I WATCH HIM sleep in the chair. He looks uncomfortable. There’s a dim light in the room from the moon outside. It must be big tonight because it's casting a bright glow. I tilt my head and watch him. He isn’t snoring, but there is a slight whistle as he exhales. Must be the way it's blowing through his teeth. It’s not annoying, which is good because he stays in here every night.
Not that I sleep much anyway. Every time I close my eyes I see them. They were never alone, always coming for me in twos or more. They would take turns but get just as hyped up from watching as they did…
I swallow, and my throat feels dry, almost like I have a shard of glass in there. I move a little, stretching my legs, and the bed creaks just a bit, but not enough to wake him. I turn the quilt out, place my feet flat on the floor and curl my toes up and then under. The wooden floor feels cool on my feet, but as I stand, my right leg gives, and I fall back onto the bed with a thump. Pain radiates all the way upwards from my ankle to my hip, and I fall back onto the bed. I try to get up again, placing my feet on the cold wooden floor again. This time, I take my time. I push up with my arms, trying to take the weight off my leg. It works, and in a second I am on my feet and shuffling, albeit slowly, to the door across the room. The floor groans a little as I get nearer the bathroom. And as I open the door, it creaks so damn loud I curse under my breath. I dare a look across to the chair. He still has his eyes closed, but I have a feeling he’s no longer asleep. I open the door and forget there isn’t a light switch inside. So I pop my arm back around the door and feel for a switch.
‘It’s up and to the right a bit.’
I gasp as his voice scares the shit out of me. But I find the light and flick it on. I want to say thanks, and I almost do, but I close the door instead and see myself in the long mirror on the back of it. I barely recognise myself. My hair is a crazy mess, and my face has a yellowish tinge. My eyes are still blue, but they look so different like they’ve lost their shine. Is that even possible? The whites of my eyes look yellow, and then there are the scars. I unbutton the shirt to look them over. I think back to how I got them and hear a blood-curdling noise and cover my ears from the sound.
Brad flings the door open. His eyes are so white against the darkness of the room behind him. It’s then that I realise the sound is coming from me. I’m shaking, but I can no longer see the broken image of myself. Instead, Brad fills the frame. In a split second, he is by my side,
‘Hey, hey. Come on. It’s okay, sweetheart, it’s okay.’ He doesn’t step any closer, and his hand remains outstretched. I’m not sure what I should do. My eyes are spilling over with tears, and I have no idea how to stop them.
How to stop feeling.
I just don’t want to feel anymore. I don’t want to be here anymore. I remember so much. Too much. I want to forget. I need to forget. Please, please, let me forget. Brad takes a step closer, and I move to the side to stay out of his reach.
‘Sweetheart, I’m not going to hurt you. I want to help you. Let me help you?’
I have nowhere else to go. I’m trapped, and I don’t know what I should do. Just then, there’s a knock on the bedroom door, and I hear someone shout from the other side.
‘Brad! Everything okay in there?’
‘Yeah, buddy, just some bad dreams, that’s all,’ he says from the bathroom doorway, looking at me. His eyes lock with mine, and for a fleeting moment, I want to take his hand. But then I remember what he is. I curl my fingers into a fist and keep them at my sides. Whoever was at the door must have left because I don’t hear anything else. All I hear now is his breathing and mine. He takes another step, and I hold my breath, waiting for whatever comes next. He takes another, and I’m flat against the wall now. I screw my eyes closed and wait. I feel him tug on the front of my shirt—he’s so gentle. I open my eyes. I look down, and he has buttoned the shirt back up to the top. So he can no longer see my body. And I don’t blame him. I’m repulsive. I don’t speak, but our eyes meet again. I hold his stare for a moment before I look away in shame.
‘You ready to go back to bed? Or if you want to stay up we can see what’s on the box?’
I swallow, I’m not sure I can sleep at the moment. But I’m sure he must be tired.
‘Whatever you want to do,’ I tell him, looking at my feet. I hear him take a deep breath and exhale on a sigh.
‘Listen, I, err, I don’t know… umm, fuck. I don’t know how you feel, and I can’t even imagine what you’ve been through, but I promise you, no one will hurt you while you are here. Okay?’ He holds eye contact for a short while, and then he rubs his hands on his jeans, turns, and leaves the bathroom. I shuffle around in there for a minute before I decide to close the door and use the toilet. I find a bath towel on a shelf, and I cover the mirror on the door using the hooks above it. I then use another towel to cover the one above the sink. That’s a little more difficult though, and it won’t stay put. I do my best with it, and by the time I’ve finished, I can no longer see more than the very bottom of the mirror. An improvement. When I leave, I find the lights on in the bedroom, and the news is on the T.V. There’s been a natural disaster somewhere. I stand and watch as the images of villages destroyed and people covered in rubble flash across the screen. It’s awful but as quick as it was there, it is gone. Instead, there is a Samsung logo bouncing across the screen.
