The creature let out an earth-shaking yelp. When it landed on the side I had injected, its leg buckled beneath it. Wet, bloody fur collided into me as it fell. I grabbed at the matted fur, pushing myself back and out of the way to keep its weight from crushing me.
It slumped into a heap in my lap. The fur receded from my hands and slipped like sand through my fingers. The painful sound of bones breaking and crunching pounded in my ears. The pulsing and shifting resonated and vibrated through my body.
The wolf lying in my lap became a human. Alex's body lay still, slumped over my knees, his head turned away from me so I couldn't see his face.
"Oh my God!" I gasped, panting to catch my breath as my heart raced. I'd never witnessed what it actually looked like when someone used the Hell Flower injection on me, so I didn't know. Was this what was supposed to happen?
"Alex! Are you okay?" His only movement was weak, uneven breaths. He was still alive.
I pushed his dark hair back from his face so I could see him. His eyes were closed like he was unconscious. Three deep scratches ran all the way from his forehead to his lips, just barely missing his right eye. One inch in another direction, and he would have been blinded.
My stomach turned as I noticed the splotches of red growing on the denim of his jacket. I remembered the wounds on the creature he had been only seconds before—fur matted in blood and skin torn all the way to bone. I swallowed down a heavy lump in my throat.
"Please, wake up," I whispered.
Suddenly, his body convulsed. He rolled off of my lap, retching as black, vile blood spewed out of his mouth. It landed on the ground in a sticky glob. His entire body shook as he braced himself on his hands and knees. With a gag, he spit up another mouthful of blood.
I was frozen in placed as I watched him. The same thing had happened to me after Liz had given me the Hell Flower injection. It must have been a side effect of the poison. That was it.
But then he was sick again, and I could tell something wasn't right.
He didn't seem aware of his surroundings. He crawled a few feet to get away from where he had just vomited up blood, and then he fell back onto his side, rolling so he was on his back. His chest heaved with erratic breaths. His shirt was torn completely open in the front, revealing the deep wounds across his body.
I crawled over to him so I could look into his eyes. My arms and legs shook painfully beneath me. I was barely able to hold myself up.
His black pupils were swollen almost to the point where they completely swallowed the blue irises. He wasn't looking at anything. I wondered if he could even see right now.
"Alex, it's going to be okay," I said. "You're going to be okay."
He blinked a few times, finally making eye contact with me. He forced a pained smiled and shook his head. "I'm sorry, Allison," he said. He heaved a gasping breath that sounded empty, like he wasn't able to get oxygen into his lungs. "I'm not."
"Stop!" I screamed at him, anger suddenly raging through me. The hand that I could feel—the one that was sliced open—clenched into a bloody fist. "You knew this was going to happen, didn't you? You knew that because I bit you, the exorcism would work this time. That's why it didn't work last time, isn't it? Last time, the wolf didn't have anywhere to go, so it couldn't be evicted from its host. You knew. You knew. You knew!"
I slammed my fist down onto his shoulder, for a second forgetting how injured he was.
Despite the wounds covering him, he didn't even wince. I remembered that was where I had stabbed him with the needle of Hell Flower. That side of him was probably completely numb by this point.
"I knew," he said, his voice shaking as he spoke. "I knew something was different the moment I entered this body a year ago." Blood coated his teeth and dripped from the scratch on his face, dying his skin red. He coughed and heaved as he tried to breath.
"For the past two hundred years," he finally continued, "whenever I've taken a new body and joined with a new soul, I've immediately felt the pull of the next." He paused for a second, grimacing as he gasped for air. "But this time, it was different. This time, when I joined souls, I felt nothing. I didn't understand why for the longest time . . . but now I finally do."
"No!" I yelled at him. "You have to fight back. You aren't going to die this way! You can't!"
"I've done a lot of bad things in my past, Allison," Alex said. "I've caused so much pain and hurt over all the lives I've lived, and I've been through so much pain and hurt. I'm finally ready for this curse to end, and at least I can die to save someone good. To save someone I love."
"I'm not ready, though!" I screamed.
I waited for him to say something in response, but he didn't . His eyes slipped closed. His breathing was pained and uneven.
"Wake up!" I yelled at him, but there was no response.
"Allison!" I heard Liz calling from the distance.
