows, flowing into the different stances and moves, enjoying the movement. The emotions poured off him, and I unwillingly soaked them up, but what we did helped burn them out of me. Soon I could see him tiring and took two quick steps back. I didn’t want to drain him. I liked that he didn’t lie down like the other kids did. He was different, and playing with him helped me. I felt deflated in a good way. I bowed to him as I’d been taught.
I smiled at his shocked expression. “Do you want me to show you how to block next recess?”
He nodded his mop of sandy blonde hair. I felt the tears hiding behind his grey eyes and reached for his hand, willing to help him again. I took his hurt away as the teacher walked over to us to scold us for fighting.
“We weren’t fighting,” I explained. “We’re training. He’s my partner now.” I wouldn’t need to stand alone anymore.
The teacher shook her head indulgently and shooed us inside.
“What’s your name?” the boy asked.
“Isabelle. What’s yours?”
“Ethan.”
* * * *
“We’re less than an hour away,” Luke called over his shoulder. The move twisted the healing bite on his neck. I hated seeing it, probably as much as he hated the cut on my stomach. His injury, at least, healed faster.
I nodded in response, but otherwise kept scrunched behind Luke. Heavy wet snow blanketed the ground. The wind bit into my skin, chilling it until it stung. I couldn’t tell if I felt so cold because of the temperature, which barely hovered above freezing, or because of a fever. My stomach had hurt when I woke and I worried that the moldy air, or dirty clothes I wore, might have caused an infection.
“Shit,” Luke swore and swerved.
I lifted my head from his back, but didn’t see anything. Turning, I saw a werewolf running behind us. Before I could panic, Luke opened the throttle, and the bike screamed down the road, distancing us from our pursuer.
“They know,” he yelled back at me.
No kidding. I clung to Luke, watching our pursuer. Only three roads into the pack’s territory and ultimately to the Compound. One came in from the north, one from the southwest, and another from the east. We’d abandoned the eastern route when we’d run into them last time. When they’d found me south of here, we’d kept heading north hoping they’d think we’d switch from the obvious. There was no turning around anymore. We were too close. They now knew our direction and would be ready.
The lone wolf stopped running and stood in the middle of the paved lane, no doubt communicating to the rest of the pack. The bike screamed down the road. I didn’t dare try peeking around Luke to see how fast we went. If the wind had hurt before, it really tore at me now. We rode for another ten minutes without sighting anything. Then, hell opened its mouth and started spitting at us.
A fully changed werewolf ran in front of us, trying to slow Luke down. Luke didn’t let up on the throttle. Somehow, he avoided the beast without dumping the bike. I locked my hands around his waist and carefully looked back. The furry shapes of too many werewolves to count in a glance ran behind us. Determined to gain ground.
Luke used his left hand to dig in his right pocket and pulled out his cell phone. He pressed a few buttons and held it to his ear. Fearing what driving one handed at these speeds could do to us, I wanted to close my eyes but didn’t think that was too smart.
“Gabby, I have a problem,” he shouted over the roar of an engine.
A problem was a bit of an understatement. We had an army of werewolves following us, a traitor in Luke’s band of friends, and he was calling for help while driving at breakneck speeds. I couldn’t decide what to freak out over more.
Something flew from the left, hitting the tank with a loud bang and knocking the phone from Luke’s hand. As the object had flashed toward us, I’d thought it looked like a chunk of wood but couldn’t be sure. The phone hit me in the face and fell between us. A growl erupted uncomfortably close to our right. Maybe a call for help wasn’t out of order.
I shimmied an arm between us, snatched the phone up, and tried to redial the number. The first try didn’t go through. The second time, it went through, and I was so excited the phone almost slid from my fingers.
“Luke?” a female voice answered after the first ring.
“No. Bethi. We need help,” I shouted into the phone. The wind made it almost impossible to hear if she said anything back. “There are too many. They can’t take me. If they do, we
all
die. Please!” I shouted which road we raced down. I closed the phone and kept it scrunched in my fist.
More werewolves started pouring from the trees in front of us.
“Don’t let go!” Luke shouted as he began swerving. He tilted us so far once, I thought we were going down for sure. But he righted us and opened the throttle again.
The mass of wolves chasing us had gained too much ground when we slowed slightly because of the swerving. One caught my jacket, but I held tight to Luke and heard a tear. Another ran beside the bike, but I caught it—and me—by surprise by kicking out with my foot and connecting with its face. The blow tripped him up more than hurt him, but it knocked him back into his followers causing several of them to fall back.
Ahead of us, a group of six wolves burst from the woods and raced toward us. Now that they knew our direction, they were probably pulling their numbers from the other routes.
“If you get us out of this alive, I swear I’ll stop trying to ambush-Claim you,” I yelled to Luke.
I braced myself as the oncoming wolves flew at us...and sailed over our heads into the pack of wolves following us. I twisted around in surprise. Help had arrived.
Two moved incredibly fast, taking a chunk out of the mass following us. The other four raced alongside us, keeping most of the wolves out of our way.
Ahead, a bend in the road obscured our view of what lay beyond. Luke eased up on the throttle, and I wondered if he had the same suspicion as I did about what waited ahead. He skidded to a dangerous sideways stop that made my stomach try to crawl out of my mouth, severed the strap connecting us, and leapt from the bike. Already transforming.
The remaining force chasing us collided with our four escorts. Luke joined them, fighting savagely, tearing into anyone who got too close to me. The other werewolves circled us, outnumbering us six to one. I scrambled from the bike too fast and felt the knitting cut on my stomach reopen. Wetness trailed down my stomach, and I cringed. A wave of dizziness washed over me. All of the wolves around me caught the scent, and the rapid movements slowed. Their gazes flew to me as I stumbled and bumped into the bike. It rocked but steadied under me. I bent toward the ground to catch my breath and shake the murk from my head.
No food, no water, and bleeding. Not a good combination.
When I lifted my head, seven wolves circled around me keeping the others at bay. I fumbled in the bag for my knife, relieved when I clasped the handle. An attacking wolf leapt high trying to clear the circle, but one of my defenders jumped up to meet him. The move knocked them both back into the waiting melee and created an opening in my defense. Another of the enemy ran forward to take advantage of the break, but a sleek grey wolf spun from the circle and used a swipe of his claws to rip away the throat of the attacker.