‘Okay, so, I do own a shit tonne of DVD's, but, they might all be bloke-type films. Being a gentleman and all, I will let you choose.’ He waves his hand in the direction of the shelves in the corner. I had noticed them before, but I couldn’t get up then even if I’d wanted to. I walk over, and I see him smile a little from the corner of my eye. The first thing I notice is all the Transformer films. I move along, and he has all the Marvel films too. Iron Man, The Avenger's, Captain America, The Hulk. But what really catches my eye is Twilight. I almost laugh, but I make a kind of snorting noise instead as I try to hold it back.
‘What?’ he asks. I don’t mean to answer, but I do on instinct.
‘You have Twilight?’ I giggle.
‘Yeah, why’s that funny?’ He smirks. I shake my head and move along the shelf. He has so many. I want something light and funny. I spot The Hangover, and I pluck it off the shelf.
‘Ah, good choice!’ he tells me, taking it from my hand. I move back to the bed and slip under the covers. Brad starts pulling the chair around, and I feel bad. I want to tell him he can sit on the bed with me. But then it’s his damn bed, not mine, how can I tell him he can sit on his own damn bed? I scoot as far across as possible and then clear my throat. He looks in my direction as I do. I want to speak, but I daren’t, and the words lodge in my throat. He finishes moving the chair and then puts on the DVD.
‘The remote should be on the bedside near you,’ he states, so I bend over and look for it. He explains what I should do, and I follow his instructions until the film starts on the screen. Brad is making a fuss, trying to lie across the chair by hanging his legs over the armrest. And I still don’t say a word. I should—he’s been kind to me. But he’s still one of them. An animal. I shudder, and he looks across from his chair. I don’t look away from the T.V., although I can see him watching me.
***
Brad
I wake up for what feels like the twenty-billionth fucking time. I hurt all over the fucking place. I stretch my cramped up legs and crack my neck. It must be passed four in the morning because I can see the sky changing colour through the window. I look over to the bed, Maiya is tucked up tight, right where I left her last night. She’s barely moved. I walk over and stick my finger under her nose to check she’s breathing. I can’t even hear her, she’s so quiet. I feel her hot breath fan across my fingers—she’s cute when she’s sleeping. I guess she’s kinda cute anyway. A looker for sure, even with her scarred-up body.
I move away, deciding on a shower. May as well start the fucking day. I’m not going to catch any more sleep on that chair, that’s for sure. I’m going to drag myself a mattress out of one of the spare rooms today, so I can at least get a decent night’s sleep.
The first thing I notice when I walk into the bathroom is the mirrors—or lack thereof. She’s covered them up? I yank the towel from above the sink so I can see in the mirror. I inspect my face, yup, as I thought, I need a shave. I don’t need my hair sorting yet, it’s still in neat rows, but I definitely need a shave. I can’t grow a beard like most men. Other men carry a beard and look good, me I look like a toddler has emptied their belly button fluff and attached it to my chin. It never grows like a normal fucking beard. I look like a complete idiot with patches of pubes on my face. I don’t even get a moustache. Well, I do, but again, it’s bum fluff. So I save myself the embarrassment and shave regularly. I go through the motions: shit, shower, shave. Or in my case: shave, shit, and shower. I’m all soaped up and almost done when I hear Maiya move around in the bedroom. I poke my head out.
‘Hey, sweetheart, you okay?’ I get nothing. Hmm. Okay, maybe the bed just creaked. I wash up and get out with a towel around my waist. Maiya is still in bed. But the pillow and the blanket I left on the chair are now on the other side of the bed. I frown, tilting my head. I don’t fucking remember moving it, but then I’m so fucking tired, I probably forgot.
I rummage around in my draws, trying quietly to gather some clean clothes. My wardrobe is seriously lacking because my wash basket is overflowing. I really need to take that shit down to the laundry room. It’s not like I even have to do it myself. Imogen takes care of all that shit. I just have to take it there.
Giving myself a pep talk, I stuff my feet in some joggers, and sans t-shirt, I haul the basket up and take it down. I dump it in the room and decide I may as well put some in while everyone’s still sleeping. I check out the machine, look for instructions, there aren’t any. Fuck. Well, what the fuck am I supposed to do with it? I look at the dials: there are three. Three fucking dials. I mean really? An on and off button would have sufficed but no, three fucking dials. On closer inspection, one dial has numbers, and another has pictures of little t-shirts. They have stains on—each one has more stains than the last. So I have to know what number to turn it on to, and I have to know how fucking dirty my shit is? I move on to the last dial. Fuck knows what this one means—it has a zero, then a one thousand, an eleven hundred, right up to a fourteen hundred. Fuck it. I have no clue. I shove the basket to one side and decide it’s best left to Imogen. I tried. I failed. I didn’t fucking conquer. And now I’m pissed off, and tired.
Coffee. I need coffee. I head to the percolator, to find someone has left it on overnight, full of coffee. So now it will taste like ass. I clean the fucker out and make a fresh pot. Fifteen minutes later, I finally have a mug of sanity in my hand. I sit at the table, leaning my head on my arms with my digits wrapped around the mug handle. I hear Harrison come in, and my head pops up wondering why the fuck someone else is stupid enough to be up at this time. He looks at my mug, and I know what he’s thinking,
‘More in the pot. It’s fresh, made by my own fair, well… black hands,’ I tell him with a grin. He doesn’t speak but goes over and helps himself, then he comes and sits opposite me. ‘So, I know why I’m up at stupid o’ clock but what’s your excuse? No bondage club last night?’
