ten

More waiting. At least this time I have something prettier to look at than a tweaker. We drive. And drive. And drive some more all along my old friend, I-70. Donovan barely acknowledges my presence the entire ride. He’s too busy keeping track of Jason and answering phone calls. From what I piece together, they’re constructing a massive trap at someone’s house in Pennsylvania, a trap Jason is driving right into. I’m sure he knows this. Still he follows mile after agonizing mile. Him and his stupid honor. They’re gonna massacre him.

Part of me is joyous that he’s here, that there’s a glimmer of hope trailing behind me in an Accord. But the other 90 percent is literally praying he’ll wise up. Turn that damn car around and not look back. There’s no reason for us both to die. It’s just stupid. Stupid.

If I could only move, I’d crash the car. Donovan never drives below seventy, and my hands aren’t free. I can’t kick him because I’m behind him. The cuffs are so tight I don’t think breaking my thumbs would even work. For a second I consider flinging the door open, but even that doesn’t work. The child lock must be engaged. From every angle, this is hopeless. After an hour, I just give up. I slump against the door, collapsing from exhaustion. The cat naps help, but I seem to jerk awake whenever he takes a phone call. The sun begins to set, and when I wake for the third time only a little orange remains behind us in the west. I don’t think we’re in Ohio anymore judging from the signs. I sit up and glance at the clock. We’re been driving for four hours.

“I have to pee,” I say.

“Almost there. Keep being a good girl and maybe I’ll give you a lollie.”

Ten minutes later, we pull off the interstate onto a two-lane road heavily wooded on both sides. Trees soon give way to a field, then more trees. It’s beautiful. Desolate. No one will ever hear me scream. About two miles down, Donovan turns onto a dirt road. We follow it about half a mile before rolling through a wooden covered bridge badly in need of more red paint. I glance back, but the Accord has vanished.

My 10 percent selfishness rears its ugly head. My body locks from fear as I stare at the empty road. He wised up. He’s left me. Perhaps that wasn’t even him. I keep my eyes glued behind us, waiting with bated breath for the Civic to materialize again. No joy. A quarter mile of nothing but thick trees later, we pull into a small field with a tall, middle-aged man holding a shotgun standing by the road. Donovan slows, and I face front. A farm house. I die in a farm house. Not even a nice one. Like the bridge it’s badly in need of paint, the shutters on the second story are literally hanging by a nail. The barn farther down the clearing is in the same sorry state. If not for all the lights on inside and out, three cars on the lawn, and a man on the porch, also with a shotgun, I’d think the place was abandoned. No such luck.

Donovan rolls down the window to speak to the first guard. “Everyone here?”

“Yeah. No sign of anyone else. We’ve done two sweeps.”

“He probably just got into position now. I figure a minimum of an hour. Keep vigilant anyway.”

“Wish our guy was with them, huh?”

“Can’t have everything.” The guard nods before we continue toward the house. The moment the car shuts off, stinging bile rises up my throat. If it wasn’t closed so tight, I’d barf all over the car. This is literally the end of the road for me. No more miles to save me. I die here. It’s so … final. My breath escapes in short spurts through my nose like a pig. Bacon. I’m bacon.

Donovan exits the car, waves to the burly man on the porch, and opens my door. I’m trembling so bad he has difficulty unlocking my cuffs. They rattle right along with me. Donovan’s thin lips purse in annoyance, but he frees me. It feels good to stand, even if my legs are seconds from giving out on me. Donovan must sense this because after re-cuffing me, he holds me by the waist as we walk up the creaky porch.

“Phil,” the burly man says.

“Gig,” Donovan says back as we walk inside.

The interior is about as pretty as the exterior. Martha Stewart would faint if she saw this place. Just in the foyer, which is just a hall, there’s a thick coat of dust on all the mismatched and cracked knickknacks. The varnish on the hardwood floor wore off decades ago and a few planks are missing. On the stairs to my left, a grizzled old man with a scraggly gray beard dressed in overalls sits with a rifle in his lap. The stairs groan as he rises. “You Donovan?” he asks.

“Yes, sir,” says Donovan. “We can’t thank you enough for the use of your farm.”

