Raise Hell

Chapter 1: Homecoming

          Moaning, the man clutches at his probably throbbing leg, sending a sneer Alex's way. "You- you bitch!"

          Alex's response was a swift kick to his annoying face, rendering the man unconscious within seconds. "Talk shit, get hit, asshole."

          A pair of arms unexpectedly wrap themselves around her middle and lift her off the ground. Without thinking, Alex throws her head back until it meets its mark, the sickening crack and howl that rips itself from the second man's throat and sounds through the noisy room informing her that she has broken his nose. Tearing free from the now loose grip, she turns and delivers a harsh kick to the man's gut, watching as he stumbles back into some stools and falls in a heap, clutching at his bloody nose.

           She moves forward to deal with yet another man, but the sight of the bartender reaching for a gun behind the bar causes her to change direction at the last possible second. Within minutes she is out the door and speeding off down the highway in the old truck once more. She only drives for fifteen minutes before the sound of her phone going off fills the silent air, and she wastes no time in answering the call without bothering to check who it is on the other end of the line. "Hello?"

          "Oh, good! You're not dead."

          Snorting, Alex hooks the phone between her shoulder and her ear to put both hands on the wheel as she turns down a particularly winding bend. "Did you have your doubts?"

           "Look, not gonna lie. When you didn't reply to my several messages and ten calls from earlier, I expected the worse."

           She refrains from wincing at the pointed tone and lets out a long sigh instead. "Sorry. Things got a little hairy with a bar fight-"

           "Seriously? Another one?"

          "I didn't start this one, if that makes things better. Not intentionally, anyway..."

          Isla Dunne lets out an exasperated sigh. "Jesus Christ. What the hell am I going to do with you?"

           Alex chooses not to answer that, and instead informs her long-time best friend, "I would have called you sooner. But I got tangled up in a wraith case."

          The annoyance is replaced with concern in an instant. "You alright?"

           The fresh cut on the side of her neck seems to sting even more at the question, and she gingerly prods at it with two fingers to see if it had managed to bleed through the bandage that she had put on it only two hours prior. To her relief, she finds no sign of the red liquid on her pale digits when she draws them back in front of her again. She would have gone to the hospital to get it properly stitched up, but that would only gain her questions and attention from the authorities that she would much rather avoid. "Yeah. A little scraped up, but nothing that I can't handle. It tried to suck my brains out, but I moved at the last minute and it scaped my neck instead. Man, I fucking hate wraiths."

           "But it's dead? And you're mostly in one piece?"

          "Mhm."

          "Where are you now?"

           "Heading home. I'm about half an hour away from the farm. I haven't had the chance to call Noah to let him know that I'm coming, so he'll be in for a real shock when I walk through the door."

           "How long do you plan on staying?"

          Alex shrugs, even though the action can't be seen from the other end of the line. It isn't something that she had given much thought. The idea of returning home after spending a month and a half on the road hunting hadn't struck her until she had returned to the motel after killing the wraith. The thought of sleeping in her own bed had been too tempting, and before she knew it, she was taking the route back to Jackson without a second thought.