3 - Runaway

Myles heaves another dead wolf onto the pile and groans, swiping the back of his hand across his forehead and only succeeding in smearing sweat and blood across his skin. "Why am I always left cleaning up the mess?" he grumbles. "It's fucking disgusting."

The glare I send his way is wild as a trapped animal and crackles an inferno. It promises pain.

My cousin retreats half a step and mumbles, "Sorry, River. Not her. I didn't mean her."

My heart collapses inside my chest, leaving a gaping abyss in its wake. My very soul is shattered and leaden and every shuddering breath is an effort. Tears leak down my face but my head is empty. Thoughts are leaves caught on a gale that I can't quite reach.

Esme is dead. My sister is dead.

"Right," Myles says, wiping his hands on his trousers and surveying his work. "I'll get the stuff. You stay here."

He wanders off into the shrubs, becoming one with the shadows.

The carnage of our battle lies in a heap of bloody wolves all splayed at unnatural angles. Their forms frozen, their eyes empty, their blood seeping into the damp ground. All around, trees shudder and groan. The last of the smoke clears, revealing an inky sky speckled with stars.

I sniff and wipe my eyes. "I'm sorry," I whisper, cradling Esme close. "I'm so, so sorry."

Agony strengthens to resolve. My sister isn't another beast for Myles to burn. She's a Ferreus hunter and she'll be treated with respect in death. It's the least I can do for her to ensure her body won't be tossed aside like she's just another werewolf.

So I set her down, close her empty eyes, and I start to scoop out loose earth. The ground is trodden thick with mud in the chaos of our fight, and it comes away easily.

I make remarkable progress by the time Myles comes wandering back into view. He's swinging a jerry can idly, but when he sees me, he falls still. The gasoline sloshes angrily in return.

"River," he begins, his voice patient and gentle, as he sets the can down and approaches. "Come on, man. Dad said—"

"She's not one of them. I'm not burning her," I bite back, scooping more and more dirt. The mud marring my skin just about covers the lichtenberg figures and runes and symbols on my arms— the chains to my legacy. It's a relief to be rid of them, if only temporarily.

Myles sets his hand on my shoulder. I shrug him off.

Instead, he drops to his knees beside me. "Listen to me. I'm going to be patient with you because she's your sister, but we've got a duty to uphold. You don't want to go against my dad's orders on a night like tonight."

A sob rushes from me, but I do not stop. It's muscle memory, at this point, and it keeps me from thinking. Scoop, dig, scoop, dig. The hole grows steadily. I can't stop.

Myles releases a short breath. "Fuck this."

He gets up and trudges away. I'm only vaguely aware of his movements as he throws gasoline over the wolves and strikes a match. With a careless flick, our enemies go up in flames.

And then he's approaching once more. He doesn't kneel at my side, though. He hoists Esme up as though she's just another wolf and takes her towards the crackling flames.

I dart to my feet. "Let her go," I say numbly, the words thick in my mouth. Intention floats just out of reach, an ember caught on a breeze, but as it comes to rest in my mind with all the sharpness of a burn, the jolt of agony sends forth a tidal wave of pure rage.

He doesn't stop. So I stop him, instead.

I explode on him.

I drag him to the ground, fists flying, shouts erupting from my mouth. I straddle him and I pin his arms between my knees and I hit him and hit him and curse him for being born into a family that puts bullets in the skulls of their daughters, their nieces, their cousins.

He struggles wildly, shouting for me to stop, that I've gone mad, that he'll burn me, too. So I clamp my fists around his neck and squeeze relentlessly, choking the words from his throat.

His heartbeat pounds beneath my fingers as my arms begin to shudder with the strength I'm pressing on his windpipe. I squeeze and I squeeze as — finally — thoughts come flooding back.

Run. Find a car. Drive. Get away. Cover your tracks. Leave. Never look back. Don't take the van, they'll trace the van. Keep your weapons. Fight. Escape. Survive.

Myles' struggles grow desperate and jerked as his heartbeat flutters and whispers until, at last, he falls still. His features go slack, his form sags against the ground, the light behind his eyes goes out. There is only the reflection of the flames hissing and curling up into the star-speckled sky in his empty gaze.

I don't burn him— nor do I bury him.

I take the knife from my belt and rip his clothes to shreds and carve si vis pacem, para bellum across his chest. I leave him there to rot.