More creaking to my right draws my attention. A man my age with short brown hair and a goatee comes down the hall with a pistol in his jeans and shotgun slung over his shoulder as if he were strolling down Park Avenue.

“That son of a bitch killed my boy. Heard he put him down like a dog in some parking lot. That true?”

“Yes.”

I think they’re talking about Cooper. I do see a resemblance in their height and sturdy, squat build.

“He was a good solider until the end, sir. And the man who pulled the trigger is right outside. Your son’s death will not go unavenged.”

“Appreciate that.”

“Is there somewhere out of the way we can keep her? We may need her later.”

“Root cellar. Moon cage down there,” Cooper answers. “Key’s on the peg next to it.”

“Thank you,” Donovan says, digging out the cuff key. “Mick, she needs to pee. Let her, and then take her to the cellar.” Goatee exchanges the shotgun for the key and me. Nice to know my worth. My new jailer eyes me up and down, all but licking his chops. Yeah, after a day in jail I’m a real centerfold. “Mr. Cooper, if you could give me a tour of the house so I can learn the layout? We need to start setting up.”

Mick jerks me by the cuffs down the hall as Donovan follows Cooper upstairs. There’s a bathroom just after a photo of Cooper Jr. in Army fatigues. I can’t look at it. All I see is his brain splattering over that parking lot. That horror is replaced with one in real time, a stinking bathroom with black mold in every cranny. Adding insult to injury, Mick refuses to take his eyes off me. He stands in the doorway, gaze glued to my exposed legs and above. Truth is I have to pee so badly there could be ten men watching and I’d barely care.

“See the carpet matches the drapes,” Mick says.

“Yeah, haven’t heard that one before.”

When it’s time to wipe, my jailer says, “I can do that for you if you like.”

“Think I can manage, thank you,” I say with a hard edge.

I don’t like the glint in his brown eyes one iota. Twice I’ve seen that look, as if I were nothing but a piece of meat. A toy. Inhuman. Both times I came way too close to becoming a rape statistic. I think tonight the “third time’s a charm” rule will be tested. I hike up my pants and flush the toilet, or at least try to. Bad, groaning pipes.

Nature’s call answered, Mick snatches me out of the small room and pushes me into the kitchen. There’s another man with dark hair in a ponytail with his back to me, fixing a sandwich. That’s five. Five against one. Not even Jason can withstand those odds. He cannot come into this house. Which means I have to get out.

My jailer opens the door across from ponytail and shoves me down the rickety wooden stairs. The cold, damp air gives rise to goosebumps instantaneously. Mick switches on the light. I will say this for regular jail, they keep the dust and cobwebs to a minimum. My new cell hasn’t been cleaned since the Eisenhower era. There are boxes close to disintegrating. Children’s toys like rocking horses are now spider colonies. Racks of rusted canned goods fill an entire wall. If the werewolves don’t kill me, the toxic mold will. The floor is actual packed dirt. It’s a large grave. My grave.

What really captures my attention sits in the back corner. A cell, rusted like everything else here. It’s maybe 9 by 11 feet, small, but up to the ceiling with some bars bent outward in the middle as if whatever was inside desperately attempted to get out. A werewolf judging from the claw marks covering the back wall. Mick retrieves the key for the padlock, undoes the lock and chain holding the doors together, and shoves me in. The reek of mold vanishes, replaced with a strong salty and metallic odor. There are tufts of fur mixed with what resembles dried glue covering the back wall and floor. Ectoplasm. Better than what my first thought was.

I make note that after he relocks the chain, he places the key in his right pocket. “Come here,” he says.

“Why?”

He pulls out the handcuff key. “Want those cuffs off?” Since my hands are all but numb from lack of circulation, I step forward. He grabs my hands, jerking me into the bars so hard my chin whacks against them. He’s oblivious to this new pain of mine, oblivious to everything but my chest. It’s so cold my nipples stand at attention. “Good girl.” He unlocks me, caressing my hands and wrists far more than necessary. I keep on a mask of indifference. “Cold down here, huh? If you’re nice to me, maybe I’ll bring you a jacket. Would you like that?”

