Sound comes to Kiera first, the soft whine of wind through trees, branches that creak and sway, probing at the throb behind her eyes, til even the softest sounds cause a spike of pain through her skull. She hardly realizes her eyes are open. The worlds grey, and everything is a blob in the distant. Not long after her vision starts to clear, the pain spreads, taking up residence of ever part of her body, til she can feel everything from nose to tail.
On jellylike legs, Kiera stands up. The earth wobbles under her, threatening to tip her sideways. Despite her disagreeing mind, she lays down in the snow, waiting for the dizziness to pass, and the headache to ebb.
After a minute she reopens her eyes, looking around her again. The light stings, but everything is in focus again, from the tree’s rugged bark, to the lumps in the snow. With a shock she notices footprint in front of her face, deep and heavy, from a pair of boots. Kiera jerks back without thinking, mind spitting off a million responses to the new knowledge. With a crash she land on her side, but is too busy spinning around to care.
Her growl putters out, and her fur lays flat as she realizes she’s alone. The chill of night had seeped into her body, soaked into her veins, her bones, infecting her very being. On stiff limps she forces herself to stand again, this time squashing the fear.
The dart is gone, and only trampled snow can be found anywhere near her.
In a futile attempt, Kiera shakes her pelt out. Water flings from her fur, freezing in the night air instantly.
Grumbling to herself, she turns towards home, listening for sounds of life. The party had dispersed, leaving only traces of smoke and alcohol on the frigid air. The wind stirs the trees and bend the branches, dead of life.
Kiera’s paw prints leave a lonely trail through the ankle deep snow. Not far from where Kiera had been passed out, blood paints the ground in long streaks of red. She hardly glances at the crimson image, where a story lays, holding the memories of fights, one tiny war of many.
Kiera growls to herself; tail flicking in annoyance. Frustration boils hot through her blood. She tries to smother the annoyance, but it doesn’t work. That’s the second fight she’s been useless in. That’s the second fight where she’s been unconscious. The second time she’s be vulnerable. The second time she’s been spared. Anyone could have killed her. And no one died.
She almost wished someone had killed her. Then maybe she wouldn’t feel like a failure.
Kiera always considered this war as life or death. If you didn’t fight properly, you died. End of story. But, like a total idiot, she was always winding up drooling in the snow unconscious like a stupid pup.
She growls her annoyance to the night.
It takes longer than normal for her to get to her house. Her muscles still refuse to work properly, and she’s sure if she tried to run she’s face plant into the ice.
She shifts at the door, feeling numbness eating her body while anger eats her mind to nothing but a clouded, hazy world of annoyance and anger. Kiera doesn’t even realize the house is dark and empty as she storms through the hallway. Blood hangs on the air, thick and stale, but she doesn’t notice it until she steps into her bedroom, the haze drifting away, replaced with unease and worry. “Cody?”
The blond girl turns to look at Kiera. Half the girls face is bloody, her hair in crimson clumps. She’s borrowed one of Kiera’s blankets, and is cocooned in. Blood soaks threw the blanket. Her lips are scarlet, and she suddenly hopes Cody’s bitten her tongue, and it’s not something much more problematic. She blond frowns, eyes unfocused. “I feel like shit,” she giggles.
“Wait here,” Kiera presses, spinning away from her friend. She throws open the door to the bathroom, ignoring the sticky surface on the doorhandle. Cody had been the bathroom across the Kiera’s room; if the smeared blood and stench of vomit were anything to go off. The tap hasn’t been turned off, and the top of the wooden counter’s streaked with red marks. A hand print’s smudged against the mirror. She doesn’t even glance at the toilet, scared with what she might find.
Rummaging through the bowels of the counter, Kiera pulls out a box, ignoring the dried smudges on the lid. She has no idea how many times this had been used, but she’s sure it’s been used more than any normal family uses theirs. She snags a clean wash cloth on her way out.
Back into her room, Kiera drops beside Cody on the bed. She flips open the box, flipping around for disinfectant and a needle with thread, because with the amount of blood lose it wouldn’t stop without assistances of a few stitches; it looked like she had been stabbed more than once. And deep.
Knowing what to do, Kiera sets to work on Cody’s head, ignoring the bubbles of nonsense the girl spewed. Within a minute, Kiera had cleaned the wound, and was grabbing the needle and thread. She hopes that Cody’s too drunk to feel the pain; otherwise this could turn out bad. “Cody,” Kiera mumbles, touching the blonds forehead. “Can you stay still for a minute, please? This is important”
Cody laughs, collapsing onto Kiera’s shoulder. “Important” she giggles, but the laughing soon turns into gut wrenching sobs. “Why important?” she hiccups, dragging at Kiera’s shoulder with bloody fingers.