As hysteria threatens to choke me, I put my sister in the pitiful hole I dug for her, and I cover her with dirt. It's not enough — nowhere near enough — but it's a kinder fate than the flames. A kinder fate than my family gave her.

Only then do I back up and let reality sink in. The burning bodies, Myles and his empty stare and his mangled chest, the mound of dirt where my sister lies.

It's not fair.

None of it is fair.

I stumble back and catch myself on a tree trunk, gasping in air thick with the sharp scent of blood and ash.

In a fit of rage, my fist bites bark and the bark bites back.

When I was six, I went out exploring the woods and found a rabbit burrow teeming with kits snuffling their way through shrubbery. I sat there with them for hours, still as a stone, letting them gain confidence and sniff at my hands and chew grass close by and clamber over my legs.

They were my friends.

When I was seven, my father handed me a knife and told me to find a rabbit and kill it and bring it home.

And I knew where to look.

I sobbed for hours, hands covered in blood, the rabbit lying dead and sprawled at my knees. I sobbed until Esme found me and patted my back and said the rabbit should have run faster.

Run, rabbit, run.

Breaths come hot and fast as I dart through the woods. Gnarled branches scratch at my face and roots claw at my ankles, desperate to trip me up.

My feet pound on the sodden forest floor, and I pour every ounce of concentration, of clarity, into putting one foot in front of the other, into not tripping, into getting as far away as I possibly can.

I don't stop. I run and I run and I don't give reality a chance to catch up to me.

My only plan is to get away. I know the werewolves have a home further north, and that is where my family would have gone to check for stragglers. If they find the mess, they'll expect me to run south, so I race west.

The woods grow inky and shadowed, and I can hardly see where I'm going. The moon's light is weak and cold and does little to combat the smothering darkness. Branches reach out wrinkled fingers for me, desperate to ensnare me.

Focus melts and seeps through my fingers as I run and run and run.

When at last, after what feels like hours, I see the artificial glow of a street light flickering through the leaves, I dart for it.

Emerging out onto the car park of an old diner, with muffled music from a radio and distant, raucous laughter cutting through the quiet, I collapse against a tree trunk and gasp in deep breaths. Every muscle in my body tingles with strain and shakes with exertion as I brace myself.

When I've regained some semblance of composure, I study the diner. There's people stumbling to their cars and chatting away inside. The place is a vibrant, glaring, neon nightmare, but there's a lot of cars and a lot of shadows to hide in. It's perfect.

I crouch low and start searching. Testing handles, staying out of sight of the windows until, at last, a shred of luck.

The door of an old car clicks open and I slide inside, rip out the dash, and mess with the live wires until the engine grumbles and groans to life. As inconspicuously as possible, I pull out of the car park.

A full tank and an empty stretch of road greet me. I start driving, thinking that anywhere in the world is better than here.

– ➶ –

Hours melt away and the inky sky gives way to a hazy lilac dawn speckled with angry, bleak clouds.

I spend my twenty-fifth birthday on the run, driving and driving and putting as much distance between myself and my home as possible.

No, not my home. Not anymore. Esme was my home, and my family killed her for being bitten. It's a brutal end for someone who has devoted all her life to killing werewolves for them.

In fact, werewolves are the reason everything has gone to shit. If they didn't exist, the Ferreus Clan wouldn't exist to rid the world of them. We'd be just another normal, mundane family. If that wolf didn't bite Esme, she'd still be alive.

I don't want to spend my life waiting for that fatal bite, waiting for the bullet to burrow into my skull, waiting for my body to join the pile of smouldering ashes. I want to be free of that fate— whatever it takes. I want to escape before it's too late.

The ritual— it's supposed to be today. The nail in the coffin of the Ferreus legacy. And instead of accepting it, I'm driving along a road in the middle of nowhere; mind empty, focus dull, eyelids growing heavier and heavier. A close call. Once the ritual is complete, there's no coming back. No escaping.

I wonder, vaguely, if the others know what has happened, yet. If they've gone searching for Myles and me and found the carnage I left there instead. I wonder if they're searching for me like I'm one of their rogue werewolves to terminate. I wonder if they'll tell the rest of the family I was bitten, too, if only to give them a reason to hunt me down.

