Chapter Song: A Lot's Gonna Change - Weyes Blood
XX
I'm deep in forest service land now, and I haven't crossed a road in long enough that I'm comfortable folding up my clothes at the base of a tree and running as a wolf for a little while. The forest is quiet today, and I don't catch the scent of many rabbits or smaller prey. But forest critters have lost some of their charm. What I crave desperately now is a burger and French fries, or practically any food that has lost some resemblance to its original source. The next time I reach a town I'm definitely eating at an actual restaurant—I brought all of the money I have, and foregoing raw rabbit seems like just about the best use of it I can think of.
The forest here is mostly old-growth pines that tower high above the forest floor and cloak the ground in pine needles. The scent is crisp in my nose, but the canopy has shaded out the undergrowth, making it easy to see for a long distance from below. The creek that I wade through now has stained the soil and rocks around it red with tannins and iron, giving even the water a color like dry pine needles. I make a note to return here to fill my canteen when I retrieve my clothes and pack—maybe I'll follow the stream north for awhile until I meet a road.
I pause when another strange smell hits my nose, the scent of blood and something sweet and synthetic, maybe cologne. With the slight breeze, it's hard to know exactly where it's coming from, but I'm not far from where I've left my clothes. I could just run farther from the smell and stay as a wolf, but if someone finds my backpack what's to stop them from stealing it, including my money and my phone? But I know the only thing that could bring anyone this far into the woods, away from roads or trails, is a hunt. It isn't just my belongings that I'm worried about. What if I've already been spotted, and some camouflaged jackass has his sight leveled at me as I'm standing here considering my options?
I walk quickly and quietly toward where I left my clothes, relieved when the smell of the hunter dissipates the farther I travel. I just need to shift, put my clothes on, and keep walking, that's all. Panicking will draw attention. If I come across anyone, I'm just a hiker who likes to get off the beaten path. I try to control my gait as my backpack comes into view, but my heart is racing, and I feel like my skin is itching to be human again. When I shift, I'm already reaching for my bundle of clothes.
I shove my legs into my jeans and pick up my shirt when I smell what I can clearly recognize as cologne now. But it isn't coming from a nearby hunter—it's coming from my shirt. I carefully bring the fabric to my nose and inhale, and there's no mistaking the smell coming off of it. Someone picked up my shirt and held it long enough to get their scent all over it, and then they bothered to fold it back in exactly the way it was before, as if it had never been touched. My belongings didn't look disturbed, and so I assumed they hadn't been. I don't have much time to consider how terribly stupid, how incredibly reckless I've been.
"Little cool today isn't it?"
I turn slightly to look at the man standing behind me, gun held low as if it isn't loaded and ready to shoot me at any moment. His gaze scours over my bare ribs and unbuttoned jeans as I hold my shirt to my chest and offer an icy glare.
"There was a bug in my shirt," I say carefully but the breeze has already carried the scent of his cologne to me, and I can see the foxes clipped along his belt. That explains why he'd dare wear cologne—he's checking snares, not hunting. He nods, as if he wasn't the one who rifled through my clothes not so long ago. I turn away to slip the shirt over my head, but I don't get a chance to reach for my backpack before the man makes a disapproving noise.
"Turn around."
And I do, because I'm certain that he won't hesitate to shoot me if I move too slow. There's something in the easy way he says those words that lets me know he isn't playing, that he isn't making up his mind.
"You hold folks at gunpoint a lot?"
"Shut the fuck up. What are you doing out here alone?"
"Hiking."
"You like to hike naked?"
"What I do is none of your business."
The intensity in his eyes lets me know that there are three options he's considering. First, he might just kill me. He doesn't look at me like a person looks at another person. I'm an animal to him, something dangerous enough to be held at gunpoint. Maybe he'll rape me. That's the thing about men like this—they hate us, they want to blame us for all of their problems, but more than anything they want to beat us down. Finally, he could have connections with traffickers. I could always become like Adira, another statistic. Or maybe he's thinking of some combination as he takes a step closer and nods to something behind me.