‘Guard duty,’ he simply says ignoring my attempt at a jibe. Ah yeah makes sense. I’d been excused, on account of my guest. However, I still had to monitor the cameras, and do all that stuff. It came easily to me though, so I didn’t mind. I knew how to look and where, and if I couldn’t find what I wanted, I’d work my arse off until I did. I never gave up on that shit, and I would never admit defeat either. Just like I hadn’t with that fucking kitsune bitch.
‘Well, fucker, it’s been a nice chat, but I have to run,’ I tell Harrison sarcastically. He’s a man of little words, and I like to yank his chain. He flips me the bird and sips his coffee while I retreat to the surveillance room. I check and recheck all the cameras around the property, making sure we have no intruders that the guards have missed. We don’t. I think about checking again, but that just plain pisses me off. What I need to do is get some more shuteye. Sighing, I drag my arse up out of the chair and make my way up the stairs. I would go in a spare room and drag a mattress out, but with all the extra bodies staying here at the moment I’ve no fucking idea which is vacant and which isn’t. So I take my arse back to my room.
Maiya’s still asleep. I walk over to grab my pillow and blanket from the bed, startling her awake as I do. She sucks in a huge lung full of air and jumps so far she almost tumbles from the bed. On instinct, I reach out to stop her fall, but just as quickly I pull my hand right back, letting her steady herself instead. Last thing she wants or needs is another pair of hands on her body. I don’t look at her directly, but I see the relief when she realises she has nothing to fear. I can’t figure out how I feel about that. The fact that she’s terrified of me makes my stomach twist up. I don’t want any female thinking about me that way. Shit. She isn’t a female though is she? She’s a human woman. I give my head a quick shake. I need to keep that at the forefront of my mind. It’s just strange having any woman here that isn’t a wolf. It’s not just strange—it’s prohibited. I mean, we fuck human women all the time, but we don’t bring them home to the pack. It’s unheard of. Was unheard of. Until Maiya.
I guess, technically, we didn’t do the bringing home either in this case—she was crudely dumped on our doorstep after she was taken and left for dead. Fuckers. I take myself back over to the chair and shut my eyes. It must have been an hour, maybe less, before I hear Maiya get up and go to the bathroom. She’s limping really badly and moving around really slowly. She wasn’t that bad last night. I watch until she closes the door—she can’t be healing well enough. When she comes out again, I watch her face. She’s wincing with every step and having trouble with her breathing.
‘When did you last have blood?’ I ask her, and she looks at me with disgust. ‘Look, I know you don’t like it, but you need it. You must see what it’s done for you?’
‘Yeah. I have. I also see what happens when I need more.’
‘Why didn’t you say something before now? If you need it, you only have to ask.’
‘Because I don’t want to fucking need it alright? I don’t want that shit in my body. Who the fuck knows what it’s doing in there!’
‘Err healing you, that’s what it’s fucking doing in there.’ She didn’t expect that. I can tell by her face. I want to tell her she’s fucking ungrateful, but I hold back because I promised I wouldn’t be a dick. And at the end of the day she didn’t ask for it—it was decided without her. Because it was a life or death situation.
‘You shouldn’t have given it to me in the first place,’ she mutters. But I hear her just fine.
‘Oh, we should have just left you to die on the kitchen table, yeah?’
‘Yeah,’ she says like a child when they answer back.
‘I’ll bear that in mind next time,’ I tell her with my best fuck-you voice.
Aaaand it took me two fucking minutes to break my promise. Is it a promise if you don’t say it out loud? Fuck me. She doesn’t even have a smart come back, just looks all hurt like a puppy with the begging eyes. Fuck me. I’m an asshole. But I don’t even want to apologise, so, I don’t. I just go and get Zoe. I find her in the kitchen, and she gets her kit. I sit in the chair—my new fucking bed— and give her my arm. She draws a syringe full from the inside of my elbow. How the fuck she can see a vein there, I have no clue, but she taps into it every damn time. Then she goes over to Maiya with the syringe.
‘Aren’t you going to change the needle? I don’t want the same one!’ she barks out like I’ve got some deadly fucking disease. What she hadn’t seen was Zoe switched it out already.
‘It isn’t the same one,’ Zoe starts to explain. But Maiya is holding her arm back so she can’t administer the fucking stuff.
‘Look, smartass, she changed the needle end right in front of me, but it’s a bit fucking stupid to worry don’t you think, considering you’re getting the red stuff from me in the first place?’ She frowns. Oh, my fucking days. ‘My blood is in your veins, so it doesn’t take a genius to know that pricking you with the same needle wouldn’t make a shit tonne of difference!’ Her eyes go wide like I just slapped her face.
‘We all have regular checks, Maiya.’ Zoe starts to pacify her. Fuck that. I head to the bathroom because somehow she’s made me feel like I need to clean up. I don’t close the door, and I wish I had because what comes next, I did not fucking expect at all.