Chapter 10- Sloane, ten years ago

While we stumble through the woods, Cece’s lips are so dry they begin to crack and bleed, and my own aren’t too far off as my tongue is too dry to even wet my own lips.  The air is hotter here, the bugs are out and thriving in this climate, and our thirst and hunger are no longer the only things which bother us. I’m soon covered in bites and welts that sting, and I give up on swatting away the mosquitoes from the patches of my exposed skin. I’m grateful my little sister doesn’t seem to be liked by the biting insects as much, but neither of us escape the scratches from thorns and vines that snake out in the path. Both of us are soon exhausted and miserable as the wolf forces us to walk through the night. And the wolf isn’t the only thing to be afraid of out here.

Things move in the brackish water that smells foul. I figure out pretty quickly these woods led to a swamp. I’ve watched enough documentaries with Daddy to realize this, to know it’s likely man-eating alligators that move through the rotten waters around us, just waiting to pull girls like me and my sister under. The wolf makes us cross some areas of black water, some which are only ankle deep, while others come up to my chest. I’m terrified of being snatched by a gator or bitten by a snake, my body shakes and I can barely make my legs work across the swamp. Not being able to see much down here in the darkness makes things better and worse. My mind plays tricks on me and I see glowing eyes and monsters everywhere, ready to pounce.  But that could also be because my body is dehydrated and weak.

But the wolf lets his eyes glow and gives off howls as we cross. It seems to keep the gators away, the dark waters ripple around us as the other predators retreat.  He throws CeCe over his shoulder so she doesn’t get lost and go under when the waters are too deep, but I’m left to struggle through the putrid water on my own two feet. It threatens to steal my shoes from my feet, to pull me under, as each step is a fight, and one time I fall beneath its dark surface. I’m certain I’m going to die as my mouth fills with rotten water, but the wolf fishes me out and drags me back up.

 I gag and choke on the filthy water, but I have nothing left to throw up. I lose my left shoe in the muck. The ground is harsh against that socked foot and the branches and brambles cut into my sole. The pain in my exposed foot is only the latest in my aching body. I cry with the pain, but it does me little good. The monster doesn’t let me rest. When I plead for just a few minutes to stop, when my blood paints the ground as we walk, he turns his glowing eyes and anger on me.

“Do you know what wolfs do when a member of the pack is weak and falls behind?” he growls in the darkness.

I shake my head. Tears burn my eyes. Sweat burns the bites and scratches on my skin. CeCe wraps her arms around my legs and hides behind me. She knows what the monster’s glowing eyes mean.

“We leave the weak behind to die. Or we make them useful to the pack by consuming their flesh to sustain us.”

I gulp as neither options sound very appealing. I won’t survive out here long without the wolf’s protection from the other predators that stalk these swamps. But I’m far more concerned with what will happen to CeCe if I die. She won’t last long without me.

“Water…CeCe needs water at least. She’ll die without it…Please…”

I lean up against a tree to take some weight off my sliced-up foot.

“My cub will learn. My punishment stands. You will have water when I allow it. Now, can you continue, or shall I return you to the ground or leave you behind for the gators and panthers to feast upon?”

His punishment for my disobedience is withholding food and water from us, even when he drank his own fill from a freshwater spring several miles back. My stomach grumbled as we watched him eat wild mushrooms and berries he scavenged along the way. The monster caught me pressing the crushed berries from my pocket to CeCe’s lips and took them from me. At first, she cried from the pain of her hunger and thirst, but as the night wears on, she grows too tired and weak to even cry anymore. She is far too quiet again, tripping up over her feet and clumsier than before, as I hold her hand through the dark trees. I carry her on my back when she falls to give her rests.

What will happen to her without me? I made Mom a promise that I would look after CeCe. And I will. No matter how thirsty or tired I am. I’ll keep that promise even if it kills me. I pick my sister up again, though I stagger under her weight, and glare at the monster with defiance.

“I will go on.”

“Then move your feet. Fall behind again and I’ll leave you behind,” he threatens.

I force my feet onward. CeCe lies her head on my shoulder practically lifeless. Occasionally, she whines a little like a kitten, and I know she will die soon if she doesn’t get water. I have to save her. I have to get her away from the monster. I know we have a better chance of escaping out in towns with other people around, but at least out here, there is no one else for him to kill but me when he gets mad. There must be trappers and hunters out here somewhere. Ones with big guns who know how to kill monsters. When I find my chance to run, I’ll take it. I’ll get my sister away from the big bad wolf and somewhere safe.