I turned my eyes up. Everyone had shifted back to their human forms. With all of their injuries, it looked like someone had sprayed the entire campsite down with a firehose of blood. Veronica held Reggie as he grimaced against the pain that must have been raging through his broken leg. Jake kneeled on the ground, his hands clenched into fists against the pain. He was covered in scratches and scrapes.
Liz crawled towards us on her hands and knees.
"He's not waking up," I said.
She reached us, and she pulled me into a hug with one arm. "I know," she said.
"He's going to wake up, right?" Tears ran down my cheeks.
Liz didn't answer me. She just looked at Alex's barely conscious body. His eyes flickered open every few seconds, but his breathing became more erratic and pained.
"How much was in the needle?" I begged her to respond.
"I had that for emergencies only," Liz said. "He . . . he's not going to make it."
I clutched my hands into fists. "No, please. I don't believe you. How high was the dose?"
Liz didn't respond, she just stared at him, her hand tracing the cuts on his face, to his lips. His eyes flashed open at her touch, but they looked foggy. Blind.
"How high?" I screamed.
She finally looked up to me, but she shook her head. "If I thought there was any chance he would survive it, I wouldn't have waited until the absolute last minute to tell you to use it."
I bit down on my tongue, not even trying to fight back the tears pouring down my face. I glanced around the clearing. Reggie, Jake, and Veronica kneeled only a few feet away. Despite their own injuries, they had all managed to crawl over to join us. Their leader was dying. I wondered what that meant for them. But more importantly, their friend was dying. The companion they'd shared lifetimes with. Someone they had thought they would spend eternity with.
"You all need to go back to the bus," Liz finally said.
"We aren't going to leave him," Jake said. Reggie nodded in agreement, still clutching his broken ankle.
Liz shook her head. "No. You need to take care of yourselves." She paused. "And I know what this poison is going to do to him. I know how he's going to die. It's going to be painful. I don't want you to have to see this. Please, let him have some dignity."
Jake bit down on his lower lip, and finally he nodded. "Okay." He pushed himself to his feet, and then he and Veronica helped Reggie up.
Together, they limped over to where the rest of us lay on the ground. Reggie and Jake kneeled down to say their goodbyes while Veronica stood back, tears beading in her eyes.
"I'll see you again one day, my brother," Jake said. Then, he helped Reggie to his feet. Veronica put her arm around Reggie's other side, and with a glance back, they began to limp back down the dark trail.
"Allison, are you coming?" Jake looked over his shoulder to me.
"Go with them," Liz whispered, gesturing with her head towards the others.
My eyes stung with tears. "Okay." I finally nodded.
I pushed myself to my feet, limping after the rest of the pack until I caught them. Jake supported Reggie with one arm, but he held out his other to me. When I reached them, he pulled me into a tight hug at his side. I didn't care that it hurt all of my bruises and cuts to be touched. Being held by someone was what I needed.
"What's going to happen to you now, without him?" I asked softly as we began to walk down the trail. "He's your leader."
"I don't know," Jake said. "I guess we'll just keep going. Maybe it's finally time we find out what it's like to grow old." He gave me a sad smile.
I couldn't smile back. "What are we going to tell people?" I asked. We were all covered with claw marks and bites, and Reggie's leg was broken. "How will we explain this?"
"I don't know that either," Jake said. "But I suppose we have an entire bus ride back to Minneapolis to figure that out." He paused. "I'm wondering . . . how crazy would it be if we just told the truth?"
I gave a glance back over my shoulder as we left the clearing behind. Liz had shifted into a wolf, and she lay curled up against her lover, gently licking blood from his wounds.
My eyes burned with tears, and my heart felt like it was shattering. I couldn't cope with the idea of someone dying to save me. What had I done to deserve this? I wasn't worth it.
I looked up to the sky where the moon had turned back to blue—drained of all its blood. A faint halo of white surrounded it, and I knew that snow was on the horizon.
I promised myself I would never let that halo disappear.
| THE END |
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Author's Note: Thanks so much for reading! I'd love to hear what you thought about the story in the comments. I hope you enjoyed it! I definitely had fun writing it. :)
If you liked this story, be sure to check out my story Make Them Scream if you haven't read it already. It revolves around the same characters and takes place before this story started. And, if you want to get updates about my writing and other stories, make sure you are following me. Thanks once again for reading!
-Amy