As the sun crawls higher into the sky, and as I pass through towns and empty streets and open roads with woodland crowding close on either side, I start to reach my limit.

It starts with little flinches, startling me to awareness. My eyes grow heavy and every blink is slower than the last. I melt into the seat, gazing vaguely ahead at the empty road.

Another flinch. Clarity seeps through my fingers. The car shudders as it edges off the road and onto a grass bank, dragging me to something like awareness. I need to focus, I need to get away, I need... I really need to close my eyes.

Heaving a sigh, I pull into a lay-by, tug the wires free to cut the engine, and sit quietly for a moment. Debating.

I can't run if I'm dead on my feet, the exhausted part of my brain finalises, daring the rational side to argue. Or if I crash into a tree from exhaustion.

My gaze lifts to the rear-view mirror, checking for any hint of someone following me. There's no one— just a stretch of empty road. And then my focus shifts to my own reflection. There's dried blood and dirt splattered across my face, streaked with tears, and my eyes are bloodshot. My arms are covered in filth and my clothes are caked in drying dirt and blood and I've only got a few throwing blades and shurikens and one knife left. I'm not sure where my bow went, in the chaos of the night, but I don't care. I'm stiff and aching and exhausted and empty and I look an absolute mess.

All I want, in that moment, as grief forms a ball in my throat, is to curl up and sob.

And that is what I do. I get into the back of the car, hug my knees to my chest, and begin to weep.

I fall asleep like that, at some point.

Shadows greet me as I blearily blink my eyes open. Hunger gnaws at my stomach, sending ripples of nausea crawling through my gut. It's dark out and freezing and I realise weakly that I feel even worse than before. A headache pounds behind my eyes, sending clarity scattering, and dried flakes of mud come free from my skin as I uncurl and sit up.

I search the car, but all I find is an empty plastic bottle tucked beneath the seat and takeout litter stuffed into the map pocket.

My stomach whines. I shove the door open and step out into the night, stretching the stiffness from my limbs and surveying the area.

Nothing but woodland crowds close. The road is a ribbon of asphalt weaving between clusters of trees and shrubs, without any street lights or signs or cameras or witnesses. I'm utterly alone.

A cool breeze stirs, sending flurries of leaves dancing across the road and into the air.

As I turn in a slow circle, checking for shadows that don't belong, I see something shimmering like rippled glass amidst the trees. Curious, I approach.

There's a lake nestled within the woods, stretching lazily, little waves lapping against its banks. The hazy moonlight reflects in the choppy waves; a shattered mirror.

With the wind sending shivers down the spines of trees, with the stars blinking and shimmering high above, with the lake so quiet, it should be peaceful. But it isn't.

It isn't, because I'm filthy and miserable and exhausted and starving. I don't know where I'm going. I don't know what I'm doing. My eyes burn but the tears won't come.

With a heaving, shuddering sigh, I figure the very least I can do is get all the blood and dirt off me. So, fully-clothed and thinking of killing two birds with one stone, I wade into the icy water until it reaches my chest, and I begin scrubbing at my arms and splashing water onto my face. The water is already an abyss — a maelstrom of shadows and fractured moonlight — and thankfully any clouds of filth float away unnoticed. It's freezing, but it's a welcome discomfort that startles me awake.

Once I'm as clean as I can possibly get, under the circumstances, I clamber out of the lake and sit on the bank, gazing up at the stars and trying endlessly to come up with a plan as a cool breeze tousles my hair and halfheartedly attempts to dry me. My clothes are weighted and waterlogged and a burden on my shoulders, but they're all I have, and I do not want to be caught naked in the woods. That'll really sell the whole rogue werewolf thing. I'd rather get hypothermia.

I need to find some discreet clothes and put as much distance as possible between myself and my family. Beyond that, I consider what it is I want.

To get away, of course. But after that, I've got no idea. Peace, perhaps. Some semblance of freedom. I want to wake up in a cosy bedroom and not have to worry about whether my knives are going blunt or if Orion will call for another battle or if I'll survive it this time. I want a good, happy, simple life away from the burden of my silver blood and werewolf curses and legacies.

I want to be human.

So, I resolve, that is what I'll do. I'll go somewhere new, and I'll find a home, and I won't have to worry about werewolves or their bites or the executioner's bullet chewing into my skin.