It's this damn wind that's the death of me—that and my own fucking carelessness. Maybe I had a little bit of a death wish, and maybe I get to see it through right now. There's another man with a rifle some fifteen feet behind me, using the breeze to mask his scent. I bet they've been following me since before I even shifted, and I bet this isn't their first time tracking a wolf.
"What is it that you're hoping will happen here?"
"I said shut up. You think I won't shoot you?"
"But what do you want? I don't—Jesus fuck!" I don't feel the pain at first, just the strange, ripping pressure of the bullet passing cleanly through my arm. I crouch on the ground, dizzy just looking at the blood that's spilling through the fingers I've tried to wrap uselessly around the hole in my upper arm. I don't try to speak as the hunter behind me circles close, and then takes a step toward me.
"Careful, Mikey."
"Relax. You're not going to do anything stupid, are you sweetheart?" The cold nose of his gun pokes into my cheek and I squeeze my eyes shut, feeling sick and wild and panicked. "Eyes on the ground. You don't move, understand me?" I nod, staring at the pine needles at my feet as the man crouches next to me and slips a hand across the back of my neck. He pushes back my lip to look at my teeth, and then he sets his gun on the ground behind him to shine a little pen light in my eye, his finger pulling back my eyelid. I want to throw up from the sheer humiliation of it all, but I'm too aware of the gun placed just out of reach behind him. If I lunge for it, will I have time to shoot the other armed man before he shoots me? "Give me your hand." I look at him quickly and his hand squeezes hard into the back of my neck, forcing me to stare at the ground again. He uses his other hand to wrap around my wrist and wrench it away from where it's clasped around my arm. I can feel him spreading my fingers, staring at my nails for some sign of claws.
"What are you doing in these woods? You don't belong here."
"I was hiking—" The hand grips tight and wrenches me forward, and I despise the noise that escapes my mouth. But there isn't any use in hiding how terrified I am. I'm certain he can feel me trembling and frozen beneath his hand.
"Cut the bullshit. We saw you turn into a mutt."
"Were you following me?"
"You want to talk back to me right now? I asked you a fucking question."
"I'm just passing through."
"From where?"
"St. Croix," I try, but the hand is back with a vengeance, twisting up into my hair.
"Bullshit you're all the way from St. Croix. City girls don't wander alone in the woods. You from Rust Cove?"
"Yes." I don't think there's any point in lying, and I don't know why it matters anyway.
"What are you doing out here alone? Are you scouting?"
"Scouting?"
"Just answer the question."
"I don't—I'm not part of Rust Cove anymore. I don't have any place to go."
"You think I'm gonna buy that?"
"It's the truth."
The trappers exchange a glance, and then the man next to me reaches for his gun and stands, walking to where his friend is still leveling his rifle at my face.
"Get up."
I stand, leaning back against the tree as adrenaline and the sight of blood dripping down my arm makes my head spin.
"Here's the deal. You're going to walk with us, ten feet ahead, no bitching, no bullshit. If you shift, we won't bother to give you a warning shot. Cameron's a sharpshooter, so don't think you're going to outrun us."
Cameron. Of course his fucking name is Cameron. Of course in a time like this hearing that name would send a jab of pain through my chest. At least it makes the hole in my arm hurt a little less.
"Can I ask a question?" I try to keep my voice low, appeasing. Mikey is a little older than Cameron, and I think this was his idea to begin with. It's almost like he's showing his friend what to do, how to talk to me. Maybe he's playing it up a little bit for his sake too.
"Fine."
"What happens to me now?"
"That's not for you to worry about."
"I have to evaluate if I'd rather go with you or have a bullet in my head."