I want to spit in his face, bite his nose off, but hold back. I may need him on my good side later. Right now, I just need him gone so I can think. “Thank you,” I say when the cuffs fall off. I move back as far as I can against the clawed wall.

Mick literally licks his lips as his eyes devour me one last time. “Be back, babe.”

I don’t allow myself to relax until I hear the upstairs door shut. I let out the ragged breath I was holding before sliding down the wall into the sitting position and hugging my knees to my chest. I don’t know what to do. I’m locked in a fucking cage. Even if I managed to get out of here, there are five werewolves with guns upstairs to sneak past. I don’t stand a damn chance.

This is insanity. I’m gonna die here. I don’t want to die. I’m not ready. I thought I’d have more time. I want Jason. This is all me. This is all my fault. I made him run. I insisted we stop. I seduced him. Now I’m going to get killed. No, I can’t fall apart now. Don’t you fall apart, Vivian Frances Dahl. You need to get the hell out of this cell. You need to get out of this house before he commits suicide for your undeserving ass. Earn all he’s done and will do for you. Keep your damn promise for once. Be the person he seems to think you are. Who you can be.

Fight.

My eyes rocket open and like the night in the parking lot calm burns away the fog of fear. The world around me becomes crystal clear as all my senses heighten. The smell of werewolf, of Jason still on my skin. The sound of footsteps above my head. The soft warm breeze wafting from the right. My gaze whips in its direction. At first all I notice are boxes piled on top of boxes like steps, then I notice a piece of white lace atop one billowing a little. I
follow behind it and spy slats of wood at an angle obstructed by boxes. Cellar door. Exit. Excellent.

The cage. I stand to examine it inch by inch, then testing the more rusted parts for their strength by pulling with all my might. Only one wiggles where I assume a werewolf threw himself against the cage. I will have better luck than he did.

At least I have a project to pass the time before my execution. There’s a sharp but thin edge keeping the bar in place that I must dislodge. I kick it as I learned to do in cardio kickboxing. Whack. Whack. I get in two five-minute rounds before Mick comes to investigate the noise. Each time he finds me in the corner hugging my knees and rocking back and forth. When he asks what the noise was, I rock harder in response. I can’t risk a third visit, not by him. Plus my legs are killing me.

I resort to alternating between shows of brute upper body strength, which I am sorely lacking, and the more precise jiggling of the bar, slowly wearing down its resistance. I don’t know how much time passes, hours I think, as above me furniture skids and thuds as men walk to and fro, getting ready to murder my Blondie. I do my utmost to not to think about that. All that matters is getting the bar out. Just get the damn bar free. For Jason. For me. Just get it free.

Little by little it gives way. Whenever my patience is tested, and I’m about to scream in frustration, give up, I call up an image of him. Watching me onstage in awe. In the car in Kansas when something magical passed between us. The expression of sheer happiness as he entered me for the first time. I want more of these moments. Keep going.

I think two or three hours pass, it’s hard to gauge. My hands, my shoulders, even my legs ache. Almost there though. Two hard kicks and the bar clatters to the floor. Yes! I reach through the bars for it. Part one complete. I wedge the bar inside the chain to pry it loose. Nope. Whacking the padlock fails too. Which leaves riskier option three.

“Hello!” I shout. “Marshal Donovan! I need you! Marshal!”

It takes a full minute of hollering before I hear the door above open. Shit, I’m really gonna do this. I can do this. Fear closes up my throat, but I will do this. Mick walks through the boxes. I can do this, I can do this … “What?”

“I have to use the bathroom again. It’s an emergency. I’m about to crap my pants.” The last one isn’t a lie, just not literally.

“Go in the corner.”

“No, please,” I say, rushing to the bars. “I’ll do anything. Anything you want, I won’t put up a fight. Just please let me use the toilet. I’ll be good. Please.”