I smelled bad before we entered the sour water, and now I smell terrible enough to make my own eyes water and I gag. But a bath and clean clothes are the least of my worries at the moment. If the wolf doesn’t kill us, or something else big and hungry out here doesn’t, our hunger and thirst will. I’m almost tempted to drink the swamp water, it’s been over a day since my sister and I last had anything to eat or drink. The sweat we lose in this heat, isn’t helping matters any. The miles of walking over rough ground, is only making things far worse.

I’m forced to make a choice between carrying my baby sister or the backpack when the weight gets to be too much to bear. When I keep falling and it gets harder to get back up. I slip Daddy’s knife out of the front pocket, hide it in my jeans, and then toss the bag into the undergrowth. I can’t wait for the sun to rise because its when the wolf likes to make camp and rest. But I don’t know if I can make it that long as I stagger in a haze of exhaustion and painful thirst. I sing to myself and CeCe though her eyes mostly stay closed, and my voice is hoarse, my throat dry and raw. My lips crack and bleed with the high notes.

When the wolf is distracted, I snatch leaves from branches and wipe the dew on CeCe’s lips. It’s not much, but its better than nothing. When the wolf shifts into his fur to take down a deer, I use Daddy’s knife to cut a tree branch, then I suck it into my mouth. When moisture hits my tongue, I coax CeCe to do the same. She pushes it away at first, so I cut a fresh limb, and let the water drip into her mouth. I lose our chance to run away but at the moment water is our greatest need. Before I can take another suck of my own sapling, the wolf is dragging his fresh kill over to us. Fresh blood coats the ground as it leaves the lifeless deer. CeCe cries and buries her face into my shoulder.

I watch as the beast tears into the hyde of the deer, stripping it away from the meat and bones. His fangs are sharp and he has little trouble tearing through the raw meat. In wolf form, he is truly massive, and terrifying, his dark fur blending into the trees. I don’t look away no matter how scary it gets or gross it gets. The smell of blood, the sounds of the tearing meat, turn my stomach. He wants me to watch. To see what he is capable of, to scare me. But I already know. I’ve already seen the evil and scary things he’s done.

One moment he is on all fours, covered in fur, the next he stands on two legs as his body stretches. I look up at his face to avoid his naked parts. I take a few steps back as he comes closer. The blood has followed onto his human face, it coats his chin and teeth. He throws a chunk of bloody meat at my feet.

“There is only one way to end this, little bitch. You want the cub to have a drink? Then eat the meat.”

I eye it with disgust and it makes my stomach sick. But I think of CeCe and I can’t let her die. She won’t survive much longer without water. She already grows weak and can barely walk, she cries without tears, and I’ve had to carry her most of the way for the last few hours. I take a deep breath and lower myself onto my knees. I lay CeCe in the grass beside me gently and she barely moves and doesn’t make a sound.

“You swear it on the moon? If I eat this, you’ll give CeCe some water?” I ask.

I’m afraid this is some kind of trick or another lesson or punishment.

“I don’t say things I don’t mean. I’m a Lycan of my word. I swear it by the moon.”

He looked up towards the sky, though the moon is mostly hidden by the trees, and places a closed fist to his chest. I’ve been around him long enough to know he thinks of the moon as some sort of God, and it holds some sort of power over him. He is crazy for sure, but he holds the moon in high regard, and I believe he will honor anything he swears upon it. At least I hope, but he can’t really be trusted.

I’ve heard the word Lycan before on a series of the scary movies I watched. They are like werewolves, but more powerful. Lycans don’t just shift on the night of the full moon, as the wolf who murdered my parents has shown to me time and time again. Werewolves are cursed to only change on the night of the full moon, while Lycans have more control of their wolf forms, and seem to be far more dangerous because of it. You only need to fear werewolves one night a month.

My hands shake as I pick up the meat and bring it to my lips. The tangy smell of the blood, the feel of it against my fingertips, the texture of the uncooked meat makes me gag before I even take a bite. It’s tough and hard to pull off with my teeth, I don’t have the advantage of fangs. My stomach recoils and tries to reject the raw meat as I force my jaws to chew it. I have to place a hand over my mouth to keep from spitting it out. It goes down thickly and threatens to come back up. But I fight to keep it in my belly, and I win. I swallow the whole morsel one chunk at a time. When I’m done, I swipe my hand across my mouth. The meat sits heavy in my stomach, and I feel sick, but it stays down.

The wolf pulls a canteen from his pack. I watched him fill it from the stream hours ago. I take it from his hands and slip an arm under CeCe to sit her up. I tip the water to her lips. It takes a moment for her to come around, before her small hands grip the canteen, and she gulps it down until she chokes.