Mikey is quiet for a long moment, staring at me so hard and with such bitter dislike it makes my knees a little weak. Finally, he smiles, and then he walks toward me. This is the other part that makes me believe he's the ringleader—he has to show his friend that he isn't afraid of me, that he knows how to subdue me. I'm surprised when his hand slips gently over my cheek instead of hitting me, and when he leans in close, I smell cinnamon on his breath.
"Tell you what—what's your name?"
"Layla," I whisper.
"Layla," he says, dragging out the end of it. "You're going to spend the evening at my cabin with me and Cam, and then tomorrow we're going to send you on a little trip."
"Is that a euphemism for murder or trafficking?"
"The first, if you don't watch your mouth."
"And if I don't go with you willingly..."
"Then I'll bury this rifle so far up your cunt you'll beg me to pull the trigger. We clear?"
Fucking macho trash. I nod slowly, and Mikey's hand drops to my collarbone.
"You hate wolves right?"
"Only your kind of wolf."
"Then why do you want to fuck one so bad?"
His lip curls and the hand slides up to my throat. "Who says that's what I got planned for you?" I wince as the fingers squeeze a little too tight and then ease back.
"No need to be coy with me, Mikey." I feel the hot splitting of skin on my lip when the back of his hand meets my face, and then his fist is bunching up in the front of my shirt to slam me back into the tree. It knocks the wind out of me, but the trapper is now bearing down on me, his cinnamon breath fanning against my cheek as he grits his jaw.
"Hey Mikey, not her face," the other man, the one called Cameron, takes a step closer, and then he lets the nose of his rifle drop ever so slightly toward the ground. And this is it, if there is ever going to be a moment, it's now, when both men are distracted, glaring at my face, not paying attention to where their rifles are pointed. I shove myself into Mikey and shift, the air falling away from us as he hits the ground with a thud, arms sprawling to the side along with his rifle. I don't think about it when I bite into his neck, I don't try to picture him as anything but a fucking rabbit as I rip out a piece of him. Cameron's barely had time to lift his gun before I turn on him too.
He stumbles back, heel catching at the roots of the tree, and the first shot he fires hits a branch above us. There's a shower of pine needles against my fur as I lunge for him and plant my claws hard against his stomach. He swings the long barrel of the rifle toward me again, and I'm dimly aware of the ripping of my own flesh before I close my teeth around his throat too.
Suddenly the forest is silent, only my ragged panting breaking the still air. The earth reeks of blood and I shift back into a human just to dull the stench around me. My right arm looks ruined, two bullet holes thick with oozing blood. It's numb and heavy, and I'm afraid that if I try to lift it I'll find that I can't. But I can feel the first prickles of pain threading their way through my arm—pain is positive, I think, right? If it hurts then maybe it won't be completely useless when it's healed.
Filling my mouth with water from my canteen, I swish and spit until I can't taste copper and cologne anymore. Fuck. Fuck it all this is bad. There are two bodies at my feet with their throats ripped out, dry soil hungrily soaking up their blood. My clothes are shredded from shifting, too. I roll Cameron over—he's a little shorter and skinnier than the other trapper—and work his jacket and flannel off of his damp shoulders, gritting my teeth each time my arm shifts too much. The collar of the jacket is ruined, but I can probably rinse most of the blood out of the flannel. Luckily, I still have underwear and a pair of leggings in my backpack. But there just wasn't room to pack more than a few items of clothes, and now I've shredded my warmest pieces. I consider taking his pants, too, but I don't want to draw too much attention to myself by wearing baggy men's jeans.
I don't touch the rifles, but Mikey's got a pistol strapped to his ankle. Where the fuck did these boys think they were going? Well, I guess they ultimately ended up dead, so maybe they were right to arm themselves. I take the pistol as well as any food or money I can find. I'm about to toss Cameron's wallet back to the ground, when I see a torn piece of paper sticking up from a credit card slot. I hate the feeling that washes over me, like everything is coming together in this moment, like I'm being watched. There's a phone number scribbled in handwriting that's become familiar to me, and above it is a name. Paul.