The werewolf scans me up and down. All he sees are my pleading eyes and defeated body language. What he doesn’t see is the jagged metal bar riding up my spine tucked into my waistband. If he did he’d never step toward me to undo the padlock and chain. I reach behind as he moves in. “Better make it fast, though. We think your boyfriend—”

Like a bolt of Zeus’s lightning, I swing the bar around, smashing it against the side of his head. Hard. I don’t know if it’s the pain or shock, but Mick cries out as he bangs against the cell from the force. The moment he hits, I swing again. And again. And again. Blood splatters everywhere, on me, on the floor as I bash and bash and bash. I barely notice. Again. Again. He slumps to the floor, blood streaming down his face in three different spots. Breathing as if I climbed Mt. Everest in one shot, I stare down at him for a second. He doesn’t move. I think I killed him. Footsteps above distract me from further thought. Fight now, cope later.

I take a step out of my cage. Part thre—

A hand clamps onto my ankle. The next thing I know, I’m toppling to the dirt, ending with a jarring thud onto my stomach and jaw. The pain in my mouth is instantaneous as teeth knock together and on my tongue. Blood fills my mouth. The pain, the copper taste distracts me from what’s really important, which I only realize when that same vice on my ankle wrenches me backward on the dirt floor. I glance behind to find a pissed Mick drawing me in with one hand and moving the other from his back with a …

Oh, fuck.

I kick with my free foot and bring the bar around, but the gun’s already trained on me. Instinct makes me swing away. The rod connects with the gun arm. A shot rings out the moment a searing, white hot line of pain slices across my arm. Somewhere in my brain it registers I’ve just been shot, but I’m too busy to realize it or that people are shouting and running upstairs before Mick recovers. He whacks my hand holding the bar against the cage. More intense pain rockets through my pinky. I drop my weapon. Before I understand the ramification of this, the psycho backhands my left cheek. I see literal stars and my head smacks against the floor near my bar. I shut my eyes to play dead.

“Bit—”

A loud gunshot from outside cuts short his words. The subsequent explosion, rattling of the house like a tremor hit and all the lights vanishing a half second later startles me even in my fuzzy state. I open my eyes to almost total darkness. More gunshots echo outside. Running footsteps. Shouting. I think someone screams, “Mick, get up here!” Chaos.

Jason.

Though it’s dark as hell, using the tiny bit of light from outside I can make out Mick’s body rising. Now. With one fluid movement, I grasp for the bar, and while sitting up thrust the jagged end into what I hope is his side. It must be because he howls in pain, though it’s barely audible, overshadowed by the automatic gunfire upstairs and outside. I pull the rod out again, only to impale him once more. He lets off a shot, and in the light from the muzzle I see I’ve hit him just under the ribs. The moment we’re plunged back into darkness, I sweep his feet from under him and jerk the bar out again. He lands beside me. I hear the gun drop. Roaring like a madwoman, I raise the bar above my head and plunge it square into his chest. Once. Twice. Half a dozen times, one right on top of the other. It feels as if I’ve floated beside myself, watching in horror as my twin continues this heinous act. In, out. In, out. Mick screams, but she puts an end to that, moving up and stabbing him through the neck. This is much easier to get through, fewer bones, though she hits an artery because blood geysers onto her face. Not even that stops the onslaught. Not even the gurgling as he chokes on his own blood. In, out. In, out. She only stops when that does. The silence calls me back into my wet body.

“Fuck, fuck,” I gasp. No guilt, just get up.

I grab the gun. My hands are so slippery with blood, and I can’t move my pinky, I can barely hold it. Even standing is painful. I push that aside. Part three, get the fuck out. I keep whacking against boxes in the almost nonexistent light, with only a tiny crack of it leading my way to the root cellar door. Not that I really want to go outside at present. Gunshots, screaming, snarling all alternate out there. Not much better above me with hard footfalls and the odd gunshot. Stick with the plan. I push boxes out of my way up the root cellar stairs. Get out, just get out. I clear the path but scream in frustration when I reach the top. Another chain and padlock. Please don’t let the movies be wrong about this.

I place the gun right against the lock and fire. The second shot works. The lock breaks. Yes! I pull the chain off and push up. No! It barely budges. There’s another chain and lock outside. “No, no!” I shriek as I fight against it. “N—”

Shit!