Carefully, Kiera drags her hands away, pushing the girl back despite the endless bubble. With steady fingers, Kiera poises the needle over the gash in Cody’s head. The needle pierces the skin easily, but the problem is Cody jerking away, throwing her hands up. The needle pulls through the skin, opening another wound that seeps thin blood.
“You’re killing me!” she screams, ragged sobs tearing from the girl’s chest. “You try kill me!”
“No, I’m helping you!” Kiera grabs the girl’s hands, forcing them down. “Calm down” But Cody doesn’t listen. The hands resume frantic swinging. Kiera jumps up, grabbing hold of the hands to try and stop her. “Jesus, listen!”
“I told you not to call me Jesus. It’s god.”
Kiera growls lowly, ignoring Cody’s wild kick to her stomach. “Well, God, are you going to help me, or just watch?”
Romy shrugs. “I guess I can help. You owe me your soul though.” She jumps onto the bed behind Cody, pulling at her shoulders til the drunk blond is lying flat on her back. “Now, chill.”
Cody stares at Romy for a second, her eyes blinking as if in wonder as they look at each other upside down. Then Cody giggles, mumbling some gibberish about Leprechauns.
“I do not look like a tiny green man!” Romy snaps, offended.
“The devil takes souls, not God,” Kiera comments, crawling onto the girl’s torso carefully, not wanting to disrupt any wounds under the blanket. She starts with the stitching while Romy holds the girls hands back. A leg kicks into her rear, but Kiera forces herself to stay steady. “I’m going to rip out these stitches tomorrow,” she snaps, sitting on the girl’s stomach now. She hopped she had be hurt there, just so she might stop fighting.
Cody whines, holding still suddenly. Her eyes flutter closed, and she mumbles something Kiera doesn’t pay attention to.
“So, how was your fight?” Romy asks out of the blue.
“I didn’t. Some morons shot me with darts” Kiera admits peevishly. She glances at Romilda for the first time. A bruise is starting on her collar bone, and blood stains one side of her ribs, but Kiera can see no wound on her pale flesh. “How was your fight?”
Romy raises an eyebrow. “Jeez, you need to step up you’re game, Ki. Mine went fine, naturally.”
Kiera snorts. “You are so up yourself.”
“I know. Actually, my fight was going well until the Revoker shot me and ran off. Have you ever been shot in the hamstring? No? Never mind than, I’ll tell you about it: it hurts. A lot. And my leg didn’t want to work.” Kiera glances at Romy’s leg, looking for the wound, but only finds drying rivers of blood on the side of her leg. She doesn’t look to long, given Romy’s naked. “It’s healing, don’t worry.”
Kiera jerks a nod, sitting back to grab a pair of scissors. “Did you see anyone when you walked in?”
“Nah. Why?”
Kiera glances at the room, flicking the thin, bloody needle between her fingers. “No reason.” She says neutrally, ignoring the twisting feeling in her stomach. Suddenly her thoughts stray from her mum, her brother and sister, to Chase. Her breath catches slightly, and a thought pricks through her mind. Surely Chase had seen, or heard something, smelt her blood or –she hated to admit it, even in thoughts- her fear.
Cody had passed out under the two girls, and they quickly cleaned her up before laying her on the bed and smothering her with Kiera pointlessly-thick blanket. Romy left shortly after helping Kiera clean the bathroom, than waved goodbye and promised to stop by Cody’s house to tell her mum the situation.
Kiera leaves the door open an inch, leaving a fevered Cody to sleep off her alcohol. The house was in its normal state, but something about it unnerved Kiera, set her skin on constant prickle. She searches the lounge room for something out of place, anything. Next she scrutinized the kitchen. The kettle was still warm, and an almost full cup of coffee. It however, was ice cold.
Kiera faintly smiles. Her mum must not have boiled the kettle before pouring the water; again.
From down the hall, Kiera hears Cody mumbling in her sleep, and suddenly, Kiera knows what’s setting her on edge.
Why the hell was Cody in her house to begin with?
Spinning on her heels, she slips into the hallway, almost not noticing the figures in the doorway. She wouldn’t have noticed them at all if the smell of fear hadn’t impregnated the air, and one of them jerked away from the doorframe in surprise. For a second everyone freezes, stuck in a space that time seemed slow, motionless. Two Revokers in the doorway, bloody hands, and faces, and beyond them, lying in the snow, face down is Hunter, and an arm reaching for him outside the doorframe. But despite being out of sight, Kiera knows it’s her mum.
The still world suddenly shattered violently, splintering as the wolf lunges forward, paws hitting the floor silently.
The Revokers curse, slamming the screen door shut before bolting down the stairs. The door does nothing to deter Kiera however, and a second later the flyscreen rips. She tits the porch, body coiling to take the impact, before she pounces over the railing as a short cut.
