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"Are you hurt?" Holden asks, his voice slightly muffled through the receiver.
I glance down at my leg, and the crimson pulsing out of the wound and seeping onto the upholstery in my car. It doesn't really hurt, since my whole body is starting to feel numb, but the amount of blood I'm losing seems unhealthy.
"Kat, are you hurt?" he repeats, his voice suddenly tense.
"I think so," I say slowly.
"Where are you?"
"Off Highway 52." My tongue feels heavy, and the words come out sloppy and disjointed. There's a rush of voices on his end and the sound of heavy footsteps, and the slam of a car door.
"Hang in there. We're coming to get you."
"Okay."
"Kat?"
"Mmm?"
He doesn't say anything for a while, then he takes a deep, shaky breath. "You're gonna be alright."
I nod, even though I know he can't see me.
"Listen, we'll be there soon, okay? We're gonna bring you home." If I make it, I add for him.
The small hairs on the back of my neck prickle. I glance out the window to see dozens of pairs of eyes reflecting the dim light of the moon among the shadows of the trees. I lift my now incredibly heavy hand to flick a switch, and there's a dull click as the car doors lock. I sink lower in my seat. As if that would stop them.
Holden stays on the phone with me as I wait, saying nothing, and I can hear the voices of the others in the background.
My eyes are trained on the other side of the road. The trees are still, empty. Why are they empty?
It's an hour-long drive from our district to the pack's hunting grounds. They make it in half.
Someone tries to open my door and I unlock it without thinking. Arms gather me up and move me to the backseat of another car. I swear I see something move on the other side of the highway, but it's gone as soon as I try to concentrate on it. The door closes, and the driver peels off the side of the road.
Holden curses as he inspects my leg. The girl with him–Madison, I think, I can't make out the features of her face– unwraps a bandage and presses it against the bite on my neck. I jerk away as the searing pain returns, pulsing and writhing beneath my skin, and I let out a strangled groan.
Stars dance behind my eyes.
"Careful," Holden snaps at her.
I hardly feel it when Holden applies wads of gauze to my leg, though his hands are already covered in my blood. Abandoning his attempt to stem the flow, he swiftly slips off his belt and wraps it around my thigh. I breathe in sharply when he pulls it tight, then he turns his attention to my mangled foot as Madison hands him more bandages.
Nausea churns in my stomach when the car makes a sharp turn, but I don't have the strength to protest.
Holden's head snaps up to face look at the driver, hands still applying pressure to my foot, his eyes narrowed. "What are you doing?" he asks, his voice low.
Madison looks uncomfortable as she presses more bandages to my neck. Exhaustion pulls at my eyelids when the pain spikes, and I want nothing more than to let sleep take me, but I force them back open.
The stars are so pretty, spinning and flickering. Like little fireflies at night.
There's a heavy sigh from behind the wheel. "It's protocol, you know that Holden. We have to lose them. We can't risk–"
"You turn this car around right now, or I swear to God, I'll–"
"Holden," Madison says softly.
Something like a growl comes from Holden's lips. "We don't have time for the detour. She's losing blood too fast."
"If they follow us–"
"I don't care," Holden says with finality. There's a mutter of a creative stream of curses, and the car is yanked around in a tight U-turn. I let my eyelids fall shut and I focus on the dancing fireflies.
"When they find us, that's on you, Holden."
"I know," he says softly, his voice much closer to me this time. A hand pushes the sweaty hair out of my eyes, but I can't find the strength to open them. "Stay with me," he whispers, and his warm breath wafts over my skin and tickles my hair.
I remember when we were younger, even before we were assigned as hunting partners, Holden and I used to take walks by the lake after training. We'd wait for it to get dark and for the fireflies to appear, their winking light reflecting off the smooth surface of the water, along with the stars.
They're the last thing I see before my mind drifts away.
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Grey eyes.
Piercing. Taunting. Beautiful.
Why couldn't I kill him?
With a frustrated growl, I lunge forward to slice another dummy's head off. Its burlap skin splits and spews straw, and the limp body falls to the floor. Its head swings like a pendulum on the rope, back and forth. Even beheaded, it stares at – no, through me with those accusing, grey eyes.