There’s a low, threatening growl as something presses back on the doors. I only get a brief glimpse of tan fur before the doors slam shut. I shriek and leap back. I take another step down as claws begin furiously scratching against the wooden doors. Werewolf. Fuck that. Door #2 it is.

I work my way toward the stairs, collecting more bruises from the boxes. With my arm, tongue, and pinky throbbing like they’re auditioning for a gig as a heavy metal drummer, I barely notice. Gun and me as ready as we’ll ever be, I race up the stairs and wait by the door, listening. No footsteps, no gunshots. Find a door outside, run toward the tree line, stop for nothing.

Go.

I throw open the door and step into the kitchen. Empty. Amazing. Gun leading like in the movies, I check left. Running footsteps make me swing the gun right, finger on the trigger. The second I see movement, I fire. Too wide. The man ducks but keeps his shotgun pointed on me as he continues charging. I’m about to fire again when the man shouts, “Vivi!” and steps into a stream of light. It strikes his orange hair first, giving it a fiery glow, then his face. My face.

“Daddy.”

I’m so shocked I don’t even put up a fight as he pulls me into a tight hug. “Thank God, thank God,” he whispers as he strokes my hair. My father’s hugging me. My father is hugging me. He releases me a second later to examining me. “Are you alright?” he asks, voice breaking.

I give little nods. I can’t speak right now. This is my father. He came to save me.

“Doll, how many were in the house?” Frank asks.

“F-Five,” I sputter. “I-I-I k-k-killed one. In the basement.”

He cups my bloody cheek and smiles. “Good girl.”

A literal howl outside ends the macabre family bonding. Frank glances that direction, then pulls a walkie off his belt. “Omar, we’re coming out. Car. Now.” He replaces it. “We’re going now. Don’t leave my side for anything. We’re headed for the black SUV. Come on.”

My father lifts his shotgun and starts back the way he came with me a step behind. No one attacks as we charge down the hall toward the open front door. I have to step over a man in overalls missing most of his head and part of his chest to get outside. Mr. Cooper. I don’t feel a damn bit of sympathy for him right now.

Smoke assails my nose when we step onto the porch, into the crisp night. Crackling flames light up the side of the house, I think from an exploded generator. Jesus, I’m in Die Hard. Through the thick, acrid cloud, I spot headlights moving closer. Frank dashes off the porch for the SUV as I trail behind. Frank’s head whips right, and I follow his gaze. Holy shit. Ten yards away, a huge, light-colored wolf is muzzle deep into a man’s chest, chowing down. The corpse’s head lolls back and forth, protesting this invasion even in death. “Donovan.” The wolf glances up from its feast just as the headlights hit his eyes. Its ice blue eyes. Dear God.

Jason takes a few steps toward us, but Frank points the shotgun at him. “No! Stay!”

The beast bares its bloody, ragged teeth and hair along his spine sticking straight up, but ceases moving. The wolf doesn’t take his eyes off me. The SUV slows before us. A bald African American man with a sniper rifle climbs out of the driver’s seat and rushes over. “Vivi, get in the car,” Frank orders. I listen, rounding the car to the passenger side. “Status?” Frank asks.

“I got the one downfield,” the man says in a Boston accent. “Jason another.”

“Adam?” Frank asks.

“Chased one into the trees. I heard shouting. Think he got him.”

“Take that truck and go confirm. Should be two in the house as well. Five total. If any are alive, secure them, then clean up here as best you can. No bodies, alright? When Jason and Adam change back, hurry back double time.”

“Yes, sir,” Omar says.

“Thank you.” Frank climbs in beside me and shuts the door. “Seat belt, doll.”

Right. Safety. Important. It hurts, everything hurts, but I manage to secure it. Frank swings the SUV around, and I get one last glimpse at the carnage. House toppling as it’s consumed by fire. Two visible corpses. My lover throws his bloody snout back, howling as we drive away. I feel nothing. Not a thing except tired. So tired.

“It’s okay now, Vivi,” my father says beside me as the battlefield fades in the mirror. “It’s all over. You’re safe. I’m here doll. I’m here.” He takes my good hand, squeezing it. “We’re going home.”

I squeeze my father back. Home.