“Easy does it sunny bunny. Don’t choke,” I coax her as I pull it back, so she’ll take a breath and stop coughing.

She drinks so much she vomits it back up soon afterwards. I don’t take a drink for myself no matter how badly my body craves it. It wasn’t part of the deal and I know the monster will twist it against me if I drink. So, I let CeCe take small sips once she finishes throwing up.

“You must drink it slowly cub,” says the monster.

I don’t ask for a drink, nor do I beg for one. I’m glad that CeCe’s thirst is quenched and for the brief rest for my aching and bleeding feet. I swat a large mosquito on my arm, splattering the insect, and leaving blood and guts behind. My arms, face, and neck are dotted with raised bites that itch and burn something fierce.

I nearly cry when the wolf announces its time to move again. I’m not sure I can make it another step. My sister whines beside me and I pull us both to our feet. I trudge on, growing more delirious and turned around, with each footfall. Dawn is still a seemingly far way off when I fall and can’t get back up with CeCe in my arms. My body has nothing left to give. My legs won’t obey. My sister cries under me and I use my last strength to roll off her. This is it. The place I will die when the monster leaves me behind or kills me himself.

“Get up!” he growls.

But I can’t obey even if I wanted to. I close my eyes and wait for the blow to come, for the feel of his teeth in my throat like he did to Daddy, or the twisting of my neck like he did to Mom, or for him to pull my sister from my arms and leave me to die where I lie. There is a peace in accepting it. In surrendering. His rough voices sound miles away, though I know he stands right over me. I let the darkness take me away to a place of nothingness.

But the monster won’t leave me in peace. He pours water on my face, then down my throat, shaking me back into existence. I don’t’ fight him as he roughly slings me over his shoulder, and I bounce off his bare back as he takes us deeper into the swamp. I fade in and out, losing chunks of time.  I’m aware that CeCe clings to his back like a little monkey, and that brings me some peace.

Morning has come by the time we stop again. The sunlight peeks above the trees and warms my face. I’m half-conscious when he kicks down the door of a shack deep in the swamplands. The type used by trappers and gator hunters; I think. It hasn’t been used in a long time and dust and rot now claim it. Broken furniture scattered on the floor, as well as animal droppings, and old tin cans. A rusted chain, rope, and what I think is a bear trap have also been left behind.

 He drops me roughly on the floor. I curl up in a ball and try to sleep. Sleep is the best way to escape the pain in my belly, the burning of my damaged skin, and the agony of my broken heart. CeCe worms her way under my arm and together we fall into a land of dreams. But mine are anything but sweet. I awake far too soon to the sounds of screams and smell of blood. I look around the shack, expecting to find a body, but realize it’s only a bad dream. CeCe still sleeps. But so does the wolf.

I move against the floor to see if he stirs. He doesn’t move a muscle. Now is our chance to get away as the monster sleeps deeply. I eye the canteen where it lays near the door. I shake CeCe gently. Luckily her sleepy eyes open without a cry. In the full light of day, I can see the scratches that mark her little face and arms, and the redness of her puffy eyes. Her blonde hair is a mess of tangles of knots, her clothes filthy. I know I don’t look any better myself and I smell far worse. I can feel a leaf clinging to my black hair, touching against my ear. The clay still stains my left cheek and my broken skin itches badly there.

 I place my finger to my lips to tell her to be quiet without saying a word. Then slowly, we get up and tiptoe towards the door. A floorboard creaks beneath our feet and I tense, we freeze, and I hold her hand tighter in mine. My heart pounds so badly, it hurts my chest, as I look towards the wolf and watch. He stirs where he sleeps on a blanket of moss and twigs he built for himself on the floor. He ignored the remains of the bed in the corner and chose to sleep like an animal. He sniffs the air, before burrowing back down in his crude bed. He is still completely naked, but my cheeks no longer burn at the sight.

I pull CeCe towards the door as fast as I dare. Planks of wood are missing and its large enough for us to crawl through without having to risk the squeak of a rusted hinge. I carefully pick up the canteen and push my sister out the hole in the wood, before I climb through after her. I’m afraid of what lurks out there, but the worst monster of all sleeps inside the shack.

Birds sing out in the swamps and the sun is bright and cheerful in the places it breaks through the trees. I hope that all the predators are asleep right now as most are nocturnal. But I know now that monsters don’t only come out at night.

CeCe and I step off the porch, into a patch of sunlight, and then we run.