"You look scared, little fox."
Dropping my blade, I put an arrow through its forehead. More stuffing spills out the back, drifting slowly to the ground.
"Do I frighten you?"
I put a second arrow in another mannequin's torso, and the arrow lands with a satisfying thunk. The beam it hangs from creaks from the movement, and my next arrow slices through the rope.
"Don't lie to me."
The door to the training room swings open. I whirl around and aim my bow at the newcomer, ready to release, only to lower it as I recognize his face.
"I see you're feeling better," Holden says, cocking an eyebrow and gesturing around the room. "Is it safe to approach?"
I grin sheepishly. "Hey."
"Hey yourself. I see Jimmy here's not doing so good," he says, nudging one of the disemboweled dummies on the floor with his foot. "What'd he do?"
I shrug, and he chuckles again.
"Seriously, though, how are you doing? Miranda says Doc finally let you go this morning." Holden's eyes drop to my multiple bandages.
"Yeah, he said I'm good to go back to normal in a few days," I say, fiddling with the fletchings of my nocked arrow. My wounds were healing remarkably well, and my leg hardly hurts when I put weight on it. I didn't even need the splint for my foot anymore, Doc said the damage was mostly superficial.
Holden walks up to me and brushes a sweaty strand of hair from my face, his brow pinched with concern. His hand lingers on my cheek before falling away.
"Are you sure? Kat, there was so much blood–"
"I'm sure it looked worse than it really was."
He sighs and draws back. "If you say so."
"Really, I feel fine. Doc worked his magic," I say. It's true, apart from a throbbing pain in my temples that hasn't stopped for several days. I'm pretty sure I hit my head when I was running, but he doesn't need to know that. He worries enough about me as it is.
Holden is like a brother to me. We were both recruited with the Hunters the same year, and we'd stuck together ever since. We'd gone on our first hunt together at thirteen years old. There's something about hunting with a partner, that vulnerability, knowing you were putting your life in their hands. It's not a bond you can easily break.
His features twist in concern again, and he runs his hands through his blonde hair. "God, I knew I shouldn't have let Linda put you on a solo mission," he says softly. "I should have stayed with you."
I force a smile, trying to push away the embarrassment and shame that courses through me. I shouldn't have needed a partner for something as simple as a single execution, even if it was the execution of a Lycan leader. Linda, the head of our district, had trusted me with that.
Apparently, she shouldn't have.
I think he notices my discomfort because he takes a step back and he grins an easy, lighthearted grin.
"I'm going down to the mess hall if you wanna join me."
I shoot him a smile but don't say anything. The hall would be crowded at this time of day, and that is the last place I want to be. Even though I haven't had solid food in days, I'm up to the stares or the questions, and the blatant, glaring reminders of my failure.
God, one arrow. That's all I should have needed to take the Nightshades down, to force them into hiding. A pack needs its leader, and without one they crumble. Or, better yet, a fucking bullet. It would have been over so fast. Across the districts, the directors have been pushing to use modern weapons, not that it was garnering much success. We were traditional. Knives and arrows were quieter.
Fucking idiot, I thought to myself.
Holden grins again, oblivious to my unrest, and waves before slipping outside. I slump against a wall and rub my aching temples, considering sneaking back into medical and "borrowing" some of Doc's pain meds, but I'd probably get crap from Linda if she found out. And I'm already in enough crap as it is, considering I'd completely screwed up vital mission that should have been easy for me.
Grey Eyes can burn in the fiery pits of Lycan hell.
After dumping my slaughtered dummies unceremoniously in a pile at the back of the training room and putting my bow and dagger back in their place, I head to my quarters in the west wing.
I take special care to stick to the infrequently used halls to avoid other Hunters, by I still end up running into several, each who had an onslaught of questions about my last hunt. Apparently, my failure is headline-worthy news, even two weeks after the fact. I give clipped, monosyllabic answers and hurry to my room before I encounter anyone else.