In the back of her mind, something whispers pain, a warning.
But then she’s jumping over her mother’s limp form and the crimson stained snow, and it no longer matters. The wind blows harshly into her eyes, and the snow is bitterly cold under her paws, but her blood runs hot, muscles bunching and releasing with every stride.
The two Revokers are no match for the wolf, however, and to Kiera’s delight, she’s suddenly on them. With a vicious snarl she rips into the closest ones calf, shredding muscle and flesh with ease. The person falls with a scream, legs’ tangling together as Kiera lets out all her rage on the person’s legs.
“Run!” The person shouts, twisting around with a strained screech. The girl punches at Kiera’s face. The world has a red haze however, and Kiera attacks the Revoker without mercy, not even pausing at the thought of causing pain. This is a war. This is revenge. A sharp crack is followed by a blood curdling scream as the dark grey wolf jerks back.
The Revoker pulls her hand back despite nearly losing her fingers to the wolf. The hand flops awkwardly to the side, and Kiera can see the bone jutting through flesh. The human part of her recoils at the sight, horrified. But then the beast in her roars back to life: the horrors forgotten.
The other Revoker isn’t forgotten though, and Kiera spins away from the mangled Revoker, darting after the other one. The first one wouldn’t be going anywhere without help, but the other would. And Kiera was intent of ripping apart some of that ones’ flesh too.
Kiera never knew how much land the Alcrest’s owned, but she knew it took nearly half an hour to run the perimeter of the fence. That’s why so many patrols are setting out. Within a minute though, Kiera’s caught up to the Revoker, and having no need to let the beast in her rest, she launches herself after the other female, seeking blood. Fear shoots through her, but only because the Revoker is about to get away.
The tall white wall that encloses the Alcrest’s land looms over head, dead vines withering on the thick wall. And other the top, a rope ladder hangs down, just feet off the ground. Revokers line the wall, and they shout at the female as she darts out from under the cover of trees.
Kiera snarls, throwing herself at the Revoker as she scrambles for the ladder. The wolf nearly hits the wall as the Revoker’s lifted from the ground in a hurry, men pulling it up over Kiera’s head, taking the ladder and the woman. She growls, ready to leap at the person, do any damage she can, drag them from the ladder if possible, but guns are levelled at her suddenly, trained on her skull, and her human part slams on the breaks hard, pulling the wolf up short.
The beast growls revenge, howling its rage and blood thirst; that the guns don’t matter. But Kiera knew, even through the mind-numbing haze, that the guns were not to be messed with. So instead she prowls in tight circles, watching as the Revoker’s lifted higher, and eventually out of Kiera reach.
And only when the Revoker nears the top of the 9 foot (2.7 meter) wall does Kiera let herself closer. She barks a short snarl, pressing her paws against the wall as she growls her warning for them to return. She would tear them all apart if she could, but she was already pushing it with just being in range of the guns. A familiar face glance down from over the wall, and suddenly he’s talking to the barely alive Revoker, because if Kiera had gotten her, she wouldn’t be.
Kiera snarls harshly, dropping down, wishing she could leap after the Revoker and the ropes.
A noise suddenly pulls at her attention and Kiera spins, growling a warning at the new comer.
Chase shrinks away, lowering himself in the trampled, and at parts, bloody snow. She turns away from the wolf, growling as the Revokers disappear down the other side, til she can only see a few people. One being the girl, blond haired and tall, with sharp blue eyes. The guy glares down at her, motioning to one of the guys with the guns.
Something moves against Kiera’s flank, pressing into her fur, a plea for her to back away. Keira spins, rage burning through her mind, and the red tint comes back to her vision. She strikes out with a sharp bark, claws slicing at his face. Chase draws back quickly with a yelp of fear, but blood wells along his muzzle, his nose. He stares at her with wide eyes.
Kiera jerks back, freezing for a second in place. Chase whimpers, but she hardly hears him as she scrambles past him, ignoring his shying away with fear. No one shoots her as she sprints back through the forest, kicking up snow with every step.
A minute later she slows to a trot, growling in annoyance. Blood stains the ground, leading away into the forest. Kiera only pauses a moment to look at the direction of the blood smears, the newer footprints not from her wounded Revoker. She glances into the forest, eyes narrowing in on a scrambling pair, both bloody and torn up, more red than black.
The beast howls it’s challenge in Kiera’s head, begging to hunt, to maul, to murder and completely destroy. But Kiera watches them stumble away for a minute, and even shoves the wolf down when they look back, see her and try to run off. And yet she says in place, growling her annoyance.
With a reluctant huff she turns away from the two Revokers who, too hurt, may not even reach the wall. Instead she turns for home, following the churned trail of snow back to her house, to the two bodies lying still in the snow.