SLEEPSONG (BoyxBoy)✔️

Chapter 46

Chapter Forty Six

It was dark.

I couldn't move, my arms, my legs, I was stuck, water dripping on me, trapped in blackness. A whisper, or rather... something more like the memory of a whisper filled the air, echoing faintly in my ears. I couldn't understand it at first, soft as it was, but slowly words began to take shape in my mind.

"Hold on... just hold on, kid... I'll get us out of this... I promise..."

Deep fear and confusion filled me, alien and alarming all at once.

"When?" I whispered into the darkness. "When will we get out?"

"As soon as the sun rises. We need to wait until its sunny... otherwise, we won't make it."

Silence came from the emptiness after that, filled only by the sound of dripping--

My eyes flew open and I stared out the car window sightlessly, every part of my body electrified by fear and delirium, breathing slowly and evenly even though my pulse was pounding. I felt the hum of the vehicle's movement across the pavement in the leather beneath me.

What was that? I wondered, carefully straightening myself up and rubbing my eyes. 

I glanced at Woody to see him staring at the winding mountain roads being illuminated by the headlights; pine trees sticking out of enormous cliffs that towered over the highway blurred as we flew past them. I watched the road for a little while as we drove between towering mountains, curving along a snake trail heading steadily upwards.

The scenery was so different from anything Michigan had to offer that I was a bit boggled.

"The mountains in North Carolina are beautiful," I muttered, staring at them in awe. "You're lucky to be able to live in them... Michigan is just... flat. Full of flat fields and flat cities."

I heard a snort and glanced at Woody's hand when he signed, 'it's beautiful, but some of the folk who live out here can be crazy and sometimes dangerous. I've had a few odd neighbors living in shanties near my cabin try to rob me at gunpoint in the past.'

A chill went through me. "What do you mean? Do people really do that out here?"

Woody nodded grimly, signing, 'life in the mountains is not the same as life out in the country. It's very, very isolated and uncivilized since most homes are extremely far away from things like hospitals and police stations. That's why people get away with crimes.'

"Yikes," I muttered. "And you really live up here all by yourself?"

He gave me a sideways glance, raising an amused eyebrow; with his hand, he said, 'I'm a werewolf hybrid that can kill people with his voice. I don't see how I have any other choice but to live my life in isolation.'

"Have you tried living among normal people?" I asked, curious. "Seen what it's like?"

His face darkened and he seemed upset. I watched as he squeezed the steering wheel, but after a moment he explained, 'I tried living among normal people once... it didn't end well. I even tried living with Sebastian and his pack, as one of them... that didn't end well either.'