I head straight for the bathroom the second I reach my room and began the process of peeling off my sweaty sweatpants, t-shirt and dressings as I wait for the water to heat up. Working on unwrapping the gauze above my knee, I brace myself for the sight of the ugly, swollen wound. It never shows.
The skin of my leg is smooth and there isn't a mark on it, apart from fresh, pink scar tissue where the fang punctures had been. Confused, I twist around for a better view, and even check my other leg, but there's no other sign of the bite. It looks more like a two-month-old wound rather than a two-week-old one.
I don't need Doc to know that isn't normal.
I rip the bandage off my arm and find the same has happened with that injury too. Nothing is left of the deep slashes other than faded, fresh scars. The same goes for the bite on my foot.
Cold trickles down my back, and my stomach churns. My head swims, and suddenly I'm back in the forest with Grey Eyes, his teeth in my neck and agony that had followed, searing through my veins.
Had he–?
Swallowing bile, I slowly feel for the dressing around my neck. I walk up to the mirror and wipe the fog away. Taking a deep breath, I tilt my head to the side and brush my hair back, exposing the skin where my shoulder meets my neck.
The clean, round punctures make two crescents on my skin, pink with fresh scar tissue. It looks like the other scars, apart from the silvery white tinge that stains the skin around it, the telltale sign of Lycan venom.
"No," I whisper, my voice hoarse. "No."
My heart pumps too quickly in my chest and my breaths come fast and short. I stumble away from the mirror, hand on the scar, and my head spins when I feel the ridges on my skin. The floor tilts beneath me and I lay a hand on the wall to steady myself as I stagger toward the toilet.
I barely make it before I throw up, though my stomach has nothing to offer but bile. Wiping my mouth, I remain keeled over the bowl, too unsteady to try standing again. I screw my eyes shut when another bout of pain pulses through my skull, and my stomach seizes again.
This can't be happening – Lycans never Turn Hunters.
The realization hits me again, and I suddenly realize my face is wet with tears.
Half coherently, I crawl to the shower and sit on the floor as the steaming water pounds my back, my legs too wobbly to stand upright. I scrub at my body until my skin is tender and pink, as if that would wash away the venom that already courses through my blood, infecting every cell. It doesn't help – nothing will cleanse me of the truth, and when I step out, I still feel dirty and vile.
I wrap myself in a towel and stand in front of the mirror.
I don't look different, apart from the new scars that should still be wounds and the silver stain of Lycan venom. I still look like me, but something is deeply, seriously wrong with me. I take a deep breath and wipe away the tears tracking down my cheeks. Hunters don't cry.
Slowly, I reach for the gauze and apply fresh, unnecessary bandages over my scars. My hands shake as I start working on the one on my neck, but I force myself to keep it together. A dry, humourless smile twitches my lips when I realize how lucky I am it took this long for the venom to take effect. Had I stayed even an hour longer in medical, Doc would have noticed. They would have put me down like a dog right then and there. The thought nearly propels me toward the toilet bowl again.
I have to leave. I can't stay here, not when people's lives are at stake. Loose cannon.
As calmly as I can, I wiggle into a pair of jeans and rummage for my long-sleeved turtle neck. I find it buried in my closet under a messy pile of other, rarely worn articles of clothing and slip it over my head. Even though the dressing covers the scar completely, I feel the need to put as many layers as I can between it and the prying eyes of the outside world.
Grabbing a pack from my closet, I start methodically filling it with the bare essentials: spare clothes. A selection of my favourite blades. Forged licenses, passports. A bottle of aspirin, because my goddamn head won't stop throbbing. I contemplate for a moment packing a dog muzzle, a dry smile on my face.
I had just laced up my boots when a knock sounds at my door.
I freeze, and fear grips my body like an iron vise. I don't move, counting the seconds between the next series of loud knocks. Four seconds. This is urgent.
"Kat?" a voice calls from behind my door.
"Yeah, just a second," I say loudly. I bolt to my bathroom to check that all my unnatural scars are hidden and stuff my packed bag back into my closet before walking back to the door, hand resting at the pommel of a dagger at my hip. When I yank it open, my neighbour Emma stands behind it, smiling sympathetically.
"Hey. Linda wants to see you."
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